Tuesday, April 3, 2018

Kevin Williamson laments the passing of classical liberalism, the soil in which libertarians got rich

Well, at least we finally know whose side Kevin is really on. His own. 


[L]ibertarianism has benefited from the fact that American elites are notably more libertarian in their views than is the median American voter. That dynamic was explored by the economist Bryan Caplan under a typically bold title (“Why Is Democracy Tolerable?”) with a typically needling conclusion: “Democracies listen to the relatively libertarian rich far more than they listen to the absolutely statist non-rich … Democracy as we know it is bad enough. Democracy that really listened to all the people would be an authoritarian nightmare.” ...

[T]he United States is for the moment left with two authoritarian populist parties and no political home for classical liberalism at all.

Coulter after The Oval: I don't think we're getting The Wall


COULTER: . . . I said you're not doing what you promised to do.

Where's the end of NAFTA? Where's the wall? Where are the deportations? What are you doing talking about the DREAMers?

CARR: To which he responded? 

COULTER: [Does Trump impersonation] I appointed Gorsuch.



That's all we're getting.

Monday, April 2, 2018

Winnie Mandela, vicious animal, meets her maker at 81


Grand Rapids, Michigan, Climate Update for March 2018

Grand Rapids, Michigan, Climate Update for March 2018

Max temp 56, Mean Max temp 66
Min temp 17, Mean Min temp 7
Av temp 34.3, Mean Av temp 34
Precip 1.16, Mean precip 2.45
Snowfall 4.9, Mean snowfall 9.1, Snowfall season to date 71.7, Mean Snowfall season to date 63.6
Heating Degree Days 943, Mean HDD 955, HDD Season to date 5599, HDD Mean Season to date 5850
Using HDD, the cool season to date has been 4.29% warmer than the mean.

Saturday, March 31, 2018

Laugh of the Day: Snow for Easter

Snow for Christmas
snow for Easter
livin' in Michigan
frosts my keister

Friday, March 30, 2018

Maybe David Hogg would be accepted by more colleges if he learned how to write the English language

The redundant "only" is also indicative.

Treated I bad did they.

You sound like Yoda.

Thursday, March 29, 2018

A gypsy detects a fascist in David Hogg


Trump promised The Wall, celebrates a fence

Story here.

Trannies for Kevin Williamson: National Review thinks Ta-Nehisi Coates' favorable opinion of Kevin Williamson is a good thing

David French, here:

If Ta-Nehisi Coates can see the virtues of his work, then perhaps there’s room for you [progressives] to open your minds. National Review’s loss is The Atlantic’s gain, but even more importantly, the marketplace of ideas benefits from his transition.

Wednesday, March 28, 2018

Coulter at Columbia: I knew Trump was a shallow, lazy ignoramus, and I didn't care

At a debate with Mickey Kaus.

Story here.

Trump lazy? Now you've gone too far, Ann Coulter, too far!

National Review's Kevin Williamson looks left and heads to The Atlantic

Where Kevin and his sneering elitism will find a larger audience. Slate's Jordan Weissmann pretends not to get it: "Above all else, Williamson is something fairly rare in U.S. media: an explicit, unrepentant elitist."



After three revisions, 4Q2017 real GDP still comes up short at 2.9% annualized

That's up from 2.5% in the second estimate, but still down from 3.2% in 3Q.

That means that despite the holiday shopping season and all the expenditures of hurricane recovery, the economy still slowed down in the fourth quarter of last year. It should have been the best quarter yet if the economy were truly on the upswing.

To make matters worse, 1Q2018 is shaping up to be a horrible 1.8%.

Sunday, March 25, 2018

Robert Shiller: Great Depression tariffs did not plausibly, directly affect economic growth in a major degree

Everywhere we turn we hear the opposite. It's standard operating procedure to blame protectionism for the Great Depression. Shiller knows it can't be demonstrated from the data. Hence the psychological argument. 

Quoted here:

Shiller said he did not believe there would be a significant inflationary effect to the U.S. from steel and aluminum tariffs, but he warned that heated trade rhetoric from both sides could send the American economy reeling into a recession.

"When you ask about the size of the impact on the economy, I think a lot of it is more psychological than direct, unless they really slam on tariffs," he said. The Yale economist pointed to the "most famous tariff war of all" during the Great Depression, which he said did not "plausibly, directly" affect economic growth "in a major degree," but it may have helped "destroy confidence" and willingness to plan for the future.

"It's exactly those 'wait and see' attitudes that cause a recession," he explained.

Actually, there's about 100.8 billion people not on Facebook