May
7
2025

Hey, Let's Pay More For Less Reliable Electricity!

Oh, wait. That sounds like a bad idea.

And there's more to come for countries on the right edge of the chart, according to this Reuters report: EU power grid needs trillion-dollar upgrade to avert Spain-style blackouts.

Europe's ageing power grid and lack of energy storage capacity will require trillions of dollars in investments to cope with rising green energy output, increasing electricity demand and to avoid blackouts.

A week ago, Spain and Portugal lost power in their worst blackout. Authorities are investigating the cause, but whatever the findings, analysts and industry representatives say infrastructure investment is essential.

My translation of what "authorities" are saying: "We're still checking, but we're pretty sure the answer is that you need to give us a lot more money."

Also of note:

  • She's the grift that keeps on grifting. Jonathan Turley notes an unintentional good idea from an unexpected source: NPR’s Katherine Maher Continues to Make the Case for Defunding.

    Recently, we discussed how National Public Radio CEO Katherine Maher made the conclusive case before Congress why funding for NPR should be terminated. Not to be outdone, Maher seemed to return to CBS to build her case further against her state-sponsored media outlet. Objecting to President Donald Trump’s criticism of NPR, Maher explained that “from my perspective, part of the separation of the First Amendment offers is to keep government out.” Precisely.

    The portrayal of NPR as unbiased and balanced is laughingly absurd. Indeed, many of us objected to Maher’s selection after years of declining audiences and increasing criticism. Maher had a long record of far-left public statements against Republicans, Trump, and others.

    This is the same CEO who attacked a respected senior editor who tried to get NPR to acknowledge its bias and restore greater balance on the staff.

    That respected NPR senior editor is Uri Berliner, and his essay last year at the Free Press ("Here’s How [NPR] Lost America's Trust") preceded his suspension and resignation from NPR by a few days.

  • I used to be an annoying grad student, but I recovered. Jeff Maurer doesn't care for the Bernie/AOC messaging: The Problem With “Oligarchy” Is That It’s Annoying-Grad-Student Coded. Leading with an amusing anecdote:

    Last week, Senator Elise Slotkin of Michigan got into a public spat with Bernie Sanders about the latter’s use of the word “oligarchy”. In an interview with Politico, Slotkin said that the party should say “kings” instead of “oligarchy”. Sanders — who, by the way, is on a tour called the “Fighting Oligarchy Tour” — replied that Americans “are not quite as dumb as Ms. Slotkin thinks they are.”

    As of press time, Senator Slotkin has not clarified exactly how dumb she thinks the American people are. Though I wish that she would — I’d like to see her give a press conference and say “Senator Sanders, with all due respect: Take a gander at these freaks. You ever go to a swap meet? Walk around one of those for a bit and then tell me that you don’t think that even words like ‘red’ and ‘the’ might be too much for these half-apes. This country is one big fucking Tard Farm, and we need to speak in the guttural burps that they understand.”

    Senator Slotkin has not said that. As of press time.

    Click over for more, including a lot more bad words. Jeff's (still) a Democrat, but I heartily agree with his attitude: "I’m less worried about people who don’t know the word “oligarchy” than people who do."

  • Magic 8 Ball says: "Ask again later." Tyler Cowen wonders: Is Classical Liberalism for Losers?

    Are classical liberals a bunch of pathetic losers? Losers both because they have lost in the political realm, while simultaneously handing over key institutions to the illiberal left?

    That is a common charge you hear from right-wing intellectuals these days, as exemplified by commentators such as Patrick Deneen, Adrian Vermeule, Sohrab Ahmari, Christopher Rufo, and others.

    Their argument is twofold.

    First, they say that classical liberals are temperamentally incapable of putting up much of a fight when faced with threats from the far left. And they don’t struggle to find examples: Harvard, all of the Ivy League, our major publishing houses, and most of the nonprofit ecosystem, for starters.

    The second part of the argument is that there is something inherent to liberalism itself that makes it vulnerable to its own collapse. In other words: The freedom liberalism facilitates is also its weakness. It is so free, so open, and so tolerant that it is vulnerable to attack by people who seek to destroy it, whether that be religious fundamentalists, the most extreme element of woke, or other intolerant movements.

    Eh. Losing is no fun, but sometimes you just have to be satisfied with being right about everything, all the time.

  • From a most unexpected source. Matthew Continetti recounts The Wisdom of The Donald.

    You may have noticed that Donald Trump is not the most self-reflective person. At least, not in public. But last week at the University of Alabama, Trump delivered a commencement address that revealed more about his mind than any speech since taking office. Naturally, the press missed the story.

    Trump “weaved” together talking points and ad libs with something novel and unexpected: a 10-point distillation of his personal philosophy. If you watch or read the full speech, you get to know what Trump values, and what he believes is behind his success in business, entertainment, and politics. Such insight is fascinating—or should be to anyone interested in the psychology of the world’s most powerful man.

    And, guess what? Goodness knows I am no Trump fan, but each one of his 10 points looks pretty good to me.

  • So, naturally, I have to point out… this WSJ editorial which discovers A Tariff Lesson at the Nucor Steel Mill (gifted link).

    When JD Vance visited a Nucor steel plant in South Carolina last week, did the company take it as an opportunity to press the Vice President for a tariff exemption? That dismally hilarious question comes to mind after listening to the steel maker’s first-quarter earnings call.

    Nucor loves the tariffs that President Trump has imposed on its competition from imported steel. But the company also warned about the ways that Mr. Trump’s global tariffs will increase its costs for both equipment and raw materials, specifically pig iron and direct-reduced iron, or DRI.

    Who could have seen that coming? Not Donald or JD, I guess.