Pun Salad

[A New Year's Day tradition, adapted from past years.]

Just in case you're interested in what I found informative, interesting, thought-provoking, etc. last year. The cover images are Amazon paid links, and clicking on them will take you there, where I get a cut if you purchase, thanks in advance. Clicking on the book's title will whisk you to my blog posting for a fuller discussion.

I am restricting the list to the 17 books I rated with five stars at Goodreads. Nota Bene: Goodreads ratings are subjective; they do not necessarily reflect a book's cosmic quality, just my reaction. And perhaps also my mood at the time, grumpy or generous. In other words, don't take this too seriously. A lot of the four-star books there are pretty good too.

The complete list of books I read in 2025, including fiction, is here.

In order read:

	The Indispensible Right — Free Speech in an Age of Rage by Jonathan Turley . A detailed and powerful discussion of "free speech", its long history, and why it should be considered a natural right, interpreted widely, up to and including "sedition".
	We Have Never Been Woke — The Cultural Contradictions of a New Elite by Musa al-Gharbi . The author is an honest, sharp-eyed observer of the self-proclaimed "woke" fractious faction. And he makes a convincing case that their nostrums are ineffective at solving the problems they describe.
	The War on the West by Douglas Murray . A fine job of demonstrating just how nuts we went just a few years ago, as summed up in the book title. It became extremely fashionable to attack All Things West. (And, often, its associated evil, "whiteness".)
	John Adams by David McCullough . Even though John Adams gets a (somewhat deserved) bad rap for the Alien and Sedition Acts, this biography is balanced with showing his deeply patriotic side as well. Get to know him, and also his Mrs., Abigail, as real people.
	Bad Therapy — Why the Kids Aren't Growing Up by Abigail Shrier . The subject is the psychological damage to children caused by mental health professionals, semi-professionals, and (yes) even some parents. Parents beware of shrinks bearing the latest nostrums!
	Build, Baby, Build — The Science and Ethics of Housing Regulation by Bryan Caplan . A comic-book coverage of the various governmental barriers to housing construction. Bryan makes his convincing case: most zoning and building regs are a net negative to prosperity and a cause of homelessness.
	Believe — Why Everyone Should Be Religious by Ross Douthat . The first of two books I read this year that encourage the secular reader to consider the reality of the divine, and the possibility that the bible-thumpers might have a point.
	Freedom Regained — The Possibility of Free Will by Julian Baggini . A very detailed philosophical/scientific discussion of (yes) the possibility of free will, taking seriously the objections, and showing why they are flawed.
	Stiff — The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach . One of Mary Roach's pop-science books that lean toward the morbid. As with her other books, she likes to explore the areas that polite people don't discuss. (Her newest book, Replaceable You, also overlaps some with the topics covered here. Where do you think they get "replacement" parts?)
	Challenger — A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space by Adam Higginbotham . An impressively researched, detailed look at the 1986 destruction of the Space Shuttle Challenger. Also an indictment of NASA's deadly combination of hubris and sloppiness.
	The Essential Scalia — On the Constitution, the Courts, and the Rule of Law by Antonin Scalia . Opinions and articles from the late, great SCOTUS justice. A great overview of a fine legal mind.
	Hope I Get Old Before I Die — Why Rock Stars Never Retire by David Hepworth . Insightful and witty takes on the methods rock stars use to maintain their marketability after their initial rise to fame and fortune.
	Let Colleges Fail — The Power of Creative Destruction in Higher Education by Richard K. Vedder . A painfully brutal advocacy of true reform of American universities, by cutting them loose from government subsidy and regulation. "Creative destruction" isn't a lot of fun for the formerly comfortable, but it's a necessary step for getting innovation and improvement, as we see in the private sector.
	Tribalism is Dumb — Where it Came From, How it Got So Bad, and What To Do About it by Andrew Heaton . A funny (but also wise) look at how our long-ago evolution in Africa is working somewhat to our detriment today.
	Taking Religion Seriously by Charles Murray . My second book this year about religion, pretty good for a guy who only enters churches for weddings, funerals, and concerts. Murray's take is similar to Douthat's above, but covers other issues too.
	The War on Science — Thirty-Nine Renowned Scientists and Scholars Speak Out About Current Threats to Free Speech, Open Inquiry, and the Scientific Process edited by Lawrence M. Krauss . Bad news: the "war" considered here is not the usual one conducted by knuckle-dragging right-wing know-nothings, but is coming from internal sources, primarily from the left. Science just can't catch a break, can it?
	The Parasitic Mind — How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense by Gad Saad . A wide-ranging diatribe against all thinks "woke". But also Islamism.

We'll see how mangled Uncle Stupid looks 365 days from now.

Also of note:

• A history lesson from David Burge.

  in fairness the last PhD we elected was a KKK-supported racist, shoved us into WW1, hailed the Russia revolution, was a 2nd term drooling vegetable, and inspired Mussolini's Italian Fascist Party, so maybe you can understand our reluctance to go there again https://t.co/wqjsjsZIZl

  — David Burge (@iowahawkblog) December 29, 2025

  The Hawk didn't mention some of the PhD's other accomplishments: the Federal Reserve, imprisoning and deporting dissidents, a botched peace treaty, resegregation of the Federal workforce, imposition of the income tax, his disrespect for the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, …

  Twitter commenters also point out that Vladimir Putin has a PhD in economics from Saint Petersburg Mining University of Empress Catherine II. (Although many sources view that degree as "controversial".)

• Perhaps your first chuckle of 2026. Wesley J. Smith observes that famed philosopher Peter Singer Decries AI "Speciesism"

  Princeton “moral philosopher” Peter Singer has co-authored a piece decrying the “speciesism” of AI. What is speciesism, you ask? The misanthropic argument made by many bioethicists and animal rights activists that treating an animal — like an animal — is an evil akin to racism. In other words, herding cattle is as depraved as slavery.

  And now AIs are being programmed to promote speciesist immorality. Oh, no! From “AI’s Innate Bias Against Animals,” published in Nautilus.

  Even though significant efforts are being made to reduce the harmful biases in LLMs [large language models] against certain groups of humans, and other kinds of output that could be harmful to humans, there are, so far, no comparable efforts to reduce speciesist biases and outputs harmful to animals.

  When an AI system generates text, it reflects these biases. A legal AI tool, for instance, might assume that animals are to be classified as property, rather than as sentient beings entitled to have their interests considered in their own rights. Most legal texts throughout history have made this assumption and frequently reinforced this perspective.

  So, Singer is upset because AI systems accurately describe the status of animals in law when they should regurgitate his ideological obsessions instead. But that would be disastrous for the sector, making AI responses untrustworthy and biased against humans.

  Wesley gently suggests that Singer "learn to code" and develop his non-speciesist AI to give the canned responses he wants.

• Kat Rosenfield looks at boycotts and quislings. It has to do with The Trouble with Quitting the ‘Trump-Kennedy Center’.

  It began early this year, when Trump ousted the center’s bipartisan board and replaced them with his own people, who immediately elected him chairman. Changing the building’s name was an insult heaped on an already substantial injury—and also probably illegal, given that altering the name of a federal memorial is supposed to require an act of Congress—and so Trump’s name on the building is probably going to last only as long as it takes either for an unfavorable court ruling (a lawsuit is pending), or for the next Democratic president to take a ceremonial sledgehammer to it, whichever comes first.

  As such, one might wonder why the president bothered—except as part of a trollish campaign to enrage Washington’s liberal apparatus by dismantling, disfiguring, or otherwise marking his territory on as many of its cultural landmarks as possible. In which case, mission accomplished. The Kennedy Center’s ticket sales immediately tanked once Trump took an interest in it, as journalists decried the move as an “attack on the arts” and applauded artists like Redd for refusing to participate in “the regime’s new fascist vision” for the venue. Overall, the discourse more or less suggests that people would rather see the center stand vacant for the next three years—or better (worse) yet, play host to a rotating series of Kid Rock tribute bands—than have its stage graced by a single moment of artistic brilliance for which Trump could take credit.

  Critics of the president present this as a binary choice for artists: cancel your Kennedy Center appearance as an act of resistance, or take the stage and be labeled a collaborator. But this Manichaean worldview misses the existence of a third option, one that allows artists to step outside the binary, and outside politics. Which, in truth, is where they belong.

  Kat, as usual, makes a lot of sense. And I see she's got a new book coming out in March. Goody!

• Noah Smith's got opinions! And (despite his D-team membership) they're pretty good: At least five interesting things: Buy Local edition (#74). His second item is: “Luxury” houses reduce rents for people who live in “affordable” houses. Love those sneer quotes!

  Speaking of abundance, the quest to lower rents by building more housing is starting to bear a little fruit. Emily Flitter and Nadja Popovich report that a few big American cities have built a bunch of housing, and that almost all of these cities have seen big drops in rent. Meanwhile, the cities that build less housing have seen much less of a drop:

  

  Now, correlation isn’t causation, as we all know. But reverse causation is probably not happening here — it makes absolutely no sense that falling rents would spark a building boom. And what other thing could be causing cities like Austin, Raleigh, Phoenix and Denver to both build more housing and have lower rents at the same time? If rents were falling because demand for housing in these cities were falling, we would probably not see housing booms there (and we can just look and see that all of these cities have growing populations anyway).

  So unless this pattern is purely random chance, or there’s some other factor that’s hard to imagine, it means that building more housing lowers rents. Which is exactly what the simple, “Econ 101” theory of supply and demand would predict. And which is exactly what careful studies of natural experiments have shown again and again.

  Note that as Flitter and Popovich report, the housing being built in these increasingly affordable boom-towns is almost entirely market-rate housing, or what anti-housing activists often pejoratively refer to as “luxury” housing. The activists have trouble understanding how building housing for high-income yuppie types could possibly lower rents. But it’s very simple — if you build places for high-earning yuppies to live, they don’t go bidding on older housing and sparking a price war that pushes middle-class and working-class people out of their homes.

  Essentially, high-end housing acts as a “yuppie fishtank” that prevents an influx of high earners from raising rents for everyone else[…]

  A long excerpt, sorry, but I did want to get in that "yuppie fishtank" phrase.

• Just 40? At Issues & Insights, James D. Agresti provides 40 Examples of Fake News in 2025. Let's go all the way down to … number two:

  PolitiFact claimed that a Republican bill to reform Food Stamps “would bar increases to monthly SNAP benefits” for “inflation” and “in effect become cuts.”

  In fact, the Republican bill barred presidents from increasing SNAP benefits above and beyond the rate of food inflation, like Joe Biden did for the first time in the history of the program.

  As detailed by the Government Accountability Office, the Biden administration raised SNAP benefits by “21 percent compared to the previous inflation-adjusted” amounts without adequate “economic analysis,” “disclosure,” or “documentation.”

  My prediction for 2026: Politifact will keep its name, despite my suggestion that it go with "PolitiMindlessRegurgitationOfDemocratTalkingPoints".