FRIDAY short TAKES.

The Christmas rush is upon us, and every locomotive capable of running is in use.  We never lack for material, do we?  Beware "intellectuals".  "The typical intellectual more and more fancies himself or herself as being a member of the planning board for society’s Shining Tomorrow from which will be eradicated – in the name of love, course – all want, fear, unhappiness, hate, danger, and differences among humans."  Speaking of flights of fancy: "Demonstrators drew attention to the worsening crisis of fuel poverty and called on lawmakers to pick up more of the tab for skyrocketing bills, fund home insulation, and accelerate clean energy production—all of which would be made easier by enacting a stronger tax on oil and gas corporations' windfall profits."  Speaking of that Shining Tomorrow:  "While you ponder that, here’s another question: when are Democrats going to condemn their party’s constant erosions of the Constitution and the rule of law? Their efforts to erode Federalism, abolish the electoral college, add states to tack on Democrat Senators, weaponizing the IRS, FBI and DOJ, squat on the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 10th and 14th Amendments, circumvent the First Amendment via 'public/private partnership' between Big Tech and the Democrat Party, weaponize “Emergency Orders”, pack the SCOTUS?" That's why the Sunday shows are so annoying. “You can’t come out against someone who supports suspending the Constitution?”

Meanwhile, there's real life.  "The economy is still atrocious. The job market is hot but so is inflation. Interest rates are going to continue to go up. Crime is still a problem that now the media is willing to report on. There’s still a crisis at the border. There’s still a fundamental lack of leadership in the world. And the voters are concerned about all these things."  And the epistemic closure in our ruling circles is destructive.  "American liberalism has remarkably come to resemble nineteenth-century British Tory Radicalism, an aristocratic sensibility that combined strong support for centralized monarchical power with a paternalistic concern for the poor."  Make that paternalistic disdain.  "Our 'betters' in tech, media, and government have gaslighted us so often, we can never believe a word they say again."

The weekly round-up of pithy elaborations of traditional Cold Spring Shops themes follows.

1.  Fly that 787.  "It’s the first time since 1921 a franchise other than the Bears have led the NFL in wins."

2.  Pipe down, Donald.  "This is NOT how this works."  Take the loss.  "Trump has no problem being seen as a poor loser."  Simply politically stupid.  You cannot only love America when you win.  That last goes for Democrats, too.

3.  Coastal condescension.  “Mocking religions as halftime entertainment is wrong, but it seems less people care because it’s BYU.”

4.  Academic condescension.  "[Malcolm] Gladwell proved himself a sanctimonious nitwit whose strong point is condescension."

5.  Tailors, emperors, clothes.  "The ruling caste decreed that you could not point out that a man pretending to be a woman was a man pretending to be a woman."

6.  Chairman Mao wrote about the people wanting revolution.  "Even in a historically authoritarian country, you can only keep your boot on someone's neck for so long."

7.  The hippie culture ruined a lot of lives.

8.  Dreaming of a White Christmas?  "Right now, the amount of snow cover in the northern hemisphere is the highest that it has been 'since measurements began in 1967'."

9.  What would Leon Trotsky do without youthful idiots?  "The role of the [Democratic Socialists of America] shocked and angered many of its own members, which include sincere but politically inexperienced youth who joined in the belief that the DSA was a genuinely socialist organization."

10.  Thirty years and counting.  "Public trust in our institutions of higher education will continue to decline so long as ideologues use them to advance their vain political agendas."

11.  How large is that cloak of public interest?  "There are other places to get weddings catered, and pizza is not medical care."

12.  Long distance trains without food service or a bar car?  "An abomination."

13.  Peak traffic engineering!  “City Reinstalls Downtown Stop Signs to Reduce Traffic Pileup, Speeding.”

14.  I expected no less.  "A mix of incompetence and partisanship got [Twitter] in trouble."

15.  Indeed.  "If everyone works for the government or a big corporation that’s in cahoots with the government, everyone is controllable. And for Democrats, that’s not a bug but a feature."

16.  We shall fight woke on the internet.  "If I regard a policy as bad, I persist in trying to overturn it."

17.  Behold the condescension.  "To me, that there are people bright enough to dress themselves and eat with a fork who will still vote for [Herschel] Walker is what’s wrong with America."  If you can't dress yourself, you're a Democrat voter, right?

18.  Did it start with the Letters of Paul?  "The Pope is, simply put, ignorant about economics."

19.  Downsizing is a false economy.  “Running your workers like this — asking them to do 20%, 30% more because you’re short staffed — it’s very much a short-term strategy. You’re going to keep losing people.”

20.  The epistemic closure implodes?  "[Coastal legacy] media isn’t [c.q.] trusted because it dislikes most of America. It has contempt for most of America."

21.  As true at CNN as it is at Granma.  "If state media makes claims that 'habitually conflict with lived experience or deeply held popular values, or contradict other trusted sources of information,' then rather than shoring up the regime’s position it can reduce its credibility."

22.  "Check your privilege" fails as a marketing message. "The unrelentingly, radicalizing social-justice spirit of contemporary higher education includes open denunciation of people at the higher end of the socioeconomic spectrum. They have long made up the lion’s share of families paying full tuition, shouldering a disproportionate part of the work of making higher education economically feasible."

23.  Evergreen.  "There's always a question as to whether President Joe Biden really means what he says or if he even understands the words coming from his mouth."

24.  Go RINO hunting, Dementia Joe.  "For two years, [senators Sinema and Manchin]  hijacked Biden’s agenda by forcing major concessions including changes and cuts to tax, health and climate legislation."

25.  If you go hunting unicorns?  "Underwhelming football programs that bring hoards of money that’s why."

26.  Equity.  "It’s odd that the Biden administration prioritized a basketball player who has been held since February over another citizen who has been held for four years."

27.  Precision scheduled liquidation?  “We just can’t cut our way to sustainable growth.”