Pun Salad

■ Proverbs 26:9, again down on fools:

Like a thornbush in a drunkard's hand is a proverb in the mouth of a fool.

I have to say, I like the bizarre imagery. Why would a drunk pick up a thornbush? Don't even ask. He's got one. He's waving it around! He's yelling barely-intelligible gibberish, staggering into the marketplace crowds! "Look out!" they cry. "He's got a thornbush!"

And a proverb emanating from a fool's mouth is just like that.

■ KDW@NR describes The Inquisitor’s Heirs

Progressives claim to love science, but what they truly love is power.To be a good progressive is to adhere simultaneously to two incompatible notions: one, that science provides the final word on any question about which scientists offer any opinion; two, that the scientific method is illegitimate, a tool of the sundry atavistic forces conspiring to keep down the female, the black, the brown, the poor, the gay, the disabled, the gender-fluid — everybody except Mitt Romney.

Real non-Nye science requires "an environment in which people are at liberty to speak, debate, and publish". And when push comes to shove, progressives can't allow that.

■ I gave up on reading the WaPo's "conservative" blogger, Jennifer Rubin, awhile back. A snide and grating tone, name-calling instead of arguments, … What's she up to these days? Let's look: Trump’s hypocrisy on the opioid epidemic sees bipartisan outrage — and rightfully so. The issue is the proposal to cut the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP, aka the "Drug Czar") by 95 percent. Jen's against that:

This issue reflects a more fundamental problem. While the president is insistent on a huge tax cut for the rich, increases in defense spending and no reform of our entitlement programs, worthwhile functions such as this are going to be slashed or eliminated. If permitted, it will amount to a huge transfer of wealth and abandonment of much of the safety net. The populist hero is turning out to be the enemy of the most vulnerable members of our society.

Jen, as is her wont, provides (1) a lot of sputtering outrage, (2) dodges into irrelevant asides, and (3) zero evidence that the Drug Czar actually does anything worthwhile. For an alternate take, see Mike Riggs at Reason: Donald Trump Reportedly Plans to Gut the Drug Czar's Office. He reports that not everyone would be sad to see the Czar be gutted:

"If Trump's volunteering to abolish the office, I say, 'Go for it,'" Ethan Nadelmann told Pacific Standard in February (the first time we heard rumors of the agency's demise).

The former executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, Nadelmann was advocating medication-assisted therapy, maintenance doses of heroin, clean needle exchanges, and safe injection facilities long before Obama's first drug czar conceded that America could not arrest its way out of the drug problem. Nadelmann continued to call for those evidence-based, life-saving policies after the federal government continued trying exactly what it says it can't successfully do. And you know what? He's likely right that no Trump appointee will embrace meaningful drug policy reform.

One of the things I've been thinking about lately is what Richard Feynman called Cargo-Cult Science; I think that ONDCP is an example of Cargo-Cult government policy: the semi-religious faith that combining good intentions, symbolism, and (above all) government funding will solve problems. If it doesn't work, the only possible solution is: more funding!

■ It's been well over 40 years since I lived in Nebraska, but I (nonetheless) was a little proud to see this WSJ article from Nebraska's Senator Ben Sasse: How to Raise an American Adult. Full of good advice.