An Endangerment Finding Own-Goal?

One of the few things I hope the Trump Administration succeeds in accomplishing is in grave danger of not happening -- thanks to the incompetence of said Administration.

According to ClimateWire, contradictory briefs on energy-related cases might show up at the Supreme Court like two left feet on a dance floor:

Right-wing advocates including Steve Milloy and Myron Ebell, both of whom served on President Donald Trump's first-term transition team, said in interviews Tuesday that they were particularly concerned about a recent Department of Justice brief that appeared to contradict EPA's repeal of the so-called endangerment finding for greenhouse gas emissions.

In a May 21 amicus brief in Suncor v. Boulder -- an important climate case the Supreme Court will decide next term -- DOJ argued that the Clean Air Act reserves to EPA the authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. The administration is joining red states and industry groups in urging the court to block local governments such as Boulder, Colorado, from suing fossil fuel producers over their contribution to climate change.

Milloy, a senior policy fellow at the Energy and Environment Legal Institute, told POLITICO'S E&E News that the arguments DOJ made to demonstrate federal preemption of state and local climate action are "the exact opposite" of what EPA argued in its February repeal of the 2009 scientific finding that underpinned most Clean Air Act climate regulation.

"They could both wind up at the Supreme Court, and the court could say, 'Justice Department, you're on both sides of this issue,'" said Milloy. [bold added]

The article notes speculation to the effect that long-timers at the DOJ might be attempting to sabotage the litigation, but whatever stock one puts in that, flawed legal argumentation is hardly the only problem.

The piece goes on to note that, additionally, some proposed rule changes by the Trump EPA are proceeding slowly-enough that they may not get past legal challenges before Trump's term expires.

-- CAV

Graham Contra AOC

I felt like a skating coach hearing someone say that it's impossible to do a triple axel. Of course it's possible. It's hard, but it's possible. -- Paul Graham on earning a billion dollars

***

In the wake of the latest populist drivel against "billionaires" by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, venture capitalist Paul Graham decimates her assertion, notably its smuggled-in premise that one must necessarily cheat others on the way to amassing a net worth of billion dollars.

The crux of Graham's argument is that startup founders like the ones he coaches and invests in do such a good job helping their customers that word-of-mouth helps their businesses grow exponentially:

A couple days later I was talking to the founder of a startup I'd funded. I began by asking, as I usually do when I meet a founder, what her growth rate was. 93% last month, she said. I pointed out that this meant her net worth was also growing at 93% a month. She was getting richer at a stupendously rapid rate. And yet she hadn't been doing anything bad. The reason her startup was growing so fast was simply that users loved what she'd built. So she could feel from her own experience how wrong that politician was. She wasn't exploiting anyone. Exactly the opposite in fact. The reason her startup was growing so fast was that she and her cofounder had been working their asses off to make their users happy, and as a result the users had been telling their friends. And that gets you exponential growth.

Graham notes further that "A couple million and 93% growth are not, in fact, radically different from a billion. They're nine and a half months apart."

Graham, of course, acknowledges that 93% growth is unusual, but after using the example and helping his readers understand the calculations, he shows that more typical growth rates can see someone who has a good idea and works hard become a billionaire in a decade -- as 30 of the people Graham has trained have done.

The essay notably goes beyond the demolition job by offering broad general advice on how to turn this trick yourself.

My only complaint is that, like most influential people, Paul Graham apparently does not see wealth creation as morally good. The idea that possessing wealth is evil is a moral idea with a stranglehold on our culture and it is that idea -- which Ayn Rand fought with her superior alternative of an egoistic morality -- that must ultimately lose its influence in our culture.

Graham's piece remains well worth the read, for it is a powerful antidote to the base ignorance that altruism excuses and encourages in our culture, such as about how it's possible for an honest person to become wealthy.

-- CAV

Four Wins

A Friday Hodgepodge

Whenever possible, I list three wins at the end of each day. Here are a few from a recent review of my planner.

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1. The other day, I finally thought to try this method for baking sweet potatoes and, yes, it works very well!

2. Lucinda nastily refuses all attempts to groom her, so naturally, at winter coat shedding time, she developed lots of knots we needed a professional to remove.

We have a shortage of groomers locally who do cats here, and one must use a vet if knocking them out is required, but even cat groomers at vets are hard to find. (And yes, we tried gabapentin on her to absolutely no avail.)

Going back through vet listings again, I found one I'd overlooked and that turned out to have a cat groomer and hearing we require our clients to be sedated was music to my ears.

She is now, finally, knot-free and seems a little bit happier, and I have a place to deal with her in the future.

There will be no image of her here out of respect for her vanity, but let's say she looks like a head on a stick compared to her usual fluffy self.

3. I have mentioned it here, but only in passing, so I'll repeat it here in part just because it makes me smile just to say it: Arsenal are Premier League Champions!

Ever since a gritty win against Newcastle early in the season, I made it a point to see as many of their games live as I could, and my gut was right.

The circumstances of my finding out are amusing. The race was down to the last few games of the season, with Arsenal merely needing to win their remaining games or Manchester City to lose or draw a game.

City played a mid-week game, the end of which coincided with my taking the kids to the dentist for their annual checkup. My plan was always just to check the score when I knew the game would be over, but I'd forgotten to check before we left the office.

On the way home, I stopped to get gas, and the kids had gotten into an argument in the back seat by the time I got back into the car. Remembering the game, I was oblivious to events in the back seat and checked the score.

1-1.

Yes! I said.

My kids burst out laughing, because the timing made it sound like I was expressing agreement with my daughter's immediately prior Shut up!

It has been a 22-year wait, but not exactly an out-of-the-blue development.

And long may that development continue...

4. After not being sure I'd be able to attend it at all, my calendar opened up and my wife surprised me with a pass to OCON 2026!

If you already know me and plan to attend, drop me a line. If we haven't met and you'd like to meet me, follow these instructions to let me know.

Sooner is better than later as I will not be accessing that email account during the conference.

-- CAV

Evangelism vs. Cultural Activism

An Ask a Manager reader wants to shut down an employee who is annoying coworkers by constantly discussing the Keto diet. I found Alison Green's answer valuable both for helping me understand why that kind of behavior annoys me so much, and causing me to consider how I can avoid doing the same kind of thing myself in the future.

Alison replies in part:

If Casey were this obsessed with evangelizing for something unrelated to diet and health -- like, I don't know, the Dallas Cowboys or Daylight Savings -- it could still reach a point where you'd need to rein it in, but it being about diet and health gives it an extra layer of obnoxiousness and adds additional urgency for you to tell them to cut it out.

Constant Daylight Savings evangelism would be annoying too (as well as pretty weird) but at least it wouldn't involve judging other people's diets and pushing unsolicited health advice. It would be irritating and boring, but it wouldn't cross boundaries in the same way. [bold added]

This is a great distinction, and I love how the humorous -- and neutral! -- phrase Daylight Savings evangelism makes the knowledge so retrievable by being so memorable.

To make it a little bit more generalized, it's worth taking a moment to unpack why the behavior in question crosses boundaries.

For the sake of argument, assume that this diet (or kind of diet) is indeed what we should be doing. Even so, in today's context, any audience will have (1) heard the same thing asserted about countless other diets; (2) be happy enough with their current well-being to not see a need to make learning/switching a priority over other more urgent matters; (3) have legitimate doubts about the speaker's claims; (4) considered the information already and made up their own minds one way or the other; or (5) have psychological issues with the subject matter and need space and time to even become receptive to thinking about it.

I'm probably missing a few possibilities that aren't rank evasion here.

On top of all of that, our culture is saturated with the influence of Christianity -- which (1) commands its followers to do things (like win converts), (2) preaches that other-centered ethics of altruism (often, among other things, causing people to not see moral questions as personally urgent or worthy of practical consideration), and (3) emphasizes profession of faith, verbally and non-verbally. (Why this somehow doesn't get called out as virtue signaling is a good question.) This influence predisposes anyone being advised on how to live a better life to feel judged and bossed around, for starters.

Building a better culture is not as simple as immersing people in water or haranguing them (especially with the truth) non-stop. Being more discriminating about when and how to share philosophical knowledge is vital to the enterprise.

After learning the truth, respecting the minds of others is high on the list of things to get right when one wants to improve the culture by spreading it.

-- CAV

Good News for Freedom of Speech?

George Will reports with relief that "the separation of powers might actually be working" regarding a bipartisan proposal to make amends for a ruling many had hoped for, but that the Supreme Court did not think it could make.

Will's headline and focus are on a "judicial ruling prompt[ing] two senators to pursue legislation to curtail executive branch mischief," but the measure will indeed be good news for other reasons should it pass and be signed into law.

The problem this legislation seeks to fix is that the plainly wrong pandemic-era jawboning of social media platforms was not unambiguously illegal in part because the threats were delivered in secret:

[The bill w]ould require government to make public certain kinds of communications with social media companies, artificial intelligence companies and broadcasters. And would establish that plaintiffs must prove only that government attempted censorship, not that its pressure by itself succeeded. And would provide for money damages, instead of mere injunctions, for plaintiffs when an offending official left office while a case wended its way through courts.

So, crude and sneaky overreaching by the executive was followed by the Supreme Court's austere (and reasonable) refusal to overreach by ignoring principles of standing. This has prompted two lawmakers to respond. If Congress makes that response a law, there will have been a minuet of actions and reactions driven by each branch's prerogatives, responsibilities and incentives. The separation of powers will have functioned as intended.

As I greet the good news regarding freedom of speech, I agree with Will that our government working properly is indeed also newsworthy.

Let's hope -- and work for the day -- that checks and balances working their magic becomes un-newsworthy again.

-- CAV

Trump Drags Feet, Costs Lives on Drone Tech

Ukraine, whose efforts at self-defense have repeatedly been stymied by President Trump, has developed a drone capability superior to an American rocket system it was consequently having trouble procuring:

Spring, identified only by her call sign for security purposes, flies a newer type of winged drone that enables Ukraine to consistently strike Russia's rear areas -- a capability previously only provided by Western artillery and munitions, such as the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System.

Mid-range HIMARS strikes were key to undermining Russia's attack style early in the war, but Russia was able to curb that threat after the first year, analysts told Business Insider. Now, they said, the new drones are bringing that strike effect back in a way Western arms have not been able to do at scale.

...

The use of these drones has risen in the last two months, and Russia has been losing more ground than it has gained, marking a reversal of a yearslong trend in which Ukraine had been slowly bleeding territory.

As the article makes evident, the new drones incorporate abilities (like using AI) lacking in the older rocket technology, avoid the strings attached to the U.S.-supplied rockets (like limits on target selection), and cost much less to produce.

Despite the President siding with Russia throughout its invasion of this friendly nation, Ukraine has offered to work with our military on drone development, only for Trump to drag his feet:

[E]ven with senior Pentagon officials -- including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Army Secretary Dan Driscoll -- lauding Kyiv's drone abilities, the Trump administration is still biding its time on taking full advantage of the Ukrainian capabilities, a delay that experts say is potentially kneecapping the U.S. military.

"I don't know what the hang-up would be in denying ourselves the ability to take advantage of that. I don't think there's any good reason," Rebeccah Heinrichs, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute think tank, said of Ukraine's drone capabilities.

...

One former official who spoke to The Hill on the condition of anonymity made a more blunt assessment, calling the hold-up "lethargy" on the part of the Trump administration and "a certain amount of hostility towards Ukraine coming from the very top."

Each article notes different consequences of Trump's asinine hostility toward Ukraine, with Business Insider noting our country's loss of influence:

"We can't be certain that we can rely on the US," Bielieskov said. "92 kilometers, GPS-guided is not enough, it can be spoofed. So we have the incentive to develop something of a bigger range, more reliable, and with a bigger warhead." [bold added]

One needn't advocate America being the world's policeman to appreciate how damning it is to hear such words coming from a country whose interests align with our own.

And, speaking of our own country's interests, The Hill has this to say:

"The U.S. is putting its own troops in danger by not working as closely as possible with the Ukrainians on drone development," Phillips O'Brien, a professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, wrote on social media. "To stay close to Putin, Trump is showing once again how little he cares about US soldiers." [bold added]

Donald Trump's actions regarding Ukraine are costing our nation goodwill and the lives of our soldiers abroad, and for no good purpose anyone can discern.

-- CAV

Immigration Wins in Switzerland

In Switzerland, a MAGA-like political party got an anti-immigration population cap put to a national referendum and lost. It is instructive to consider the reasons it lost:

Others, in particular Swiss business leaders, feared losing Switzerland's crucial access to Europe's single market.

Over half of all Swiss products are sold into the EU, but their access to Europe's markets depends on Swiss commitment to Europe's free movement of people. Had the population cap been approved, Switzerland would have had to terminate that agreement.

...

Only Swiss citizens were allowed to vote, but in the cities, which have larger immigrant communities than in the countryside, the proposal got a particularly resounding no.

In the capital city Bern, for example, almost 84% of those voting rejected a population cap.

...

"The EU is still by far the most important trading partner for Switzerland," explains Minsch, adding that is it is "in our interest to have stable and clear relationships with our main trading partner".

Swiss employers were also worried about labour shortages, and losing access to a Europe-wide pool of skilled workers.

The issue of losing the EU as a trading partner strikes me as something the proponent Swiss People's Party might have demagogued as bureaucratic overreach, or an issue of national sovereignty. But free movement is an individual right, and recognizing that right is part of that country's trading agreement. The issue of labor shortages -- easily solved through immigration -- shows that respecting individual rights is in the self-interest of the businessmen, the immigrants, and their customers alike.

One issue that plausibly seems worsened by a high immigrant population -- bigger costs related to the welfare state -- is a red herring: As I and others have argued in the past, the problem is the welfare state:

Were the educational and medical sectors privately run, we would not attract or encourage freeloaders, and non-citizens who used these facilities would be paying customers.

I am glad for Switzerland's sake that its voters ignored the scapegoaters and chose freedom, the path of prosperity, in this referendum.

If only voters in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave had half as much sense!

-- CAV