URLs du Jour

2019-11-29

[Amazon Link]
(paid link)

That's right, folks. For today only, Pun Salad content is on sale for half off our usual price of $0.00 per however much you want to read. Stock up now!

But it's pretty slim pickin's today…

  • I laughed at this little blurb at Patterico's Pontifications.

    Fox News reports via the New York Times that Intersectionality Bingo’s team blames My Little Aloha Sweetie for wrecking the California Senator’s campaign, confirming what I have been saying for months.

    Spoiler, in case you didn't nail it immediately: "Intersectionality Bingo" is Kamala Harris. And (probably more obvious) "My Little Aloha Sweetie" is Tulsi Gabbard.

    I want to see a fight. I'm not pround of that, but…


  • We have blogged on this before, but Vox is climbing on the bandwagon: Moral grandstanding is making an argument just to boost your status.

    So often during a congressional hearing, when it comes time for a lawmaker to question a witness, they don’t ask a question at all. They grandstand, making a political argument for the people watching at home.

    What’s common in Congress is now common in every public forum. On Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, people are using social platforms to make themselves look moral (and therefore good). It’s status-seeking, not argument, and it detracts from the democratic goal of actually engaging in arguments in good faith.

    How does one politely point this out to a Facebook friend? Probably there's no way to do that without losing the friend.


  • This Politico reporter may as well have been visiting my house. New Hampshire voters to Steyer: Make it stop!.

    Maggie and Libby knew Tom Steyer’s ad by heart: "I'm going to say two words that will make Washington insiders very uncomfortable: Term limits!" they recently chirped in unison at the dinner table.

    Unfortunately for Steyer, their votes can’t be bought — they’re 10 and 13.

    “It was like a comedy act,” the children’s father, Loren Foxx, said. “His ads are on constantly."

    Some Granite staters said they’re seeing Steyer’s ads dozens of times a day — and it’s become more grating than ingratiating. A POLITICO reporter who watched YouTube music videos this week by Pentatonix, a popular a capella group, endured 17 Steyer ads in just over an hour.

    Which brings up a gripe: Term limits for Congresscritters may or may not be a good idea, but…

    It would require a Constitutional amendment.

    Tom Steyer is running for President.

    What role does the President play in the Constitutional amendment process?

    None whatsoever.

    If Steyer wants to do something about term limits, he should run for a Senate or House seat. Where he can introduce it, make speeches for it, cajole his colleagues.

    But he won't. He'd rather throw boob bait to the bubbas.


  • [Amazon Link]
    (paid link)
    And finally, the Cafe Hayek Quotation of the Day.... It's from Deirdre McCloskey again…

    What the First Amendment says is that the government shall make no law abridging liberty of speech. It’s not about being unable to get an audience of half a million readers for your side of the argument because you don’t own a big-city newspaper. You can say to yourself or your hubby, “Oh, that’s a lot of nonsense. The Tribune is wrong again, and if it goes on saying that I’m going to stop buying the bloody newspaper.” It’s an argument in a free market society….

    Having a media problem, in other words, is not the same thing as being disenfranchised or censored, not unless the government is involved. There’s no ideal speech community of easy access to serve as the utopia relative to the actual, messy market for Google or newspapers or whatever.

    I gotta get that book. Checking used prices…


Last Modified 2024-01-23 3:18 PM EDT