Do You Hear What I Hear?

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Jeff Maurer lays down his non-negotiable point: "Baby It's Cold Outside" is Good, So Bite Me and Happy Holidays.

The song “Baby It’s Cold Outside” is locked in Cancellation Alcatraz for an unusual reason. Its creators did not commit horrible crimes — its writer, Frank Loesser, is one of the few creatives of his time whose Wikipedia page isn’t sullied with sections like “Prostitute Disappearance” or “Correspondence With Himmler”. It also doesn’t feature an insulting portrayal of a historically disadvantaged group, even though a lot of music of that era traffics in stereotypes that make Al Jolson seem like a candidate for an NAACP Image Award.

No, “Baby It’s Cold Outside” is cancelled because the man in the song is aggressively trying to…uh…let’s say “pursue” the woman. He is dying to pursue her. And she clearly doesn’t want to get pursued that night. And if she leaves, the man will end up pursuing himself, so he’s trying to pressure her into a pity pursue.

It's from the 1949 movie Neptune's Daughter, which is available for your viewing pleasure for a few bucks at Amazon Prime, link at your right. That's Ricardo Montalban, Kaaaaaahn himself, as the Lothario, centuries and light years away from his various encounters with James T. Kirk.

Also in the flick: Red Skelton. "Now, that's a name I've not heard in a long time."

Further fun fact: "Baby, It's Cold Outside" was a substitute for a Frank Loesser song that the studio censors thought was even dirtier.

Also of (non-musical) note:

  • In the mood for some libertarian red meat? Check out the Cato Institute Report to the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). It makes those "Project 2025" folks at Heritage look like a bunch of lefty squishes.

    It's a mere 37 pages (PDF). But it's pithy. Example: Under the "Remove Energy Regulations and Subsidies" section, here's a list for Congress:

    But that doesn't let Trump off the hook. Here's his list:

    • Immediately limit the payout of energy subsidies in the IRA by tightening IRS guidance.
    • Cancel subsidies to all energy technologies, including research and development subsidies to renewable energy and nuclear power.
    • Ensure DOI and other agencies allow for domestic energy production and related commodities, such as critical minerals.
    • Withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement.
    • Nominate a FERC chair who will 1) prioritize electric grid reliability and affordability and 2) reverse costly transmission expansion rules like Order No. 1920.
    • Nominate an NRC chair who will remove regulatory barriers to nuclear energy deployment.
    • Encourage states to allow novel ways to supply electricity, including through private grids.
    • Urge states to repeal costly technology-specific mandates, including for offshore wind.
    • Lift the “pause” on exports of liquefied natural gas.
    • Stop discriminating against unconventional energy uses (such as Bitcoin mining) and energy resources.
    • Prevent agencies with no energy jurisdiction, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission, from engaging in energy or climate regulation.
    • Reject carbon taxes styled as greenhouse gas–based tariffs.
    • Clarify that subsidies cannot form the basis for EPA regulations.
    • Resist pressure from green groups to rapidly expand the electric transmission grid.
    • Repeal the several statutes that created the energy-efficiency regulations administered by the DOE.
    • Amend the Clean Water Act and other statutes to allow entrepreneurs to supply American shale gas to regions that demand it, including New England.
    • Auction off and shut down the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

    Any bets on how much of that will actually happen?

  • Emma Camp is brave. Libertarians have a knee-jerk attitude about taxes: cut 'em. But on the table for 2025 are the expiring cuts from Trump Part I: You'll Miss Me When I'm Gone. And Emma points out: Keeping individual income tax cuts is a bad, expensive idea.

    Extending the individual income tax portions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) is supposed to be a good thing, right? After all, who doesn't love lower taxes? However, data from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) predicts that, without accompanying spending cuts, these tax cuts are going to cost the government.

    If the cuts continue, it's possible that "the positive effects of lower taxes would be counteracted by the negative effects of higher debt," according to a Tuesday report from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB).

    "Despite claims that tax cuts pay for themselves," the CRFB adds, "analyses from across the political spectrum have found that the economic effects of extending the expiring parts of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) would offset 1 to 14 percent of the revenue loss – falling well short of the 100 percent needed to pay for itself."

    I'm pretty sure the voters made it clear over the past few elections: please continue the irresponsible spending, and I don't want to pay more taxes.

  • Unions hate him! Drew Cline reports, with a straight face, that New Hampshire could boost manufacturing jobs with one simple trick: becoming a right-to-work state.

    Reviving American manufacturing is a hot topic in the nation and New Hampshire once again. A new Department of Business and Economic Affairs report on the state’s advanced manufacturing sector has drawn attention to that field’s recent growth here (well above the New England average) as well as its economic benefits (tens of thousands of jobs, billions in economic output).

    Policymakers hoping to help specific industries tend to suggest protectionist measures (such as tariffs). But with manufacturing, as with the economy as a whole, recent research shows that enhancing individual freedom by repealing protectionist regulations is a more effective way to stimulate significant job growth.

    To create a surge in domestic manufacturing jobs, all a state has to do is pass a right-to-work law.

    The absence of a right-to-work law is (yet another) out-of-whack oddity of our LiveFreeOrDie state.

    If you'd like to read a rebuttal, NHJournal has an anti-RTW column from Rich Gulla, claiming Advocates For 'Right to Work' Are Wrong. Gulla is president of the State Employees’ Association of New Hampshire. Which is a union for state employees. For a counterpoint to him, check out the New Hampshire Archives of the National Right to Work Committee.

  • Jeanne shakes her Hamas pom-poms. My state's senior senator seems to be edging into the Sanders/Warren camp. Michael Graham reports In Latest Slap at US Ally, Shaheen Accuses Israel of 'Starving' Gaza.

    U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen followed up her vote against selling offensive weapons to Israel by accusing America’s closest ally in the Middle East of holding up food aid to the people of Gaza. It’s the same charge the anti-Israel International Criminal Court (ICC) has leveled against the Jewish state.

    It’s also a charge that has been repeatedly debunked, supporters of Israel say.

    Shaheen, who has long supported more cooperative relations with the terror-sponsoring regime of Iran, is stepping up her anti-Israel rhetoric as she prepares to become the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

    Shaheen was one of just 18 Senate Democrats who voted to block the sale of some U.S. weapons to Israel last month. The country is in a war with both Hamas and Hezbollah — two Iranian proxies that have spent years attacking Israeli civilians and are committed to Israel’s destruction — as well as facing missile barrages launched directly from Tehran.

    “I voted in favor of the joint resolutions today because I believe the Netanyahu government needs to change course on the conduct of the war in Gaza,” Shaheen said.

    If Senator Jeanne has any demands for Hamas to "change course", they don't seem to have made the news.