"MAGA, a movement built around the personality of one man, never amounted to a coherent political force or even a workable coalition."

"As in his first term, Donald Trump now presides over a visibly sinking ship as his approval ratings slide. MAGA, a movement built around the personality of one man, never amounted to a coherent political force or even a workable coalition. Claims that Trump and his lieutenants won a mandate in 2024 and then ‘saved’ the country were always delusional. …

"The ideological divide within MAGA has grown increasingly harsh. Trump is not, at heart, a professional politician. Rather, he is a blend of New York developer and carnival barker. His uneasy alliance with ‘tech bros’, Wall Street insiders and fervent right-wing nativists was never stable. It was held together mostly by Trump himself – and by the awfulness of the Democrats.

"Even as he strikes a populist pose, some people influential in MAGA flirt with ideas like eugenic Darwinism and a permanent ruling aristocracy. Others within MAGA embrace isolationism and attacks on minorities, particularly Jews. Trump rejects such notions, but too many top GOP figures ... seem terrified of alienating the odious Tucker Carlson ... 

"At its worst, MAGA’s hardest faction embraces openly racist groups such as the Proud Boys. There’s also a class element at play. Carlson, himself a product of the upper class, claims to speak for what he sees as ‘core’ Americans – basically middle-class white people – some of whom view immigration and cultural change as existential threats.

"Sadly, this faction [under Vance] could define MAGA after Trump. … even though Trump’s policies may shape the nation’s direction for years, a bit like an unpleasant but necessary [sic] enema. Unless the GOP rediscovers its Reaganite optimism and turns from vengeance to economic renewal, America’s future will likely belong either to the radical socialists or to the oligarch-friendly technocrats. Neither of which would be a desirable outcome."

~ Joel Kotkin from his post 'This is how MAGA falls'

The oxymoron of 'smart active government'

"[L]ast month [MBIE and MFAT issued a draft report asking] ‘How can we accelerate the growth of high productivity activities in the New Zealand.’ …

"It was the ‘accelerate the growth of high productivity activities’ that prompted me to look a little further: the focus apparently was not economy-wide productivity and policy settings but the sort of ‘smart active government’ stuff MBIE has long championed, involving clever officials and politicians identifying specific sectors to focus on and specific interventions to help those sectors. …

"On a day when the dysfunctions of our public sector were on particularly gruesome display it seemed even less appealing and persuasive than usual. In a month when the government had been a) buying a rugby league game, b) increasing (again) film subsidies, and c) subsidising expensive New Zealand restaurants (via the Michelin corporate welfare), all in the name apparently of 'going for growth. …

"[T]he draft report is unlikely to be any use to anyone looking for illumination rather than support (the old two uses of a lamppost line). … [T]here is a list of types of interventions that have been or are being used in [other] countries but no effort at all to assess what role (positive or negative) these interventions have played in contributing to medium-term productivity growth. It certainly isn’t impossible that some might have been helpful, some will almost certainly have been harmful …, and perhaps many will have just been ornamental or redistributive …  

"N]ot once in the entire document is there any suggestion of the possibility of government failure, capture etc.

"Then the draft report moves on to four domestic case studies … None of it seems to display any scepticism, only a sense that we (governments) haven’t been sufficiently focused or willing to persist with particular sector supports. … And the whole document ends with a question that shouldn’t even be being asked by government departments: ‘How might we identify higher productivity and growth potential?’ …

"[T]heir mindset and fairly shallow analysis in documents like this helps provide cover for governments more ready to paper over symptoms, toss out some cash to favoured firms/sectors, and avoid insisting that the hard structural issues are identified and addressed).

"[Yet] this sort of stuff helps keep lots of officials busy and feeling useful."

~ Michael Reddell from his post 'Government departments championing…bigger roles for themselves'

Seeking to find a te reo word to describe the unfamiliar concept of property rights has made for a disastrous confusion

"Article Two of Te Tiriti promises to preserve tino rangatiratanga; courts have interpreted this in various ways to mean that chiefs (Rangatira) retain some kind of chiefly power. But Te Tiriti itself fails to fully clarify of what that power consists. Lawyers since have taken full advantage of this imprecision ... 

"In seeking to find a te reo word to describe the unfamiliar concept of property rights, [Te Tiriti's authors have] unfortunately conflated a legitimate recognition of an individual right to property with an analogy to feudalism and a non-existent claim to a collective right. But feudalism is a busted flush. And "the expression 'collective rights' is a contradiction in terms.”

"This then makes for a disastrous confusion. Confusion, because the intent of Article Two is to impart property rights, an individual right. But the reference to "chieftainship" makes the promise about collective tribal rights over land with the tribes' rights embodied in a chief.  Disastrous because Te Tiriti should have treated all Maori as individuals instead of as members of a tribe. But it really does nothing of the sort except by implication.

"Instead, as written, it cemented in and buttressed the tribal leadership and communal structures that already existed here —encouraging the survival of this wreck of a system until morphing, as it has today, into this mongrelised sub-group of pseudo-aristocracy: of Neotribal Cronyism. 

"This is not what was aimed at, but it is what was written. But the law cannot protect a non-existent right. As [former Chief Justice] William Martin wrote in 1860, in seeking to understand the intent of the authors,

'This tribal right is clearly a right of property… To themselves they retained what they understood full well, the "tino Rangatiratanga,""full Chiefship," in respect of all their lands…"'

"This is not trivial. This is why sovereignty, was ceded. This is what we must understand. Tino rangatiratanga ('a right of property') under kāwanatanga katoa (the 'complete Government') of the British Queen.

“'EVEN THE 'TINO' OF the Māori version is better understood in this context,' argues [Ewen] McQueen. 'It does not mean that the chiefs’ authority is unqualified in a government sense. Rather it is Henry Williams’s translation of how the chiefs would retain possession of the lands, forests and fisheries. The English version emphasised such possession would continue ‘full exclusive and undisturbed.’ Williams has rendered this concept as ‘tino’ rangatiratanga. It is about Māori retaining full agency over their land and resources. It is not a statement about unqualified political sovereignty.' [Emphasis mine.]

"So 'rangatiratanga' relates to ownership. 'Tino' gives force to this relationship, giving it the force of a property right."

~ Yours Truly from my post 'Rangatiratanga means "Ownership"'

Have political parties begun to get some rat cunning into how to best manipulate MMP to their advantage?

 I don't want to be conspiratorial here .... but could it be that major political parties have begun to get some rat cunning into how to best manipulate MMP to their advantage.

Both Labour and National may have finally recognised that their odds of winning a full majority in an MMP election are about as likely as Winston Peters agreeing to selling off state assets. So is that why Luxon expressed mild but undefined interest this week in doing just that? Was it to give a hoped-for future coalition party a prop upon which to launch next year's election campaign?

It seems as likely a notion as that Labour and the Māori Party have recognised the huge advantage for them both to be gained by the 'overhang' that happens when a party has more electorate MPs than can be justified by their party vote—so they've done their best to bust their party vote while simultaneously raising the profile of those electorate MPs.

That's a risky game to play, of course, but there's no real risk to Labour. Is that why Willie Jackson is walking around looking so pleased with himself.

The "principals' revolt" is "a small group of people…making a lot of noise"

"The release of draft primary and intermediate school curriculums prompted 'a revolt' by the Principals Federation. ...

"But today a Christchurch principal is reported to be vigorously defending the changes to the curriculum” [including the Government’s intention to remove requirements for school boards to give effect the Treaty of Waitangi] saying many in the profession are supportive. ... and opponents are 'a small group of people…making a lot of noise' ... 

"Education Minister Erica Stanford says of the requirement [for school boards to give effect the Treaty of Waitangi]— introduced in 2020 —'it certainly didn’t make any difference' to student achievement. ... But the reaction was predictable ...

"[This blog] would like to know: In what ways has school governance been enhanced since 2020? And what have been the positive consequences for the performance and achievements of students?"

~ Bob Edlin from his post 'A lesson from the principals’ “revolt” – we should ask if their numbers are as great as the headlines suggest' 

"Te Pāti Māori’s obsession with dividing people by ancestry belongs in the past. The rest of us should be focused on equality before the law."

"Te Pāti Māori’s obsession with dividing people by ancestry belongs in the past. The rest of us should be focused on equality before the law, something that the so-called colonial system has [had?] already delivered better than anything tikanga-based governance ever could."

~ Matua Kahurangi from his post 'David Seymour exposes the fraud of the anti-colonial crusade' [hat tip HomePaddock]

"The excessive and inappropriate use of name suppression"

"I make no secret of my hatred of the excessive and inappropriate use of name suppression in New Zealand. In particular, I am infuriated by the number of sex offenders who are given name suppression because people knowing about their offending would cause some kind of unjust hardship. ... The system should not be mitigating against natural justice. ...

"How dare the system, and those in it, prevent the victims of sexual violence from speaking about what happened to them. How dare anyone tell them they cannot point at their convicted assaulter and say 'that man did it to me!'” 

~ Ani O’Brien from her post 'Win for victims: New law puts survivors at the centre of justice'

"Since wealth is the only thing that can cure poverty..."

"Since wealth is the only thing that can cure poverty, you might think that the left would be as obsessed with the creation of wealth as they are with the redistribution of wealth. 

"But you would be wrong."

~ Thomas Sowell from bis 2006 column 'Political left has no interest in creating wealth' [hat tip Ira P]

If you're complaining about the price of butter, here's a data point to keep in mind ...

If you're complaining about the price of butter, here's a data point to keep in mind as you butter your croissant: "All dairy products have become much more abundant, especially since the mid-1800s, and chiefly for unskilled workers."

The same hours of unskilled work that bought 1 pound of butter in England in the 1200s bought 15.6 pounds of butter in 2022.
Instead of 1 pound of cheese, an unskilled worker got 10.6 pounds.
1 gallon of milk became 15.1 gallons.

Read more here at Human Progress. 

Laughter

"Laughter is proof of intelligence. It's the mind recognising absurdity and choosing joy over confusion, a small rebellion that makes us both wiser and kinder."

~ Stephen Fry

"An AI developer who trains on pirated or paywalled material can’t launder infringement through the word 'training' "

"Every few months, an AI company wins a procedural round in court or secures a sympathetic sound bite about 'transformative fair use.' Within hours, the headlines declare a new doctrine of spin: the right to train AI on copyrighted works. But let’s be clear — no such right exists and probably never will. That doesn’t mean they won’t keep trying. ...

"Fair use is a case-by-case defence to copyright infringement, not a standing permission slip. ... But AI companies are trying to convert that flexible doctrine into a brand new safe harbour: a default assumption that all training is fair use unless proven otherwise. ...

That’s exactly backward. The Copyright Office’s own report makes clear that the legality of training depends on how the data was acquired and what the model does with it. A developer who trains on pirated or paywalled material like Anthropic, Meta and probably all of them to one degree or another, can’t launder infringement through the word 'training.' "

~ The Trichordist from their post 'There Is No ‘Right to Train’: How AI Labs Are Trying to Manufacture a Safe Harbour for Theft'

Jacinda: "Rarely has a person seemed so suited for a job"

 

"Jacinda Ardern, the former prime minister of New Zealand, is reportedly in the running to be the next UN secretary-general. Rarely has a person seemed so suited for a job: an overpraised politician with no ability leading an ineffective organisation with no accountability."

~ Hugo Timms from his op-ed 'Jacinda Ardern leading the UN? God help us'

"The issue is never the issue. The issue is always Revolution."

"In New Zealand, Māori are being offered [these] promises: co-governance, constitutional recognition, cultural primacy. These are framed as justice, but function as leverage. The goal is not reconciliation; it is ideological entrenchment.

    

    Co-governance is not about partnership; it’s about parallel sovereignty.
    Te Tiriti reinterpretation is not about history; it’s about power.
    Tikanga in law is not about tradition; it’s about jurisdictional capture.

"The race-Marxist machine does not care about whakapapa. It cares about mobilisation. Māori identity is being re-coded as political loyalty, and dissenters are cast as traitors to their own people. ...

"This is a classic Motte-and-Bailey tactic. ... Predictably, defenders of this [approach] will retreat to the motte: 'We just want equity.' But the bailey—the real ideological terrain—is far more radical: constitutional transformation, racial separatism, and symbolic supremacy. ...

" 'The issue is never the issue. The issue is always Revolution.' "

~ Colinxy from his post 'How Māori Are Being Played by the Marxist Machine'

“‘Emergencies’ have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have been eroded"

“‘Emergencies’ have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have been eroded — and once they are suspended it is not difficult for anyone who has assumed such emergency powers to see to it that the emergency will persist." 

~ Friedrich Hayek, from his 1979 book Law, Legislation & Liberty, Vol III: The Political Order of a Free People

"Trump is effectively admitting he has no idea who he’s pardoning, but he’s doing it to help his corrupt sons."

From Robert Tracinski's latest roundup of his work for Executive Watch at The UnPopulist, this one focusing on the spectacular personal corruption of this administration, comes this news:

A Crypto Conman Whose Platform Helped Hamas Launder Money Receives a Full Pardon After Investing in Trump’s Crypto Fund

One of the most flagrant abuses of Trump’s second term is his more or less open sale of pardons to those who enrich him and his family. Early this year, Executive Watch noted the Trump family’s deal with Binance, a cryptocurrency exchange whose Chinese founder Changpeng Zhao was lobbying for a Trump pardon. Now Trump has delivered on his end of the deal.

The New York Times reports:

President Trump granted a pardon to Changpeng Zhao, the billionaire founder of the cryptocurrency exchange Binance, wiping away one of the U.S. government’s most significant crackdowns on crypto crime.
    Mr. Zhao had pleaded guilty to money-laundering violations in 2023 and served four months in federal prison, after a yearslong investigation by financial regulators and U.S. prosecutors. …
    To seek the pardon, Mr. Zhao hired lawyers and lobbyists with ties to the Trump administration, while Binance struck a business deal with World Liberty Financial, the Trump family’s crypto start-up.
    That deal alone is poised to generate tens of millions of dollars a year for the Trumps and the family of Steve Witkoff, the president’s top Middle East adviser. …
    Long considered the crypto industry’s richest man, Mr. Zhao—a Chinese-born executive who now lives in the United Arab Emirates—admitted that he had violated the law by failing to install rigorous compliance systems at Binance. That allowed people in countries under sanctions, and terrorist groups like Hamas, Al Qaeda, and the Islamic State, to move money on his platform.

This is typical of Trump’s pay-to-play presidency. Writing an op-ed critical of Israel can get you branded as a supporter of Hamas and rounded up by government goons. But funnel enough money to the Trump family and you can get a free pass for helping terrorists launder money.

60 Minutes quizzed Trump on this. (This the crazy 60 Minutes segment in which "they just edited out a segment where Donald Trump tells them to edit out a segment in which he brags about getting CBS to pay him because of them editing out part of an answer by Kamala Harris, and he notes that CBS clearly did the wrong thing in editing Harris in the same fucking sentence he tells them to edit out what he’s saying.") Techdirt summarises:

From the full (unedited) transcript ... :

NORAH O’DONNELL: This is a question about pardons. The Trump family is now perhaps more associated with cryptocurrency than real estate. You and your son– your sons, Don Jr. and Eric, have formed World Liberty Financial with the Witkoff family.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Right.

NORAH O’DONNELL: Helping to make your family millions of dollars. It’s in that context that I do wanna ask you about crypto’s richest man, a billionaire known as C.Z. He pled guilty in 2023 to violating anti-money laundering laws.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Right.

NORAH O’DONNELL: Looked at this, the government at the time said that C.Z. had caused “significant harm to U.S. national security”, essentially by allowing terrorist groups like Hamas to move millions of dollars around. Why did you pardon him?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Okay, are you ready? I don’t know who he is.

Um. That’s worse. You do get how that’s worse, right?

Trump’s own administration is claiming Biden’s pardons are invalid because he didn’t know who he was pardoning. And Trump just proudly announced, on camera, that he has no idea who CZ is.

Then he admits that his sons basically told him to do this for their crypto business:

My sons are involved in crypto much more than I– me. I– I know very little about it, other than one thing. It’s a huge industry. And if we’re not gonna be the head of it, China, Japan, or someplace else is. So I am behind it 100%. This man was, in my opinion, from what I was told, this is, you know, a four-month sentence.

But this man was treated really badly by the Biden administration. And he was given a jail term. He’s highly respected. He’s a very successful guy. They sent him to jail and they really set him up. That’s my opinion. I was told about it.

By whom? Who told you about it? A good reporter would have stepped in and asked that question, but this is the new Bari Weiss 60 Minutes where you won’t see follow-ups like that. Or if you did, they’d be edited out.

He continues:

I was told that he was a victim, just like I was and just like many other people, of a vicious, horrible group of people in the Biden administration.

Again, “who told you this?” is the next question any reporter should be asking. O’Donnell did not. Though she at least did point out that he pleaded guilty to allowing terrorist groups to engage in money laundering, which seems notable for a guy who keeps talking about fighting crime.

NORAH O’DONNELL: The government had accused him of “significant harm to U.S. national security”–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: That’s the Biden government.

NORAH O’DONNELL: Okay. Allowing U.S. terrorist groups to, you know, essentially move millions of dollars around. He pled guilty to anti-money laundering laws. That was in 2023. Then in 2025 his crypto exchange, Binance, helped facilitate a $2 billion purchase of World Liberty Financial’s stablecoin. And then you pardoned C.Z. How do you address the appearance of pay for play?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, here’s the thing, I know nothing about it because I’m too busy doing the other–

Um. Isn’t that exactly why your administration is claiming Biden’s pardons don’t count?

NORAH O’DONNELL: But he got a pardon–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I can only tell you that–

NORAH O’DONNELL: He got a pardon–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Norah, I can only tell you this. My sons are into it. I’m glad they are, because it’s probably a great industry, crypto. I think it’s good. You know, they’re running a business, they’re not in government. And they’re good– my one son is a number one bestseller now.

So here Trump admits (1) he doesn’t know who CZ is, then (2) admits that basically his sons are the ones into cryptocurrency and “not in government,” and effectively admits that (3) he pardoned CZ on the advice of his sons, who directly profit from the pardon through their cryptocurrency business, while claiming ignorance of the entire arrangement.

This isn’t just yet another example of the most corrupt pay-for-play administration in the history of the United States but one that literally does everything it falsely accuses past administrations of doing, but way worse. Just as they’re claiming that Biden’s pardons weren’t valid, Trump is effectively admitting he has no idea who he’s pardoning, but he’s doing it to help his corrupt sons.

"Interestingly, the right didn’t take the leftist ideas that were intended to build something; they took just the ideas intended to destroy."

"As so many have noted, MAGA is identity politics for white people. It turns out that identity politics is more effective when your group is in the majority.

"… Last year, a writer named James Lindsay cribbed language from “The Communist Manifesto,” changed its valences so that they were right wing and submitted it to a conservative publication called The American Reformer. The editors, unaware of the provenance, were happy to print it. When the hoax was revealed, they were still happy! The right is now eager to embrace the ideas that led to tyranny, the gulag and Mao’s Cultural Revolution. Interestingly, the right didn’t take the leftist ideas that were intended to build something; they took just the ideas intended to destroy."

~ David Brooks from his column 'Hey, Lefties! Trump Has Stolen Your Game' [hat tip Alex Tabarrok ] 

"Capitalism created Poland's miracle, and socialism created Venezuela's catastrophe."

"Capitalism created Poland's miracle, and socialism created Venezuela's catastrophe."

~ Young Americans for Liberty [chart from the Our World in Data website]

Science + mysticism = ?

"The issue is how to predict when a now-dormant volcano, Mount Taranaki on New Zealand’s North Island, will erupt again. The ['Herald'] article summarises a five-year study of how to predict not just that but also how to assess the damage from an eruption. The researchers apparently used real science to get the dates of eruptions ... and research from Massey University to calculate possible damage. ...

"None of the references given in the 'Herald' piece ... even mention mātauranga Māori, but it’s still touted as helping ... 'to weave together' ... empirical observation ... [with] indigenous 'ways of knowing' stuff, heavily larded with Māori words. ...

"Bilingual resources, interactive StoryMaps, and wānanga [tribal or traditional knowledge; could also mean an 'indigenous sage'] created spaces for kōrero [conversations] about the mounga’s [mountain's] past and future.

" 'You can’t understand volcanic risk in Taranaki without understanding the whakapapa [genealogy or history] of the mountain, whenua [land] and awa [rivers], the kōrero tuku iho [oral tradition] and mātauranga [knowledge] held by whānau [family groups], hapū [kinship groups or tribes] and iwi [tribes] who hold ancestral connections to the mounga [mountain] and have done so for generations,' said Acushla Dee Sciascia of Mapuna Consultants.

"This research provided a platform for Māori researchers to contribute their voices, leading to richer outputs including monographs, visual exhibitions, and new ways of telling the mounga’s story.

" 'Taranaki mounga [tribal groups near the mountain] provides us with so many learnings [lessons] from its past and how our tūpuna [ancestors] navigated previous volcanic events, and it’s up to us now to prepare our whānau [land] for the future,' Sciascia said.

" 'This programme has laid a foundation. But the real mahi [effort] is in how we carry this forward, and how we embed mātauranga Māori into everyday planning, science, and response.'

"What is missing here is how mātauranga Māori really is woven together with Western science in a productive way. Conspicuously absent is any mention about how mātauranga Māori really does help us assess volcanic risk ... Nor does seeing how earlier inhabitants coped with the damage give us much help in figuring out how to cope with the damage now. In the end, it seems that straight empirical observation and empirical-based prediction is what is needed here, and I can’t for the life of me find out how mātauranga Māori can help with that."

~ Jerry Coyne from his post 'Mātauranga Māori strikes again'

"This is [is this?] the sound of a bubble popping."

"Mark Zuckerberg had exciting news to share yesterday. His company Meta had finished a great quarter—and would continue to increase spending on AI.

"He said that yesterday afternoon. But when the market opened this morning, Meta shares dropped more than $80. That’s $200 billion in market cap wiped out in an instant. 

Meta’s share price this week 

"Why don’t investors like AI? Only a few months ago, companies saw their shares skyrocket when they made AI investments.

"In September, Oracle’s stock shot up 36% in just one day after announcing a huge deal with OpenAI. The share price increase was enough to make the company’s founder Larry Ellison the richest man in the world.

"But then investors changed their mind. Since that big day, Oracle shares have fallen $60. Larry Ellison is no longer the richest man in the world.

"This is [is this?] the sound of a bubble popping."

~ Ted Gioia from his post 'The Bubble Just Burst'

"Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta is spending untold billions on infrastructure and top talent for its AI ambitions.

"In fact, the CEO announced during the company’s earnings call on Wednesday, Meta will be spending between $70 billion and $72 billion on AI this year — up from its previous estimate of $66 billion to $72 billion, as CNBC reports.

"Unsurprisingly, that cash bonfire isn’t going over well with investors. Meta’s shares slid by more than 11 percent on Thursday, indicating widespread skepticism about the company’s ability to stop bleeding billions of dollars as it races to keep up with the AI industry’s ever-escalating expenditure commitments.

"That’s particularly striking because the drop comes in spite of Meta’s revenues exceeding Wall Street’s estimates. In other words, out of control AI spending is starting to rattle investors. 'The total dollar spend is just kind of what hangs us up a little bit,' [said one]...

"The AI industry is seemingly approaching a major inflection point, with Meta competitors Alphabet, and Microsoft tripling down on AI by increasing their planned spending to even loftier heights, fuelling fears of a growing AI bubblethat could take down the entire US economy with it if ever pops."

~ Victor Tangermann from his post 'Meta Stock Plummets as Investors Horrified at How Much Zuckerberg Is Spending on Misfired AI'

It's not our holiday.

It's not our holiday. Yes, the populace here is prone to creeping Americanism, but I swear to Galt that if fireworks weren't being cancelled then Hallowe'en wouldn't be taking over from Guy Fawkes as our early-summer evening out.

Still, you may nonetheless be asking, what in hell is a Hallow anyway? Well, you've come to the right place:

You may have heard that this name is some sort of unholy shortening of the phrase All Hallows’ Eve, which is true, but it only pushes the mystery back further into the mists of the linguistic past, tempting us to ask the question: what, pray tell, is a Hallow?

 That's the end of your good news. For, sadly, a Hallow is nothing to do with ghosts, zombies, or corpses that walk. A Hallow is just a saint.

In Old English, the word was hālga, literally ‘holy one.’ It’s a definite form of the adjective hālig, which gives us Modern English holy.

You know, like 'hallowed ground,' or 'hallowed be thy name.' Less exciting than you thought, right.

It gets more mundane: the suffix '~e'en' is just short for 'evening.' Or to be more precise, "evening is a long form of even: in Old English, the word for ‘evening’ was ǣfen."

Our modern word evening (from Old English ǣfenung) is formed from an old verb to even (Old English ǣfenian), meaning ‘to become evening.’ Evening is just a regular -ing noun formed from a verb, like fighting comes from fight. So, when you think about it, evening means ‘evening-ing.

And when the 'v' is dropped ("a sound change that occurred sporadically throughout the history of English [producing] variant forms o’er and e’er for over and ever") you end up with the name of the Americanised holiday.

Less exciting than you thought, right? Still, no tricks here—I promised you answers, not treats.

Taxation v Charity

"It's amazing to me how many people think that voting to have the government give poor people money is compassion. Helping poor and suffering people yourself is compassion.

"Voting for our government to use guns to give money to help poor and suffering people is immoral self-righteous bullying laziness.

"People need to be fed, medicated, educated, clothed, and sheltered. If we're compassionate, we'll help them, but you get no moral credit for forcing other people to do what you think is right. There is great joy in helping people, but no joy in doing it at gunpoint."

~ Penn Jillette musing on atheism and libertarianism

Finding "the meaning of life" in dirty work

"Howard Roark’s bold claim in [the novel] The Fountainhead [is] that “the meaning of life” is “your work. ...

"[P]opular culture[however] reflect widespread attitudes about work: it’s not fun, is at best useful for paying the bills and funding more enjoyable activities, and should be avoided if at all possible ...

"It’s easy for those who live in industrialised countries and cities to picture suits and ties, paycheques, uniforms, store shelves laden with goods, and rush-hour commuter traffic when thinking about work. The trappings of complex market societies direct our focus in the realm of work to making and spending money. However, whether Eve plucks a piece of fruit from a tree or John Locke imagines gathering acorns from the woods, ultimately all labour—physical and intellectual—is first of all about producing in order to live. As Ayn Rand puts it, 'a man works in order to support his own life,' using his mind and effort to solve 'the problem of survival.' ...

"[Mike Rowe's TV series] 'Dirty Jobs and Somebody’s Gotta Do It' brought hundreds of examples of sooty, grimy, sweaty people—who were also happy, flourishing, and paid well—to millions of television screens for well over a decade. Some, like Les Swanson, even chose to leave the white-collar job of guidance counsellor for a career in cleaning septic tanks. 

"Rowe noticed that folks like Swanson 'seemed to be better balanced and happier than most of the people [he] knew,' and asked, '[W]hat in the world do these people know that the rest of us don’t?' In an inversion of a seeker’s stereotypical trek to the top of a mountain to ask a cross-legged sage about the secret to a happy and meaningful life, Rowe put the question to Swanson while helping him 'suck . . . the shit out of people’s septic tanks.' Swanson’s response? 'What came first was the fact that nobody was doing this. What came second was my own, hardheaded commitment to be very good at it. And then, I did the thing that is the hardest thing to do. And that is figure out how to love something that you didn’t think you did.'

"Swanson paid attention to the reality of the market to capitalise on an opportunity to fill a gap he perceived and was more than willing to become excellent at his new job. It’s in the last step he identifies of learning how to love work that was not in his original game plan—a reality for countless workers—that the key to meaning exists. Even those who do follow their passion and fortunately land work they love right out of the gate are not always sure that their work is meaningful. 

"They, too, need to wrestle with 'the meaning question.' So, what is meaningful work? And how can that make for a meaningful life? ...

"We can look to philosopher-mechanic Matthew B. Crawford for a more current embodiment and articulation of this insight. When reflecting on what being an electrician’s assistant meant to him (a job he held as a teenager and young man), he says:

'I never ceased to take pleasure in the moment, at the end of a job, when I would flip the switch. "And there was light." It was an experience of agency and competence. The effects of my work were visible for all to see, so my competence was real for others as well; it had a social currency. . . . Maybe another electrician would see it someday. Even if not, I felt responsible to my better self. Or rather, to the thing itself—craftsmanship has been said to consist simply in the desire to do something well.'

"Crawford’s thoughtful account of what the work of electrician’s assistant meant to him—which transfers to his approach to all of his current work as a philosopher and motorcycle mechanic—reflects insights offered by Rowe [and others] about what makes work both subjectively and objectively meaningful. ...

"[T]he spiritual values you produce through your work [summarises] Rand also 'make his life worth living.' ...

"[L]ife takes work and ... such work requires taking personal responsibility for building a character and self capable of working. It also involves consciously choosing to engage in meaningful work and finding ways to illuminate how that work provides meaning in your life. When these are all in place, alienation and other ills get crowded out. You can look with pride at your life that you stocked with values you created through your work, smile, and say, 'I made this!'

"When Rowe replaces 'follow your passion' with 'bring your passion with you,' that’s a call to bring your passion for living with you no matter where you go or what job you have. Whether you’re building houses or bridges, painting a canvas, or writing a book, you’re always busy with the work of building your life. Roark’s proclamation that 'the meaning of life” is 'your work' is thus not so startling after all."

~ Carry-Ann Biondi from her symposium paper 'Mike Rowe, Work, and Meaning in Life'

Real Public Health Threats vs. Climate Hysteria: "It is vital that governments focus on real pollutants, not imagined ones."

"Relying on human ingenuity to coexist with a changing climate – either warmer or cooler – and tending to long-recognised public health threats are the best ways to ensure the well-being of the planet and its inhabitants, according to an Australian physician and expert in climate and public health.

“The ingenuity of Homo sapiens at adapting to climate has permitted people to populate almost the entire globe from the freezing Arctic to the steamy tropics, notes Dr. D. Weston Allen, lead author of a paper supporting a proposed repeal of a federal designation of carbon dioxide (CO2) as a pollutant. 'If we stick to doing what we do best – adaptation – we will continue to thrive.' ...

"[C]civilisations did well in past eras of relative warmth during Minoan and Roman times and the Medieval Warm Period. And, he says, cool periods often brought suffering, the most recent being the Little Ice Age, which experienced 'frequent widespread crop failures, mass starvation, disease and depopulation.' ...

"Although activists claim that warming will spread tropical diseases into temperate zones, malaria, once widespread in Europe and North America, declined because of public health measures such as draining swamps, spraying insecticides and increasing medical treatment.

"An oft-ignored fact is that cold weather is far deadlier than heat. Globally, cold kills many times more people than heat despite fearmongering about warming. Also, contrary to hyperbolic headlines, data for the last 100 years show that deaths from extreme weather have dropped by 90%.

"When policymakers focus exclusively on carbon dioxide and hypothetical climate harms, populations are denied the tools to manage real threats: infectious disease, hunger, dirty water, unsafe housing.

“ 'It is vital that governments focus on real pollutants, not imagined ones...,' writes Dr. Allen. 'Misguided climate action can be worse than unmitigated climate change.' ”

~ Gregory Wrightstone from his article 'Real Public Health Threats vs. Climate Hysteria'

Javier Miliei's victory in congressional elections means his free-market reform agenda can continue, says guest poster Marcos Falcone, and even accelerate ...

A Resounding Win for Milei’s Reform Agenda in Argentina

by Marcos Falcone
Argentine President Javier Milei won a clear victory on Sunday (October 26) over the opposition in the midterm elections, ensuring that his ambitious reform agenda will continue. With almost 99 percent of votes counted, Milei’s coalition, La Libertad Avanza (LLA), obtained 40.7 percent of the national vote, whereas the Peronists, who competed under the name of Fuerza Patria, received 31.7 percent. LLA carried 15 of 24 provinces.

Milei’s victory is significant for two reasons. First, he won by a large margin. Though most polls favored LLA, some still favored the Peronists. Additionally, virtually all polls indicated that Milei would lose the province of Buenos Aires, Peronism’s stronghold, which he ultimately won by a margin of half a percentage point. In fact, the province of Buenos Aires had been a source of trouble for Milei in September, when his coalition lost a state election 47 percent to 34 percent against the Peronists. This triggered a wave of pessimism in the markets, as well as a run against the peso, which should subside for now.

Second, Milei’s victory will enable him to withstand opposition pressure in Congress and, particularly, to uphold his vetoes of bills that threaten budget stability or of any bills that go against his reform agenda. The LLA coalition (which includes his ally PRO, the party of former President Mauricio Macri) is set to obtain107 seats in the House, or about 42 percent of all seats. This is a much higher figure than the 86 seats (or 34 percent) that the government had set as a goal. Under Argentine law, vetoes can be overridden by Congress only with a majority of over two-thirds. At least until the next election in two years, the opposition will not be able to reach such a figure. In practice, the Peronists’ power has been significantly reduced.

Last night’s results, while not giving Milei a majority in Congress, will put his party and allies much closer to one. Besides being only 20 votes short of a majority in the House, Milei and his allies will now have 24 senators and thus control one-third of the Senate—exactly the same proportion as the Peronists. For Milei, this is unexpectedly good news. But for the Peronists, who held an absolute majority in the Senate from 1985 to 2021 and a near-majority until last night, this is catastrophic news.

Because of yesterday’s results, Milei will be in a stronger position to negotiate with Congress in implementing tax and labour reform, which he announced two weeks before the election. Although the opposition has recently tried to overturn some of his vetoes, there are still a few precedents of collaboration between the Milei government and non-Milei factions. Ley Bases, an omnibus bill named after classical liberal Juan Bautista Alberdi’s most famous book and passed in 2024, is one of them. The government has recently signaled it wants to further deregulate the economy through a second version of Ley Bases. Political compromise by some segments of the opposition is more probable today than before yesterday’s election, given the strong mandate Milei received. This is the case, for example, of the centrist Provincias Unidas, a party that obtained 7 percent of the vote on Sunday.

Finally, Sunday’s results also give Milei a chance to advance a broader reform agenda that includes dollarisation, trade liberalisation, the end of remaining capital controls, and the privatisation of state-owned enterprises, among other measures. Those pro-growth reforms will only strengthen Milei’s now improved position to be reelected in 2027 and further solidify his market revolution.

* * * * 

Marcos Falcone is a policy analyst focusing on Latin America at the Cato Institute’s Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity. His post first appeared at the Cato Institute blog.