Gus Van Horn

Recipe: Pardon Me Mac and Cheese

2026-06-26T07:25:08.946-06:00

Editor's Note: I will blog sporadically or not at all until Tuesday, July 7 due to OCON and the upcoming holiday. I will probably continue to post daily on X, however.

***

Shortly after my son got me to work out a new gumbo recipe (which he indirectly named with his review of my first stab), he got interested in coming up with a family mac-and-cheese recipe.

Viewing this as a side dish, I dragged my feet a little, but then two things happened. First, my son developed an interest in cooking, including wanting to help develop the recipe. Second, my wife got an elaborate recipe for "Jailbird Mac and Cheese" (which is actually a casserole) from one of my sisters-in-law.

Boy! That's a lot of work for a side dish. was my first thought at looking over that recipe, but I decided to make it with my son, since he was interested.

I learned how to make a cheese sauce on the way to helping my son learn a few things about cooking. Also, that name inspired my name for the final result, in mocking tribute to our times. The final recipe fairly closely follows this Chick-fil-A mac-and-cheese knockoff, which I decided to try on our third adventure with mac-and-cheese.

It's still lots of trouble for a side, but this makes enough to freeze multiple servings, balancing things out in the end.

It's not a perfect knockoff, but it's quite good, and having a frozen side dish that everyone likes on hand comes in handy.

***

Pardon Me Mac and Cheese

Preparation Time is 1 hour.

Ingredients

elbow macaroni, 1 lb. (3 cups)
butter, 1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup
salt, 1 tsp
paprika, 1/4 tsp
milk, 2 cups egg
American cheese, 8 slices
shredded sharp cheddar, 16 oz.
shredded Italian blend cheese, 8 oz.
cooking spray

Directions

1. In parallel with next steps: set water for pasta to boil, add pasta, cook for 20 minutes, drain, and set aside.

2. Mise en place: a 9x13 inch baking dish; a colander; the butter in the pot for the cheese sauce; the flour, salt, and paprika in a bowl; a whisk; a stirring spoon; the milk; the cheeses; the egg; and a small bowl for the egg yolk.

3. Melt the butter at medium heat and whisk in the flour/salt/paprika.

4. Whisk in the milk a little at a time, then continue whisking for a minute or so until it has thickened.

5. Whisk together the egg yolk and a spoonful of the hot milk mixture in the small bowl.

6. Whisk egg yolk mixture into milk mixture.

7. Reduce heat to low.

8. Add to milk mixture: the American cheese (torn into pieces), and one cup each of the cheddar and Italian blend.

9. Stir cheese mixture to melt and combine the cheeses.

10. Add noodles to cheese sauce and combine.

11. Spray baking dish.

12. Place mixture into baking dish.

13. Top mixture with remaining cheddar.

14. Broil under constant observation until cheese just starts to brown.

Notes

1. Overcooking the pasta keeps it from sucking the moisture out of the other ingredients

2. The yield is 16 servings.

3. Freezes/reheats very well.

4. Do not take your eyes off this when it's under the broiler. Once it begins to brown, it can very quickly burn.

-- CAV

Altruism vs. Goodwill: A Prime Example

2026-06-25T08:17:04.641-06:00

A Dear Prudence reader who needs to unplug from current events every few weeks asks (search "autism and ADHD") what to do about people who "accuse me of not caring about what's happening outside my house's four walls" for taking a break from Things.

The question and the answer remind me of an acquaintance from my pre-Objectivist college days who seemed compelled to help people to the point it was negatively affecting his grades and other aspects of his life. You can't help them if you don't even take care of yourself, I observed. (Ayn Rand soon helped me get to what I was missing: That nobody has an unchosen obligation to help anyone.)

Prudence's answer is a little bit like mine then, as it also implicitly assumes altruism:

I appreciate that these people care about the awful things unfolding around us, and I understand that it can be frustrating to hear someone say they're simply not engaging. But don't they realize that if you're ultimately going to be able to tune into current events in a permanent way (and more important, do something to help make the changes you'd like to see) you have to be mentally stable and not in the middle of a family crisis to do so? You know the way you unplug and walk away from the news because it's draining your energy in a way you can't afford? Do the same thing -- but maybe permanently -- to those who are disregarding your wellbeing to shame you for what you're doing to survive. I would be very leery of anyone who saw me struggling with multiple diagnoses, caring for two generations of people, and decided to attack me instead of helping me. [bold added]

Despite its flaws, the answer is excellent advice, and it's too bad it doesn't question altruism since the attackers exemplify by way of a negative example a crucial distinction Rand made, but rarely gets credit for:

Do not confuse altruism with kindness, good will or respect for the rights of others. These are not primaries, but consequences, which, in fact, altruism makes impossible. The irreducible primary of altruism, the basic absolute, is self-sacrifice -- which means; self-immolation, self-abnegation, self-denial, self-destruction -- which means: the self as a standard of evil, the selfless as a standard of the good. [bold added] ("Faith and Force: The Destroyers of the Modern World," Philosophy: Who Needs It)

The attackers certainly can't be accused of goodwill the way -- thoughtless at best -- they would goad the letter-writer to self-destruction! It's an extreme example, but a good one of how altruism is, in fact, the enemy of the welfare of the "others" its preachers express concern about.

-- CAV

Groundhog Day, and They Don't Even Know It

2026-06-24T07:56:07.213-06:00

John Stossel's report on the latest attempt by central planners to "fix" contract work contains the following incredible passage:

The Democratic Socialists said they had a solution. Seattle's city council imposed a $26 delivery driver minimum wage.

What could go wrong?

Two years later, we know the answer: Gig workers make no more money, but prices went up.

Apps like DoorDash and Uber Eats added a $5 fee for consumers "to help cover the costs of these ... regulations."

Now Seattle residents complain about prices. "I ordered a $12 sandwich ... $12 grew to $32!" complains one in my new video. "I just deleted the app."

"[Work] has become slow because of the new law," an app driver complains. DoorDash says it got 1.7 million fewer Seattle orders in 2024.

This is what happens when politicians dictate wages.

...

Former Seattle City Council President Sara Nelson admits that the politicians made a mistake: "We created a problem and it's our responsibility to fix it." [bold added]

The last line is not the good news we might momentarily out of hope imagine it to be: All these fools could come up with to explain the devastation they wrought was that they'd picked the wrong number.

That passage reminds me of the following from Leonard Peikoff's lecture, "My Thirty Years With Ayn Rand:"

Ayn Rand started thinking in terms of principles, she told me once, at the age of twelve. To her, it was a normal part of the process of growing up, and she never dropped the method thereafter. Nor, I believe, did she ever entirely comprehend the fact that the approach which was second nature to her was not practiced by other people. Much of the time, she was baffled by or indignant at the people she was doomed to talk to, people like the man we heard about in the early 1950s, who was calling for the nationalization of the steel industry. The man was told by an Objectivist why government seizure of the steel industry was immoral and impractical, and he was impressed by the argument. His comeback was: "Okay, I see that. But what about the coal industry?" (Voice of Reason, p. 341-342)

Today, our politicians seem to be a choice of outright criminals -- or people like that man.

Forget about rightly pointing out that two people have the inalienable right to contract bewteen themselves how much one will pay the other for an agreed-upon service. These people can't even apply relatively simple priciples like supply and demand to questions such as What happens to a market when a price is set arbitrarily?

And these are the politicians who are at least willing to admit a mistake.

We are in trouble.

-- CAV

An Endangerment Finding Own-Goal?

2026-06-23T08:34:35.060-06:00

One of the few things I hope the Trump Administration succeeds in accomplishing is in grave danger of not happening -- thanks to the incompetence of said Administration.

According to ClimateWire, contradictory briefs on energy-related cases might show up at the Supreme Court like two left feet on a dance floor:

Right-wing advocates including Steve Milloy and Myron Ebell, both of whom served on President Donald Trump's first-term transition team, said in interviews Tuesday that they were particularly concerned about a recent Department of Justice brief that appeared to contradict EPA's repeal of the so-called endangerment finding for greenhouse gas emissions.

In a May 21 amicus brief in Suncor v. Boulder -- an important climate case the Supreme Court will decide next term -- DOJ argued that the Clean Air Act reserves to EPA the authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. The administration is joining red states and industry groups in urging the court to block local governments such as Boulder, Colorado, from suing fossil fuel producers over their contribution to climate change.

Milloy, a senior policy fellow at the Energy and Environment Legal Institute, told POLITICO'S E&E News that the arguments DOJ made to demonstrate federal preemption of state and local climate action are "the exact opposite" of what EPA argued in its February repeal of the 2009 scientific finding that underpinned most Clean Air Act climate regulation.

"They could both wind up at the Supreme Court, and the court could say, 'Justice Department, you're on both sides of this issue,'" said Milloy. [bold added]

The article notes speculation to the effect that long-timers at the DOJ might be attempting to sabotage the litigation, but whatever stock one puts in that, flawed legal argumentation is hardly the only problem.

The piece goes on to note that, additionally, some proposed rule changes by the Trump EPA are proceeding slowly-enough that they may not get past legal challenges before Trump's term expires.

-- CAV

Graham Contra AOC

2026-06-22T06:58:56.359-06:00

I felt like a skating coach hearing someone say that it's impossible to do a triple axel. Of course it's possible. It's hard, but it's possible. -- Paul Graham on earning a billion dollars

***

In the wake of the latest populist drivel against "billionaires" by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, venture capitalist Paul Graham decimates her assertion, notably its smuggled-in premise that one must necessarily cheat others on the way to amassing a net worth of billion dollars.

The crux of Graham's argument is that startup founders like the ones he coaches and invests in do such a good job helping their customers that word-of-mouth helps their businesses grow exponentially:

A couple days later I was talking to the founder of a startup I'd funded. I began by asking, as I usually do when I meet a founder, what her growth rate was. 93% last month, she said. I pointed out that this meant her net worth was also growing at 93% a month. She was getting richer at a stupendously rapid rate. And yet she hadn't been doing anything bad. The reason her startup was growing so fast was simply that users loved what she'd built. So she could feel from her own experience how wrong that politician was. She wasn't exploiting anyone. Exactly the opposite in fact. The reason her startup was growing so fast was that she and her cofounder had been working their asses off to make their users happy, and as a result the users had been telling their friends. And that gets you exponential growth.

Graham notes further that "A couple million and 93% growth are not, in fact, radically different from a billion. They're nine and a half months apart."

Graham, of course, acknowledges that 93% growth is unusual, but after using the example and helping his readers understand the calculations, he shows that more typical growth rates can see someone who has a good idea and works hard become a billionaire in a decade -- as 30 of the people Graham has trained have done.

The essay notably goes beyond the demolition job by offering broad general advice on how to turn this trick yourself.

My only complaint is that, like most influential people, Paul Graham apparently does not see wealth creation as morally good. The idea that possessing wealth is evil is a moral idea with a stranglehold on our culture and it is that idea -- which Ayn Rand fought with her superior alternative of an egoistic morality -- that must ultimately lose its influence in our culture.

Graham's piece remains well worth the read, for it is a powerful antidote to the base ignorance that altruism excuses and encourages in our culture, such as about how it's possible for an honest person to become wealthy.

-- CAV

Four Wins

2026-06-19T06:41:23.818-06:00

A Friday Hodgepodge

Whenever possible, I list three wins at the end of each day. Here are a few from a recent review of my planner.

***

1. The other day, I finally thought to try this method for baking sweet potatoes and, yes, it works very well!

2. Lucinda nastily refuses all attempts to groom her, so naturally, at winter coat shedding time, she developed lots of knots we needed a professional to remove.

We have a shortage of groomers locally who do cats here, and one must use a vet if knocking them out is required, but even cat groomers at vets are hard to find. (And yes, we tried gabapentin on her to absolutely no avail.)

Going back through vet listings again, I found one I'd overlooked and that turned out to have a cat groomer and hearing we require our clients to be sedated was music to my ears.

She is now, finally, knot-free and seems a little bit happier, and I have a place to deal with her in the future.

There will be no image of her here out of respect for her vanity, but let's say she looks like a head on a stick compared to her usual fluffy self.

3. I have mentioned it here, but only in passing, so I'll repeat it here in part just because it makes me smile just to say it: Arsenal are Premier League Champions!

Ever since a gritty win against Newcastle early in the season, I made it a point to see as many of their games live as I could, and my gut was right.

The circumstances of my finding out are amusing. The race was down to the last few games of the season, with Arsenal merely needing to win their remaining games or Manchester City to lose or draw a game.

City played a mid-week game, the end of which coincided with my taking the kids to the dentist for their annual checkup. My plan was always just to check the score when I knew the game would be over, but I'd forgotten to check before we left the office.

On the way home, I stopped to get gas, and the kids had gotten into an argument in the back seat by the time I got back into the car. Remembering the game, I was oblivious to events in the back seat and checked the score.

1-1.

Yes! I said.

My kids burst out laughing, because the timing made it sound like I was expressing agreement with my daughter's immediately prior Shut up!

It has been a 22-year wait, but not exactly an out-of-the-blue development.

And long may that development continue...

4. After not being sure I'd be able to attend it at all, my calendar opened up and my wife surprised me with a pass to OCON 2026!

If you already know me and plan to attend, drop me a line. If we haven't met and you'd like to meet me, follow these instructions to let me know.

Sooner is better than later as I will not be accessing that email account during the conference.

-- CAV

Evangelism vs. Cultural Activism

2026-06-18T06:31:35.010-06:00

An Ask a Manager reader wants to shut down an employee who is annoying coworkers by constantly discussing the Keto diet. I found Alison Green's answer valuable both for helping me understand why that kind of behavior annoys me so much, and causing me to consider how I can avoid doing the same kind of thing myself in the future.

Alison replies in part:

If Casey were this obsessed with evangelizing for something unrelated to diet and health -- like, I don't know, the Dallas Cowboys or Daylight Savings -- it could still reach a point where you'd need to rein it in, but it being about diet and health gives it an extra layer of obnoxiousness and adds additional urgency for you to tell them to cut it out.

Constant Daylight Savings evangelism would be annoying too (as well as pretty weird) but at least it wouldn't involve judging other people's diets and pushing unsolicited health advice. It would be irritating and boring, but it wouldn't cross boundaries in the same way. [bold added]

This is a great distinction, and I love how the humorous -- and neutral! -- phrase Daylight Savings evangelism makes the knowledge so retrievable by being so memorable.

To make it a little bit more generalized, it's worth taking a moment to unpack why the behavior in question crosses boundaries.

For the sake of argument, assume that this diet (or kind of diet) is indeed what we should be doing. Even so, in today's context, any audience will have (1) heard the same thing asserted about countless other diets; (2) be happy enough with their current well-being to not see a need to make learning/switching a priority over other more urgent matters; (3) have legitimate doubts about the speaker's claims; (4) considered the information already and made up their own minds one way or the other; or (5) have psychological issues with the subject matter and need space and time to even become receptive to thinking about it.

I'm probably missing a few possibilities that aren't rank evasion here.

On top of all of that, our culture is saturated with the influence of Christianity -- which (1) commands its followers to do things (like win converts), (2) preaches that other-centered ethics of altruism (often, among other things, causing people to not see moral questions as personally urgent or worthy of practical consideration), and (3) emphasizes profession of faith, verbally and non-verbally. (Why this somehow doesn't get called out as virtue signaling is a good question.) This influence predisposes anyone being advised on how to live a better life to feel judged and bossed around, for starters.

Building a better culture is not as simple as immersing people in water or haranguing them (especially with the truth) non-stop. Being more discriminating about when and how to share philosophical knowledge is vital to the enterprise.

After learning the truth, respecting the minds of others is high on the list of things to get right when one wants to improve the culture by spreading it.

-- CAV

Good News for Freedom of Speech?

2026-06-17T08:22:46.561-06:00

George Will reports with relief that "the separation of powers might actually be working" regarding a bipartisan proposal to make amends for a ruling many had hoped for, but that the Supreme Court did not think it could make.

Will's headline and focus are on a "judicial ruling prompt[ing] two senators to pursue legislation to curtail executive branch mischief," but the measure will indeed be good news for other reasons should it pass and be signed into law.

The problem this legislation seeks to fix is that the plainly wrong pandemic-era jawboning of social media platforms was not unambiguously illegal in part because the threats were delivered in secret:

[The bill w]ould require government to make public certain kinds of communications with social media companies, artificial intelligence companies and broadcasters. And would establish that plaintiffs must prove only that government attempted censorship, not that its pressure by itself succeeded. And would provide for money damages, instead of mere injunctions, for plaintiffs when an offending official left office while a case wended its way through courts.

So, crude and sneaky overreaching by the executive was followed by the Supreme Court's austere (and reasonable) refusal to overreach by ignoring principles of standing. This has prompted two lawmakers to respond. If Congress makes that response a law, there will have been a minuet of actions and reactions driven by each branch's prerogatives, responsibilities and incentives. The separation of powers will have functioned as intended.

As I greet the good news regarding freedom of speech, I agree with Will that our government working properly is indeed also newsworthy.

Let's hope -- and work for the day -- that checks and balances working their magic becomes un-newsworthy again.

-- CAV

Trump Drags Feet, Costs Lives on Drone Tech

2026-06-16T06:10:24.686-06:00

Ukraine, whose efforts at self-defense have repeatedly been stymied by President Trump, has developed a drone capability superior to an American rocket system it was consequently having trouble procuring:

Spring, identified only by her call sign for security purposes, flies a newer type of winged drone that enables Ukraine to consistently strike Russia's rear areas -- a capability previously only provided by Western artillery and munitions, such as the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System.

Mid-range HIMARS strikes were key to undermining Russia's attack style early in the war, but Russia was able to curb that threat after the first year, analysts told Business Insider. Now, they said, the new drones are bringing that strike effect back in a way Western arms have not been able to do at scale.

...

The use of these drones has risen in the last two months, and Russia has been losing more ground than it has gained, marking a reversal of a yearslong trend in which Ukraine had been slowly bleeding territory.

As the article makes evident, the new drones incorporate abilities (like using AI) lacking in the older rocket technology, avoid the strings attached to the U.S.-supplied rockets (like limits on target selection), and cost much less to produce.

Despite the President siding with Russia throughout its invasion of this friendly nation, Ukraine has offered to work with our military on drone development, only for Trump to drag his feet:

[E]ven with senior Pentagon officials -- including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Army Secretary Dan Driscoll -- lauding Kyiv's drone abilities, the Trump administration is still biding its time on taking full advantage of the Ukrainian capabilities, a delay that experts say is potentially kneecapping the U.S. military.

"I don't know what the hang-up would be in denying ourselves the ability to take advantage of that. I don't think there's any good reason," Rebeccah Heinrichs, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute think tank, said of Ukraine's drone capabilities.

...

One former official who spoke to The Hill on the condition of anonymity made a more blunt assessment, calling the hold-up "lethargy" on the part of the Trump administration and "a certain amount of hostility towards Ukraine coming from the very top."

Each article notes different consequences of Trump's asinine hostility toward Ukraine, with Business Insider noting our country's loss of influence:

"We can't be certain that we can rely on the US," Bielieskov said. "92 kilometers, GPS-guided is not enough, it can be spoofed. So we have the incentive to develop something of a bigger range, more reliable, and with a bigger warhead." [bold added]

One needn't advocate America being the world's policeman to appreciate how damning it is to hear such words coming from a country whose interests align with our own.

And, speaking of our own country's interests, The Hill has this to say:

"The U.S. is putting its own troops in danger by not working as closely as possible with the Ukrainians on drone development," Phillips O'Brien, a professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, wrote on social media. "To stay close to Putin, Trump is showing once again how little he cares about US soldiers." [bold added]

Donald Trump's actions regarding Ukraine are costing our nation goodwill and the lives of our soldiers abroad, and for no good purpose anyone can discern.

-- CAV

Immigration Wins in Switzerland

2026-06-15T02:30:00.000-06:00

In Switzerland, a MAGA-like political party got an anti-immigration population cap put to a national referendum and lost. It is instructive to consider the reasons it lost:

Others, in particular Swiss business leaders, feared losing Switzerland's crucial access to Europe's single market.

Over half of all Swiss products are sold into the EU, but their access to Europe's markets depends on Swiss commitment to Europe's free movement of people. Had the population cap been approved, Switzerland would have had to terminate that agreement.

...

Only Swiss citizens were allowed to vote, but in the cities, which have larger immigrant communities than in the countryside, the proposal got a particularly resounding no.

In the capital city Bern, for example, almost 84% of those voting rejected a population cap.

...

"The EU is still by far the most important trading partner for Switzerland," explains Minsch, adding that is it is "in our interest to have stable and clear relationships with our main trading partner".

Swiss employers were also worried about labour shortages, and losing access to a Europe-wide pool of skilled workers.

The issue of losing the EU as a trading partner strikes me as something the proponent Swiss People's Party might have demagogued as bureaucratic overreach, or an issue of national sovereignty. But free movement is an individual right, and recognizing that right is part of that country's trading agreement. The issue of labor shortages -- easily solved through immigration -- shows that respecting individual rights is in the self-interest of the businessmen, the immigrants, and their customers alike.

One issue that plausibly seems worsened by a high immigrant population -- bigger costs related to the welfare state -- is a red herring: As I and others have argued in the past, the problem is the welfare state:

Were the educational and medical sectors privately run, we would not attract or encourage freeloaders, and non-citizens who used these facilities would be paying customers.

I am glad for Switzerland's sake that its voters ignored the scapegoaters and chose freedom, the path of prosperity, in this referendum.

If only voters in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave had half as much sense!

-- CAV

Freedom Four

2026-06-12T07:05:08.756-06:00

A Friday Hodgepodge

1. "The Foreign-Born Heroes Who Chose America," by Agustina Vergara Cid (The Orange County Register):

Lafayette chose to fight for America after he became enamored with the cause for independence. In 1778, he wrote: "The moment I heard of America I loved her; the moment I knew she was fighting for freedom I burnt with a desire of bleeding for her; and the moment I shall be able to serve her, at any time, or in any part of the world, will be the happiest of my life." He wasn't the only foreigner who felt this profound reverence for this country even though he didn't have any prior connection to it.

950 words/3 minutes

2. "Why the Missing Outrage Over (Domestic) Terrorism?," by Ben Bayer (The Orange County Register):

Could it be that there's less outrage towards terrorism directed against businesspeople, because the dominant moral dogma of our culture still sees profit-driven activity as less than noble? I for one reject that dogma. They are innocent victims of terrorism. Not only that: contrary to the Marxist smear of "exploiters," their productivity, industriousness and ingenuity create valuable products and services we choose to buy.

1250 words/4 minutes

3. "The Real Climate Crisis," (video) by Alex Epstein (Prager U):

But while climate change -- humans impacting climate -- is a real thing, "climate crisis" is not. The world is slowly becoming warmer -- at a cold point in geological history when many more people die of cold than of heat. This doesn't at all justify rapidly restricting global fossil fuel use. Fossil fuels actually make us far safer from the climate by providing low-cost energy for the amazing machines that protect us against storms, protect us against extreme temperatures, and alleviate drought. Climate disaster deaths have decreased 98% over the last century. The only rational approach to reducing fossil fuels' climate impacts is a long-term one based on developing truly competitive, reliable forms of energy -- most promisingly, nuclear energy. Unfortunately, instead of taking this rational approach, governments declared a "climate crisis" and started immediately restricting fossil fuels -- with no viable replacement. They pretended that solar and wind could somehow replace fossil fuels. But since these fuels are inherently unreliable -- they can go to near-zero at any given time -- there was never any reason to believe this.

800 word transcript/5 minute video

4. "Drug Patents Do Not Cause High Drug Prices," (Introduction) by Adam Mossoff (white paper (PDF) from the Center for the Protection of Intellectual Property):

In sum, the claim that drug patents cause high drug prices is ubiquitous in the drug price policy debates, but this ubiquity does not correlate with reliable data or proven harms that make it true. This white paper first describes how property rights in inventions (patents) are a key factor in innovation and economic growth, especially in spurring innovations in new drugs and other healthcare treatments to the benefit of all patients. Thus, the evidentiary burden rests on activists and academics who propose systemic "reforms" that restrict patent rights for drug innovators and impose additional costs on all healthcare innovators. Second, it reviews USPTO and FDA data and summarizes numerous empirical studies that consistently contradict allegations by I-MAK and other activists of patent thickets and evergreening by drug innovators. Dug innovators in fact have far less than the 20-year exclusive right secured to inventors by the Patent Act. Third, it explains how systemic changes to the patent system only for drug innovators violates the principle of technology neutrality that has been an essential feature of the U.S. patent system as a successful property rights regime in incentivizing the creation and distributing of new drugs in the healthcare market to the benefit of patients.

800 words/3 minutes

-- CAV

Healthy Alternatives to 'Keeping the Peace'

2026-06-11T07:56:11.417-06:00

A female grad student in history asked Captain Awkward about alternatives to suffering the condescending behavior of her mother's new partner some time back.

As Captain Awkward notes, the thinking she did and the advice she came up with apply to many situations, and I think are worth considering for people who find themselves stuck -- usually at work or with relatives -- dealing with people they'd ordinarily not have anything to do with.

One strategy I found particularly intriguing was the following, which I like because it hacks whatever value orientation such people might have:

2) Find three "safe" topics.

In a weird way, A. might be trying to engage with you (he thinks) positively by showing interest in stuff you like, like history. He's also a walking bag of insecurities who has to be the smartest & the best at everything, so there is no way this will go well. And he has the unfortunate "arguing until the other person is visibly upset is a form of fun!" chip installed. It's bad.

I suggest that you find three safe topics to talk about with A.

Topic 1: One where he is the expert or something he is passionate about, like, international business travel or being an old, somewhat privileged dude. Grilling. Fine wine. Sports. What you want is something that is of passing interest to you but you're not the expert or especially emotionally invested, but it is really interesting to him. And then you ask questions and let him talk.

True story, I once did tech support for a company. There was this older gentleman who was The Guy For Whom Everything Does Not Work As It Should. It was mostly not his fault, just, he had a bad track record of getting broken/shitty equipment or having stuff go wrong. And I was a girl learning the job as I went because it was a temp job & I was filling in for someone, and everything was somehow all my fault and all of our interactions were very negative.

I noticed once that he wore a Cleveland Indians (yes, the team name is racist) polo shirt, and that happened to be on a day where I had glimpsed the front page of the sports section (rare), so I was able to sort of say something like "Great win for the Indians ... last night, huh?" in an attempt at pleasant small talk. And he lit up and told me about the Indians ... the entire time I fixed his computer. After that, every time I went to see him, I would check and see how the Indians ... were doing first. Note: I did not pretend to know anything or care about or be a fan of the team. I never said anything beyond "Looks like it was a rough night!" or "What does this mean for the playoffs?" and let him do the rest.

Not only did he decide I was his new best bro-girl, after I left the job he tracked down my info through my temp agency and sent me a "Good luck, if you ever need a reference or a job lead, just call!" greeting card. I know a lot of people genuinely love, live & breathe sports, but until I met that dude I did not realize that even for people who aren't that into them, sports serve as a magically safe current events topic that anyone can opine on. Epiphany! "How 'bout them Cowboys?"

The other two suggestions for safe topics share the essential characteristic of being things the difficult person cares about, but which will not lead straight into a conversation you'd rather not have with said person.

The remaining strategies will be helpful in that they involve finding ways to spend less time around the difficult person and give oneself psychological space by, for example, being more assertive over time or simply being honest with oneself about disliking the difficult person.

-- CAV

Bureaucrats vs. Need

2026-06-10T08:23:36.329-06:00

Fellow fans and students of Ayn Rand might recall the following quote from Francisco d'Anconia's Atlas Shrugged speech about money:

[W]hen you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing ... you may know that your society is doomed. (p. 385)

One might also recall this conclusion seeming plain as day, for which one can thank Ayn Rand's masterful building of context, by weaving together concrete examples together with philosophical argument.

Taken in isolation, such a statment might make little sense, and certainly would have little intellectual purchase with a reader from a culture saturated with altruism -- the idea that one man's need is a moral claim on another's effort; and collectivism -- the belief that the basic unit of a society is not the individual, but some larger collective to which each individual belongs.

That said, the state government of Louisiana has provided us with a real-life example of what that quote means on a personal level that one is unlikely to forget.

In fact, it's such a good example, I'm torn between looking for where Ayn Rand anticipated it and wondering if she would have left it out for fear of her novel being dismissed as a farce.

[I]n many states, if you want to start a business, you first must convince bureaucrats that your business is "needed."

Four years ago, Louisiana blocked social worker Ursula Newell-Davis from helping kids with special needs. Bureaucrats said she hadn't proved her business was needed.

"Why does the state of Louisiana have the right to stop me from doing what I love?" she asks... [bold added]

It is incredible that anyone would have to explain -- to the satisfaction of someone other than a potential customer -- that what one wants to do for a livelihood is "needed." (And it's doubly so for someone with a good track record of earning money and praise from past clients in that field.)

My incredulity is matched only by my relief to hear from the rest of John Stossel's report that the ridiculous law behind this is being challenged in court by the good people at the Pacific Legal Foundation.

-- CAV

Has Trump Created a Monster?

2026-06-09T06:56:08.582-06:00

From Politico comes a story about one of the kook factions that Trump successfully pandered to to win the Presidency a second time.

The so-called Make America Healthy Again "movement" (MAHA) -- a collection of environmentalist-adjacent Luddites who oppose such boons to human flourishing as vaccination, modern fertilizers, and pesticides -- has become impatient because they feel Trump hasn't handed them enough favors. Some of them are now threatening to withdraw their support for him in the mid-terms.

This comes, predictably, with Republican officials protesting that they've done more for MAHA than the Democrats ever did:

"We thought we were getting a different administration that wanted to stand up to special interests, stand up to the pharmaceutical industry, stand up to the food companies, stand up to Big Ag, Big Chem. And that is not what we got. What we have right now is business as usual," said Vani Hari, a leader in the MAHA movement known as Food Babe who rose to prominence through her fight against chemicals in food.

"We're going to vote for whatever candidate puts the health of our children first," Hari said. "I don't have loyalty to anybody. And a lot of people feel that way within the MAHA movement."

This reminds me of a couple of things, the first being how conservatives -- seemingly until yesterday -- once correctly ridiculed such people as the lunatics they are.

Second, it reminds me of how effective voter blocs work in a two-party system: By being up for grabs, thereby making both parties responsive to their agenda.

Whether accurate or not, the perception that Trump needed MAHA to win in 2024, which he reinforced by handing Bobby Kennedy a cabinet post, is now part of the conventional wisdom. Based on the Republicans' past, sorry history of appeasing the Democrats on everything else, it's a safe bet that this will continue indefinitely along this new frontier. And the taste of political power Trump handed MAHA will have emboldened them and made them not content with being taken for granted by either party.

In an age where neither party qualifies as a champion of science -- with Democrat misuse of science to pretend their political aims are legitimate making Republican rejection of science seem less bad than it is -- Trump may well have made this army of crackpots into a political force that can press for horrible government science policy for decades to come.

-- CAV

At Least Steyer Had to Pay

2026-06-08T06:45:02.224-06:00

At Reason, John Stossel recounts leftist billionaire Tom Steyer's despicable vendetta against scientist Roger Pielke, whom Steyer ultimately hounded out of a position he held at the University of Colorado for over 24 years.

"My views are entirely mainstream," says Pielke. "My work is cited by all three working groups of the IPCC. There's nothing contrarian."

Both Steyer and Pielke agree that "greenhouse gases warm the climate," but Pielke's sin was saying, "it's not the apocalypse."

Because of that, "the Center for American Progress decided to make me a target," he says.

...

Pielke didn't know who funded the smears until WikiLeaks revealed an email to Steyer from ThinkProgress' editor: "Thanks for your support of this work ... it's fair to say, without Climate Progress, Pielke would still be writing on climate change."

Think about that.

"Progressive" activists are proud to stop a researcher from writing about what he knows.

Notably, Pielke was also attacked by the Obama White House itself, in a 3,000 word memo.

This should disturb anyone concerned about academic freedom, but conservatives have no business being smug now that we have a Republican President.

As I noted last week, the Trump Administration wants to subordinate all federal research grants to the whims of bureaucrats both before granting (with peer review becoming merely "advisory") and after (with grants being subject to cancellation at any time and at the whims of bureaucrats).

Rather than freeing scientists like Pielke even a little bit from political pressure, that measure will present them with the choice of forgoing all such money -- or parroting the line of the party in charge. It is not hard to see how much cheaper and easier it will be for busybodies like Steyer to manipulate "the science" to fit their preconceived narrative if the party they favor happens to be in charge. It is also all but impossible to imagine federal research money being well-spent going forward after the proposed changes.

As Stossel notes at the end of his piece, Steyer has a real chance of becoming California's next governor, thereby becoming a credible future presidential candidate. Imagine the damage he would be able to do -- now for free! -- to the career of any scientist whose findings or analysis he doesn't care to hear.

-- CAV

Four Neat Things

2026-06-05T07:31:16.636-06:00

A Friday Hodgepodge

1. A man describes his "two-part desk setup, with his long desk having digital and analog sides.

This is an interesting idea, and he claims to be able to shift contexts simply by sliding his chair between the sides.

This may not be for everyone, but it might be worth a look, if you are unhappy with your current setup and want ideas for improving it.

2. I don't edit video often, but when I do, I use ffmpeg, which is cross-platform and a veritable Swiss army knife.

It's nice to know that, should I need to do this on a computer I don't own or control, there is an in-browser implementation of ffmpeg here.

It claims to work on files locally, but its file loader looks like an upload icon, so if that's a concern, dig around a bit before using.

As a bonus -- and despite its name of ffmpeg CLI -- many common actions are iconified on the page.

3. While I am not upset that Google is making its searches more AI-centric, I don't always want to search that way, and I am not alone.

Tech Crunch recently reviewed six solid alternatives to Google.

In addition to DuckDuckGo, which I expected to see on the list, other choices variously offer such features as better privacy and customized means of limiting searches, such as putting out results for news from the left or news from the right.

4. Funny Comment of the Week: From a discussion about colonizing Venus: "At this point we're so deep into the science fiction that it might be easier to just hop into a time machine and colonize Mars before its atmosphere boiled off."

-- CAV

'Captain Boredom' to the Rescue Again!

2026-06-04T07:46:00.599-06:00

A recent letter to Miss Manners yielded a couple of answers that fell within the bounds of etiquette, the preferred answer helping me see a new advantage of a strategy for dealing with difficult people I have discussed before. (That strategy is usually called "gray rock.")

The letter writer poses a question that comes with the complication that the difficult person is a neighbor. Thus, while a blunt affirmative might be an appropriate answer to Have I done something to offend you?, the writer seems to want an answer that better reduces future engagement with someone who won't be going away any time soon.

Miss Manners replies:

What you want is a way to make her leave you alone, which can be accomplished with your best look of deep concern and the return question of, "What ever would make you say that?" Then appear not to be paying too much attention when she answers, in the hope that she will review her own actions.

This is classic gray rock, and I agree with some of the commenters that someone as rude as that neighbor was would be unlikely to reflect on her actions.

That said, as someone who is more likely to just want to be done, I failed to appreciate an advantage that another commenter noted of the response:

MM's answer does not give the neighbor anything to manipulate the LW with. It does not give her an opening for excuses, or arguments, or lectures. It provides nothing juicy to gossip about, nothing to use to smear the LW to their mutual acquaintances, nothing to start a feud about.

It presents a wall of indifference with no explanation - a smooth surface which can't be climbed or broken through. Eventually the neighbor will retreat in puzzlement, with nothing to accuse the LW of except vague things like "she's cold" or "she's not a good neighbor".

The LW lives in this neighborhood, she does not want to make actual enemies, she just wants to disengage from the neighbor. [bold added]

This response is similar to what I'd do naturally, but after seeing the more blunt reply, I saw it as a bit of a toss-up, in part because I don't think about gossip very much.

That said, the situation that ultimately caused the letter-writer to inquire never would have happened to me. I would have had no trouble stopping the initial boundary violation at all, because things like that raise my hackles too much.

I nevertheless am grateful to have learned of another of Captain Boredom's superpowers.

-- CAV

The Time to Save Science is Now

2026-06-03T07:33:57.422-06:00

Having heard about a Trump Administration proposal to make federal research grants subject to the approval of political appointees, I fortunately remembered Pharma blogger Derek Lowe's tireless efforts to chronicle and explain the Trump Administration's attacks on bioscience.

I am glad I did, because his relatively short post, "Action! Action Now," summarizes the threat, leads to good sources for more information, and explains what one can do to fight this horrendous proposal.

Without explicitly mentioning Lysenkoism, Lowe will have ably reminded anyone of it:

All this alone is enough of a blueprint for disaster, obviously. But that same section goes on to pound the nails in further by emphasizing that peer review recommendations must not be considered as binding in any way on the decisions of the political staff, and that all grants must comply with the administration's "Gold Standard Science" ideas. Institutions that have shown themselves willing to get on board with this nebulous cloud of bullshit will get priority in grant awards; it says so in as many words (well, minus the "nebulous bullshit" part). What is "Gold Standard Science", you may well ask? Whatever the administration likes. No definitions are provided. What's more, active grants will be subject to termination at any time if they are held to be inconsistent with agency priorities. Who decides that? Why, political appointees, who else?. No other basis is needed - no accusations of proof of malfeasance or fraud, just "We don't like it". [bold added]

The bullet points from one of Lowe's sources alone are cause for alarm (Search "Elizabeth Ginexi OMB rule" if link does not work.):

Political Appointees Take Control of Grant Awards

Peer Review Is No Longer Binding

"Gold Standard Science" as an Undefined Political Test

Active Grants Can Be Terminated at Any Time, for Any Reason

DEI, Gender Research, and Related Topics Banned as Grant Conditions

Broad Prohibition on International Scientific Collaboration

"Domestic-First" Framework for Research Awards

Applicants Can Be Denied Based on Organizational "Affiliations"

E-Verify Mandated for All Grant Recipients

OMB Claims Direct Binding Authority Over All Agencies

Conference Attendance Now Requires Express Agency Pre-Approval

Professional Memberships Require Prior Approval and Must Be "Necessary"

Publication Costs and Open Access Fees Presumptively Unallowable

Public Communications and Outreach Severely Restricted

New "Issue Advocacy" Prohibition

Program Goals Must "Align with Administration Policies and Priorities"

Agency Heads Can Exempt Grant Competitions from Public Notice

Agencies Can Restrict Eligibility to Specific Nonprofit Categories

OMB Gains Direct Oversight of Which Institutions Receive Grants

What the hell?

I have long advocated getting the government out of research funding not directly related to its proper purpose (e.g., defense), but know that this is an unrealistic goal in the short- to medium- term. That said, I have just as long advocated that what funding there is be dispensed as best as domain experts can determine and be as free as possible from political considerations.

This proposal would accomplish the exact opposite of all of that. As such, it arguably would be worse than simply cutting off all such funding cold turkey.

Indeed, the possibility of the government dictating how scientists work is, by itself, a major reason to end its role as a major funding source.

I highly recommend reading Lowe's post in its entirety, especially to anyone whose career might be affected. Among other things, he offers a concrete step anyone can take to speak up.

-- CAV

Will Oddball Dems Cause a 'Blue Ripple?'

2026-06-02T06:48:53.242-06:00

David Catron of the Spectator takes a look at a few of the "very large number of truly weird candidates" running for the Democrats in congressional contests and thinks the GOP could pick up seats in the upcoming elections:

The most prominent exemplar of these strange Democrats is Texas Senate nominee James Talarico. The Lone Star Liberty PAC released a new ad featuring videos of Talarico saying things that all but guarantee his loss in November regardless of which Republican he faces. For example, when asked to name something he loves other than friends or family he answered "I love the trans children." He is also shown saying, "There are many more than two biological sexes. In fact, there are six." Speaking about immigration policy he says, "Our southern border should be like our front porch. There should be a giant welcome mat out front." Talarico is now posing as a populist, but it's unlikely that this masquerade will fool many Texans.

The next one he looks at is Graham Platner, who sported a Nazi tattoo for much of his life and would have been rightly drummed out of his race by now had he been a Republican.

You get the idea.

I got déjà vu.

This sounds like a repeat, with the parties reversed, of Biden's midterms, of which I wrote:

As I argued recently, the Trumpist wing of the GOP, which is harming it so much, must be defeated. How did it do? Let's look at Trump's hand-picked senatorial candidates, telequack Mehmet Oz, anti-abortion philanderer Herschel Walker, election denier Blake Masters, and traitor to the Electoral College Ron Johnson.

Sadly, as of now, any or all of them could still win...

These were all winnable races, but only Ron Johnson won -- in Wisconsin. Trump's loony candidates arguably cost his party three Senate seats then.

So now we have a race that, given the unpopularity of the President, could be a wave election for the other party, and that party is doing now what Trump did then: make things unnecessarily close by seemingly going out of the way to find candidates that a normal person wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole.

This time it's worse, as we need not only a check on a lousy President, but a repudiation of MAGA, which has proved inimical to American ideals and poses a real threat to the Republic.

-- CAV

Updates

6-3-26: Corrected Ron Johnson's home state.

Another Clown Takes Soccer Bait

2026-06-01T07:24:08.774-06:00

If there is one thing I have learned I can count on in my decades of soccer fandom, it's that the poor behavior of some fans will draw a certain type of commentator out of the closet, at which point, said commentator will happily tell us all what an ass he is.

This year's "winner" so far -- after all, the World Cup hasn't even started -- is one Bill Glahn of the conservative PowerLine blog, which I vaguely recall having (once had?) an Everton supporter on its writing team.

As is typical of this type of rant, bad fan behavior is treated as both typical of fans of the sport and something you'd never see in the good old U.S. of A. And, Q.E.D., everything about the sport becomes a target for ridicule -- by someone so pissed-off that he can't keep his eyes uncrossed.

Just as a disturbing number of Parisians took the Champion's League final as an excuse to start rioting (with some not even bothering to wait for the result), Glahn takes the riots as sufficient excuse to attempt to torch a sport beloved across the globe, including by millions of Americans, myself included, who speak English as our native language.

I will salute Glahn for boiling his bilge down to one exemplary sentence:

If you don't know, and you shouldn't, "one-nil" means the score was 1-0 at that juncture.

One-nil is perfectly good English and can apply to sporting contexts outside soccer, so I have no idea what the hell this is supposed to mean. We shouldn't know English? We shouldn't know anything at all about a sport enjoyed nearly everywhere? We shouldn't bother to understand the subject matter that we're talking about?

Beats the hell out of me.

In any event, I do not wish to downplay the cultural rot such occurrences indicate, and that emphatically includes not pretending that a particular sport is to blame or that our nation has somehow escaped the rot.

Regarding the sport: Just off the top of my head, Arsenal, the team I support, won the English Premier League just a couple of weeks ago, There was a spontaneous gathering of tens of thousands outside its home stadium on the weeknight that a favorable result ended the title contest -- with no arrests made, according to a podcaster I follow.

The victory parade on the weekend was not incident-free, but went under the radar of most people because there was no rioting. There were only 16 arrests at an event with an estimated attendance of 1.5 million people. Far more people had to be rescued from heights that they climbed so they could enjoy the spectacle.

In Paris, nearly 900 people have been arrested so far.

As for similar in the U.S.: The Paris "soccer riot" is worse, but in terms of arrests, still just in the same order of magnitude as the "basketball riot" (to use a sport that's lost on me) in Detroit in 1990 after the Pistons won the NBA Finals: 170 arrests in that one, in a city with fewer citizens than attendees in the Arsenal parade.

It's disturbing that there were even as many arrests in London as there were, and it's a cultural issue worth contemplating. Blaming a sport one doesn't like is not the way to start.

Soccer isn't burning Paris now any more than basketball looted Detroit in 1990.

-- CAV

Blog Roundup

2026-05-29T02:30:00.000-06:00

A Friday Hodgepodge

1. "Will You Help Us Find the New Intellectuals?," by ARI Staff (New Ideal):

We just launched the Atlas Prize for Independent Thought -- a competition challenging 16-22-year-olds to analyze, question, defend, or critique the ideas in Atlas Shrugged featuring a $100,000 top prize. [The entry deadline is September 1. --ed]

250 words/1 minute

2. "What's Wrong With the World?," by Jaana Woiceshyn (How to Be Profitable and Moral):

In true capitalism, protection of individual rights is the government's only role and includes solving disputes through the court system. The government does not initiate force against its citizens or other countries; it uses force only in retaliation against those who do: thieves, fraudsters, other criminals, and foreign invaders. Because the government doesn't collect taxes, it cannot "re-distribute" wealth and create welfare programs to pursue social justice. (Nor can it engage in cronyism and hand out favors to the highest bidders). People are left free to pursue their own interests, to produce and trade to the best of their abilities. The small minority who are not able to work, will depend on private charity and insurance.

1000 words/3 minutes

3. "Germ Theory Is Not a Narrative," by Amesh Adalja (Tracking Zebra):

D.A. Henderson's smallpox eradication campaign was not an act of biopower. It was an act of human reason applied to a significant and deadly human problem. That is what infectious disease medicine is -- and has always been. Germ theory is not a narrative. It is a description of reality. As an infectious disease physician, I have treated patients with illnesses whose course changed because germ theory was true: bacterial infections halted by antibiotics, opportunistic infections prevented with antimicrobials, diseases made rare by vaccines. My field has always fought for civilization by trying to master an inhospitable natural world (as it always has) -- it now faces an anti-human attack wielded by an army of postmodern nihilists who have been granted government power.

740 words/2 minutes

4. "Immigration -- Some Mostly New Thoughts," by Harry Binswanger (Value for Value):

Differences over ideas, not foods or dress, are an entirely different matter. The difference between Islamic jihadists and Americans is a matter of literal life and death, not something optional. Even there, globalization will have a big impact. The ultimate defeat of Islamism will be accomplished by young people in the Islamic countries seeing the rational values of the West. That's unless the West commits suicide -- a distinct possibility.

1400 words/5 minutes

-- CAV

Evasive Relative Picks Wrong Target

2026-05-21T06:36:12.654-06:00

Due to major obligations affecting my schedule, I will take a beak from blogging until Friday, May 29. I will appear sporadically on X/Twitter in the meantime.

***

A recent Dear Abby column misses an essential point raised by a reader's alarming question.

The question comes from a couple who have wisely decided to keep their children away from a close relative who is also a sex offender. One of their mothers is upset about these parents "breaking up the family."

Here is Abby's answer:

The best way to move forward is to stick to your guns. This relative has shown he isn't to be trusted around children. Protecting your children is your job. Keeping the family together despite the fact that this person is a threat to them is not. You have nothing to feel guilty about.

This is all good, as far as it goes, but I would have added that the person "breaking up the family" is the sex offender, not the family members who now have to weigh how they will navigate any future family gatherings.

I can imagine that many people would dismiss this as a small matter, but it is not: Making such a judgment explicit will maintain the couple's resolve against the sickening pressure, so common in our predominately altruistic culture, to sweep that problem under the rug. Furthermore, having already gotten this point right in their own minds, it will be easier for the couple to shoot down any such suggestion in the future:

But this is faaaamilyyyyy!

[Insert name here] should have thought of this before getting involved in that filth.

The person who ruined things for that family was the person who committed that crime. Trying to pretend that the perpetrator was innocent, that life can go on as usual, or -- worst, that honoring a blood relationship is more important that the safety of one's own children -- helps no one.

-- CAV

Massie Has Self, Not Trump, to Blame

2026-05-20T08:03:42.475-06:00

Since the conservative press these days largely cheer-leads whatever the hell Trump wants -- whenever it isn't explaining how his latest whims are actually 3-D chess -- it behooves one to consider other sources on just about any matter.

And by "other sources," I don't mean just legacy media, which is largely leftist, shallow, and prone to jump to banal conclusions. Case in point: Kentucky Representative Thomas Massie, who "lost to Trump" in his primary yesterday.

Lost to Trump? Really?

I am glad to have encountered Sean Davis's analysis of that defeat, in part because it was good to see that there is at least one other person who remembers that Massie took on Trump before and lived electorally to tell about it:

Trump mercilessly trashed Massie in 2020 -- calling him a "disaster" for America and Kentucky and saying he should be thrown out of the GOP entirely -- but Massie easily swatted that away and won 81-19, so you can't say he only lost because of Trump. He went toe-to-toe with Trump on COVID in 2020 and won overwhelmingly.

Massie lost because he went from being perceived as a quirky but lovable nerd who seemed to genuinely believe everything he said, to looking like a clout-chasing influencer who cared more about getting TV time with Democrats on an issue he clearly never cared about until five minutes ago than he did about representing his voters.

I will not pretend to know enough to weigh in on this theory, but it certainly sounds plausible. More importantly, it directly rebuts the notion, ridiculous when both parties are infested with lunatics, that Trump is somehow an electoral juggernaut whose slightest displeasure can sink a political career.

See also John Sununu's 2024 editorial, "Donald Trump Is a Loser," which goes into some detail on how a Trump-led Republican party fared in past elections. While Sununu wrongly predicted a loss in 2024, I'd chalk that up to Biden's failure as President and the poor choice of Kamala Harris as a replacement -- combined with an electorate that had largely forgotten how awful Trump was, or hadn't paid enough attention in the first place to realize that the first time.

I have no predictions for the next election, but consider this: The Republicans know their polling stinks and appear to hope to gerrymander themselves out of trouble.

-- CAV

Pardoned Insurrectionist Update

2026-05-19T07:24:12.967-06:00

Just as news breaks of President Trump stealing $1.776 billion of our money to create a slush fund for the January 6 insurrectionists, we get a reminder of the kind of person Trump deems worthy of such largess:

[Ryan] Nichols was among the more prominent Trump supporters arrested in the wake of the riot, having live-streamed the chaos while calling out threats to politicians.

"I'm telling you if Pence caved, we're gonna drag motherf-----s through the streets. You f-----g politicians are going to get f-----g drug through the streets," he said in the livestream.

This upstanding citizen hasn't changed a bit since our "law and order" President dispensed with the need for any kind of "revolving door justice system:"

Harrison County Sheriff B.J. Fletcher told a local news station in East Texas this week that Nichols had followed a man out of church to the parking lot, where he proceeded to lift his shirt and flash a gun.

...

Fletcher said a bystander stepped in and de-escalated the confrontation, but that Nichols had done "more than enough" to be charged with deadly conduct.

Nichols is the fifth insurrectionist to have reoffended since the pardons.

No word yet on whether Trump will make him the second such person to be re-pardoned.

-- CAV

Dishonest Don

2026-05-18T06:23:05.773-06:00

At The Hill, former New York state prosecutor Scott Bolden resurrects a term from the Vietnam Era: the credibility gap.

Back then, the term came into use when Lyndon Johnson's lying about the Vietnam War caused the public to stop believing him. Bolden outlines his open-and-shut case as seen in part below, with plenty of links to help anyone who hasn't been paying attention:

... Today, a credibility gap plagues President Trump because of his whoppers about the war with Iran and much more.

Trump's credibility gap endangers our national security. His hyperbolic rants are so absurd -- and his policy flip-flops so extreme -- that our foreign allies and adversaries don't believe much of what he says and no longer take him seriously. It's as if the proverbial boy who cried wolf moved into the Oval Office.

Trump has alienated our allies with his lies, insults, temper tantrums, tariffs, aid cuts to Ukraine and other nations, and threats to withdraw from NATO and annex Canada and Greenland. Our adversaries don't fear his threats because he often fails to carry them out. This has generated the insult of TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out).[links omitted, bold added]

And later:

Trump's lies and frequent policy changes have made it hard for business executives and farmers to plan for the future. For example, Trump's tariffs have raised costs for U.S. factories, retailers and farms that import finished products, parts and raw materials, and "have done significant damage to the economy" and slowed job growth, said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics. [link removed, bold added]

I recommend reading the whole thing.

In addition to providing links in the original of the above, Bolden reports both a few of the whoppers and the astounding frequency of Trump's lying, for example, Trump's average of "21 erroneous claims a day" during his first term.

As is apparent in the excerpts above, the lying is just part of the problem, and mutually reinforces a pattern of bad policy and whipsaw decision-making.

It is clear that Trump deserves to be called Dishonest Don, as Bolden suggests. It's too bad that's not the only problem -- or even the main one -- he poses as President.

-- CAV