Pun Salad

Our Amazon Product du Jour advocates a good first step. But you know what really needs to be abolished? Time zones. As I ranted 11 years ago: The Right Number of Time Zones is Zero.

Since then, I discovered an unexpected ally on the other side of the political spectrum, Matthew Yglesias, who joined the party in 2014: The case against time zones: They're impractical & outdated

It's an idea whose time (heh) has come.

Which brings me to Katherine Mangu-Ward's lead editorial in the current print Reason: The Next President Should Abolish Everything.

Reason has a couple dozen small articles advocating specific abolitions, and I'll probably blog them all when they come out from behind the paywall.

Also of note:

• Please make it stop… The WSJ's tech columnist, Joanna Stern, has a tale of woe: I Replied ‘Stop’ to a Political Text Message. I Got 100 More.

  Friday, 12:05 p.m.: “Pres. Trump’s Sec. of State here!”

  I might have actually bought that Mike Pompeo was texting me from his fave lunch spot, if it weren’t for the survey link and donation request that followed. I replied, firmly, “Stop.”

  Friday, 1 p.m. until midnight: “It’s JD Vance.” It’s Don Jr.” “Ted Cruz here.”

  Twenty-seven more text messages took over my inbox, all claiming to be from various Republican candidates and political-action committees. On Saturday, 28 more arrived. On Sunday, another 29.

  In the game of political texts, “Stop” apparently means “Go! Go! Go!”

  This happened to me as well! I contributed to Nikki Haley's campaign, and I made the dreadful mistake of providing her my cell number. Which got put on a list. And then I made what turned out to be the same mistake Ms. Stern made: I replied "STOP" to some of them. Which only made things worse. Much, much worse.

  Fortunately, my Android phone has a pretty good spam filter for texts. Ms. Stern wound up paying money for one on her iPhone.

  Jim Geraghty also noted the issue: Yes, the Political Spam Texts Were Out of Control This Year.

  The past few months, my Three Martini Lunch podcast co-host Greg Corombos and I have traded stories about the increasingly frantic tone from the political organizations that send spam fundraising texts to our phones. For some reason, some groups think Greg is “Doris,” and a liberal group that should be tried at the Hague thinks that I am “Diane,” and the right apoplectic tone will get us to donate just $5 now.

  “DIANE, WE’RE ALL STANDING OUT ON THE LEDGE WE SWEAR WE MEAN IT DON’T TEST US DONATE JUST $5 NOW OR OUR PLUMMET TO OUR DOOM IS ON YOUR CONSCIENCE”

  “DIANE, WE KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE AND WHERE YOUR CHILDREN LIVE DON’T TEST A DESPERATE MAN JUST SEND $5 NOW AND NOBODY GETS HURT”

  “DIANE, WE’RE AT THE CRITICAL FUNDRAISING DEADLINE AND THE VOICES ARE GETTING LOUDER AND ARE TELLING US THEY WANT BLOOD, BUT THEY’RE WILLING TO BE SATIATED IF YOU JUST SEND $5”

  I exaggerate . . . slightly. My guess is you’ve gotten similar messages. I suspect the folks running these organizations saw the legendary National Lampoon cover and thought, “What a great idea!”

  Yeah. When I look at the stuff stuck in the spam filter, they range from offensive to pathetic. An example of "pathetic" but also unintentionally amusing:

  We've texted 21+ times & you STILL won't respond, Paul! Will you PLEASE take a minute to fill out our GOP Leadership survey?

  "We are idiots who won't take a hint."

• It turns out there's a pony amidst all this horse manure after all. Elizabeth Nolan Brown bids an unfond farewell: Good Riddance, Lina Khan.

  No one was sure what a Kamala Harris presidency would mean for Lina Khan, the controversial chair of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) appointed by President Joe Biden. But with Harris, too, on her way out, and Republicans slated to take over the White House, we can probably say goodbye—and good riddance—to Khan's reign.

  With Khan heading the agency, the FTC has taken an aggressive stance against mergers and acquisitions, an aggressive stance against big tech companies, and an odd view of the agency's purpose and authority.

  "Khan has framed several regulatory issues in the dramatic terms of someone facing an emergency that cannot wait for congressional action," noted Kevin Frazier, an assistant professor at St. Thomas University College of Law, in a recent Reason piece. But "the FTC does not have any emergency powers. Congressional inaction does not increase the FTC's jurisdiction. Judicial opposition does not excuse the FTC's experimentation with novel theories of enforcement. Even economic upheaval doesn't change anything about when and how the FTC may fulfill its finite mandate."

  Of course, there are downsides. For example, Trump will probably call in an airstrike against CNN headquarters in Atlanta on January 20.

• Hooray for Milei. Jeff Jacoby also notes a very small pony in a different pile of horsehit, specifically a large building on Turtle Bay, NYC: Argentina against the world: The country's leader announces a new foreign policy: 'Long live freedom, damn it!'

  ARGENTINA'S PRESIDENT Javier Milei, an outspoken champion of free markets and human liberty, proved his bona fides again last week. He dismissed Foreign Minister Diana Mondino after Argentina voted in the United Nations to condemn the US economic embargo on Cuba. The vote was 187-2 — only Israel stood with the United States — and it marked the 32d time that the General Assembly had denounced an American policy initiated by John F. Kennedy.

  It isn't often that a foreign minister gets sacked for aligning with the views of nearly every government on earth. Then again, it isn't often that a country elects a president like Milei, who is prepared to stand against the world if that is what freedom and morality require. And when it comes to Cuba and the US embargo, what freedom and morality require is that censure be directed at the most entrenched dictatorship in the Western Hemisphere — not at the nation that for decades has provided safe haven to millions of refugees fleeing that Caribbean tyranny.

  Gee, I wonder who's responsible for Cuban misery?

• Continuing our fecal theme. Veronique de Rugy notes a turd in the punchbowl: Election Night's Least Surprising Result Is a Bipartisan Bummer.

  Supporters of Vice President Kamala Harris are surely experiencing disappointment, but one of the Biden-Harris administration's pillars — "industrial policy" — won big on Tuesday. That's because it's already been embraced by both parties. President-elect Donald Trump loves expensive tariffs, and Harris loves big subsidies to big businesses, and to some degree vice versa.

  That, my friends, should disappoint us all. Industrial policy represents one of the most dangerous economic illusions of our time.

  Often presented as a populist program, it's usually implemented in a way that makes it no different than the worst crony programs. According to my friend Sam Gregg — an expert on the issue for the American Institute for Economic Research and author of the excellent book "The Next American Economy" — industrial policy "involves trying to alter the allocation of resources and incentives in particular economic sectors that would otherwise transpire if entrepreneurs and businesses were left to themselves."

  So we got at least four more years of doubling down on bad policies. Enjoy!