Get Schooled

Hello faithful Ricochet Podcast listeners. It’s us. We have another show for you. It’s a good one. We have Ricochet Editor and Twitter celebrity Bethany Mandel sitting in for Rob Long. We have the WSJ’s Jason Riley as a guest. We have political strategist to the stars, Luke Thompson as the other guest. We also discuss aliens and Ricochet member Kephalithos wins this week LPoW for the very intriguing post American Architectural Geography: Part 1, Timing. It’s a good show. You should listen. And tell your friends. Because we want more listeners.

Music from this week’s episode: Gone Till November by Wyclef Jean

 

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  1. JennaStocker Member
    JennaStocker
    @JennaStocker

    kedavis (View Comment):

    JennaStocker (View Comment):

    Great episode all around. Starting off with a deep dive into schools and the grassroots movement to give all kids a chance is a sleeper issue that really blossomed in the wake of the pandemic. I might humbly suggest Corey DeAngelis as a future guest on the topic of funding kids, not schools? And Bethany’s insight as a working mom (and an ostracized one!) really adds a new dimension to the discussion.

    The Cracker Jack prize came at the end with the outer-space topic. I wonder if the “Truth” is really outed as there being alien life or entities here on earth, what becomes of the conspiracy-theorists? Will a whole cottage industry now be deflated by the end of Area 51 believers? What will we do with all our tinfoil hats?!

    One theory, which could very well be true – although many others are plausible as well – is that the universe is actually teeming with life, but if the lightspeed issue is insurmountable, then we’ll never, ever meet each other.

    And that doesn’t even allow for possibilities such as that other civilizations might have grown up and become extinct already, millenia or eons ago, and the chances of any of them overlapping with each other in time, are negligible. As might be the case with us too, vs some other civilization that won’t exist yet for additional millenia…

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYvFHctr600

    What might have been except for the pesky space-time continuum. It’s really a fascinating piece of science that I’m glad people much, much smarter than I am are researching. It’s not lost on me, though that in the midst of such social, cultural, and political strife and unrest we pause at the wonder of a universe exponentially larger than our little sphere. It crystallizes when events such as SpaceX launches as Minneapolis was burning from riots.

    • #31
  2. James Hageman Coolidge
    James Hageman
    @JamesHageman

    UFOs. I’m wondering if @jameslileks has read Operation Trojan Horse from the late ‘60s. Seems like something he’d be on top of.

    • #32
  3. The Cloaked Gaijin Member
    The Cloaked Gaijin
    @TheCloakedGaijin

    RufusRJones (View Comment):

    Minnesota is the worst state in the union for Black people.

    Reminds me of this from 2009:

    https://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2011/03/longhorns-17-badgers-1.html

    Which state is smarter Wisconsin or Texas?

    State ACT/SAT rankings: Texas, 47th; Wisconsin, 2nd.

    However, Texas beats Wisconsin in 17 of the 18 listed statistical categories.

     

    • #33
  4. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Good podcast. Interesting guests and discussions. The discussion with Bethany on cancel culture and pods was also interesting.

    • #34
  5. Taras Coolidge
    Taras
    @Taras

    Taras (View Comment):

    @aaronmiller — Biden isn’t senile, just prone to having senior moments.

    P.S.:  “Republicans will dump more fuel on that fire by okaying a senile pawn for President”.  

    I’ll bite:  what do the Republicans have to do with selecting the Democratic candidate for President?

    • #35
  6. Taras Coolidge
    Taras
    @Taras

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Mark Alexander (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Mark Alexander (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment)

    Ricochet Podcast S-

    Except Ricochet hasn’t been around for 43 years/seasons…. And even if it were, there haven’t been 505 episodes in season 43…

    A season is not always a full year.

    Years/seasons was an either/or thing.

    Even if seasons 1 through 42 only had one episode each, then season 43 could have only had 463 episodes. No matter how you look at it, it fails.

    Well, they removed the tag so all better now. BTW, the podcast started Aug 2010, and that year they had 50 eisodes.

    I have 52 including a special about picking theme music, and a special with John Yoo. 54 including extended interviews with Fred Thompson and Haley Barbour.

    And the first one I have is from January 29. It would be rather difficult to have 50 – 0r 52, or 54 – if they had started in August.

    Oops!  The government slipped up while erasing our memories.

    Steve Martin explained it, as well as the prospects for interstellar travel …

    “Remember a couple of years back when the Earth exploded?  Remember how they built that giant space ark and loaded all of humanity onto it, but the government decided not to tell the stupider … ooh.”

    • #36
  7. Taras Coolidge
    Taras
    @Taras

    James Hageman (View Comment):

    UFOs. I’m wondering if @jameslileks has read Operation Trojan Horse from the late ‘60s. Seems like something he’d be on top of.

    As a charter subscriber to The Skeptical Inquirer, I’ve seen dozens of UFO stories shot down.  Misidentified astronomical and meteorological phenomena and hoaxes for laughs or for money pretty much cover the matter.

    ”Unexplained” cases are those with too little information, or resources ran out before investigators could get to the bottom of them. But then, unsolved murders aren’t proof that aliens are running around, killing people.  (A nice idea for a Netflix series, though!)

    • #37
  8. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    No, no!  They’re not RUNNING around!

    They’re FLYING around!

    Or even BEAMING around!

    • #38
  9. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    Until they land in Times Square and say, Take me to your leader”, I can’t get excited about it.

    • #39
  10. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    RufusRJones (View Comment):

    Until they land in Times Square and say, Take me to your leader”, I can’t get excited about it.

    Ah, but that’s what they WANT YOU to believe!

    It’s all part of how they escape Justice.

    • #40
  11. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    By the way, this was a pretty great show:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1XOacWCbuo&t=78

    (keep the t= to skip over some unfortunate spoilers.)

    • #41
  12. Al Sparks Coolidge
    Al Sparks
    @AlSparks

    RufusRJones (View Comment):
    I have a PhD brother-in-law that is totally on the left and I win every policy argument with him.

    Does he agree that he’s losing those arguments?

    • #42
  13. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Al Sparks (View Comment):

    RufusRJones (View Comment):
    I have a PhD brother-in-law that is totally on the left and I win every policy argument with him.

    Does he agree that he’s losing those arguments?

    They don’t give you a Ph.D for agreeing that you lose arguments.  :-)

    • #43
  14. Al Sparks Coolidge
    Al Sparks
    @AlSparks

    Bethany Mandel’s description of mothers cancelling her kids over her politics doesn’t surprise me. I’ve heard of this before.

    But there are smaller towns where conservative mom’s aren’t isolated like that, simply because there are more conservative moms in those areas. She and her husband should consider moving to one of those towns.

    • #44
  15. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    Al Sparks (View Comment):

    RufusRJones (View Comment):
    I have a PhD brother-in-law that is totally on the left and I win every policy argument with him.

    Does he agree that he’s losing those arguments?

    He just avoids it or he complains about Trump’s character.

    A few years ago he said the words “assault weapon”. Then I said, “define assault weapon”. He went crazy. He doesn’t know the slightest thing about gun regulation.

    He has a son that is really smart that I argue with. The key is non-public goods don’t add any value, the Federal Reserve shouldn’t push the economy around, every single government actuarial system is a disaster, public unions are a bad idea. If you can just defend all of that, they have nowhere to go. That leaves out some cultural issues, but that basically covers everything else. 

    They just really, really want centralized power run by experts to work. 

     

    • #45
  16. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    RufusRJones (View Comment):

    Al Sparks (View Comment):

    RufusRJones (View Comment):
    I have a PhD brother-in-law that is totally on the left and I win every policy argument with him.

    Does he agree that he’s losing those arguments?

    He just avoids it or he complains about Trump’s character.

    A few years ago he said the words “assault weapon”. Then I said, “define assault weapon”. He went crazy. He doesn’t know the slightest thing about gun regulation.

    Oh, you never mentioned that Jonah Goldberg is your brother-in-law.  Now it makes sense.

    • #46
  17. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    RufusRJones (View Comment):

    Al Sparks (View Comment):

    RufusRJones (View Comment):
    I have a PhD brother-in-law that is totally on the left and I win every policy argument with him.

    Does he agree that he’s losing those arguments?

    He just avoids it or he complains about Trump’s character.

    A few years ago he said the words “assault weapon”. Then I said, “define assault weapon”. He went crazy. He doesn’t know the slightest thing about gun regulation.

    He has a son that is really smart that I argue with. The key is non-public goods don’t add any value, the Federal Reserve shouldn’t push the economy around, every single government actuarial system is a disaster, public unions are a bad idea. If you can just defend all of that, they have nowhere to go. That leaves out some cultural issues, but that basically covers everything else.

    They just really, really want centralized power run by experts to work.

     

    One other thing about this. I’ve had the opportunity to really get into it with him about why Keynesianism doesn’t work. He has no answer and that is obviously a pillar of leftism. 

    • #47
  18. Jon1979 Inactive
    Jon1979
    @Jon1979

    Al Sparks (View Comment):

    Bethany Mandel’s description of mothers cancelling her kids over her politics doesn’t surprise me. I’ve heard of this before.

    But there are smaller towns where conservative mom’s aren’t isolated like that, simply because there are more conservative moms in those areas. She and her husband should consider moving to one of those towns.

    The key words in Bethany’s discussion were “Takoma Park” — moving there from New Jersey is pretty much akin to moving from Jersey to the west side of Manhattan (upper, lower, doesn’t matter), and not running into people who define themselves and everyone else, including other people’s children, by their politics (and I say that as someone who has a friend who’s lived in Takoma Park for over 25 years). Ever since the New Deal era it’s been a place where hard-core liberals mingle with like-minded hard-core liberals, which doesn’t excuse the asshattedry towards Bethany, but simply goes to the fact people like that bubble themselves in the most political metro area in the world and don’t like any high-profile person who doesn’t share their mindset to intrude.

    • #48
  19. Charlotte Member
    Charlotte
    @Charlotte

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Mark Alexander (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Ricochet Podcast S-43E505

    wtf is that?

    Season 43, episode 505.

    Except Ricochet hasn’t been around for 43 years/seasons…. And even if it were, there haven’t been 505 episodes in season 43…

    Oh my gosh, would you please give it a rest! Who cares? It’s so frustrating to find that a quarter of the comments on the flagship podcast post are about the stupid episode numbers. Find a different idee fixe.

    • #49
  20. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    Charlotte (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Mark Alexander (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Ricochet Podcast S-43E505

    wtf is that?

    Season 43, episode 505.

    Except Ricochet hasn’t been around for 43 years/seasons…. And even if it were, there haven’t been 505 episodes in season 43…

    Oh my gosh, would you please give it a rest! Who cares? It’s so frustrating to find that a quarter of the comments on the flagship podcast post are about the stupid episode numbers. Find a different idee fixe.

    • #50
  21. Charlotte Member
    Charlotte
    @Charlotte

    Jon1979 (View Comment):

    Al Sparks (View Comment):

    Bethany Mandel’s description of mothers cancelling her kids over her politics doesn’t surprise me. I’ve heard of this before.

    But there are smaller towns where conservative mom’s aren’t isolated like that, simply because there are more conservative moms in those areas. She and her husband should consider moving to one of those towns.

    The key words in Bethany’s discussion were “Takoma Park” — moving there from New Jersey is pretty much akin to moving from Jersey to the west side of Manhattan (upper, lower, doesn’t matter), and not running into people who define themselves and everyone else, including other people’s children, by their politics (and I say that as someone who has a friend who’s lived in Takoma Park for over 25 years). Ever since the New Deal era it’s been a place where hard-core liberals mingle with like-minded hard-core liberals, which doesn’t excuse the asshattedry towards Bethany, but simply goes to the fact people like that bubble themselves in the most political metro area in the world and don’t like any high-profile person who doesn’t share their mindset to intrude.

    I thought she was using Takoma Park as a hypothetical example to illustrate how pods work. (Although I guess maybe she lives there, but I sort of had the impression she lives in Virginia.)

    For our non-DC-area readers, Takoma Park made some news about ten years ago when the city council voted to allow children and non-citizens to vote in local elections.

    • #51
  22. SParker Member
    SParker
    @SParker

    Jim Wright (View Comment):

    James Lileks (View Comment):

    Jon1979 (View Comment):
    I’d really like to hear the one from ’79 with 14-year-old Rob Long griping about the Bonwit-Teller Department Store building being torn down on Fifth Avenue to build Trump Tower…

    Oh, it’s a classic. “He says he’ll save the statuary. Does anyone believe that? It’ll end up in the backyard of some house he builds somewhere, probably Florida.”

    Sounds like a perfect setup for a segue to a Lileks gold ad!

    Man, you know you’ve arrived in the land of the elders when you go right past the “what’s in William Devane’s safe?” reference into an Old Gold ad and now have the image of Lileks’ dancing legs poking out of  a giant cigarette package firmly wedged in the thinking apparatus.  And ya just sorta keep going out into the back yard,  softly singing “My beer is Rheingold, the dry beer.
    Think of Rheingold whenever you buy beer,”  to chase off that dog again that always seems to think it knows you.

    • #52
  23. OccupantCDN Coolidge
    OccupantCDN
    @OccupantCDN

    Its peak 2020. The government admits UFOs are real, and everyone just shrugs it off.

    Is there intelligent life out there? Yes, it would be an enormous waste of space (literally) if there is no-one else out there. But the universe is also old, these aliens don’t necessarily have to be contemporaneous with us. Stars change over time, Asteroids and comets impact, pandemics and even global thermonuclear wars could all limit the existence of alien civilizations. IF there are aliens out there, would they visit? Could they? It seems to me that interstellar space is so vast, that it maybe impossible to cross in the conceivable lifetimes of a biological creature.

    The energy requirements of going faster even up to the speed of light are so tremendous – no pun intended – even astronomical, that with known laws of physics its not possible.

    — Its rather sad that the party that stresses and preaches tolerance the most, is completely incapable of practicing it. This demonstrates the dangers of identity politics, any disagreement is personal. Political discussions on dry matters suddenly get heated when someone sees the rejection of their policies as a rejection of their identity. This is why every controversy is racist. By rejecting the policies of the left, you’ve rejected the identities and persons of the left.

    They maybe fine people, other than believing that the top tax rate should 80%, and that a mugging is aggressive panhandling to address income inequalities. Or that a dozen cops could be injured at a peaceful protest.

    • #53
  24. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    OccupantCDN (View Comment):
    It seems to me that interstellar space is so vast, that it maybe impossible to cross in the conceivable lifetimes of a biological creature.

    1. There are biological creatures that live for thousands of years.
    2. Generation ships have been a concept in science fiction for a very long time.
    3. Suspended animation, while not currently available to science, might well come into play in the future, and if other aliens are more advanced in science or have a biology that naturally tends to suspended animation, might make longer term ships possible.
    • #54
  25. OccupantCDN Coolidge
    OccupantCDN
    @OccupantCDN

    Arahant (View Comment):

    OccupantCDN (View Comment):
    It seems to me that interstellar space is so vast, that it maybe impossible to cross in the conceivable lifetimes of a biological creature.

    1. There are biological creatures that live for thousands of years.
    2. Generation ships have been a concept in science fiction for a very long time.
    3. Suspended animation, while not currently available to science, might well come into play in the future, and if other aliens are more advanced in science or have a biology that naturally tends to suspended animation, might make longer term ships possible.
    1. Yes there could be biological creatures that can live longer than humans, Whales spring to mind, they live for hundreds of years, but when you get out to the extremes, you get into simpler organisms that couldn’t develop a technological civilization.
    2. Yes generations ships are also possible – but these would be huge – and couldn’t approach the Earth without being observed and documented.
    3. Yes, also possible. An alien species may have a biology more compatible with Suspended animation than humans. Aliens can be completely ‘alien’ to our experience.

    But would an alien species expend the energy and manpower to travel to earth, to drill rednecks and butcher cows? Wouldn’t they just land at JFK, make a speech at the UN, and open trade relations (or fire)? I just dont see the motivations of the aliens to co-operate with government secrecy (if UFO conspiracies are to be believed) …

    • #55
  26. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    OccupantCDN (View Comment):
    But would an alien species expend the energy and manpower to travel to earth, to drill rednecks and butcher cows? Wouldn’t they just land at JFK, make a speech at the UN, and open trade relations (or fire)? I just dont see the motivations of the aliens to co-operate with government secrecy (if UFO conspiracies are to be believed) …

    Now that’s a different question set. The cow thing has a natural explanation, as do most of the CEOT3K that are reported.

    As for most of the verifiably U of the UFO reports, they may well be a natural phenomenon we do not yet understand. (Or Nazi Lizard People working out of their base in Antarctica.)

    • #56
  27. OccupantCDN Coolidge
    OccupantCDN
    @OccupantCDN

    Arahant (View Comment):

    OccupantCDN (View Comment):
    But would an alien species expend the energy and manpower to travel to earth, to drill rednecks and butcher cows? Wouldn’t they just land at JFK, make a speech at the UN, and open trade relations (or fire)? I just dont see the motivations of the aliens to co-operate with government secrecy (if UFO conspiracies are to be believed) …

    Now that’s a different question set. The cow thing has a natural explanation, as do most of the CEOT3K that are reported.

    As for most of the verifiably U of the UFO reports, they may well be a natural phenomenon we do not yet understand. (Or Nazi Lizard People working out of their base in Antarctica.)

    The problem with the U, is its a perception of the observer. A lot of observers dont know jack about jack.

    • #57
  28. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    OccupantCDN (View Comment):
    The problem with the U, is its a perception of the observer. A lot of observers dont know jack about jack.

    I was thinking of Navy and Air Force pilots to be specific.

    • #58
  29. OccupantCDN Coolidge
    OccupantCDN
    @OccupantCDN

    Arahant (View Comment):

    OccupantCDN (View Comment):
    The problem with the U, is its a perception of the observer. A lot of observers dont know jack about jack.

    I was thinking of Navy and Air Force pilots to be specific.

    True, pilots are at least trained observers, and they know what they don’t know. I would take the word of even a civil pilot over that of a random…

    • #59
  30. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    OccupantCDN (View Comment):

    Arahant (View Comment):

    OccupantCDN (View Comment):
    The problem with the U, is its a perception of the observer. A lot of observers dont know jack about jack.

    I was thinking of Navy and Air Force pilots to be specific.

    True, pilots are at least trained observers, and they know what they don’t know. I would take the word of even a civil pilot over that of a random…

    Even pilots, including military pilots, are still human bean’s and subject to idiocy no matter how well trained they might be in certain areas.  For one example, remember that guy Jonah Goldberg sometimes mentions, who believed in the mole people or lizard people or whatever it was, living inside the Earth.  He was a former Secretary Of Defense or something.

    • #60
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