Pun Salad

In a small bit of good news, the WSJ reported yesterday: U.S. Lifts Key Restriction on Ukraine’s Use of European Long-Range Missiles. (WSJ gifted link)

It appears that the US giving Ukraine Tomahawk missiles is off the table, at least for now. The "concern" is that they have a range of more than 1000 miles, which would put Moscow withing striking distance of a Ukraine launch.

To make the obvious point: Russia has no compunctions about launching missiles to strike Kyiv. Or a Kharkiv kindergarten, for that matter.

Also of note:

• He is large, he contains multitudes. Christian Britschgi reports on the latest skirmish against Ollie Garky: Bernie Sanders Thinks Amazon Warehouse Jobs Are Exploitative. He Still Wants To Save Them From Automation.

  Bernie Sanders thinks that Amazon warehouse jobs are soul-crushing, backbreaking, and exploitative. He is also steadfastly opposed to any automation that would eliminate these undesirable positions.

  "Big Tech oligarchs are coming for your job," said the independent Vermont senator on X in response to a story in The New York Times about internal Amazon plans to automate away up to 75 percent of jobs in their fulfillment centers. "AI & robotics must benefit workers, not the top 1%," he added.

  Christian points out Bernie's previous concern with Amazon workers' complaints about "emotional" and "physical" trauma experienced on the job.

  I assume the relevant Frances McDormand movie is already in the works. Robotland?

• That's not funny, Dave. Sarah McLaughlin reports (among other things) at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE): High-profile comedians paid handsomely to not offend Saudi royals at Riyadh comedy fest. Among the comics who accepted the terms (no making "jokes that degrade, embarrass, or ridicule the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, its leadership and public figures, 'the Saudi royal family and legal system,' and 'any religion' or 'religious figure.'") was a guy I've admired in the past for taking on sacred cows, Dave Chapelle. Alas:

  Chappelle, too, said on stage that “in America, they say that if you talk about Charlie Kirk, that you’ll get canceled,” and that it’s “easier to talk here than it is in America.” Chappelle isn’t wrong that comments about Kirk in the aftermath of his assassination led to a disturbing trend of firings and punishments across the country bolstered by threats and demands from lawmakers, one FIRE is working to combat. And he’s right to be worried about the state of free speech in the United States. I certainly am.

  But I’d encourage Chappelle, who made a significant amount of money directly from the government which he was forbidden to criticize at his show, to speak to the country’s journalists, apostates, women’s rights activists, writers, and teachers about his assertion that Saudi Arabia is a freer place to speak. That might be difficult, though, since so many have been imprisoned or even executed by authorities.

  Well, a man's gotta pay the bills.

• Veronique de Rugy wins today's "Betteridge Law Verification" award. Her column is headlined: Some 'No Kings' Protesters Don't Like Capitalism, but Are Republicans Practicing It?

  When House Speaker Mike Johnson lashed out at last weekend's "No Kings" rallies soon to arrive on Washington's National Mall, he reached for an old conservative refrain: "They hate capitalism. They hate our free enterprise system."

  I am sure he's correct about some of the protesters. But the message rings hollow coming from a party leader that stands by as President Donald Trump does precisely what Johnson rightly decries: substituting political control for market choice and ruling by executive order.

  RTWT. I think I have another disrespectful Mike Johnson item coming up in the next day or two, so stay tuned for that.

• Some days it's hard to be amused. Elvis Costello might be disappointed that I let disgust win while reading Romina Boccia and Tyler Turman at Cato: End Obamacare’s Welfare for the Wealthy COVID Credits.

  Entering week four of the government shutdown, Democrats continue to demand a permanent extension of Obamacare’s enhanced premium tax credits (PTCs) as their price for reopening the government. These subsidies are a fiscal boondoggle that doles out taxpayer-funded health insurance to high-income earners. Congress should let these partisan and poorly targeted subsidies expire.

  Democrats passed the boosted Obamacare COVID-19 subsidies on a partisan basis, and Republicans shouldn’t pick up after them. Democrats leveraged the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), without any Republican support, to temporarily expand Obamacare subsidies for people with earnings beyond 400 percent of the federal poverty line (FPL). That threshold is the equivalent of $62,600 in earnings for an individual or $128,600 for a family of four. And there is no upper limit.

  In obviously related news, Uncle Stupid's still on his drunk-sailor spree, spending money he doesn't have. The AP reports: US hits $38 trillion in debt, after the fastest accumulation of $1 trillion outside of the pandemic.

Recently on the book blog:

A few months back I set up a new reading project, somewhat jokingly (but accurately) dubbed the "Read all these Clifford D. Simak books I bought long ago and never read" project.

This 1972 novel was next in line, and now I'm wondering if this was a good idea at all. We are definitely in "not my cup of tea" area here. And I blame myself for that: A Choice of Gods was nominated for the "Best Novel" Hugo back then (losing to Isaac Asimov's The Gods Themselves; I guess it was a good year for gods).

But I waded through all 176 pages of my $1.25 "Berkeley Medallion" paperback. The language is very (what I call) flowery, it's mostly people (and robots) talking to each other, and not much actually happens.

But the story, as near as I understand it: one day in the 2100s, most of humankind simply vanished from Earth. For unknown reasons, a few hundred people are left behind (including some Native Americans). And a lot of those robots. Over millennia, they discover they've become pretty immortal. They develop telepathic skills (but not the robots). And they can teleport themselves to other worlds, if they so desire. It's a pretty pastoral existence.

But then it develops that humans might return to Earth (from wherever they've been), and there are fears that they'll redo the mistakes of the past, turning Earth (back) into a ecological wasteland, filled with discarded soda bottles or something. There was a sorta-resolution of this conflict at the end, which I read in the final pages yesterday, and have already forgotten.

Reader, the praise for this book at Amazon and elsewhere is fulsome. I'm giving it one lousy star at Goodreads, but (to repeat) that's me.