FRIDAY short TAKES.

We are living through a profoundly unserious moment.  Unserious people seek to con us.  "They cannot competently run power grids, or municipal water systems or trash pickup; they cannot competently maintain, let alone repair, the ‘roads and bridges’ they are always pratting about; they cannot competently run or maintain the public housing they increasingly want people to live in, or the public transportation systems that they want people to rely on."  The spectacle, no better: "The painfully obvious reality of our political dispensation — an increasingly despotic managerial state sugar-coated with soothing rhetoric about Our Democracy™ — drives home the point about oligarchs filling the vacuum."  Our economy is headed for disaster.  Liberals are trying to drive down the standard of living for all Americans.  Is Nancy Pelosi Still Representing San Francisco in Congress?

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

1.  That is not healthcare, that is mutilation.

2.  It's the goal.  "Making ordinary people’s lives worse isn’t an unfortunate side effect."  Plus:  “That’s the point of all these rules, to get us used to everything being a little bit worse than it was before.”

3.  The argument generalizes.  "The focus on the very most spectacular events to the exclusion of 'normal' shootings generates bad policy analysis."

4.  Fear of thinking is the greatest cowardice.

5.  Her priors were too tight.  "Walensky firmly believed that CDC guidance on COVID-19 policies should reflect the up-to-date scientific consensus—that is, unless the science had arrived at a conclusion that vexed her."

6.  Profoundly unserious, and wrong?  "New Industrial Policy is the latest fad in justifying runaway deficit spending and clumsy government intervention. I predict that, like Modern Monetary Theory, it will end up doing considerable economic damage."

7.  Retention über alles?  "Students are increasingly taught at the lowest common denominator rather than being challenged to do their best."

8.  On epistemic closure.  "That's a reflection of their ignorance."

9.  Strong words.  "They are asking us to take something that is clearly not real and believe that it’s real. They're asking us to take something that is very clearly a mental illness that creates this delusion."

10.  The first time as tragedy, the second time as farce?  "A white guy posing as a woman in a courthouse is just like a black student wanting an education and leaving a public school building, back in the early 60s, apparently."

11.  Debt ceiling, can, road's end?  "No side is going to like what's required, but it must be done. And the longer we wait, the more painful it will be."

12.  Chicago, Chicago?  "What exactly did they think they were going to get when they overwhelmingly supported Joe Biden during the 2020 election?"

13.  Without deplorable shaming, where goeth the Donks?  "There will be daily slanders, daily outrages, and daily combat."

14.  Deconstruct this!  "There’s an unequal power balance that happens when you deal with state apparatuses."

15.  Higher education's breach of the social contract.  "Institutions’ hubris, high costs, mediocre outcomes, and ideological fixations inconsistent with American values have lowered public support."

16.  Inequities in the common schools.  "You shouldn’t let a kid get to fourth grade if they can’t add 12 plus 13."

17.  The Rawlsian system is incoherent.

18.  Indeed.  "Trump pitched the event like a WWE Monday Night Raw."

19.  Preach it!  "I’m unapologetic in advocating for rigorous academic challenges for students who have uncommon talent but lack uncommon wealth."

20.  Football on a school night is a bad idea.  "Have Thursday Night games been any good since the NFL dove into these?"

21.  The Packers brand remains strong.