The New Clarion

From Delta, a lesson for woke corporations: if Biden does fancy himself after FDR, then this is exactly the sort of corporate cronyist environment one would expect.

The (Long-Running) Economic Causes of the Texas Electricity Crisis: holy crap! This is California-level “deregulation” and the results are similar. It is a highly-distorted energy system, yet vilified as a “free market.”

Tucker Carlson Tonight Reacts To Joe Biden’s “Surreal” “Bizarro” Speech: his disgust at the tentative permission at gathering in small groups for Independence Day is the correct response. “How dare you tell us who we can spend the Fourth of July with.” (Side note: I think Tucker Carlson has strayed pretty far from a liberty-oriented perspective since Trump took office but I value his independence and courage.)

The Miseducation of America’s Elites: this is the most hopeful article I’ve read in a long while. If there’s a dissident subculture among the woke, then it’s possible that they might give room to their children to explore alternate ideologies—perhaps even liberty-oriented ones. Sadly, this appears to be more groping-in-the-dark questioning than principled opposition.

Democrats’ Voting Rights “For the People” HR 1 Bill Is a Scandal: absolutely sickening. Many of these provisions were contributors to wins in the most-recent election so they want to make them mandatory nationwide. If this becomes law, I predict two outcomes: 1) extensive litigation of almost every provision and 2) a nationwide blue wave that is statistically improbable but incontestable.

How to Asymmetrically Out-Compete Xi Jinping’s One Belt One Road Initiative: outstanding explication of China’s foundational efforts towards regional—and inevitably, global—hegemony plus what the United States can do (and is doing) about it. You could spend days following its hyperlinks to abundant further context.

There’s hope with Biden but it probably would have gone better with Trump at the helm.

Self-Driving, Not Self-Governing: this is an intriguing aspect of self-governance that I hadn’t considered. Having others do things for you is great and vital to productivity, but self-resilience, self-reliance, and self-esteem all come from being able to do things for yourself. Getting the balance right is crucial for ourselves but also for America.

H.R. 1 and S. 1 Resource Guide (2021): those last-minute election rule changes that likely made a difference in countless races, including the presidential one? This bill will cement them into law and abridge local efforts to thwart the changes. It’s legitimately troubling.

Democrats ask Biden to give up power to launch nuclear bomb: this feels like it should be legislation—unless there’s some imminent threat of first-strike by the moderate, sensible Biden. I am always in favor of reducing the president’s powers and re-situating warmongering back in Congress where it belongs.

No Proof January 6 Was an ‘Armed Insurrection’: this, the Sicknick thing, and the fact that it just dissipated the day of make this “insurrection” talk smell of Reichstag fire more than coup d’état. The author went through the charging documents for the perpetrators and found no indication that there were guns in the Capitol on January 6th. It shouldn’t be up to an opinion columnist on a blog to uncover these facts but here we are.

Coronavirus – Anthony Fauci Is a Public Health Official, Not Our Parent: this is how you get fascism.

Rand Paul – Why We Need to End the Forever Wars Now: I think all it would take is for Congress to repeal the Authorization for Use of Military Force of 2001 that somehow allows the President to wage war in Afghanistan, Iraq, and (somehow) Syria. It is simply outrageous that this is still going on and it is frustrating that Senator Paul stands mostly alone on this.

MA Undersecretary for Climate Change David Ismay – “We Have to Break Your Will.”: naturally, he resigned once this all became public. Not because he was lying, but because he stated an “inconvenient truth” that could give away the show.

The Energy Solution for Texas — And the US: this is a great analysis of a problem. Every grid in America is susceptible to this; wind and solar capacity is inherently unreliable and must be 100% backstopped by natural gas generation. But it isn’t because that would be expensive and generally we get away with it, with the added “bonus” of maintaining the fiction of solar and wind’s cheapness.

But the real problem is this: when you enforce ersatz markets, you get shaky, unstable results. If the market were allowed to work, reliable energy sources and on-site fuel would be prevalent with spot capacity provided by more-expensive, but readily-dispatchable sources. All it takes is freedom because the market need and wealth is there.

Dolly Parton’s 2021 Super Bowl commercial is playing a rich man’s game: repugnant editorial. The commercial—linked within—is delightful, as is Dolly Parton herself.

What went wrong with the Texas power grid?: right question, wrong answers. Electricity is a very controlled, regulated industry even at its most deregulated. It is Ptolemaic in its layers of solutions to flaws brought about by its flawed premise: we need an energy Copernicus to go back to first principles and let an actual market get established.

Grid operator requests energy conservation for system reliability: we should be aiming towards a future of energy abundance. Wind and solar energy are unreliable and fail when they are needed most, while introducing chaos into the grid.

A World Without Billionaires Would Be Brutal: a little more utilitarian leaning than I’d prefer, but it’s an unusual sentiment nonetheless.

Mandalorian’s Gina Carano Under Fire For Jeffrey Epstein & Holocaust Posts: this is sickening because her Instagram post was not offensive and was actually quite trenchant. A robust civil society does not informally restrict speech, and a free government does not formally restrict speech. Her treatment—and the wider “cancel culture” movement—is evidence against the former even though it doesn’t rise to actual censorship.