EXCESSIVELY EARNEST PEOPLE ARE TOXIC.

A woke wine woman called Phoebe Cohen engages in constructive self-criticism.  "I thought I was cutting all toxic people in my life. Turns out, I was being the toxic one."  That's no surprise to us.  Read on, and try not to laugh.

It was 2017, and I was at a kids' pool party my friend had put together for her son. All the presents had been opened, and now the kids were running around the backyard in their bathing suits.

Pool noodle fights were everywhere.

I was chatting with the other moms. My friend walked over to me, rubbing her forehead. "Phoebe, you need to take your son home. He's making too much noise."

I was a little surprised. "Um, OK," I said as I walked over to my son and told him to grab his towel. My friend continued to avoid eye contact as we walked out of her backyard.

There's something abrupt about that encounter, suggesting simmering tensions preceding this pool party.

I was acutely aware that my son was the only child with autism at the party. I know that his sudden hand-flapping movements and echoing language can be disconcerting to people. It hurt my heart.

As we walked past the "Hate has no home here" sign in my friend's front yard and headed toward the car, I saw how sad my son was. I felt a surge of rage. My friend was now blocked. BLOCKED! On all the damn platforms.

As soon as we arrived home, I logged into Facebook and blocked my friend. Our 10-year friendship was now finished. I instantly felt relief. I was proud of myself at that moment. I was getting rid of toxic people in my life.

We'll go from the ridiculous to the thought-provoking.  First, somebody with one of those virtue-signal signs who has been a friend for ten years has some sort of blind spot with respect to an autistic kid?  There has to be something else at work, something off in that friendship, something that might have been nagging at the pool's owner.  Second, there's an opportunity for social science here, although it's going to require a lot of delicacy to frame the grant proposals, let alone the technical papers, tactfully.  I have enough F.U. money to not have to bother, so here it is, blunt.  Do kids pick up those behaviors from their parents?  Not necessarily the hand-flapping and the repetitions, but is there something in the affect of Excessively Earnest People that makes their kids respond in unusual ways?

THE SOPHOMORES IN THE PEWS.

Dear reader, let me remind you.  "Democrat cliches are emotional appeals calculated to move sophomores, and their witticisms are at about the same level."  Just dip into Dementia Joe's social media posts, and visualize yourself hanging out at a dorm-room bull session.

REALITY CALLS AT TIMES SQUARE.

A long story in New York's Times acknowledges it.  "How the Border Crisis Shattered Biden’s Immigration Hopes."  The opening paragraphs, spin notwithstanding, acknowledge that the current president unilaterally gutted border enforcement.

On President Biden’s first day in office, he paused nearly all deportations. He vowed to end the harsh practices of the Trump administration, show compassion toward those wishing to come to the United States and secure the southern border.

For Mr. Biden, it was a matter of principle. He wanted to show the world that the United States was a humane nation, while also demonstrating to his fellow citizens that government could work again.

He achieved neither of those outcomes.

[T]hose early promises have largely been set aside as chaos engulfs the border and imperils Mr. Biden’s re-election hopes. The number of people crossing into the United States has reached record levels, more than double than in the Trump years. The asylum system is still all but broken.

On Friday, in a dramatic turnaround from those early days, the president implored Congress to grant him the power to shut down the border so he could contain one of the largest surges of uncontrolled immigration in American history.

That power comes bundled with money for optional wars.  Republican populists want no part of the nation building in Ukraine.  Democrat race hustlers want no part of the counterterrorism in Israel.  The China Lobby wants no part of in-kind assistance to Taiwan.

THE EMBOURGEOISEMENT OF THE MONARCHY.

With both King Charles and Princess Catherine in hospital or recuperating, there are opportunities for people further from the line of succession to take a turn on the reception line, or the ribbon-cutting, or recognising the charitable good works.

Two of the "blood-born princesses" (meaning of the lineage of Elizabeth and Philip) have opted out.  According to credentialed gossip columnist Victoria Abiter, they have discovered opportunity costs.  “Beatrice and Eugenie are happy to support the family behind the scenes. But I think each enjoys the life they’re able to live without the added burden of a full schedule of royal engagements.”

No, not because they've landed lucrative name, image, and likeness contracts with milliners.

Getty Images photograph retrieved from E!

Those two (left and upper right) had a knack for stealing the show at those royal events our correspondents are so fond of gushing over with those toppers.  They've also got a knack for going into trade.  "Beatrice reportedly works as Vice President of Partnerships and Strategy at Afiniti, a technology company, while Eugenie works as an associate director for an art gallery named Hauser & Wirth. Along with that, they’re living their best lives with their spouses and children."

A STOPPED CLOCK IS ALMOST ALWAYS WRONG.

Once upon a time, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists was, well, a publication written by atomic scientists.  They understood that in nuclear fission they had released great destructive power, as well as, if properly managed, an energy source of great potential.  To call attention to the consequences of misusing the destructive power, in 1947 their bulletin introduced the notorious Doomsday Clock.  "The scientists created the clock in 1947 using the imagery of apocalypse (midnight) and the contemporary idiom of nuclear explosion (countdown to zero), to convey threats to humanity and the Earth."  After the Soviet Union closed up shop, the people who set the clock turned it back to a quarter before midnight.  (And the self-styled progressives who always made "turning the clock back" into a pejorative wet themselves, but I digress.)  The problem, though, with setting the clock in such a way as to suggest the Threat Level is Way Down, is that people will go about their lives without being afraid, and that way lies organizational extinction.  Thus, in the same way that the Southern Poverty Law Center no longer has anything to do with Southern Poverty, and the March of Dimes shifted focus from a polio vaccine to prenatal health generally, the people who set the clock set their sights on new ways to frighten people and keep the fundraising going.

THE PATH TO MILWAUKEE GOES THROUGH SPARTANBURG.

The Republican presidential competition is down to two hopefuls, former president Donald Trump, and former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley.  The next state primary will be in South Carolina, and voters are considering their options.

On paper, South Carolina offers the broad Republican coalition Haley has sought. It has a larger presidential primary electorate than other early nominating states; turnout was 740,000 in 2016 — almost 200,000 more than Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada combined. South Carolina has a large presence of every Republican faction: evangelicals and social conservatives; anti-tax Tea Party activists; national security hawks; business-minded traditionalists.

It's going to be a hard sell all the same.

“She has been the most articulate candidate in this campaign,” Ralph Carter, a Southern Baptist pastor in Greer, said before a rally outside Greenville.

Carter backed Trump in 2016 and 2020. He said he knew “both times” that Trump did not reflect his personal values, but Carter said he wanted a Republican administration. The Jan. 6 insurrection, he said, was a breaking point. Carter declined to speculate what he would do this November if Trump is nominated again; he said Haley offers Republicans the obvious solution to avoid that choice.

Mr Trump has a large, loyal base, many of whom support him because they perceive his legal troubles as more machinations by the Permanent Bipartisan Establishment to drive him out of national politics and deter anyone else with similar views from even trying.  That's not how to assemble a winning coalition.

SHOULDN'T FORECAST ERRORS BE POSITIVE OR NEGATIVE?

Extrapolation models built to push policies, whether with respect to climate or to contagion, are useless.  How much more evidence must John Hinderaker offer before advocates of extrapolation models shut up?

It should not need to be said that a model is not evidence of anything. A model is a hypothesis. Like any scientific hypothesis, it is confirmed or refuted by observation. A model that is refuted by observation is worthless. And yet, these models, which have repeatedly been shown to be wrong, are the basis for enormously destructive policies that have been adopted across much of the western world.

Someone pointed out with respect to these data–I would credit him, but I can’t now find the reference–that if it were simply a matter of mathematical errors or inconsistencies, one would expect some models to err on the “hot side” and others on the “cold side” of actual observations. But that isn’t the case: all of the models run hot. That suggest that global warming alarmism is a political, not a scientific, movement.

It is, because pushing frightening things, whether it's body odor, a lack of sex appeal, or The End of The World As We Know It, pays off, until it doesn't.  Perhaps after fifty to sixty years of this sort of doomsaying, while the Worst Case Scenarios of a quarter century ago have not transpired, enough of us have accumulated sufficient evidence to undermine the doomsayers with mockery.

THE FEDERAL HIGHWAY ADMINISTRATION MIGHT OBJECT.

The Illinois State Police have a new suggestion for the Midwest's worst drivers.  “Road Rage. Don’t Engage.”

The ISP’s campaign will include educating the public on the signs of road rage and sharing tips on how to prevent a situation. Additionally, promotional materials will appear on billboards and radio ads and are encouraged to be posted on local departments’ social media.

One graphic from the promotional kit shows a handgun in a driver’s passenger seat with the caption, “Road rage is more dangerous than you think.”

The tagline appears tailor-made for those overhead message signs on the Interstates. Good thing, I suppose, that the Federal guidelines against witticisms on those signs is advisory only.

MERDE, DAS IST EIN HAUFEN MIST!

From the earliest days of Cold Spring Shops, we have called attention to the dubious political economy of farm subsidies.  "It is amusing to hear U.S. trade officials complaining about the dumping behavior of other countries whilst tolerating the export subsidies for grains, sugar, cotton, and tobacco (yes.) I am still waiting for the opportunity to buy a Lands' End button-down made in Pakistan, Afghanistan, or Iraq from cotton grown in one of those countries, but my government won't let me."  That post also called attention to the sponsored research hustle.  (There is a line, somewhere, between externally funded pure research and externally funded advocacy.)  Twenty years on and the follies are still with us.

Today, though, let us focus on the European farmers' protests, which have spread (literally, manure!) beyond Germany.

WHAT WAS I SAYING ABOUT THOSE OVERSIZED BUNDLES?

Joe "Sanity Clause" Klein (is he the Primary Colors guy of years ago?) notes,  "Trump exhilarates his Republican base. Biden exasperates his Democrats."  He doesn't even have to mention the open borders or the neglect of East Palestine or the casual insulting of voters.

REALITY IS SOCIALLY CONSERVATIVE.

The Conservative Woman gives a guy, Dr Campbell Campbell-Jack, a forum for "Sexual freedom and the collapse of civilisation" to cite nearly century-old research.

Step forward J D Unwin, an ethnologist and social anthropologist at Cambridge and Oxford Universities, who a century ago painstakingly studied 80 primitive tribes and six known civilisations through 5,000 years of history. Unwin described his 600+ page book Sex and Culture as a ‘summary’ of his decades of research; a full disclosure would require seven volumes.

Although his study was published nearly 90 years ago, in 1934, it is still relevant. Robert P George of Princeton, one of conservative Christianity’s leading intellectuals, uses Unwin in his teaching and argues that no one since has matched him in the thoroughness of his study of civilisations. Unwin had no axe to grind; he was not a believer and his work reads like that of a scientific rationalist who has nothing positive to say about Christianity.

Unwin studied the art, literature, politics, science, architecture, engineering and other cultural activities as well as the social structures of the 86 societies. He was looking for the effect they had on the social energy, stability and cohesion of the group, as well as its ability to compete with and defend itself against rival civilisations. He concluded that there is a positive correlation between the level of cultural achievement and survivability of a society and the level of sexual restraint expected within that society.

When a society practised sexual restraint it flourished and all aspects of cultural life prospered. However, as societies develop and become prosperous they become increasingly liberal with regard to sexual morality and as a result they lose cohesion, impetus and purpose. This accelerates social entropy and the reduction of its creative energy. Unwin concludes, ‘Any human society is free to choose either to display great energy or to enjoy sexual freedom; the evidence is that it cannot do both for more than one generation.’

Professor Unwin might have used "sexual restraint" as a proxy for "bourgeois norms" more generally, the phenomenon he focuses on is precisely what Kipling's Gods of the Copybook Headings warned of, and he compiled that research before contraceptive medicines emerged.

THE LAND BRIDGES GET MORE OF A WORKOUT.

It's not enough that Iranian proxies and African pirates are scaring shippers away from Suez, which makes for intermodal business on Eurasian railways.  Now, the rains aren't coming in Central America, and transloading in Panama has picked up.

In an advisory to its customers, shipping giant Maersk said it will use trains to avoid the drought-plagued Panama Canal for some of its container traffic.

The Canal Authority recently reduced the number and weight of vessels that can pass through the canal based on current and projected water levels in Gatun Lake, the rainfall-fed principal reservoir that floats ships through the canal’s lock system, Maersk said. That means some containers will be transported across the isthmus by the Panama Canal Railway.

The railroad has long had that capability, in order to cater to container ships too large to transit the canal.  The canal has since been widened, and although the new locks conserve water relative to the original, still operating locks, a transit still uses a lot of water.  David McCullough describes the water requirements for one transit of the original, some 52 million gallons of water, as "a day's water use for a major city."  All that fresh water goes to the oceans.

There were good reasons to build the canal in the form it took.  Because of differences in tides at sea level, and the presence of a backbone ridge defining a continental divide, a sea-level canal was impracticable, and as laid out, the canal replaced the Rio Grande from the Pacific Ocean at Panama City to the continental divide, with the Gaillard Cut at the ridge.  The builders dammed the Chagres River to create Gatun Lake, and even that proved inadequate to store water, with an additional reservoir, Madden Lake, completed in 1935.  As the main channel transits Gatun Lake, there are two challenges to canal operation: maintaining that pressure head for the locks, and keeping the channel deep enough for those larger ships.

Look for container traffic diversion to the other land bridges, including the North American railroads serving Mexico, the States, and Canada.

THE POLITICAL BUNDLES ARE TOO DARNED BIG.

What better way to demonstrate that than to bundle two political books from authors with differing perspectives as Book Reviews N^o. 2 and N^o. 3?

There are plenty of books who have argued that one of the major parties is in the position of developing a lasting presidential, and perhaps governing, majority.  There was Kevin Phillips's The Emerging Republican Majority, years ago, and he, after events overtook his analysis, filled the bookstores with volumes explaining why the correlation of forces was not favorable.  Never mind, as late as 2004, there were Republican court intellectuals suggesting that a coalition of compassionate conservatives and security moms could coalesce as a majority.  Oops.

Democratic strategists John Judis and Ruy Teixeira offered a nod to Mr Phillips with their The Emerging Democratic Majority, only when that failed to materialize they had the opportunity to wrote Where Have All the Democrats Gone? (The Soul of the Party in the Age of Extremes), and that pretty well suggests where their argument will go.  Patrick Ruffini, who argues with but mostly votes for Republicans covered similar ground in Party of the People: Inside the Multiracial Populist Coalition Remaking the GOP.  (Right now, dear reader, Amazon is offering a bundle including these two books, and the authors have filed mutually complimentary reviews!)

The fault lines within the major parties have been visible for a long time, perhaps beginning when the industrialized countries devastated after the War started to recover, while the United States looked strong enough to do anything (Interstate highways!  Voyage to the Moon!  Win in Vietnam!  Abolish poverty!), and it was bye, bye, Ms American Pie, and she took the Victory Dividend with her.

Welcome to the reality check.  "I'm a big fan of separation of powers, in part because I'm not persuaded elections, no matter what rules determine the winners, are useful for revelation of preferences, particularly among large policy bundles being voted on by large electorates."

EMBRACING EXCELLENCE.

Milwaukee sports pundit Brandon Sneide hails the development of a winning culture in Green Bay.

A season, that left many filled with joy, excitement, and surprise, ended in such an abrupt way, that many fans, me included, felt sad, angry, and disappointed.

There’s no doubt, that 2023 was an odd year – many ups, downs, twists, and turns.

Expectations were set low, and, let’s be honest, until Thanksgiving, this team looked dead in the water, until they clearly began to swim again.

Fast forward to this week, and the now sad, angry, and disappointment is met with higher expectations, and on Wednesday, head coach Matt Lafleur made sure to make a statement.

Goodbye, defensive coordinator Joe Barry.

Goodbye strength and conditioning coach, Chris Gizzi, and hello kicking competition already with the signing of a new kicker less than a week after rookie Anders Carlson missed a key try in the team’s three-point defeat.

Many have said LaFleur has always been unable to make the big decisions, that he’s been unable to make bold moves after letdown after letdown, but these are issues that have plagued his teams, and instead of preaching for “continuity,” instead of standing pat, he decided to do something about it and put his foot down to let his young team he means business going forward.

It may seem like an easy choice, but Barry was still under contract with the organization. Players seemed to want to play for “JB”, but LaFleur saw the outcome on the field, he knew it was under-performing, and he decided to make a move knowing this team could be something special in the years to come.

The message is simple – You don’t perform, you don’t belong here. It’s a strong message to the league’s youngest team.

Yes, and it's familiar.  Here is Vince Lombardi, during training camp in July of 1967, as chronicled by guard Jerry Kramer in Instant Replay. "Take an education, but don't dwell on it.  Don't let it affect your play.  You will drop passes.  You will make mistakes.  But not very many if you want to play for the Green Bay Packers."

THE OPERATION TITLE IS INAUSPICIOUS.

Illinois National Guard troops are being called up to ship out to the Middle East in the wake of that drone attack on a base in Jordan that killed three of their comrades from Georgia.

In a press release Monday, the Defense Department said Sgt. William Jerome Rivers, 46, of Carrollton, Georgia; Spc. Kennedy Ladon Sanders, 24, of Waycross, Georgia and Spc. Breonna Alexsondria Moffett, 23, of Savannah, Georgia, died Jan. 28, 2024, in Jordan. The attack occurred when "a one-way unmanned aerial system (OWUAS) impacted their container housing units," the Pentagon said.

The operation is SPARTAN SHIELD.  Spartan mothers supposedly advised their sons, "Come back with your shield or on it."  With the current crew advising National Command Authority, there are likely to be more of our neighbors coming back on their shields.  "Biden weighs high-stakes response to Iran after US troops killed in Jordan."

“We do not seek another war. We do not seek to escalate. But we will absolutely do what is required to protect ourselves … and to respond appropriately to these attacks,” national security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters Monday.

Biden has pledged to respond to the latest attacks in a “time and manner of our choosing.”

The president met Monday with members of his national security team, including national security adviser Jake Sullivan and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who returned to the Pentagon for the first time since undergoing surgery for prostate cancer.

Kirby emphasized that the U.S. is not looking for a war with Iran, but when asked if Biden is considering a strike inside the country, he would not say whether it was on the table.

“This attack over the weekend was escalatory, make no mistake about it. And it requires a response, make no mistake about that,” he said. “I will not get ahead of the president’s decisionmaking.”

American troops have come under fire from Iranian-backed groups more than 160 times since late October.

The White House has in recent weeks launched precision strikes targeting Iranian-backed militia targets and struck back against the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen after the rebel group targeted commercial shipping in the Red Sea.

But the death of U.S. troops will increase the stakes for Biden, particularly among Republican defense hawks in Congress who are already calling for retaliation, including inside Iran.

Dither, dither, dither.  "Time and manner of our choosing" is classic saber-rattling.  Who was it said "rattling a saber makes noise, drawing it doesn't have to."

YOU'LL GET BETTER ROADS WHEN YOU GET BETTER DRIVERS.

The relatively new mayor of Milwaukee seeks citizen participation to reduce the pedestrian carnage.  "Milwaukee wants you to help create a plan to eliminate traffic deaths."  I'm being snarky because the call for participation starts in the wrong place.

Jessica Wineberg was hired to lead that effort in the summer of 2023. Her first task is developing a Vision Zero Action Plan. Wineberg says perhaps the highest hurdle will be changing behaviors.

"Hopefully we can have some sort of cultural change where following the speed limit and yielding to pedestrians becomes the norm again," she said, reflecting on the task ahead. "And to do that we'll have to make a lot of policy changes and put a lot of time and effort in. But I just hope everyone knows — by you, yourself driving the speed limit and not being distracted and yielding to pedestrians — you are part of changing what's normal and what's acceptable."

It's true that there's carnage like a Waukesha Christmas parade massacre every summer weekend in town.  And look who turns up in that post, and what she says.

Note, above, that quick release of bad drivers doesn't strike the locals as a blow for social justice.  Dive deeper into those statistics, dear reader, and you might find senior citizen pedestrians, or moms crossing the street with their kids on a walk light, or prime-age adults who happened to be in the wrong place when a speeding motorist disregarded the signals.  "Jessica Wineberg, who is Deputy Director of the Wisconsin Bike Fed and founder of MilWALKee Walks, says one of the biggest issues is getting drivers to yield to pedestrians. 'Often, pedestrians are hit in crosswalks following traffic lights,' said Wineberg. 'It’s very rare the pedestrian made the critical error.'" That is, there might be more at work than the wrong visual cues the stroad design gives drivers.  Although the Urban Milwaukee post makes all the proper nods to limited-access highway design in thickly settled areas, some of the crash investigations in Milwaukee suggest there are reckless drivers even where the visual cues are missing.

That's right, I called attention to the stroad environment in the neighborhoods where the carnage continues.  Search that report in vain for any evidence that the visual cues matter.

"We do know overall that crashes in the city, especially those with deadly or serious outcomes, really impact certain neighborhoods the most," said Wineberg. "So we are focusing our outreach efforts in those neighborhoods. That's part of why our meetings are where they are because those are communities that really feel the burden of this issue and we want to hear their voices."

I'm hoping the residents will have some say in how the traffic is tamed.  I also hope someone will bring up the importance of traffic taming measures, which might have more success in changing behavior than efforts to change the culture.

FRIDAY short TAKES.

That's sports.  "Putting yourself in position only counts for so much."  What is the sour mood of Bear fans, Aaron?  "Do you know what’s not quite as upbeat and peppy as a camera shot of Taylor Swift dancing and singing in a suite during a playoff game?"  A “rebuilding” year turned into a postseason run.  This team is built to last.  This still seems like the beginning of something significant.

Then there's the Jarrett regency.  "Mayorkas’ superpower is the sin of omission. In this he is rather like an Ottoman eunuch hatched by Barack Obama."  Buckle in.  "The haughtiness of Washington grandees is just like that of the French nobles before the Revolution.  I hope Americans can see this, can’t they?"

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

PREACH PEACE IN YOUR OWN CONGREGATION FIRST?

Common Dreams contributor Afsheen Shamsi asks, "What Will It Take To Stop Hatred Towards Muslims?"  She continues, "Muslims are loving, peaceful people. Our holy book, the Quran, explicitly states that taking a life is the same as killing all of humanity, and saving a life is the same as saving all of humanity."

MEDIOCRITY IS A CHOICE.

Northern Star sports editor Lucas Didier wants more from the Lady Huskies.  "NIU women’s basketball has become the face of mediocrity."  There's not a lot else going on right in Northern Illinois intercollegiate athletics these days, and the sometimes promising basketballers ... aren't.  "The Huskies have capitalized on the cushy games in their schedule, going 8-2 against teams with losing records, but they are now 1-7 against teams who are currently .500 or better, with their win over Detroit Mercy standing alone in the category."

AVOIDING GOOD HOPE AND THE ROARING FORTIES.

The Suez Canal provided a water alternative to the very challenging Europe to India or China course envisioned in that title.  There are rail options now, in some instances paralleling the old Silk Road.