Wednesday: Hili dialogue

84 thoughts on “Wednesday: Hili dialogue”

1. A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
   The object of government in peace and in war is not the glory of rulers or of races, but the happiness of the common man. -William Beveridge, economist and reformer (5 Mar 1879-1963)

   1. I reject that out of hand. In a democracy we are the government. It is not my responsibility to make my neighbor happy. What’s more government is incapable of evaluating what would make each individual person happy and providing that. At best it can assume what people, in general, want, and then throw money at the solution. Not surprisingly, Beveridge crafted a rationalization for the welfare state. Let me worry about my happiness. The government’s job is to provide security and a legal framework to allow me to pursue my happiness as I see it.

      1. Absolutely right, Dr. B. The trouble with Lord Beveridge’s philosophy is that the greed of the common man is limitless in the pursuit of his own happiness, even if the state allows him to take all that I have, modest as it is, for himself.

      2. “The government’s job is to provide security and a legal framework to allow me to pursue my happiness as I see it.”

         Well put, and I largely agree. But I think you’ve elided the “democracy” part a bit here. If it’s a democracy you want then you might wind up with a government that sees part of its job as making sure the oldest members of society do not have to end their lives in poverty. For example. That kind of drift is a hard thing to stop, which is one reason why we’re where we’re at.

      3. Yep, I reject that too. Not the government’s job to make me happy.
         The job of the government is national defense, protecting individual rights, setting up a judicial system to protect those rights, managing international relations in the best interest of our country, regulating interstate and foreign commerce, and coining a national currency.

         Beveridge was a social progressive who, as DrB mentioned, championed throwing money at problems, and was a eugenicist who thought that men who couldn’t work should be supported by the state but lose all rights, including the right to fatherhood (how’s that for supporting happiness?). He also favored paying out a child allowance to encourage the rich to have more kids and for the poor to have fewer. He was a big proponent of using other people’s money to try to pay for the happiness and well-being of others. One can argue whether the programs he set up such as the NHS were of net benefit, but I would argue that it’s not the job of the government to do so.

      4. You are not the government in a democracy. You legitimize the government. You may not want the government to make the common man happy, but as the Dude famously said: That’s like your opinion, man.

         I can agree, that a government’s job is to provide security – though security from what? Security to do what?
         Happiness as I see it, is to tell people with stupid ideas that their ideas are stupid. Do you think that it’s the government’s job to provide a legal framework for me to do so? Or does this only apply to a legal framework to let DrBrydon pursue happiness as DrBrydon sees it?

   2. “The state is a machine for maintaining the rule of one class over another.” V. I. Lenin

      “I read the news today – Oh boy.” John Lennon

2. Book :

   “I have a girl brain but a boy body. This is called transgender. I was born this way!”

   Geworfenheit – thrownness (Heidegger – 1889-1976) –
   Born into a condition we did not ask for.

   There’s also gnosis in both the quote and I think in geworfenheit itself – self-knowlege – consciousness – of a hidden essence deep within — revealed by contradiction, as it happens here…

   (… I found Heidegger’s writing vast and mind-numbing – I urge caution. I thought it was linked to Hegel – but never found quotes.)

   The kids’ book though, yes – sublime expression of the Idea! (I capitalized that for you, Hegel).

3. Cat pea wasn’t obvious, but not too hard to find. I’d rate this maybe a 6 or 7 of 10 on the difficulty scale.

   (The cat pee this morning was easy,though. I stepped in it. Arthritic cat and ramp for the box slipped)

   1. Ha. Thanks for the laugh this morning. Good one!

4. As for the tariffs being passed on to consumers, absolutely. This happens with other expenses as well, such as labour, which has increased quite a bit over the last several years (labour is often one of the highest expenses faced by employers).

   As for the stock market, any time is a good time to invest, at least if you’re playing the long game (an adage – time in the market beats timing the market). If you’re willing to risk day-trading, the volatility is a fantastic thing, and money can be made even when the market is down.

   As always, thanks to the host for keeping issues at the forefront for us readers.

   1. Right you are about labor costs. Tucson has followed other bright blue cities by artificially raising its minimum wage with the result being many locally owned restaurants have had to close their doors. Owners can’t afford to hire a sufficient number of staff and have had to raise their prices out of reach of most of their once regular patrons.

      1. Former trained, licensed and bonded proprietary options and equities trader here (late 1990s and early 2000s). Successful – over a dozen or so years. (Another job that has been pretty much replaced by tech – why I went to law school in the end.)

         HERE is the NUMBER #1 advice, giga-guidance you WON’T FIND ANYWHERE!! (hehehe) but here…
         .
         .
         Don’t day trade.

         D.A.
         NYC

         1. Good advice, David, especially since most day-traders lose money.

            Unless one knows a whole lot about business and the market, my advice would be to make regular contributions to an account, and to invest those contributions in a good ETF(s), something(s) which follows NASDAQ and/or S & P. When one does that, they already have a diversified portfolio.

      2. California has done Tucson one better. Newsom set up a single wage control board for chain restaurant fast food workers in the state. That board set a state-wide minimum wage for those workers at $20/hr, which is more than 20% higher than the state’s regular minimum wage.

         My brother, an owner of a dry cleaner in Stockton CA, must now pay $20/hr to attract workers.

         1. That’s so wrong. I remember working entry level jobs (or 2 or 3) to put myself through college. We never expected to earn a “living wage”. We were paying our dues. We did everything we could to better ourselves and never asked others who had already paid theirs to pick up the slack. Now business owners are treated as though they’re the bad guys, holding their employees down simply by virtue of putting their necks on the line and opening their own businesses. The work ethic is, for the most part, dead.

   2. And money can be lost even when the market is up. “Every hand’s a winner, and every hand’s a loser” (K Rogers).

5. I can’t help but wonder about the fact that Jerry’s well-informed source inside Israel was able to confidently predict the war, (including its approximate starting date, reported here on Jerry’s website shortly before the attack started), but the Israeli intelligence services could not.

6. “One man and his dog” still appears as an occasional feature on the BBC’s “Countryfile” programme, but sadly truncated compared with the original.

7. I’m so disappointed that the Dems are clinging to men in women’s sports. They continue to frame it — incorrectly in my view — as protecting trans women (ie men). From the linked article:

   “Democrats denounced the legislation as a craven effort by Republicans to wring political advantage from a small but vulnerable population of transgender children that would ultimately put at risk the girls it purported to protect.

   “What Republicans are doing today is inventing a problem to stir up a culture war and divide people against each other and distract people from what they’re actually doing,” said Senator Brian Schatz, Democrat of Hawaii. He called the bill “totally irrelevant to 99.9 percent of all people across the country.”

   Small but vulnerable minority? I don’t care how small it is and no, they’re not “vulnerable” they’re cheaters.

   Nor is it irrelevant to 99.9% of the population. Try doing some opinion polls, Dems, instead of rehashing trans talking points:

   “Most Americans oppose including trans athletes in sports, poll finds”

   https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna88940

   1. Agreed. There is a very obtuse group in Democratic leadership and they need to either modify their worldview or be ousted out. Probably the latter, as they don’t seem to be able to absorb new information about the world.

      1. They are not obtuse. They also know the polling on this issue (women’s rights defenders have made sure that they know). They just think that this is a low-priority issue for voters. After all, when you vote for a party it’s a package deal, a bundle of issue positions. So they think that when you consider whom to vote for, this won’t be a dealbreaker for many voters that could be persuaded to vote for them.
         See the two links I posted here, for more explanation:
         https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2025/03/04/tuesday-hili-dialogue-519/#comment-2133570

         1. It makes no sense to continue to support biological boys competing against biological girls. Such a view is ignorant of science, unfair, and unpopular with most voters. What is the possible upside of continuing to back such idiotic ideas that make Democrats look out of touch and irrational?

            If they reversed course on this, that issue would no longer be on the table and we could move on to deeper issues that may not as culturally visible but are probably more important, and in which the Democrats may have better ideas, and we could see real daylight between the parties.

            If Democratic leadership actually believe that biological boys should compete against biological girls, they are indeed obtuse. If they do not believe this, supported it anyway because they thought that’s what “progressive” voters wanted, and now can’t figure out how to wrangle out of it, they are…obtuse.

            We need better players…the Dems are a bit like Man U at the moment.

            1. There’s “leadership” and (much more rarely) there’s leadership. Empty suits.

      2. It could very well be the view of their wealthy campaign contributors too. Money talks in politics.

   2. This may not be helpful or even valid, but my experience with separated girls and boys sports teams goes back to the 1960’s when it seemed our culture dictated that the average boy had to try out for sports teams and compete, but that culture only allowed for girls to participate in sports as an exception – there was no societal pressure to do it. The girls in most cases had different playing rules from boys such as basketball limited dribbles and playing softball rather than hardball. In the 70’s and 80’s it became more the norm for girls to do sports and Title 9 (1972) led to the creation of new girls’ teams and sports in schools. They were still separate from the boys and still had some different playing rules and events. The fairness was in making sure that girls had equal opportunities to play and fairly compete in sports and recognized that in general the average girl was neither as strong nor as fast as an average boy across a sample of school athletes. I strongly supported and still support Title 9 in providing opportunities both for girls and for boys and I would write in a spirit of the law that these should be fair opportunities to compete. Even assuming honesty among transgender girls, if they have matured as boys, they will have a physical advantage, on average, over mature girls. As a simple non-data, but example, I was a mediocre competitive weightlifter among boys in the 60’s and early 70’s, yet my best lifts 50 years ago would be state records among girls today in similar weight classes. I fully support girls, be they cis girls or trans boys competing “up” on boys’ teams if they like or even girls playing on boys teams such as little league baseball, but not the reverse. I think that maybe some sports that only require handling bodyweight such as gymnastics might re-examine their traditional events or allow cross competition. But in general and as the father and grandfather of two generations of high level girl athletes, I think that Title 9 rules which keep trans girls out of girls teams but would allow cis girls to compete with boys if the individual girl requested it to be best both for safety and fair competition for girls.

   3. Unfortunately the root of the problem is that many people on the Left (not just in the U.S.) believe that there are such things as trans-gender children, that is children who really are the sex opposite to what common sense and biology says they are. Any restrictions on what those transgender children may do in order to live their true gnostic selves constitutes discrimination against them, just as a T-ball league would be cruel if it didn’t allow a child at turn at “bat” with severe cerebral palsy who uses a motorized wheelchair and the parent/coach must swing the bat for her. (True example. And of course we cheered when the child eventually reached first base.). As the Democrats see it, the Republicans would be in there calling strikes on the kid and insisting the five-year-old infielders try to throw her out at first.

      The focus here is entirely on the “special” child or 18-year-old near-adult, not on the externalities. Which is strange. So much of the Left is about restricting and compelling individual behaviour to make the externalities come out right. (See Beveridge, above.)

      In the end, all trans rights issues are viewed through a male homosexual advocacy lens. Feminists, even lesbians, seem to be split on it. If you see it as gay rights, then yes these homosexual youth should be indulged in whatever they want, including playing against girls they can beat. This of course applies to the sincere ones. The filter of sincerely doesn’t stop the cheaters. The activists just pretend they don’t exist, just as they accuse us of pretending trans kids don’t exist.

      1. Remember Leslie the whole trans ideology is deeply female coded. For eg. how many custody battles do we hear of where the dad is the one wanting the kid to transition? I’ve not seen one and I’m unfortunately pretty deep down this rabbit hole. Many surveys and data suggest it is the fairer sex pushing this which is strange since they and children are its first victims.

         The whole transubstantiation “Trans Kid” and “gendered soul” bs is at the heart of it. Like a charge of racism or witchcraft it is (as Popper would say) unfalsifiable and in that magical thinking flourishes.
         There’s a lot of that about in woke – from GLOBAL BOILING and the autistic truant teenager headed climate apocalypticism to BLM to the trans cult – all are given intellectual architecture by empirically false beliefs.

         The moral part is the deeply evil, hypocritical “Be Kind” dynamic – itself very female coded. I don’t hate women but we must recognize more subtle forms of female dysfunction like we do male dysfunction. But we fall short.
         best,

         D.A.
         NYC

         1. “Toxic femininity”, for sure. But David, I hope you’re less sure about no-global-heating, GT’s histrionics not withstanding.

   4. Wait till the politicians who think it’s irrelevant have kids or grandkids (female) who run track or swim competitively and are faced with that girl encountering a naked male in their locker room. Every time I read another story about this I see the face of my friend’s daughter who blossomed as a young woman largely through running track.
      I’m curious if anyone who reads this blog knows of a single trans teen (male→female) who wanted to compete in girls’ sports. If anyone invented this issue, I believe it was the dems.

      1. “If anyone invented this issue, I believe it was the dems.”

         Yes, and when they push 16-year-old Johnny into the shower with 14-year-old Janey and many of us say “No!,” then the Democratic politicians screech, “Why are you waging culture war!!!??”

         And they do it because even those among their party who disagree with them on this and many other “Woke” issues will continue to reelect them. So, where is the real problem?

         1. I’m pretty sure your question is rhetorical, but I’ll bite. I’m using myself as a guide. The two issues that kept me from voting Republican for a long, long time were the environment and right to choose (abortion). Then there’s the personality problem. We all know that many (if not most) voters are very hung up on personalities. The last thing I mention is really unfortunate. I guess we need a new (3rd?) party that’s viable, palatable and able to reign in numbers no 3rd party has ever been able to do in the US thus far.

            1. Political parties are like passenger trains. Everyone agrees we need a lot more of them, as a kind of public good, but hardly anyone wants to actually ride them.

               Anyone can start a third party, just as anyone can invest in a passenger train. The problem is getting anywhere with them before you run out of money.

   5. Yes F.K. Totally. That anchor sinking to the bottom of the ocean (like DEI) is something the Dems just can’t let go of. They’ve made it (genderwang) part of their identity individually and at scale. Watch… they’ll cling on to it to the bottom of the ocean and lose elections for a couple of decades.

      The main part here is the number of voting parents with girls who like sports but dislike penises in their changerooms. That’ll motivate parents who vote.

      D.A.
      NYC

8. I am confused, as I read the hub-bub about Zelensky, about what other plan anyone has for peace in Ukraine. Europe is making it clear that they don’t intend to enter into belligerency and that they only intend to use their troops as peace-keepers (if that). No one has said how to get to peace, though, aside from assuming that Russia will give up its territorial gains. It reminds me of the old Sydney Harris cartoon where two men are standing in front of a blackboard with equations on both sides and in the middle it says “Then a miracle occurs,” to which one of the men observes, “I think you should be more specific here in step two.”

   1. There is no other feasible plan. Ukraine lost this war (not surprisingly) – it lost territory and will not be a NATO member. That’s what Russia wanted and that is what it will get because the USA and Europeans are unwilling to wage war against Russia (i.e., to escalate their military help so much that Ukraine could win, thereby risking the use of nuclear weapons).

      These are just the facts – we can grudingly acknowledge them or lie to ourselves. This is like the US attempt to create a democracy in Afghanistan – an effort that was doomed from the start: there was nothing in the political science literature that showed that advanced countries are able to export democracy to places like Afghanistan. But we were constantly told “This will succeed if we just hang in a little longer, and refuse to face the facts.” (I remember Bret Stephens, in the New York Times, arguing that refusing to face the facts is a virtue, because if the US pulled out of Afghanistan that would damage its credibility. So throwing good money after bad is just the thing to do.)

      Going to war about this was silly, because Ukraine never had a chance to prevail. It could and did win a few battles, but it couldn’t win the war. I do not doubt for a minute that the Ukrainians fought valiantly – but in the end, all the death and destruction was for nothing.

      1. Many Europeans would very strongly disagree that nothing is at stake.

   2. Europe: we hate Trump so much we are going to do what he wants and increase defense spending.

      1. In some places at least, reality eventually triumphs over feelings. And, even an unstable clock is occasionally correct.

   3. You again! When you talk about there being no “other plan” for peace in Ukraine, how about you first explain the first one. Because Trump’s plan – and I’m using this term very loosely here – seems to be to give Russia what it wants. Though that won’t stop the war, since it’s obviously unacceptable for Ukraine and they continue fighting and if Europe continues the support and taking over the US portion, I think they can keep fighting until Putin cannot find enough meat for the grinder.

      Even if Europe follows suit, we are probably back to the pre-war plans for extended guerilla and partisan warfare, after Russia has swallowed the entirety of Ukraine. Where is the peace?

      The only option for peace in this moment is for Russia to back down from their position of official recognition of the entirety of the annexed oblasts. Something that might have happened, if not for Trump and Vance being overly greedy and wanting mineral rights without giving anything in return.

      1. It’s not all so crass. Trump sure seems to be angling for a Nobel Peace Prize, as delusional as that may be. “Mister Peace, Mister Peace, Mister P double-E C E” (Robin and the Seven Hoods) 🙂.

      2. “I think they can keep fighting until Putin cannot find enough meat for the grinder.”

         I think Europe, and the West more broadly, has a deeper problem. Gallup International conducted a poll a year ago and asked the following question: “If there were a war that involved (your country), would you be willing to fight for your country?” I would have preferred the question ask explicitly about fighting if one’s country were invaded or attacked, but even as is the results suggest, at a minimum, a lack of trust in one’s leadership when committing troops to combat.

         Let’s look at those results. In Austria, only 20% said “Yes,” whereas 62% said “No,” they would not fight for their own country (the remainder are undecided). In Germany, the numbers were 23% and 57%, respectively. Italy: only 14% would, 78% would not. Spain, 29% and 53%. The UK, only 33% would come to its own defense, whereas 50% explicitly said they would not. Elsewhere in the West, Canada fares marginally better at 34% and 37%; Japan is hopeless at 9% willing to fight for Japan and half unwilling. Within the USA, Ukraine, South Korea, Switzerland, Sweden, Poland, and Portugal (barely) we find more willing to defend themselves than those who would not. (France was not included.) Yet even in Ukraine, even amidst war, 33% said they would not fight for their own country. As the Gallup writers put it: Worldwide now there is a clear division between the global South/East and the global North/West in attitudes towards the readiness to fight for their country.

         Russia has nearly 3.5 to 4 times the population of Ukraine. Do you really believe they will run out of men first? Who will step in for Ukraine? Would you have us believe that people who would not fight for their own countries will volunteer to fight for Ukraine—NATO or no NATO membership? I am starting to understand why Europeans want to fight Russia until the last dead Ukrainian. It’s because large numbers of them are unwilling to fight at all. But that’s okay. I don’t expect any of them to say that saving their own asses is more important to them than who dies on a distant battlefield. Best to pose as idealistic defenders of freedom.

         This, of course, is not to impugn your motives. They might be noble, brave, and patriotic. But that would make you unrepresentative of the EU.

         https://www.gallup-international.com/survey-results-and-news/survey-result/fewer-people-are-willing-to-fight-for-their-country-compared-to-ten-years-ago

9. The official Democratic reply to Trump’s speech was done by Elissa Slotkin, recently elected to the Senate for Michigan. She beat a Republican opponent in a state that Trump had won, and she is seen as a rising star in the party. Further, she military creds and a history of being very much in the political center.
   I take this as a palpable if not uneven sign that the Democratic leadership is trying to find a way toward the center.

   1. Trying, for sure, as long as no-one has to admit that they’ve pooched it so far.

10. “*In response to American diplomatic stupidity over Ukraine, our allies in the EU have acted admirably, proposing a huge sum of money to strengthen U.S. defenses and fund Ukraine:”

    This is one instance where I might grudgingly acknowledge that there is a little method to Trump’s madness. As a result of his admittedly outlandish behavior, the EU is finally doing something that they should have been doing years ago, and that previous US administrations were unable to get them to do…that is, spend more on their own defense.

    Maybe Trump just got lucky this time, and there is no guarantee that these boorish tactics will continue to work. But I am glad that the EU is finally taking more responsibility for defense and not just relying on big brother US.

    And I’ll add…this comes from a deeper desire to see the US spend less on defense overall, as it is a huge expenditure and contributes to our overall level of debt, which is not sustainable.

    1. You do know that the E.U. has contributed somewhat more than the US to Ukraine? This was pre-Trump.

       1. As they should. This is a European affair, with the US only there to provide a supporting role at best. The smaller that role, the better.

          1. I just wondered if you knew since Trump has lied so much on the topic.

          2. I hope you are then also fine playing second fiddle to Europe in the peace process and the mineral extraction in Ukraine. The less you pay, the less of a say you get.

             1. Again, fine. We don’t need to exploit Ukraine for minerals, if that is Europe’s plan. Again, let Europe put on its big boy pants and be in control of its own defense which includes the peace process.

             2. +1, Jeff

       2. Fru, on a per country basis, no country has provided even one quarter as much aid as the US.

          https://www.cfr.org/article/how-much-us-aid-going-ukraine

          Is that an unfair comparison? I don’t think so when for years practically no NATO member has met it’s defense spending commitment.

          Since 2006 NATO requires member states to spend at least 2% of GDP on their common defense. Countries like the United States, Poland, Greece, and the Baltic States typically meet or exceed this benchmark, while others, such as Germany (1.49%), Spain (.91%), Italy (1.02%) fall far short. Only 5 of the 28 NATO countries (United States, Greece, United Kingdom, Poland, and Estonia) met or exceeded the 2% guideline.

          From 2015 to 2021 NATO countries other than the US increased their average defense spending from 1.15% of GDP to 1.63% a significant increase. Much of that increase can be attributed to Trump’s threat to pull out of NATO unless the European countries contribute more. Most NATO countries still don’t pay their fair share and that’s why Trump is continuing his threat.

    2. My sentiments exactly. The EU wouldn’t have jumped in as quickly as they did if they didn’t already know they should be doing it before.
       I say that fully cognizant of the US’s history of meddling, behaving as though we have a money tree growing over here which we kind of do since we keep printing dollars willy-nilly. We like dictating, using, extracting, etc..as much as the next guy, but we’ve done it too long without properly training/educating our youth or producing much of use other than tech/weaponry. The jig is up.

11. SpaceX has just announced that its Test8 starship launch is now scheduled for no earlier than tomorrow, thursday, march 6 at 6:30pm ET from SpaceX Boca Chica launchsite in TX. Scuttlebutt indicated a 30-60 minute launch window. This flight was supposed to blast off two days ago at the same time of day, but was postponed with anomalies in both the booster and the Starship apparently unresolved at t minus 40 seconds to launch. They had announced today for the rescheduled launch but now say thursday.

    1. Thanks Jim! I’ve seen a couple of launches because of your updates, including one when I was on vacation about 20 miles from a launch site – it was awesome.

       1. Jim is like the “WEIT correspondent reporting from outer space”.
          Love it. Keep up the good work Jim, starman!

          D.A.
          NYC

       2. Darryl, I know that this is a day late and the proverbial dollar short, but I hope it was the big starship launch and that you were close enough to feel the visceral rumble of those engines on launch and see what must be a fully frightening sight of a return to launchsite crashing down from the heavens of the super heavy booster. Color me jealous indeed!

12. Yes. I found the cat pea!

    And the news is awful. I did watch the entire Trump spectacle, which only made it worse.

13. Senate Republicans argued it was essential to protecting girls from predatory men encroaching on their private spaces…

    Changing room at Bergdorf Goodman excluded.

    1. She had her day in Court, and got 5 million bucks from her predator.
       Now the female athletes want their days on the court to themselves. They don’t even want money.

14. Ah, poutine! It’s been too many years since I’ve had it. Swiss Chalet offers a rotisserie chicken poutine that’s pretty tasty, and the chicken adds a different flavor dimension to it.

    I fail to see the downside from the US point of view if Europe takes more responsibility and we take less. Europe looks like the middle-income customer who walks into a high-end store and when the salesperson says “oh, this is too pricey for you”, the customer, insulted, thinks “well, I’ll show her!” and forks over a ton of dough for a handbag they don’t need and can’t afford. Emotions don’t matter. Who pays and how much is what matters.

    You know, Mexico and Canada do not need to retaliate. There is no reason to inflict pain on consumers in their own countries. Trudeau rightly said, “it will have real consequences for you, the American people.” He elaborated that tariffs would “raise costs for you, including food at the grocery store and gas at the pump”. Following his own logic, he’s willing to take actions that will raise costs for the Canadian people just to be seen as tough on Trump. He could end now what could become an inflationary spiral but is choosing not to.

    1. News this morning that Trump is thinking about a one month delay on auto parts.

       Among other things, Trump is incompetent and doesn’t seek advice.

       Perhaps only now is he finding out that American auto makers moved some production to Canada in the 1960s to encourage Canadians to buy the cars. This is a very old deal.

       I’m fed up with Trump after this tariff nonsense! Clown show is the popular description and is it ever true.

    2. Actually, it’s the right move to retaliate on Trumps trade aggression. The pain for the US from multiple retaliatory measures compounds while Canada suffers moderately at worst.
       Trump then probably continues to hit Europe and we can stand with our Canadian friends.

       The quicker the pain for the US economy escalates, the better for Canada and Mexico.

       1. Maybe, but I’ve never been a fan of VI Ulyanov’s “make it worse so it will get better” strategy. Backing the Clown Prince into a corner could easily end very badly.

          1. Are you a Canadian? If so you have a minority view. Most of us are furious.

             Trump only responds to forceful action (he’s a bully).

             1. I’m acutely aware that I have minority views. I do fully agree that the Clown Prince is a vicious bully who absolutely must be resisted; bullies are my least-favourite life-form. But being furious doesn’t necessarily help; in his case, because he is such an unstable ungenius and has manifest mental pathologies, he could easily act like a cornered rat and do incalculable damage, not just in the USA and Ukraine but across the world. If anyone asked me I’d advise devious rather than direct resistance, especially since he feeds on overt conflict — you can’t shame the shameless, and unless you’re a bigger bully you can’t bully a bully. Palace intrigue rather than frontal attack, as it were.

             2. Well, true, but bullies don’t typically pick on people who can deliver forceful action against them, and that ain’t us.

                For example, and you might have seen my take on this elsewhere: Lots of Canadian hot-heads are talking about cutting off electricity that Americans are supposedly critically dependent on. “Turn their lights out!” Even some in the American Resistance (TM) thinks this is a good idea. On cue, Premier Ford of Ontario did threaten to make the three U.S. states to whom we export net electricity feel “real pain” when he cuts off the electricity to them. (For non-Ontarians, that’s MN, MI, and NY. Yes, New York.)

                Thing is, the three states generate within their own borders 26 times as much electricity as Ontario exports to them in aggregate. Some pain. Crack open the throttles of the gas plants in New York a little and shovel in a little more coal in Michigan and the Americans will never notice. They don’t “depend” on us, it’s just that some times of the day electricity is cheaper in Ontario than it is in the States. So we sell it to them.

                Gov. Whitmer would notice, though. She might shut off Enbridge Line 5, which she has been trying to do anyway since before Biden’s term, citing an “emergency”, causing Ontario to run out of gasoline and jet fuel in a few days. And electricity flows the other way over these synchronous grids responding to load fluctuations. We might find we have to buy electricity on the spot market at hundreds of dollars a MWhr. Because we are a net exporter, when we import to meet demand, we really, critically need it.

                President Trump’s Commerce Secretary called up Premier Ford for a little chat shortly after his threats. I’m sure that’s the last we’ll hear of that!

                My advice is to forget about President Trump. He’s America’s President, not ours. Concentrate on how to make the Canadian political economy more resilient, find shared interests. You don’t have to trust him — sovereign countries never bind themselves to act against their own interests — you just have to find some way he needs us, and then ask for receipts. If he doesn’t need us for anything, then it’s tits up for us until he does.

                Or you can intrigue against him in hopes the Congress impeaches him. That’ll go over well once he’s acquitted (again.) Might even be an act of war.

    3. Given the current public mood in Canada, Trudeau has little choice but to respond to Trump’s tariffs as he has.
       The next step, of course, will be a ban on poutine exports.

15. I’ve never tried it but now I REALLY want to try poutine. (Always wondered what it was.. something to do with fries and gravy I guessed. Maple syrup maybe?)

    WEIT’s food porn will be a disaster on my otherwise trim wasteline!

    D.A.
    NYC

16. The New York Times screed against keeping vulnerable transgendered girls out of girls’ sports is intended to sound self-contradictory. The brain immediately asks, “Whatever for? Who would want to do that?” What’s wrong with letting a girl who adopts a trans identity compete with other girls? Be inclusive, like for black girls and lesbian girls. As long as she’s not taking testosterone, of course. It’s only when the brain realizes that transgendered girls are not girls at all but boys that the penny drops. (Granted it takes the prepared mind about the same length of time that it takes for the illusion of free will to occur.)

    If we said, “keep boys out of girls’ sports”, as the accompanying opinion poll does, the cognitive dissonance would evaporate. “Of course we won’t let post-pubescent boys play with girls. Who would ever suggest something like that?” Gender identity doesn’t buy you any privileges. Only ultra-liberals (Marxists?) think that it ought to. If you need to be extra specific, such as when trans-ness is relevant to the story as to why a male athlete was making a stink about something, you can say he was a trans-identified man, or that he identifies as female. But never call him any kind of a woman.

    I see evidence that the language is changing. I do think “transwoman” is going out of fashion. (“Transman” always sounded like a Marvel superhero, like a muscle car that turns into a robot.). Then we will have men and women, some of whom may be trans-identified, some not, but they don’t become a subset of the opposite sex. And “cis-women” like our wives, sisters, and daughters can go back to being women.

    1. Hear hear.

    2. I’m going to reply to you about tariffs here because the other thread is too deeply nested.

       I wasn’t advocating crazy things like cutting off electricity, merely counter tariffs. I don’t go any further than that.

       I believe the counter tariffs are if not in place then soon to be.

17. Silly students have been writing “free Palestine” everywhere for 18 months, and Hamas Nazis still occupy Gaza!

    So they have achieved nothing at all.

    1. I have been suggesting for a year now, that “from Hamas” should be added to every shouted or written instance of “Free Palestine”.

       1. +1

       2. +1
          That’s beautiful!

    2. Not for long Rich. Seems that Israel is calling up a massive number of reserves.

       I think the calculation is: How many hostages can we dismiss as war dead before the real Gaza campaign begins? This time – thankfully – with the Americans behind them and (as before) irrelevant Euros and Aussies bleating and virtue signaling about the “poor Pawestinian ewoks we’ve morally adopted.”

       I have no crystal ball but I believe the wider war begins soon. Possibly when there’s some big international distraction. With Trump we won’t have to wait long.

       D.A.
       NYC
       my article on Gaza lately: https://democracychronicles.org/so-what-of-gaza-trumps-plan-and-some-context/

18. “I realize there is absolutely nothing I can say to make them happy or to make them stand or smile or applaud,” said Trump early on. “Nothing I can do.”

    “I recognize that I actually lost the 2020 election. Sorry about lying about it before.”

    “I was wrong to disrespect President Zelenskyy. I’ll call him first thing tomorrow and tell him that the US is with him and that Putin’s invasion was an unwarranted act of aggression.”

    “Some stuff the government does is actually useful and important, I will tell Elon to put away his chainsaw and I will have my people look at all the agencies Elon has cut so far and restore funding to at least some of them.”

    “I shouldn’t have called for tariffs against our neighbors and allies, I shall rescind them forthwith. And, Prime Minister Trudeau, I’m sorry I mocked you by calling you Governor.”

    Boom! Four things Trump could have said that would have been instant applause lines from Democrats. I can think of plenty more. I’m not saying those things would have been realistic or in character for Trump to say! But he could have said them.

    You’re welcome.

    1. Maybe in the same sense that pigs could fly (e.g. ballistically).

    2. No, they very likely wouldn’t have cheered for anything he said. They refused to stand or clap for a kid with brain cancer. Their position is to be anti-Trump regardless of what he says or does. That seems to be the sole political platform of the Democrats.

       Now, I agree that bringing a kid with cancer to this is a political stunt, but there’s nothing new about political stunts at state of the union addresses. The right thing to do would have been to clap for the kid. Unless of course you’re racist and hate black kids.

19. I watched Trump’s speech so that the rest of you didn’t have to! Standard Trump, with the over-the-top and repetitive language, the bragging, the ad libs, you name it. His laundry list of millions and billions of spending on “Woke” and other nonsense in our foreign “aid” budget was effective. The irony was in all the applauding Republicans who authorized and appropriated those funds.

    The Democrats did not help themselves. Trump had an array of normal people whom he recognized, whether it be a border officer, a young man granted admission to West Point, a young woman who was brain damaged when a male volleyball player on the opposing team spiked a ball into her face, the parents of children slain by illegal immigrants. Yes, some of them were political props, but they are also human beings. The Democrats, with a few members excepted, couldn’t bring themselves to applaud or stand for anyone or anything—at least not from the camera shots I saw on CSPAN. The worst moment for the Democrats, I thought, was when Trump had his secret service director designate a 13-year-old brain cancer survivor as a secret service agent. (I see Darryl mentions it above.) The boy’s expression was priceless; he hugged the Director; the Republicans applauded throughout and erupted in a chant of the boy’s name. The Democrats mostly sat stone-faced, too absorbed in their hatred of the Orange Man to share in moments of human dignity and common appreciation.

    The one moment of mass applause from the Democrats was in support of Ukraine. Trump asked if they wanted the war to go on for another five years, they continued to applaud. But ovations for average people in their own country, to include young men, young women, grieving parents, children? Nah, a bridge too far. If a network other than CSPAN presented camera shots more complimentary to the Democrats, I would love to see them and will gladly reassess.

20. The time spent in the speech and recently by Musk, on obvious lies about Social Security, are a clear signal that the Republicans are coming after Social Security again.

21. “In response to American diplomatic stupidity over Ukraine, our allies in the EU have acted admirably, proposing a huge sum of money . . . ”

    Hmmm, maybe the Americans were not so stupid , eh?

22. The phrase “a hill to die on” has actually been used by TRAs. Chase Strangio actually used that exact phrase to express his determination to stop the circulation of Abigail Shrier’s book.

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