THE BEST COLLEGE TOWN IN ILLINOIS.

What can I say?  "The Most Charming College Town In Illinois Is Home To Delicious Dining, Shopping, And More."  The essay calls the roll of a number of popular stops; and, yes, local taverns claim to have invented the beer nugget.  Let me offer one caveat.  "A major perk of the area is its walkability — you can get to dozens of restaurants, shops, and businesses by foot, though there is also a university bus line and plenty of parking for drivers."  That bus line runs occasional connecting trips to Metra at Elburn.  Metra trains from Chicago, though?  Don't get your hopes up.

A TRAIN OVERSHADOWED BY A DATE THAT WILL LIVE IN INFAMY.

New York Central re-equipped its Empire State Express with streamlined cars and rolled the train out on the morning of ... December 7, 1941.  By the time the first consists rolled into Buffalo Central Terminal or Grand Central Terminal, other events overtook the grand debut.  The streamlined consists included dining cars, observation lounges, and parlor cars that couldn't be easily reused, while the coaches, some of which were named for past governors of the Empire State, could be converted for suburban service to replace even older coaches that themselves might have cascaded off the main line trains.  Railroad preservationists subsequently bought six of the 56 seat coaches, which by that time were 108 seat suburban coaches, and added a postal car.

Those seven cars will be joining the collection of the Ft. Wayne Railroad Historical Society, owner of a Nickel Plate Super-Power steam locomotive that sometimes gets onto the railroad network, and they are building a fleet of coaches to operate with their locomotives.

Fort Wayne President Joe Knape said the acquisition ensures the organization has a dedicated fleet of its own equipment “and helps strengthen our business model. Rochester’s care and stewardship in preserving this equipment through the years means the cars will be enjoyed by thousands of people every year.”

Otto Vondrak, the Rochester museum’s president, said his organization “determined this train to be surplus to the museum’s collection. I’m proud of our museum’s accomplishments in preserving this historic trainset, and our members are excited for its future.”

Like everything else in railroad preservation, it takes money, and the Fort Wayne organization is soliciting your help.  It's possible some of the coaches will be reconfigured for other purposes.

Acquisition of the cars was partially funded by a grant from the David A. Donoho Trust and the Central Indiana Foundation. They will undergo a several-year modernizations process of mechanical, heating, and electrical systems; two are candidates for conversion to first-class, dining, or parlor cars inspired by original NYC designs. While the Fort Wayne group has often leased cars for its operations, it has acquired two former Pennsylvania Railroad coaches and an unrestored Canadian Pacific dome-lounge-observation, restored a dining car and open-air car, and converted a baggage car into a power car.

“With rising costs, limited availability, and logistical constraints, leasing even the best cars can make or break this business,” said Fort Wayne Vice President Kelly Lynch. “We’ve gone from having no operating cars to a growing fleet in less than two years. As the Empire cars enter service over time, they will greatly expand our train sizes, capacity, and variety of trips, which means donations toward restoring our fleet can double and triple the impact our trains have.”

It's not always possible to acquire a complete streamliner consist, the way Illinois Railway Museum did with the Nebraska Zephyr.  It's always encouraging to see something that looks like a complete streamliner entertaining the ferroequinologist and the casual tourist alike.

"COMMON GOOD" CONSERVATISM ... ISN'T.

It's been the Cold Spring Shops mission to recognize that reality bats last, that the best thing to do with experiments against reality is to wait for reality to come up to bat, and bet on emergence, and to argue that there is no such thing as the, singular noun, common good.  That's given us reason to chastise Notre Dame political scientist Patrick Deneen, whose recent Regime Change has drawn all sorts of negative attention (Margaret "University Diaries" Soltan collecting the commentary in a series of posts) including Reason's Stephanie Slade, "Liberalism Isn't Rule by Elites."

SEEN AND UNSEEN.

It doesn't matter whether Harvard students learn Henry Hazlitt's maxim, "The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups," as long as there are students who look beyond the immediate.  "You bought an electric car. Why did your carbon footprint grow?"

Those electric cars aren't made by Keebler's elves in a hollow tree.  "As a sophomore, Lucas Woodley ’23 started asking tough questions about electric vehicles. Are tax credits effective at reducing carbon emissions? If not, how might incentives be improved for greater social benefit?" Look no further than your reduced spending on motor fuel, miss a lot.  Mr Woodley did a double major, in economics and psychology, and his work qualifies him as thinking like an economist, in the sense of Hazlitt.  "The bad economist sees only what immediately strikes the eye; the good economist also looks beyond. The bad economist sees only the direct consequences of a proposed course; the good economist looks also at the longer and indirect consequences."

EVERYONE IS IGNORANT, ONLY ON DIFFERENT SUBJECTS.

I had Roger Koppl's Expert Failure along for reading the evening the DeKalb Municipal Band played a tune inspired by the Omaha Nation dividing itself into two sub-tribes, one responsible for the defense of the nation, the other with the spiritual health of the people.  (There might have been something similar among the Tribes of Israel, but I'm not going to dig into the Old Testament to find book, chapter, and verse.)  That's consistent with a working hypothesis of mine about the development of systems of governance.

Did the people who were less effective fighters agree to become servants, later subjects, of the more effective fighters?  Did the people less attuned to the clues Nature provided for all to see agree to support the people more attuned as ambassadors to their gods?  In that latter post I concluded, "I might be off base suggesting that the Technocratic Vision is contrary to longer term tendencies. I suggest, however, that some organizing framework is superior to none."

I'm going to restrict, to the extent I can, Book Review N^o. 12 to that part of Mr Koppl's argument where he develops a candidate organizing framework.  That's challenging, as Expert Failure attempts to tackle all sorts of things. It is the sort of work for which the reader ought have strong coffee, pencil and a notepad, and time to read it and engage the challenging parts.  Those attempts can be frustrating at times, as he is overworking the notion of "expert." Sometimes that refers to the term in the legal sense, in which, for example, the material witness is the investigating officer, or detective, who presents the relevant fingerprints to the court, while the expert witness shows the incriminating similarities between the fingerprints taken when the suspect is arrested and the fingerprints the crime scene investigators gathered (and provided the proper chain of custody).  Other times that refers to the term in the way we refer to technocratic government, where the expert has special knowledge of some phenomenon, and the government makes policies either based on that knowledge, or with a delegation of authority to persons possessing that knowledge.  I'm going to treat that understanding of "expert" as the principal focus of the work.

THE INEVITABLE CONSEQUENCES OF ACCESS-ASSESSMENT-REMEDIATION-RETENTION.

For the two decades of Cold Spring Shops posts, one message that I have stayed on almost obsessively is higher education going wrong by offering a sub-prime product.  I've come to the conclusion that the U.S. News problem exists in part because parents and students recognize much of higher education is a sham.  Now if higher education types would see it.  "Recognizing the problem is the first step toward fixing it."

RECRUITING ALL AROUND THE WORLD.

Wisconsin's women's volleyball team have a national championship and a history, much of this century, of making runs deep into the national tournament.  In part, the team's success is thanks to talent from all around the world.  Gulce Guctekin serves as tour guide during the summer practice season.

What’s funny about our visit to Europe last month is that everyone on the Wisconsin volleyball team was looking to me to be the tour guide. I wound up being as much of a tourist as they were.

Before we left for our two-week, four-country summer tour that took place June 2-14, I was asked to make a presentation to my teammates and coaches about life in Istanbul, Turkey. That was the first leg of our journey. It’s also where I was born, raised and fell in love with volleyball. I told them about the unique culture, food, language and politics of my homeland. How Istanbul, with a population of more than 15 million, is bigger than Chicago, Los Angeles and New York City combined. How my hometown is big enough to touch two continents — Asia and Europe — and how it’s more than 2,500 years old.

Of course, we talked about how volleyball is very popular in that part of the world and some of the best pro teams and players can be found in Istanbul. We found that out in the five matches that we played on the trip that also took us to Slovenia, Italy and Switzerland. We won three times, but all of them were really challenging.

As, apparently, was the traffic.

While we were in Istanbul, I felt like a bridge between my city and my team, connecting everyone to our love of tea, our super-large breakfasts, our fascinating history that dates back to 512 B.C.E. and how friendly the people are despite living in a place where earthquakes — like the one that struck in February and affected nearly 18 million people — are common.

I would have loved to have taken the team to my home and showed them the neighborhood where I grew up, but our hotel in Istanbul was on the European side of the city and my home in the Fenerbahce district is on the Asian side. If there’s a lot of traffic, it could take two hours to get there. We got close, though. On our third night we went to watch and cheer for a former Badger, Nigel Hayes-Davis, as he played for the local pro basketball team.

The travel experiences and the game play did the team well. After one week of intercollegiate play, they're holding the top rank in the country.

YOUR TENURE IS A SHIELD. USE IT.

A recent notice on Newmark's Door called attention to "A Proposal for Using Conservative Political Power to Roll Back an Institutional Coup." That's a guest essay on Wesley Yang's Substack, written by a contributor using a nom de plume. "Tim Shampling is the pseudonym of a university professor employed at a major research institution somewhere in America."  The essayist correctly diagnoses the problem.

Universities are some of the most durable social forms ever created – older than the nation-state and modern democracy. The entire clerical and professional stratum of the country, on which any party depends to govern effectively, passes through them and is shaped by the prevailing manners and mores imparted within them. Conservatives have allowed these essential institutions to fall into the hands of their adversaries, who are busily reshaping them into woke indoctrination factories from which anyone refusing obeisance to noxious new orthodoxies is systematically being purged.

Progressive dominance was obtained through a slow, incremental process of institutional capture that accelerated through the decades as various inflection points were reached; we are now in the home stretch in which the pace has become a sprint. Ceaseless retail activism by a minority of implacable administrators and faculty over budgets, mandates, sinecures, and faculty hiring eventually delivered a critical mass of power able to dominate whole departments and the institution as a whole. Much of this activity was flagrantly in violation of civil rights law and equal protection, enabled by a combination of progressive consensus to flout the law and conservative lassitude or incompetence in fighting back.

That is, if there ever were sufficiently many conservatives to be able to fight back.  "Give the administrative power-grabbers credit, though: first they appealed to the liberalitas of much of the faculty and sold their usurpations as promoting affirmative action or diversity; next they appealed to the pusillanimity of the careerists with "let us be proactive, rather than have it imposed by the legislature."

I was not afraid to spout off, under my own name, about academic follies when I was still on faculty, and I have little respect for people, particularly if they hold tenure, who won't sound off.  "Does it have to be the case that college faculty also self-select for pusillanimity? What is the point of enjoying all the protections of tenure if the best one can do is post anonymous whinges at Rate Your Students?"  Rate Your Students might be long gone: using a colleague's Substack for your anonymous whinges is no better.  If Mr Anonymously Shampling has some confidence that some part of Public Opinion is not opposed to what he seeks, why not use his name and his institutional affiliation to let that part of the public know there are people on the inside who concur?

JURGIS RUDKIS DIDN'T ASK THE MAYOR FOR HOUSING.

Chicago Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg makes an odd case for Chicago, Chicago, sanctuary city.

So how come in 2023 Chicago is in agony over a daily busload of immigrants? Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s quotidian middle finger to tolerance and decency, a jeer of Texan regret that they didn’t die tangled in the miles of razor wire Texas has strung across the Rio Grande.

Their arrival is a logistical nightmare. It has to be, for the city to house refugees in police stations, as if they were public facilities designed to help communities deal with crisis — oh wait, that’s what they are, right? Still, it must be hellish for some cops to be daily confronted with objects of their scorn. At least judging from FOP head John Catanzara, who last Thursday snidely suggested immigrants be housed at City Hall. (Hmmm ... not a bad idea. Have you been to City Hall? Mostly dead space, particularly in the upper floors. You could house 300 immigrants there and never see them).

Both police stations and City Hall are desperate choices. We must do better than this. We have the track record. Assimilating immigrants is Chicago’s brand. No need to trust me. “Immigration from abroad ...” The Encyclopedia of Chicago notes, “has been the city’s hallmark characteristic in the public mind.”

We’ve got it light, relatively. In 1890, 68% of people living in Chicago were born abroad, a situation so chaotic that three years later, Chicago threw a fair for 25 million visitors.

Governor Abbott called the "sanctuary city" bluff, and neither the previous nor the current mayor were ready, and if you want to talk about tolerance and decency, go to Woodlawn.

Colorado's transportation program did catch the mayors of New York and Chicago on the back foot.  "After first jeopardizing the city’s ability to respond, the unfolding humanitarian crisis now threatens to sour Colorado’s relationships with New York City and Chicago, whose leaders have called for the busing of immigrants from Denver to their doorsteps to end." Their letter includes an observation worthy of Frederic Bastiat. “It is apparent that the influx of asylum seekers has provoked consternation amongst states. Although we share the concerns of accommodating the flood of asylum seekers, overburdening other cities is not the solution.”  Pajamas Media's Rick Moran concludes, "If those two big city mayors — and a popular Democratic governor like Polis — can’t get Biden to pay attention, no one can."

That's right, governors of interior states who are not Republicans have also been taking the sanctuary city mayors up on their claim, and the sanctuary city mayors are not up to the task.  Perhaps what those mayors ought to have done is eased up on the initiative-killing zoning and taxation.

Sure, longtime residents often scorn new immigrants — they are dirty, their literacy rate is “abysmal,” they pick rags, their women bare their breasts in public to feed their howling brats. They are “hard to assimilate,” they form secret criminal societies, “blackmailers and bomb throwers,” and in general are “swarthy, lawless, poverty-ridden drones” — oh, wait, those are descriptions not of the present wave but of Italian immigrants 125 years ago.

About the same time that the city was preparing for that Columbian Exposition, which only looks like it went off well when viewed nostalgically.

Mr Steinberg is right, though, the federal government did a more effective job vetting immigrants at the end of the nineteenth century.  "It’s just as legal to show up at America’s southern border tomorrow asking for asylum as it was to arrive at Ellis Island in 1900. And walking across Central America with your kids takes more grit than your great-grandfather displayed by convincing Uncle Bruno to front him a steamship ticket."

Those Ellis Island arrivals didn't have to be asylum seekers (strictly speaking, asylum seekers ought stop in the first country they arrive at outside their own) but it helped, a lot, to have Uncle Bruno standing Pops that steamer ticket, and have a relative, or a sponsor, stateside.  Or have somebody to vouch for you at Ellis Island itself.  Check the story of Karl Steinmetz, later Charles Proteus Steinmentz, who came close to being sent back for being perceived as a possible public charge.  Likewise, Uncle Bruno, or was it Uncle Jurgis, or Uncle Ladislaus, arrived with no expectation of being put up on the floor of a police station or in an unused City Hall office.

TODAY'S TRANSPORTATION IMPONDERABLE.

A Guardian article laments autobesity.

More than 150 car models are now too big to fit in average car parking spaces, according to analysis conducted by Which?.

While the size of the standard parking bay has remained static for decades, cars have been growing longer and wider in a phenomenon known as “autobesity”.

Natalie Hitchins, Which?’s home products and services editor, said: “Cars are getting larger and larger, and while this might mean a more comfortable driving experience, it could be a problem when it comes to squeezing into a parking space.”

British petrol prices have long been much higher than those in the States; as far as I know, there are no corporate fuel economy standards that outlaw station wagons, the way Our Progressive Betters did in the United States, let alone any carve-outs for light trucks at the behest of the White Van Men, the way the rent-seekers and the farm lobby did Stateside.

And yet, Britons are buying "Chelsea tractors" in ever larger numbers.

The trend of “autobesity” is forcing car park providers to think of new ways to accommodate larger cars, such as introducing wider bays. However, the British Parking Association (BPA) told Which? that adapting to the trend of bigger, wider cars was not always easy. Multistorey car parks in particular provide challenges to growing car sizes, as they are not easily adaptable and rebuilding is too costly.

“While some car parks are introducing wider bays it won’t be the case everywhere, and some drivers might struggle getting parked up in certain locations – particularly multistorey car parks,” said Hitchins.

Predictably, the sob sisters are attempting the predictable deplorable-shaming.  "Campaigners have questioned why drivers need such large and dangerous cars in the city, particularly when dropping children off at school, with some going to extreme measures to get their message across."  Ah, so the drop-off line at the grade school has also become a thing.

Perhaps, rather than engage in lamentations or attempts to guilt-trip motorists, people ought ask what incentives are present leading to widespread ownership of larger motor vehicles, even in the absence of the policy errors that have shaped the residential fleets in the United States.

SELLING FREEDOM, AND THE INDUSTRIAL ARTS.

South Dakota governor Kristi Noem has been promoting her state with a series of video clips, including one where she's welding.

The substantive message in those shorts is South Dakota's willingness to grant full faith and credit to skilled trade licenses from other states, and I credit her, a little bit, for acknowledging her inability to carry water for a patternmaker.

IS IT TOO LATE FOR THE FACULTY TO RECLAIM STEWARDSHIP OF THE CURRICULUM?

Minding the Campus columnist Stanley K. Ridgley sees something wrong.  "Student Affairs: The Real Threat on Campus."  The presence of a parallel curriculum offered by Student Affairs has long been with us, and, I suspect, more than a few faculty members have been complicit.  At the University of Delaware, faculty curriculum committees took issue with Student Affairs creating courses, but I bet they would have been down for the learning objectives.  "The Perpetually Aggrieved among the faculty would no doubt be happy to continue the same ideological themes, albeit for credit."

It's still there, and Mr Ridgley flies the protest flag.

During a recent discussion of my book Brutal Minds, someone remarked, “It never occurred to me that deviant worldview training began at university welcoming events. I thought it emanated from professors, not office bureaucrats.”

Likewise, many folks routinely pummel the faculty for “indoctrination” in colleges and universities, when another, mostly anonymous group is responsible. A cadre of thinly educated support staff serves up most of the primitive, toxic ideologies for our students, including critical racialism and the euphemistically named “social justice education.”

How could this be so? Let’s explore.

Many are unfamiliar with the university bureaucracy known as “student affairs.” This bureaucracy disseminates the lion’s share of academia’s noxious ideologies through its so-called “co-curriculum,” which the average person outside the university has never heard of.  And that’s exactly how the fake faculty in the co-curriculum like it.

This co-curriculum exists on almost every college campus. It includes fake faculty, fake courses, and, at some schools, even a fake transcript. The point of this elaborate façade is to blur the distinction between the actual curriculum taught by actual faculty in academic affairs, and the faux curriculum taught by fake faculty who call themselves “college educators.” Many, if not most, of the persons who teach this fake co-curriculum are campus clerks, advisors, coordinators, DEI commissars, enrollment managers, and other “student affairs” staffers who hold the increasingly ubiquitous “master’s degree in higher education” and various online certificates.

That's not a secret. Parents and students might not be aware of the non-curriculum re-education, but faculty have known about it and often go along with it.  Mr Ridgley suggests that students and parents be woke to the con.

The actual professoriate is often ignorant of the student affairs bureaucracy and, in most cases, has no influence on—and certainly no oversight over—this “co-curriculum.” Typically, the only actual faculty who are concerned with this fake curriculum are education school types, usually those who administer the ed school graduate degrees in “student affairs” and “higher education management.”

The student affairs co-curriculum typically includes workshops, “Difficult Dialogues,” “Courageous Conversations,” “Privilege Walks,” and “Safe Spaces.” The bureaucracy behind it is permeated by a monolithic racialist ideology that 1) embraces the primitive Manichean ideology of critical racialism; 2) originates in education schools, which train the vast majority of these bureaucrats in Freirean/Maoist theory; and 3) informs two off-campus professional guilds—the American College Personnel Association (ACPA) and the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA)—which maintain and augment the “antiracist” and “decolonization” efforts of academe’s ancillary support staffers.

Perhaps the habits of watching what the school boards and common school teachers were doing that developed during the corona tyranny will carry over into the college years.

LET'S NOT TURN "EIN PROSIT" INTO A POLITICAL STATEMENT, GENAU?

Our Intellectual Betters in government like to issue all sorts of "recommendations" that, whether they're well thought out or not (generally they turn out to be not) are best ignored, but mocked mercilessly first.  "America's alcohol czar, George Koob, says the U.S. could follow Canada's lead and recommend no more than two alcoholic drinks per week."  I thought the concept of a policy czar went away with the gas lines of the 1970s, but bad ideas are harder to kill than vampires, aren't they?

Currently, the federal dietary guidelines advise no more than two drinks per day for adult men and one drink per day for adult women. Revising that down to two drinks per week would be a dramatic shift, to say the least.

Thankfully, most Americans don't give a shit what the federal guidelines for drinking say. Following federal dietary guidelines to the letter of the law would mean a joyless existence devoid of many fine drinks (particularly if you're a woman), anything less than well-done steak, or eggs benedict. Oh, and don't forget to microwave your prosciutto!

It's also true, of course, that the government is in no way forcing Americans to follow these rules. This doesn't even rise to the level of a backhanded ban like the ones that are aimed at driving gas stoves into extinction. Still, these guidelines come with an air of authority to them—or, at least, the sense that they were made by people who know what they're talking about.

But, often, they don't. Remember the food pyramid? My entire generation was raised on the notion that we were supposed to eat six to 11 servings of starch per day, thanks to poorly researched government-based dietary guidelines

So many targets, so little time. I'll deal with the backhanded bans on our kitchen appliances, which will work out about well as the ban on station wagons did, another day.  Today, let me focus on the meaning of "two drinks."  Our Progressive Betters have funny notions about what a serving is.  Order Cincinnati chili with cheese and you're going to get a week's worth of servings on that plate!

SHARPSHOOTERS ON PARADE.

In the United States, the German-themed regional festivals tend to style themselves as Oktoberfest.  In Germany, Munich hold a copyright, or, perhaps more strongly, a tradition, on that event, but that does not preclude other localities from having opportunities to quaff beer, with target shooting thrown in.  The target shooting competition is for members of the hunt clubs only, which undoubtedly protects the wallet of the winner, who is obligated to stand all the other competitors to a round of the local beer.  Then comes the dancing, and perhaps there are carnival rides.  In Switzerland there's also a youth competition.

Though the word roughly translates to "boys shooting" and the competition used to be only boys, teenage girls have been allowed in since 1991.

Kids in the country flock to the competition every September to compete in target shooting using Swiss army-service rifles. They're proud to show off how well they can shoot.

The competition values accuracy above all else, and officials crown a Schutzenkonig — a king or queen of marksmen — based on results.

Those guys in Michelangelo uniforms protecting the Pope? Quite possibly former winners of such competitions.  "Switzerland hasn't taken part in any international armed conflict since 1815, but some Swiss soldiers help with peacekeeping missions around the world."

Often, the Schützenfest includes a street parade.  Or several.  Where you might see echoes of der Kaiser's military traditions.

There are a few localities in the States offering a Schützenfest, although you're not likely to see any street parading there.  Whatever sort of -fest it is, find yourself one and go to it.

SEASON'S END

The DeKalb Municipal Band closed out their 169th season Tuesday evening.  Despite the heat, the concert drew a lot of spectators, and the band presented a number of tunes that are new, in my experience, to the rotation.  Here's John Klohr's Billboard.

Yes, that has the sound of a circus screamer, and if you've learned some words to go with the trio, you're not alone.  I can confirm that there is a fratty rendition that would probably cause contemporary Student Affairs types to lose their composure.  The program's announcer said Mr Klohr wrote the music as a tribute to Billboard, the program magazine distributed at the live theater.  Whatever.

HOW FARES THE SUCCESSION?

It's almost time for professional football, and we'll see if the Packers' quarterback drama is over for now.  "Best case scenario, the new quarterback continues to develop, the young receivers gain experience, and the transition to another quality quarterback occurs."  Milwaukee radio producer Brandon Sneide, doing his sports thing before probably being drafted in to cover the candidates' debate, suggests that the transition is promising.

There is no doubt – Jordan Love has won over the Packers fan base. #10 jerseys filled Lambeau under the bright lights over the past weekend, and his performance in his first home game as the starter shined even brighter.

Love & Co. began the game shaky – a botched snap led to a Patriots early score, but unlike years past, when the hits came, this time, the Packers responded.

It’s an early sign of the times ahead. Love isn’t backing down, nor has he ever. He is poised under scrutiny. He is in command of the huddle and a leader both on and off the field.

Without question, he looks to be built for this moment – a moment he has been waiting three years in the making for.

I'm reserving judgement until I see a few snaps played for real stakes.  "Is the current high draft pick in Green Bay another Aaron Rodgers, or Don Horn?"

Recall also how last season ended.  "The Green Bay Packers had a chance of making the playoffs, but two loss-of-composure penalties on defensive players in scoring situations helped the Lions put up points, and two ill-timed turnovers, the final an interception airmailed by Aaron Rodgers at the end of the game, put an end to those hopes."  That was the way the season went, much of the year, with the defense failing to stop anybody.

Since then: go to London, give up a second half lead and lose to the Giants; return home and underwhelm the Jets; go to Washington, D.C., give up a second half lead and lose to the Redskins Commanders; go to Buffalo, which no doubt the schedulers anticipated was going to be a highlight game between contenders, stage a second half rally and cover the point spread; then go to Detroit and score all of nine points against a Lion defense that had been giving up thirty.

Mr Sneide notes that the onus might be on the defensive coordinator this season.

Jordan Love undoubtedly needs to prove to GM Brian Gutekunst & Co. that he can play. I think most fans would agree with that, but this is not a one-year test for Love or the offense.

However, it is for defensive coordinator Joe Barry and the defense. Typically an offense takes more time to get into a rhythm and develop a good rapport, whereas a defense is much easier to find their groove.

The excuses, barring any catastrophic injuries, are out the window.

At every level, from the beef up front to the signal callers in the middle, to the cornerbacks on the back end, this defense has an all-pro player at every vital position. It is also a defense littered with first-round pick after first-round pick – including eight since 2016.

This is a team that, let’s be honest, easily should have a top-ten unit on defense. The talent is there. The investment has been made. It’s time to start seeing all of it pay off.

Perhaps for the first time since Matt LaFleur rose to head the House of Lambeau, he will have his own personnel and game plans in place on both sides of the ball.  The Packers have surely dealt a lot of their veteran talent to Aaron and the Jets.

GLUTTONY AT THE FACULTY WINE AND CHEESE RECEPTION.

Yes, colleague, I'm looking at you, snagging six of those cheese cubes on frilly toothpicks.

Pray that the Davoisie never get control over our cheese curds.  Imagine being authorized one serving of generic processed cheese a week.

DON'T LOOK FOR NUANCE IN A PROTEST SONG.

Oliver Anthony's recent Rich Men North of Richmond well might be another in a series of recent protest songs that catch on with populist conservatives.  Reason's J. D. Tuccille suggests there is a pattern.

It's not often that country music songs grab the attention of largely city-based name-brand media, but Oliver Anthony's "Rich Men North of Richmond" did exactly that with anti-elite, anti-tax, anti-welfare lyrics—and his undeniable singing talent. Even more remarkable, Anthony's tune bumped the similarly earnest anti-urban "Try That in a Small Town" by Jason Aldean from the top of the charts. If you add in Austin Moody's lefty-taunting chart-climber, "I'm Just Sayin'," you have a cluster of songs grabbing popularity with a shared sense of populist outrage. Call it the return of the country protest song.

The return has been going on for some time.  "Country singer John Rich's recent 'Progress' is likely to be popular as a cover item on the county fair circuit, where Normals repay elite contempt with defiance."  This morning, "Fox and Friends" featured Mr Rich with another new composition, "I'm Offended."

THE LAST OF THE MCGINNIS EXPERIMENTS LIVES ON.

Investment banker and self-styled railroad reformer Patrick McGinnis is notorious in ferroequinology circles for his attempts to save first the New Haven and then the Boston and Maine railroads by destroying them.  Like many other situations where good intentions go awry, those railroads were in trouble, with the agricultural and industrial base of New England off respectively to more fertile lands and more friendly business climates; and perhaps selling off the real estate for parking lots, or, most notoriously, parcels of land that would have permitted the Shore Line to be straightened out through Connecticut to the Turnpike Authority.  But fixing the passenger train problem by going to lighter passenger trains with all the ride qualities of a rickety roller coaster?

DISPATCHES FROM THAT SIMMERING INSURGENCY.

County Fair season is winding down, with the school busses returning to their appointed rounds and some trees beginning to change colors.  But the populist insurgency continues to be profitable.

The tee-shirt designers have been able to come up with several thematic presentations of Try That in a Small Town.  Rich Men North of Richmond might be too new yet to prepare the silkscreens.

For the first time in my experience, though, I've encountered Trump flags as possible prizes at the midway arcades.

Those are from the Dodge County Fair, outside Beaver Dam, Wisconsin.  The 4-H projects sometimes have an edge to them as well.

I have been compiling pictures of the more conventional 4-H projects and hope to offer that more cheerful fare once the school year is again under way.

I WANT BETTER CHOICES.

A few days ago, one of the Milwaukee political talkers ventured an hypothesis, something along the lines of "Had Donald Trump simply conceded the 2020 election and made the ceremonial limousine ride with his successor, and then announced a comeback attempt, he might be positioned for a win of Reagan-like proportions today."

We know that didn't happen.  "Donald Trump was his own worst enemy, and his grievance tour in Georgia might have done more for the Jarrett regency than any of the efforts of the soon to be former representative [Liz Cheney], or the establishmentarian squishes of Conservative, Inc."  I maintain that the electorate voted for gridlock in 2020, and Mr Trump's Georgia machinations gave the coot just enough of a governing majority in Congress to give us Malaise 2.0.

To add the ridiculous to the merely disquieting, the Trump amen corner (including the designated successors to Rush Limbaugh, who are nowhere near as interesting) are devoting their airtime to such hypotheticals as "can a president pardon himself for a state offense?"  In a serious world, wouldn't people turn their attention to more effective tribunes for their preferred bundles of policies?  Or there are people drawing parallels between the notorious Florida recount of the 2000 presidential election and whatever Mr Trump was attempting in Georgia.

Enough.

SOME HEALTHY DISSENT AMONG DEMOCRATS?

It's easy enough for conservatives of various sorts, including Christopher Tremoglie, contributing to Washington's Examiner, to find fault with the soft-on-crime, Weimar-isn't-camp-enough sorts that populate the herd of donkeys these days.

Democrats are divisive. They’ve supported many causes that put them at odds with much of the population.

And many of the policies that stemmed from their ideological stubbornness, most notably criminal justice policies, have endangered innocent people. After several years of inflammatory and divisive politics, people have noticed the Democrats’ tendency to divide the country.

In the last decade, Democrats have championed ideas such as defunding the police because "cops are racist murderers," "the country is comprised of racists hostile to non-white people," as well as supported numerous racism hoaxes such as Jussie Smollett, Bubba Wallace, and the children from Covington Catholic.

They've also claimed citizens are selfish and destroying the environment and supported the strange ideology that men can be women. Democrats have relentlessly imposed their moralities and will on the people. Is it any wonder that a plurality of voters blame Democrats for making the country “politically divided?”

By their fruits shall ye know them. Mr Tremoglie, however, is writing in an outlet primarily for the edification of the already converted, the Militant Normals, if you will.

[C]onsider just some of what Democrats did in the last few years.

First, during the COVID pandemic, Democrats forced people to wear masks and then suppressed any viewpoints that disagreed with these mandates. Later, they restricted information on any studies or media that challenged the efficacy of masks. This process repeated itself after vaccines became available.

Next was their support for the Black Lives Matter riots and destruction after George Floyd’s death. Democrats perpetuated the lie that police officers are racist killing machines, and many embraced calls to defund police departments nationwide.

Then there was the support of radical gender ideology. This included an inability to define what a woman was, claims that men can become pregnant, and supporting biological men competing against women in athletic competitions.

It's going to take politicians, including Democrats, who see the effects of limousine liberal sensibilities on their constituents, to call attention.  Let us accordingly recognize Alderman Ray Lopez, of Chicago's Fifteenth Ward.

He doesn’t shrink from calling out District Attorney Kim Foxx and Cook County Chief Judge Tim Evans’ failures to prosecute and sentence the city’s criminals. He’s quick to call out that just 11% of black students read at grade level. And he doesn’t hesitate to criticize Mayor Brandon Johnson for playing semantics over what criminals should be called.

Notably missing is any mention of equity, diversity or inclusion. Instead, he’s calling for good old fashioned accountability.

He's been tangling with the socialist caucus in Chicago's common council for some time. Will he have a message that works in other Chicago wards?

DID THE MILWAUKEE BREWERS PICK UP THE BLIND?

This season's pennant race in the National League's Central Division has given the impression of a game of sheepshead at leaster, with, until recently, none of the Pirates, Reds, or Brewers, ever being in first by more than 2 1/2 games and with the lead changing hands.  Until the Brewers, last week, secured, and for the moment continue to protect, a three game lead.  Statement made?

Entering the series on Friday against the first-place Texas Rangers, this Brewers road trip would go one of two ways: They would either finish the trip not leading the division, or they would make a statement and respond in a significant way.

As Devin Williams came in Sunday to close it out as the Brewers won their third in a row, it is safe to say: Statement made.

A 6-3 finish for a 9-game, 3-city road trip was quite the statement, to me at least. Two of those three teams currently sit atop their division, and for the most part, aside from the struggle in LA, this Brewers team showed me they belonged.

With 37 games remaining, the 2023 Milwaukee Brewers currently lead their division by three games over the Chicago Cubs, and with a schedule that seems to increase in difficulty, this Brewers team doesn’t get phased.

We'll see, down the stretch.  Chicago and Cincinnati are the two known opponents, is Pittsburgh or St. Louis holding the jack of diamonds?  Yes, that convention is controversial in Wisconsin.  Let's deal the next hand and keep the Spotted Cow, or Sprecher, chilled.

MARKING OFF.

It's back to school season, which also means a lot of the summer fun things are winding down.  Yes, being retired means not having to be bound by the school calendar, but people who make their money selling the summer fun things are.

Posting, accordingly, will be sporadic until after Labor Day.  The Friday short Takes for the remaining weekends of August are annulled.  Thanks for looking in.

I've been working on the railroad.

There's now radio control of the upper level powered display track, which makes following a train around and recording it less scary.  Questionable cars will perform well on good track, and well-tuned cars will stay on questionable track.  When questionable cars discover questionable track, it's useful to be able to make an emergency stop immediately with the remote control, so as to prevent stock from diving to the floor.

That British Railways Western Region D854 Tiger is getting broken in, it hasn't run much in a quarter century, and I'm putting it through its paces.  There's a longer video of trains transiting the entire display track in production, and perhaps that will be available for your viewing pleasure at or after Labor Day.

YOU DON'T HAVE TO OUT-RUN THE BEAR.

Arnold Kling argues, "U.S. Government Bonds are Junk Bonds."  For the moment, they're still the lowest-risk asset, because the joint venture of Brazil, China, India, Russia, and Saudi Arabia is about as stable as Dementia Joe on a bicycle.  All, though, is not well.

If you buy a ten-year U.S. government bond, what are the chances that you will be repaid in full? Are they 99 percent or more?

If we are talking about being paid back in dollars, I would say that the answer is “yes.” But what about the purchasing power of those dollars?

To keep the arithmetic simple, suppose that you invest $100 in a bond, and you get no interest until the bond matures. Interest is, say, $5 per year, so that in ten years, when the bond matures, you get $150.

Suppose that $150 ten years from now will buy the equivalent of $100 today. Then you just break even on the bond. That corresponds to inflation of roughly 5 percent per year, not compounded. If inflation is less than that, you do better than break-even, and if it is more than that, you do worse.

I think that it is fair to say that if inflation averages more than, say, 8 percent over the next ten years, then long-term government bonds that you buy today will have effectively defaulted. So if you are going to rate long-term government bonds as being investment grade, you have to assign a very low probability to such a high-inflation scenario.

Or you offer less than $100 for that bond, which is the manifestation of the real debt ceiling.

What is the real debt ceiling?  The value of the federal debt beyond which bond traders will not buy Treasuries.

When will the day of default be?  Nobody knows the day or the hour.

That day, though, is coming.

As you may have heard, one of the credit rating agencies recently downgraded U.S. debt from AAA to AA, which is nothing. Government debt is still considered high quality. That is because its rating only concerns the risk of hard default, not the soft default of rapid inflation. I agree that the risk of hard default is low, but I think that soft default is something to be worried about.

One way to avoid soft default is for there to be a dramatic pickup in the rate of economic growth. That would boost tax revenue and enable the U.S. government to run a balanced budget, or even to enjoy surpluses. This scenario assumes spectacular gains from the application of innovation in biotech and AI. Call this scenario A.

Another way to avoid soft default is for a bipartisan effort to reduce growth in government spending. This almost certainly would require cuts in Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Call this scenario B.

If we have neither scenario A nor scenario B, then government will have to issue more and more debt to finance its spending, including spending to pay the interest and principal on past, present, and future debt. That is what analysts at the Congressional Budget Office and elsewhere worry about when they describe the U.S. fiscal position as unsustainable.

This ever-increasing debt issuance will flood the economy with paper wealth that is not derived from economic activity. This flood of government bonds seems certain to fuel inflation. As inflation goes up, government interest cost goes up, the cost of entitlements and other forms of government spending goes up, and you get into a vicious spiral.

It does not reassure the rating services that Congresses, repeatedly, Democrats, Republicans, divided, have not passed a regular order appropriation since 1996 or so, nor have we seen anyone doing something serious about those Social Security and Medicare "trust funds" being depleted.

FREQUENCY, CONNECTIVITY, DEPENDABILITY.

Once upon a time, Amtrak offered the Lone Star, formerly Texas Chief, serving Chicago, Kansas City, Oklahoma City, and various Texas cities, and before that The Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe supplemented its Texas Chief with a Tulsan and a Kansas Cityan, which continued into Oklahoma or Texas, while Missouri Pacific ran multiple Eagles across Missouri and Arkansas to much of Texas.

THE AGGRANDIZEMENT OF THE RENT SEEKERS.

Tass News Agency, er, Associated Press propagandist Lisa Mascaro puts the regime's spin on the latest round of money printing.  "'Bidenomics' delivered a once-in-generation investment. It shows the pros and cons of policymaking."  That's the headline, here come the details.

There are so many dots on the maps they blur into blobs — each one reflecting trillions of public and private dollars flowing in the U.S. this past year to build thousands of roads, bridges and manufacturing projects in communities large and small, in states red and blue.

They include an electric vehicle “battery belt” of manufacturing stretching from Michigan to Georgia, semiconductor fabrication plants in Arizona, Texas, Ohio and New York and broadband coming to Appalachia.

Taken together, they represent President Joe Biden's ambitious attempt to use the levers of government to chart a new era of domestic manufacturing, modernizing the U.S. to compete in the 21st century.

Packaged as “Bidenomics” by the White House, the effort is the product of three major bills approved in the last Congress that are also the president's hoped-for roadmap for reelection. Republicans have balked at what they said was unwarranted federal spending. The debate between those two views could go a long way toward determining who wins the White House and control of Congress in 2024.

Pay close attention to those roads and bridges. Dementia Joe will be showing up at the ribbon cuttings, if he remembers and he can stay awake, but he will be out of office in another ten years, when the projects start to wear out and either the municipalities are on the hook for repairs or there will be another bipartisan porkulus.  In place of a Solyndra or Foxconn to be a big, visible industrial policy failure, do we have lots of little, moldering manufacturers once the public money runs out?

SOMETIMES A SONG IS SIMPLY A SONG.

Reason's Christian Britschgi suggests that Rich Men North of Richmond is a lot of fun, provided you Don't Overthink Things.  "Regrettably, a lot of people are taking the song much too seriously indeed."

LA CASTA TIENE MIEDO.

Donald Trump is the symptom of governmental rot.  Perhaps Argentinians will find a corrective.

A relatively unknown economist until about five years ago, [Javier] Milei rose to fame in Argentina as a TV commentator criticizing then-President Mauricio Macri for not being pro-market. His hot-tempered style and profanity made him popular among young people, and he quickly became the country's preeminent libertarian voice, calling for the elimination of the central bank and quoting intellectuals like Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek on prime time.

When Macri failed to stabilize Argentina's economy and lost his reelection bid in 2019, Milei jumped into politics in a controversial alliance with national conservatives that he has maintained until today. When he ran for Congress in 2021, he received 17 percent of the vote in the city of Buenos Aires, enough to win a spot in the Argentine Chamber of Deputies.

During the 2023 presidential campaign, Milei's main proposal has been to eradicate inflation by dollarizing the economy—that is, by treating the U.S. dollar as the national currency. He also favors deregulating industries, privatizing state-owned companies, and bringing an end to budget deficits.

Milei's social agenda, in turn, mixes libertarian and conservative elements. Unlike any other candidate, he advocates for private gun ownership to counter crime, but he opposes abortion. It is gay marriage, though, where the ideological complexity of his candidacy becomes clear: While he has said government should not regulate any marriages at all, his Catholic running mate has publicly opposed it. Both abortion and same-sex marriage are currently legal in Argentina, though.

Political commentators expected Milei's constant insults against other politicians to hurt him. But blaming his rivals for Argentina's problems seems to have been a successful strategy. It's unclear whether his ideas or his temper did more to earn him 30 percent of the vote, but his support is still substantial.

Donald Trump did demonstrate that insulting other politicians (low energy, crooked) had some purchase, while Hillary Clinton showed what insulting the voters could get you.

THERE THEY GO AGAIN.

Stadium subsidies are among the worst uses of tax money.  They're also convenient instruments by which teams, or their leagues, can hold up the taxpayers.

I’m talking about the stadium situation in Milwaukee and the future of the Brewers there.

We don’t think of the Brewers as among the teams with “stadium issues,” but earlier this year Commissioner Rob Manfred, in discussing the need to provide for quality facilities in Milwaukee, reminded folks of the situation in Oakland, where the A’s are planning to relocate to Las Vegas in the near future because of an inability to get a new stadium plan completed with/funded by the city.

American Family Field is publicly-owned by a state agency, and therefore the upkeep is publicly-provided, which means there does have to be some public pressure when it comes time to upkeep/update the facilities. This seems to be the year for it in Milwaukee and Wisconsin with respect to the Brewers, and the team wants to ensure that legislation is passed by this fall that would provide for improvements to the ballpark. Manfred’s remarks, therefore, were seen as a bit of a heavy: “Nice team you got here. It’d be a shame if it had to leave … “

But now, it’s not just a generic reminder from the league’s Commissioner. It’s the team, itself, starting to make some noise about looking into relocating if necessary.

The Brewers might currently be leading a division that no team really wants to win; but in the political economy of stadium subsidies, that's always money that no entity really wants to spend.

I would call this a pretty significant escalation of the situation, since a team is not going to want to be perceived as holding the city/state hostage for more cash to improve their facilities. It’s a lot easier when MLB and the Commissioner can play the part of subtle bad guy from afar. That’s just MLB doing it’s thing. But when it’s the LOCAL team playing hardball with the LOCAL community, that can be seen as quite a bit uglier, right or wrong.

Not that I want to defend the Brewers – ever – but in this case, it sounds like the bare minimum expenses associated with necessary upkeep are set to outpace the actual funding made available by the state legislature. Since the state is effectively the owner of the ballpark, then, it seems pretty reasonable to expect them to allocate funding to ensure that the ballpark is worth playing in for the next 7+ years (the term of the lease). And if the state is NOT going to do that, then the team really does have to start exploring its options elsewhere pretty soon, because the relocation process can take years.

Read the report for the nitty gritty on funding in Wisconsin, why the city of Milwaukee doesn’t want to provide the funding, and where else the Brewers could look to move if it comes to that. My read is that, for now, this is pretty standard negotiating-through-the-press-and-for-the-public stuff, with the Brewers wanting to make sure their facilities are improved as much as possible, without them having to foot any of the bill themselves. It’s clear SOME funding will have to be allocated by the legislature at some point over the next few years, but it’s probably a lot less than the Brewers/MLB are seeking. Eventually, I’m sure a deal will get done.

The political economy gets amusing.  Raise the issue of state residents who might live in Twins country having to pay taxes for a Milwaukee stadium: prepare for back-and-forth about the tourism dollars that show up in Milwaukee, or not, if those tourists bring tailgating supplies with them, eat before the game, and spend nothing on concessions inside or eateries or hotels in the Milwaukee area.  Call the whole notion of stadium subsidies a regressive transfer to owners and player: prepare for argumentam ad anecdotam about those parking lot attendants and beer vendors, perhaps from some protected status communities, whose very livelihoods are at stake if the stadium is empty.  Sometimes, the politicians defending the stadium subsidies on those grounds are the very same people who use "trickle down" as a pejorative.  Apparently, it's not, as far as the pouring of the beer is concerned.

There's something similar going on in Baltimore, where this year's Orioles are summoning the echoes of Earl Weaver and Spiro Agnew.  "Study after study after study has shown government subsidies of sports stadiums do not boost economic growth—they merely cost taxpayers money. Yet politicians continuously bow down to billionaire team owners."  No, they're doing it for the children beer vendors.

BACK ON HOME RAILS.

It's rare for an interurban car to make it into preservation, and extremely rare for a car to return to a preservation railroad using its home rails.  That is the case for Aurora Elgin and Fox River car 304, which migrated from the Fox River Line to Shaker Heights Rapid Transit and then to the collection at Trolleyville, USA, a people moving feature within a mobile home park outside Cleveland.

Subsequent owners of that property decided to sell the electric cars, many of which belonged to Chicago Aurora and Elgin, and much of that collection has returned to Illinois, in one instance after the cars ran on Cleveland's rapid transit line ... with modern pantographs.  The Fox River Trolley Museum now run 304.

Find yourself a preservation railway and go to it, before the summer tourist season ends.

FRIDAY short TAKES.

We open with a Bill of Particulars against the Jarrett Regency.

They are destroying the currency by passing massive spending bills; they demand equality of outcome, not of opportunity; they seek to destroy our energy supply, replacing it with the absurdity of the “green new deal;” they are enfeebling the military by demanding woke behavior from service men and women; they bang the racial drum from morning til night; they want to eliminate the filibuster and the Electoral College, pack the Supreme Court, command all states to follow a federal election law, weaponize the law enforcement agencies and the FBI; require everyone to ignore the obviousness of there being only two sexes; eliminate parental control over children so they can be chemically or surgically disfigured according to the dictates of sex-deniers; they are spending more on climate nonsense, welfare, and student loans than on defense.

When you ruin every place you rule, people notice.  When you promise to bring ruin and bring ruin, people notice.  "It’s not often that a politician openly pledges to bring the country back to a time of crippling inflation, high energy prices, and stifling interest rates. But this president is doing his best to keep that promise."  He's a farcical parody of Franklin Roosevelt.  "Nobody is singing 'Happy Days are Here Again.'"

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

SO MUCH FOR THE LIMITED-ACCESS HIGHWAY.

Years ago, the Farm Belt railroads would establish agency stations spaced from five to eight miles apart, and each such town (in Canada, there were even railroad-issued town plans, with King Street and Queen Street neighboring the station and provision for lots of elevators trackside) would soon have a grain elevator to handle the harvest.  The station spacing recognized the velocity of a wagon and team of horses or oxen, in order that the farmer could schlep the harvest to the elevator and return home in a day.  The price of wheat might be haggled out in the pits in Chicago or perhaps London, and the local land rent would reflect that price, the transportation expense, and the distance of the farm from the station.

GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES SEEK TO CONTINUE MULCTING THE TAXPAYERS.

The Jarrett regency have taken advantage of the absence of any debt ceiling to print money like it's going out of style (which it will be) but that's not enough for the communist wing of the Democrats' coalition.  "Why is the Biden administration trying to rob itself of a clear opportunity to protect American workers and the economy from being roiled by MAGA saboteurs?"  That protection?  The next tussle over agreeing on a new debt ceiling could be ... inconvenient for Washington bureaucrats.

A federal judge canceled plans to hear arguments for the National Association of Government Employees (NAGE) case when President Joe Biden and congressional Republicans who were holding the economy hostage announced a negotiated deal to suspend the nation's borrowing limit until 2025—signed into law in early June as the Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA).

Biden then ordered his aides to create a working group intended to prevent similar crises in the future. As the White House said last month, "Now that the latest debt ceiling crisis is behind us, it is necessary to explore all legal and policy options to prevent Congress from ever again holding hostage the full faith and credit of the United States."

Now, as Government Executive reported earlier this week, even though "federal employees are still facing the prospect of delayed paychecks when the debt ceiling is reinstated in 2025," the U.S. Department of Justice "asked Judge Richard Stearns of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts to dismiss the case, suggesting the FRA has made the case moot and NAGE members lack standing because their claims are 'wholly speculative.'" Hauser said that "the Justice Department's notion that the federal employees' claims of injury are 'wholly speculative, as they depend on a future chain of events that may never occur,' is absurd: The crisis is scheduled to recur precisely on January 1, 2025, as it has recurred repeatedly this century."

"In the meantime, uncertainty continues to trouble hundreds of thousands of federal workers, who have no guarantee of how their jobs, salaries, and pensions will be affected," he noted. "Indeed, the stance that [Attorney General] Merrick Garland's Justice Department is advancing creates an unfortunately sound case against workers considering taking a job in what has become an unstable federal government."

Mr Hauser writes that passage as if "unstable" is a bad thing, or that the wrangling over the debt ceiling, which is not a credible commitment in any event, is the source of the instability.  But that's how the communist wing of the coalition rolls.

Even if Biden wins in 2024 and Democrats keep control of the Senate and regain a majority in the House of Representatives, they may lack the votes needed to extend the suspension or raise the debt ceiling in early 2025. Democratic lawmakers notably declined to take action on the borrowing limit after the last midterm elections, despite warnings that Republicans would use their House takeover this year to hold the economy hostage to extract concessions.

When it's something you want, it's "seeking compromise." When it's something you don't want, it's "extracting concessions." Somehow, though, the political class keeps the grift going. You want hostage-holding?  Wait for the bond buyers to bail on Treasury auctions.  Right now, all that's saving the Treasury from that event is the sheer incompetence of the so-called BRICS bloc; if they could credibly offer a gold-and-crude backed currency it would be lights out for Dementia Joe's socialist delusions.

COUNT COUP AFTER YOU'VE HOISTED THE TROPHY.

The United States' women's footie squad are finished in the World Cup.  Ordinarily, that would be reason enough for Cold Spring Shops to continue its policy of benign neglect of the game popular with adolescent males in the third world and eight year old girls here.  Not before we have some fun with the Dutch team.  "Netherlands forward Lineth Beerensteyn said Thursday she celebrated the United States crashing out of the Women's World Cup, saying the beaten holders had 'a really big mouth'." The story continues, "I was just thinking: you first have to show it on the pitch before you are talking."

Yes, the gods of sport are a sardonic lot, and wearing those warmups with four stripes, for the four World Cups, as a form of pregame intimidation is, especially with replay review, letting your tailor write checks your feet can't cash.  Notwithstanding that to much of the world, watching the United States exit the footie tournament is the same sort of high as watching Connecticut exit the basketball tournament.

A FLAG TO RALLY 'ROUND.

The new states of the Northwest Territories contributed mightily to the restoration of the Union.  Minnesota's state capitol is a large Civil War monument, even with Eller, Larson, Marshall and Page rampaging on the entablature.  The First Minnesota blunted Longstreet's attempts to crack the Federal line on the second day at Gettysburg.  Several Iowa regiments comprised the core of the resistance along the sunken road at Shiloh, buying Grant and Sherman enough time to regroup and be reinforced by Buell's units.  Illinois claims Grant and Lincoln as its own, its river frontage with Cairo south of Richmond providing a base for the western phase of the Anaconda Plan, and its Vicksburg war memorial is a Pantheon-sized tribute to the participation of the state's volunteers.  Five regiments from Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin achieved recognition as the "Iron Brigade" for their efforts at Antietam, subsequently blunting the rebellion's efforts on the first day of Gettysburg in such a way as to force the general engagement General Lee wanted to avoid.

When President Lincoln issued his first call for volunteers, the people of Belleville and Brooklyn in Wisconsin erected a Liberty Pole on a hill in sight of the towns, to provide a gathering place for the volunteers.

Their heirs and descendants subsequently established Liberty Pole Hill Park to honor and call attention to that recruitment effort of long ago.

IT'S A LITTLE TOO LATE TO REDISCOVER YOUR RESPONSIBILITIES.

I have long maintained that the faculty are the stewards of the university, and that the problems higher education types complain about are self-inflicted in part because the faculty who could speak up chose not to, because it was convenient to go along.  "That the faculty couldn't raise more objections to the purging of the provost, or take steps in committees and faculty councils to stop the usurpations, suggested the faculty had long ago abdicated powers that were properly theirs.  And faculty, no matter how radical their politics, might be the fiercest protectors of the curriculum, if they'd but have kept those powers."

ACCULTURATE THOSE PANHANDLERS!

Chicago is notorious for its aggressive panhandlers, and for its ward-heeler politicians for whom productive people never pay enough taxes.  Where the city won't protect its businesses, the businesses have to do so themselves.

Walgreens has decided that playing classical music outside certain Chicago stores will keep away loiterers and panhandlers. Whether a blast of Bach works is anybody’s guess, but the pharmacy chain along with other major retailers has previously employed symphonic security in the western U.S.

The Sun-Times this week found classical music greeting customers as they approached the entrance of stores in Greektown, the West Side and River North at 641 N. Clark St. It plays from speakers connected to the building that are covered by a protective screen.

Customer reaction and the results appeared mixed.

It's a limited repertoire, Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, Rossini’s William Tell Overture and Strauss’ Radetzky March.  The sob-sisters, predictably, don't like it.

Douglas Schenkelberg, executive director of the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, said he found the Walgreens tactic “really disturbing” when a reporter told him about it.

“The root cause of homelessness is a lack of housing and the problem is not going to be solved just by getting people to move from a parking lot to somewhere else,” he said.

Schenkelberg said merchants should reconsider policies that “treat people like a nuisance rather than like human beings.”

He commented that a 7-Eleven downtown near his office fights loitering by playing loud operatic music, or sometimes children’s songs, and by having high-intensity lights near the door.

A 7-Eleven executive could not immediately be reached for comment.

We could talk about deinstitutionalization and snob zoning, but that is so last century.  We could also talk about sanctuary cities.

On the West Side, the Walgreens at 2340 W. Madison St. showed the limits of the deterrence. Two men who said they were homeless were gathered near planters outside the store, with music softly playing in the distance. They said it’s a decent spot for shade and shelter when it rains.

“We don’t want to approach people,” said Kevin Gregg, who said he’s been homeless for two years. “When we go into the store to shop, they make accusations and follow us around.”

Gregg said the shelters can’t help because they are full of migrants. “I’m not blaming anybody. There’s just a limit to what the shelters can do,” he said.

Retailers, whether in big cities or suburban malls, have come under pressure from increased thefts and pandemic-related disruptions, said John Melaniphy, president of Chicago-based retail consultancy Melaniphy & Associates.

He said merchants are looking for ways to hold down crime and youthful rowdiness while keeping locations attractive for shoppers.

Be careful how you describe "youthful rowdiness" in Chicago, the current mayor will scold you for your choice of words.

This is what Chicagoans voted for.  This is what Chicagoans deserve.

RESIDUALLY INHABITED BY ... PROGRESSIVES?

Illinois, where the productive people get chased out, and the alternative lifestyles cluster.

Illinois has become the most progressive state in the Union.

Just look at the summer our governor is having. Last month, the state Supreme Court ruled his SAFE-T Act constitutional, making Illinois the first state to eliminate cash bail. On Monday, he “doubled down” on expanding access to abortion, announcing $23 million in grants to clinics experiencing a surge in demand from our neighboring states, which have mostly banned the procedure. Illinois already has one of the nation’s most liberal abortion laws, the Reproductive Health Act, which establishes abortion as a “fundamental right” and declares that a “fertilized egg, embryo, or fetus does not have independent rights under the laws of this state.”

And look at the summer [Chicago's] mayor is having, launching a progressive agenda that includes eliminating the sub-minimum wage for tipped workers and raising real estate taxes on million-dollar homes. Actually, just look at our mayor: a union organizer who ran on a platform of making the rich “pay their fair share.” Johnson is the most left-wing big city mayor in the United States. He doesn’t call himself a socialist, but his City Council floor leader, alderperson Carlos Ramirez-Rosa, does.

How's that working out?  "Will it play in Peoria?" takes a new tone, for one.

Governor Pritzker calls Illinois an “oasis” in the Midwest for women seeking reproductive health care. That’s a result of Chicago becoming an oasis for young, educated Midwesterners who moved here to get the hell out of conservative small towns in Wisconsin, Indiana, Iowa and Missouri.

During the mayoral campaign, the most dedicated Johnson volunteer I met was Jonathan Nagy, a 33-year-old queer artist who moved to Chicago from his hometown in Ohio in 2016. Small-town Ohio is not a great place to be queer, or an artist. Nagy settled in Logan Square because he was “looking for a political community” and “wanted intentional spaces to meet my neighbors.” Those sound like the motivations that have created [Bill] Bishop’s Big Sort. Bishop also wrote that “gay couples were congregating in particular cities — specific zip codes, in fact.”

(This isn’t just happening in Chicago. Peoria has also become a destination for queer, minority migrants attracted by its cost of living and its location in a Blue state.)

A destination, yes, but what sort of future does a soft-on-crime abortion oasis offer?

What's a Militant Normal to do?  Pick up and leave?  The self-styled progressives are happy to see the opposition go.  Suggest some sort of sensible alternative?  To whom?  Wait for reality to bat last?  There is a debt ceiling, and the Jarrett regency's ability to print money to bail out the states run by Democrats will come to an end.  The endgame will not be pretty.