PUT THE CHURCHES ALONG THE CAR LINES.

That's the way things used to be.

That's Ogden Street at Astor on the near East Side of Milwaukee, with a Unitarian church on the corner, and a building with space for several businesses at street level and apartments above.  Under contemporary zoning rules, none of that would be possible, as both the church and the businesses would have to provide parking, and commercial and residential land uses strictly separated.  That apartment tower, with lake views on the side away from the camera, might be required to provide a parking structure either under the tower or next door.  There's an early twentieth century postcard of this church describing it as the First Baptist Church.

And yes, a streetcar does serve that neighborhood.

That's Milwaukee's downtown circulator streetcar, still offering free rides, and still controversial.

Pivot to the southwest, and there's another of those combined use buildings, not in the picture.  The wooded lot, now a garden for the Episcopal Church of St. Paul, was once the site of the First Baptist Church as I know it, my grandfather having served as moderator, built of gray stone and brick in much the same style as the Unitarian church.  That church burned in 1974.  Looming behind is the Lincoln Arts Academy, once Lincoln High School.  Lincoln High School closed in 1979.  It looked a lot bigger in the evening when there was a basketball game.  Lincoln had good teams back in the day.

A Coast Guard helicopter interrupts the reverie.

Is a day-sailer in trouble, outside the breakwater without a life-jacket?  Not on Wednesday.  The Republicans are holding their nomination convention in Milwaukee, and it's all hands on the land, on the water, and in the air.  I was not able to book a business class seat on the new Borealis to see the show.  Coach seats were available on the Hiawatha trains shuttling between Milwaukee and Chicago.  Recent reports on the performance of Borealis will be material for a future  post.  It's the kind of fine afternoon with low humidities and temperatures in the 70s and after the humidity and storms on Sunday and Monday, the convention goers were enjoying the day.  That is, until they had to queue for security.

Water Street at Wells, with City Hall immediately behind.  Foot traffic is permitted across the bridge, with proper clearance.  I did not venture across the bridge or check out the second set of barriers closing off the area open only to people holding proper credentials.  In the distance, the Germania Building lends the proper Mitteleuropaische atmosphere to the checkpoints.  Papers, please!

The good news is that the Newsroom Pub (wasn't that once west of the river by Journal Square?) and the Safe House (awning and flags along Front Street) are outside the secured areas.

There were a few delegates with credentials chilling outside the St. Kate The Arts Hotel (yes, that's its name) who I spoke briefly with.  They had never been to Milwaukee before, they liked what they saw, and the fine weather, and I suggested they consider a future trip, say for German Fest or the Harley events that are coming up after the convention. Behind the music hall these Trump supporters, also members of a South Korean advocacy organization, also hang out.  I did not check whether Usinger's sausage and Mader's restaurant were in a secure area or still available to the public.  The Fiserv Forum, where the main convention events take place, is pretty far north, that's its roof looming over the Turnverein and the stores on the west side of Third Street.

The Pere Marquette Park is one of two designated protest zones, at just after 4 pm it looked pretty quiet.  Yes, there were patrol boats from several agencies on the rivers.  I wonder if any bulk cement carriers were scheduled to go up the Menomonee River during the festivities.

I chose Wednesday because there was a beer garden set up in the Third Ward, operating under the rubric of "Beerpartisanship."  There were local craft breweries offering their wares: something to keep in mind with German Fest in a week.

I didn't see a lot of obviously political types, and almost no people wearing credentials.  On the other hand, all the local residents who walk their dogs each evening know each other, and who knows, the local running club might have stopped by later (I had a train to catch.)  A few of the residents were curious about what the place was like 50 years ago when the produce merchants still did business there, and I told stories about the Route 14 trackless trolley and being able to hear the fireworks when the pink church held its street festival.  That event lives on as Milwaukee's Festa Italiana.

A few good Austrian beers in me, though, and the train rides back to Elburn are for napping, not for a Performance and Practice report.  And yes, there was heavy security, including multiple varieties of search dogs, at all stations along the Hiawatha line.  Probably prudent not to do any railfanning from overpasses until the convention leaves Milwaukee.

REQUIEM FOR THE WELFARE ECONOMICS PARADIGM.

It is a maintained hypothesis at Cold Spring Shops that complex adaptive systems tend to do what they d*mn well please.  With the Packers back in training camp and the big box stores stocking up the school supplies (and when did a list of recommended items running two or three sheets of foolscap become a thing?) the time is right for a refresher on the limitations of the Welfare Economics Paradigm.  Perhaps that's even more salient this year, with a presidential election offering two different approaches to governing, and with the powers of the Wise Experts more subject to legal review.

Two recent posts at Cafe Hayek structure this year's refresher.  First, he lays out the challenge of taming complexity in a straightforward way.

How will government officials empowered to decrease the scarcity of some goods, services, and opportunities – and, hence, to increase the scarcity of some other goods, services, and opportunities – know that the value of that which they create exceeds the value of that which they destroy? What is the information- or knowledge-generating process or mechanism that provides to industrial-policy officials signals that are more reliable than are the prices and other market signals that the interventions of these officials distort or suppress altogether?

Ask such questions and expect no answers beyond ones that boil down to “Trust us. Our scheme is destined to produce results that are superior to those produced by markets. We know what to do. For proof, compare the excellence of what we promise to achieve to the reality, as described by us, that we promise to replace. This reality clearly isn’t ideal and must be corrected. Furthermore, our motives are pure, and our understanding of human nature and society is richer, deeper, and more expansive than is that of the naively materialistic and reductionists neoliberals and market fundamentalists. Trust us.”

Yes, the language is polemical, fitting for an election season.  And yet, it is on point.  What is drawn up so elegantly on the workshop room blackboard cannot be implemented in practice.  A more recent post notes the ways in which jamming the complexity exacerbates the problem the Wise Experts hope to solve.

The case for free markets – and against nearly all interventions desired by today’s populists – is that markets are less imperfect than governments. Most market imperfections are profit opportunities that in time attract entrepreneurs to experiment with ways to improve matters. Some experiments work, many fail. Unlike government officials, private market actors spend only their own money and have no power to coerce. Markets, therefore, identify and correct mistakes more quickly than do governments, are less prone to be captured by interest groups, and are more driven to strike trade-offs in ways that are mutually advantageous rather than in ways that compel some individuals to pay for the gains of other individuals.

Furthermore, governments are in a better position to continue the stupid because they have the ability to collect, at the point of a gun, additional money to throw at a problem after the initial money so thrown doesn't work, and there's somebody stingy to blame.

That works until the real debt ceiling kicks in.  Buckle in.

AND IT'S ONE, TWO, THREE STRIKES, YOU'RE OUT.

That's the condensed version of "Conning the Median Voters to Protect Democracy" from nine days ago.  Sometimes years can happen in nine days, can't they?  Marginal Revolution's Tyler Cowen attempts what might be a more nuanced, or perhaps a more richly parametrized explanation.

Clearly it has happened, and it has been accelerated and publicized by the Biden failings and the attempted Trump assassination.  But it was already underway.  If you need a single, unambiguous sign of it, I would cite MSNBC pulling off Morning Joe for a morning, for fear they would say something nasty about Trump.

Another way to put it is that Trump was a highly vulnerable, defeated President, facing numerous legal charges and indeed an actual felony conviction.  Yet he now stands as a clear favorite in the next election.  In conceptual terms, how exactly did that happen?

I had been thinking it would be a good cognitive test to ask people why they think the vibes have changed, and then to grade their answers for intelligence, insight, and intellectual honesty.

His readers weigh in in the comments.  The post, perhaps in the way of a swing coach breaking down the way the pitcher got the three strikes, decomposes, for instance, what I captured briefly.  "Strike One is the quick revelation that as president, Mr Biden (or, as I have it, the Jarrett regency) quickly disabused all of the notion that he would govern as an institutionalist."  See, e.g., Professor Cowen's point 6, "The ongoing feminization of society has driven more and more men, including black and Latino men, into the Republican camp.  The Democratic Party became too much the party of unmarried women," and point 9, "The relentlessly egalitarian message of Democrats is not so popular, and furthermore — since every claim must have messengers — it translates in lived practice into an “I am better than you all are” vibe. Americans noticed this, if only subconsciously."  His point 15 summarizes several developments where the correlation of forces did not turn out favorably to the Jarrett regency.

Various developments in Afghanistan, Ukraine, and Israel did not help the Democratic cause. Inflation was very high, and real borrowing rates went up sharply. This is true, whether or not you think it is the fault of Biden, or Trump would have done better. Crypto came under attack. The pandemic story is complicated, and its politics would require a post of its own, but I don’t think it helped the Democrats, most of all because they ended up “owning” many of the longer-lasting school closures.

And we haven’t even gotten to “Defund the police,” the recurring rise of anti-Semitism on the left, and at least a half dozen other matters.

The niceties of keeping his Bloomberg column as well as getting on in the faculty lounge likely influenced the phrasing of the sixteenth point, "In very simple terms, you might say the Democrats have done a lot to make themselves unpopular, and not had much willingness to confront that. Their own messages make this hard to face up to, since they are supposed to be better people."  It's when I read passages like that that I miss Rush Limbaugh.  He used to cast scorn on Our Intellectual Betters, often wrapping up with a "We're better people.  We care more."  That post concludes, "Business as usual is not turning out so well for the Substantive Comprehensive Reform and Four of Five Experts Agree crowd."  Moreover, the success of the Limbaugh program was in calling attention to the ways in which the people who claimed to care more made matters worse, often for precisely the constituents they aspired to help.

Yes, there still are intellectual arguments to engage in, and there is a role for logic and content.  Professor Cowen notes those.  "On the other side of the ledger, you might argue, as do many intelligent people, that the Democrats are better at technocracy, and also that Democrats are more respectful of traditional political processes, especially transitions after elections. I’m not here to debate those issues! I know many MAGA supporters are not convinced, most of all on the latter."  I'll confine my thoughts to that "better at technocracy" claim.

Bundling "the climate crisis with the inflation reduction act" is two lies for the price of one, and tossing in monopsony to boot fails to encourage.  I hope, though, that there are Libertarian and Republican strategists and publicists calling attention to the various ways in which those deliveries for the American people are that triple-decker toadstool and sauerkraut sandwich with arsenic sauce.

In particular, should the Democrats swap out the current figurehead for a new figurehead carrying out the policy preferences of the Jarrett regency, the Libertarians and Republicans had best have policy-based arguments, whether building on Professor Cowen's points or on their own work, ready to go.

AMTRAK REVERTING TO SOUTHERN PACIFIC FORM.

When Amtrak rolled out the new coaching stock for the California corridor service, I introduced a Streetsblog review of the cars with "I'd roll them out shamefacedly too."  The reversion?

Time for a history lesson.  "And here the raison d'etre for Amtrak included discontent with automat cars on Southern Pacific (and some Burlington trains) and Buffeteria cars replacing the full dining cars on the Hiawatha." Until recently, there were those prepackaged meals for sleeper passengers on the Empire Builder and California Zephyr, there is no food service on the Milwaukee trains, even the morning and evening runs that once had a lunch-lounge car, so an automat car on Southern Pacific metals under Amtrak auspices, why not?

The railroads' cost-cutting measures led the Interstate Commerce Commission to mandate levels of service on long-distance trains, and those levels of service were in the initial Amtrak legislation, with surprisingly encouraging outcomes early on.  Later, well, ferroequinologists developed the E-T-T-S locution for a reason.

Southern Pacific's Automat cars were an attempt to reduce costs in the dining department.  They also had the effect of discouraging passengers by degrading the service.  The Interstate Commerce Commission and the railroad locked horns over whether the regulator had the authority to impose service standards.  That wrangle was mooted by the passage of legislation creating Amtrak, which included requirements for food service on overnight and longer-haul trains.  Food service, however, is satisfied by the provision of a single cafe car providing microwaved food with Gate Gourmet's indirect cost return included.  Substituting better pastries, or adding espresso, might heighten the appeal of Acela first class service.

The food service and business class cars have arrived in the Midwest, and Trains passenger train correspondent Bob Johnston offers his impressions.

Divisions of Illinois and California transportation departments, not Amtrak, led and managed the procurement of single-level Venture cars and Charger locomotives. Though they agreed on aisle width and the same type of coach seat, the two agencies arrived at different ideas of how their respective rolling stock was to be configured. The Midwest cafes went through a variety of changes from what was initially envisioned as a standardized design; California opted for vending-machine cars that still have not debuted on the San Joaquins.

The coach-café extends an idea from the Acela trains, in which there is a counter staffed by an attendant, but little nearby seating, and passengers eat at their seats.  The article notes there is little maneuvering room, should a passenger cross the aisle to the condiment bar to put that green relish on his hot dog and then make his way back to his seat.

On this trip, the overhead passenger information display system and automated announcements weren’t operational. Following the obligatory safety and no-smoking advisories after an on-time departure, a conductor added, “We have a new café car; it’s at the front of the train. There are no seats to eat your food. If you make a purchase, you must take the food back to your seat.”

Walking forward as No. 305 speeds at 79 mph in the driving rain between the Summit and Joliet stops, only a smattering of single seats remain unoccupied. This includes the café car’s coach section, which has six rows of double seats on one side of the wide aisle and eight rows on the other. The section is roughly comparable in size to the business-class section of Amfleet I and Horizon cafe cars, but Illinois opted to increase business-class capacity by making that an entirely separate car.

With the people who appropriate the money for the trains in Springfield and the rent-seekers in Chicago, a full-length business car makes political sense.  Whether the service will ever require multiple business class cars in the manner of the old Yankee Clipper or Abraham Lincoln remains to be seen.

The intended design of the train sets, with a coach-café operating as a married pair with a business class car, is a nod to the traditional arrangement of cars in a train.

The all-Venture, five-car train waiting on Chicago Union Station’s track 18 on a stormy July 9 had its coach-café immediately behind the locomotive, followed by three coaches and a business-class car on the rear. The original plan was to run the coach-café and business-class cars together, since business-class passengers get a free non-alcoholic beverage on Midwest trains. Another reason the two cars were to be paired is that the business-class car, with one seat on one side of the aisle and two on the other, has a built-in wheelchair lift for passengers with disabilities.

That's not how Illinois officials want their trains run.

Illinois DOT spokesman Scott Speegle tells News Wire, “While final consist decisions are made by Amtrak, we have requested that the business class car is at one end of the consist to give those customers greater privacy. Ideally, we would like the café car placed in the middle of the consist to give all customers easier access to the cafe.” He says that as the Venture coach-cafés receive final acceptance by the agency and Amtrak, they will first fill out the Lincoln Service lineup of four round trips before being deployed to other Midwest routes.

On the train Mr Johnston rode, the coach-café was on the head pin, followed by three coaches and the business class car.  The traditional configuration of a train would put the coaches on the head pin, then the coach-café, with the business class car carrying the markers.  In that way, the business class passengers would have their privacy, albeit without a car host, they'd have to go forward to the coach-café to get their beverage.

Historically, the dining car separated coaches from first class, and a lounge car of some kind, if one was offered, would be between the coaches and the diner to allow coach passengers to chill until a table became available.

Perhaps, though, none of that matters now-a-days.

Of note, however, is that returning to Chicago from Bloomington-Normal the same evening at about 8:30 p.m. on Lincoln Service train No. 306, the train was also very crowded but virtually no one visited the Horizon café-business class car. This was despite the attendant regularly announcing that he was open and serving. Perhaps it was the late hour. Or just maybe, today’s Amtrak clientele are simply content to stay in their seats with their phones.

Sad. It's unlikely that you'll see the high-roller rent-seekers dealing a few hands of bridge or pinochle or poker in the club car any more.

THE JAWBONE OF AN ASS.

A price cap has the same effect on resource allocation that a tied-down safety valve has on a boiler.  Might as well issue a ukase that the circular constant π is the rational number 22/7.  Our President, though, thinks that by pandering to the delusions of the communists in his coalition plus continuing to smear his opposition, he can get another term.

President Joe Biden is ready to propose a 5% cap on annual rent increases for tenants of major landlords as he tries to show he’s doing something about the high cost of housing, according to a person familiar with the plan.

The proposal, to be announced while the president visits Nevada on Tuesday, is being championed by Biden in the middle of a tense presidential campaign and a time when housing costs have been a major driver of overall inflation.

But the plan would require solid Democratic control of Congress to become law. Additionally, most policymakers have said the best way to limit housing costs would be through more construction and changes to land use regulations.

The person familiar with the plan spoke on the condition of anonymity because the proposal has not yet been formally announced.

That's true, Dementia Joe's mumbled reference to "the proposal" during that debate probably slipped his mind later that night.

I come from Scranton, Pennsylvania. I come from a household where the kitchen table – if things weren’t able to be met during the month was a problem. Price of eggs, the price of gas, the price of housing, the price of a whole range of things.

That’s why I’m working so hard to make sure I deal with those problems. And we’re going to make sure that we reduce the price of housing. We’re going to make sure we build 2 million new units. We’re going to make sure we cap rents, so corporate greed can’t take over.

It's populist froth, and it's demented. "A mountain of economic evidence suggests rent control is a terribly counterproductive policy."  It's the kind of process worship we've come to expect from Washington, though.

Biden himself seems to be conceding that rent control produces many of the problems it seeks to solve. Rather than abandoning the policy, he's instead decided to riddle his rent regulation scheme with carve-outs and exceptions.

Some of these exceptions may well limit the damage his proposal would do. They also make it a confusing, arbitrary mess that would award benefits to a near-random collection of renters.

Want more cheaper housing? Get rid of zoning, setbacks, and parking minima.  "Bet on emergence, and, wherever possible, be guided by trade-tested betterments."

Dementia Joe, though?  What was I saying about the jawbone of an ass?

Grocery costs are too high for families across the country.

We have a plan to tackle them. pic.twitter.com/hmEOfXdFMF

— President Biden (@POTUS) July 3, 2024

Note another "confusing, arbitrary mess."  On one hand you engage in coercion against merchants to get them to lower their prices, while with the other hand you pass out more money to shoppers, attenuating their incentives to shop around.  So it always is with socialism.  "[L]ogic is to socialists as crucifixes are to vampires."  But the communists at Common Dreams (now we know where Dementia Joe's 30% approval ratings come from, that is, when they're not in a faction fight over whether to kick him off the ticket) are on board.  "The rent is too damn high—and rent control is a real fix."  Alas, those pesky separations of powers get in the way.

The president, who is seeking reelection, will propose taking a tax benefit away from landlords who hike rents by more than 5% annually, according to the reporting. The plan would only apply to the existing housing stock of landlords who own more than 50 units and would require congressional approval—so it is not expected to go anywhere unless Biden wins in November and Democrats secure majorities in both chambers of Congress.

Should the plan pass, it's also an incentive for the government to keep printing money. That tax is not indexed to inflation.  "Logic and content will carry the day. Wishful thinking does not."

As if I didn't have enough reasons already to recommend that Democrats not win another national election for a generation.

NEVER GIVE YOUR OPPONENTS BULLETIN BOARD MATERIAL.

Last month, Donald Trump had to clarify a remark he made about Milwaukee.  "The former president has since said he “loves” Milwaukee, but clarified that his criticism was aimed at the city’s crime rate, which like those of many other US cities rose during the pandemic."  I've also heard his Morale Conditioners spinning "horrible city" as a reference to the late-night counts of absentee ballots.  That's how it works in Wisconsin.  At poll closing time, election workers announce, "The polls are closed.  We are now counting the absentee ballots."  There were more absentee ballots than usual four years ago.

SUMMERTIME, AND THE LIVING IS SOMETIMES EASY.

Yes, it's hot and humid and the State Line has had a lot of rain recently, and the political environment is anything but cheerful.  Let's go to Belvidere where some kids gathered stones together.

The things one has to do to embed videos these days!

Belvidere community embraces Noodles the rock snake https://t.co/0ZiD94E8PD

— Stephen Karlson (@StephenKarlson) July 15, 2024

"Cuteness off the charts" indeed.

WILL TEAM TRUMP HAVE A PIVOT READY TO GO?

Before Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania, the Democrats, notes George Will, were already doing a pretty good job creating a martyr.

Biden is the only plausible Democratic candidate whom Trump would today be favored to defeat. And Biden is Trump’s opponent only because Democrats assured themselves that Trump is the only opponent that Biden could plausibly hope to defeat. Which is why various Democratic prosecutors took steps that they should have known might facilitate Trump’s nomination by making him a martyr. If the Democratic Party would now present dispirited Americans with even a merely plausible choice, the result might be akin to a gust of pure oxygen on smoldering embers: an eruption of gratitude.

Yet, if the Republicans fail to call attention to the foolish platform "finish the job" seeks to continue, those "dispirited Americans" might go along with the substitution, irrespective of which new face is running on the Sanders platform.  I've been calling attention to the centrist Democrat fakement for a long time, and to Donald Trump being his own worst enemy after the press called the election for even longer.

OUT?

Joe Gow, who should have stuck to summer stock, was removed as chancellor of Wisconsin-LaCrosse, otherwise known as a notorious party school, and now the faculty hearing panel has recommended to the current chancellor that he be dismissed for cause.  "The former University of Wisconsin at La Crosse chancellor was fired last year for making pornography with his wife. Now a panel has recommended he lose his faculty job and tenure."  The current chancellor and the system's regents must each review the recommendation, and their concurrence is necessary before the Gows will have all sorts of leisure time to make videos.  "It's not pretty.  There's always the tension between professionalism and transgressivity in the university.  So it is playing out in LaCrosse."

THAT BUTTERFLY EFFECT.

On Saturday, Donald Trump turned his head at just the right time.  More than a few people recalled the conclusion of Day of the Jackal.

In Day of the Jackal, the English would-be assassin pulls the trigger and watches with astonishment as his target–Charles DeGaulle–bends over to kiss a la français the veteran he had just decorated in a ceremony in Paris. The bullet whizzes just behind DeGaulle’s head. A kiss spared his life.

Imagine my shock and astonishment at waking up in France to read that a turn of the head may have saved Donald Trump from a would-be assassin. Trump came closer to his doom than the movie DeGaulle–a bullet actually clipped his ear.

Unlike the Jackal, the Trump shooter was clearly no trained killer. Was he trying for a head shot because he thought Trump would be wearing a protective vest? Because a center mass shot was available and would have been a pro’s choice. Or was he just a bad shot? The fact that Matthew Crooks squeezed off 8 rapid shots spray-and-pray fashion suggest that he was. His prayers were not answered. Ours were.

Craig "Streetwise Professor" Pirrong goes on to speculate on the electoral fallout.  There's been a lot of that around the internet lately.  I'll leave the after-action reviews and recriminations to others.  Eyewitnesses are weighing in.  Consider carefully the sources in which many of the stories appear.

It's possible, as Power Line's John Hinderaker speculates, that the hue and cry rally-goers raised about a guy with a gun up on a roof might have been enough to break his concentration, with the spray-and-pray fusillade as a consequence.  We've made some progress in sixty years: a few civilians waiting for President Kennedy's motorcade saw Lee Oswald up in that window, but none of them said anything to Dallas police.

In retrospect, the way in which the Jackal failed verges on a story-telling cop-out.  Charles de Gaulle had to survive, otherwise Frederick Forsyth is writing a Twilight Zone episode.  If there is such a thing as a freelance professional killer, wouldn't his study included at least a rudimentary understanding of the French military protocols that would be followed on Liberation Day?  Recall in the movie, it's obvious; in the book it's hinted at, that there was one certainty, to the Jackal in his planning, and to law enforcement once the sou dropped, about a place the president surely would be and at what time of what day.

In the ongoing investigation, what will the authorities learn about the scouting efforts a resident of a far southern suburb of Pittsburgh made of Trump rally sites in Pennsylvania, including the field outside Butler?  We're not dealing here with a guy who lands a job at a warehouse and subsequently learns a presidential motorcade will pass by.

LEADING AT THE ALL STAR BREAK.

It's a familiar story for the Milwaukee Brewers.  "Despite recent skid, the Brewers always felt they'd be where they are. Which is in first."  It 's not unknown for the team to be in or close to first place with a difficult stretch just before or after the break.  On the other hand, getting off to a spectacular start only to have that All Star break slide happen doesn't necessarily turn out well.  This season, they have a four game margin, and hopes of injured players returning to action down the stretch.

It's another of those seasons when the Central Division teams seem bent on playing for leaster, with the Cardinals' pitching looking sketchy at the beginning of the season, the favored Cubs unable to close out games, and the young Pirates and Reds still developing.

DID THE MARINE BAND PRANK JILL BIDEN?

I don't recall incoming presidential administrations establishing an "Office of the President-Elect" from which to make announcements relevant to the transition prior to 2020.  It's possible that the Democrats did that as counter-programming to the efforts Donald Trump was making, even after the media called the election, to cast the results into doubt.

Or perhaps it was that Royal Touch the Biden family was after.  I also don't recall First Ladies having their own walk-up music, but Jill Biden, Ed.D., requested such from the Marine Band.

The best part is the song itself: pic.twitter.com/P740Q5J808

— T. Becket Adams (@BecketAdams) July 9, 2024

I'm at an age where the tune immediately triggered an association.  Four months later, Queen Camilla's doppelganger quietly discontinued the tune.  Pajamas Media's Victoria Taft caught the same association I did.  "Those who were alive in the 1960s may sense a déjà vu moment. Go back and listen to the 'Fanfare for the First Lady,' and then listen to this tune."  (The lyrics might cause the morale of anyone born in this century to droop.)

FRIDAY short TAKES.

Dementia Joe was convincing enough at his scripted press conference to hang on through the weekend.

"Decency to the office" as staged by Leni Riefenstahl.

"Restore support for the middle class" as mortgage payments rise and milk and other staple prices do too.

"Unite our country" unless you are mega-ultra-MAGA.#BidenIsALaughingstock https://t.co/XAhTyieqr0

— Stephen Karlson (@StephenKarlson) July 6, 2024

"Can Joe Biden Get Over Himself?"  No.  Next question?  Remain calm, all is well.  "Better to elect a corpse than a convicted felon who will destroy American democracy. Besides, we all know the corpse isn’t really in charge of anything."  We'll see what the election brings.  "Biden could not have become an object of ridicule if he wasn’t first an object of derision. The contempt in which the public holds the president is amply earned."  Embrace the power of "both."  "What’s worse: A diminished president or failed policies?"  That Threat to Our Democracy^(TM)? "Democracy is the biggest problem for the Democrats right now because democracy has them getting their asses kicked by Donald Trump."  That is, if those Threats to Our Democracy^(TM)are even real.  "Democrats Sure Aren’t Acting as if Trump Beating Biden Is an Existential Threat to Democracy."  I still like the idea of gridlock, but then I'm just a guy venting on his web journal.  Is Trump actually worse than Biden?  Pass the popcorn!  "Defying Calls From Voters and Lawmakers, Biden Refuses to Step Aside."  This election is a farce.

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

COMPARE AND CONTRAST.

Remember the Johnny Carson gags about "How hot was it?"  It was so hot that centenarians were reminiscing.

Get ready for the all-time climate cult jamboree at the end of this year, as 2024 is shaping up to the planet’s “hottest year ever on record” (with “on record” being a key part of this panic attack). Judith Curry has a terrific post up on her site a few days ago explaining how a hot year was predicted for this year not because of rising CO2 levels, but the massive Hunga-Tonga volcano eruption last year, which we covered here and here.

Meanwhile, the U.S. is suffering a sustained heat wave right now, with the word “record” thrown around, except that we are likely not exceeding high temp records that go back almost a century, though different data sets have different markings

Go, read, understand, follow the links. "Catastrophism about climate change hinders proper scientific analysis," indeed.

LET'S TRY FREEDOM.

Common Dreams regular Richard Eskow, who is regularly a figure of fun here, gets a recent column off to a good start.

People who live under a broken system must be convinced that their leaders, and the system itself, are idols to be worshiped and obeyed.

Idolatry is the worship of anything that’s unworthy of worship. It’s a surrender of the individual conscience to something created by another human being.

Idolatry is the opposite of independence.

Every so often, he toys with embracing freedom, but then the collectivist impulse kicks back in.

I bow to no one when it comes to my criticism of Trump, who represents incipient fascism. But I’ve always disliked the phrase, “Democracy is at stake in this election.” It begins with the obvious question: If the Democrats really believe that, why didn’t they field a stronger candidate? The Republican plan for the next presidency is called “Project 2025.” The Democrats’ plan seems to be the 25th amendment.

And when they say, “Democracy is at stake,” a lot of people are likely to reply, “What democracy?” Democracy is measured by the range of choices it offers, and by its independence from oligarchical control.

American democracy is in crisis on both fronts. Billionaires and dark-money PACs dominate primaries, as well as general elections. The result is stark. Where is the party or candidate who promises to end the genocide in Gaza, provide medical care for all, end poverty, and ensure that everyone who wants to work has a job?

As the world is battered by storms, floods, and fire, where’s the party that stands for bold climate action?

I'm not sure Donald Trump has the powers of concentration to organize a fascist movement, let alone that his coalition is a mix of libertarians and rent-seekers.  As far as the Democrats fielding a stronger candidate, well, the candidates Dickie would consider stronger were those the Party Establishment considered less electable in 2020, and if he's not happy with the rent-seekers not going Full Bernie, maybe it's the Common Dreams message that's unpopular.  Project 2025?  I should get that elaboration together on how the end of Chevron deference might draw its fangs.  Storms, floods, and fire?  Yes, Beryl sent some useful rain our way earlier in the week.  It's going to take a while for the researchers to sort out the role of all that atmospheric water from last year's volcanic eruptions and the equilibrating effects an early-season big storm might have on the air and water circulation as the northern summer winds down.

THEY'VE ALWAYS BEEN INSUFFERABLE.

So it is with the True Believers, whether it's of a religious, pacifist, or nutritionist bent.  "A Hundred Years of Mocking Vegetarians."  They figure prominently in the freak show George Orwell encountered on the way to Wigan, and nothing has much changed since.

For a rare lifestyle choice—one that is selfless, and also fundamentally personal—vegetarianism tends to drive people pretty bonkers. A 2015 paper found that vegetarians (and vegans) are viewed as negatively or more negatively than “several commonly stigmatized groups.” They are, in the popular imagination, abstemious killjoys, enemies of pleasure, unhinged animal fanatics, self-righteous cranks; they are evangelists, sentimentalists, snobs, radicals, naifs.

Yes, and probably common at socialist meetings where they append "vegan" after declaring their pronouns.  If only they'd comport themselves the way Lord Chesterfield once advised smart people to treat their intellect like a pocket watch, pulling it out when someone asks the time.  That's not how the vegans roll.

But neither vegetarianism nor the suspicion of it is a 21st-century, or even 20th-century, phenomenon. Humans have voluntarily avoided meat for hygienic, ethical, religious, or health reasons since at least as early as 500 B.C.E. The diet has fallen in and out of favor at various points since then, but has been stably present—if niche—since the Renaissance.

The American Vegetarian Society was founded in 1850, and vegetarianism was trendy for much of the 1800s and early 1900s among East Coast abolitionists, spiritualists, suffragettes, transcendentalists, cultural reformers, and intellectuals—the types of people, in fact, who founded this magazine in 1857.

I rest my case. The Atlantic is your go-to source for insufferable snobs.

No wonder vegetarians were seen as hair shirts, performatively suffering under what the Atlantic writer Katharine Fullerton Gerould called, in 1912, the “fallacy of ‘plain living and high thinking.’” Vegetarians made—and still make—some people uncomfortable because they encounter abundance and choose something else. They feel like an affront to the status quo, or at least to a very basic impulse: the pursuit of pleasure at any cost.

No, it's not that you own that pocket watch, it's that you're ostentatiously displaying it.

RIVALS TODAY, TEAM-MATES TOMORROW.

With All-Star and Olympic and other world competitions going on all the time, any conference or divisional rivalry better not get too personal.  Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark understand that.

“I know so many fans are gonna come out to watch both of us,” Reese told NBA Today on July 10, per CBS Sports. “I know a lot of people are just gonna come to Phoenix, I’m sure it’s already sold out. Being able to be in that environment, we’re gonna be playing together for a while so this is not gonna be the [last] time. I know we’ll be All-Stars again, and hopefully, in 2028 we’ll be Olympians together.”

I'm not sure why that would startle her coach.

Clark, meanwhile, says the game will be “fun” for “all of us,” but doesn’t want her team-up with Reese to overshadow other players’ accomplishments. “I know people are going to be really excited about it, but I hope it doesn’t take away from everybody else,” Clark said earlier this month. This is a huge accomplishment for everybody on Team USA and everybody on Team WNBA. They all deserve the same praise.”

Well, yes. Leave all the WWE Smackdown hype and any Culture Wars stuff out of it and let the kids play.

ADAPTIVE REUSE IS THE AMERICAN WAY.

A quarter century ago I was in Moscow on Independence Day.  The Russians were rebuilding the Cathedral of Christ the Savior.  The consecration of the original church included music that has subsequently become part of our Independence Day concerts.

I recently came across a Nails on Blackboards post objecting to the use of that music.

An overture full of Russian folk tunes, La Marseillaise, the French national anthem (which Napoleon had actually banned in 1805, but never mind), and Russian hymns God Save the Tsar!, and God Preserve Thy People. What all this has to do with America's or DPRAV's birthday escapes my poor understanding. This is the celebration of the defeat of one European autocrat's armies by the armies of another European autocrat (with a huge assist from the weather), neither of whom had any use for what happened here in 1776, and both of whom happily imprisoned or murdered any of their royal subjects who had any thought of trying to bring 1776 to Paris or Moscow.

It's the American Way.

There's nothing new about "Misunderstood 'patriotic' songs for the Fourth of July."  Consider "Born in the U.S.A.," "Fortunate Son," "This Land is Your Land," "Rockin' in the Free World," and "American Woman."  "Yet, many of the classic songs that casual listeners may assume to be patriotic are anything but, from misunderstood anti-war missives to singalong favorites masking darker meanings."

Nothing really new, either.  Are you only familiar with the hero's welcome "When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again?"  There's another version, in which Johnny hasn't an arm and hasn't a leg, and his sweetheart fears his dancin' days are done, ending "Johnny, we hardly knew ye," that perhaps based on an earlier song.  Then there's that favorite for bringing on the fireworks, Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture, originally written as a celebration of Imperial Russian power.

With "America" borrowing the tune of Heil Dir im Siegerkranz and the National Anthem recycling a hard-to-sing British drinking tune, thinking about cereal that's shot from guns is a natural transition to the fireworks display.

ANOTHER VAST RIGHT WING CONSPIRACY.

The low estate to which higher education has sunk has nothing to do with its habits of admitting unprepared students and calling it access, exposing those matriculants to coreless curricula, and foisting degreed distressed material on employers.  Oh, no, not at all, it's that Trumpian noise machine.

Starting in 2021, Republicans in state legislatures around the country began mounting a political response to the Black Lives Matter movement. This political backlash, which right-wing provocateur Christopher Rufo called a counterrevolution, focused its ire on educators. K-12 teachers and public librarians faced book bans, gag orders, and accusations of being “groomers,” and Moms for Liberty groups hijacked school board meetings across the country. In this context, legislators also targeted higher education in an effort to ensure that political partisans could play a greater role determining the conversations taking place on campuses.

Much of the reporting on this legislation, such as the “Stop W.O.K.E. Act” in Florida or Texas Senate Bill 17 banning campus diversity efforts, focuses on individual bills. It often presents these bills as populist responses within a highly polarized America.

Dear reader, wouldn't you expect a committee of academicians to suggest that those populist responses might be ad popularum groupthink, unsupported by logic or evidence?  Unfortunately, the committee of academicians, members all of the American Association of University Professors, engage in ad popularum arguments as a defense of the wokeness being foisted on the common schools and the institutions of higher education.

[L]egislative efforts to weaken academic freedom and university governance are part of a well-organized and well-funded backlash that seeks to roll back the political, social, and cultural gains made in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement and increased queer and trans visibility. During the summer of 2020 millions of people—across the United States and around the world—poured into the streets. In this context, federal agencies, state and municipal governments, corporations, sports teams, cultural figures, K-12 schools, and universities publicly committed to taking proactive steps to address generational and institutionalized racism. Within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, and following the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and other Black Americans, a massive grassroots social movement profoundly shifted the political conversation about race and racism. These protests posed an existential threat to existing political and economic hierarchies. To confront this grassroots movement, wealthy donors—and the think tanks they fund—scrambled to develop a political response. They found success in fomenting a culture war backlash against K-12 and higher education.

That's an interesting spin on those fiery but mostly peaceful protests, isn't it?  My grassroots movement is a quest for justice, your grassroots movement is propped up by oligarchs.  Nice try.

Higher education's DeSantis problem, though, is self-inflicted, dear reader, and I ask you to hold two contrasting opinions in mind. First, that the use of public moneys to support education is censorship per se. Second, that universities exist to play around with ideas.  It's on the legislatures to trust the faculties to be good stewards of their curricula, and it's on the faculties to maintain standards of quality control on their inquiries.  The professor, however, defends the area studies types for abandoning those standards.

I concluded that post with "It is the responsibility of the faculty, whether in disciplinary organizations, or in shared governance, to evaluate their professional norms. The protest community disciplines have repeatedly trashed, sometimes gleefully, those norms, and thus provoked the incoming."  The association's position paper offers an incomplete defense of those protest communities.  "In recent years the university has germinated new ideas about race and racism, about gender identity, about American history, and about social equality. In 2020 these new ideas spread quickly from the campus to the street, and eventually even to the halls of power. Many of these ideas were developed and tested over decades of scholarship, peer review, debate, and critical engagement. They had been widely taken up because faculty, students, and the public found them compelling."  Not all of the public, which is why the incoming became as widespread as it has.  The "backlash," as the association has it, or the restoration of a state of good repair, as editors at Washington's Examiner suggest, will continue.

"Harvard has caved in, showing that student intifada will always prevail," they wrote. "This reversal speaks to the power of our movement, both on campus and worldwide."

We disagree. This reversal speaks to the fecklessness of administrators at elite universities, the rampant anti-Semitism and radical politics that dominate their ranks, and the case for serious students, parents, and faculty to flee these campuses. And of the student movement itself, its chief accomplishment is likely to be the further destruction of the institutions who abide its lawbreaking. Their prestige evaporates by the hour.

Tough luck for Isaac Kamola.  "These sensationalized and over-the-top attacks on higher education and academic freedom have meant that me and my colleagues—those of us who teach our students an unvarnished version of American history, who celebrate a plurality of ways of valuing each other and our identities, and who demand massive collective action to address looming crises—are increasingly treated as enemies."  Did he really think he and his colleagues could continue to stick metaphorical fingers in the eyes of Normals without provoking a fight?

There are no "nuanced and thoughtful conversations" when mobs are yelling "from the river to the sea" and Jewish students are hiding in the library attic or covering themselves with baseball caps rather than the more traditional headwear. There's a tension between protecting expression of controversial ideas and calling the expression of controversial ideas a "threat of harm." Whenever I sound off about Distressed Material, I surely am promising harm to the delusions that people who can't handle the material should get degrees. That should be obvious, but apparently you get to be president of the professors' guild by ignoring the obvious.

Our universities are being run by terminally stupid people.

Cold Spring Shops headquarters is on land that was in Wisconsin Territory before Illinois became a state. We recognize the labor applied by those settlers marking the trails that contemporary Illinoisans use to visit Lake Geneva, the Dells, and Door County, and to watch their teams get owned in Green Bay.

GIVE LOGIC A CHANCE.

It's been my custom not to post reviews of Regnery books because too often the editing turns what might be solid arguments into polemics more effective at shoring up people already convinced than it is in persuading persuadable minds.  It is for that reason that I offer former representative Tulsi Gabbard's For Love of Country: Leave the Democrat Party Behind as Book Review N^o. 8.

It's particularly unproductive for Regnery to have done its usual polemical work on For Love of Country as the representative was for a while active in the Bernie Sanders campaign, and has the honor of being called a "Russian asset" by Hillary Clinton while continuing her commission in the Reserves even after leaving both Congress and the Democrats.

As such, she might bring a novel perspective to both the usual Regnery ditto-heads and to voters leaning toward the Democrats or hoping to keep their independence.  The chapter headings are surely provocative.

1. The End of Our Democracy?
2. Fading Light of Freedom.
3. No Free Speech.
4. They See God as the Enemy.
5. The Elitist Cabal of Warmongers.
6. Fomenting Racism.
7. What's True?  The Powerful Decide.
8. Families Under Fire.

She concludes, "Elite politicians from both parties are terrified of our freedom and that we, the people, may actually begin to use our power."  Yes, there's an element of both-sides-ism in that observation, and yet, although she invokes a conversation with the late Daniel Ellsberg, yes, he of the Pentagon Papers, the topics and the people she brings in as anecdotes and experts are more often those familiar on the populist right rather than as onetime colleagues in the Sanders campaign.  That's unfortunate, as the Wise Experts in the age of Trump tend to either agree with or argue with and then vote for Democrats, but that second cohort includes populists of the left or in the so-called rainbow coalition who are not yet ready to write for Fox News or Pajamas Media.

Cross-posted to 50 Book Challenge.

THE CHIEF EXECUTIVE MUST BE CAPABLE OF UNDERSTANDING THE DEPARTMENTAL MANAGERS.

Former homeland security secretary Jeh Johnson used that point to express his confidence in Our President.  “A presidency is more than just one man. I would take Joe Biden at his worst day at age 86 so long as he has people around him like Avril Haines, Samantha Power, Gina Raimondo supporting him, over Trump any day.”  Implicitly, he's noting that none of those people would be among the Trump administration's staffers.  He went on to suggest that the absence of competent senior managers might have contributed to the stupid and futile gesture at the Federal Capitol the day the electoral votes were tallied.  Member of Congress Daniel Goldman, a Democrat from New York, argued similarly.  "[L]et’s not just focus on Joe Biden here. Let’s focus on the people around him, the administration, the policies, and most importantly, the appreciation and protection for the rule of law and our democracy that Donald Trump, every single day, has vowed to take down."

The senior managers, and the worker bees on the staff, matter.  Immediately before that nationally televised debate, Our President's defenders were explaining away the "I'm going to get into trouble" and the lists of correspondents to call on as staff work.  And yes, the absence of that sort of staff late in 2016 put the Trump presidency on the back foot: even if you have only slim hopes of winning, shouldn't you at least have some sketch of a transition ready to go?  That noted, as the extent to which politicians' staffers attempt to influence the questions reporters ask is now making the newsies angry.

WILL HIGHER EDUCATION ENJOY A NEW BIRTH OF FREEDOM?

Richard Vedder draws an interesting inference.

The Supreme Court’s recent Chevron ruling, while rightly focusing on central issues like presidential immunity, also brought a potential boon for American higher education. This decision, which I believe holds promise for the future, has yet to be fully grasped by the higher education establishment.

Read on, though, and note the potential trade-off.

Specifically, in Loper Bright Enterprises v Raimondo, the Court invalidated the doctrine of Chevron deference prevailing since 1984. In the Chevron case, the Court dramatically curtailed the power of courts to rein in the actions of independent agencies and executive departments to overturn federal administrative diktats, which some think led to the creation of the modern administrative state.

Academicians, such as the economists who developed and refined the Welfare Economics Paradigm, have surely benefitted from the expansion of the administrative state, whether in selling graduate degrees or advising politicians or setting up side hustles as compliance (or creative noncompliance) consultants.  At the same time, the operation of the colleges and universities was subject to the resulting administrative ukases.

The recent Supreme Court decision has had a profound effect on universities. As Jon Fansmith, the chief lobbyist for the American Council of Education, aptly pointed out, “Almost every aspect of running a modern campus is dictated in some way by federal regulations or guidance—whether that’s how you make staffing, compensation, training, or enrollment decisions, all the way down to the level of what you put on your website.”

I contend that the golden age of American higher education came in the generation before the rise in federal higher education activism, which began after obtaining statutory authority with the Higher Education Act of 1965 but most notably after the creation of the U.S. Department of Education in 1978.

America’s role in creating the world’s best universities dates back to before 1965, when both private dollars and state governments helped finance the planet’s best universities. Aside from obtaining resources, these schools benefited from competition and academic diversity—different kinds of schools, some progressive, some conservative, some religious, others militantly agnostic. We did not have stultifying schools teaching a uniform curriculum with little diversity, the model in much of the rest of the world.

Yes, and on occasion a high university official will grumble about "unfunded mandates," which in general political discourse more commonly sounds like a libertarian or Republican gripe.

Whether we will see a flowering of departures from Washington Knows Best that don't look like Hillsdale or Florida New College remains to be seen.

The modern federal administrative state has robbed most universities of much of their individuality, with a few schools of the Hillsdale or Grove City College variety that have completely severed ties with the Feds escaping that fate, generally with great success. The modern-day Department of Education’s sins include the lamentable declaration of war against college men and Anglo-Saxon rules of judicial conduct with the 2011 “Dear Colleague” letter that led most colleges into adopting an almost “guilty until proven innocent” attitude regarding allegations of male student sexual misconduct. The jihad towards men has contributed to a significant decline in male enrollment.

His conclusion is a call for future research.

To be sure, the fate of America’s universities depends on many things, and not all their ails are federally inflicted. To cite just one example, the rise in debilitating grade inflation roughly coincides with the growth in federal involvement, and while there may be links between those two things, they are not obvious or strong. Still, my tentative assessment is that the Supreme Court’s recent action improved the environment where higher learning occurs in America.

Or not, higher education being a safe space for pusillanimous administrators and castrated men who still fear the bicycle bar.  I'd be happy to report, five years or so from now, that Professor Vedder's tentative assessment holds up.

THE ERA OF TRAIN TOURS RESUMES.

Brightline to offer Taylor Swift sing-along trains.  For a Passenger Rail operator doing a lot to distinguish itself from conventional train companies, they're bringing back the themed train, complete with social directors.

Taylor Swift Sing-Along Trains from Orlando to the omnipresent entertainer’s upcoming series of Eras Tour shows at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami.

The announcement today (July 9), in conjunction with iHeart Radio, carefully avoids using Swift’s full name — no doubt to avoid potential legal issues — in announcing “an immersive Tay-keover train” for “Tay-lovers” to “The Big Concert” Oct. 18, 19, and 20. Trains will feature themed décor, DJs from Orlando radio stations, and offer photo ops and “curated bites and beverages” to Aventura, where shuttles will take them to the stadium.

There are no baggage cars in the Brightline fleet to convert, in the fashion of ski tours or fraternal organization charters, into long, narrow dance halls, although the features on offer would earn the approval of a Burlington or Boston and Maine passenger agent.  Better yet, the promotion has brought the free media in train.

But local media is not having a hard time putting two and two together, and coming up with a load of free publicity.  The Miami Herald; FOX TV stations in Orlando, Tampa Bay, and Gainesville; the NBC affiliate in Orlando are among those who have already posted articles on the trains.

“The Sing-Along Train is a fan’s dream come true, transporting guests through musical eras as they travel to The Big Concert,” Travis Christ, Brightline’s chief commercial officer, said in the press release. “This is more than a ride – it’s a first-of-its-kind immersive experience. Welcome to the Brightline era.”

Brightline's frequency is such that there will be "conventional (non-sing-along)" trains available for, oh, Disney guests or Miami Beach tourists as well as the concert-themed trains.

Two trains will run from Orlando each day, departing at 12:50 p.m. and 1:50 p.m., with tickets at $209 for Smart and $309 for Premium seats one way. There will also be late-night return trains, departing at 12:30 a.m. and 1:30 a.m.

That's an encouraging sign.  Years ago, the Boston Commuter Rail timetables included a note that the late evening trains would not run on nights there was a concert scheduled at Boston Garden.

CONNING THE MEDIAN VOTERS TO PROTECT DEMOCRACY.

Is a Donald Trump presidency, particularly if there's gridlock in Congress and new judicial restraints on the administrative state, such an existential threat to the Republic that making stuff up to keep him out of office is right and proper?  New York Post columnist Miranda Devine gets off an only-slightly-outrageous observation about the extent of the con:  "They would have elevated a corpse to the Oval Office in 2020 if it meant dislodging Trump, and they’ve maintained the deception ever since."  Or, as Ben Shapiro put it,

[T]he Democratic Party, which nominated Joe Biden because he represents a papering-over of the vast chasms emerging between the pro-Hamas, pro-socialism wing of their party and the more sane, tax-and-regulate left, is stuck in-between. They can't dump Biden and substitute someone else -- to do so would be to admit their complicity in this debacle. And they can't keep him -- to do so would be to doom the Democratic Party to a likely Trump victory, and in the aftermath, the victory of a rebellious hard left demanding more power.

Put another way, the Democrats participated in a "rotten Faustian bargain" the people who ran the con made, and Victor "Blade of Perseus" Hanson suggests that "Democracy Dies in Deceit" is the state of play now.  We'll leave the "rebellious hard left" reprising George McGovern and Paul Wellstone for another day.

LOSING SKIPPERS BLAME THE RACE COMMITTEE.

Freedom Week culminated with another mostly peaceful weekend in Chicago.  Second City Cop almost had a pool going.

We suppose having a live counter on the blog might be a fun retirement project, but we plan on being a little more active than sitting in front of the screen, reading news sites, monitoring encrypted radio transmissions and calling in favors.

Meanwhile, HeyJackass.com (the only accurate source for statistics) has Chicago at 17 expired and 81 bleeding as of 7 AM Sunday morning.

Have we already hit 100 and no one knows it?

The city hit the century.  "You know it's bad when even the Slum Times admits one hundred people got shot."  Come Monday, the genial socialist and former schoolteacher occupying the mayor's office found a new Republican to blame for the carnage.

In recent years, Chicago’s leaders have blamed a wide range of external factors for the city’s infamous street violence. They’ve pointed fingers at Donald Trump, Indiana, Kim Foxx, and gun manufacturers, among others.

On Monday, after 108 people were shot, 19 fatally, during the Independence Day weekend, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson became the first leader to blame Richard Milhous Nixon.

“We are standing here today talking about a violent weekend because of generations of disinvestment,” Johnson told a room full of reporters.

“Black death has been unfortunately accepted in this country for a very long time,” Johnson claimed. “We had a chance 60 years ago to get at the root causes and people mocked President [Lyndon] Johnson and we ended up with Richard Nixon.”

The primary reason Lyndon Johnson did not beat Richard Nixon in 1968, historians might argue, is that Lyndon Johnson chose not to run for re-election. Nixon died in 1994.

It’s also unclear how Johnson concluded that Chicagoans, who have relentlessly called on city leaders to address violent crime, are accepting of “Black death.”

I don't know, maybe sixty years of enabling dysfunction and calling it authenticity might have had something to do with that "disinvestment." The mayor, however, unwittingly channels a bit of sass from the Great Society, something like "Four thousand years ago, Moses said 'Mount your asses and your camels and I will lead you to the Promised Land.' Now Lyndon Johnson says, 'Sit on your ass, light up a Camel, this is the Promised Land.'"  And Brandon Johnson wants Lyndon Johnson to pay to fix what the Great Society destroyed.

Johnson also suggested that federal and state law enforcement agencies aren’t doing enough to help Chicago. He called on federal agencies to respond to mass shootings in Chicago “just like they do in other places in this country.”

He “hopes” the state and feds will “swiftly come to the support of the city of Chicago,” said Johnson.

Brandon in the White House, Brandon in Chicago's city hall, farce after farce after farce.  It makes for a new marketing opportunity for the folks at Hey Jackass, now offering a "Double Dick Bundle."

FREEDOM WEEK WENT INTO OVERTIME.

This year, the DeKalb band concert with fireworks took place on Independence Day, and the Kirkland fireworks closed out their several-days-long festival Saturday evening.

The pyrotechnicians set up on the high school (Kirkland Hiawatha, is ferroequinology involved?) baseball field, and apparently there is a bit of programming presented at the adjacent football field.  There is also plenty of unobstructed viewing available from front yards, where many of the residents were launching their own pyrotechnics, and along the section roads, where I set up the camera, as well as in the adjacent city park that was home to a carnival and some county-fair-like sales tents.

The video features a "call attention" salvo that preceded playing of the National Anthem, another salvo during the show plus a few of the high shots.  Somebody managed to get one of those candle-in-a-lunch bag "UFO" gags airborne and that concludes the video.

THE ADMINISTRATIVE STATE WORKS SO WELL ON THE BLACKBOARD.

Technocracy has a number of intellectual sires, including Herbert Croly, Woodrow Wilson, and A. C. Pigou.  Paul (Foundations of Economic Analysis) Samuelson supposedly quipped that he didn't care who got elected as long as he got to write the economics textbooks.  The good news is that there are competing textbooks, such as Armen Alchian and William Allen's Universal Economics and its various precursors, including University Economics.

There is one final point I want to make about Universal Economics that underscores its value. Alchian and Allen never set up a “perfect” market as a standard against which real-world markets are judged and found wanting. They often employ thought experiments involving frictionless markets to ascertain why particular institutions or practices exist. But nowhere do you find the facile, efficiency-engineering approach that, even at introductory levels, permeates economics curricula. Economists are most definitely not plumbers according to Alchian and Allen.

That passage summarizes the structure of textbooks as envisioned by Professor Samuelson, and sets up what I describe as the Welfare Economics Paradigm.  Stated briefly, competitive markets allocate resources efficiently, markets that are not competitive produce allocative inefficiencies we can draw up on a blackboard, and if we can draw them up on a blackboard we can prescribe fixes for all of them.

I've devoted many a post to the ways the structure-conduct-performance approach to industrial economics and competition policy comes up short. In the Pigou-Samuelson world, the monopoly has the ability to raise prices above marginal costs and impose deadweight losses on consumers.  That companies might pursue monopoly by improving products and selling them more cheaply, and increase consumer welfare, that is, the approach to competition policy one Joseph Biden saw as so subversive he and Edward Kennedy had to keep Robert Bork off the Supreme Court, didn't make it into Foundations or into the applied welfare economics approach that serves as an operating manual for Democrats.

Suppose the demand and cost conditions were such that one firm could undersell any combination of two or more smaller firms and it made no sense to break it up?  Well, if you can draw the cost curves, you can surely draw up a regulatory commission and have those Disinterested Experts determine the fair prices and provide a reasonable return on investment.  The problem with that approach, as Leonard Weiss, no Austrian School type he, noted years ago is that businesses learn what their costs are by doing: no such market test exists for regulated monopolies.  About the best you can do is have the regulators make their rulings and let the courts sort it out.  In that tale is the origin of the administrative state, ultimately the field of administrative law, and the concept we know as Chevron deference.  We'll continue the tale, and the fallout from Chevron's recent reversal, below the jump.

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU ASK FOR.

You'd think five cuts in a fourteen second video challenging Donald Trump to a debate might tell you something about how with it Dementia Joe was.

Donald Trump lost two debates to me in 2020. Since then, he hasn’t shown up for a debate.

Now he’s acting like he wants to debate me again.

Well, make my day, pal. pic.twitter.com/AkPmvs2q4u

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) May 15, 2024

I've had a little practice editing videos, but if you see a jump cut it wasn't a presidential brain short circuiting or a president's train of thought jumping the tracks.  Oh, and pro tip for layout builders: have enough of the scenery roughed in that when a train leaves the tracks it doesn't go to the next level down or to the floor.

Then came the presidential debate, and Power Line's John Hinderaker found a truly inspired riposte to it.

Who did this pic.twitter.com/zP55AIUY5i

— 𝗡𝗶𝗼𝗵 𝗕𝗲𝗿𝗴 ♛ ✡︎ (@NiohBerg) June 28, 2024

Mr Hinderaker correctly notes, "To be fair, though, Miss Teen South Carolina was far more coherent, and certainly more lively and likable, than President Joe Biden."

It's not that we weren't warned, as Pajamas Media's Stephen Kruiser noted.  "As recently as last Wednesday, anyone who pointed out that he's a train wreck was accused of making it up."  An editorial comment from Pravda-on-the-Hudson caught by Heather MacDonald also didn't age well.  "People are going to see actual footage [during the debate] that contradicts that [cognitive decline narrative]."  Oops, indeed.

We did not run a Friday short takes on Freedom Week Friday.  That post likely would have had a prelude entirely on the debate fallout, and that prelude continues below the jump.

DEPART DOING SOMETHING YOU ENJOY.

Forty years ago, Detroit turned its downtown streets over to Formula motor racing, something that went on in Chicago over the weekend.  Among the human interest stories that came out back in the day was a conversation between a driver and a spectator, something along the lines of the spectator asking, "Isn't that dangerous?"  The driver responded, "Do you intend to die in bed?" following up with "How do you get into that thing each evening?"  The message being something along the lines of the post's title.

So it might have been with Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders.

The former Apollo 8 astronaut best known for taking the iconic “Earthrise” photo, who died last month while piloting a plane over the waters off Washington state, was doing a flyby near a friend's house when the fatal accident occurred, federal authorities said Tuesday.

William Anders, whose “Earthrise” photo showed the planet as a shadowed blue marble from space in 1968, had texted a friend to say he planned to do a flyby near her house on the western shore of Orcas Island, the National Transportation Safety Board said in its preliminary report.

The friend said Anders' flybys were not unusual, according to the NTSB. She said that he typically did two flybys, and while he sometimes rocked the airplane wings, "he never performed any kind of aerobatic maneuvers.”

Around 11:37 a.m. on June 7, the friend began to hear the “familiar” noise of his airplane, the NTSB said. Shortly after, she saw the older-model Beech A45 overhead traveling north along the shore in front of her house.

She briefly lost sight of the plane as it flew behind trees. When she saw it come back into view it was heading south and flying over the water. After it passed by, she saw the left wing drop and thought it was part of his routine. But the wing continued to drop as the plane plummeted toward the water below.

The early classes of astronauts were recruited from test pilots, and having the right stuff to take risks is what made "Earthrise" and the moon landings possible.  News accounts give the make of the plane as a Beech A45 or as a T-34 Mentor, once a test pilot, always a test pilot.

Rand "Transterrestrial Musings" Simberg, who knew General Anders, offers a retrospective.

He was the astronaut who took the iconic photo of the whole Earth from the Moon on his trip around it on Apollo 8, which was the actual moment when we won the space race. And it became the icon for the environmental movement, for good or ill.

I consider myself privileged to consider him a friend, and I’ll explain why anon, but for now, farewell, yet another hero of that era, who (unlike many of his Apollo cohorts) understood how important commercial space was.

Commercial space is still space, and the risks of exploring are still real.  R. I. P.