MAYBE HE SHOULD HAVE STUCK TO SUMMER STOCK.

Last fall, the University of Wisconsin system removed LaCrosse chancellor Joe Gow for conduct unbecoming.  The university at LaCrosse is in the middle of a for cause investigation stripping him of tenure in communication studies.

The former chancellor, Joe Gow, said [in April] that interim Chancellor Betsy Morgan filed three charges against him March 29, accusing him of unethical conduct, failing to cooperate with an investigation, and using UW-La Crosse computers to produce pornographic materials.

Gow declined to share a letter from Morgan detailing the charges, saying he didn't want to look as though he is trying to play out his case in the media.

But he said the ethics charge may be connected to his writings in two pornographic e-books. He declined to go into detail. The allegation of failure to cooperate stems from his refusal to speak to an outside law firm investigating the matter without an attorney, he said. He denied using any UW state-owned equipment or state dollars to produce porn.

It's not pretty.  There's always the tension between professionalism and transgressivity in the university.  So it is playing out in LaCrosse.

Some Wisconsin Republicans have embraced the system’s efforts to fire Gow, arguing that his behavior is amoral and unbefitting of a public university employee. But free speech advocates have decried the move as an attempt by the system to save face in the wake of an embarrassing scandal. They argue that firing Gow from his tenured faculty job violates the First Amendment, which protects sexually explicit speech—including the pornography Gow made outside the university.

It verges into misappropriating state property territory: are we headed for a pass wherein faculty shy away from using their home computers and office supplies for academic work because the boundaries on the use of office computers are elastic?

Gow is also accused of refusing to cooperate with the investigation into his firing, including by allegedly deleting information from university-owned computers. Related charges on technology-use policies allege that Gow received “vendor emails” at his work account “for sex toys and other sex products,” and configured web browsers on a university laptop to remember login credentials for seven pornographic sites, among other things.

The former chancellor is continuing to rely on freedom of speech defenses.

“At root here, what we have is a situation where I exercised my First Amendment freedoms, did things on my own time, and put them on social media, on the internet. And that’s what this case ultimately is about. Do we have a First Amendment freedom to do that?” he said.

Gow also disputes the notion he made money off the videos, as UW officials have claimed; if he earned more than $1,000 a year from them, he would be required as a public official to report the income. Instead, Gow said his video ventures were costly rather than profitable.

Which would have been no big deal had he and the lady made a few bucks from summer stock.

THERE ARE NO UNPLANNED PROPERTY RENOVATORS IN MILWAUKEE.

Not too long ago, Illinois changed its legal language to refer to people who had been arrested, stood trial, or convicted, as "justice-impacted individuals."  So it often goes with Inclusive Euphemism.  Chicago Contrarian contributor J. D. Busch proposed a number of other circumlocutionsproposed a number of other circumlocutions, with the arsonist now described as in the title.

Unlike many of you cops, racists, Islamophobes and MAGA members in the audience (by Chicago standards, that includes RFK supporters, too), I find this bill to be a wonderful idea, a gateway to ushering in an entirely new branch of the English language that will show the path to an intersectional utopia, where bad means good, and good means bad (as it should be). In short: “Justice-impacted individuals” represents one small step for cisman, and one giant step for cismankind.

He got unsolicited assistance from Grammarly: make sure you've sipped your Sprecher before you click over.

PUT ANOTHER PIN IN IT.

Hurricanes are part of the great heat cycle, moving warmer water and air from the equator to the poles.  The following excerpt comes from Heritage's Daily Signal, and the policy shop caveat applies.

Every year at this time, when hurricane season rolls around, corporate media start pumping out headlines linking the severity of hurricanes to climate change. But is there causation or correlation? And if changes in the climate do affect hurricanes, is it in the way climate activists claim?

Climatologist David Legates says, “[If] we have colder periods, we will get more hurricane activity. If we have warmer periods, the hurricane activity tends to drop off.”

Legates serves as a visiting fellow for the Science Advisory Committee in the Center for Energy, Climate, and Environment at The Heritage Foundation, and is a professor emeritus at the University of Delaware. He is also the co-author of the book “Climate and Energy: The Case for Realism.”

We put a pin in one such prediction earlier this month, and followed up with the first set of confounding factors.  There's a lot more at the essay, including a number of charts suggesting all sorts of variability in hurricane activity, and a claim that the most active recorded hurricane seasons occurred during the Little Ice Age.  (Was it a late season hurricane that claimed Monitor?)

THE CASE FOR SUBURBAN LIVING.

Two apparently unrelated essays from the left wing make it.  We start with Stan Cox, part of the Common Dreams stable of provocateurs who provoke laughter, now pronouncing anathema on air conditioning.  (Never mind that all the weather broadcasters encourage people to seek shelter there as the temperatures do their summer thing.)  Mr Cox grants leave to do so, although not without the scolding.

I’ve always made it a point to emphasize the life-saving role that air-conditioning plays during severe heatwaves, stressing that what I want to see eliminated is the routine overcooling that occurs at other times. Consider the widespread American practice of keeping windows closed year-round and simply switching the thermostat from “heat” to “cool” in the spring and back to “heat” in the fall. That not only wastes energy and increases emissions, but also squanders opportunities to enjoy comfortably warm stretches of summertime and comfortably cool stretches of winter that commonly occur in much of the country. Sadly, though, if those grim climate forecasts prove correct (and unless global emissions are reduced dramatically and fast, there’s no doubt they will be), such temperate summer interludes will become rarer and shorter in the years ahead, and Americans will become even more dependent on indoor cooling.

I’m not going to stop defending open windows or critiquing air-conditioning just because the world’s getting hotter, but I’ll need to stress more than ever that the harms aggravated by air-conditioning extend well beyond global warming.

It being Common Dreams, those "harms" include a place of your own with an ample yard for the kiddos to play on.

I’ve often argued that air-conditioning’s role in molding America’s built environment and society in general is underappreciated. An exception was a 1999 survey in which members of the Society for American City and Regional Planning History were asked to rank “the top 10 influences on the American metropolis of the past 50 years.” Air-conditioning made the list at number nine. More importantly, through its key role in the massive post-World War II population movement from Rustbelt to Sunbelt, air-conditioning helped drive six more of those top-ten influences: the de-industrialization of northern cities; Sunbelt-style urban sprawl; enclosed shopping malls; downtown redevelopment; the Levittown-style suburban tract house (which, without air-conditioning, could have functioned only as what Fortune magazine characterized in 1953 as a “TV-equipped hotbox”); and the dominance of the automobile. (Imagine hundreds of thousands of sweat-soaked commuters stuck, windows down, under the August sun, in one of Atlanta’s or Dallas’ legendary traffic jams.)

That's in the usual line of Social Criticism from the collectivist types, right back to the first tract houses for returning G.I.s.  Perhaps the planned use development is an evolutionary dead end.

ENCOURAGING FAVORABLE SELF-SELECTION?

Our President has issued another ukase, this one intending to bring illegal aliens married to citizens who have generally stayed in work and out of jail into something resembling regular status, if not yet permanent resident visas let alone starting the clock to apply for citizenship.  The first link goes to the full statement.  Two passages are salient for today's post.  First, the policy gets rid of the "go away and reapply" elements of current policy.  "This new process will help certain noncitizen spouses and children apply for lawful permanent residence – status that they are already eligible for – without leaving the country."  Second, the ukase, provided it survives the legislative and legal scrutiny that's probably already under way, is consistent with the underground-economy-as-apprenticeship model of illegal immigration and amnesty that Eli Katz and I once wrote about.  "In order to be eligible, noncitizens must – as of June 17, 2024 – have resided in the United States for 10 or more years and be legally married to a U.S. citizen, while satisfying all applicable legal requirements. On average, those who are eligible for this process have resided in the U.S. for 23 years."

ENJOYING THE WAR OF ALL AGAINST ALL?

So it goes when a noncooperative equilibrium breaks down.  "Once the punishment cycles start, though, everybody suffers."  In National Review, Berkeley attorney and Republican court intellectual John Yoo appears to be calling for at least one more punishment cycle.  "To limit and undo that damage and restore the rule of law, Republicans may have no choice but to respond in kind."

Look, I don't know when this cold civil war started, was it the Canon Wars on campus, was it the House Republicans impeaching Bill Clinton, might it have been simmering since Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union an "evil empire?"  Donald Trump having the effrontery to stand for the presidency, to win the nomination, to then be elected president: a symptom of something gone wrong, which seems to be shaping up as a failure of the Credentialed Elite.

FRIDAY short TAKES.

We, the people, have had enough of Our Progressive Betters.  "They ignored citizens who were fed up with being overrun by "immigrants," run over by inflation, beaten up by skyrocketing energy costs, pursuing "Green" policies that delivered the opposite result promised, suffering while waiting for a boiling frog Climate Apocalypse that never arrives but never ends and watching their national identities and standard of living being stripped away before their very eyes."  After a century of those Wise Experts being anything but, it's time to turf them out.  "As we, as a society, continue to destroy any sense of community, any sense of autonomy, any sense of personal responsibility, and liberty, as we continue to invest more and more power in people and institutions far removed from our lives and our interests, we also continue to make elections and elected officials more and more important in the operation of those lives. We continue to give people who are not especially smart, especially talented or even especially competent greater and greater control over us." Put succinctly, "People are annoyed by so much bureaucracy from Brussels."  They applied a corrective.  "Voters went to the polls and delivered a well-deserved and long-overdue thrashing of the malignant Left in voting for the European Parliament."  Why?  "Voters simply don’t trust mainstream parties to control immigration."  (Or much of anything else!)  No doubt there are latter-day Peter Jennings types scolding voters for having a temper tantrum.  Tango Sierra.

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

SPEECH CODES ARE ALWAYS BAD.

I am not a fan of speech codes.  "My stance has always been 'Justice, freedom: still contested territory. Whether it is black or Palestinian or male lives that are being diminished by the administrative ethos, it is the administrative ethos that is wrong."  Nor am I impressed by legislation with ambitious sounding titles, and if the title becomes a twee acronym, my irritation only increases.

NARRATIVE JOURNALISM EXISTS.

I mean, when James Joyner of the establishmentarian Outside the Beltway catches it?  "A non-ruling by the Supreme Court is being touted as something else."  Is the continuance of a right to purchase more important than the legalities?  You decide.

Headline-only readers—which is to say, most readers—will come away with the impression that the Supreme Court ruled on the merits that there is a right to access this abortifacient. But they did no such thing. They simply ruled that the group of doctors who brought the suit lacked standing to do so.

The right to continue to purchase mifepristone, for now, might matter to the voters. As, perhaps, might downplaying the process when there's another narrative about how appointing Constitution-respecting Justices is a horrible form of court packing.

Perhaps, in a world with a greater respect for factual reporting, rather than celebrating personal truths that are anything but, the rephrasing Mr Joyner suggests would be what we read.

Even here, though, readers will likely come away with the impression that there was a ruling on the merits. Something like “Supreme Court Declines to Rule in Abortion Drug Mifepristone Case” would better serve the readers.

Perhaps, although reporters, copy editors, and whoever writes the headline would then get caught up in what the lede ought to be.  I bet there are a lot more readers for whom the continuing opportunity to buy abortion pills matters a lot more than the Court's reasoning, let alone the legal maneuvering to come up with a new petitioner with a better claim to standing.

REDISCOVERING AN OLD IDEA?

The editorial board at Chicago's Tribune recently hailed the completion of the South Shore Line's double tracking project as far as Michigan City, which included a restoration of more frequent trains.

On May 14, just in time for warm-weather trips to the Indiana Dunes National Park, the line, run by the Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District (NICTD), will introduce a new expanded train schedule, a consequence of the completed double tracking of its electric-powered corridor lining Chicago and Northwest Indiana.

The improvements are very impressive. The South Shore Line, which was built between 1901 and 1908, now will offer an additional 14 weekday trains, including new express service that will take travelers from Chicago’s Millennium Station to the lovely dunes in just 57 minutes. As anyone headed to Indiana and Michigan resort towns will attest, those times are tough to beat by car, especially during the morning and evening rush. Improvements in addition to the new 18 miles of double tracking include new stations, better accessibility at existing stations, more parking, fewer at-grade crossings and expanded accommodations for bikes. Michigan City, a lakefront town with much potential that needs a lot of help given its struggling outlet mall and sleepy downtown, will be one of the major beneficiaries with its new 11th Street station. And students at Notre Dame now will find it much easier to hop a train to spend a day or a weekend in Chicago.

A few years ago I stumbled upon a party of North Carolina State fans enroute to a game in the shadow of Touchdown Jesus.  The South Bend service has not yet been augmented, the line east of Shops is still an interurban time machine, and the Morning and Evening Hot Shots drag lots of empty cars from or to South Bend thanks to new regulations that make adding or dropping cars at Shops only slightly less of a production than rendezvous and docking at the Space Station, while South Bend's government wrangles over whether to bring the trains to the west side of the airport, speeding up that trip, or return the trains to somewhere downtown, possibly the still-standing joint station next to the baseball park..

None of which deterred a writer to the Tribune, a few days later, from Thinking Big.  (Quoting from the May 8 edition on paper):

These upgraded electric-powered double tracks provide a real opportunity for expanded service from Chicago to the East, especially as Amtrak struggles to bring in trains over freight-owned or controlled tracks into Union Station.

Imagine inviting Brightline, the company building high-speed trains from Las Vegas to Los Angeles, to build high-speed tracks from this beautiful new asset to South Bend all the way to the Acela line on the East Coast.

I wonder if the corporate shell of the Goshen South Bend and Chicago Railway is still available.  Yes, Brightline being active at building Passenger Rail projects is encouraging, and yes, Indianans taking an interest in Regional Rail once again (first let's restore daily service between Chicago and Indianapolis, that once offered by a private contractor who got out); and yet there's nothing like excess enthusiasm to midwive disappointment.

LEON TROTSKY, MAY I INTRODUCE MILTON FRIEDMAN?

Regular readers are aware of where the real debt ceiling is.

Last week, Nick Beams at the World Socialist Web Site called attention to it.

Financial markets appear to have been enjoying a period of relative calm in the past year since they were shaken by the failure of three significant US banks in March 2023, requiring rescue operations by financial authorities.

But there are signs of turmoil building up beneath the surface. They centre on continuing possible liquidity problems in the $26 trillion US Treasury market, the basis of the global financial system, signs of currency divergences and concerns over the growing role of private credit in the financial system.

Last week a tremor went through the Treasury market when there was what was characterised as a “shaky auction” for $44 billion worth of seven-year US Treasury notes. The shortage of buyers mean that the big banks, which are crucial to the operation of their market as primary dealers, had to make up for the shortfall and purchase 17 percent of the debt, somewhat higher than the norm.

This followed an auction the previous day when there was subdued demand in an auction of two- and five-year debt.

The lack of demand, sending the price of debt lower, meant that the interest rate on the 10-year bond (the two move in the opposite direction), went to 4.63 percent, higher than it has been in some weeks.

The immediate cause is the realisation that the Federal Reserve is not going to make significant cuts in interest rates in the near future. At the start of this year, markets were pricing in as many as six rate cuts by the Fed in 2024. Now there are predictions there may not even be one.

We all know that, as we know the outcome: the money center banks who do the open market operations on behalf of the Fed had to add the unsold bonds to their balance sheets, thus crowding out those banks' ability to lend for such things as houses, locomotives, or hot pepper canneries.  Meanwhile China is going broke, slowly.

A fall in the value of the renminbi would impact on other countries, especially in Asia, which depend on the Chinese market, and could lead to stepped up action from the US, which has already accused China of dumping cheap products on the US and world markets. A devaluation would further lower the price of Chinese goods in the US and other markets.

But a one-off devaluation is a possibility because, as one Shanghai-based currency trader told the FT, there was “enormous downward pressure that has built up over the past few months.”

Another potential source of instability, already pointed out by the International Monetary Fund and other financial institutions, is the growth of private credit funding.

What's the big deal? Only this, dear reader: nowhere in that factually accurate column do you find any of the expected crowing about the final crisis of capitalism or the boilerplate closing paragraphs about the Vanguard of the Revolution.

STANDARDIZATION BEGETS MEDIOCRITY.

That's not necessarily a bad thing.  The sort of travel snob who scoffs at McDonald's and Holiday Inn misses the value proposition of those enterprises, which is that the fries would be hot and the room spruced up, and in summer there would be a pool for the kiddos.  At least that was true during the American High; of late, McDonald's have been trashing their value proposition and diners are noticing: although in their defense, on weekend mornings they were the only eatery operating in suburban Manchester and serving strong coffee the few times I've been there.

ALL ETERNITY TO MAKE AMENDS TO JOHN MCADAMS.

Marquette University announces the passing, at a relatively young age, of president Michael Lovell.

Marquette University President Michael Lovell died on Sunday following a three-year battle with cancer and a decade of service to the university, the university announced over the weekend.

Lovell was the first lay president in the Jesuit school's 133-year history and was in Rome on a Jesuit formation pilgrimage when he became sick and was taken to a hospital.

Lovell became Marquette's president in 2014 and focused on devotion and care for the campus and surrounding Milwaukee area.

Mr Lovell made an intra-city move, being called from Wisconsin-Milwaukee to Marquette.  Both he and his successor as Milwaukee chancellor, Mark Mone, recently dealt with cancer.

The article notes a number of difficulties that arose during Mr Lovell's presidency.

Faculty and staff objected to Lovell laying off 39 employees in 2021 as part of an effort to “right-size” the university. More recently, his plan to cut $31 million over the next seven years drew substantial pushback from staff who decried what they saw as a lack of transparency.

Campus climate also drew concern. As racial justice protests swept the country in 2020, Marquette students of color demanded more campus support. The university agreed to fund a Black student cultural center, hire Black mental health counselors and offer 40 new full-ride scholarships for Milwaukee Public Schools graduates.

Two years later, students of color disrupted a freshman welcome event to protest what they saw as a lack of resources for students of color. Marquette sanctioned the students, a move that outraged some members of the campus community who saw the punishment as missing the larger point students were trying to make.

So it has gone with higher education.  Marquette is far from the only university where the administrators have usurped faculty governance, and sanctioning dissidents is not unknown, even when the Jesuits aren't doing the sanctioning.  "The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education notes that President Lovell has done nothing to change Marquette's status among the worst schools for free speech.  It's fitting, I suppose, that a university notionally run by Jesuits would continue a tradition dating back to the Diet of Worms."

Now both Michael Lovell and John McAdams have departed this life.  R.I.P.

LOSING SKIPPERS BLAME THE RACE COMMITTEE.

American Thinker contributor Mike McDaniel summarizes in a brief passage why the Wise Experts aren't.

Their policies are perfect, non-falsifiable. They cannot fail. Yet they inevitably fail, and when they do, the fun begins. When Americans refuse to buy EVs that can only be because they’re too stupid to know what’s in their best interests. When they can’t afford an EV, that’s only because they don’t appreciate how good the economy actually is. When they complain about brownouts, they’re climate deniers.

The excuses offered may or may not be correct.  It doesn't matter.  The legislation, or the ukase, looked so good on the workshop room blackboard, and the Intentions were Good.  How dare you question our Good Intentions?

A HAPPY COUNTRY WOULD NOT HAVE MADE DONALD TRUMP PRESIDENT.

Not once, and surely not twice, but what came after has not been better.

That "American Rescue Plan?"  Printed money that allowed the tax-'n-spend states misgoverned by Democrats to paper over the effects of their social spending.  Now the money's running out, and the troubles return.  That infrastructure porkulus?  It won't even make good this year's wear and tear on the roads, bridges, water and sewer mains, and the Northeast Corridor.  The municipalities will have their ribbon cuttings, and then have to figure out how to maintain what Uncle Sugar has saddled them with.  The industrial policy stuff?  Consultants get to wet their beaks.  Politically connected information technology companies get money.  Those job gains? In Illinois, government hiring accounts for over 100% of the state's "job creation."  Mr Dworkin might pretend that a government monopsony "lowers prices."  Eventually there will be no suppliers.

That "transformational change?" It's not what voters voted for, nor what the Jarrett regency delivered.

It's still business as usual at Common Dreams, with Will Bunch pretending continuing that regency is fine.

The never-ending barrage of polls continues to show Trump in a virtual dead heat with President Joe Biden, perhaps leading slightly in the key swing states, despite the almost daily embarrassment of his Manhattan trial pegged to paying hush money to an adult-film star, as well as growing awareness of his open desire for autocracy. Trump’s shocking oratory of retribution his recent promise in Wisconsin not to accept the 2024 election result there if he loses, prompted Argentine historian Federico Finchelstein to declare: “This is how fascists campaign.”

And yet, two of the most tumultuous weeks in American society in over a half-century have only brought the nightmare of a second, more authoritarian Trump presidency closer to becoming a reality. The violent crackdown on campus protests against Israel’s U.S.-backed campaign in Gaza that has killed more than 34,000, many of them women or children, has dominated TV screens with scenes of domestic strife not seen since the 1960s and early 1970s. In the most shocking clash, at the University of California-Los Angeles, a generation raised on active-shooter drills looked up to see its own government firing rubber bullets at its pro-Palestinian encampment.

Fool me twice, shame on me.  "That's been my stance from the beginning, the Democrat establishment presenting Mr Biden as what I term an 'anodyne Democrat,' although if you were paying attention, dear reader, you would see that he was running on Bernie Sanders's platform, and his presidency is a destructive mix of that platform, Barack Obama's Weimar America freak show, and his vanity."

LET THE PUNISHMENT CYCLES CONTINUE.

There's another election coming up, and Craig "Streetwise Professor" Pirrong, who knows a thing or two about game theory, is apprehensive.

It is indeed possible that the Democrats generally and the Biden administration specifically will reap in November what they sowed in May (and in fact for many, months before that, and it many places beyond New York): the decision has sparked outrage, and not just among Trump’s existing supporters, or Republicans. But it remains to be seen whether this outrage will outweigh the burden of running for president as a “convicted felon.”

Alas, I believe the entire country will reap what the regime and its apparatchiks have sown, and for many years to come. The by-any-means-necessary use of lawfare has violated all pre-existing norms, and has set a precedent that will cast a shadow over American politics forevermore. There is no going back.

Yes, once the punishment cycles of the grim strategy outcome begin, stopping them is hard.  Mr Pirrong continues,

I was always astonished that during the Trump impeachment circuses that the Democrats smugly believed that this could not be used against them. They are similarly smug in their belief that they are immune from the type of lawfare they have waged since Trump left office.

Yes, their entrenchment in the deep, middle, and shallow states (to use the insightful desription of Jeffrey Tucker) does provide some immunity. But once a weapon has been unsheathed by one side, it is inevitable that the other will take it up as well.

2020s Lawfare will be to American politics what poison gas was to combat in WWI.

Lawfare–and especially the weaponization of criminal law–makes politics existential. All restraints are lifted in existential conflicts. We can only go downhill from here.

Perhaps if the Democrats could make a meaningful pivot to the median voters, or if the common sense caucus types from both major parties could offer a less unpalatable bundle than what passes for Trumpian populism or Obaman totalitarianism a temporary peace might be at hand.

HIGHER EDUCATION, FAILING ITS MARKET TESTS.

I'm not surprised that when the people running higher education trash their own value proposition, nothing good comes of it.  "Lest we forget, the responsibilities of the professor include saying no and upholding standards.  Institutions that respect that sort of discipline are more likely to survive the shakeout of excess capacity that is under way." We're still in the discontinue the accommodation trains and put more head end on the limiteds stage of the shakeout, but we're in a shakeout all the same.

IMMIGRATION IS A STRENGTH.

I keep preaching that both major parties are getting immigration policy wrong.  Maybe a video clip will reinforce the posting.

That's a conversation among World War II re-enactors at last weekend's Rails to Victory show along the rails of the Fox River Trolley.  (Pictures from a year ago here.)  Their unit is the Third Carpathian Division of the Free Polish Army.  In history, that division was with the British in Italy, but for re-enactments you find ways for all sorts of participants to get in on the action.  That included the Soviet Pacific Fleet operating on the Fox River.  Perhaps I will post an elaboration.

FEEL FREE TO BE PROBLEMATIC PEOPLE.

A few years ago I brought back a souvenir from San Antonio.

Apparently, that flag is among a number a recent Federalist post placed on a little list.  "The Top 11 Flags You Should Fly To Trigger Communist Enemies Of The People."

On their list are four flags that are in the Cold Spring Shops rotation:  Old Glory, Betsy Ross, Alamo, and the Navy Jack of the early years of this century.  The Flag Code neither forbids nor discourages use of older flags, which means there's a 48 star version up for several days in June as well as V-E and V-J Days and December 7; a 36 star version for Juneteenth and often for the first few days of July; a Liberty Tree often flies on Independence Day; and the Betsy Ross is on hand for Flag Day.  There is, of course, a suitable flag hoist for Mondays after Packer victories.

Sometimes, the best way to prevent a symbol being appropriated by others for their own purposes is to continue to use it for your purposes.  A Betsy Ross flag hoist for Flag Day is not of itself an endorsement of the Tea Party or Christian nationalism, nor is Appeal to Heaven on Independence Day a bat-signal to Trump voters.  Did you know that there are carvings of that tree on Nova Scotia's Oak Island: was some of the treasure used by Freemasons to finance the War of Independence?

Display what you wish, and disabuse anyone who is curious (most people mind their own business) of any Deeper Symbolism that you don't necessarily endorse.

I FAIL TO SEE THE PROBLEM.

Common Dreams offers a post by a group of gerontocrats who style themselves "the elders."  They give a post a title that ... suggests a desirable outcome.  "Failures of World Leaders Risk Collapse of International Order."

THE POLITICAL BUNDLES ARE UNSUSTAINABLY LARGE.

That's been a regular theme here for the past few years.  "Where you risk a true majority voting for awful things (for arbitrary values of awful) mightn't that good governance be minimal governance?"

In the midst of speculating over whether the Democrats will survive this fall's election (don't read too much into that, dear reader) American Thinker columnist Mark C. Ross, after listing a number of recent failures of the self-styled progressives, recognizes the same phenomenon.

In today’s world, one of our two major parties has been infected by ultra-leftist ideologies. Guess which one. Is this disease terminal? Only time will tell, and this year’s election may well be a harbinger of the eventual outcome.

My own guess is that both parties are in for a change. First off, the Republicans have a RINO problem (I prefer to call them Banana Republicans). Should the GOP achieve an overwhelming victory this year, then “movement” conservatives and Tea Party stalwarts may get around to pushing out the RINOs… who may then join up with the more centrist Democrats. Meanwhile, the uber-leftist Democrats will join up with the Greens.

I don't know, that coalition of "more centrist Democrats" and establishmentarian Republicans sounds a lot like the so-called Common Sense Caucus in the House, but so far, they've not found it in their interest to put forth a Speaker from one of the major parties and a Majority Leader from the other to make that sort of parliamentary outcome reality.  That might be the restoration of a tendency toward the median voter, although with it comes the risk of people believing the tales of Good Governance as Passing Legislation.  Meanwhile the Trumpians and the libertarians are not allies, nor will the urban socialists who style themselves as progressives always be on good terms with the more upscale environmentalist types.

MEGAN RAPINOE'S FAREWELL TOUR DIDN'T END WELL.

That provided the right-populist Internet no end of glee when the U.S. women's footie team failed to win a World Cup, yet again.  And women's sports types, particularly the alphabet people and the Blame America Firsters, are pretty good at undermining their value proposition.

Is history rhyming, this time with the U.S. women's basketball Olympic team?  "Brittney Griner, Diana Taurasi Make Strong Statements After Controversial Team USA Selections."

The women's basketball community has been bemoaning the fact that Caitlin Clark wasn't named to Team USA's 12-person roster for the upcoming Paris 2024 Olympics.

And one big reason people are so upset is because they feel like Clark is more deserving than a few players who did make the cut; namely, Phoenix Mercury standouts Diana Taurasi and Brittney Griner.

While Taurasi is undoubtedly a legend, she is turning 42 years old in a few days, and has already won five gold medals.

And Griner has been injured all season and just returned to the court.

Both acquitted themselves well in a weekend game that probably didn't sell out their arena.  There's still a lot of carping, particularly people raising the possibility that Ms Taurasi got brought back for one more run at the gold, which some not necessarily fans characterized as crowding out you-know-who.

It's all rather silly, but then people who are not serious are screwing other things up pretty well right now.

Let's see what happens when the games tip off in Paris.

ON MY WORKBENCH.

Well, that has been a stressful week on the current events beat, combined with some ongoing dental work that might not be completed until Oktoberfest season, and then the Brewers had runners thrown out at home three games in a row.

There's been time, though, to put the Victor E. Garden in, and resume work, now that the workbench has been put into a somewhat organized state, on Pullman cafe-sleeper Harvard Club.  (Has that project languished since the move to new quarters?)

THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF TREATING STREETS LIKE PRODUCTIVE ASSETS.

Sorry for the clunky title, but don't say you weren't warned.

I've called attention to them for years.  "Make people aware of just how much they're relying on other people's money to keep their roads passable and watch the fireworks. But it's an idea that might just catch on, after Our Political Masters have tried everything else."  It doesn't matter who gets the credit for selling the idea.

The fireworks came to the Big Apple a little early this year.  "Hochul Condemned for NYC Congestion Pricing Flip-Flop."  It's not often you find me in agreement with the communists of Common Dreams, but I agree with New York's congestion pricing, and there's room for more markets allocating transportation assets.  "The roads are productive assets and perhaps the environmentalist wing of the self-styled party of science might be able to find common cause with libertarian-minded transportation advocates."

That sort of flips the script on "subsidize things we want to see," doesn't it? As a practical matter, almost any subsidy in practice leads to inefficiently much production of whatever is being subsidized, no matter how pretty the blackboard economics version of the policy is.

That's the way the infrastructure crumbles.  "[R]oad usage charges − also known as mileage-based user fees, distance-based fees or vehicle-miles-traveled taxes − are attracting the bulk of the academic attention, research dollars and legislative activity."  Governments, however, are not nimble institutions when it comes to pricing their productive assets.

Nor, apparently does pricing productive assets appeal to at least some of the governors' constituents, or perhaps somebody in New Jersey made her an offer she couldn't refuse?  Or she has to perpetuate the grand fiction.  "The error of any sort of socialism is in pretending that something that has scarcity value, whether it's medical care, food, housing, or transportation, ought a priori to be free. I've been toying with the idea that governments price services they offer as if they were in business."

FRIDAY short TAKES.

Another week with a longish prologue.  So it goes as the outlines of the saecular crisis emerge.

Thought itself can be sinful.  "The power elite have discovered that their cosplay revolution is seen as merely ridiculous. Minority groups don’t want the new names that have been issued to them. Straight people prefer not to be called cisgender, and gay people don’t like being submerged in a tide of heterosexuals who style themselves queer. Even The New York Times, that high conclave of official euphemisms, has begun to soft-pedal chilling locutions like 'gender-affirming care for minors,' instead referring honestly to puberty blockers and body-altering surgery."

Those best and brightest?  Not so much.  "The public concluded that the more elite the campus, the more ignorant, arrogant and hateful the students seemed."  You were warned.  Reap what you sow.  "Surprisingly few people consider college an opportunity to engage with complex ideas, develop their own perspectives on fundamental questions about human existence, morality and society, and appreciate diverse cultures, histories and forms of artistic expression alongside others who share those interests."  Time for a privilege check?  "Protest activity has been common, however, at elite schools with both low acceptance rates and few Pell students."

This time, we can't blame the lead in the pewter.  Seeking Tacitus and Gibbon?  "The Roman Republic fell when politicians began criminalizing politics."  We have much to look forward to.  "The Roman experience is that subsequent challengers of the status quo get smarter, more effective, and more ruthless."  Stir in a few mountebanks, and weep?  "If the US suffers from any potentially terminal condition, it is likely the metastasizing pathologies of its ruling class—that is, its elite."

Sometimes, Caligula's horse looks appealing.  Democracy.  "If voters decide to elect him, that will be the final verdict."  The choices aren't great.  "It is difficult to see an area of the world that is markedly better off since Biden took the White House.  There isn't an institution in the country Biden hasn't weakened."  He's Our S. O. B? "Trump is no longer Trump: he has been transformed into a living symbol of the progressive elites’ abuse of power and contempt for the principle of equality."  It's a dangerous game.  "By bringing such a dubious criminal case against a former president, the Democrats have now openly criminalized public policy differences. "  Go ahead, reject the false binary.  "A vote for Biden or Trump would be contrary to an adult lifetime of conservatism."

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

THE CORRUPTION GOES BEYOND THE MINIMAL PUBLISHABLE UNIT.

I endorse D. McCloskey's claim that academicians are participating in a conversation, and that the sole test of research is whether it is useful or not.  In academic economics, the job market has not so deteriorated that the obsession with the minimal publishable unit has ruined the discipline.  "Economics has a pretty good match of tenure-line openings and Ph.D. completions. But there is very much a pecking order of departments and journals, and the strategy of getting a lot of Minimally Publishable Units into archival journals will not win you tenure at the fifty departments claiming to be among the top twenty."  That's not to say that Minimal Publishable Units lack value.

It's not so much that the emphasis on research and publication is "excessive" is that in the absence of solid metrics for the quality of the research being done, professors think in terms of the "minimum publishable unit," and the cynic advises the tenure-trackers that deans can't read, but they can count.  Thus emerges the vanity press and archival journals and electronic publication, and the best efforts of faculties to rank journals or to calculate "impact factors" can be for naught.  Or they can lead ambitious professors to cut corners.

I've been retired ten years, and if anything, conditions have not improved.  "I have called attention to the administrative usurpations turning the calling of professor into the chore of special education teacher whilst requiring the sort of input-measurement useful in crafting a control panel in such a way as to encourage derivative scholarship of the minimal publishable unit form, rather than engaging in creativity."

How bad has it gotten?  Worse than faked minimal publishable units.  It goes beyond mockery now.  Read on.

I WONDER IF HE KNOWS THE REST OF THE STORY.

Milwaukeeans are going through yet another argument over whether to widen the expressways, or tear them down, or do nothing at all.  A special contributor to Milwaukee's Journal-Sentinel, urban transportation maven Charlie Rosenberg, suggests that the easterly extension of the East-West Freeway to the lakefront, whose construction required the removal of the North Shore Line's Milwaukee Terminal and the Everett Street Depot, be allowed to remain.

His column calls attention to a common phenomenon these days, namely the Credentialed Experts of years ago making decisions that turned out, retrospectively, to be wrong.

It was a no-brainer to tear down Park East, because it was a spur to nowhere. It went nowhere because, decades ago, a large number of people in Milwaukee said no to extending a freeway up the east side near the lakeshore. That was an example of popular revulsion stopping a project that political and business insiders had committed to without thinking things through.

The idea, back in the day, was that Park East would provide a faster way from the northwest side and the likes of Menomonee Falls and West Bend to the lakefront, and the Chicago and North Western's lakefront depot had to go to make that possible.  He goes on to explain why the easterly extension, which separates downtown from the Third Ward, still has its value.

What's interesting, though, is his conclusion.

Of course I favor mass transit. But until there is a high speed rail line from Delafield into downtown Milwaukee and then down to Kenosha, we need our existing freeway system to function smoothly for those who must rely on it.

I wonder how much of his city's history he recalls.  Delafield to Kenosha does not offer a proper value proposition for "high-speed rail."  Speedrail, perhaps.  Long ago, though, there was a through car in each direction, daily, offering dining car service between Kenosha and Watertown, on the long-gone interurban whose Rapid Transit Line was coveted by that previous generation of those Credentialed Experts to ... build the East-West Freeway, which swarms of motorists are now discovering is anything but free.

HOW BADLY HAVE WE SQUANDERED THE VICTORY DIVIDEND?

One reason the Germans discounted the possibility of OVERLORD landing on the Normandie beaches, that is, besides Der Führer having several intuitions that it would be there, was that there was no port of substance nearby.  Once the beaches were safe for the follow-on forces to arrive, floating caissons and derelict freighters were towed through the Channel chop to establish two MULBERRY harbors.  The Germans apparently never expected that.  Two weeks later, another Channel storm destroyed the installation at OMAHA.  The other harbor, at Arromanches, was broken up but put back into operation, and remnants of it, proving too costly to salvage or otherwise remove, remain today.

Perhaps it is fortunate that most of the soldiers and sailors who made these ports possible have passed on, in order to be spared the sight of today's idea of a portable port being poorly placed.  "Busted Gaza Pier Has All the Markings of a Joe Biden Op."

The Gaza Pier — you know, the one where the U.S. and allied countries unloaded food, so it could be stolen off trucks before reaching its intended destination — is no longer operational, and it will be out of operation for “at least over a week.” It turns out that the pier system was not intended to be used in waters with waves higher than three feet, and three-foot waves occur in that part of the Mediterranean Sea frequently. We know that Pentagon officials can read a weather and surf report. Now the question is, did someone in the administration tell them to go ahead with the operation, knowing the risks?

That's politics as usual though, take some action so as to claim you are taking some action, then, when it goes wrong, invoke your good intentions. "If the Gaza pier proposal appears half-baked, hastily assembled, and more driven by political fears than a clear-eyed assessment of the situation on the ground . . . it’s probably because that’s exactly what it is."  Thus does a saecular order lose its legitimacy, and thus does a justice-involved individual look more attractive as president precisely because he was convicted of something.  About the only thing we can do is look on with dismay, and mock The Best and The Brightest.

At the country's Populist Newspaper of Record, it's simply another handout to buy off a favored constituency.  "At publishing time, Hamas had been seen training scuba divers to retrieve large pallets of cash from coastal waters."

Our Credentialed Elite demonstrate their skill at destroying monuments on the expediency of the moment, and leaving only wreckage.

THE PRESENCE OF THE ABSENCE.

Just how loopy is John Feffer?  "The United States should be cooperating with China on how to push the world away from fossil fuels, not engaging in counterproductive trade wars."  Good luck with that, the trains carrying Crowsnest and Powder River coal to Pacific Northwest ports aren't sending those black diamonds to Newcastle the great way 'round.

DEMENTIA JOE CAN'T BE MORE LIKE TRUMP.

In a constitutional republic, when a politician changes policy course in response to popular opinion, is that being sensible, pandering to get re-elected, or flip-flopping?  (Summarize briefly why people don't like politics, please.)

So might it be with Our President issuing new ukases that will limit the admission of people to these United States to approximately the existing levels of immigration.

The change won't help. For the past century, the United States has imposed all manner of restrictions on who may enter the country and for how long.  It hasn't worked.

For the first century and a half of American history, "illegal immigration" was a nonexistent concept. Individual foreigners could be excluded by law for specific reasons — for example, being guilty of crimes of "moral turpitude," having a contagious disease, or being a known anarchist. Immigrants were not admitted if they were likely to become a "public charge," dependent on government assistance. Otherwise, almost anyone who could get to America was welcome to become a legal permanent resident.

In an attempt to secure the votes of undecided voters, the Jarrett regency's latest ukases have antagonized the people least likely to vote for Donald Trump.

The Democrat is expected to invoke Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which was previously used by former President Donald Trump—the presumptive Republican nominee to face Biden in November—and sparked legal challenges.

"We will need to see the E.O. before making any litigation decisions," Lee Gelernt, an attorney who serves as deputy director of the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project, told Axios of Biden's expected move. "Any policy that effectively ends asylum protection for people fleeing danger would raise significant legal problems, as it did when Trump tried to end asylum."

In response to a social media account tracking "Biden's Wins," which welcomed the reported order, Gelernt's ACLU colleague Gillian Branstetter said: "This is not a 'win'—it's a monstrosity. Asylum is a human right."

Never mind that asylum seekers have the opportunity to make their request at the first available country.  Never mind that the American Criminal Liberties Union has turned itself into a political action committee for the communist wing of the Democrats.  Here's where the false binary really bites, doesn't it?  If you agree with the argument offered above, do you not vote to continue the Jarrett regency because it doesn't deliver everything you want, and risk getting more Trump.

UNEXPECTEDLY!

Economy is slowing much faster than the Fed expected.  (And you say you never use the pre-calculus math you suffered through in high school!)

What shall we call it?  A return of stagflation?  Malaise?  The fruits of many years of money-printing?

Disappointing economic indicators are taking hold as markets ready for an expected rate cut this July, and one prominent economist and educator warned there’s more of a slowdown than previously forecasted.

"So far, we've had disappointing retail sales. We've had disappointing PMI manufacturing numbers. The ISM numbers were disappointing. [Tuesday's] job vacancies were considerably below expectations," Mohamed El-Erian, president of Queens' College at Cambridge University, said on "The Claman Countdown." "Citi has this ‘index of surprises,’ and we've had nothing but negative surprises."

"And all that is saying to us is that the economy is slowing much faster than most people expected, including the Fed," he continued.

Does slowing, though, mean an economy that is still growing, are we on track for those two quarters of negative growth that mean a recession?

YOUR MIDWAY RESEARCH COMPENDIUM.

Today marks the eighty-second commemoration of the Battle of Midway, which has provided material for lots of authors, whether as participants, reporters, or serious scholars.  We've called attention to a number of those books over the years: Midway, The Midway Campaign, The Unknown Battle of Midway, Shattered Sword, No Right to Win, and Never Call Me a Hero.

This reviewing season's Book Review N^o. 7 is Peter C. Smith's Midway, Dauntless Victory: Fresh Perspectives on America's Seminal Naval Victory of World War II (on the cover it looks like subtitles en echelon, fitting either for a combined air operation or an academician) and the book is clearly in the academic style.  If you prefer your footnotes on the same page as the text, that is what Mr Smith and Pen and Sword Maritime, a British publisher, serves.  The first appearance of each major figure, whether warrior, writer, or public official, comes with a footnote offering a biographical sketch including, as applicable, postings or engagements of relevance.  There are some pages that evoke the legendary Torah scrolls with one verse at the top of the page and commentary filling the rest of the space.  I approve!

Dauntless Victory might be more useful to an experienced student of the Navy and the battle.  It's written by a professor (of health policy, no less) and the writing style is not always sparkling.  On the other hand, it's as good a round-up of revisions to the historical record, of which there are many, and it includes, in addition to the commentary on the existing written record in English, summaries of reaction of the era from the other military powers, including, for what it's worth, a few kopeks and Pfennigs from the landlubbers embroiled in Middle Europe at the time.  A concluding appendix calls attention to the many errors in popular reporting and in film (the 1976 Midway has a "pathetic politically correct and totally irrelevant love-story sub-plot," for instance) which is useful to know.  That noted, if you're watching that movie, it had pretty good Sensurround and when it premiered, audiences were prone to applause as each of the Kido Butai carriers had their close encounters with those victorious Dauntlesses.  A more recent Midway movie appeared after Dauntless Victory was published.  There might be elements of that movie to fact-check once you've finished your reading.

Cross-posted to 50 Book Challenge.

DONALD TRUMP, JUSTICE-INVOLVED INDIVIDUAL.

The Masters of Inclusive Euphemism obsess over coming up with ways to hint at things without naming them.  In Illinois, it's the law.  An individual who has been arrested, indicted, or convicted is now officially "justice involved."  Their prissiness simply gives Militant Normals more opportunities to mock their pretensions.  What ever happened to good old, "Brutus is an honorable man" heavy mockery over Caesar's corpse?

So let it be with Donald Trump.

Given the uncertainties, one can say nothing more definite than that "something will happen"; where, when is unknown. The most important question to answer is what set of people we want in charge on the day. Or stated in the negative, who don't we want in charge?

— wretchardthecat (@wretchardthecat) May 24, 2024

There's a bull session commenting on that observation at Chicago Boyz.

Unfortunately, neither of the principal collectivities of people who would like to be in charge, they call themselves Democrats and Republicans, are looking very good right now.  A team of Gannett reporters interviewed voters in swing states, and how they react depends on where they stand.  "That will make for a rocky, explosive, unprecedented presidential race that could fray the nation’s nerves."  I won't quote from the article, go, read, understand, recognize that it's predictable stances from predictable individuals.  Byron York notes, in any event, it might take a while for people to sort things out.

THE WNBA'S AUTHENTIC VALUE PROPOSITION.

Midday Saturday, and the Chicago Sky at Indiana Fever game was available on ESPN, which means on the cheapest version of cable pay-per-view.  The game might have been of more than passing interest, as Indiana's Caitlin Clark would renew her rivalry with Chicago's Angel Reese, while Chicago's Kamilla Cardoso would finally see action, playing against her predecessor at South Carolina, Aliyah Boston.

The opening few minutes of the third quarter, though, were an unedifying spectacle of turnovers and missed layups.  The most complimentary way the ESPN broadcaster could describe it was "sluggish start to the quarter."  Neither team played consistently, and the game was close right up to the end.

Then came the event that got the league back into the Culture Wars, just in time to ruin lesbian date nights all of June.

Here's an extended look at the Caitlin Clark - Chennedy Carter incident, there was more to it than the shoulder check and Clark was clearly talking to her on the way back up the floor from the prior basket by Indiana pic.twitter.com/1XG1RyzTw4

— CJ Fogler account may or may not be notable (@cjzero) June 1, 2024

Red State's Bonchie weighed in shortly after the final whistle.  "The WNBA Has Decided to Set Itself on Fire."  His verdict:

That's someone named Chennedy Carter deciding to take Clark to the ground while shouting obscenities at her. Despite how violent it was, the referees only called a common foul. Angel Reese, a former LSU player who hated Clark throughout their collegiate days, then met Carter at the bench to hug and congratulate her for delivering the cheap shot.

The talking points went out to Townhall Media and Fox News and right-populist talk radio.  David "Iowa Hawk" Burge got the best quip off, "I have never seen a group of people so determined to give up chartered jets to fly Spirit Airlines again."  It might be that his Iowa loyalties contribute to him watching the games.

THE CONFOUNDING FACTORS SURFACE.

We started the summer hurricane season calling attention to the latest dire warnings.  The nation's McPaper runs the scary headline.  "Unprecedented ocean temperatures make this hurricane season especially dangerous."  The lede encourages consternation.

The world's oceans have consistently been breaking daily heat records since early 2023, a yearlong fever that has climate scientists, coral reef experts and even hurricane forecasters concerned and dismayed.

In the main region of the Atlantic Ocean where hurricanes develop, water temperatures are "absolutely stunning," said Brian McNoldy, a senior research associate studying hurricanes at the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School.

Hotter oceans and sea surface temperatures are like an octane boost for hurricane season, cranking up the fuel that drives the formation and intensity of hurricanes and tropical storms as they move over the ocean. Warmer-than-normal waters in the Atlantic, the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico play starring roles in all the seasonal outlooks for the Atlantic hurricane season beginning June 1.

"The whole tropical Atlantic is warmer than its ever been for this time of year," McNoldy told USA TODAY on Thursday. It's sitting at temperatures normally not seen until mid-August. And, "the Caribbean is going crazy."

Read on, though, and discover that the same phenomenon that moderates winters moderates summers.

When ocean temperatures were record warm during last year's hurricane season, vertical wind shear over the Atlantic, created by shifting winds from the El Niño in the Pacific Ocean, likely put a damper on at least some of the potential hurricane activity.

The season still wound up busier than average with seven hurricanes and 20 named storms, the fourth most active season on record. This year, with that protection gone as the weather pattern likely shifts to a La Niña, which reduces wind shear over the Atlantic, seasonal hurricane forecasters fear the worst.

Unfortunately, the time series of temperature and storm frequency is ... short.

Global average sea surface temperatures recently took what appeared to be a little steeper dive than typical for this time of year when the hemispheres are changing seasons, but it's still the warmest average temperature on record for the date.

The average temperature in the North Atlantic on Thursday was 72.14 degrees, 2.34 degrees above the 1982-2011 mean, according to the Climate Reanalyzer at the University of Maine's Climate Change Institute, which uses NOAA data.

Average water temperature in the Atlantic's main development region for tropical cyclones – along the latitudes between 10 and 20 – is almost a full degree warmer for May than any other year since records began in 1982, said Phil Klotzbach, a senior research scientist at Colorado State University who leads its seasonal forecast team. And that's 2.52 degrees above the 1991-2020 average.

All of which is undoubtedly useful grist for the "contributing to the community" part of the academician's job description, and yet, a modicum of modesty is still desirable.

Scientists aren't sure why we've seen the lingering spike in average ocean temperatures. So far, at least, no great consensus explanation has emerged, McNoldy said, and he doesn't expect to see a single explanation.

Scientists attribute the warming in large part to the heat the oceans have absorbed as a result of human-caused increases in fossil fuel emissions. But other factors may also have played a role, including El Niño, air quality improvements, and even potentially an influx of moisture from the eruption of the Hunga Tonga volcano in early 2022.

Weak trade winds over the past couple of months have helped reinforce the warmer-than-normal sea surface temperatures in the main hurricane development region in the Atlantic, Klotzbach told USA TODAY.

Something about that puts me in mind of Ken Galbraith's old wisecrack about economists making forecasts because people expect them to, not because they have any idea.  We'll see what the record books look like after Labor Day.

WHAT WOULD WE EVER DO WITHOUT EXPERTS?

22 Experts Predict What the Trump Conviction Will Mean for 2024 and Beyond.  Buckle in.

“The fact that one of the two men likely to be president next year is now a convicted felon sets up the possibility that those very same judicial institutions that guarantee the rule of law will come under the most ferocious political attack in our history,” according to Columbia's T. J. Naftali.  The American Conservative's Curt Mills foresees "an arms race of recriminations."  So it is once a noncooperative equilibrium breaks down and the punishment cycles become the Order of the Day.  Emory's Mark Bauerlein is pessimistic.  "The civic faith collapses."  Decide for yourself, dear reader, whether that is for good or ill.  There's unhealthily much reliance on the national government and on the presidency.

It goes on in that vein.  There's been a lot more reaction, probably too much for one post, and there will be more over the weekend.  Town Hall's Guy Benson might summarize the thinking for a lot of people who were never impressed by Donald Trump's schtick, and yet have been put off by the bait and switch of the Biden presidency.

IMPATIENCE BACKFIRES.

In bridge, there are holdings that are immediate losers, which is to say, tricks lost when the defenders get the lead, and there are eventual losers, meaning small cards protected from being taken by higher cards.  A winning plan looks for ways to discard those eventual losers on extra winners on the board, or opportunities to ruff them on the board.  That's always the challenge, keeping enough trump cards around to ruff those losers if the extra winners aren't around, or setting up the defender to give you a ruff and discard on a trick.

Today's irregular Saturday bridge column features a simulation where the defenders helped the cause by knocking off all the immediate losers immediately.  I've noted before that the robot players bid strange contracts, here four Hearts with all of eight points looks like an iffy game, but here we go.

Count those losers first: two Spades; if the Hearts break 0-3, a third loser; two Diamonds; and two Clubs.  There's not much to do about those Spades, one might be able to finesse a Diamond, and if two rounds of trumps draws all the defenders' holdings, there are two left to deal with those two Clubs.

PUT A PIN IN IT.

The first day of June is the administrative start of the hurricane season, and the doom-sayers are doing what they normally do.  NOAA Predicts 'Extraordinary' Atlantic Hurricane Season as Ocean Temperatures Soar.

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration warned Thursday that it expects "above-normal hurricane activity in the Atlantic basin this year" due to rising ocean temperatures related to the climate emergency and La Niña conditions in the Pacific Ocean.

"NOAA's outlook for the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season, which spans from June 1 to November 30, predicts an 85% chance of an above-normal season, a 10% chance of a near-normal season, and a 5% chance of a below-normal season," the agency—which is part of the U.S. Department of Commerce—said in a statement.

Rick Spinrad, who heads NOAA, said the agency is bracing for an "extraordinary" Atlantic hurricane season.

NOAA is forecasting between 17 and 25 total named storms—which have winds of 39 mph or higher—with 8-13 of these predicted to become hurricanes, which have winds of 74 mph or higher. The agency is predicting 4-7 major hurricanes, defined as having winds in excess of 111 mph. NOAA said forecasters have 70% confidence in these predictions.

"Of note, the forecast for named storms, hurricanes, and major hurricanes is the highest NOAA has ever issued for the May outlook," Spinrad told reporters, adding that "the warmer ocean means it's a more energetic ocean."

It seems like we get these warnings year in and year out.  Is past performance any indication of future results?

[R]esearchers said Monday they have constructed a clearer picture than ever, and found that the frequency of the planet’s most devastating storms has decreased over the past century.

The study, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, found that the annual number of global hurricanes, typhoons and tropical storms — or tropical cyclones, more generally — declined by roughly 13% as the planet warmed during the 20th century.

Scientists found that trend in most of the world’s oceans — except for the North Atlantic, where the number of storms increased.

The lead researcher on the study told CNN that while his team found a drop in frequency, that doesn’t mean storms are becoming less of a threat. In fact, said Savin Chand, a senior lecturer at the Federation University in Australia, while there may be fewer tropical cyclones in the future, it is likely they will be more intense.

“Cyclones are no doubt one of the costliest natural disasters everywhere,” Chand told CNN. “What’s happening with global warming is that these underlying conditions are getting more unfavorable for cyclones to form in the first place. But even though cyclones are getting fewer, those that do form are now feeding more energy from the warming atmosphere, so that’s why they’re getting more intense.”

Tropical cyclones need a special set of conditions in order to develop from a cluster of thunderstorms into enormous, swirling heat engines. Over the years, scientists have become increasingly confident that human-caused climate change is making those conditions more uncommon — but when they do form, warmer air and ocean temperatures are making them more potent.

That cyclones might "get more costlier" because there are more of us buying beachfront property, and relying on government bailouts when our beach gets washed out, doesn't occur to any of these people.