Pun Salad

Tweeting "Happy Memorial Day" is like tweeting "Happy 9/11" https://t.co/P1iYuJXy3t

— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) May 26, 2025

You would think that even Trump might take Memorial Day to be an opportunity for somber, non-partisan, reflection and gratitude for past sacrifice. But nooooo…

Ann Althouse also comments:

I especially like the all caps and the "21,000,000 MILLION." That's 21 trillion.

Also of note:

• Doesn't sound like a good idea. Dirk Auer observes a disturbing trend at Reason: Courts Are Quietly Taking Over the Internet.

  Who do you think decides what you see and how you interact on your favorite online service? Most would point to Silicon Valley engineers and product managers tinkering behind the scenes. However, an underappreciated reality is emerging: judges and regulators are increasingly the ones who decide how online platforms operate. The blueprint for tomorrow's internet is being drawn up in courtrooms and government offices. This should concern us all.

  Today's leading tech platforms were initially shaped by market forces. Governments did not tell Google to display blue links, Apple to invent the App Store, or Amazon to introduce the "Buy Box." But legal battles and regulations are now redefining how platforms are built and run. This includes deciding how firms can monetize their services, how they display content to users, and which features can be rolled into a single service.

  It should disturb democracy fans, since our judicial branch is the least democratic.

  Not that either the executive or legislative branch would be any more likely to wisely dictate how businesses should work online. Unfortunately, laissez-faire has largely gone out of favor.

• Unclear on the concept. Matthew Hennessey notes many peoples' misapprehensions about "markets". Including (unsurprisingly) one person near the top: JD Vance Is Wrong: The Market Isn’t a ‘Tool’ (WSJ gifted link).

  On a recent podcast, New York Times columnist Ross Douthat asked Mr. Vance for an example of how his Catholicism influences his politics. His first instinct wasn’t to cite the social issues typically associated with conservative Catholic political concerns—abortion, immigration, sexual ethics—but to launch a missile at the market. “Well, I think one of the criticisms that I get from the right is that I am insufficiently committed to the capital-M market,” he answered. “The market is a tool, but it is not the purpose of American politics.”

  Mr. Vance indulges here in some sneaky sleight of hand. His answer to Mr. Douthat’s question combines an obvious (though irrelevant) truth about the purpose of American politics with a total falsehood about the nature of the market. Nobody, not even these editorial pages—whose longstanding motto is “free people, free markets”—capitalizes the “M” in markets. The market isn’t a proper noun, and it also isn’t a tool. The market simply is. Nobody controls it. Nobody worships it, but only a fool ignores it.

  Mister, we could use a man like Ronald Reagan again.

• Also out of favor: fiscal sanity. Kevin D. Williamson writes on Unmet Obligations.

  There’s a story about Donald Trump—who knows if it is true?—teetering on the edge of one of his many bankruptcies and using the occasion as a teaching moment for Ivanka on the streets of New York: “See that bum over there?” he supposedly said, pointing out a vagrant sleeping on the street. “He is worth $1 billion more than me.” In Trump’s own telling, his unpaid debts added up to a sum of not $1 billion but billions.  

  New York City knows Donald Trump: a deadbeat, a frequent filer in bankruptcy court, a gonif who often couldn’t pay his bills and often refused to pay them even when he could. He calls himself “the king of debt” and wrote (“wrote”) this about his unpaid debts: “I figured it was the banks’ problem, not mine. What the hell did I care? I actually told one bank, ‘I told you you shouldn’t have loaned me that money.’”

  Memo to the bond market: “I told you you shouldn’t have loaned me that money.”

  Of course, the word needed in that sentence isn’t me—it is us. 

  You see that bum over there? He’s worth $37,000,000,000,000.00 more than we are. 

  Make that $37 trillion and counting. 

  KDW's near-bottom line: "In the short term, you can get a lot of juice out of rage and stupidity. In the long term, math always wins."

• Historical note. I recently watched a 39-year-old movie, Sweet Liberty, link to my report is below. In an early scene, Alan Alda's character notes John Adams' use of the phrase "the sweets of liberty". Which sent me to the quote farms, and I happened across this letter, archived by (who else) the National Archives: John Adams to Zabdiel Adams, 21 June 1776. Which contains this, sadly relevant to current events:

  Statesmen my dear Sir, may plan and speculate for Liberty, but it is Religion and Morality alone, which can establish the Principles upon which Freedom can securely stand. . . . The only foundation of a free Constitution, is pure Virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our People, in a greater Measure, than they have it now, They may change their Rulers, and the forms of Government, but they will not obtain a lasting Liberty.—They will only exchange Tyrants and Tyrannies.

  Given recent history, who can say he wasn't totally prescient?

Recently on the movie blog:

I saw this movie in a theater when it came out in 1986, and was pretty charmed by it at the time. For some reason, it's unavailable through normal streaming services, but YouTube claims that it has the full movie. I went for the Blu-ray, which was on sale at Amazon. Alan Alda deserves whatever royalties he can get, I figure. He wrote, directed, and stars.

Mr. Alda plays Michael Burgess, a history professor in the small college town of Sayeville. He's written a book about a Revolutionary War episode that featured a battle and a plucky patriot heroine. Hollywood bought the book, and (as the movie opens) the movie company descends on Sayeville to shoot on location.

A lot of stuff goes on: Michael is enraptured by the actress playing the historical heroine, and who can blame him, it's Michelle Pfeiffer. This threatens his already-rocky relationship with girlfriend Gretchen (Lise Hilboldt). He gets horrified by the ahistorical liberties taken with his book by the scriptwriter (Bob Hoskins) and the brash director (Saul Rubinek). And Michael's dotty mother (Lillian Gish!) is developing health issues. The actor playing a British general (Michael Caine) is an impulsive loose cannon, with designs on anyone wearing a skirt, including Gretchen.

It's complicated, but moves along with its own screwball logic.

Both Lillian Gish and Michael Caine absolutely steal every scene in which they appear.

And, hey, that's John C. McGinley, in what IMDB claims to be his first movie role. Not to be his last.