Category Archives: Economics

Animal’s Hump Day News

Happy Hump Day!

Special programming note!  Tonight I’ll be live-blogging the first GOP Presidential primary debate with some of my colleagues over at RedState, from 9PM to 11PM EDT (5PM to 7PM here in the Great Land).  Join us over there for the best blow-by-blow coverage!

Now then…

On To the Links!

Presented without comment:

Dismantle The Inflation Reduction Act!  (We should be so lucky.)

No shit, Sherlock.

Gee, I wonder why?

I love a happy ending.

Texas Tells the American Library Association to Go Pound Sand

It’s time to eat!

Animal agriculture is here to stay.

Trump’s Covid Failures

I.  Will.  Not.  Comply.

‘Bidenomics’ Means Americans Can’t Pay Their Bills

Americans Aren’t Buying ‘Bidenomics’

I love a happy ending.

Get the eff out of Belarus!

Maui Wildfire Response Sure Looks Like Government Failure

China’s Economy Is Sick and Could Infect the U.S.

My RedState Stuff:

The Changing Face of Conservatism

Should We Ban Electric Vehicles?

It’s Time for the GOP to Punch Back

Mike Pence Looks Forward to GOP Debates

Mary Peltola’s Fishing Failure

Is the FTC Aiming to Take out Amazon?

Ford CEO Faces Hard Sell on EV Road Trip

IRS Agent Killed in Shooting Range Accident

The Great College Scam

What San Diego Is Doing About Homeless Encampments Offers Us Lessons

Tennessee Couple Missing in Alaska for More Than a Week Found Safe

Sunday Gun Day IV – What Happened to the 10- and 16-Gauge Shotguns?

They Need Us. We Don’t Need Them.

14 American Cities Aim to Ban Meat, Dairy, Private Cars by 2030

Her Own Worst Enemy: Kamala Harris and 2024

The Rise of the Passport Bro

U.S. Embassy in Belarus Advises Americans to Depart Immediately

Bill Maher: Vivek Ramaswamy Is ‘Such a Likeable Guy’ Who Could ‘Really Could Go Far’

California Contemplates Mandating Heat Pumps

Alaska Governor Dunleavy Endorses Donald Trump for President

This Week’s Idiots:

Salon’s Brian Karem is an idiot.

Vox’s Rebecca Leber is an idiot.

MSNBC’s Jessica Levinson is an idiot.

The Nation’s Joan Walsh is an idiot.

The Nation’s Jeet Heer (Repeat Offender Alert) is an idiot.

Salon’s Heather Parton is an idiot.

Salon’s Amanda Marcotte (Repeat Offender Alert) is an idiot.  And again; the second one is stupid even for Amanda Marcotte, a serial idiot.

Robert Reich (Repeat Offender Alert) remains a sawed-off runt, and an idiot.

MSNBC’s Hayes Brown (Repeat Offender Alert) is an idiot.

This Week’s Cultural Edification:

I’m not sure what to say about this song, except that the song got a lot of radio play back in the mid-Eighties, and MTV, back when they were actually about music, played the video a fair bit.  OMC was, as I recall, a one-hit wonder, but How Bizarre at least was catchy.  Here it is, then – enjoy.

Rule Five Windmills Friday

The concomitant stupidity of “wind power” on grid-scale just keeps getting more and more obvious to anyone that’s paying attention.  Here Issues & Insights points out some of the more obvious issues:

There are a number of problems with wind farms:

  • They eat up far more land than any of the conventional forms of energy production, as well as nuclear. It takes a 6.7 million acre wind farm to produce the same amount of power that a nuclear plant could on 230,000 acres and a natural gas plant will on 150,000 acres. Bryce pointed out in a paper he wrote for the Center of the American Experiment that it would take the land equal to two entire Californias “to meet America’s current electricity needs with wind energy.”
  • Due to rising costs and logistical headaches, “developers and would-be buyers of wind power are scrapping contracts, putting off projects and postponing investment decisions,” the Wall Street Journal reports. It’s “an industry in crisis.”
  • Wind turbines, writes energy consultant Ronald Stein, “are now becoming an eyesore, a hazard, and a significant environmental threat” in a policy piece that asks if wind farms generate more waste than they do electricity.
  • Wind farms have to be built in open spaces where power isn’t needed. Moving the electricity to where it’s eventually used destroys the landscape in between.
  • In Scotland, 16 million trees, each one of them with their names surely written on every environmentalists’ hearts, have been felled to open ground on which to build wind farms.
  • The late physicist David MacKay, who said “you know I love wind turbines,” believed that building wind farms is “actually a waste of money.”
  • Even the government is an obstacle. Reason reported not quite a year ago that “construction on what could be a massive offshore wind farm in Massachusetts has been held up for years due to” federal reviews.

Now, author and reformer Michael Shellenberger is documenting how off-shore wind farms are killing whales.  Have a look:

Holy crap!

If nothing else turned the public off of these massive wind-turbine farms – aside from the expense (oh, and all the materials that can only be sourced from fossil fuels) and the difficulty in disposing of the turbine blades when their useful lives are up, is the massive footprint these things require to develop power on a scale that’s even remotely adequate for the power grid.

This isn’t just a boondoggle.  It is fraud on a massive scale.  Look at that first bullet point:  “It takes a 6.7 million acre wind farm to produce the same amount of power that a nuclear plant could on 230,000 acres and a natural gas plant will on 150,000 acres.”

But there’s hope:

(Energy author Robert) Bryce noted last week that over the last 10 days in the U.S., “local governments in Illinois, Ohio, and Iowa have rejected or restricted wind and solar projects.” According to his database, that makes 574 rejections or restrictions of ​​solar and wind projects in less than a decade. Most of them, 407, have been wind projects.

Bryce predicted the growth of resistance four years ago when he wrote in The Hill that protests in Hawaii then were “a harbinger of more clashes to come if governments attempt to install the colossal quantities of wind turbines and solar panels that would be needed to fuel the global economy.”

Let’s hope this trend continues.  We live in a time where the nation is trillions in debt, our fiscal rating keeps slipping, Congresscritters of both parties have abandoned even the pretense of fiscal restraint, and yet the Imperial and state governments keep subsidizing and promoting this horseshit.

Enough is enough.  Let’s hope the resistance to this keeps on growing.  If private businesses or homeowners want to try wind and/or solar on their own property, fine; they are welcome to do so at their own cost, then we’ll see if they can prove efficiency or even capability in the market place.  There are in fact a few people wop know here in the Great Land who are off-grid and depend on solar (and Diesel generators) for power.  That’s fine – their choice, their responsibility.

But it’s pretty well established now that grid-scale wind power isn’t viable.

Animal’s Daily Stupid Judges News

It’s a bit surprising to see this kind of stupidity coming out of Montana, but here we are.

District Court Judge Kathy Seeley ruled in favor of several young plaintiffs – ranging in age from 5 to 22 – saying they “have a fundamental constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment, which includes climate as part of the environmental-support system.”

As proof of the harm the plaintiffs are suffering, the order has a list of horribles that includes:

  • “Olivia expressed despair due to climate change.”
  • “Badge is anxious when he thinks about the future that he, and his potential children, will inherit.”
  • “Grace … is anxious about climate change.”
  • “Mica gets frustrated when he is required to stay indoors during the summer because of wildfire smoke.”

I’ve been watching political issues since the late Seventies and writing about them for over twenty years, and this is one of the most moronic things I’ve read coming out of our legal system in… well…  ever.  First, where in the Constitution is this “fundamental constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment”?  How do we define and quantify “clean and healthful”?

And these kids!  Where the hell do kids like this come from – especially in furshlugginer Montana?  Get these soft-shelled young skulls full of mush out on a cattle ranch, feeding the stock in a Montana January, and they’ll be really screaming for some global warming.

So they’re “anxious”, “frustrated” and “in despair.”  So what?  Cowboy the fuck up, you spoiled little invertebrates.  And Judge Seeley? She should be disbarred for terminal stupidity, and have a bucket of tar and a bag of feathers awaiting her outside the courthouse along with a rail to run her out of town on.

I swear. I’ve seen and written about some stupid shit before, but this takes the cake.

Animal’s Hump Day News

Happy Hump Day!

In Alaska news: We have a Red-Backed Vole living under our workshop building.  I’ve seen her a couple of times, making the scurrying crossing from the workshop to glean seeds from under the bird feeder at the front of our office building.  I know it’s a “she” because the other day she had her two little bitty baby voles with her.

Red-Backed Vole

Voles are basically short-tailed mice.  Mice (the clean outdoor kind, not the nasty invading-your-house kind) are generally pretty good neighbors.  They are clean, they feed mostly on seeds but will snack on bugs if the opportunity permits.  And mice in general are Nature’s Nachos – everything eats them.  Our little local Cooper’s Hawk prefers birds but will pick up a mouse if it can; and our resident Least Weasel, Herman the Ermine, prefers mice above all things.  But in spite of that, there are still mice around.  They’re great survivors.

Now then…

On To the Links!

They forgot “work spouse.”

A possible new human ancestor.

Bank Records Show $20 Million to Biden-Tied Businesses

Biden Needs To Stop Lying to Gold Star Families

Stossel: The ‘Consensus’ on Climate Change Is ‘Manufactured’

Garland’s Latest Dirty Trick To Protect ‘Big Guy’

We All Pay The Price For Uncle Sam’s Bad Credit

Millions Flowed to Biden Family From China

It’s working fine for me.

Fuck ranked-choice voting.

No shit, Sherlock.

I’m coming around to the idea of shooting looters.

Good and hard.

I don’t know who “50 Cent” is, but he’s right.

My RedState Stuff:

Richard Nixon – A Tragedy in Five Acts

BREAKING: Multiple FBI Field Offices Targeting Catholics as Domestic Terrorists

Newsom vs. DeSantis Debate Prep: The Smart Move for Gavin Newsom Is to Bow Out

Fifth Circuit Strikes Down Law Forbidding Gun Ownership by Drug Users

Civil Forfeiture Is Legalized Theft

Sen. Joe Manchin Reportedly ‘Thinking Seriously’ About Dropping out of Democrat Party

BREAKING: Illinois Supreme Court Upholds Semi-Auto Gun Ban

Environmentalists, Misanthropy, and Hypocrisy

Judge Rules Some California Students Can Sue State Over Learning During School Lockdowns

Pence, Other GOP Candidates Split on Abortion Law Over Federal Vs. State

US Government Credit Is Sinking, But Spending Is Still Running Wild

Sunday Gun Day III – Great Guns for Small Game

I’m Not Saying It’s Aliens, But in 2027 It Will Be Aliens

Social Security Reform is Too Little, Too Late

Fake Meat Fails

Doggone!

In Energy Production, Coal Is Still King

The Best States to Live In, 2023 – Really?

This Week’s Idiots:

Salon’s Olivia Luppino is an idiot.

MSNBC’s Max Burns is an idiot.

The New Republic’s Michael Tomasky is an idiot.

Vox’s Darren Grant is an idiot.

The Nation’s Amy Littlefield is an idiot.

Paul Krugman (Repeat Offender Alert) is still a cheap partisan hack, and an idiot.

This Week’s Cultural Edification:

I’m not a fan of modern heavy metal music.  I find it too formulaic, it all seems to sound the same, feature the same few guitar riffs, and all the lead singers sound the same, alternating between grunts and squalls like a cat whose tail was caught in a door.

But when my son-in-law, who is a big metal fan, sent me a link to a video by some group called the Texas Hippie Coalition and their song Pissed Off And Mad About It, I couldn’t help but be reminded of my current attitudes towards the Imperial government and the state of our country.  Here, let me know what you think.

Rule Five Failing Bidenomics Friday

President Biden(‘s handlers) have been going on a lot lately about the supposed successes of what they are calling “Bidenomics.”  The trouble is that they are completely full of shit.  The Biden(‘s handlers) economic plan is an utter failure.

“Trickle-down economics has never worked.”

That’s what President Joe Biden says any time he’s talking about economic policy. Assuming our Octogenarian-in-Chief knows what he’s talking about, he’s guilty of what psychiatrists call projection.

Because it’s Bidenomics that has failed everywhere it’s been tried. At home. Abroad. Throughout history. And right now in states across the U.S.

Earlier this week in our What We’re Reading column, we linked to a multitude of stories that had been published detailing how Biden’s approach to economic policy — high taxes, heavy regulation, attacks on the rich and businesses, coddling criminals, and Biden-style graft and corruption — is ruining cities and states across the country (‘Blue-State’ Model Gets An ‘F’).

For years we have been documenting how Red states — conservative states that follow the pro-growth policies Biden derides as “trickle down” — have vastly outperformed Blue states. They suffered less during COVID because they didn’t embrace the left’s lockdown mania. They recovered faster because they rejected Biden’s get-paid-for-not-working policies.

Joe Biden has been a serial liar throughout his political career (not that he’s ever had any other career; like all too many Imperial City types, the guy’s never done an honest day’s work in his life) but this is particularly egregious, as too many ordinary folks are suffering under the consummate stupidity of leftist economic policies.  But there are bright spots.

For years we have been documenting how Red states — conservative states that follow the pro-growth policies Biden derides as “trickle down” — have vastly outperformed Blue states. They suffered less during COVID because they didn’t embrace the left’s lockdown mania. They recovered faster because they rejected Biden’s get-paid-for-not-working policies.

(See, for example, Say, Looks Like That Supply-Side Stuff Works After All, The Great Divorce? 2.6 Million Fled Counties That Voted For Biden, and The Results Are In: Red States Won The COVID Fight, Hands Down.)

But wait!  There’s more!

Biden’s precious middle class is also doing worse in Bidenomics states.

The Boston Herald noted last week how wages grew by just 2.6% in New York and 2.9% in California — which have gone full Bidenomics — but were up 9.1% in Florida and 7.7% in Texas. What’s more, “Florida and Texas both outperformed California and New York in manufacturing, finance, information, retail, and professional services.”

Of course, if you want evidence of the failure of Bidenomics, you only have to look at what it’s produced since Biden came into office. Falling wages. Sky high inflation. Financial stress. Our I&I/TIPP poll finds that most Americans agree that Bidenomics is not working.

And if you want evidence of the success of “trickle-down” economics, look at the Reagan boom, or the pre-COVID Trump boom. Or look internationally, where you find a direct relationship between low taxes and less regulation and other indicators of economic freedom — which all get lumped into the “trickle down” epithet — and general prosperity.

Biden apparently hopes that Bidenomics will be his salvation come next November. We hope it takes him down before it takes the entire nation down.

We can hope it takes down the Biden(‘s handlers) Administration and a whole passel of Congressional Democrats as well, but it remains to be seen whether the votes of the economic literates will outweigh the votes of those seeking Free Shit.  But the other guys, the Republicans, need to offer something as well, instead of just slamming the Dems.  Pw0ning the libz is fun, but you have to be the alternative, not just the attack dog.

What should that alternative be?  Liberty, of course.  Promise deregulation.  Promise lower tax rates.  Promise smaller government.  Promise that people will be able to keep more of what they earned.  Promise to make it harder for looters and moochers to coast in neutral.  And, while you’re at it, talk about bringing order back to our major cities, and maybe eliminating some extra-Constitutional Imperial agencies.

Then deliver.  Talk is cheap.  Action is priceless.

Animal’s Hump Day News

Happy Hump Day!

I’m going to do something I haven’t yet done, and that’s feature one of my own RedState pieces here:  2 US Navy Sailors Arrested for Selling Intel to China (also linked in my RedState section below). Give it a quick read.  I’ll wait right here.

Back?  OK, then, now that you see what I’m talking about, I’ll just say something that RedState’s editorial standards don’t allow:  Fuck those shitheads, both of them. I hope that if we can’t get them executed, that they at least rot in damp, shitty jail cells for the rest of their natural lives.

In better news, grouse season opens here in the Great Land tomorrow. With a bit of luck and cooperation from the weather I’ll get out to shoot some toothsome sprucies this weekend.

There.  I feel better.  Now then…

On To the Links!

It might not be a bad bet.

Don’t bet on this one, unless you’re betting on the GOP to deliver another Strongly Worded Letter.

That’s nothing new.

Is America Headed for Civil War?

Welcome Back, Ron DeSantis

Countdown to war in Africa.

Would you get bored?  I’d never get bored.

The longest-ranged sniper rifles in the world. Not sure I agree with all of these, but interesting all the same.

National Treasure Dr. Victor Davis Hanson:  Two Sets of Laws for Two Americas

Welcome to six months ago.

We’re not locked in here with you.  You’re locked in here with us.

What if Trump Stops Playing Along?

I love a happy ending.

Some specifics would be nice.

National Treasure Dr. Victor Davis Hanson reveals the remaking of America.

This is known as belaboring the obvious.

My RedState stuff:

Biden’s BATFE Gets Dealt Major Blow in Pistol Brace Case

Canada PM Trudeau and Wife Announce Separation – on Instagram

SNAP Benefits, Incentives, and Reform

Hunter Biden, Class(less) Act

Stopping Looters: We Ain’t Gonna Take It, Any More

2 US Navy Sailors Arrested for Selling Intel to China

Which Side Would Win a Second American Civil War?

Trump Campaign Pulls Strings to Ensure Primary Delegate Counts

Sweden’s Vigilantes Deal With Street Crime

Amending the Constitution: A Proposal

Maine Residents Alarmed by Mysterious Purple Haze

Driving, the Younger Generation, and the Glorious Freedom of Mobility

BREAKING: Unconfirmed Reports of Wagner Group Personnel Aiding Coup in Niger

Sunday Gun Day II – Curios and Relics

Oregon Drivers Now Allowed to Pump Their Own Gas

Spain’s Supreme Court Rules: Gender Theory in Schools Now A-OK.

National Purple Heart Day – Some Personal Reflections

Japan Releases ‘Defense of Japan 2023’ White Paper, And It’s An Interesting Read

Supreme Court Ruling Allows ‘Ghost Gun’ (For the Time Being)

This Week’s Idiots:

Vox’s Ian Millhiser (Repeat Offender Alert) is an idiot.

The New York TimesRachel Laser is an idiot.

MSNBC’s Hayes Brown (Repeat Offender Alert) is an idiot.

The New Republic’s Matt Ford is an idiot.

Washington Monthy’s Robert Shapiro is an idiot.

No shit, Sherlock.

The Nation’s Charlie Heller is an idiot.

The Hill’s Bill Press is an idiot.

This Week’s Cultural Edification:

Not only was Frank Zappa a dozen different kinds of musical genius – he carved his own initials deep into rock & roll, he endlessly parodied other artists, his own music was never played the same way in any two concerts, and oh, by the way, he wrote and conducted his own symphonies – but he also did some amazing covers.

Now, everybody who’s anybody in music has covered the 1971 Led Zeppelin hit Stairway to Heaven. It’s one of the greatest rock & roll songs ever produced, and it’s been covered endlessly.  But Zappa, in his 1991 live album The Best Band You’ve Never Heard In Your Life, did the best cover of Stairway ever done, anywhere, ever.  Here it is – enjoy.

Animal’s Hump Day News

Happy Hump Day!

In this, our third summer in the Great Land, we’re still getting used to how short the warm season is. Here we are on August 2nd, where most of the country is sweltering (and it’s supposed to hit 77 here, which is pretty damn warm for the Susitna Valley) and we’re going to be moving into cooler, wetter weather soon. The swallows are gone, the trees are turning from the bright, vibrant green of late spring and early summer to the darker, dustier green of late summer.  We may see snow as early as six weeks or so from now.

That’s Alaska, and we love it here more every day, long, cold winters and all.

Now then…

On To the Links!

Is the WaPo collapsing?

This is probably a safe assumption for China to make.

Oh, yeah, that’s sure to end well.

Yeah, it’s time for the Murder Turtle to hang it up.

Ten Senate seats mostly likely to flip.  We’ll see.

Judge to Hunter Biden:  “Get a job, stay sober.”  Hah!

EVs piling up at dealerships.

I love a happy ending.

We can hope.

National Treasure Dr. Victor Davis Hanson.

No shit, Sherlock.

Did China get their money’s worth?

RIP, PeeWee Herman.

The question isn’t “how big a problem is Biden’s age,” it’s “how big a problem is Biden’s dementia, and his family’s shocking corruption?”

Ford losing $4.5 billion on electric vehicles this year.  That’s “billion” with a “B.”  Or:  $4,500,000,000.

Yellow Freight shuts down.

China’s coal use hits new record.

Animals – delicious, delicious animals.

My RedState stuff:

Is China Resurgent? Or Is the House of Cards Collapsing?

Commander, the Wonder (Bite) Dog

Hunter Biden, Joe Biden, and Their Endless Chutzpah

The Facebook Files: How the Biden Administration Cracked Down on Free Speech

China Abandons the Paris Climate Agreements; America Should Be so Lucky

Of Pendulums and Politics

Politics: You Can’t Always Get What You Want.

California’s Marxist Math: The Once-Golden State Is Past the Point of No Return

China, Biology, Illegal Labs and the Coming Conflict With the US

Anchorage Mayor Proposes Sending Homeless to California

Sunday Gun Day I – Great Reading for Shooters

Grown-Up Children and Permanent Minors

Great Migrations: The Grapes of Wrath, Book Two

There May Be Many More Gun Owners Than We Thought.

This Week’s Idiots:

The Guardian’s Margaret Sullivan is an idiot.

Washington Monthly’s David Atkins is an idiot.

The Hill’s Eugene Fidell is an idiot.

Salon’s Heather Parton is an idiot.  And again.

MSNBC’s Jessica Levinson is an idiot.

The LA Times Robin Abcarian (Repeat Offender Alert) is an idiot.

Sidney Blumenthal is an idiot.

The Nation’s Luis Feliz Leon is an idiot.

MSNBC’s Zeeshan Aleem is an idiot.

Paul Krugman (Repeat Offender Alert) remains a cheap partisan hack, and an idiot.

I should have put this up before now.  I’ve written on the topic of Jason Aldean’s tune over at RedState, and so has my friend and colleague Brandon Morse.  Read both articles.

Jason Aldean makes a great point in this song.  This shit may fly in the big cities.  It won’t fly out here in the hinterlands.  We won’t put up with that shit, and we have the gear and the determination to stop anyone who tries it.

And, in case you’ve forgotten, old Bocephus had much the same message forty years ago.

Animal’s Daily Free Market News

John Stossel, over at Townhall, brings us some food for thought.

Politicians have big plans for us.

President Joe Biden repeatedly says, “I have a plan for that.”

“I alone can fix it,” shouted President Donald Trump.

But most of life, and the best of life, happens when politicians butt out and let us make our own choices.

Chinese philosopher Zhuang Zhou called that “spontaneous order.” Thousands of years later, economist F. A. Hayek added that order comes “not from design, but spontaneously.”

In other words, no central authority can ever hope to manage the economic decisions of millions of people making billions of decisions, every day.

Here’s the real point, though:

“Think about spontaneous order on a road,” says The Atlas Network’s Tom Palmer.

Right. Millions of people, some of them morons, propel 4,000-pound vehicles at 60 miles per hour, right next to each other. We rarely smash into each other.

There are rules, like “pass on the left,” but for the most part, people navigate highways on their own.

Likewise, no one invented language, but the world has thousands. “Experts” tried to invent better ones, like Volapuk and Esperanto, which supposedly would let us communicate better.

“No one speaks these languages,” says Palmer, because language evolves spontaneously. “That is always superior to top-down systems that rely on the information in one brain.”

Imposed behavior, sooner or later, always gives way to spontaneous behavior.  The failure of Esperanto was a small example.  The collapse of the Soviet Union was a big example.

Why can’t elected and appointed “officials” get this?  History is replete with examples:  Prohibition, Communism, National Socialism – sooner or later people will do what they damn well please, even if doing so means black markets and other ways of defying authority.

Liberty is always the best and most beneficial for humans to exist.  This is just another argument to that end.

Animal’s Hump Day News

Happy Hump Day!

Boy howdy, have we made up for our cold, wet, rainy early summer over the last few days with unseasonably warm temperatures; at least the sun is out.

Tomorrow:

Yeah, yeah, I know.  A friend of mine lives in Arizona, and he has been regaling me with tales of triple-digit temps.  But this is Alaska.  74 is hot, dammit.  We moved up here to get away from warm weather.  I know, I’ll get back to you in six months when it’s twenty below.

And so…

On To the Links!

Major revelations from the whistleblower hearings.

Shocker: Net zero is economically illiterate.

Democrats, FBI Are Struggling To Cover for Biden’s Lies

Try That In a Small Town.

Job growth in government is not a good thing.

Because it’s really cool to be able to write “Giant Viking House.”

Jan 6th was, at worst, hooliganism.  It’s nice to see Gov. DeSantis recognizes that.

I love a happy ending.

Ya think?

No shit, the Democrats started it.

They can create money from nothing, why can’t they erase debt for nothing?

No shit, Sherlock.

These assholes aren’t even trying to hide it any more.

Haw haw haw!

Some of us never did believe Biden.

Not only is this a stupid idea, the FDA has no business regulating cigar flavors.

Now if only we could have some American politicians regenerate some brains.

My RedState Stuff:

In Shocking Turn of Events, Gallup Poll Shows Americans Less Favorable to Immigration

Jason Aldean and the Conflict of Rural vs. Urban

Rents Are High—Regulation Is Driving Them Even Higher

Shocking Study: Bowel Regularity Connected to Mental Health

America’s Accelerating Debt, Rising Interest Rates, and Fiscal Irresponsibility Require a Balanced Budget

Brazil: More Guns, Less Crime

Mohamad Barakat: Serious Omissions by Legacy Media

What Is a Nation—And How Can We Protect Ours?

New Data Shows Hot Weather Devastating for the Endurance of Electric Vehicles

The Border Crisis, Texas, Washington, Jackson, and Calhoun

Diversity, an Undefinable Proposition

Retail Thieves Aren’t Starving

The American Economy Suffers Under Bidenomics

Did the Justice Department Illegally Fund Red Flag Laws?

The Barakat Case: Are There Larger Implications?

This Week’s Idiots:

Salon’s Heather Parton is an idiot.

MSNBC’s Michael Cohen (Repeat Offender Alert) is an idiot.

RealClearPennsylvania’s Brendan Boyle is an idiot.

The Boston Globe’s Kimberly Atkins Stohr is an idiot.

The Nation’s Jeet Heer (Repeat Offender Alert) is an idiot.

Poor Jessica Tarlov.  I used to kind of like her, but she’s descending into idiocy.

Amanda Marcotte (Repeat Offender Alert) is an idiot.

MSNBC’s Ja’han Jones is an idiot.

NPR’s Julia Simon is an idiot.

This Week’s Cultural Edification:

Tony Bennett was one of the all-time greats, and his passing at 96 last week was saddening.  While he’s probably best known for I Left My Heart in San Francisco, the state of that formerly-great city today has kind of soured me on the whole thing.

Instead, here’s another great Tony Bennett tune: What The World Needs Now, from his 1969 album I’ve Gotta Be Me.  We’ll miss you, Tony!

Animal’s Daily Doom Pixie News

Before I get into this, be sure to check out Part IV of Sweetheart as well as a bonus post over at Glibertarians.

Now then:  A little while ago, over at my RedState desk (OK, it’s actually the same desk, but you get the point) I chronicled the Swedish Doom Pixie Greta Thunberg’s war on prosperity.  If you haven’t read it yet, go, then, and do so.  I’ll wait right here.

Back? OK, let’s get into the update on the Doom Pixie’s latest fiasco.

A Swedish court on Monday fined climate activist Greta Thunberg for disobeying police during an environmental protest at an oil facility last month. Thunberg, 20, admitted to the facts but denied guilt, saying the fight against the fossil fuel industry was a form of self-defense due to the existential and global threat of the climate crisis.

“We cannot save the world by playing by the rules,” she told journalists after hearing the verdict, vowing she would “definitely not” back down.

The sentencing appeared to have little effect on her determination — just a few hours later, Thunberg and activists from the Reclaim the Future movement returned to an oil terminal in the southern Swedish city of Malmö to stage to another roadblock. A photo then showed her being carried away by police officers.

The photo:

Doesn’t look to me like the Doom Pixie is suffering too much from rough handling by the Swedish fuzz.

Oh, and her fine?  2,500 kronor.  That’s about $240, American.  The Doom Pixie apparently has a net worth of about a million bucks.  I’ll grant you I’m not familiar with typical fines emanating from the Swedish justice system, and to be fair, it’s not like she knocked over a liquor store or robbed an old lady at gunpoint.

But were I that judge, I think I would have tried to make it sting a little more than that.

This fine won’t stop the Doom Pixie.  It won’t slow her down.  Assholes gonna asshole, and Greta is sure as hell determined to make a career of being an asshole.