They seem lost in the welter of passions.

The Assault on Empiricism

Say No to ‘Anti-Racist’ Racial Segregation in Schools

They’re based on nonsensical theory and are DANGEROUSLY DIVISIVE.

There’s enough BS out there.

Simple, straightforward, on point.

Bubbleth Over

Yes, we’ve now topped 2005 and 2006.

And check out Phoenix, San Diego, Seattle, San Francisco, Tampa, Dallas and Miami. Good luck with water, fire, homelessness, power grid, hurricane and surging minorities issues!

And to ice it, this is the FASTEST PACE OF HOME PRICE INFLATION ON RECORD.

This CANNOT end well.

I thought we were further ahead of the pack.  But then again, number one is NUMBER ONE.

The War in Afghanistan Is What Happens When McKinsey Types Run Everything

This piece corroborates a notion of mine that we don’t enter wars to WIN them but simply to WAGE them — as they are one of the world’s MOST LUCRATIVE BUSINESSES.

A lot of dirt here:

• The arrogance of Stanley McChrystal
• War Machine, the Brad Pitt movie satire lampooning McChrystal
• McChrystal’s McKinsey mindset and military-connected business ventures
• The top-to-bottom lie that was the Afghanistan war

An excerpt from the piece:

” . . . McChrystal and much of our military leadership is tight with consultants like McKinsey, and that whole diseased culture from Harvard Business School of pervasive over-optimism and finance-venture capital monopoly bro-a-thons. McKinsey itself had involvement in Afghanistan, with at least one $18.6 million contract to help the Defense Department define its “strategic focus,” though government watchdogs found that the “only output [they] could find” was a 50-page report about strategic economic development potential in Herat, a province in western Afghanistan.” It turns out that ‘strategic focus’ means an $18.6 million PowerPoint. (There was reporting on this contract because Pete Buttigieg worked on it as a junior analyst at McKinsey, and he has failed upward to run the Transportation Department.)

And another:

“I bring War Machine up because of today’s debate over Afghanistan. While there is a lot of back and forth about whether intelligence agencies knew that the Taliban would take over, or what would happen if we left, or whether the withdrawal could be done more competently, all you had to do to know that this war was a shitshow based on deception and idiocy at all levels was to turn on Netflix and watch this movie. Or you could read any number of inspector general reports, leaked documents, articles, talk to any number of veterans, or use common sense, which, polling showed, most Americans did.”

Get the picture?

But, hey, read the rest of it in the piece.  It provides a cross section of the rotten, profiteering system AMERICAN WARMAKING is.

China to Require Foreign Vessels to Report in ‘Territorial Waters’

Two questions:

1. How does China define its territorial waters?
2. What exactly constitutes a threat to national security?

I suspect the answer to each is EXTREMELY ARBITRARY.

China is PUSHING THE ENVELOPE here.  It’s almost a PASSIVE ACT OF WAR in itself.

We are headed for an incident or incidents in the South China Sea or the East China Sea or both.

TUDOR PLACE:  As this piece points out, America’s energy strategy isn’t workable.  Why?  It’s based on the premise of EATING ONE’S CAKE BUT STILL HAVING IT.  Or, put another way, threading a needle a QUARK couldn’t slip through.

For those still energy novices, I strongly advise against ducking the issue.  Energy is the ENTIRE BALLGAME.  Not Wall Street, not the Fed, not gold or the dollar, not venture capital, not crypto, not Apple, 5G or AI — but ENERGY.  The thing that POWERS ALL WORK. 

So, if you ARE one of those novices but wish to start remedying your ignorance, then READING THIS ARTICLE IS A START.

America’s Energy Strategy is Bonkers

Here are some highlights:

“President Biden has made clear that he wants Americans to have access to affordable and reliable energy, including at the pump.” – Jake Sullivan, National Security Advisor (emphasis added).

TUDOR PLACE:  Yet Biden wants the US off hydrocarbons TOUTE SUITE.  As the piece points out, cheap gas prices will PREVENT THAT FROM HAPPENING.

From the piece:

“The President and his allies are limiting domestically produced oil and gas at every opportunity, which should come as no surprise – they ran for office on exactly this policy, after all. The controversial Keystone Pipeline project was permanently cancelled shortly after Biden took office, signaling a major policy shift from the Trump administration. In late January, Biden issued a broad moratorium on oil and gas leases on federal lands and waters (subsequently partially reversed). Just last week, an Obama-appointed federal judge in Alaska reversed a previously approved $6B development project in her state, much to the chagrin of ConocoPhillips, the project’s owner.”

TUDOR PLACE:  The piece continues:

“If you think the burning of fossil fuels is bad for the planet and should be slowed and eventually stopped altogether, these actions are perfectly fine – even laudable. What is not fine is to expect that the price of oil (and by extension, gasoline) wouldn’t go up as a result of these policies. It takes a special kind of stupid to think that crimping supply for a highly inelastic commodity wouldn’t spike prices higher, especially as the economy continues to experience an accelerated recovery from the impact of Covid-19. Further, this is the exact result you should want if your intent is to reduce demand for fossil fuels. You don’t have to have a PhD in economics to understand that destroying demand with price is particularly effective. Higher prices for fossil fuels also make the development of alternatives more economically feasible, thereby accelerating our environmental transformation. There’s simply no path to substantially reduced carbon intensity without substantially higher prices for fossil fuels.”

TUDOR PLACE:  The problem at the heart of all current energy conversion advocacy is the belief that the actual process can be SEAMLESSLY COMPLETED and without negative economic consequences of any kind for any class or sector.  Well, THERE ARE NO SEAMLESS CONVERSIONS.  Not in the REAL WORLD.  Instead, there’s FRICTION which  converts into COSTS.   You can’t just exit a speeding train by leaping onto another one.  At the same time, the pandemic has taught us that stopping this complex global economy for EVEN ONE HOUR is ruinously expensive.

HOW’S THAT FOR A DILEMMA?

As for automotive electrification, the piece raises this issue:

“Where will the industrial metals and electricity needed for this conversion to electric come from? While the President proclaims that he will prioritize the domestic production of strategic minerals, the reality is his administration is making it even harder to get new mines operational.”

TUDOR PLACE:  Once again, a noble, politically correct, “environmentally driven,” notion that is nonetheless half-baked and on a  COLLISION COURSE with an OH, SO INCONVENIENT necessity.

But, WAIT, there’s MORE!

“Our nation’s electricity grid is woefully unprepared to even support normal economic growth going forward. It simply can’t support the revolution in transportation that the President proposes. Because of lack of investment, poor maintenance, and political opposition to the development of new power plants using traditional fuels, we are near a critical breaking point. Look no further than the rolling blackouts in California and the struggle Texas is having keeping its lights on.”

TUDOR PLACE:  The piece concludes with the author’s recommendations as to what the government — if it truly wishes to tackle COHERENTLY the energy issue — SHOULD DO.

Here they are:

• Pass an infrastructure bill that ACTUALLY INVESTS in infrastructure.
• Replace all coal-fired power plant switch those that burn natural gas.
• Develop “renewable” energy sources, especially wind and solar but also embark on a Manhattan Project type effort to “create affordable, grid-scale batteries from readily available materials.”
• Given the current suboptimal state of battery technology, concentrate more on developing plug-in-hybrids (PHEV’s) rather than full battery electric vehicles (BEV’s).
• Revitalize the nuclear power industry.

TUDOR PLACE:  Yet, as a realist, the author, IN NO WAY, expects that any such agenda will EVER be implemented:

“President Biden’s de facto committee on energy is fatally conflicted, damning the US to the provably insane policies that are being imposed upon us today. On one end of that committee’s table sits progressive politicians – most of whom have never worked in heavy industry – who are demanding an all-or-nothing approach to energy policy that is completely at odds with sound scientific and economic theory. These politicians are underwritten and enabled by rent-seeking financiers on Wall Street, most notably Larry Fink, chair and CEO of Blackrock – and other similar cocktail-party dwellers – who don’t have to suffer the consequences of the policy recommendations they support. On the other end of the committee’s table sits the President’s base: blue-collar union members who drive pickup trucks for a living, middle-class families struggling to make ends meet, and all manner of economically-disadvantaged citizens. The President knows intuitively that placating the former will harm the latter, which is how we ended up with the policies we have.

If you insist on all or nothing, it will be all for nothing. The planet will be no better off, and we’ll all be poorer.”

TUDOR PLACE:  And people chide me for being NEGATIVE! 

Hang on, SLOOPY, hang on!

I don’t find these guys as polished as either the Hindley Street Country Club or Leonid & Friends.  While they cover some of the same material, and their arrangements are sound, the execution — comparatively speaking — isn’t as refined.  The musicianship is there, but both the voices and production values fall a bit short.

At least, to my ear.

That said, they do a MUCH BETTER JOB with some of the EDGIER NEW WAVE STUFF as these six cuts I’ve posted should demonstrate.

Decide for yourself.

As per one John Lange:

1. The Classic Rock Show
2. Foxes and Fossils
3. Hindley Street Country Club
4. Lexington Lab Band
5. Leonid & Friends

Once I’ve finished listening to each of them, I’ll provide my own ranking.  To date, I’m only familiar with Hindley Street Country Club and Leonid & Friends, both of whose covers I’ve posted and found EXCELLENT.

So, I’m eager to listen to the other three.

Here’s Lange’s video in which he analyzes each of them.

Best Cover Bands