Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year!

Today, I begin my annual blogging hiatus, which will last until Tuesday, January 6, 2026, when I will resume posting here. I may or may not pop up on Twitter in the meantime.

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This time of year, I like to re-read my favorite essay about Christmas, by Leonard Peikoff, who sums up his sentiment that "Christmas Should Be More Commercial," in part as follows:

Life requires reason, selfishness, capitalism; that is what Christmas should celebrate -- and really, underneath all the pretense, that is what it does celebrate.

This year, being more in need of a break and in a more contemplative mood than usual, I was interested in finding a similar piece on New Year's Day, and found one by Scott McConnell titled, "What is the Meaning of New Year's?".

If I were similarly to pick a single sentence of this piece to convey its message, it would be the following:

Every resolution you make on this day implies that you are in control of your self, that you are not a victim fated by circumstance, controlled by stars, or owned by luck, but that you are an individual who can make choices to change your life.

When I was young, I used to scoff at New Year's resolutions, partly because I thought Shouldn't one be rational all the time? and partly because I saw so many people make hackneyed resolutions that they quickly forgot about. My error wasn't in either observation, but in a sort of ad hominem applied to the practice. Just because "everyone" does something (or does it badly) doesn't necessarily damn that "something."

I could have stood to think, Why might a rational person want to make a point of self-assessment and goal-setting on a regular basis, and what would that look like? I strive to do this now, and better late than never! I don't make resolutions every year, but I do make them from time to time.

This year will be one of those times.

It is thus fitting, -- even if the timing is a historical coincidence -- that the holiday that celebrates the rewards of reason, Christmas, precedes the one that reminds us of the opportunity we always have to exercise it.

Another coincidence will tie the two holidays together like a bow for me: My wife loves Christmas, but comes from a family whose way of celebrating it overwhelms me and has caused me to dread the holiday on some level. (This year, that dread reached the point that I didn't even think about decorating outside for it until we drove home Saturday and all the lights in our neighborhood caused me to realize we still had Thanksgiving wreaths up on our front door!)

Thanks to her short blog post, "Good Will to Man," showing up in my blog feed, Jean Moroney of Thinking Directions has come to my rescue here.

The below quote won't do the piece full justice, but it will help motivate me to do better on decorating next year and take a more active role in finding a way to celebrate Christmas that will work for my wife, the kids, and me:

Walking around the neighborhood a few years ago, I realized how much I appreciated the festive mood created by people lighting up their houses. So now we light up our house -- to pass on that goodwill to the newest neighbors. And also because in Florida, there's no such thing as a white Christmas unless you put white icicle lights on your house!

This is helpful to me because I often find customs easier to follow when I can grasp good reasons for following them.

I highly recommend reading the whole thing for its overall message, which extends beyond the holidays and is particularly relevant after this very difficult and exhausting year.

-- CAV

P.S. We're going to miss this event this year, but I have a calendar reminder ahead of time to find a way to go next year. If you're new to New Orleans, as I am, take a look. It runs until New Year's.

Blog Roundup

A Friday Hodgepodge

1. "A Dangerous Precedent," by Brian Phillips (The Texas Institute for Property Rights):

It would be moral and just for Trump to demand the stolen property be returned to its rightful owners, but that is not what he demands. He wants that property to be ceded to the United States government, which has never owned that property. Indeed, a British company -- Shell Oil -- was one of the primary victims of Venezuela's nationalization. What Trump is proposing is to replace Venezuelan nationalization with American nationalization.

370 words/1 minute

2. "Statism Doesn't Work for Young People -- but Capitalism Does," by Jaana Woiceshyn (How to Be Profitable and Moral):

... Capitalism is not the cause of the younger generations' economic woes but the solution to them. To fundamentally solve their economic problems requires systematically reducing the role of the state in the economy and adopting capitalism, "a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including the property rights, in which all property is privately owned."

There would be no student loan debt crisis in capitalism because all universities are private (offering varied programs at competitive price points to meet demand) and must offer value (actual knowledge and skills) to attract students who are willing to pay (funded by summer jobs, co-op placements, scholarships, or private loans) for such an education. These graduates would be sought after by employers.

830 words/3 minutes

3. "Thoughts on Following a Daily Plan," by Jean Moroney (Thinking Directions):

First of all, I no longer look at my full week priorities list in the morning as part of getting started on the day.

Now, I only look at the whole priorities list a couple of times a week....

I'm more likely to look at one of the categories on the priorities list. Sometimes the assignment I put on the calendar is the name of a category such as "Email and online admin." When I do work on that assignment, I'll look at the priority list for that category, and do the top tasks from that category that fit in the time.

Minimizing attention on the week's priorities list turns out to be important. It means I don't second-guess my decisions about what to do today or when to do it. This is necessary if you are trying to develop a skill of sticking to yesterday's plan.

1830 words/6 minutes

4. "Climate Craziness Takes a New Twist," by Harry Binswanger (Value for Value):

[C]limate has not changed in 100 years.

There's no obvious difference from 1925 in the weather of Paris, Albuquerque, Sydney, New York City, Tokyo, Buenos Aires, San Francisco, London, Tel Aviv . . . you name it.

Some people are beginning to notice. Even some climate scientists. So what is the new line?

"See what we saved you from?!"

The discrepancy between how planet Earth is and what they claimed it would be is being sold as a victory for recycling, better smokestacks, and the Paris Accords. I kid you not.

370 words/1 minute

-- CAV

Flip That Nosy Question Around for Them

Judith Martin takes a question from a teetotaler who's loathe to explain himself to all comers to begin with, and tired of fielding questions about his abstinence at social gatherings besides:

I won't even have one drink -- and have found it quite rude of people to question why. There are so many potential reasons why people choose not to drink! I feel like I have to explain myself, and I am sick of it. How do I properly address this issue?

Miss Manners replies with her usual witty aplomb:

Not by explaining yourself -- nor by making up excuses. The question is not only intrusive but silly, as it presumes that alcohol is such a staple of life that a special exemption is needed.

But as you keep socializing with people who believe otherwise, Miss Manners suggests that you treat this as the opening of a two-sided conversation. It is always tactful to show an interest in the other person. So you could say, with a pleasant show of interest, "What about you? Tell me -- why do you drink?"

I must confess to being unsure Martin intends the advice to be taken literally, at least all the time. I can imagine it backfiring at a work function, for example, and I can see being able to imagine such a conversation in the moment to lend perspective or even amusement to the situation.

Nevertheless, as a variant of return awkward to sender, it can be a viable option, and not just confined to that particular personal choice.

I know that I'll have this one in my quiver for the next time someone tries to foist religion on me, which is always a possibility in the mysti-holic part of the country in which I reside.

-- CAV

GOP: Rein Trump in Now, or Dems Will Later

David Drucker of The Dispatch takes a look at the Republican Party's overall performance in various midterm elections and sees trouble for the GOP if current trends continue:

[S]pecial elections are imperfect political weathervanes. Indeed, sometimes, they can be downright lousy forecasters of upcoming midterm elections. Plus, as [political handicapper Kyle] Kondik highlighted in our exchange, these days, Democratic voters are more likely than Republicans to participate in irregularly scheduled special elections.

And so, if this discussion was only about the results in Tennessee 7, [Speaker Mike] Johnson might have a point. Or at least, his argument might be more compelling. But with this year's special elections for House seats now behind us, this is about a consistent pattern throughout the first year of Trump's second term -- a pattern that has seen the Democrats significantly improve on their 2024 margins in the four such contests held prior to last week's in Tennessee. Per a handy chart put together by NBC News' Steve Kornacki, the average movement toward the Democrats in those four specials was 18 points. [bold added]

His overall take, Sometimes winning isn't enough, is consistent with mine on Tennessee 7 and recent polling showing Trump's approval tanking in two major parts of the coalition he rode into office: suburban and Hispanic voters.

-- CAV

Squabbling About Climate Policy Beneficiaries

Bjørn Lomborg argues at The New York Post that the backlash against economy-crippling "climate" policies isn't confined to the United States:

The main UN model shows that even if all rich countries were to cut their carbon emissions to zero, it would avert less than 0.2°F of projected warming by the end of the century, while imposing massive hits of up to 18% on rich-world GDP by 2050.

The ever-increasing cost of climate policy is one reason the rich world is cutting back in many other areas, including aid to the world's poorest.

That, in part, is why philanthropist Bill Gates has called for a strategic pivot on climate.

He has laid out three tough truths: Climate change is serious but "will not lead to humanity's demise"; temperature is not the best progress metric; and we should instead focus on boosting human welfare. [bold added]

That's the good news.

The bad news is that, here in the United States, the Trump administration, which deserves credit for backing off from many of these policies, discredits itself regarding other things on a daily basis and undermines its good policies with such economic snake oil as import taxes and partial nationalizations.

Whatever gains may be more than offset to begin with -- and Trump's unpopularity has the Democrats smelling blood.

Lomborg warns them and the rest of us that the Democrats returning to power will be a very bad thing with regard to these policies, unless Democrats rethink their support for them:

Yet Democratic politicians in the US -- from California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who vowed at COP30 to force the United States back into the Paris Agreement, to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who threatens a "nuclear option" if California's strict vehicle emission standards are revoked -- must recognize that aggressive climate mandates are courting a severe voter backlash.

This is no surprise. Many statist policies are known to drag down the economy, and yet are impossible to rescind. This problem Lomborg never really deals with, although Ayn Rand addressed the issue many times: These policies are enacted because most people see them as moral. For the same reason, opponents lose their nerve and never uproot them for fear of being seen as immoral.

Practically everyone agrees (wrongly) that morality demands sacrifice. On might argue that, at least Bill Gates types want humans to benefit from these sacrifices, but that is no challenge to the idea that it is okay for governments to steal from us and order us around.

On top of that, as Harry Binswanger recently pointed out, climate catastrophists already have a ready answer for Gates and his ilk:

[N]one of the predicted disasters have come to pass. All the warnings and the alarms about "the death of the planet" were wrong. None of the IPCC models were right in their predictions of what global temperatures were going to be.

More than that: climate has not changed in 100 years.

There's no obvious difference from 1925 in the weather of Paris, Albuquerque, Sydney, New York City, Tokyo, Buenos Aires, San Francisco, London, Tel Aviv ... you name it.

Some people are beginning to notice. Even some climate scientists. So what is the new line?

"See what we saved you from?!"

The discrepancy between how planet Earth is and what they claimed it would be is being sold as a victory for recycling, better smokestacks, and the Paris Accords. I kid you not.

Perhaps Gates would see through this argument, but many less-rigorous thinkers will be apt to think something like What difference will some vaccination program make to a country if it's all underwater in 20 years. Better play it safe.

An overall shift to making humans -- rather than "the environment" -- the alleged beneficiaries of the welfare state might be preferable if it actually happened, in the same sense that a skinned knee is usually preferable to getting cut on the wrist.

And I say usually because it leaves unchallenged the altruist-collectivist ideas that make improper government possible, and which make rational cost-benefit analyses impossible regardless of anyone's cognizance of costs.

Don't forget that while climate policies would be economically catastrophic, socialism/communism has killed over a hundred million. When sacrifice is the ideal, it is impossible to guess when the collectors will say when.

-- CAV

P.S. The last link contains a good example of cost-benefits analysis concerining climate policies.

A Wikipedia Bias Victim Speaks Up

John Stossel, who himself has been "smeared" by Wikipedia, recently fought back by writing about its left-wing bias, alternatives to the online encyclopedia, and ways to improve Wikipedia itself:

At least things may be changing now, because there are new options, like SciencePedia and Justapedia covering science and law.

"Justapedia," says [journalist Ashley] Rindsberg, "was founded by a veteran Wikipedia editor who couldn't handle the left-wing bias. ... This is exactly what we need ... people to be able to choose among different sources, so we're not all forced into the Wikipedia information funnel."

Most important, since he has an extraordinary track record of success, is Elon Musk's Grokipedia. It's new and AI, so it makes mistakes, but Grok currently leads AI intelligence tests.

When it comes to topics I checked out, such as the probable origins of COVID, and my page, Grokipedia does better.

"Is there any way to fix Wikipedia?" I ask Rindsberg.

"The best chance we have is for dedicated people who are really interested in these topics to get in there and become an editor that can make those kinds of changes. We only need a few dozen, maybe even fewer, to make an impact ... If enough people say ... 'I'm going to give it a go.' ... they actually can make an impact. The question is, are enough people going to take that leap?"

As a commenter states, one should always seek more than one source of information when conducting research. I completely agree and stress that this would be true even if Wikipedia weren't biased.

I applaud Stossel for reporting this problem and sympathize with his effort to address the issue, although I think the latter is a tougher nut to crack than getting better people involved.

Our culture is saturated with the kinds of philosophical ideas that cause people to default to leftism, and as long as that remains true, eradicating this kind of bias will resemble a game of whack-a-mole. Ultimately, one must fight to change the fundamental, philosophical ideas of a culture, including supporting those who do, to make real headway.

As Ayn Rand once noted:

There is only one power that determines the course of history, just as it determines the course of every individual life: the power of man's rational faculty -- the power of ideas. If you know a man's convictions, you can predict his actions. If you understand the dominant philosophy of a society, you can predict its course. But convictions and philosophy are matters open to man's choice.

In the meantime, it helps everyone searching for knowledge to be aware of such biases as they do the mental work necessary to learn new things -- which will always entail questioning new information and testing it against the rest of their knowledge.

-- CAV

An Update and a Recipe

Tuesday, I underwent an outpatient procedure to correct a longstanding annoyance. This was my second attempt -- and may it be the charm! -- but I was still a little bit surprised by how tired I was for the next couple of days, and how much time the post-operative routine would take. Last time, I made the right call and just took the week off from blogging.

***

As the resident chef of the Van Horn Estate, and knowing I'd be limited in my range of activities later in the week, I made a few meals ahead of time, including trying out a recipe I heard of through the following comment on a post at Ask a Manager on "When Office Potlucks and Catered Parties Go Wrong:"

My department used to have an annual fundraiser chili cookoff, and one year I entered my "Five Ingredient Chicken Chili" (beans, chicken, cumin, a jar of salsa verde, and chicken broth) and won first prize. There was MUCH grumbling from the folks who had spent hours or even days lovingly crafting their more traditional chilis with special chili peppers and spices and whatnot. Grumbling I heard was along the lines of "salsa verde has more than five ingredients in it", "that's not real chili", etc. Even an exec whose chili was one of the complicated ones, who was usually very kind and friendly with me, came over to sneer at my chili. But, I showed them all: I entered the same chili the following year and won again. I took pity on all of them and didn't enter again. But I still have the trophies.

Well, if it was that easy to make and won two contests, I had to try it.

It was a hit.

Everybody likes it, especially my son, the picky eater, which was quite amusing considering how repulsive it looked to me.

It's pretty easy to find variants online, but I'll toss out my own here. Note that, since everything but the (optional) cheese comes off the grocery shelf, this is one you can have on hand all the time.

***

Quick Chicken Chili

Preparation Time is 30 minutes.

Ingredients

chicken stock, 48 oz.
canned chicken, 12.5 oz., 3
pinto beans, 15 oz., 4
mild salsa verde, 16 oz.
cumin, 2 tbsp
jalapeno slices, jar (optional)
shredded cheese (optional)
tortilla chips (optional)

Directions

1. Combine first five ingredients in pot.

2. Simmer for 5 minutes.

3. Serve with Mexican-type toppings and tortilla chips.

Notes

1. Cooking time is primarily due to the need to reach simmering temperature.

-- CAV