Pun Salad

Yes, that's a chicken. Going along with this morning's WSJ headline: Trump Tells Aides He’s Willing to End War Without Reopening Strait of Hormuz. (WSJ gifted link)

The reporters found a source to state the obvious:

So we'll see what happens, because that's a weathervane in Mr. Ramirez's perceptive cartoon.

Meanwhile, Kevin D. Williamson has a few thoughts on The Welfare-Warfare State, Redux. (archive.today link)

Read the whole thing, because you got another thing coming.

Also of note:

• "The Capitalists Will Sell Us the Rope with Which We Will Hang Them" Yes, I know: there's no evidence Lenin ever said that. Nevertheless, it's what came to mind while reading James Freeman on the Kings of Dark Money. (WSJ gifted link)

  He quotes a Fox News story: No Kings Protest Backed by $3B Network of Activist Groups, Investigation Finds

  A network of about 500 groups with an estimated $3 billion in combined annual revenues is behind the coordinated nationwide “No Kings” protest Saturday, including communist groups who are using the day to call for a “revolution,” according to a Fox Digital News investigation.

  According to a copy of the permit for the “flagship” march in St. Paul, Minn., Indivisible, a national well-heeled Democratic political advocacy organization funded by billionaire George Soros, is the lead coordinator for the protest.

  But Fox News Digital has also identified key participation by a network of radical socialist and communist organizations funded by Neville Roy Singham, an American tech tycoon and avowed communist living in China.

  James further observes:

  Would readers not find this subject highly relevant in current coverage of protests in the United States? Yet for some odd reason Mr. Singham’s name is now extremely hard to find in stories from large U.S. media outlets that often purport to be highly concerned about “dark money” in U.S. politics.

  I found this NYT article about Singham. It's pretty damning, but it's also kind of old (August 2023). Not much at the NYT since.

• Commies: they're not hiding under the bed any more! Continuing our red-baiting theme, Matthew Hennessey reports on Suckers for Soviet Communism. (WSJ gifted link)

  In a better world, the media would treat the appearance of the hammer and sickle at this weekend’s No Kings rallies the same way it treated the appearance of the tiki torches in Charlottesville, Va. That is to say, as evidence that something has gone deeply wrong in our political culture.

  In 2017, a platoon of fascist dorks marched across the lawn at the University of Virginia chanting, “You will not replace us.” The entire political world flipped out for weeks—months, years even. They’re still recovering.

  In 2026, keffiyeh-clad tankies clustered in New York’s Times Square chanting, “Only one solution, Communist revolution.” How much do you want to bet you’ll never hear about it again?

  Matthew goes on to point out actual-Communism's bloody record. Summarizing:

  The hammer and sickle represents repression and dictatorship, stagnation and misery, the negation of human rights, the opposite of progress. It is the symbol of unfreedom, and therefore of slavery. It is death on a stick.

  As that old Commie sang: When will they ever learn?

• More on Commies. Bryan Caplan writes on Crypto-Communism and Game Theory.

  “Crypto-Communist” is a word with a strong conspiratorial crackpot connotation. But it simply means “secret Communist,” and the history of the Cold War is packed with bona fide examples. Fidel Castro ruled Cuba for two years before he admitted he was a Communist. Ho Chi Minh joined the Comintern in 1920, but spent decades posing as a Vietnamese nationalist. Enver Hoxha, long-time dictator of Albania, similarly joined the Comintern in the early 1930s, but pretended to be a mere anti-fascist during World War II. Nelson Mandela wasn’t only a crypto-Communist; he was on the Politburo of the South African Communist Party since the early 1960s. Alger Hiss was merely the most infamous of the American crypto-Communists. The case of Juan Negrín, last prime minister of Republican Spain, is more controversial. But Burnett Bolloten, author of the magisterial The Spanish Civil War: Revolution and Counterrevolution, deemed him a crypto-Communist, and I believe Bolloten.

  Who cares if a successful politician is a crypto-Communist? Anyone with a hint of sense. Communism is a murderous totalitarian doctrine, and Communist governments largely practice what they preach. Furthermore, once Communists take over a government, getting rid of them is like pulling teeth.

  Once you admit the notable prevalence and grave danger of crypto-Communist politicians during a particular era, there is a clear-cut contemporary implication: A notable share of current and would-be leaders who say they aren’t Communists are probably lying. If you’re living through this era, this raises a thorny question: “How do we identify the crypto-Communists before it’s too late?”

  Exercise for the reader: Apply Bryan's tests to Graham Platner.

• Liquidating the kulaks as a class. The National Review editorialists look at the latest effort: Progressive Wealth Tax Would Be Unjust and Economically Destructive.

  It’s the 2020 Democratic primaries all over again. Just as they were then, progressives are trying to one-up each other with increasingly outlandish fiscal proposals. One of the worst ideas from that year’s frenzied contest — a direct tax on household wealth — is back in fashion.

  The same characters are back to reheat old redistribution. Senator Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) got the ball rolling, outlining a 5 percent annual tax on all billionaires’ net worths. Not to be outdone, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) is more ambitious. Her plan is to tax all household wealth above $50 million at 2 percent each year, with a 1 percent surtax on fortunes over $1 billion. Both senators would use the proceeds not to trim the gaping deficit, of course, but to fund a laundry list of new entitlements.

  Although Warren’s wealth tax would be slightly kinder to billionaires, it would apply to far more Americans than Sanders’s plan. Targeting what she calls “ultra-millionaires,” it would hit an estimated 260,000 households. Sanders limits his confiscatory scheme to the 900 or so billionaires in the country, though it would surely discourage more entrepreneurs and investors from joining their ranks.

  I usually try to be charitable, and say those of the Sanders/Warren ilk are merely delusional: Fervently believing, despite all evidence, that the US Government can spend that money more wisely and productively than their targeted victims,

  But maybe (see above) they're just crypto-Commies.

If you prefer text, Elizabeth Nolan Brown has that for you at Reason: #Addiction.

ENB showcases multiple reasons why this is a bad turn of events. Including a tweet from Taylor Lorenz (who's occasionally mentioned here. not always favorably, but seems to make a good point in this case):

Her mother beat her, abused her, weighed her daily, called her fat, her sister tried to take her own life and her father abandoned her. Yet none of that apparently led to this poor girl’s anxiety, depression and body dysmorphia, it was lip gloss review videos on youtube https://t.co/g8mBUwUym2

— Taylor Lorenz (@TaylorLorenz) March 25, 2026

… while Nico Perrino and Will Creely concentrate on the danger this case poses for First Amendment rights:

As Will points out below, the president of the United States is in court RIGHT NOW trying to recast speech as a product in order to sidestep the strictures of the First Amendment and punish his perceived critics.

Beware this dangerous path! https://t.co/z53bJSDizs

— Nico Perrino (@NicoPerrino) March 25, 2026

Disclosure: I wouldn't say I've become addicted, but I really do spend way too much time in the "Reels" section of my Facebook feed. Zuck's AI has apparently figured out that I'm a sucker for videos with varying combinations of toddlers, puppies, kittens, AI slop, SNL sketches, and Philomena Cunk.

I'll give you a topic, discuss among yourselves: If Tina Fey can host an episode of Saturday Night Live UK, why can't Diane Morgan host America's version?

That's one of my takeaways from Reason's latest entry in its continuing series:

Also of note:

• "Ave Imperator, morituri te salutant." George Will speculates on What gladiatorial politics will bury in the midterms. Bottom line, after pointing out that Trump won't be on the ballot to motivate his multitudionous fanbase: that

  Now, never underestimate the Democrats’ ability to make a sow’s ear out of a silk purse. As an Israeli diplomat once said of the Palestinians, they never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. If many Democratic candidates try to pump up deflated hysterias — democracy is dying, the planet is frying — they can make themselves resemble a (to recycle a phrase) basket of deplorables. Failure is a choice.

• Just asking questions. Katherine Mangu-Ward mashups George Orwell's 1984 and a 29-year-old movie in her (print) headline: Will our future be A Tail Wagging a Dog, Forever?

  William Shakespeare might have invoked letting slip the dogs of war to describe the unleashing of violence, but these days we just "wag the dog." Popularized by Our American Cousin—the play being performed at Ford's Theatre when President Abraham Lincoln was shot—the phrase took on an explicitly political meaning after the ripped-from-the-headlines 1997 film Wag the Dog. In that otherwise pretty awful movie, a fabricated military conflict was used to distract voters from a presidential sex scandal. Since then, the term has become shorthand for the idea that leaders sometimes use military action to divert attention from problems at home.

  A wag-the-dog allegation need not mean the reasons for war are made up from whole cloth. Real geopolitical tensions, real strategic dilemmas, and real threats obviously exist. But the utility of a foreign conflict as a tool for domestic political positioning—especially when electoral outcomes are looking shaky—is a recurring theme in American history.

  Trump's approval ratings are notably terrible. National polling aggregates suggest his job approval stands somewhere near 40 percent. A president facing a highly competitive election year and significant scrutiny on issues ranging from the economy to the ongoing incredulity and disappointment about the release of the Epstein files might well cast about for a distraction.

  I'm pretty much a fan of blowing up Iranian bad guys, but KMW deserves your attention.

• Argumentum ad … You Know Whomium. Granite Grok's Steve MacDonald goes there in his examination of The Googleoligarchy.

  People have gotten used to the idea that Google’s metrics are the alpha and omega of everything related to web traffic. This is an institutional lie accepted after years of a monopoly on search. Google’s search algorithms serve one purpose. To optimize ad revenue for Google. Actual traffic results may vary, but our previous hosting company based its billing model on actual visits and the bandwidth required.

  The result was that our real traffic was about two to four times what Google declared the word of the Alphabet gods and still is.

  Google has also used its prominence for other forms of evil. Copyright holders have been after it for decades as it scoops up content and makes it available, which is an interesting contrast to what happens on YouTube if you record at an event and it hears music in the background that you don’t have permission to “use.”

  Well, Steve goes on, building on his personal pique, to…

  It’s how you end up with Hitler, or the supposed organ vans in China. People disappearing in the night, and no one dares question why, so they won’t be next. Systemic cultural suppression of speech and manipulation of thought.

  Google would love that, and so would the proglodytes as long as it answered to them. They could control more than speech. They could control online reality, which, in the increasingly connected world, is maddeningly the same as the real world to far too many people.

  Trump’s DOJ, (btw) is actively suing Google for “antitrust violations, specifically targeting its monopolization of the search engine and digital advertising markets.” Is there enough time to prove the case or break it up before an actual king sits in the Oval Office?

  Yes, he went there:

  

  For the record: I use Google Chrome, Gmail, their calendar, and their search engine. They provide fantastic, useful software, all free-to-me. I'm pretty sure that I've said this in the past: There's nothing wrong with Google that the government can't make worse.

  (But N.B.: DuckDuckGo is Pun Salad's choice in the right-hand column for site-searching.)

Recently on the movie blog:

An increasingly rare thing for me: going out to watch a movie in a theater. But Pun Son and I managed to head down to Newington (NH) to see this blockbuster. As I type, IMDB raters put it at position #78 on the top 250 movies of all time. Ahead of Toy Story?! I don't know about that, but I had a good time.

As in the book, Rylan Grace wakes up amnesiac, not even knowing his own name, let alone his situation. But he's very alone, save for two dessicated corpses he discovers early on. (One of them being Lily from those old AT&T commercials, but don't worry, Milana Vayntrub fans, she shows up in flashbacks.)

Grace gradually recovers his memory, and (spoilers ahead) also his purpose: against all odds, find out why a deadly menace is eating the Earth's sun, and come up with a fix that will save the world. Unexpected help arrives from Epsilon Eridani.

A good word for Ryan Gosling, who plays "everyman" Grace with grace.

Relevant to (especially) the bull on the left side of Mr. Ramirez's cartoon is this WSJ story: Trump’s Signature to Appear on U.S. Paper Currency.

Trump seems to always find new ways to get his name and face on stuff. This is nothing new, I guess. But putting your name on a product that will almost certainly continue to be worth less and less: Is that a smart way to remind people who's in charge?

Also weighing in, Jim Geraghty: Trump Signs the Dollar Bill. If you're wondering if anyone could outdo Bessent in cloying sycophancy, Jim finds:

I am not sure that even Kim Jong Un gets praise this overblown, yet undeserved.

Also of note:

• Goin' to the "No Kings" Rally? Jonathan Alpert (a psychotherapist) says you may be disappointed in the result: ‘No Kings’: Politics as Bad Group Therapy. (WSJ gifted link)

  After a “No Kings” rally last October, I was walking through the area and paused to read the signs. A woman asked me, “Aren’t these great?”

  “I don’t know,” I replied. “I kind of like some of Trump’s policies.”

  “Well, f— you then.”

  The No Kings rallies are set to return Saturday—the third such round in the past year—built around a slogan that suggests Americans are living under something closer to tyranny than democracy. It’s a striking claim for a country that fought a revolution to overthrow a king and hasn’t had one since. Still, it’s revealing. It reflects a broader shift in how political disagreement is understood—not as a clash of views, but as a struggle between victims and villains.

  I'm sure I could head on down to a nearby demonstration to get my fair share of abuse… but no, I think I'll pass. Because, not only can I not always get what I want, but…

• I'm presuaded by Thomas W. Hazlett. Who wrote, back in 1976 In Defense of Apathy.

  We hear much these days of the virtue of “involvement.” Honored are the “activists” who so boldly and humanely watch out for their fellow man. “Community-minded,” “civic awareness,” and “socially conscious” are true-blue banners, the merit badges of the 100 per cent Twentieth Century solid citizen.

  The cry for involvement is most frequently raised on the campus. Second-semester freshmen, in frantic search for the passionate days of relevance and revolution of such recent memory, ask: Where is the involvement? Where is the community action? Where are the people who really care?

  Wake up people! Get involved! Whip that Apathy! Make a better world! Organize your Community! Change your Nation! Reform the World!

  On the contrary!

  Maligned and persecuted, apathy—in the social sense of the word—is possibly the noblest of civic virtues. The ability to mind your own business, to let others do their thing, and to concentrate your efforts on your own life, are the discerning characteristics of a well-adjusted and competent human being.

  You may disagree, but (see above) I don't care.

• I'm going to treat this as good news. Matthew Petti claims Trump can't TACO his way out of the Iran war.

  The U.S.-Iranian war has taken on a strange rhythm. Several times, often just before the end of the trading day or weekend, U.S. President Donald Trump announced that Iran is about to fold and the war will be over soon. Billions of dollars through markets moved as traders bet that oil prices would fall and stock prices would rise. Then they came into work the next business day to discover that the war was still happening.

  The latest iteration happened this week when Trump claimed to have held "very strong talks" with Iran, setting a five-day deadline for an agreement. He then hinted at a planned peace summit in Pakistan. Iran publicly rejected both a U.S. peace proposal and the very idea of direct talks. An Iranian official told Al Jazeera that Trump's opening offer, sent through Pakistani middlemen, was "unreasonable" and nothing like the media leaks from the American side suggested.

  Gee, I guess we'll just have to keep blowing up "Iranian officials" until we find some that are willing to take even an "unreasonable" offer.

• I'm a sucker for any article with brain worms in the headline. And Jeff Maurer delivers the goods: The Brain Worms Behind the Institutional Investor Ban.

  Congress is working on an affordable housing bill that may end up making housing less affordable. That’s Orwellian even for Congress, which has a long tradition of giving bills names that describe the opposite of what the bill does, e.g. a bill to breed mutated pterodactyls that feast on children’s brains will be called “The Safe Playgrounds Act”.

  The part of the bill that turns an otherwise-good-effort into a possible net negative is a provision that restricts investment in single-family homes built for renters. The logic is that big companies shouldn’t own houses, because…well, the “because” is what this article is about. The argument that investors shouldn’t invest is unique to houses; you never hear someone say “companies shouldn’t invest in restaurants” or “you should only have a car if you whittle it yourself out of a log”.

  And the bizarre fact is that the two main proponents of this viewpoint are Elizabeth Warren and Donald Trump. Here are the two putting partisanship aside to agree on a dumb aphorism that could worsen our housing crisis:

  TRUMP AT THE STATE OF THE UNION: “We want homes for people, not for corporations.”

  WARREN ON CNBC: “Homes should be for families, not giant corporations.”

  Jeff points out that (um…) "giant corporations" would not actually be living in those homes. ("They wouldn't fit!")

Our Eye Candy du Jour is pretty nasty, and comes via Nellie Bowles' TGIF column:

Applause line at protest in Philly: "For every US soldier who comes back in casket, we cheer!"
pic.twitter.com/Kloa4Poodu

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) March 25, 2026

Nellie mentions other stuff too, but here's her commentary: `

To be fair it's not a huge crowd. Still…

At the WSJ's "Free Expression" newsletter, James B. Meigs has more on the morons: The Radicals Next Door. (WSJ gifted link)

I'm sure tomorrow's "No Kings" protests will avoid encouraging "any means necessary." Or maybe not. (My awful local paper posted a "news" story that's essentially a No Kings ad.)

Also of note:

• Just don't call it something cute, like "Librtarianism 2.0". Randy Barnett has some thoughts about tweaking the philosophy: Libertarianism Updated.

  I see five distinct ways that libertarian theory needs to up its game.

  First, the need for natural law ethics in addition to natural rights; second, the need to distinguish between libertarian ideal theory and second-best libertarianism in a world of governments and competing nations; third, the need for a libertarian theory of citizenship and civil rights; fourth, the need to separate the public-private binary from the government-nongovernment binary; and fifth, the need for a more refined theory of corporate power and corporate rights.

  He expands on each. It's worth any libertarian's (or semi-libertarian's) consideration.

• For another philosophical take… Erik W. Matson writes at the Freeman about The Classical Liberal Sensibility.

  In 2019, George Will elaborated his vision of American conservatism in The Conservative Sensibility. American conservatism is a “sensibility,” according to Will, in that it is something “more than an attitude and less than an agenda.” It entails a broad approach to politics flowing from an appreciation of the wisdom of the American founders—especially James Madison. Will’s conservatism does not prescribe specific policy commitments, but rather emphasizes prudential action to preserve the American constitutional order, which Will characterizes as “classically liberal.” To be a true American conservative, then, is to strive to promote and conserve classically liberal social and political arrangements.

  But what does it mean to be a classical liberal? This question, surprisingly, has received some media attention in recent weeks, provoked by the podcaster Katie Miller’s remarkable assertion that “the principles of classical liberal democracy” represent a “woke and deeply leftist ideology.”

  Miller’s assertion has been widely and justly ridiculed in a number of outlets from Yahoo News to The Atlantic to Reason. Her respondents have offered various descriptions of classical liberalism. The articles at Yahoo News and The Atlantic approvingly quote an X post by the actor and podcaster Jon Favreau responding to Miller that equates classical liberalism with a “system of liberal democracy that’s built on free elections, the rule of law, equal rights, and the freedom of speech; assembly, press, and religion.” At The Atlantic, Jonathan Chait describes classical liberalism as “an Enlightenment philosophy, developed by thinkers such as John Locke and John Stuart Mill, built upon individual rights and limited government.” Robby Soave at Reason says that classical liberalism is a “forerunner of modern libertarianism: It is a philosophy that emphasizes individual rights, including civil rights and property rights.”

  I missed all the Katie Miller pushback, but I hope the above links make up for that. I reported on George Will's book here. Spoiler: I liked it a lot.

• It's a little sad that the competition is so poor. But, overall, the Josiah Bartlett Center brings the good news to Granite Staters: NH ranks first in taxpayer ROI for 11th straight year.

  “New Hampshire is the state with the best taxpayer return on investment, which is due in large part to the fact that it has no state income tax,” WalletHub’s report concludes. “Residents only pay property taxes, sales taxes and excise taxes to the state. The Granite State’s tax resources have had a good impact on crime prevention and the environment, as the state has the lowest crime rate and the third-lowest air pollution in the country. It has one of the best public school systems as well.”

  The top three states for taxpayer ROI—New Hampshire, Florida and South Dakota—have no income tax.

  Of the other New England states, only Rhode Island (19th) ranks in the top half of states on taxpayer ROI.

  WalletHub's study is here: States with the Best & Worst Taxpayer ROI

• I wasn't ackshually cheering, but anyway… FIRE's Ari Cohn The Big Tech verdicts you’re cheering for are actually terrible for free speech.

  The verdicts against social media companies in California and New Mexico over the past two days reveal a disturbing trend: Americans are increasingly willing to view speech as a “product,” subject to regulation in the same way physical substances like alcohol or tobacco are. Many are cheering the decisions, likening them to landmark lawsuits against Big Tobacco.

  Let’s be clear: An Instagram post isn’t a cigarette. A YouTube short isn’t a shot of whiskey. Social media platforms and the information, ideas, and entertainment they connect people to aren’t tangible items that inherently and invariably have physical impacts on the human body. No matter how you feel about social media, the minute we start treating speech as if it were just another physical product is the minute we hand the government the power to decide what we can read, watch, and say.

  That’s dangerous — and the First Amendment forbids it.

  Sigh. The censors (and litigious lawyers) are forever trying to get around that pesky First Amendment.

Mr Ramirez knows:

This is all in the context of trying to pass the "SAVE Act" via a filibuster bypass, something that sensible people consider a ‘foolish and lazy idea’

Not to say that voting fraud isn't real. Because, according to Kevin D. Williamson: Yes, Voting Fraud Is Real. (archive.today link)

But let KDW put that in context:

But you should Read The Whole Thing.

Also of note:

• I blame Claude. I wouldn't rule him out, anyway. The Free Press editorialists tell us Insider Trading Takes Washington.

  Between 6:49 a.m. and 6:50 a.m. on Monday, somebody—or several somebodies—bought 6,200 oil futures contracts with a notional value of $580 million. Twenty-four minutes later, at 7:04 a.m., President Donald Trump took to Truth Social to announce that the administration was holding off on bombing Iran’s oil fields, and was instead in the process of negotiating a deal.

  The effect of this on the markets was exactly what you’d expect. Stocks soared, while the benchmark Brent crude fell from $113 a barrel to $96, according to the Financial Times. Whoever that somebody—or several somebodies—was, the timing of their trade right before Trump’s announcement made them a lot of money.

  I wouldn't rule out the possibility that some geek working in his basement cooked up an AI algorithm that saw Trump's action coming. But if the past 14 months have taught us anything, it's that Trump has surrounded himself with amoral grifters who would absolutely do something like this if they thought they could get away with it.

• Speaking of amoral grifters… The WSJ editorialists observe a recent legal theft: The Social-Media Shakedown Begins. (WSJ gifted link)

  A Los Angeles jury on Wednesday held Meta Platforms and Google’s YouTube liable for a 20-year-old woman’s personal troubles. The schadenfreude will be overwhelming—nail the billionaires! But using a novel product liability theory to shake down companies won’t help young people and isn’t a good way to make law.

  The $6 million verdict against the two companies is the first of more than 3,000 lawsuits pending in California courts that seek to hold social-media companies liable for the travails of young people. School districts and more than 40 state Attorneys General have also sued for damages to compensate for social problems allegedly caused by the platforms.

  Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act protects internet platforms from being held liable for harm caused by user-generated content. But plaintiffs are trying to dodge that law by arguing the platforms were negligent in how they designed their sites. They claim that features like so-called infinite scrolling and “like” buttons—not user posts per se—harm children. Whether this theory trumps Section 230 will be the main issue on appeal, and the platforms have a strong case.

  I probably won't be able to avoid the late-night lawyer ads: "Did someone you love get depressed because of social media? Call us today!…"

• An interesting defense. Bryan Caplan on a possible out for algorithms: LLMs and SCOTUS.

  Since the New Deal, the Supreme Court has given government almost unlimited power to regulate the economy. Wickard v. Filburn (1942) infamously ruled that a farmer growing wheat to feed his own animals on his own farm was nevertheless engaged in “interstate commerce.” Given this stance, it’s hard to see how the courts could justify any restrictions on government regulation of the rapidly growing Artificial Intelligence industry.

  Hard, that is, as long as you call it “the Artificial Intelligence industry.” But all of the top AIs also go by another acronym: LLMs, which of course stands for Large Language Models.* Which makes sense, because the primary output of this industry is just a bunch of words.

  So what? While the Supreme Court has given government a virtual carte blanche to regulate the economy for over 80 years, constitutional protection of freedom of expression has probably never been stronger. In 1969, the Supreme Court moved from the classic “clear and present danger” test for permissible regulation of free speech to the even higher “imminent lawless action” test. By eviscerating obscenity law, Miller v. California (1973) even effectively extended full constitutional protection to almost all pornography, allowing the industry to thrive despite its extreme unpopularity. Though more Americans morally condemn pornography than abortion, the Supreme Court stands with porn.

  It's been quite a few years since Reason took this route to avoid the censor: YouTube Won't Host Our Homemade Gun Video. So We Posted It on PornHub Instead.

• Le freak, c'est chic! National Review notes the onset of panic mode: The More Americans Use AI, the More They Fear It. (archive.today link)

  That's the actual headline. The article's HTML title is better: "The American People Are Freaking Out About Widespread AI Adoption"

  Artificial intelligence is increasingly becoming a part of daily life for many Americans — and they aren’t happy about it.

  As AI continues to accelerate at breakneck speed, working its way into an increasing number of economic sectors and transforming everyday interactions, the technology is fast becoming one of the most disliked forces in American life. This backlash, captured by a growing pile of survey data, adds urgency to the AI policy debates happening on the national level and across state governments, where lawmakers, entrenched tech interests, and consumer protection groups battle over the height of regulatory guardrails.

  A poll from NBC News released last week found AI has a -20 approval rating, with 26 percent rating it positively compared to 46 percent who were negative. The only institutions that proved less popular in the poll were the Democratic Party at -22 approval and Iran at -53 approval.

  Well, that's awful. History tells us what happens when hasty regulations are enacted at the behest of a panicked populace.

  And not that it matters, but I got Claude to help me out with automating construction of my Amazon Affiliate links yesterday. Amazon's documentation was (as near as I can tell) pretty opaque on the issue.

  I could not resist telling Claude:

  Fantastic. I know you don't need thanks, but thank you anyway.

  The response:

  That's kind of you to say — genuinely appreciated. Good luck with the affiliate links!

  Genuinely? Um, well, I guess if you say so, my friend.

Zoe Strimpel tells of The Terrorizing of British Jews at the Free Press:

And just a reminder from Matthew Hennessey at the WSJ's "Free Expression" newsletter: They Are Trying to Kill Jews.

Matthew's bottom line:

Mark my words: Something terrible is going to happen. Bondi Beach will happen here. Someone will attack a school or a synagogue and won’t miss. And then we will be forced to listen to disingenuous nitwit after disingenuous nitwit issue empty condemnations of the scourge of antisemitism.

I hope he's wrong. I fear he isn't.

Also of note:

• I got this pathetic smear in the mail yesterday. And NHJournal's Michael Graham has some information about it: Down Big, Brown Allies Go Epstein on Sununu.

  The super PAC supporting Scott Brown’s U.S. Senate campaign hit his GOP primary opponent, John E. Sununu, with a mailer attempting to link him to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

  The $130,000 mail campaign targeting potential GOP primary voters hit mailboxes the day after a new St. Anselm College Survey Center poll found Brown losing to Sununu in the GOP primary by 21 points, 49-28 percent.

  The mailer was paid for by the “Strong As Granite” PAC, created to support Brown’s Senate campaign, and is listed as an independent expenditure.

  A representative of the PAC did not respond to requests for comment from NHJournal.

  Approximately 3.5 million pages of the so-called “Epstein files” have been released so far. The mailer includes a screen capture of one email from 2010 between Epstein and Boris Nikolic, a physician and former adviser to Bill Gates, that contains the phrase, “John Sununu has good stories.”

  I thought John E. Sununu was OK as my CongressCritter (1997-2003) and his single term as a US Senator (2003-2009). At least as OK as any politician. I was leaning toward voting for him in the September primary anyway, and this sort of trash makes my lean a little heavier that way.

• "Aw, man, I'm all outta cash!" I got reminded of this old (stupid but I laughed) SNL skit:

  It came to mind when reading this Cato article from Chris Edwards: Postal Service Out of Cash.

  The head of the US Postal Service (USPS) warned Congress last week that the government-run company was running out of cash. Postmaster General David Steiner said the USPS was facing a “severe financial crisis” and could not solve the problem on its own because of restrictions imposed by Congress.

  The USPS has lost money every year since 2007 as mail volumes have plunged and the company’s productivity has declined. Its future is bleak unless Congress enacts major restructuring.

  If you're interested, my USPS recommendation (privatize it) was back in September of last year, a fisking of an op-ed column by a local pundit.

• He's moved on to actual war. Kevin D. Williamson regrets to tell us: Trump’s Trade War Is Not Over. (archive.today link)

  Liars think everyone is a liar, cheaters think everyone is a cheat, etc.: You know that story. Donald Trump is, from time to time, shocked that the world is not populated by grifters and con artists as thoroughly corrupt as he, and he sometimes confesses his consternation in a way that would be amusing if he were in the high-dollar Palm Beach retirement home where he belongs rather than waging illegal wars willy-nilly in Iran, Venezuela, Ecuador, possibly Cuba, as well as on random boats in the Caribbean, inconveniently located girls’ schools, Democratic cities, and the U.S. economy. He is, by his own telling, distressed that the justices he has appointed to the Supreme Court attempt to follow the Constitution rather than simply do his bidding. Earlier in March, he thundered on his boutique social-media site:

  The decision that mattered most to me was TARIFFS! The Court knew where I stood, how badly I wanted this Victory for our Country, and instead decided to, potentially, give away Trillions of Dollars to Countries and Companies who have been taking advantage of the United States for decades.

  …

  The Democrats on the Court always “stick together,” no matter how strong a case is put before them — There is rarely even a minor “waver.” But Republicans do not do this. They openly disrespect the Presidents who nominate them to the highest position in the Land, a Justice of the United States Supreme Court, and go out of their way, with bad and wrongful rulings and intentions, to prove how “honest,” “independent,” and “legitimate” they are.

  I do love the sneer quotes around “honest” and “legitimate.” Small wonder he lost his shirt in Atlantic City: Trump has no poker face—he always tells you exactly what he is thinking.

  As always, KDW is not a fan of President Bone Spurs.

• I miss P.J. O'Rourke. One of his classic essays, "Ship of Fools" described his 1982 journey on the "Volga Peace Cruise", sponsored by The Nation magazine. His "fellow travelers" (heh) were kind of a hoot.

  That came to mind reading Jeffrey Blehar's newsletter about the Code Pink visit to Cuba: Lefty Influencers Embrace Poverty Tourism on Cuba Junket.

  Ladies and gentlemen, joy is back again. While the rest of America was nervously eyeing shipping reports from the Strait of Hormuz, some of the worst people you know decided the time was right to draw the media world’s attention to the one target on Marco Rubio’s (s)hit list the United States hasn’t used military force against yet: Cuba. And what fantastic timing they have chosen.

  No doubt concluding that it’s too late for Venezuela or Iran, the infamous communist “anti-war” group Code Pink has decided it is time to raise awareness about the looming imperialist threat posed by the United States to its humble authoritarian neighbor. (The United States has choked off Cuba’s oil supply in recent months via tariff threats.) To that end, it gathered together the West’s most annoying young leftists — among the American subset Hasan Piker, Isra Hirsi (daughter of Ilhan Omar), and the sartorially obnoxious editor of Current Affairs, Nathan J. Robinson — for a big junket to Havana. They were going there to raise the consciousness of the online masses, to see just how oppressed this beautiful nation is by Uncle Sam, and presumably to also engage in some light third-worldist cosplay.

  The “Nuestra America Convoy” was also theoretically supposed to bring humanitarian supplies and food along with it — a page ripped from the Gaza Flotilla playbook, in other words. But its real purpose — as far as the participants were concerned, at least — was to give hundreds of well-connected and compensated influencers access to the creature comforts the Cuban regime historically doles out to its privileged guests: being carted around to restaurants, concerts, and VIP meetups, put up in Havana’s Gran Hotel (the city’s lone five-star lodging), and given carefully guided tours. Why, the brave convoy members were even given a special performance by “anti-colonialist” Northern Irish rap-rock act Kneecap! (I had to double-check here to make sure this wasn’t a case of the communist regime momentarily reverting to its natural preference for torture.)

  I only wish Jeffrey could have gone along with them to get the full pinko experience.

(Headline is a reference to a ham-fisted (but star-studded) movie from a few years back. The allegory works even better for Mr. Ramirez.)

Also of note:

• Techdirt good for something. In this case, it's Mike Masnick's analysis of a recent anti-AI stunt: Bernie Sanders “Interviewed” A Chatbot To Expose AI’s Secrets. It Has No Secrets. It Just Agrees With You.

  Senator Bernie Sanders has a viral video making the rounds in which he “interviews” Anthropic’s Claude chatbot about the dangers of AI and privacy. It has over two million views. Plenty of people are sharing it. And it might be one of the most unintentionally revealing demonstrations of AI’s actual problems that a politician has ever produced — just not in the way Sanders thinks.

  In the video, Sanders asks Claude a series of questions about AI, privacy, and data collection, and Claude gives a series of alarming-sounding answers about corporate surveillance and threats to democracy. Sanders nods gravely. The implication is clear: even the AI itself admits that AI companies are doing terrible things to your privacy! If that doesn’t convince you, what will?

  But that’s ridiculous if you actually understand how this stuff works (which Sanders clearly does not). When you “interview” a large language model you are talking to a very sophisticated text prediction system that is specifically designed to give you responses that are (possibly) helpful, (hopefully) relevant, and (obsequiously) agreeable — shaped entirely by how you framed the question. It’s not there to help you uncover hidden truths. It’s not a whistleblower. It’s not a witness in a congressional hearing, which is exactly what Sanders’ staging is designed to imply.

  Mike embeds the video (now up to 2.6 million views as I type) and so will I:

  And (also as I type) 15,367 comments!

• I never met a verse I didn't like. I'm sure someone has already made that comment at Neal Stephenson's substack in a response to his non-eulogy for [His] Prodigal Brainchild.

  It feels incumbent upon me to write something about last week’s big news in which the company formerly known as Facebook decided to shut down its Metaverse project on which it has, according to various reports, spent eighty billion dollars.

  I spelled that figure out because it’s more zeroes and commas than I can type in before blowing through my attention span and losing track.

  This event has unleashed yet another spate of Internet cartoons depicting tombstones with the word METAVERSE chiseled into them, a genre that comes and goes every few years.

  To abuse another saying: "The Metaverse is dead! Long live the Metaverse!"

  But seriously, Neal makes his usual insightful and amusing observations.

• Unfortunately, there was still considerable collateral damage. James Lileks in the current National Review writes on Paul Ehrlich’s Unexploded Ordnance. (NR gifted link)

  The whole thing is great, but I'll excerpt James' comment on the thing that irked me last week:

  The subhead of Ehrlich’s New York Times obituary was amusing: “His best-selling 1968 book, which forecast global famines, made him a leader of the environmental movement. But he faced criticism when his predictions proved premature.” Premature. As in, “It’ll surely happen eventually, and we hope so because people are a pestilence and Mother Earth weeps every time a baby is born.” Optimism, of course, is for fools who just don’t know how bad things are — and who can actually close their eyes at night without thinking about microplastics.

  As populations crash all over the world, the specter of numberless hordes clashing over the last pack of peanuts no longer haunts the leftist imagination. It might occur to them that societies could suffer from population decline, particularly in places where the system is set up to extract money from one small group and give it [to] a much larger one. Well, if it comes to that, we can just turn to incompatible cultures and import grand quantities of sullen dudes who are disinclined to adapt. If they vote correctly, what’s the downside? Okay, well, some of them might blow themselves up at a Christmas celebration, but that’s the price you gotta pay. The metaphorical Population Bomb was horrible! The literal population bomb, well, we can work with that.

  I've already talked ad nauseam about the "collateral damage" of Ehrlich and his crew.

• The answer is still "No". Sergio Martínez asks: Could Artificial Intelligence Finally Make Central Planning Work? Going to the Man Himself:

  Hayek argued that the economic problem facing society is a problem of knowledge, not of computation. The information required to coordinate an economy does not exist in one central location. Instead, it is dispersed across millions of individuals.

  Much of this knowledge is highly localized. It concerns specific circumstances of time and place: changing consumer preferences, temporary opportunities, technical know-how, or practical experience.

  Much of it is also tacit. People often know how to do things without being able to articulate that knowledge fully. Markets provide a mechanism for continuously generating and transmitting this dispersed information through prices. But central planning does not.

  I wonder if anyone's asked Claude (see above) this question.

• If you really want to alleviate poverty… Tyler Cowen says you should be Giving Up on the ‘Giving Pledge’. Skipping to his bottom line:

  The pledge was always a vote for affectation and image over substance, hardly an auspicious way to get philanthropy off the ground. If you want to give away a lot of money, as many people should, you do not have to sign the pledge. You can just do it.

  So allow me to propose an alternative. Instead of a Giving Pledge, how about a “Doing Pledge”? After all, many of these very wealthy individuals are semiretired, yet they still could be extremely effective at managing beneficial projects, whether they be nonprofit, for-profit, or something in between.

  “What have you done for us lately?” is a tougher question to answer than “What money have you given away?” And likely a better one, too.

  I'm still a little steamed that my (large, for me) donation last November to the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute was utterly dwarfed by the announcement a few weeks later about the $15,000,000 they paid to the federal government in December to settle "allegations" of fraud in obtaining research grants. Gee, glad I could help out!

A lot of self-flattery is found when looking at Amazon's array of political-statement paraphernalia. I don't usually fall for it, but… hey, I liked the frog.

At the WSJ this morn, Andy Kessler's column is a celebratory and cautionary combination: Woke Goes Up in Smoke. (WSJ gifted link)

Andy warns later: "But like all slasher movies, the killer isn’t dead yet. He’s hiding in the dark." Could be. As Thomas Jefferson did not say (but is nonetheless true): "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty."

So stay awake.

Also of note:

• Failed Prophet I. Matt Ridley apparently now posts at the Rational Optimist Society substack. A recent contibution bids farewell to Paul Ehrlich's anti-human legacy.

  The butterfly biologist turned rock-star eco-pessimist, Paul Ehrlich has died at the age of 93. That in itself is remarkable because in 1970 he forecast that within the coming decade “100-200 million people per year will be starving to death” and “by 1985 enough millions will have died to reduce the earth’s population to some acceptable level, like 1.5 billion people”. Furthermore, by 1980 the life expectancy of the average American would have fallen 42 years as a result of cancer caused by pesticides.

  Yet he not only lived more than 50 years longer than 42; he lived to be one of more than 8 billion people in a world where global life expectancy has increased at the average rate of seven hours per day since he forecast it would collapse. Meanwhile, famine has all but gone extinct, with death rates from mass starvation down to a tiny fraction of what they were in the 1960s. Here are the astounding numbers: in the 1960s, 29.7 million people out of a population of 3 billion died in famines that killed more than 100,000 people each. In the 2010s, 1.1 million out of a population of more than 8 billion died in such episodes: a decline of 99% in the death rate.

  In short, Ehrlich was wrong. Not, as the New York Times said in its obituary this week, “premature”, but radically, completely, spectacularly wrong. He was wrong as soon as he put pen to paper and went on being wrong for decades afterwards. He shot to fame with a best-selling book in 1968, The Population Bomb, whose prologue dismissed all hope for humankind: “The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate.”

  I recently read Dan Wang's book Breakneck, which (among many other things) detailed the death and misery caused not by famine, but by China's One Child Policy, carried out by people who made the mistake of believing Ehrlich and his ilk.

• Failed Prophet II. Bjørn Lomborg takes to the pages of the latest issue of National Review to "celebrate" the 20th anniversery of An Inconvenient Truth, aka Al Gore’s False Prophecy. (NR gifted link)

  Two decades have passed since Al Gore’s movie An Inconvenient Truth hit theaters, in May 2006, catapulting climate change into the global spotlight. The film, with its dramatic visuals and dire warnings, transformed the issue from a niche ecological concern into a front-page crisis. World leaders in rich countries began labeling it an “existential threat,” and it dominated international agendas. Gore’s message especially resonated with the elites who travel by private jet to attend global conferences, and it inspired a generation of influencers, activists, and policymakers.

  As we approach the film’s 20th anniversary, it’s a time to reflect on not just its impact but its accuracy. The film’s predictions of escalating catastrophes have largely failed to materialize, its policy prescriptions have fallen short, and the $16 trillion currently spent in pursuit of its vision has delivered scant benefits. An Inconvenient Truth encapsulates the past two decades of climate debate: heavy on emotion and costs, light on evidence and benefits.

  As Marvin Gaye taught us many years ago: "Believe half of what you see Son, and none of what you hear, and also nothing from Al Gore."

• "Never mind." Robert Graboyes looks at the long history of finding fascists under the bed: Give 'em Hell, Hairy.

  I can’t say how many times in recent weeks I’ve heard some American politician (often, but not always, Donald Trump) described as a “fascist.” Let me offer some alternative terms suitable for bipartisan bile: authoritarian, autocrat, bully, blowhard, hoodlum, hooligan, narcissist, thug, gangster, goon, strongman. Use any of these words, and the conversation can continue, punctuated but not upended by the invective. Use “fascist,” and the original conversation vanishes beneath a smog of sophistry over what fascism is and who deserves the label.

  Anyone who calls some contemporary American political figure a fascist instantly becomes Roseanne Roseannadanna—Gilda Radner’s SNL “consumer journalist”—and so does everyone else in the conversation. Roseannadanna would read a query on some specific topic from a viewer (usually “a Mister Richard Fedder from Fort Lee, New Jersey”), gloss over the query for 10 or 15 seconds, and then meander ad nauseam over some pointless, irrelevant anecdote involving a posh celebrity (e.g., Joyce Brothers, Yves Saint-Laurent, Princess Lee Radziwill) and a grotesque bodily function (e.g., sweat balls, navel lint, boogers, toilet paper stuck on shoes, greasy hair, runny noses, bad breath, armpit stains, foot odor, pantyhose runs, dandruff, food stuck in teeth, earwax, ingrown hairs, rashes, zits, stomach noises, gas, underarm hair, panty lines, sweaty socks, smudged lipstick, cheap wigs, ill-fitting bras, and hemorrhoids.) When the exasperated Jane Curtin would inquire as to the relevance of the peroration, Roseannadanna would answer:

  “Well, Jane, it’s always something. If it’s not one thing, it’s another.”

  Mind you, every single one of Roseannadanna’s musings was more interesting, informative, and thoughtful than any discussion of whether “fascist” is or is not an appropriate label for Trump or any other 21st century American politician. I blame a 20th century politician—Harry S Truman—for the Left’s descent into Roseannadannaism. (Occasionally, right-wingers calling left-wingers “Fascist,” but such usages are less frequent and less mainstream.)

  Robert provides a fine history of the careless, stupid smear.

• But speaking of smears… Jeff Maurer wrotes of one that never went out of style: Why the Drunken, Brawling Irish Got Me Thinking About Hannah Gadsby.

  For whatever reason, this year I really noticed the flamboyantly non-PC nature of St. Patrick’s Day. Drinking is the cornerstone of the whole thing, so much so that even hipster cocktail bars will slap a paper leprechaun on the wall and dye their twee bottles of liqueur made from daffodils bright green. The obviously-not-Irish are encouraged to participate, and fake accents abound. My son’s preschool class covered green paper plates with stickers of shamrocks, rainbows, and buckle-clad green stovepipe hats, and I wondered what the equivalent project would look like for, say, Chinese New Year or Cinco de Mayo.

  Every comedian knows that you can joke about the Irish. Conan O’Brien, who might be literally the most Irish man who ever lived, jokes about being Irish all the time. 30 Rock is full of Irish jokes about Jack and Dennis and Jack’s high school girlfriend from Boston. TV writers live in fear of the network or a sensitivity reader dragging you into a deadly earnest conversation about a joke you wrote at 2AM while drunk, but I have never heard of an Irish joke triggering that conversation. And then there’s the Notre Dame Fighting Irish logo, which is a literal brawling leprechaun but is beloved and defended by fans of that school.

  What should we make of all this? I think the implication is obvious: The Irish are cool winners. Irish stereotypes mattered back when there were political parties dedicated to Irish oppression, but these days, Irish Americans are highly successful according to pretty much any metric you choose. Ireland itself is a robust economy and an intermittently successful soccer team. The Irish in America won — everything they aspired to back when Daniel Day Lewis was trying to drive them out of New York happened. So why should they care if a cultural celebration sometimes bleeds into clumsy stereotypes? How does that hurt them? The answer is: It doesn’t. They’re secure and successful and some lightly-offensive imagery can be — and is — laughed off.

  And then Hannah Gadsby shows up. Read on, if you dare.

Recently on the book blog:

OK, so it's a little gimmicky. Right at the beginning, Joe Pickett's truck has been discovered at "Antler Creek Junction", with multiple bullet holes, one of them in Joe's head.

Does Joe survive? Reader, you know the answer as well as I do: if Arthur Conan Doyle couldn't kill off Sherlock Holmes at Reichenbach Falls, C.J. Box is not going to kill off Joe Pickett at Antler Creek Junction.

But, aside from a few flashbacks to his investigations, Joe spends most of this book comatose in a Billings hospital, watched over by wife Marybeth. Leaving daughters Sheridan, Lucy, and April to do their own investigating. Joe was obviously set up for the ambush by one of the ranches accessed via Antler Creek Junction. Only problem being: there are three of them. And they are all acting kinda sus, as the kids say.

Worse: the perpetrators are still in the area, and they won't get paid unless and until they finish the job of killing Joe. And the diligent investigations of the daughters puts them in danger as well.

The usual very good outing from Mr. Box.

I'm not endorsing this necessarily, but why should people not paying taxes ("no taxation") get to vote ("representation") at all?

Also of note:

• Isn't it pretty to think so? Peter Boettke argues: No matter how good AI gets, it won’t beat markets.

  Whenever we see big leaps in computation, would-be central planners come out of the woodwork, claiming this finally makes it possible to organize the economy better than markets do — optimizing tax rates, producing enough to meet our needs, and allocating resources in a way that maximizes well-being for all.

  Such arguments gained theoretical prominence in the early 20th century, saw a resurgence with the mid-century advent of modern computing and operations research, and have emerged again with the impressive advance of artificial intelligence (AI).

  But this line of thinking rests on a false premise: that an economy is nothing more than a computational problem to be solved with accurate equations and enough data and processing power.

  Peter points to his short paper written with Gabriel Giguère: Markets and Machines, published up Canada way.

  Unfortunately, politicians on both sides of the border are perfectly willing to not wait for AI to number-crunch this out, but simply to use their NS ("Natural Stupidity") to imagine they can set tax rates, impose tariffs, subsidize, prohibit, regulate, and mandate, all to an optimal result.

  That's … unlikely. Hayek called it a "fatal conceit".

• Demagogues disagree. But I think Matthew Hennessey has it right: Taxation Should Be Flat and Low. (WSJ gifted link)

  The Journal reports that Democratic Sens. Cory Booker (N.J.) and Chris Van Hollen (Md.) are cooking up separate proposals to eliminate income taxes on low earners. Mr. Van Hollen’s plan would exempt individuals making less than $46,000 and married couples making less than $92,000. Mr. Booker’s plan would increase the standard deduction and various tax credits to the point of eliminating taxes on income below $37,500 for individuals and $75,000 for couples.

  You might be tempted to say, OK, fine, what’s the harm? Let people keep their money. In fact, Mr. Booker’s plan is called the Keep Your Pay Act. We’re all for that!

  But special carve-outs, deductions, credits and exemptions create economic distortions that the tax-code tinkerers ignore or wish away. People respond to incentives at every income level. If you don’t think people will engineer ways to duck under the thresholds, you’ve never worked in a cash business.

  Almost half of households already pay no federal income tax under current rules. This creates, in effect, a two-tier society—those who pay, and those who don’t (although they are taxed in other ways). The ideal of social harmony isn’t served by asking one half of society effectively to bankroll the other.

  I'm tempted to say that the existing tax system is so utterly broken that this wouldn't make a huge difference. Things couldn't be worse, could they?

  Oh, sure they could.

• Not to mention that it arises from base motives. David Harsanyi's syndicated column points out a couple small problems with class-war economics: Class-War Economics Is Counterproductive and Un-American.

  Perhaps the biggest myth in American political life is that the wealthy don't pay their "fair share." And yet, class warfare isn't merely at the center of the Democrats' economic messaging and policy — it's become the entire game.

  Democrats have two new tax plans out, playing on the notion that the middle and working classes are unduly burdened by taxes. One is by Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), which would exempt anyone making $46,000 or married couples making less than $92,000.

  Then there is Sen. Cory Booker's (D-N.J.) Keep Your Pay Act, which would effectively eliminate federal income tax on individuals making below $37,500, and $75,000 for couples.

  The United States is already home to one of, if not the most, progressive tax systems of any developed nation in the world. The wealthiest pay the preponderance of our federal income taxes. The Treasury Department estimates that the top 10% of households pay down around 80% of all federal income taxes. The top 1% pay 40%. The bottom 50% of workers pay around 3% of the federal tab.

  But no politician, certainly none who wants to be in office very long, is ever going to advocate raising middle-class or working-class income taxes ever again, despite the ever-increasing cost of government and debt.

  David goes on to say to progressive schemers: "It's not your money, commie." Which earns him my undying devotion.

• Another state competition! The Reason Foundation has issued its 29th Annual Highway Report. Drivers take note:

  Virginia, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Ohio have the best-performing, most cost-effective roads and bridges, according to Reason Foundation’s 29th Annual Highway Report.

  Alaska, California, Washington, New York, and Louisiana have the worst-performing and least cost-effective highway systems, the study finds. Alaska ranked last overall for the second consecutive report, posting the worst rural fatality rate in the nation. California ranked 49th, with the worst urban arterial pavement condition. Washington finished 48th overall while ranking as the highest-spending state in multiple categories.

  New Hampshire is in the #13 spot, semi-respectable. Better than any other New England state anyhow, save Connecticut which came in at #7.

Recently on the book blog:

Tyler Cowen plugged this book on his blog: "a great book". And it turns out that Tyler also provides a front-cover blurb: "The best recent book on China, on China and America, and, arguably, the best book of the year flat out."

Good enough for me. And (it turns out) I liked it a lot too. It's full of trenchant observations and fun anecdotes. And the author, Dan Wang, has an obvious love of both China and the USA. And a deep level of disgust for each country's current leadership.

The 40,000-foot theme of the book, stated boldly on page 2: China is an engineering state, while America is a lawyerly society. Upsides: China builds stuff, quickly and well; while the US has numerous protections against despoiling the environment and running roughshod over individuals and communities.

But the downsides: China does run roughshod over its people and its environment. And American government increasingly can't seem to even get started on its noble (and ludicrously expensive) projects and goals. A theme also echoed in the Ezra Klein/Derek Thompson book Abundance.

Wang's portrait of China is illuminating, especially for someone (like me) who kind of assumed it was a homogeneous and faceless mass of humanity, under the thumb of its Commie masters. That's not totally wrong, but Wang's travels show a lot of interesting diversity. (Yunnan province is "relaxed", full of "free spirits". For a while, anyway.)

Of course, the central government is married to a central-planning ideology, and that devotion appears to have increased under Xi Jinping. This results in shiny new infrastructure, but also a lot of resource misallocation, corruption, and (generally) shoving people around.

An early chapter tells the story of Li Zaiyong, a high-flying executive in China's Guizhou province. He had big plans, spent big money, and nothing worked out, ending in fiscal disaster. So he crashed and burned, was found guilty of graft and accepting bribes, and sentenced to death "with a two-year reprieve."

Death! Impressive! Tim Walz might have been more diligent in his state's profligacy if we went in for that sort of thing here.

Wang is a bigger fan of "industrial policy" than I am. He's concerned about America's "hollowed out" manufacturing sector; I don't think there's a government-determinable "right" level for manufacturing, either in aggregate or in its mix of products.

Wang devotes one chapter each to China's big mistakes: its one-child policy and (more recent) its draconian Covid-19 policy. In each case, the top leadership decreed drastic controlling measures, and the result was death and misery. (Wang doesn't weigh in on the Wuhan lab-leak theory.)

This is the fifth book in Richard Osman's "Thursday Murder Club" series, and the core team's all here (Joyce, Elizabeth, Ron, Ibrahim). Over the first four books in the series they've picked up some semi-regular assistants too. Yes, if you have to ask: you should read the books in order, starting with the first one.

Joyce's daughter, Joanna, is getting married to Paul after a whirlwind romance. On the big day, someone notices that the best man, Nick, has had a bomb attached to his car. He drops a note to Elizabeth asking for her help, but then promptly vanishes. (Which kind of makes sense when someone's attached a bomb to your car, but maybe someone's managed to dispose of his corpse? Or kidnapped him?)

It all involves the titular "impossible fortune": long ago, Nick and his business partner Holly, accepted a Bitcoin payment for services rendered. Nick and Holly squirrelled their access code safely away in "cold storage", and used split-key security between them to ensure that they had to cooperate in order to retrieve it. Over the years, the bitcoin has appreciated in value considerably!

Oh, and it turns out that Ron's daughter Suzi is married to a dangerous rotter. There's something that will need resolving too.

It's Mr. Osman's usual blend of hilarity, mystery, and thrills. A lot of fun.

I school a youngster on First Lady history:

Given history, I wouldn't bet against him. pic.twitter.com/TvqVdx01vb

— Paul Sand (@punsalad) March 20, 2026

It's been 34 years or so, but you see this once, you can't unsee it.

Also of note:

• I hear you asking, bunkie: "Will AI fix central planning?" Alex Chalmers answers: AI won’t fix central planning. He cites the long history of socialists disputing the economic "knowledge problem" posed by Mises, Hayek, and the like. Why, we'll just put all the relevant facts into a big, fast, computer and… well, that hasn't worked out.

  But has AI given us, finally, the capability to beat the free market?

  The greatest excitement has been reserved for advanced AI. Zvi Mowshowitz has argued that AI “can embody the preferences and knowledge of many or even all humans, in a way an individual human or group of humans never could.” Meanwhile, Erik Brynjolfsson and Zoë Hitzig have made the case that, by combining immense processing capacity with the ability to codify tacit knowledge through computer vision, language, and sensor data, AI could erode the traditional advantages of decentralization.

  The optimists attack the case for traditional markets and decentralization from multiple directions: AI can match or exceed the information-processing advantages of markets, capture knowledge embedded in human judgment, simulate competition without running it, assess outcomes markets model badly through proxies, or simply replace the human participants whose limitations created the problem in the first place.

  Despite their diversity, many of these arguments fall into the same traps. They routinely misstate the case for decentralization and flatten the distinction between different kinds of knowledge, while treating any unsolved problems as an engineering detail.

  Read on for Alex's fuller explanation for his skepticism.

  To repeat what I said a few days ago on this topic: If AI could outperform the free market, the first place it would be deployed would be stock-picking.

• An inconvenient truth about Iran. And it's from Kevin D. Williamson: This Is a Lawless War.

  The case against this war is that it is illegal—whatever Secretary Jägerbomb has to say about it, this is a war, and it is being conducted with no congressional authorization in a haphazard, chaotic, ad hoc way by a president who is profoundly corrupt, nearly 80 years old, and unable to write an ordinary English sentence, surrounded by a constellation of grifters, addicts, and incompetents unrivaled by anything in Washington since the days of Franklin Pierce. When I hear certain of my friends say that “it would have been better” if President Trump had gone to Congress, it sounds to me like someone saying “it would have been better” if John Dillinger hadn’t robbed all those banks—as though this were somehow optional, a nicety, a lowercase “i” that has been unaccountably left undotted. Donald Trump’s foreign policy is a crime spree: the massacres in the Caribbean, the deposing of Nicolás Maduro, this illegal war in Iran, to say nothing of his unconstitutional trade war against the world at large, his threats to wage war against NATO allies to annex desired territory, the war against Cuba he apparently is considering, etc. If an American president can do all this without a peep from Congress, then we owe King George III an apology—his ambitions were never so grand.

• Kathy should have paid more attention to Ayn. National Review is still based in New York City, so they have a closer view of Kathy Hochul’s Seller’s Remorse.

  Back in 2022, Hochul built upon the work of her predecessor, Andrew Cuomo, in making the case that Republicans were unwelcome in the Empire State. “Just jump on a bus and head down to Florida where you belong, okay,” Hochul said of her gubernatorial opponent, Lee Zeldin, among others. “Get out of town because you don’t represent our values. You’re not New Yorkers.”

  Evidently, her audience was paying attention, for, between 2022 and today, around 250,000 New Yorkers did as Hochul asked, and headed down to Florida where they belonged. Given the vehemence with which she issued her order, one might have assumed that this development would have filled the governor with joy. But one would have been wrong. Indeed, far from celebrating the exodus, Hochul now sounds as if she is on the verge of putting together a modern Lewis and Clark Expedition tasked with bringing them back. “The fact is,” she said this week, “I need people who are high net worth to support the generous social programs that we want to have in our state.” That being so, she is urging the New Yorkers who stayed to go down to the Sunshine State, rummage around in the homes and gardens of Palm Beach, Naples, and Miami, and “see who you can bring back home, because our tax base has been eroded.” New York, Hochul concluded, is “in competition with other states who have less of a tax burden on their corporations and their individuals.” Apparently, that competition is not going especially well.

  Looking closer to (my) home, presented without further comment, from Bloomberg: Massachusetts Lost $4.2 Billion in Income After Millionaire Tax Took Effect. (archive.today link)

• How Ya Gonna Keep 'em Down on the Farm (After They've Seen Paree)? Yes, that was a song from before (even) my time. But the title needs updating: How Ya Gonna Get Them Back From Florida (After They've Seen Your Tax Schemes?) All that inspired by Nellie Bowles' TGIF news roundup item: Bring Them Back from Palm Beach.

  → NYC bond ratings in trouble: New York City’s new socialist mayor is getting kicked in the shins by credit agencies. An analysis by S&P Global Ratings said that Mamdani’s budget plan “could make it difficult to sustain budgetary balance beyond fiscal years 2026 and 2027.”

  And Moody’s changed its outlook on the city’s finances from “stable” :| to “negative.” :/

  Mamdani is trying to get tax revenue up—and fast. One of his ideas is an “overhaul” of New York State’s estate tax. Bring it to 50 percent! His recommendation is for the state to lower the exemption of $7.35 million to $750K and raise the top rate from 16 percent to 50 percent. So I need to be very clear: You cannot die in New York. Do not do it. As soon as you feel a little ache in your knees or see a few age spots on the back of your hands, you need to move out of New York immediately. Here’s Kathy Hochul this week encouraging people to stay in New York to pay taxes—and asking them to please bring their friends back from Florida.

  I need people who are high-net worth to support the generous social programs that we want to have in our state. Right? Now, there are some patriotic millionaires who stepped up. Okay, cut me the checks. If you want to be supportive, but maybe the first step should be to go down to Palm Beach and see who we can bring back home because our tax base has been eroded. . . . And I would say remote work changed everything. There were people who could only work in an office in Manhattan or work in New York State and they were captives to our state. They were going to stay. We saw that that’s not the case.

  In other words: Tell them it’s fun here!! I know the mayor’s wife is kinda Hamas, but seriously come back, it’s actually fun now. I would tell you if it wasn’t fun.

  More at the link, on other topics too.

• Sure, go ahead and ask. Dave Barry resurrects one of his old column themes: Ask Mister Language Person. A brief sample:

  Q. When should I use a semicolon?

  A. You should use it when you reach the end of a sentence and realize you left out some potentially relevant information.

  EXAMPLE: Steve possesses all the requisite qualities to be Director of Human Resources; by the way, he is a practicing cannibal.

  Also a rare video of Dave's band, the Rock Bottom Remainders, performing "Prooreading Woman".

From CENTCOM's Twitter feed:

U.S. forces are destroying Iranian naval targets that threaten international shipping in and near the Strait of Hormuz. pic.twitter.com/qR6FJyI5ZS

— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) March 19, 2026

So good on them. I find myself mostly in tune with Jonah Goldberg, who pens An Anti-Manifesto on the Iran War. (archive.today link)

Also, the WSJ editorialists make some very good points. Or maybe just one: The Enemy in Iran in One Lesson. (WSJ gifted link)

If Trump (or, more likely, some bright people in his administration) can figure out a way to cut the all heads off this murderous hydra, all the better.

Also of note:

• Writing from Planet Reality… Veronique de Rugy compares and contrasts: Fact vs. Fiction on Medicaid and the Wealth Tax.

  I try to be fair to people I disagree with. Emmanuel Saez — the famous UC Berkeley economist who's considered an architect of California's proposed billionaire wealth tax — is someone I read carefully, even when I find his income-inequality work unconvincing. So, when I say that his arguments for the wealth tax are not just biased or misleading but egregiously wrong, I'm not being careless. I mean it.

  In a recent debate at Stanford University, Saez offered his central justification (apart from, you know, "billionaires are unfairly rich"): California's hospitals need it because the federal government cut Medicaid through last year's One Big Beautiful Bill.

  As Economic Policy Innovation Center researchers have repeatedly documented, under the Biden administration, Medicaid spending expanded by almost 60%, going from roughly $409 billion before the pandemic to $656 billion by 2025. Using the most recent Congressional Budget Office numbers reflecting the OBBB — the supposed instrument of destruction — these researchers now project Medicaid spending to reach $905 billion in 2034. Calling a 38% increase between 2024 and 2034 a "cut" is not an honest argument.

  Vero goes on to dispute the other part of the equation, too: aside from its ugly motivations, the proposed "wealth tax" won't raise anywhere near the cash its proponents promise.

• Could we put this movie on fast-forward? The libertarian-leaning WaPo editorialists hale The beginning of the end of the Jones Act. (WaPo gifted link)

  The Trump administration announced on Wednesday that it will suspend the Jones Act for 60 days to reduce fuel prices. It’s a good start.

  The Jones Act says that any vessel carrying goods between United States ports must be U.S.-built, U.S.-owned, U.S.-flagged and U.S.-crewed. Given that shipping is one of the most globalized industries, few of the world’s ships meet those requirements.

  The law was supposed to encourage more domestic shipbuilding. But outside of mobilization during the world wars, commercial shipbuilding has not been one of America’s strong suits for 150 years, despite — or perhaps because of — near constant protectionism since the founding of the country.

  Utah Senator Mike Lee and CongressCritter Tom McClintock have introduced legislation to repeal the Jones Act, but (as near as I can tell) it doesn't seem to be going anywhere.

• I'm not a fan of sob stories, but… This one, an LTE in the WSJ from Jennifer Bastian Thornhill in McLean, Va. spotlights The Human Cost of the FDA’s War on New Drugs. (WSJ gifted link)

  Your editorial “How the FDA Kills a Drug” (March 14) is devastating because it isn’t remotely surprising. You ran nearly identical arguments in op-eds in 2007 (Mark Thornton’s “Black Wednesday at the FDA,” May 14) and again in 2010 (Scott Gottlieb’s “The FDA Is Evading the Law,” Dec. 23). Different drugs. Same story. Twenty years later, the Food and Drug Administration is still killing treatments for rare-disease patients.

  One of those patients is my 10-year-old son. He has bone cancer. And he still can’t access the drug Mr. Thornton described in 2007. We were denied compassionate use last month.

  The FDA has consistently held drugs for rare diseases to impossible and illogical standards. Testimony at the Senate’s February 2026 hearing made this clear. We all know the FDA is problematic in this space. After the hearing, Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, one of the rare disease community’s most steadfast allies, said he would investigate. I respectfully ask him to go further. We already know the problems—they’ve been right in front of us for 20 years. We need action. Congress must compel the FDA to change.

  Or, there's always Plan B: follow Katherine Mangu-Ward's advice to Abolish the FDA.

• Maybe Uncle Stupid should concentrate on blowing up Iranian bad guys. At Reason, Bill Wirtz dreams the impossible dream: Before RFK Jr. can crack down on 'processed foods,' he'll have to figure out how to define them.

  Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has promised that by April, the federal government will issue a definition of ultra-processed foods (UPFs) as part of the "Make America Healthy Again" campaign. Kennedy told Joe Rogan on his podcast that a definition will be used to create a nutritional label that indicates, in red, yellow, and green, how nutritious a processed food product is. Whether it will lead to bans on ingredients is still unclear.

  Kennedy is importing a failed European idea. For years, the European Union has promoted Nutri-Score, a label that grades food from A to E for nutritional quality. Yet even after all that time, it has not been made mandatory because the system is widely criticized as misleading. For good reason: A label like this cannot meaningfully tell consumers whether a product belongs in a healthy diet. Nutri-Score can give Coke Zero a favorable rating even though it contains none of the fiber, vitamins, or minerals that actually nourish the body.

  Meanwhile, Europe is still struggling to define what an ultra-processed food actually is. For all the political rhetoric, regulators have not agreed on a clear definition or on which processing methods should be allowed. So despite Europe's more precautionary approach and a few differences on additives, Europe and the United States permit broadly similar kinds and quantities of ultra-processed foods.

  It's kind of reminiscent of SCOTUS Justice Potter Stewart's test for obscenity: "I know it when I see it."

The WSJ editorialists make a valid point about Brendan Carr and the TikTok Dodge.

The FCC's bullying of broadcasters (i.e., users of a bit of the electromagnetic spectrum that Uncle Stupid claims to own) is not only unconstitutional, but also ignores the reality of where people get their news in these days of modern times. ("… when you can't tell the ACs from the DCs …")

Also of note:

• About time, too. Charles C.W. Cooke notes: The Democrats' Tax Lies Have Caught Up with Them. (NR gifted link)

  It is nice, for once, to see the Democratic Party well and truly hoisted by its own petard. With the gleeful help of the American press, the Democrats have spent four decades convincing their voters that the poor and lower-middle class are overtaxed, while the rich pay next to nothing. And, would you believe it, those voters now believe this to be true.

  In reality, the American income-tax system is extremely progressive. Per the IRS’s latest records, the top 1 percent of taxpayers paid 40 percent of all the federal income taxes collected, while the bottom 50 percent of taxpayers paid just 3 percent. And yet, thanks to the tireless work of the Democrats and their friends in the media, this inconvenient fact has been carefully buried beneath a pile of indignant propaganda. Politically, one can grasp the case for this ploy. Practically, though, it has proven costly. False accounts are all fun and games until it comes time to present a plan of one’s own — at which point mathematics is liable to reenter the chat and wreak its bloody revenge.

  CCWC takes a look at the recently-proposed tax plans of Senators Cory Booker and Chris Van Hollen and finds that both are totally out of whack with the class-warfare propaganda of those previous four decades.

  And he makes a valid observation in his final paragraph: The "contemporary Democratic Party sees new taxes less as a means by which to pay for new spending, and more as a punishment to be imposed upon those whom they disdain."

  And (not that it matters but) I finally got my taxes done a few days ago. The IRS demanded calculations having their usual stench of arbitrariness and obscurity. (Divide line 17 by line 18. If line 17 is more than line 18, enter "1".) Uncle Stupid and I ritually send each other thousands of dollars from time to time; sometimes our electronic payments even cross in the e-mail. If I think overmuch about how crazy it is, I would probably wind up drinking too much.

• And another George Will column I should probably avoid lest it drive me even further down the road to intemperance. He's looking at The nation’s accelerating self-assassination. (WaPo gifted link)

  The Ides of March came and went with less drama than in 44 B.C., when Julius Caesar was assassinated. Nevertheless, 2,069 years on, there was a reason to beware mid-March this year. It marked another momentous, if mostly unremarked, moment in the nation’s accelerating self-assassination.

  The Peterson Foundation says that on or about March 18, the national debt will reach $39 trillion. This was less than five months after it reached $38 trillion. At our current pace of profligacy — it probably will accelerate — three trillion-dollar milestones can be passed during one fiscal year.

  The Congressional Budget Office projects that in 10 years, the nation will annually be spending more than $2 trillion (two thousand billion) just on debt service, which already is the fastest-growing part of the budget. The national debt will exceed $40 trillion by the end of October, the Peterson Foundation projects.

  GFW also shares the imminent 10-year anniversary of:

  The debt has doubled in the 10 years since Donald Trump, on March 31, 2016, vowed to eliminate the debt in eight years.

  Just another reminder that there's no reason to believe anything that guy promises.

• Doesn't quite have the ring of "President Bone Spurs", but… Jim Geraghty comes up with a new nickname: President Softie Pushover.

  President Trump in an interview with Brian Kilmeade of Fox News Radio, March 13:

  Kilmeade: You think Putin is helping [the Iranians]?

  Trump: I think he might be helping them a little bit, yeah, I guess. And he probably thinks we’re helping Ukraine. Right?

  Kilmeade: And you are. Right? [Laughs]

  Trump: Yeah, we’re helping them also. And so, he says that. And China would say the same thing. You know? It’s like, uh, hey, they do it and we do it in all fairness. They do it and we do it.

  That is not exactly a forceful denunciation of Russian assistance to a country currently firing missiles and drones at the armed forces of the United States as well as civilians, nor was there any warning or message to the Russians to knock it off or face consequences.

  I am not a violent person, so if were ever to meet Trump, I would not kick him in the bone spurs.

• At Patterico's Pontifications, guest-poster Dana shares a tweet containing further outrage-bait:

  Bill Browder: Easing sanctions on Russian oil could give Putin nearly $10 billion.
  
  That money will buy weapons used against Ukrainians.
  
  Lifting the restrictions becomes a pure gift to Putin and undermines Western efforts to contain Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine. 1/ pic.twitter.com/TB2aePmWcx

  — Tymofiy Mylovanov (@Mylovanov) March 16, 2026

  Ah, but easing those sanctions might bring Americans' gas prices down a bit, and improve GOP chances in November. So sorry, Ukraine.

I'm not a huge fan of DHS, but I have a long list of agencies that should be a higher priority for defunding. (One will show up later in this very post.)

Also of note:

• But keep your pants on. Kevin D. Williamson advises: Take Your @#$%&! Hat Off, Mr. President. (archive.today link)

  Perhaps the most grotesque image of the second Trump administration—so far!—has been the ghastly face of the commander in chief, slathered with apricot-colored makeup, hovering above the caskets as the draft-dodging coward saluted the corpses of dead American soldiers returning to Dover Air Force Base while he was wearing a Trump-branded “USA” baseball cap from his online souvenir shop.

  I will get to the hat directly, but first, that salute.

  It is always improper for a civilian to offer or return a salute, though the practice became universal among U.S. presidents from Ronald Reagan’s presidency onward. It is probably a little bit worse when Trump does it for the same reason it was gross to watch Bill Clinton do it: He is a draft-dodger. The salute is a courtesy offered by on-duty, uniformed members of the military service to other military personnel or by a member of the military to certain civilian leaders, notably to presidents in their role as commanders in chief but also, at certain times, governors in their role as commanders in chief of their respective National Guard forces. Earlier in our history, when military service was very common among presidents, they knew better than to return a salute while holding a civilian office and wearing civilian clothes: President Dwight Eisenhower, for example, had held the exalted rank of “General of the Army” when serving as supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe, and he made a rule of not returning salutes while serving as president.

  I confess I was unaware of that rule, but I'll be more careful to obey it in the future. I liked Ike.

  But KDW is just getting warmed up, and I encourage you to click over (using the archive.today link if necessary) to see his diatribe on the baseball cap. Masterful!

• Et tu, WSJ editorialists? GOP partisans will be aghast, but they describe, convincingly, Why the SAVE America Act . . . Won’t. (WSJ gifted link)

  For partisan hype, it’s hard to beat the Senate debate this week on the SAVE America Act. President Trump says the legislation is a salvation from mass voter fraud. Sen. Chuck Schumer says it’s an effort at mass voter suppression, “Jim Crow 2.0.” Neither is reality. Also, Republicans don’t have the votes to clear the Senate’s filibuster. And if they bully the bill through anyway, Democrats eyeing the end of the 60-vote rule will quietly celebrate.

  The House version of the SAVE America Act, which passed last month, has two main planks. First, people registering to vote would be asked to show proof of U.S. citizenship, such as a passport, birth certificate or naturalization document. Many driver’s licenses wouldn’t qualify. While the bill says it would accept a REAL ID “that indicates the applicant is a citizen,” standard license designs often don’t say. Legal immigrants can get REAL IDs, too.

  Senate Republicans should hold the cloture vote, fail, then move on.

  (That's not to say that I'm a fan of voter fraud.)

• My answer is "probably not", but see what you think. John Sexton wonders: Could AI Undermine Hayek's Point About the Limits of Central Planning.

  Thomas Edsall is sort of the hype man for doomerism of all kinds, especially when the doom can be connected to conservatives in general or President Trump in particular. Still, he's often interesting to read. That's the case today where he has written a typical column about how AI could in fact go horribly wrong in the hands of bad people.

  He of course thinks the bad people are billionaires in Silicon Valley but his points are more widely applicable. The most interesting thing in the column is a point he makes about central planning and Hayek's insight into its limitations.

  “If we stay on the current path, the risk of extreme concentration — both economic and political — is very real,” Erik Brynjolfsson, a professor of economics and director of the Digital Economy Lab at Stanford, wrote by email...

  I found a 2025 paper by Brynjolfsson and Zoë Hitzig, a junior fellow at Harvard, “A.I.’s Use of Knowledge in Society,” to be exceptionally informative.

  Brynjolfsson and Hitzig showed how the ability of A.I. to collect, manage, gain access to and store information upended Friedrich Hayek’s classic economic argument that free markets are inherently superior to the central planning of socialism...

  “Hayek’s famous insight,” they wrote, “was that central planning — even if economically efficient — is not feasible because the necessary knowledge is inherently dispersed throughout the economy.”

  My (very uneducated, off the top of my head) guess is that if AI could outperform the free market, the first place it would be deployed would be stock-picking. And I'm wondering if that's not happening already.

• As promised above. Jacob Sullum joins the chorus of old fogies like me who object to this sort of thing: Brendan Carr's Crusade To Reshape TV Journalism Is Blatantly Unconstitutional.

  On Saturday morning, President Donald Trump criticized a Wall Street Journal article about an Iranian attack on U.S. refueling planes in Saudi Arabia. Three hours later, Brendan Carr, the Trump-appointed chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), responded to the president's complaint by warning broadcasters that they "will lose their licenses" if they fail to "operate in the public interest."

  Why did an allegedly misleading newspaper article prompt a regulatory threat against TV stations? Because Carr is eager to advertise his crusade to restore "faith and confidence in the media"—a megalomaniacal mission that is neither part of his job description nor consistent with the First Amendment.

  So—here's an idea—let's put him out of a job by eliminating his department!

  I'm gratified (and a little surprised) that that eminently respectable Washington Post, the very definition of Beltway-insider, has joined the abolitionist mob: Brendan Carr, minister of truth. (WaPo gifted link)

  This isn’t the first time an administration has tried to wield the FCC to suppress disfavored points of view. Historian Paul Matzko has described how President John F. Kennedy’s administration, incensed by right-wing radio’s coverage of his Cold War policy, deliberately used the fairness doctrine to drive stations off the air.

  Conservatives learned from that experience — and many others — the dangers of an overzealous administrative state. In a perfect world, liberals would take the same lessons from Carr’s attempted abuses, and a bipartisan coalition would vote to abolish the FCC.

  Emphasis added. To quote John McClane: "Welcome to the party, pal!"

I'm currently reading Breakneck, a newish book by Dan Wang, mostly about China. It's very good, but there's a chapter on China's "One Child Policy" (in effect roughly between 1979 and 2015) which revisits the utter depravity and horrors visited upon Chinese women (and babies, disproportionally female) of that era. Wang notes the influence of Western "doomsters" on Chinese policymakers, and one of the loudest Jeremiahs was Paul Ehrlich. Who, as far as I can tell, did not murder any mothers or their babies himself, but…

Well, lets take a look at some of the eulogies for that ghoul, for example this one from Kevin D. Williamson, who points out: Paul Ehrlich Was Wrong About Everything. (archive.today link)

KDW provides examples aplenty.

Noah Smith also talks about Ehrlich in his daily Roundup, and the One Child Policy is mentioned:

I also liked Jeff Blehar's take (which provided my headline above). Like Noah, he also invokes, and ignores, that old Latin advice:

So (I have to admit) most of the stuff I've been reading about Ehrlich tends to mention his blood-soaked legacy. Given that, the reliable New York Times obit subhed is truly shocking:

His best-selling 1968 book, which forecast global famines, made him a leader of the environmental movement. But he faced criticism when his predictions proved premature.

"Premature."

The mark of the true believer: when confronted with your prophet's total failure at doom-prediction, just say he got his timing wrong.

Also of note:

• What's the matter with Ireland? A relevant observation for the day comes from Matthew Hennessey, who writes on Ireland’s Obsession With the Jews. (WSJ gifted link)

  For one amazing year in the late 1980s, an almost unbelievable pair of facts were true: the mayor of Dublin was Jewish and the president of Israel was Irish.

  Ben Briscoe, a Jew, was lord mayor of Ireland’s capital city from June 1988 to June 1989. At the same time, Chaim Herzog, born in Belfast and raised in Dublin, was president of the Jewish state. My father got a huge kick—and a lot of mileage—out of this unlikely state of affairs. As the owner of an Irish bar in our New Jersey hometown, he enjoyed regaling his Jewish friends with this bit of trivia.

  As a young man I understood the connection between the Jews and the Irish intuitively: We were two peoples who had been kicked around for centuries and made to feel unwelcome in our own countries. Because of this, and for reasons stemming from a mutual love of stories and song, we shared a natural bond of friendship.

  Sadly, that bond is fractured. Since the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks, Ireland has emerged as one of the most unhinged anti-Israel countries in Europe. The Irish political establishment is incorrigible on the subject. The nation’s leadership, following public opinion, has been consistently hostile to Israel’s war of self-defense against Hamas—despite an Irish connection to the conflict via Emily Hand, a 9-year-old Irish-Israeli girl kidnapped and held captive by Hamas for 50 days.

  In February 2024 Prime Minister Leo Varadkar accused the Israelis of prosecuting the war on Hamas while “blinded by rage.” Later that year Ireland formally recognized a Palestinian state and backed South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice. In response, Israel closed its embassy in Ireland.

  I will also point out that Leopold Bloom, protagonist of James Joyce's Ulysses, was kinda Jewish. (Via his father.) Although he converted to Catholicism in order to marry the potty-mouthed Molly.

• Sounds like a sci-fi story title from 1948. Deirdre McCloskey writes on things Not of Human Design.

  We humans tend to think of the world from two perspectives only. One is the individual, yourself alone looking out. The other is the top down—the President, Brasília, the Boss, the gods, God. Both are conscious. And so our world seems to us populated by intentions—what I want to do this afternoon or what the Boss wants me to do tomorrow.

  Such a world is soaked in ethics. Lula does this, Donald does that, for good or ill. I myself alone do this or that, likewise. We can blame the person, because such a world has only persons. Ethics applies only to people. We do not blame the rain for falling. We do blame Donald for starting a war without proper care.

  The old way of labeling unintended consequences was to call them God’s will, or fate, or some secret human design. We do tend to personalize them, blaming inflation on, say, the “greed” of the shopkeeper. Theologically speaking, the so-called “problem of evil” comes from blaming an allegedly benevolent God for the existence of evils in the world.

  Deirdre (writing from Brazil) notes a big example: "the Portuguese language". It's only used by humans, but was … Not of Human Design!

  I think there's a relevant Hayek quote out there on this, but I can't find it right now.

  [Update 2026-03-18: Ah, found it:

  The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.

  From (it says here) page 76 of The Fatal Conceit.]

• Have I mentioned lately that the FCC should be destroyed? Yeah, two days ago. But in case you were looking for one more reason for that, Joe Lancaster reports: FCC Chair Brendan Carr threatens media outlets that don't report good Iran war news.

  Amid a war in the Middle East that is, despite his assurances, still very much unresolved, President Donald Trump spent a substantial portion of the weekend posting on social media, including complaints about the news coverage that the war is getting.

  "Yet again, an intentionally misleading headline by the Fake News Media," Trump groused in a Truth Social post over the weekend. He singled out reports that U.S. refueling planes were hit at an air base in Saudi Arabia, which he called "the exact opposite of the actual facts" and said the reporters were "truly sick and demented people that have no idea the damage they cause the United States of America."

  But as Reason's Matthew Petti notes, "Trump acknowledged the report was true, and he took issue with something it didn't actually say." Indeed, The Wall Street Journal reported the planes "were struck and damaged," and Trump's post complained that "the planes were not 'struck' or 'destroyed.'" (The Journal report uses the word destroyed in a later paragraph, referring to all refueling planes that have been damaged since the war began.)

  But instead of this being just another of Trump's many misinformed social media missives we've become numb to over the years, a high-ranking member of Trump's administration jumped in to back up Trump's gripes with more explicit threats.

  Yes, that "high-ranking member" was FCC thug Brendan Carr.

Recently on the book blog:

Sitting on my varied bookshelves since (I think) I purchased it for the 50¢ cover price back in 1967. (The copy available via Amazon will set you back $5.28, plus $4.49 delivery.) I haven't been the biggest fan of Clifford D. Simak's novels, especially the later ones, but this collection of six short stories/novellas from 1951-1960 was pretty enjoyable. I found myself thinking "This might make a pretty good episode of Twilight Zone or even Black Mirror" for some of them.

Thumbnail summaries:

"All the Traps of Earth": The family that owned domestic robot Richard Daniel has finally died off after centuries of keeping him employed. Which was technically illegal under Earth law, and now he's slated for a memory erasure and a personality transplant. Instead, he stows away on an outbound starship. Specifically, he attaches himself to the outside of the ship, which causes him to be altered in an unexpected way during the hyperspace jump. How will he deal with his new capabilities?

"Good Night, Mr. James": Henderson James awakens on a grassy embankment with no initial idea of how or why he got there. Ah, but gradually it comes to him: he's got a gun, and it is his responsibility to hunt down and kill the disgusting and dangerous Puudly, an alien creature about to breed. And if it succeeds in breeding, it spells doom for humanity. But Mr. James also comes to awareness that his situation is not quite as straightforward as it seems at first.

"Drop Dead". A survey crew is checking out the odd ecosystem of a new planet: there are "critters", herd animals which look like "something from the maudlin pen of a well-alcoholed cartoonist". And, on a daily basis, one of the critters wanders up to the crew's campsite, and promptly (see the title) "drops dead" at their feet. What's going on with that? Well, it turns out this story is probably the one most amendable to a Black Mirror treatment.

But "The Sitters" is also right up there too. It opens with Millville's high school football coach bemoaning to his principal about the loss of a couple of his star players; they would prefer to devote more time to their academic studies. And this turns out to be a more general phenomenon: the youngsters in the town have gotten better-behaved, their test scores are up significantly. Could this be the influence of the "Sitters"? Those are aliens, but don't hold that against them. They settled in, and offer free childcare to harried Millville parents. Asking nothing in return! Except…

"Installment Plan" is another mystery. In the capitalist future, exploration/exploitation teams head out to various planets to find likely items that Earth needs, in exchange for the usual array of trinkets and activities. It's all very laissez-faire, non-coercive, but the team sent to Garson IV (a few humans, mostly robots) has run into a serious snag. The local ecology provides the podar, which can be used to produce a wonder tranquilizer drug badly needed back on Earth. But a previously-negotiated deal has fallen apart for unknown reasons, and even the crew's diligent efforts fail to revive it. What's going on? ("The answer may amuse you.")

And finally: a short-short story, "Condition of Employment". Rocket engineer Anson Cooper is stranded on Earth, running out of money, desperately homesick for the thin atmosphere and arid deserts of Mars. He can't abide Terra's lush greenness, cloying odors, oppressive climate,… Fortunately, an equally desperate spaceship captain hires him on to babysit his rocket's iffy engines all the way back to Mars. It's dangerous and grueling, and when he finally gets back to Mars, … all is revealed.

I'm giving this five stars on Goodreads, because it really brought back memories of reading pulpy sci-fi magazines back in the sixties.

Mr. Ramirez is on target, as usual:

While we're at it, here's Mark J. Perry's look at how government has made things more "affordable":

"Chart of the Century" updated through December 2025. pic.twitter.com/rOs3L869JO

— Mark J. Perry (@Mark_J_Perry) January 25, 2026

And at the WSJ this AM, Andy Kessler has words on The High Cost of ‘Affordability’. (WSJ gifted link)

Indeed.

Also of note:

• He watched the Oscars for you and me. So join me in wishing a rapid recovery to Kyle Smith, who reports the dreary news: Trump Was Everywhere on Oscar Night (WSJ gifted link)

  They couldn’t stop themselves. Eleven years into the Donald Trump era, Hollywood’s leading swellebrities tried to stage a Trump-free Oscars. They failed. Again.

  Showbiz types are aware that they look obsessive, neurotic, catty, partisan and, frankly, weird when they turn their awards presentations into anti-Trump diatribes. They know that bringing their politics to entertainment spectacles is like serving Castor oil at the beach barbecue. They know that their fiercely demented attitude elevates Mr. Trump from merely the most powerful person in the world to a kind of rom-com fixation. “You complete me,” they effectively tell the president every time they can’t get through a simple glad-handing party without bringing him into it.

  Even host Conan O'Brien couldn't resist a crude dig. Sigh.

  I still (as I type) haven't learned which flick won Best Picture. But I've figured out that Kate Hudson, the only nominee whose performance I watched, did not win.

  I liked this though: Sigourney Weaver goes Ellen Ripley on Kate Hudson at the #Oscars

• On a more serious, and sadder, note. Matt Welch eulogizes Brian Doherty, historian of the libertarian movement, dead at 57.

  Brian Doherty, a longtime Reason senior editor and the leading historian of the libertarian movement, was found dead Friday morning after a fall the night before in Battery Yates park along the San Francisco Bay. He was 57.

  Doherty, who began working at Reason in 1994, was the author of six books, most notably the definitive 2007 study, Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement. Conservative writer Jonah Goldberg called Radicals an "extraordinary accomplishment"; libertarian economist Bryan Caplan dubbed it a "remarkable labor of love."

  A quick grep counts 38 references to Brian's work here at Pun Salad since 2007, where I panned the NYT's drive-by review of Radicals for Capitalism (and linked to David Boaz's more lengthy evisceration). My own report on Brian's book is here.

  And my most recent mention of Brian's work was back in January, when he (accurately) summarized for the current print Reason: Trump 2.0, Year 1: A Libertarian Nightmare

  R.I.P., sir.

Your occasional reminder of a constant threat to free speech:

Broadcasters that are running hoaxes and news distortions - also known as the fake news - have a chance now to correct course before their license renewals come up.

The law is clear. Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will lose their licenses if they… https://t.co/7bBgnsbalw

— Brendan Carr (@BrendanCarrFCC) March 14, 2026

And your equally occasional reminder of the only long-lasting solution:

As FCC Chair Brendan Carr again threatens broadcasters that air views Trump doesn’t like, today is a good day to remember we should abolish the FCC. It has no useful functions, and is a menace to freedom of speech. https://t.co/EEV22lusXz

— Ilya Somin (@IlyaSomin) March 14, 2026

I could give you a list, but I've been on this ideological hobbyhorse since 2007, when I linked approvingly to Jack Shafer's (still online) Slate article, where he made The case for killing the FCC and selling off spectrum.

Also of note:

• Edgy! The local NPR outlet reports on New Hampshire's illiberal Libertarians: NH Libertarian Party says ‘perfectly permissible to kill’ former Executive Councilor for income tax plan.

  The New Hampshire Libertarian party made calls on X Tuesday saying political violence aimed at former Executive Councilor Andru Volinsky and his proposal to introduce an income tax was “legitimate.”

  Volinsky, a Democrat, and other advocates are proposing a plan that would institute a 3% income tax for all residents and a tax of $3 per $1,000 of equalized property value for all homeowners to pay for public education.

  “...Volinsky is threatening the forced conscription of millions of hours of labor. Under libertarian ethical theory, it is perfectly permissible to kill him,” the party wrote on Tuesday, followed by additional posts on X Wednesday, including a poll asking X users when violence against a politician is legitimate.

  Although the link in question has been taken down, the LPNH wasn't apologetic:

  Yes. It is morally legitimate to kill any politician who poses a credible threat of introducing an income tax for New Hampshire. https://t.co/TObmVwA9Ij

  — Libertarian Party NH 🦔 (@LPNH) March 4, 2026

  I'd like to see exactly which "libertarian ethical theory" backs this up. I'm guessing Jason Brennan comes closest. But this "edgelord" behavior from LPNH is pretty childish.

• Watching the Oscars tonight? Yeah, me neither. But I was toying with watching one of the nominees … until I read this "review" from Liel Leibovitz at the Free Press: ‘One Battle After Another’ Is Irredeemable.

  As a work of art, One Battle After Another is irredeemable. It feels like the sort of thing written by a committee of socialist college sophomores cracking each other up by casting the rapper Junglepussy—she plays a character by the same name—whose sole purpose is to deliver some silly speech about black power before disappearing from the action altogether 20 minutes in. Characters neither grow nor connect. Chases fail to thrill. The score and the cinematography alike are muted. And the ordeal lasts nearly three hours.

  So, nah, I guess not. Maybe that Fantastic Four movie instead.

• A mystery I would prefer remain unsolved. Jonah Goldberg thinks There's a Thin Line Between Meatballs and Mystery Meat.

  The Senate passed, and I assume the House will too, Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Tim Scott’s bill called the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act. Needless to say, I hate the title. “ROAD” is an acronym for Renewing Opportunity in the American Dream. The wordplay says it’s a road leading to an abstract noun. “Housing” may look like a gerund, but it’s not, damn it. It’s got no verb-mojo to it. But I shouldn’t dwell on the obvious. 

  “Think of this bill like a meatball,” Sen. Warren explains. “It’s got a lot of different ingredients in it, but it’s the fact that it’s all there together is what makes it so delicious.”

  Look, I get what she’s going for. Meatballs can be delicious if all the ingredients are good and work together. But meatballs can also be a form of mystery meat, like various institutional meat loaves, scrapple, various members of the head cheese family, and potted meat. Word to the wise: Potted meat can taste good but only if you don’t read the ingredients. The whole cliché about legislating being like sausage-making—widely, and probably falsely attributed to Otto von Bismarck—is a cliché for a reason. Big bills with a zillion provisions are a great way to include ingredients that don’t pass the sniff test. “We’ve got a ton of iffy chicken in the fridge. Grind it up and put it in the sausage—or meatballs.”

  From what I’ve read, there’s some okay stuff in Warren’s meatball. But there’s also some meat product that smells a lot like Steve Bannon’s socks.

  The major objection for Jonah is the usual Econ-101 thing: expanding demand for a good while doing nothing to increase the supply of that good pretty much guarantees that the good will become less "affordable". And this meatball does that in spades. Here's hoping the House of Representatives Just Says No.

A great article from Jacob Sullum in April's print Reason, now out from behind the semipermeable paywall: The Enduring Fight Over 'Fighting Words'. I especially enjoyed the local angle:

Jacob's article goes into detail on the history of Chaplinsky's "fighting words" case. Interesting!

Fun fact: Rochester's Central Square is about 9 crow-flies miles northwest of Pun Salad Manor. Apparently Chaplinsky thought it was the equivalent of Speakers' Corner in Westminster's Hyde Park back in 1940.

This give me a chance to point out, once again, New Hampshire's outsize influence on First Amendment SCOTUS cases. Not only Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, but also Cox v. New Hampshire, Sweezy v. New Hampshire, and Wooley v. Maynard. (Have I missed any?)

And perhaps someday, SCOTUS will weigh in on whether having incarcerated convicts at the state pen crank out license plates with the prominent "Live Free or Die" motto constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.

Also of note:

• OK, maybe I don't hate the MSM enough. David Harsanyi mulls our current media diet: When 'Islamophobia' Becomes a License to Lie.

  It was recently reported that the wife of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Rama Duwaji, had liked Instagram posts celebrating the mass murder of over 1,200 innocent Israeli civilians on Oct. 7, 2023, and other similarly themed posts, including one calling the rape of women on that day a "hoax."

  Duwaji liked her posts before Israel had retaliated against Hamas. Not a single Israeli soldier was on Gazan soil when the future New York mayor's wife was celebrating the "collective liberation" of "Palestine" and liking posts calling for the Jews to be displaced from the "river to the sea."

  Mamdani contends his wife is a "private" person, and her bloodlust doesn't reflect his own positions. A trove of evidence strongly suggests otherwise, I'm afraid.

  Further observation:

  When the mayor stood up for his wife, The New York Times reported that "Mamdani Defends Wife Amid Criticism of Her Support for the Palestinian Cause." This is either a lie by omission or the editors believe that "Palestinian cause" entails hunting down terrified, unarmed young women and then murdering them. Considering its coverage over the years, it might well be both.

  Too bad this didn't come to light before the election. I wonder why it didn't.

• Thank Jones for high gas prices. The WSJ editorialists are Keeping Up With the Jones Act. (WSJ gifted link)

  The Trump Administration is looking for ways to mitigate rising U.S. gasoline prices caused by the war. That includes suspending the 1920 Jones Act, and ponder that irony: Because of a war, the President may suspend a law that was intended to protect national security.

  As Iran escalated its attacks on oil tankers and infrastructure in the region, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Thursday that “in the interest of national defense, the White House is considering waiving the Jones Act for a limited period of time to ensure vital energy products and agricultural necessities are flowing freely to U.S. ports.” Hear, hear.

  The law requires goods shipped between American ports to be transported on vessels that are U.S.-built, -flagged and -owned. Congress intended to boost the U.S. ship industry, but the protectionism has helped to ruin it instead. There are few Jones Act-compliant oil tankers, and they command higher shipping prices than foreign vessels.

  But… a "limited period of time"? Ack. Just kill it.

  The list of things that should be consigned to the ash heap of history grows apace: today, the "fighting words" doctrine and the Jones Act join the FCC, the Export-Import Bank, the Department of Education, DEI, … and many more.

• That's not to say that President Trump has finally unleashed his inner libertarian. Because, as Kevin D. Williamson points out: Trump Puts Midterms Above National Security.

  “In Africa,” Ernest Hemingway wrote, “a thing is true at first light and a lie by noon.” And so it goes with the Trump administration’s illegal war in Iran: In the case of tapping worldwide strategic petroleum reserves, the administration had the right idea at breakfast—don’t—and the wrong one sometime around the president’s third Diet Coke of the day.

  As one might expect, waging war in a critical chokepoint in the world’s supply of petroleum—and many other goods—has been disruptive, with oil prices spiking and consumer gasoline and diesel prices following. President Donald Trump had at first resisted calls to tap oil reserves in the United States and the other 31 members of the International Energy Agency, but then came TACO Wednesday, which follows TACO Tuesday and precedes TACO Thursday—if it is a day of the week ending in the letter “y,” then you can count on it: Trump Always Chickens Out. His resolve to hold the line on oil reserves lasted about as long as his relationship with Stormy Daniels.

  I'm sure we won't need the SPR for some, y'know, strategic purposes. Might as well use it to boost Trump's poll numbers.

• I think this is too simplistic. But it's fun to read anyway: Jeff Maurer's "Ten Years Behind" Theory.

  I’m 45, which is the first time in a person’s life when there are past events that: 1) happened when you were an adult, and 2) happened a long time ago. Age gives you perspective that you didn’t have before. Being in your 40s has pros and cons, but the pros are definitely: 1) The power to instantly end any pop culture trend just by embracing it, and 2) Perspective.

  One thing I’ve noticed in my 20-odd years of adulthood is this: Everything that happens to the Republican Party seems to happen to the Democratic Party about ten years later. I don’t chalk this up to some magical cosmic link: I chalk it up to the fact that the asteroid strike that caused the crazier species in the political ecosystem to dominate happened on the right about a decade before it happened on the left. The markers that define this pattern are vague and hard to measure — how do you determine when a movement became “influential” or when a policy has became “dumber than fuck”? — but I think if you step back far enough, a trend becomes clear. Here are events as I see them — maybe this story will seem familiar to you.

  Jeff's leadoff example is the rise, circa 1996, of alternative conservative media, e.g. Fox News. Followed (approximately) 10 years later by similar "epistemic closure" on the left, thanks to MSNBC and a host of conservatives-not-welcome social media sites.

• That was the week that was. Anyone remember that TV show besides me? Nellie Bowles composes her own news "summary" at the Free Press, and it's pretty good this weekend, writing on what the NYT headlined as: Smoking Jars of Metal. Concentrating on the media's slant on the wannabe-murderous bombers targeting an anti-Islam demonstration:

  Here’s The New York Times with a perfect headline that both downplays what happened and implies it was done by the anti-Islamic protesters:

  

  Hmm. Weird that they name Jake Lang rather than the bombers. A smoking jar was thrown in a counterprotest clash. But I’m sure it was just a mistake, right?

  Nellie has more examples. Which you should read with an unbiased mind if, for some reason, you don't hold the MSM in utter contempt.

That being the title of Andrew Heaton's latest video at Reason, which contains more serious content than is usual for Andrew's videos, and I highly recommend it…

… um, unless you're of Irish descent, and sensitive about it. (In which case, best to you on St. Patrick's Day!)

Also of note:

• An easy call for me. Veronique de Rugy poses a choice for you: Tax the Rich or Discipline the Government?

  In 1950, [s Cato Institute tax scholar Adam Michel] documents, total government spending constituted roughly one-fifth of the U.S. economy. That figure has now risen to more than one-third. Real spending per person quadrupled over that same period. Jack Salmon of the Mercatus Center traced this phenomenon back to determine exactly where the long-term structural deficit comes from, and found that 98% is due to spending decisions. About two-thirds of this deficit reflects the compounding cost of interest on debt we've already accumulated. The remainder is mandatory program growth, above all with Medicare, which is on a trajectory to nearly triple as a share of GDP by mid-century compared with its historical average.

  No plausible tax increase can close a gap like that. There's a hard empirical ceiling on how much revenue the government can actually extract, regardless of what tax rates it sets.

  More fiscal fun facts from Vero at the link. The real problem? We (present company excepted) keep electing politicians who lie to us about this.

• Speaking of spending… At Cato, Chris Edwards looks at a sacred cow: Farm Subsidies: More, More, More.

  Republicans can’t get enough of farm subsidies. The House GOP is currently pushing another big farm bill just months after President Trump doled out $12 billion in special farm payments. By one measure, farm subsidies are projected to soar from $23 billion in 2025 to $42 billion by 2027, so now is a good time to review these growing handouts.

  The federal budget fattens many industries, including defense, health care, transportation, and housing. But no industry is more coddled by the federal government than agriculture, particularly field crops. Billions of dollars a year flow to farmers of corn, wheat, soybeans, cotton, and rice.

  Farmers are businesspeople, but the government shields them from just about every type of weather and market risk. Furthermore, just about every part of the agricultural industry is subsidized, including insurance, loans, marketing, research, export sales, and land improvements.

  Most welfare programs are for low-income families, but farm welfare is for high-income families. The average income of US farm households in 2024 was $159,334, which was 32 percent higher than the $121,000 average of all US households. But Congress steers subsidies to the wealthiest of those farm households. Two-thirds or more of payments from the major subsidy programs go to the largest 10 percent of farms. Even billionaires can receive farm subsidies.

  As a one-time Iowa boy, I like farmers a lot, but they need to be weaned off the federal teat.

• And at the University Near Here… NHJournal has mixed news: UNH's $212K DEI Director Out, but Race-Based Policies May Remain.

  She survived years of tight budgets, legislative action, and presidential executive orders, but the University of New Hampshire’s $212,000 DEI officer is finally on her way out.

  The question now is whether the UNH administration will continue to push for the race-based policies and practices that are unpopular with the voters and — more importantly — the legislators who oversee their funding.

  In a letter to students and faculty, UNH President Elizabeth Chilton announced that Dr. Nadine Petty will be leaving at the end of the year.

  “Since joining UNH in 2020, Dr. Petty has helped strengthen the university’s commitment to an inclusive, equitable, and respectful campus community,” Chilton wrote.

  Chilton’s letter didn’t mention federal and state laws mandating an end to the so-called “diversity, equity, and inclusion” policies Petty was hired to oversee. Instead, Chilton said Petty and her husband will “relocate to be closer to family outside of New England.”

  Yes, she's leaving to spend more time with her family.

  I wish her well, and hope she exercises her talents in some less divisive field.

I believe the Amazon Product du Jour is borderline idolatry, and I only recommend it as a bad example.

The WSJ editorialists bemoan a recent legislative success: Elizabeth Warren’s Housing Coup. (WSJ gifted link)

I don't think they're making an obscure reference to the Native American ritual of counting coup. But maybe.

After Your Federal Government has made great progress in making medical care, public education, and childcare "affordable", it's about time it worked its magic on housing.

In case you need it: the headline reference.

Also of note:

• Or maybe just change their name to "Complete Ninny Network". John Hinderaker goes for the jugular: CNN Must Go. He follows up the failures mentioned here yesterday. The latest is a grudging apology for being "inaccurate", but one that still manages to be inaccurate:

  I want to correct something I said last night. The bombs thrown in New York City over the weekend by ISIS inspired attackers was thrown into a crowd of anti-Muslim protestors and not specifically targeted at Mayor Mamdani. That wording was inaccurate and I didn’t catch it ahead…

  — Abby D. Phillip (@abbydphillip) March 11, 2026

  Nevertheless, they persisted:

  Astonishingly, after Phillips’ gaffe, another CNN host repeated the same falsehood:

  Later in the program, CNN’s Ana Navarro said the attack was “against Mayor Mandani in New York, who was raised Muslim.”

  Let's see if Nina Jankowicz and her "American Sunlight Project" are covering this misinformation pandemic… uh, nope.

• The latest instantiation of "Horseshoe Theory". Dennis Saffran is not happy about it: The New Right Takes Up the Left’s War on Merit.

  In June 2023, the Supreme Court handed down its landmark decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (SFFA), striking down racial preferences that discriminated against whites but most blatantly against Asian-Americans in college admissions. It was one of the signal conservative judicial victories made possible by Donald Trump’s Court appointments. And, while colleges and universities have continued to resist it, it is clear that it marked, if not the beginning of the end of the “plot against merit” that has caught high-achieving Asian-American kids in its crosshairs, at least “the end of the beginning” of the effort to restore something resembling colorblind equality.

  So, of course, there’s a certain kind of right-winger who just can’t stand it.

  New Right writer Helen Andrews went on a Yellow Peril tweetstorm tear on X last month, bemoaning Asian “cheating” and “grind culture” and the “death spiral” of “unchecked meritocracy” seen in China, speculating that “the boom in Southern colleges is white flight from Asian educational norms,” criticizing high-skilled immigration, and fretting that, in the wake of the SFFA decision, the Harvard freshman class is now “over 40% Asian,” and “Asians outnumber whites” at many other top schools. She followed this up with a piece in Compact reiterating these themes and lamenting that the SFFA ruling had allegedly allowed affirmative action “to continue as long as it only harms whites and not Asians.”

  As an "I'm old enough to remember" item: it used to be Jews.

• Might even be worse than his phoniness problem. George Will translates auribus teneo lupum for us clods: Gavin Newsom has a hold-a-wolf-by-the-ears problem. (WaPo gifted link). It's all good, of course, so just a couple paragraphs at random:

  Vogue has just published an adoring profile of Newsom. Its 5,317 words begin with these: “He is embarrassingly handsome, his hair seasoned with silver, at ease with his own eminence.” Then Vogue shifts into high-gear gush: “lithe, ardent, energetic, a glimmer of optimism in his eye; Kennedy-esque.”

  This is the most beyond-satire puff piece since Vanity Fair’s April 2019 cover story on a Texas congressman who was the flavor of the month for about a month among the tiny sliver of voters who think Vanity Fair is a profound guide to U.S. politics. Remember Beto O’Rourke? Few do.

  As I type, Governor Gav is the favored 2028 Democrat presidential nominee at the Stossel/Lott Election Betting Odds site, but with only a 26.8% probability. What's that mean?

• This inspires some dark fantasies here. James Piereson calls for truth in labelling: Socialism is a hate crime.

  It is remarkable that, despite its long record of failure, socialism is now more popular than ever among college students and in progressive precincts of the Democratic Party, at least judging by the cult status of figures such as Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Now an avowed socialist has been elected mayor of New York, the commercial capital of the United States and home to that great capitalist institution, the stock market. Even more recently, socialists here and around the world have spoken out in unison against the arrest of Nicolás Maduro, the socialist dictator of Venezuela.

  It is ironic that these socialists, along with their supporters and fellow travelers, like to censor conservatives for, allegedly, promoting “hate” and “division.” On that basis, they have banned conservative speakers from appearing on college campuses, and just a few years ago urged Twitter and Facebook to close the accounts of conservatives who spoke out against socialism.

  This raises the question: given the historical record, why don’t we label socialism as a hate crime?

  I try to avoid amateur psychoanalysis, but socialists do seem to be motivated by unhealthy and dysfunctional instincts. Just sayin'.

• Maybe not three cheers, but can we have two? Or even one? Jeff Maurer has a contrarian take: Regime Change is Good Sometimes.

  Left-wing views on regime change are largely informed by two bees that are still buzzing around in the leftist bonnet: The CIA’s work to install the Shah in Iran and Pinochet in Chile. When the 1952 election in Iran produced a Prime Minister who threatened Western oil interests, the CIA and MI6 backed a coup by the Shah that made him an absolute ruler. And when a Marxist won the 1970 election in Chile, the CIA backed a coup a few years later by Augusto Pinochet. If you know leftists — and oh I have known some leftists in my time — these are events they talk about a lot. And they have a point: The US basically supported democracy unless democracy produced leaders we didn’t like, which is kind of like being monogamous unless a really juicy opportunity to cheat comes along.

  But the big problem in both cases is that we toppled governments that had democratic legitimacy. Those governments won elections, and we didn’t even wait for the leftist leader to disband the constitution and declare himself Dictator For Life And Beyond (which probably would have happened if the CIA had just kept its pants on). We ignored the people’s will in both countries, which is why folks like me — who don’t care about Marxist claptrap but do care about democracy — look at those choices and think “bad stuff”.

  Good points.

Recently on the book blog:

I own the hardcover, which I purchased back in 1980 for (I think) the full retail price at the time, $11.95. And it has sat, unread, on my bookshelf since then. About time I got to it.

Reader, I mean no disrespect to the late Philip José Farmer, but the word that kept popping into my head while reading this was "interminable". Things go on for many, many pages.

And, not that it matters, but: that's a neat cover picture, but nothing like that shows up in the book.

And, to add to my kvetching, my edition has a back-cover quote from Farmer that states:

Now ends the Riverworld series, all loose ends tied together in a sword-resisting Gordian knot, all the human mysteries revealed, the millions of miles of The River and the many years of quests and The Quest completed.

And then just a few years later, his actual last novel, Gods of Riverworld, was published. I'm sure there was a good reason for that besides squeezing out a few bucks from readers with more money than sense. Like me.

Riverworld is falling apart here. The once-reliable "resurrection" feature that rebooted dead humans into a new life along the River has stopped working: when you're dead, you're dead. And the semi-magical grailstones that provided periodic food, drink, and other consumables to humanity stop working entirely on one bank of the River. Which causes that bank's inhabitants to go to war against the other, resulting in the death of half of Riverworld's billions of souls. (Easy come, easy go.) A lot of these troubles are brought about by "X", a mysterious (and murderous) renegade from the race that created Riverworld, the "Ethicals".

Worse: there are two competing riverboats racing upriver, aimed at finding the "Tower" at the River's source: one helmed by King John, the other by Samuel Clemens. They go to all-out war, too, because why not. This involves an interminable dogfight between each boat's airplanes, closely followed by an interminable battle between the boats themselves, fought out on the river's surface.

Leaving a ragtag group of survivors to proceed to the Tower. Their (also interminable) trek is perilous and deadly, but they still have time to engage in discussions (reminiscent of college dorm rooms) of wathans, a soul-like psychic gadget that acts as a backup device for humans.

Eventually, things wind up, and it turns out to be fortunate that one of the survivors of all the carnage is Alice Liddell, Lewis Carroll's inspiration. Spoiler: She saves the day.

I don't actually recommend you buy the Amazon Product du Jour over there on your right. (Although I've put it on my possibly-get-at-library list. If I'm feeling masochistic.) It's by the failed litigator Michael Mann and Peter Hotez. And according to the review by Roger Pielke Jr., they are The Scientists Who Declared War on Half of America.

"Stark Realty" would be a good name for a New Hampshire real estate company.

Roger's not a big fan, as you might expect from someone who's named by Mann/Hotez as one of the Enemies of the Good.

Also of note:

• Trying to put a smiley face on mediocrity. The Heritage Foundation has issued an updated Index of Economic Freedom, ranking 184 countries.

  I won't sugarcoat it, Reader: the US is in a solid 22nd place. The relevant page reflects the Heritage Foundation's Trump sycophancy:

  The United States’ economic freedom score is 72.8, making its economy the 22nd freest in the 2026 Index of Economic Freedom. Its rating has increased by 2.6 points from last year, ending the precipitous five-year decline of America’s economic freedom. The Trump Administration’s pragmatic pro-growth economic strategy—lowering the costs of doing business, advancing and spreading prosperity, and enhancing long-term competitiveness—has yielded the strongest economic growth rate recorded in recent years.

  The American economy has achieved the largest score improvement among the major advanced economies and the third largest among all of the countries graded in the 2026 Index. Gains in monetary freedom, government spending, fiscal health, and investment freedom have outpaced the lower score in trade freedom, reflecting the positive impact of major regulatory and tax reforms on economic growth, investment, and business confidence. This improvement also marks America’s biggest score advancement since 2001 and the second-best in the U.S.’s 32-year history in the Index.

  You might have missed the mumble about the "lower score in trade freedom". And I'm not sure how they measure "government spending" and "fiscal health" to come up with gains.

  But it's downright embarrassing when your country is getting its clock cleaned economic freedomwise by Singapore, Switzerland, Ireland, Australia, Taiwan, Luxembourg, Demark, Norway, Estonia, The Netherlands, Sweden, New Zealand, Finland, Canada, Lithuania, Chile, Cyprus, South Korea, Czech Republic, and Mauritius.

• Like I'm five years old? Bryan Caplan bravely says: I Think I Can Explain Trump's Theory of Trade.

  Donald Trump likes exports and foreign investment, and laments imports and trade deficits. Most economists find this a baffling bundle of preferences — and the more they know about international trade, the more baffled they are. Never mind the truism that the whole point of exports is to buy imports. Doesn’t Trump know that getting more foreign investment raises trade deficits by definition? How confused can you get? While I agree that Trump is terribly wrong about international trade, there’s a big difference between being wrong and being confused. While I doubt I’m ready to pass an Ideological Turing Test for Trumpian trade theory, I recently had a weird epiphany on the topic. After said epiphany, I feel capable of articulating roughly what Trump is thinking.

  1. Above all, Trump wants the rest of the world to buy as much stuff from the U.S. as possible. He wants the world to buy our current output — and he wants them to buy our assets, too! His dream is piles of dollars flowing into the U.S. from all directions.

  2. If piles of dollars flow into the U.S. from all directions, he thinks this will boost U.S. sales and employment.

  3. Trump doesn’t know and doesn’t care about the “trade deficit” as economists define it. When he hears “trade deficit,” Trump imagines that U.S. dollars leaving the U.S. exceed U.S. dollars entering the U.S. Foreign investment means U.S. dollars entering the U.S., so on his implicit definition, foreign investment reduces trade deficits.

  Why would anyone find this story plausible? Simple: It’s unadorned, old-fashioned Keynesianism. Trump wants to boost aggregate demand. The more money foreigners spend here, the more American business will sell, and the more American workers they’ll hire.

  Since I know nothing about Keynesianism, let alone the unadorned, old-fashioned variety, I probably shouldn't comment.

  I will anyhow: I think Bryan's giving the president too much intellectual cover. I think Trump operates simply on a combination of unprincipled whim and narcissism.

• If the truth-in-labelling laws had any teeth, they would have been forced to do this already. David Strom at Hot Air fantasizes: CNN Changing Name to PNN: Propaganda News Network.

  Some things you cannot make up.

  I mean, who would believe it if you told them that CNN would turn an Islamist terrorist attack on New York City into a tale of two brothers minding their own business until they were forced to protest the injustice of white supremacists who were committing an Islamophobic hate crime?

  He's talking about this:

  Whenever the topic is something the media doesn’t like, journalists all become creative writing professors. The press has done everything possible to obfuscate the facts of this story—and it has done so deliberately. pic.twitter.com/YnwnyRwXLe

  — Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) March 10, 2026

  CNN eventually got embarrassed into fixing this particular outrage, but David has more examples. And since then:

  CNN claims the attempted bombing in NYC was directed at Mamdani
  
  It was literally two isis islamists who shouted “allahu akbar” and threw the bombs at anti-Mamdani protesters
  
  This attempt to rewrite history is INSANE pic.twitter.com/93SvU70sIJ

  — Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) March 11, 2026

  When I see people out there claim "You can't hate the media enough", I take it as a dare. "Oh yeah? Watch me."

• But in more positive news… James Freeman pays some attention to an under-reported bit of the story: Duty, Honor, Country, City. (WSJ gifted link)

  One always hopes that in the face of danger one would act with courage. But how many among us would run toward alleged terrorists or toward an improvised explosive device even as it emits a cloud of smoke from its lit fuse? New York City police officers did both of those things last Saturday in foiling an attempted attack allegedly inspired by ISIS.

  Something to hold onto.

Yes, a very belated nod to Robert Duvall's famous line in Apocalypse Now, inspired by Jack Butler's plea for honest language: A War by Any Name. (WSJ gifted link)

And, yes, it's a very rare case where (in this very limited domain) President Trump is being more honest than his fellow D.C. swamp-dwellers.

"It is what it is." Sheesh.

Also of note:

• A wise man once noted "a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth." Thomas W. Hazlett describes a byproduct: The Equal Time Rule Was Obsolete in 1927. (WSJ gifted link)

  A debate has broken out over the Radio Act of 1927. It’s about time.

  The Radio Act established the Equal Time Rule, which still governs broadcast radio and television. The regulation specifies that “if any licensee shall permit any . . . candidate for any public office to use a broadcasting station,” the station owner “shall afford equal opportunities to all other such candidates.”

  Proponents say the Equal Time Rule fosters media coverage of politics and affords political candidates greater public access. Critics say it has outlived its usefulness, as today’s media landscape offers a cornucopia of platforms unknown in 1920s America. The critics are right, except for one thing: The rule has never been useful and has always functioned mostly to suppress coverage for challengers.

  Kill it before it becomes a centenarian. And the FCC too, while you're at it.

• And reminding us why the FCC should go is … the libertarian-friendly WePo Editorial Board: The FCC thinks it knows best. (WaPo gifted link)

  The Federal Communications Commission announced last week that it wants to crack down on call centers. No one likes dealing with customer service over the phone, but don’t be surprised if this government intervention makes an already annoying experience even worse.

  “Consumers in the U.S. regularly experience frustration and inconsistent outcomes when they connect with a customer service call center located abroad,” the FCC said. The agency also pointed to language barriers and security concerns before introducing a raft of proposed rules for companies.

  Here's an idea: if you are dissatisfied with the customer service you get from a company, take your business elsewhere. Don't look to the FCC to save you from talking to New Delhi Dolly.

• A belated birthday note. I noted the anniversary of The Wealth of Nations yesterday, but here's a late-breaking card from J.D. Tuccille: Adam Smith's 'Wealth of Nations' remains relevant 250 years later.

  Smith is often referred to as the "father of capitalism" as if he designed an economic system as a thought experiment. But that's not the case. Instead, he described what he saw working in the voluntary interactions of people around him, and the government policies that got in the way of prosperity.

  As Smith wrote in The Wealth of Nations:

  What is the species of domestic industry which his capital can employ, and of which the produce is likely to be of the greatest value, every individual, it is evident, can in his local situation judge much better than any statesman or lawgiver can do for him. The statesman, who should attempt to direct private people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals, would not only load himself with a most unnecessary attention, but assume an authority which could safely be trusted, not only to no single person, but to no council or senate whatever, and which would nowhere be so dangerous as in the hands of a man who had folly and presumption enough to fancy himself fit to exercise it.

  That was an important insight at a time when Europe's rulers insisted that the path to building wealth required hoarding precious metals, limiting imports, and guiding economic activity to serve the interests of the state. It remains a key point a quarter-millennium later when countries that built prosperity through relatively free markets now squander what they created with government priorities and policies that sideline the creative efforts of workers and entrepreneurs.

  I would dearly love to report that insight has won the day, but … nope.

• I don't write about Texas politics much. But Kevin D. Williamson lives down there, and he has A Brief Message for Sen. John Cornyn. (archive.today link)

  A brief question for Sen. John Cornyn: What, exactly, is the point of you?

  You’re not Ken Paxton, true. Paxton, the corrupt imbecile who serves as the attorney general of Texas and your opponent in the upcoming Republican primary runoff, is pretty gross: He is an adulterer, a chiseler, an abuser of his office. Donald Trump, whom you are satisfied to serve as the most abject and obedient of lackeys, also is an adulterer, a chiseler, and an abuser of his office. On top of that is the fact that he attempted to overthrow the government of these United States in January 2021 after losing the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden—and you voted to acquit him in his impeachment after that attempted coup d’état. President Trump has launched an unconstitutional war against Iran, has carried out wanton massacres in the Caribbean, has overthrown the government of Venezuela, has dispatched U.S. special forces to Ecuador, and in none of these instances has he so much as nodded in the general direction of Congress—the branch of the U.S. government in which you serve, Sen. Cornyn, and the branch entrusted by our Constitution with the power to declare war. You have been exactly as faithful to your vow to uphold the Constitution as Ken Paxton was to his wedding vows—and, with all due respect to the blessed institution of marriage, your infidelity to the Constitution is more consequential than Paxton’s infidelity to his wife.

  I have no particular beef with Cornyn, but I deeply admire KDW.

• Unclear on the LFOD concept. Allen J. Davis of Dublin, NH appeals to LFOD in his LTE to the Keene Sentinel: NH: Live free, but without food choice.

  I oppose House Bill 1773, which would take away SNAP recipients' freedom to buy certain unhealthy foods.

  I wholeheartedly support Lisa Beaudoin, executive director of the N.H. Council of Churches, who said to the N.H. House of Representatives last week: This bill is a "troubling shift from support to surveillance."

  And, I want to pose this question to all House Republicans: Does "Live Free or Die" apply only to those lucky enough not to need the benefits of SNAP?

  Nobody, of course, is stopping Granite Staters from buying soda and candy.

  With their own money.

  Not that it matters, but here's what you currently can't use SNAP for (in any state):

  • Beer, wine, and liquor.
  • Cigarettes and tobacco.
  • Food and drinks containing controlled substances such as cannabis/marijuana and CBD.
  • Vitamins, medicines, and supplements. If an item has a Supplement Facts label, it is considered a supplement and is not eligible for SNAP purchase.
  • Live animals (except shellfish, fish removed from water, and animals slaughtered prior to pick-up from the store).
  • Foods that are hot at the point of sale.
  • Any nonfood items such as:
    • Pet foods
    • Cleaning supplies, paper products, and other household supplies.
    • Hygiene items and cosmetics

  Bet you didn't realize you were already living in a statist hellhole, did you Allen?

Recently on the movie blog:

I've had a very poor movie-watching record so far this year. Part of the problem: I don't report on movies if I fell asleep while watching them. And that happens a lot; I even nodded off in the movie theater during 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple.

But I can report that I stayed awake all the way through Song Sung Blue. And I enjoyed it quite a bit. It's the based-on-truth story of Mike and Claire Sardina, starting from their meet-cute while performing their tribute-band songs at the Wisconsin State Fair. They discover their true chemistry in the songs of Neil Diamond. And eventually build a fan following in the Milwaukee area. Until…

Well, no spoilers here. But I went into the movie not really knowing the details, and there's some bad stuff I didn't see coming. (And, sadly, neither does Claire.) But it wouldn't be a very interesting movie without some of that.

Hugh Jackman plays Mike, Kate Hudson plays Claire, and they are both great. (Ms. Hudson snagged a Best Actress Oscar nomination, well-deserved.) And, hey, that's Jim Belushi!

(For what it's worth: I am definitely going to see Project Hail Mary on the big screen. And I will try again to watch The Bone Temple when it shows up on Netflix.)

No, I'm not jumping the gun. I'm joining with Janet Bufton at Econlib to hit this anniversary right on the nose: Happy Birthday, Wealth of Nations.

Janet's examples are part of the Liberty Fund's slick website, Adam Smith Works. A font of wisdom and trivia. For example, you might think that Adam was fond of Scotch Whiskey. But no, he preferred clarets (in moderation). Which probably gave him insight into British trade with France.

Also of note:

• Let's beat up on this stupid, evil idea some more. Megan McArdle looks at The myth of the billionaire wealth tax. (WaPo gifted link)

  Unfortunately, there are serious arguments that a wealth tax would be unconstitutional. Even more unfortunately, wealth taxes have been tried over and over, and most countries that adopted them eventually abandoned the idea, finding that such taxes were difficult to administer, caused capital flight and raised little revenue. An analysis by University of Toronto economist Joseph Steinberg suggests that tax revenue would actually fall if the Sanders-Khanna proposal were enacted, because of increased incentives for tax evasion (as taxes rise, people become more willing to risk the penalties for evasion) and reduced economic output.

  But what would Adam Smith say? See: Adam Smith on Taxation

• Not just stupid? The WSJ editorialists weigh in: The Legal Case Against Section 122 Tariffs. (WSJ gifted link)

  We never expected to see progressives quote Milton Friedman. But lo, 22 Democratic Attorneys General on Thursday invoked the free-market sage in a lawsuit challenging President Trump’s new Section 122 tariffs. They have a strong case.

  Mr. Trump last month turned to Section 122 to reimpose his border taxes after the Supreme Court struck down his emergency tariffs. Section 122 lets him impose tariffs as high as 15% for up to 150 days to address “large and serious balance-of-payments deficits.” Mr. Trump says the tariffs are needed to reduce the U.S.’s $1.2 trillion trade deficit in goods.

  Let's skip down to the delicious irony:

  Richard Nixon made Section 122 obsolete when he shut the gold window and abandoned Bretton Woods. The lawsuit quotes the sainted Friedman: “[A] system of floating exchange rates completely eliminates the balance-of-payments problem . . . the price may fluctuate but there cannot be a deficit or a surplus threatening an exchange crisis.”

  And on this day, you might also check out Adam Smith's Warnings about Exceptions to Free Trade.

• 

  Happy dolphins probably not included. The cover story in the current issue of Reason is by Christian Britschgi, who writes on The Joys of Data Centers. Joy is needed more than ever these days, right?

  Sen. Bernie Sanders has a problem with data centers. They're just too good.

  In a video posted to social media in December 2025, the Vermont independent complained that billionaire tech moguls are reaping huge profits from their data center investments while the technological innovations these facilities power will automate away countless jobs currently done by human workers. He called for a federal moratorium on data center construction to "give democracy a chance to catch up with the transformative changes that we are witnessing."

  I imagine there were early 20th-century Bernies demanding a moratorium on Henry Ford's Model T factory. But…

  In Sanders' case, his complaints about data centers tacitly accept the premises of the people investing huge sums in them: that these facilities will be fabulously profitable investments that spur the development of the innovative, labor-saving technologies of the future. But the socialist senator thinks that's a bad thing. After all, no government bureaucrat has precisely planned where all this economic dynamism will take us.

  The rest of us should be able to see the tremendous upsides of the country's data center boom. Advances in artificial intelligence and robotics could liberate humanity from boring, backbreaking labor. The early profits of data center development are a leading indicator of the increasingly productive economy that awaits us in the years to come.

  And although I'm relatively sure Adam Smith never wrote specifically about AI data centers, who can doubt that they are the pin factories of today?

Recently on the book blog:

A good review in the WSJ put this book by David Baron on my get-at-library list. It's easy to write off our modern age as one where the unwashed masses believe in utter claptrap, but guess what? The author, David Baron, demonstrates that back in the late 1800s and early 1900s, plenty of Americans got hooked into believing in Martians. And many of those people were well-washed.

Leading the way were the "amateur" astronomers of the day. (By our lights, most scientists back then were amateurs, although very enthusiastic.) The most famous was Percival Lowell, one of the immensely wealthy mill-owning Lowells of Boston. Percival wasn't that interested in mills, but used his fortune to build telescopes and (eventually) observatories, and his attention was concentrated on Mars.

And he reported some astounding news: Mars was an arid, dying, planet, but it had polar icecaps. And a vast network of canals, clearly meant to carry runoff water from those icecaps down to oases at lower latitudes. Clearly, the inhabitants of Mars had built them as a desperate measure to survive.

Although there were critics of this scenario, the public was swept up by Lowell's certainty. Nicola Tesla was also a True Believer, and made serious efforts to communicate with the Martians, either by huge reflecting mirrors or a even bigger radio antenna. H.G. Wells also got in on the craze with (you may have heard) his novel War of the Worlds.

But by the early 1900s, the craze was in decline. Although Lowell remained a believer in his fantasy until he died in 1916, he was increasingly isolated and depressed. (Tesla, as you might know, was even crazier, developing an (um) eccentric attachment to a white New York pigeon that he claimed visited him daily.)

Baron does a good job of getting into Lowell's head. Occasionally his prose gets purple and (perhaps) overly speculative, but that's OK.

Another book picked off the shelves of the Portsmouth (NH) Public Library thanks to its inclusion on the WSJ's list of 2025's Best Mystery Books. The reviewer, Tom Nolan, likes the author, Denise Mina, quite a bit and he says this "may be Ms. Mina’s best book." Alas, my fancy was untickled.

The protagonist, Claudia O’Sheil, is a forensic scientist, and her specialty is the "Blood Spray Probability Scale" (BSPS), a crime scene analysis tool that's brought her fame. By Dickensian coincidence, she is nearby when the grisly murder of an aristocrat and his fiancée is uncovered. (And also, a dog.) Suspicion falls on the wastrel son, but Claudia's not so sure. Even though her BSPS seems to point to him, she's becoming less convinced of its utility. Alas, the son pleads guilty, even though Claudia's increasingly convinced that someone else did the deed.

And she's got other problems of her own. Her husband was recently killed in a seeming auto accident. (Or was it suicide? Or murder?) Her sister is a drug addict. She's worried about the school her two sons will attend. And… well, she's not very sympathetic. Or interesting. Her investigatory efforts seem half-hearted and random.

The book is also full of unexplained Britishisms, most of which I couldn't even figure out from context.

I'm probably wrong. As usual, the book's Amazon page is full of praise.

Andrew Heaton, Reason's game show host, asks his unwary contestant: Is it war?.

Minigripe: Andrew didn't ask the contestant about the First Barbary War.

Also of note:

• I wish Vinay good health and access to whatever drugs he needs to make that happen. The WSJ editorialists note that Vinay Prasad Is Out at the FDA—Again. (WSJ gifted link) And it's hard to see this as anything other than good news:

  Is two times the charm? FDA Commissioner Marty Makary said Friday that Vinay Prasad, who leads the FDA’s biologics division, will leave the agency at the end of April. This is the second time Dr. Prasad is being pushed out of the agency, and to understand why, see his handling of UniQure’s gene therapy for Huntington’s disease.

  We reported in November that the FDA had moved the goal post on UniQure’s treatment. Huntington’s disease afflicts about 40,000 patients in the U.S., and there are no current treatments that slow progression. UniQure’s therapy slowed progression by 75% compared to the natural course of the disease.

  For the record: Pun Salad covered Vinay relatively positively back in early, mostly COVID, days: here, here, here, here, and here. But then things turned to is-this-the-same-guy? land this year: here, here, and here.

  I know: past performance is not a guarantee of future results. Still, it makes me wonder if I'm missing something.

• It's a glum-looking bunch. We don't do a lot of linking to InDepthNH, but this seems to be pretty solid reporting: Protesters Rally Against Free State Project.

  CONCORD, NH — About 100 protesters joined the Kent Street Coalition and other local advocacy groups at the State House on Thursday to protest the Free State Project in New Hampshire, which critics say attempts to influence state politics and dismantle public education.

  Groups such as 50501 NH, Southern NH Indivisible, Granite State Matters, and Third Act NH joined the coalition to oppose the Free State Project, which was formed in 2001. Two years later the state was picked as the best destination to “reinforce and enhance an already existing libertarian culture.” Its mission — which began with the goal of a mass migration of more than 20,000 people — is to expand personal and economic freedom by concentrating liberty-minded people in New Hampshire.

  (I will observe that none of the FSP-hating folks advocated/threatened/promised moving to FSP-free states, like … well pick and choose among approximately 49 others, plus D.C.)

  To his credit, the reporter sought rebuttal quotes from FSP Executive Director Eric Brakey:

  Brakey responded to the criticism and asserted that “there is no such thing as a ‘Free State Agenda.’”

  Brakey said that the group is not a political party and does not operate with a centralized policy platform. He noted it’s a decentralized movement of people who believe the government should be limited to protecting life, liberty, and property. Citing the New Hampshire Liberty Association, he said there are about 100 liberty legislators at the State House, adding that whether they consider themselves Free Staters is “up to them, but they certainly have a lot of support from the Free Staters at the very least.”

  He clarified that not everyone associated with the project runs for office, saying that people have different ideas on how best to promote liberty. He said some build businesses, homeschool networks, and community centers, and that those on the direct political path get a lot of attention “but culture building is equally important.”

• But for the really important NH news… You have to go to Ars Technica, which asks two burning questions. Which of these two arcades is the "world [sic] largest"—and does it matter?

  In New Hampshire, just off the western shore of the vacation destination Lake Winnipesaukee, there’s a town called Laconia. With a population somewhere south of 17,000, it’s barely a blip on a map—except on Bike Week, when around 300,000 motorcyclists swarm the place. On the other, quieter weeks of the year, Laconia is best known as the unlikely home of Funspot, the world’s largest arcade.

  Meanwhile, in Brookfield, Illinois, about 45 minutes west of Chicago and the shores of Lake Michigan, you’ll find Galloping Ghost Arcade, a sprawling suburban palace with a nondescript exterior hiding a mind-blowing collection. With over 1,000 arcade cabinets (plus a further 46 pinball machines), Galloping Ghost is the world’s largest arcade.

  Yes, there are two arcades in the US labeled as the world’s largest, and while that may seem a bit paradoxical, a visit to both proves that while only one can be the biggest, both are the greatest.

  So the answer to the headline questions?

  Yeah, I'm gonna say it: the answer may surprise you.

Recently on the book blog:

I remembered this title earlier this year while reading a very good history book about Michael Faraday and James Clerk Maxwell. It was originally published in 1999, and was part of the "Feynmania" of that era. And I had never read it, and the Portsmouth (NH) Public Library still had a copy on its "530" shelf, so…

It's a 13-chapter hodgepodge of interview transcripts, speeches, talks, magazine articles, etc. And also Feynman's devastating "minority report" on the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, which excoriated NASA's "well, we got away with it this time, so…" attitude toward risk evaluation, criticism that the rest of the Rogers Commission found unable to support. (Or maybe understand.)

The lightly-edited interviews are uneven. Things can get jumbled when you or I think faster than we can talk. Reader, Feynman could think much faster than you or I, and things get very jumbled here on occasion. But still interesting, if you can follow him over the leaps and bounds.

Feynman's famous musing on "cargo cult science" shows up multiple times; he was fascinated by the Pacific natives who tried to keep World War II benefits coming to their islands by crafting aircraft models, runways, control towers, and so on. He saw analogous behavior in some contemporaries, who adopted the superficial aspects of science, but lacked understanding and self-doubt. As his famous quote, aimed at 1974 Caltech grads, goes (included here): "You must not fool yourself--and you are the easiest person to fool."

Many chapters here can also be found "out there" on the web. I found my favorite one was a transcript of his 1966 talk to the National Science Teachers Association, "What is Science?" You can read it here. It contains yet another quote that should be more famous: "Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts."

In case you haven't seen President Trump's Truth Social post today:

Disclaimer: for my more serious rant, see my: The Right Number of Time Zones is Zero.

Number 4 in Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals" is "Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules". Or (alternatively) show that someone is using a different book of rules for his side:

Adam Schiff falls right into Bill Maher’s trap as he criticizes a statement he thought was from Trump but was actually from Obama.

MAHER: “This statement from the administration: ‘The president had the constitutional authority to direct the use of military force because he could… pic.twitter.com/5jg3wpdAQZ

— The Vigilant Fox 🦊 (@VigilantFox) March 7, 2026

So, good for Maher.

Also of note:

• "Dumb" is actually the nicest thing you can say about it. So Charles C.W. Cooke is being more polite than I would: Anti-Billionaire Sentiment Is Dumb. (archive.today link)

  The current habit of attacking “billionaires” as some problem to be solved — and, more specifically, as the source of all of America’s contemporary problems — is illiterate, intemperate, ungrateful, frivolous, and, above all, dangerous.

  (That's more like it, Charlie. All better adjectives than mere "dumb".)

  A representative question — advanced with all the rhetorical confidence and tragic folly of John Cleese asking, “What have the Romans ever done for us?” — is this:

  What do billionaires contribute to society?

  — Harry Eccles (@Heccles94) March 5, 2026

  Really? Really? I suppose if you believe that the only useful institution in our universe is the government — and, in tandem, that you have convinced yourself that it is never adequately funded — then you might plausibly struggle to answer this. But that’s on you. Extraneous conduct aside, what billionaires have “contributed to society” are the things that made them billionaires in the first instance. Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Phil Knight, Jeff Bezos, Eric Schmidt, Walt Disney — these men did not spring up from the earth, fully formed as tremendously rich guys. They created products — computers and phones; shoes and athletic gear; ubiquitous online shopping; retail hardware stores; movies, TV shows, and amusement parks — that other people wanted to pay for. Lots of people. Oodles of people. Millions of people, in fact. And when those millions of people wanted to pay for those products, billions of dollars changed hands. The billionaires got the money, and the buyers — some of whom are now complaining about it — got the products. This was voluntary, virtuous, and, in almost all cases, useful.

  CCWC for the win.

• Don't cry for her, South Dakota. Jim Geraghty performs the indispensible duty of throwing a few more of Kristi's flaws onto the pyre: Kristi Noem Has No One to Blame but Herself. Among (many) other items, Jim puts that Mount Rushmore ad into context:

  You can watch the 60-second DHS ad here. Featuring Noem on horseback at Mount Rushmore and a lot of stock footage, it is utterly indistinguishable from a campaign ad. As Axios put it in October, “The most expensive political ad campaign of the year is being run by the Department of Homeland Security.” For perspective, in 2025, the campaign of Virginia Democrat Abigail Spanberger spent $28.4 million on TV ads, or just under 13 percent of the DHS spending. Except Spanberger spent her donors’ money, and Noem spent ours.

  If that ad campaign had been a television series, it would have ranked among the most expensive series of all time. That’s the total amount in Green Bay Packers quarterback Jordan Love’s contract extension in 2024, when he became the highest-paid player in NFL history to that point. DHS could have bought anywhere from 770 to 880 Lamborghinis for that sum, depending upon the model.

  Now, if you’re skeptical that President Trump would approve a $220 million ad campaign, the president told Reuters that he knew nothing about it.

  Except Kristi testified under oath that he approved it. So either Trump or Kristi's lying. Want to guess who?

• Nothing? Come on, Peter; she gave you something to write about! Peter Suderman asserts (nevertheless): There is nothing positive to say about Kristi Noem's tenure at DHS.

  Noem was let go with a few nice remarks from President Trump and an appointment to a new gig, special envoy for the Shield of Americas. What, exactly, is the Shield of Americas? No one can say for sure. I can't prove that it's a fake, made-up, face-saving appointment. But it sure looks like a fake, made-up, face-saving appointment. Apparently, there's a Shield "summit" at a Trump golf club this weekend.

  Just keep her away from the puppies.

• I can't help but notice that the New York Times is doing clickbait headlines for geezers. Dave Barry gets sucked in by one: Are You Aging Well? 4 Simple Tests to Find Out. (Fun fact: Dave is approximately 3½ years older than I am.)

  I am 78 and a half years old. At this stage of my life, my definition of “aging well” is “still not dead.” Nevertheless I was curious to see what trajectory I’m on, so I clicked on the article, which lists four physical tests you’re supposed to take. The first one is called the “Sitting-Rising Test.” Here’s how the Times describes it:

  The goal with this assessment is to go from standing to sitting on the floor, and back up again, using the least amount of support as possible. The test is scored on a 10-point scale — five points for sitting down and five points for standing up — and you lose a point for every hand, knee or other body part you use to help yourself. Subtract a half point if you’re unsteady or lose your balance.

  So my goal was to get an 8, although I would have settled for a 7, or even, given my advanced age, a 6. I took the test in the privacy of my bedroom, going from standing to sitting on the floor, then back to standing again, using as few body parts as possible to help myself. I don’t mean to brag, but on my very first try, with no practice and without warming up, I scored somewhere around minus 137. There was no way I could keep track of the exact number of body parts I used to help myself get down and back up, but it was definitely most of them, including at one point, I believe, my spleen. Also if you count a bedpost as a body part, my actual score was closer to minus 138.

  I'm not even gonna tell you my score.

Recently on the book blog:

Picked this up at the Portsmouth (NH) Public Library thanks to its inclusion on the WSJ list of 2025's best mysteries (WSJ gifted link). If that's not enough for you, the book's Amazon page will reveal more copious critical praise.

But a mystery? Or even a crime thriller? You may ask yourself those questions until around page 307 of the 386-page hardcover; no mystery, and the crimes, if any, are pretty minor before that. But those last 80 pages are pretty blood-soaked.

The book reminded me somewhat of Tom Wolfe's novels, although the author's politics seem to be a couple miles to the left of Wolfe's. We have a detailed look at the three central characters: (1) Chicky is the titular doorman, working at the "Bohemia" apartment building on Central Park West in Manhattan. An honorable widower who is not just teetering on the edge of financial ruin, he's dropping down the cliffside, hitting every rocky outcropping and cactus on the way down. (2) Emily, living up in Bohemia's apartment 11C and D, is trapped in her marriage to a fantastically wealthy cartoon villain she despises. And (3) Julian, down in the much cheaper (but not cheap) apartment 2A, a "gallerist" (look it up, I had to) who is being edged into irrelevance by changing tastes and has a pretty serious health problem.

For the first 300-or-so pages, there is (of course) some building suspense, as we see hints and foreshadowing of what the book's finale will bring. But it's mostly a (very) well-written examination of the characters' inner lives and their environment. There's plenty of strife (economic, racial, ethnic, social), some steamy sex scenes, infidelity, occasional perversion. Just don't go in expecting a whodunit; keep your eyes open and you'll figure it out before it's revealed.

The Issues & Insights editorialists take on The Man Who Loves To Tax.

Our Headline du Jour is a reference to Isaiah Berlin's essay "The Hedgehog and the Fox" which contained the ancient Greek aphorism: "The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing."

And Hedgehog Bernie "knows" one big, albeit delusional, thing: He (and his allies) would spend the wealth of those hated billionaires far more wisely than they do.

I commented on Bernie's latest envy-fueled scheme a couple days ago. But I guess it's time to comment on Bernie himself. Over to you, editorialists:

Also of note:

• I'm really beginning to appreciate the upside of "boring". Vince Gill Vance Ginn pleas: Make Antitrust Boring Again. (NR gifted link)

  The Federal Trade Commission’s recent appeal in its antitrust case against Meta and the government’s new appeal in the Google search case are not just legal headlines. They are signals to capital markets about how political the federal government wants antitrust policy to be.

  If we keep pushing antitrust toward populist storytelling instead of consumer harm, we will get less investment, slower innovation, and weaker competition. Antitrust works best when it is boring. Not toothless, but disciplined.

  In the bad old days of the Biden Administration, conservatives and libertarians were properly scornful of "hipster antitrust". (So was Pun Salad.) If you thought Trump would be better, you were wrong.

• This shouldn't have been an issue. But apparently, Trump would prefer to keep his mitts on his unconstitutional gains. Ilya Somin notes the latest: US Court of International Trade Orders Refund of All Illegally Collected IEEPA Tariffs.

  Today, in the case of Atmus Filtration, Inc. v. United States, Judge Richard K. Eaton of the US Court of International Trade ordered the Trump Administration to refund all tariffs illegally collected by the Trump Administration using the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 (IEEPA). On Monday, in V.O.S. Selections, Inc. v. Trump, the case I helped bring that led to the invalidation of the IEEPA tariffs by the Supreme Court, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit unanimously rejected the Trump Administration's efforts to delay lower-court proceedings on repayment. It is notable that all 11 judges of the en banc Federal Circuit agreed, including the four who voted against us on the merits when the Federal Circuit ruled on the case last year.

  The federal government owes some $175 billion in tariff refunds to importers who paid them, and they repeatedly promised they would refund them money if they lost the case - a point which was crucial to their argument that appellate courts should stay the trial court injunction blocking further illegal tariff collection, while the litigation proceeded. Each month the government delays repayment costs taxpayers some $700 million in accumulated interest payments.

  $700 million would buy a lot of drones and torpedos. Just sayin'.

• "Better" shouldn't be hard. "Good" might be harder. The WaPo editorialists had a wistful observation on Wednesday evening, 6:53PM: It would be easier to fund DHS with better leadership. (WaPo gifted link)

  As government extends its powers more deeply into everyday life, it becomes less effective at everything. That annoyance becomes dangerous when the state isn’t entirely capable of its most important job: providing basic security and stability. Consider the Department of Homeland Security, which isn’t fully funded and lacks the leadership and credibility to effectively make the case for more money.

  With conflict in the Middle East increasing the risk for terrorism in the homeland, it’d be nice if DHS was fully functional. But the department has faced a gap in funding since Feb. 14, which has left critical agencies short staffed. DHS Secretary Kristi L. Noem tried to persuade lawmakers to end the partial government shutdown this week, and it didn’t go well.

  Yeah, we heard. And, unfortunately for Kristi, so did her boss. Robby Soave has yesterday's news: Trump fires Kristi Noem from DHS.

  President Donald Trump is replacing Kristi Noem, the embattled secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), due to mounting concerns about her performance, including from many Republicans.

  In a Thursday Truth Social post announcing her successor—Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin—Trump thanked Noem for her service and said she would serve as special envoy for the Shield of the Americas, a new security initiative that has yet to be formally unveiled. But the face-saving appointment does not change the fact that Trump has effectively fired Noem as DHS head.

  Apparently she will be hanging around D.C. for a while, drawing a salary. North (oops) South Dakota puppies are safe for now.

• Somedays I despair that we've learned nothing from his entire oeuvre. Jeff Maurer is baffled: Did We Learn Nothing From Jeff Goldblum’s Speech in Jurassic Park?

  The war in Iran has me thinking a lot about Jeff Goldblum’s speech in the 1993 arthouse film Jurassic Park. And I don’t mean Goldblum’s “your scientists didn’t stop to think if they should speech”, or his “we’ll give the alien a cold” speech, which was actually from Independence Day. I’m talking about the speech in which Goldblum explains chaos theory while not-so-subtly informing Sam Neill’s character that he could totally bang his wife if he wanted to.

  He's talking about this:

  Small correction: Google tells me that Laura Dern's and Sam Neill’s characters "were not married, but they were in a committed, romantic relationship. "

  And I don't think Goldblum's Jurassic Park observations compare to his response to a question posed by a bunch of college girls in the 1977 movie Between the Lines: "Whither rock and roll?"

  Goldblum's character responded: "The only real answer to the question … is "hither". Some misguided people think that the answer is "thither", they're wrong, those theories are passé."

  Also he points out: "They say that Rock & Roll is here to stay. But where? Certainly not at my place, it's too small."

Matthew Hennessey tries to inspire my (lame) inner Alan Jay Lerner with his headline at Free Expression: Trump Will Abstain From Trade With Spain. (WSJ gifted link)

Furthermore:

Well, I've never been to Spain, but I kinda like the music. (There are also rumors about the mental stability of their females.)

Also of note:

• At least she didn't lie about her lies about her lies. Jacob Sullum detects only one level of meta-dishonesty: In Senate testimony on DHS shootings, Kristi Noem lies about her lies.

  After Department of Homeland Security (DHS) employees fatally shot Minneapolis protester Alex Pretti on January 24, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem claimed he was "brandishing" a gun and "attacked those officers." She also said Pretti "committed an act of domestic terrorism."

  None of that was true, as bystander video immediately showed. But when given the opportunity to correct the record during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday, Noem instead lied about what she had said. Her obfuscation and dishonesty provoked angry rebukes not only from the Democrats on the committee but also from Sen. Thom Tillis (R–N.C.), who reiterated his recommendation that she resign.

  Senator TIllis was also disturbed by less recent history:

  “Secretary, I read your book last week, and honestly, some of the parts of it impressed me, but some of it distresses me,” he said.

  “You talk about killing a dog that was 14 months old. I train dogs, all right, and you are a farmer, you should know better. You should know that if you’re going out to a hunting lodge and you’re putting pheasants out and you’re putting dogs out, you don’t take a puppy out there. A 14-month-old dog is basically a teenager in dog years. You decided to kill that dog because you had not invested the appropriate time in training. And then you have the audacity to go into a book and say it’s a leadership lesson about tough choices,” he said.

  Shoulda been a red flag back in her confirmation hearings.

• Not only a dishonest puppy-killer, but also corrupt. Tag-teaming against Kristi at Reason is Autumn Billings: DHS Spent $220 Million on Ads Featuring Kristi Noem. Both Parties Grilled Her About It in the Senate.

  During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem was grilled by Republicans and Democrats alike over $220 million in taxpayer-funded contracts for an advertising campaign that prominently features the secretary herself. The no-bid contracts circumvented the normal competitive process and were secretly awarded to a company with close ties to Noem and her political operations.

  Republican Sen. John Kennedy from Louisiana pushed the secretary during the hearing on the fiscal responsibility and wisdom of spending taxpayer money on the ads that greatly enhanced Noem's name recognition, such as this one obtained by ProPublica featuring her on horseback at Mount Rushmore. Noem testified that the campaign is meant to tell undocumented immigrants to leave the country or face deportation and was signed off on by President Donald Trump. But Kennedy said it was hard for him to believe that Trump or those at the Office of Management and Budget would have agreed to this kind of campaign.

  And for your viewing pleasure (because you paid for it, sucker):

  It was not revealed if she shot the horse after the ad was made.

• For the 145th time. Veronique de Rugy explains: Why Health Care Is So Expensive in America, and What to Do About It.

  America's health care system consistently ranks as the most expensive in the developed world. It's not, as some politicians claim, expensive because markets have failed. It's expensive because the market has been repeatedly blocked from succeeding. Until we're honest about that, any potential reforms will only address symptoms while ignoring the disease.

  The health care market is hindered in many ways, but the core structural problem is simple: The person receiving care is almost never the person actually paying for it. Roughly 90 cents of every dollar is covered by a third party — an insurer or the government.

  Getting rid of the notorious tax exemption for employer-provided health insurance would be ideal, but Vero realizes that's a political non-starter. So she recommends Health Savings Accounts, under control of the consumer.

It's a great quote, and that's a nice picture Amazon will sell you, but there's no evidence Thomas Jefferson ever actually said that. (Gerald Ford did, though.)

There's currently a push to get government working on taking away everything you have, though. Actually giving you everything you want? Or anything you want? That's in the works. They promise.

On that theme today, let's first look at Daniel J. Mitchell, who outlines The Nightmare Scenario Leading to a Wealth Tax. Far more likely than you or I would like:

Daniel's post is link-filled. Specifically, he looks at one recent actual proposal, described by Ira Stoll at the Free Beacon: Sanders, Khanna Unveil $4.4 Trillion Tax Increase.

Needless to say, it's a horrible idea, should be plainly unconstitutional (an uncompensated "taking" banned by the Fifth Amendment), and fueled by the worst kind of demagoguery.

And, as Jack Nicastro poionts out, there's an additional small problem: The Sanders-Khanna 'billionaire tax' would make all Americans poorer. Excerpt, with some basic econ:

Another point, not particularly subtle: assets automatically become less valuable if they can be arbitrarily expropriated by "legal" thieves. The money that might be raised from a wealth tax would prove highly evanescent.

Also of note:

• Shame on me. I've read a lot about Adam Smith (example), but not anything by him. Helen Dale urges me to mend my ways: Adam Smith’s Gift.

  Smith thought people could morally improve themselves in part by entering imaginatively into other people’s perspectives, in part by stepping outside their own perspectives and taking, as my mother used to say, a good long look at themselves. I could do the former, often in a way redolent of the Robbie Burns couplet: O wad some Power the giftie gie us, To see oursels as ithers see us! Observe, in embryo, the future novelist.

  All imaginative fiction depends on writers being the eyes for other people, something quite unnerving for those on the receiving end of such focused attention. One friend of mine—on recognising herself in one of my published short stories—told me years later that it was like someone had turned her upside down and gone through the contents of her pockets, but without once touching her. She also asked me not to do it again.

  I’ve come to call this the gift of noticing, and it’s something at which Smith excels. Go back and re-read his description of the pin factory in Wealth of Nations if you haven’t done so for a while. Hold it in your head alongside Charles Dickens, say, in Hard Times, describing machines in a mill as “melancholy mad elephants, polished and oiled up for the day’s monotony … at their heavy exercise again.”

• What does it take to be a "researcher" at Harvard’s Global Education Innovation Initiative? River Page invites us to Meet the Internet’s New Iran Expert—Who Thinks the Illuminati Runs the World. River notes that Xueqin Jiang is (indeed) listed as a researcher at that prestigious institution. And he's received a lot of attention lately. Including:

  On Monday, Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti, hosts of the popular daily news podcast Breaking Points, spoke to Jiang in an interview that seemed somewhat reasonable—until it wasn’t. Jiang said that he thought President Donald Trump was acting hubristically in Iran because of his success in Venezuela, predicted that the U.S. would send ground troops into Iran, and opined on what the effects of decreased investment from the under-fire Gulf States could mean for the U.S. economy. Then things got more interesting.

  “The last factor that is very important is an eschatological factor,” Jiang said, veering the conversation into territory that was unprompted by the hosts. “If you look at the Epstein files, it’s clear that we are run by secret societies. It’s clear that the world is run by these individuals who have a lot of power. We don’t know who they are, but they control the military. They control the national security apparatus. There are different names for these people. You can call them the Illuminati. And the Illuminati are composed of three major groups, okay? You have the Jesuits, who control the Vatican. You have the Sabbatean Frankists, which control the modern state of Israel today. And you have the Freemasons, which control the national security apparatus of the United States, and they believe that Israel, this war in the Middle East, is key to the end times, in creating heaven on Earth.”

  He has a Wikipedia page, but it doesn't mention this. Yet.

Damon Root puts it succinctly: The Iran War is unconstitutional.

Boy, did Jimmy Madison call it, or what? Damon also cites St. George Tucker's 1803 book, View of the Constitution of the United States.

And nothing more recent than that.

I am in total sympathy.

But for more recent history, turn to another Jim: specifically, Geraghty, writing at the WaPo: Iran is the sound of another president becoming a hawk. (WaPo gifted link) Looking at the muscular actions of Clinton, Bush, Obama, Biden, and now Trump, his bottom line:

I get that, too.

Also of note:

• You can't say you weren't warned. Noah Smith makes a bold claim: Superintelligence is already here, today.

  Right now, today, AI can do mental tasks that no human can do. In a few minutes, it can read an entire scientific literature, and extract many of the basic conclusions and insights from that literature. No human can do that. A single human can be an expert in one or two complex subjects; an AI can be an expert in all of them at once. A human needs to eat and sleep and take breaks; an AI agent can work tirelessly at proving a theorem or writing code. And AI can prove theorems and write code — or write paragraphs of text — much, much faster than any human.

  These are all superhuman cognitive capabilities. They go far, far beyond anything that even the smartest human being can do. They are the result of combining the roughly human-level language ability, pattern recognition, and conceptual analysis of an LLM with the pre-2022 superhuman memory, speed, and processing power.

  I don’t want to get sidetracked here, but I think there’s a nonzero chance that AI never gets much better than humans at most of the things that humans were better than computers at in 2021. It seems possible that humans are simply incredibly specialized in a few types of cognitive tasks — extracting patterns from sparse data, synthesizing various patterns into “intuition” and “judgement”, and communicating those patterns in language — and that we’ve basically approached the theoretical maximum in those narrow areas.

  Noah's post is quite long, and well-argued. Recommended to anyone interested in a minor topic like the future of humanity.

  It's long been my hope (and also fear) that AI could be used to design and develop cheap, scalable artificial photosynthesis, allowing easy-peasy control of atmospheric CO₂. Global warming solved! (But perhaps also introducing possible doomsday, so…)

• Deserves a look. I'm generally a knee-jerk opponent of tax-raising schemes, but Scott Hodge might win me over: Targeting this $2.8 trillion tax shelter could solve a big U.S. problem. (WaPo gifted link) What's he targeting?

  The Congressional Budget Office’s latest economic report offers a bleak forecast of the U.S. government’s fiscal health. The study projects deficits surpassing $2 trillion for years to come, and the widening gap between federal spending and tax revenue means that the national debt will hit levels not seen even in wartime.

  The menu of solutions to close this gap is just as depressing: slash benefits and services or raise taxes. But one option could generate substantial revenue while making the tax system fairer: ending the tax exemption for America’s massive nonprofit business sector.

  Many “charities” have become big businesses. While numerous benevolent charities do wonderful work, the industry is dominated by some of the top companies in America operating largely free from the tax obligations that burden their for-profit competitors. The commercial revenue generated by these nonprofits totaled $2.8 trillion in 2023, nearly three times the amount nonprofits receive from donations and government grants.

  Scott specifically mentions AARP. Yes! Go get 'em! (Why? See my 2023 rant: AARP Treats Me Like I Was Already Senile)

You-know-who is dead:

Here's hoping nobody's gonna go after Trump's little dog, too.

(Sorry, that doesn't really work: he doesn't have a dog. Still…)

Also of note:

• That's a very strained parallel, Katherine. I usually agree with the small-l libertarian party line at Reason, and often link to the print edition's lead editorials from editor-in-chief, Katherine Mangu-Ward. But she lost me with her latest: What the ICE crackdown and China's one-child policy have in common. After describing the horrific Chinese policy…

  Today, China's population is shrinking, births are collapsing, and the same government that once punished pregnancy is now begging for it with subsidies, propaganda, and social pressure, all of which have so far failed to reverse the trend. Even after decades of highly directive engineering and violent enforcement, the "right" number of people remains stubbornly out of reach.

  ***

  The same category error animates today's immigration crackdowns in the United States. Population control is technocratic arrogance at its most intimate and brutal.

  The Trump administration is attempting to violently control the country's population numbers. Officials insist that there is an optimal number of people, that this number can be known in advance, and that the state is justified in taking extraordinary measures to reach it (perhaps as many as 100 million deportations). Human beings are reduced to variables in a giant math problem—too many or too few, surplus or shortage—rather than agents whose individual choices matter.

  Geez, Katherine, I'm pretty sure the primary rationale behind Trump's "immigration crackdown" is not "population control". That might be part of the argument, but it's not among the ones at the forefront.

  The comments on Katherine's editorial are much more brutal than my mild criticism. I'm sure she'll be back to form next month.

• Ah, but Reason is redeemed! Thanks to Nick Gillespie, in (heh) the Nick of time, who reminds us stupid people: It's the Spending, Stupid!

  With a few days' perspective on the State of the Union address, which grows ever closer in spirit and content to outtakes from the prophetic 2006 comedy Idiocracy, it's worth revisiting one of Milton Friedman's most enduring insights. "Keep your eye on one thing and one thing only: how much government is spending," the libertarian Nobel laureate counseled. "That's the true tax." Don't be distracted, he added, by talk about balancing budgets or cutting marginal tax rates. Focus on how much money the federal government spends each year, because that's the ultimate indicator of how much it costs.

  Friedman was talking in the late 1970s, when top marginal income-tax rates were 70 percent and debates were focused on lowering the tax burden and, by implication, government spending. Back then, deficit spending was something that mostly happened during wartime or recessions, rather than being taken for granted the way it has been since Jimmy Carter occupied the White House. If you cut the amount of money the government brought in, went the general argument, you also cut the amount of money it could spend. Friedman was emphasizing that whether spending is paid for in the moment, it is the best proxy for government involvement in everyday life. It has to be paid for eventually, either by raising taxes, reducing services, or by inflating the currency—all actions that make us subordinate to politics and politicians.

  Ah, but who's really being stupid? The politicians that keep spending money they don't have, or … could it be the people who keep electing them?

• Meanwhile, down in Connecticut… It's the usual rational discourse with which we've grown accustomed: Sign stolen, thrown across room: Hostile crowd greets TPUSA at Wesleyan University.

  The “unofficial” chapter of Wesleyan University’s Turning Point USA ended up exiting a campus student center following an encounter with a hostile crowd at which a TPUSA sign was stolen and tossed across the room.

  According to The Wesleyan Argus, the TPUSA table at the Usdan University Center lasted only about an hour as an “unidentified” student snatched and threw a sign that read “Dump Your Socialist Boyfriend.”

  Another student caught the sign and ran away with it.

  Sigh.

  Not that it matters, but Amazon reveals a lot of merch—mostly t-shirts—ordering you to

  Dump Your   (ideological/political/religious affiliation)     (romantic partner)  

  I'd prefer a "Mind Your Own Business" shirt myself. If I had had one, I could have worn it to one of my rare efforts of actual reporting at Pun Salad.

• It's the continuing enshittification of everything, I tell ya! Jonathan Turley, like me, is no prude. But he's getting pretty tired of modern discourse: I Do Solemnly Swear: How Profanity Has Taken Hold of American Politics.

  “Respectfully, f–k off.” Those words by California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s spokesperson, Izzy Gardon, summed up the current race to the bottom of American politics.

  Democrats appear in a competition of the profane where voters are now subject to a virtual carpet-bombing of f-bombs and other indecent language.

  Gardon’s response was to a standard media inquiry after Newsom’s controversial statement to a black interviewer.

  In an Atlanta event, Newsom declared: “I’m like you … I’m no better than you. I’m a 960 SAT guy … literally a 960 SAT guy. You’ve never seen me read a speech because I cannot read a speech.” It was widely denounced as racist, but Newsom insisted that he was only talking about his struggle with dyslexia.

  The spin quickly fell apart after his statement, “I’m like you … I’m no better than you,” which suggested he thought the audience in Atlanta had low scores.

  Reporters followed up to ask for proof about his disability, including his claim that “I cannot read.” The response was an f-bomb from Gardon.

  It has worn out its shock value, and is rapidly getting tiresome. Is it supposed to appeal to people? Who?

• Watch for the Wizard of Oz reference. For some reason, I never watched Tina Fey's 30 Rock sitcom. It was on in pre-TiVo days, I think. But I'm now working through it via Prime Video, and it's hilarious. Even Alec Baldwin is good. But this little ditty showed up at the end of a recently-watched episode, and see if you are not as charmed by it as I was:

Recently on the book blog:

This completes my "Reread Robert Crais" mini-project, which I started back in 2020. I previously read this one in 2019, snapping up the Kindle edition on its release day. Since then, Mr. Crais has adopted a very leisurely schedule: only two newer novels.

For blog readers: my 2019 report on the book is here.

It was interesting to compare this book with one I read just previously, the new one from James Lee Burke. Crais's prose is spare, while Burke's is ornate, maybe? And certainly Crais's heroes, Elvis Cole and Joe Pike, are a lot less haunted than Burke's Dave Robicheaux and Clete Purcel. Still, they all have dedicated their lives to going down Chandler's mean streets. So I'm there, with my finger waiting to punch Amazon's "Pre-order now" button, whenever it may appear.

I have to admit it's about the same as Jim Treacher's. who responds to a guy who can't seem to decide whether he's a Nazi or a Commie, but wants to be a US Senator from that state across the Salmon Falls River:

It's improving mine, because I enjoy watching bad people get angry. https://t.co/zCJH9txLCq

— jimtreacher.substack.com (@jtLOL) February 28, 2026

Blowing up foreign bad guys is an area where I tend to depart from libertarian gospel. But if you'd like to see that, check out Cato Experts React to U.S. Attacks on Iran, where you'll read words like "indefensible", "clear and blatant overreach of executive authority", and "risks drawing the United States into yet another open-ended conflict in the Middle East."

I get that.

But for counterbalance, the WSJ editorialists think it's OK: Trump Enforces His Red Line on Iran (WSJ gifted link)

So we can at least hope that happens.

Also of note:

• It's also a dangerous thing to do to an actual fat cat. James B. Meigs notes that violating the Tenth Commandment can be pretty popular: ‘Soak the Fat Cats’ Is a Bad Idea That Refuses to Die. (WSJ gifted link)

  Here’s an irresistible political formula: “We’re going to fix some big problem, but it won’t cost you, the ordinary citizen, a dime! We’ll just make those rich fat cats pay the bill.” We see this formula at work in New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s campaign to freeze city rents. We saw it during the Biden administration when the president blamed high prices, not on his own inflationary policies, but on greedy grocery stores “ripping people off.”

  The populist right loves the fat-cat approach as well. Witness President Trump’s call to cap credit-card interest rates at 10%. “We will no longer allow the American Public to be ‘ripped off’ by Credit Card companies,” the president promised in a Truth Social post. In a vivid confirmation of the horseshoe theory, Sen. Bernie Sanders quickly introduced a bill to turn that suggestion into law.

  Policies like these are all founded on the appealing but fallacious notion that businesses have an inexhaustible reserve of resources that do-gooders can divert to nobler ends. If we hold down rents to help low-income tenants, those rich landlords will suck up the loss, this theory assumes. They can afford it. Credit-card companies should give everybody their lowest rate! Why not, they’re rolling in dough!

  As Pun Salad moves into its 22nd year. with more than 8600 articles, I'm pretty sure I've made similar points at least a few hundred times. Still, it's something that needs to be said over and over: thou shalt not covet.

• "Hey, Kevin D. Williamson!" I cried. "Give the kid a chance!" "Sorry, Pun Salad," Kevin replied. "I'm writing about J.D. Vance’s Doomed Quest to Balance the Budget instead.".

  Trump’s incoherent State of the Union address on Tuesday featured his usual stroke-victim diction and his patented blend of stupidity and dishonesty. Fact-checking his claims is laborious, because he speaks almost exclusively in simpleton’s superlatives, and it also is pointless, inasmuch as the people who most need to know the facts are not much inclined to listen to them, being, as they are, members of an especially tawdry and shameful cult. Suffice it to say that inflation was not at record levels when Trump assumed office this time around, and it is not plummeting today—it was high when he came in and remains elevated. Foreign direct investment in the United States is in fact down, not soaring by trillions of dollars. There is no such thing as a “second lady,” with apologies to Usha Vance, who probably could have married a doctor. Some of the speech could have used some context: I admire Michael Dell and his generosity, and it is true that he made computers in his dorm room at the University of Texas—but mainly he has made them in China, a fact of corporate history that ought to be of some interest to the Trump gang.

  The competition is considerable, but it may be that the dumbest and most dishonest claim of the night was that J.D. Vance’s newly announced fraud commission will, if it does its job, produce a “balanced budget overnight.” Vance is as contemptible a specimen as American public life currently has to offer, but he is relatively new to the cult game, and he has here foolishly taken on a high-profile task that can be evaluated quantitatively. The projected deficit for 2026 is $1.9 trillion on its way toward more than $3 trillion per annum over the coming decade. For scale, this year’s projected deficit will amount to about 5.8 percent of GDP. Which is to say, to balance the budget by means of fraud prevention, fraud in federal programs would have to amount to an industry right around five times the combined global size of all those AI-enabling data centers we hear so much about.

  "OK, Kevin."

• I miss Dubya. And I still do, even after reading Jeff Maurer's Review of George W. Bush's Substack. Specifically, Dubya's (so far, only) post on George Washington (actually a pointer to a Free Press article): What I Learned from George Washington. Jeff reacts:

  Some have criticized Bush for not mentioning Trump in the essay. Bush praised presidential humility and warned against those who would ”[retain] power for power’s sake”, but didn’t say “like the current president, for example”. In my opinion, Bush did not need to mention Trump; anyone who can read can read between the lines. The commentary was not subtle — it was more like the scene in Back to the Future where Marty’s guitar amplifier blasts him across the room. Those calling for Bush to be more explicit in his criticism of Trump remind me of this joke I once saw about Hemingway’s editor:

  

  Bush’s argument that a president should have humility and be guided by something other than a thirst for power is a sign of how much Trump has eroded American values. Because personally, I did not think Bush was a good president; I didn’t vote for him either time. But he and I clearly share a basic understanding of what the presidency is and isn’t meant to be. The bounds of what’s acceptable in American politics have been stretched so radically that Bush and I now occupy similar territory on this fundamental issue. It shouldn’t be controversial to say that a president should not have God-like faith in his own abilities and respect the limits of power. And 15 years ago, my response to this essay would have been “no shit, President Sherlock”. But today, entry-level statements about basic American values seem like scathing social commentary.

  As favorable as I am toward Trump's blowing up foreign bad guys (Dubya did his share of that too), I'm on the Maurer/Bush team here.

  For a recent example…

• Could they just make some movies that don't put me to sleep? That's all I really want, but Jeff Blehar reports instead on the latest deed-shuffling on the Monopoly board: Netflix Is Out on Warner Bros.

  Nearly everyone in the world of media and entertainment was taken by surprise yesterday when Netflix announced they were withdrawing their proposed bid to acquire Warner Bros. film studio and its substantial catalogue of movies and intellectual properties. But last December, mere days after Netflix’s bid was announced to the world, I pointed out that it wasn’t a done deal at all:

  Understand that this is all still quite contingent: Paramount Skydance (the product of another merger completed a few months ago) has appealed directly to Warner Bros. shareholders in a hostile bid to force them to overturn their board’s decision. The deal also still requires antitrust clearance from Trump’s Federal Trade Commission. Given that Trump has reportedly been pushing for ally David Ellison’s Paramount to win the bid, don’t be surprised if Netflix fails at the last hurdle. Trump is a rather . . . transactional type, and he’s already announced his intent to personally review the acquisition. Expect something delightfully sordid!

  And here we are. I’ll admit, I missed big by predicting something “delightfully sordid.” Instead, we got something unpleasantly sordid: The final nail in the coffin for the Netflix bid was almost certainly board member Susan Rice’s ill-timed appearance on a podcast hosted by Preet Bharara on February 20, where she promised “accountability” for Trump administration wrongdoers once the Democrats took office. This was interpreted by MAGA’s most agitated online voices as a promise of lawfare against the administration — the irony of complaining about this is apparently completely lost upon them — and led to Laura Loomer loudly demanding the former national security adviser resign her position on the board of Netflix.

  Pun Salad's recent commentary on Trump, Rice, and Netflix here and here.

• Only two? Well, as George Will notes, they're biggies: Two big things Trump the wheedler misunderstands about Russia. (WaPo gifted link)

  Donald Trump continues trying to wheedle Vladimir Putin to end his war to extinguish Ukraine’s nationhood short of that outcome. Trump’s persistence calls to mind the man Gulliver encountered during his travels: He had spent “eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers.”

  The president misunderstands two things. First, the more blood and treasure Putin expends in Ukraine, the more he wants to win in order to redeem his blunder. This war was supposed to prove Russia’s might, and that Ukraine is an ersatz nation. Instead, it has revealed the yawning gap between Russia’s pretensions and its capabilities, and has created an incandescent Ukrainian nationalism.

  Second, the way for the West to economize violence and military expenditures in the long run is not to prepare for future conflicts with a Russia emboldened by success, but to deepen its diminishment by enabling Ukraine to continue bleeding Russia’s army and economy.

  GFW points out that Trump (and little Marco Rubio) have forcefully supported the reelection of "Europe’s most pro-Putin and aggressively anti-Ukraine leader", Viktor Orban. That's not great.