3 Whisky Happy Hour

This week’s whisky In another wide ranging episode (our last for the year), “Lucretia” and I review the best and worst Christmas movies, the best and worst Christmas music, the rank order of the best Will Ferrell movies, whether blended whisky is ever acceptable, why Finnish rock music sounds like a whale being tortured, and whether we can deduct the cost of our whisky under the tax changes of the...

This is without doubt The. Most. Gozno. Episode. Ever. My sampler for the episode. This week “Lucretia” (“That’s DoctorLucretia to you, kiddo!”) and I put down our whisky and take up Australian red wines instead (with brief consideration about whether the banana daiquiri represented the nadir of the West during the Cold War), as we range from Hegel to Snoop Dogg (“That’s Mister Dogg to you, kiddo!...

A suitable whisky for a foggy Saturday evening. So there we were, armed with a fresh bottle of 10-year-old Ardbeg Islay whisky (not quite as peaty as Laphroaig or Talisker), and all set to plunge back into political philosophy again and escape yet another thrashing at the hands of Lucretia, but then the Supreme Court laid an egg, politicians acted stupidly again about COVID (in other words... Sour...

“Lucretia” and I had fully intended to work through our long-promised (or is it that threatened?) and now thrice-postponed seminar on the philosophical roots of leftist snobbishness and condescension, but we got diverted—strange that this keeps happening—by some notable campus news stories from last week. Naturally there were several stories of colleges disgracing themselves... Source

At one point during the livecast recording of this week’s episode on Zoom, a commenter said the score was “Lucretia 6, Hayward 0,” so naturally I thought I was only behind by two field goals, and thus easy to make up in the 4th Quarter. But then the commenter clarified that he was using soccer scoring, which meant that I was getting crushed. “Ask Paul,” he added unnecessarily. Oh well. Source

After getting a review of new and unpronounceable whiskies out of the way (such as the one posted here) along with the miseries of the week just past that compel several drams of whisky, “Lucretia” and I had planned to talk about an obscure but profound essay from way back in 1973 that explores the serious philosophical roots of how today’s progressive left is best explained by the left’s formal.....

Charles Lipson Can American democracy walk and chew bubble gum at the same time? Charles Lipson thinks so, arguing in the Wall Street Journal today that normal transition activities can and should take place even as President Trump pursues his legal challenges to the election results. Lipson, professor emeritus of Political Science at the University of Chicago, is no shrinking violet when it comes...

This week Steve and “Lucretia” survey the dismal scene of uphill recount prospects (and why game theory says Trump should fight on even past January 20), the impending COVID tyranny (“Lockdown II: This Time It’s Personal!”), and the latest social science nonsense, and decide the only sensible thing to do is pour another whisky and contemplate whether the long-term “Trump dividend” will offer a......

Hoo boy! I’m not sure three whiskies are enough this week. Fortunately I procured a relatively cheap Islay single malt—Finlaggan—to get me through the travails of Election Overtime. The election is still a fast moving scene, so I decided that “Lucretia” and I should take a longer term view of the scene, and ponder the “metaphysics” of the election, which are not comforting to the left. Source

If Trump wins the electoral college again on Tuesday while losing the popular vote (perhaps by a bigger margin than he did in 2016), the left will lose its mind. Well that’s a given, but they’ll really lose their mind about the electoral college. After hoisting a couple of toasts to the passing of Sean Connery and a second sour whisky shot for Britain going back on COVID lockdown... Source

Better late than never, “Lucretia” and I team up to review what’s going on in the news along with drinking to the confirmation of Justice Barrett, but are most interested in thinking a bit about what is “metaphysically” wrong with the election scene, with poll after poll showing a solid Biden lead against lots of sense perception—and several historical examples—that argues for a different outcome....

Steve settles in with some Japanese whisky while “Lucretia” abandons her “whisky cougar” ways with a bona fide Glenlivet 18 so we can celebrate Amy Coney Barrett’s start turn driving Democrats to embarrass themselves last week. The hearings illustrate what’s wrong with the “side of history” liberals, as expressed in an especially lazy column from Nick Kristof in the New York Times, and a series of...

If you aren’t following Mark Perry’s Carpe Diem blog every day you’re missing out on one of the best sources for common sense analysis of current economic and social controversies. Mark, an economist at the University of Michigan and scholar at AEI, specializes in debunking economic fallacies (such as the perennial feminist talking point that women only earn 78 cents for every dollar a man earns)....

The basics. This week’s recap starts off with a challenge to find the most unpronounceable scotch whisky you’ve never heard of (like Poit Dhubh, which is unavailable in the U.S.), plus a review of the 10 health benefits of drinking scotch whisky (some of which need a controlled experiment to validate properly, which we’re happy to conduct ourselves). Once suitably lubricated, we take a victory lap...

Lots of things to pour whisky shots for this week. Before returning to our short course on Leo Strauss’s perspectives on liberal education, “Lucretia” and Steve reflect on Joe Biden’s long career as a chameleon (if you didn’t know better, you’d almost think Biden had read Richard Weaver’s famous Ideas Have Consequences, since he thinks Antifa is an “idea,” and one that certainly has consequences)....

We’re delighted to bring Scott Yenor to the show this week to discuss his important new book, The Recovery of Family Life: Exposing the Limits of Modern Ideologies, which is being officially released tomorrow from Baylor University Press. Unlike many other fine books on the family today that rely chiefly on social science, Scott also brings his immense learning in political philosophy to bear on.....

Freshly resupplied with a shipment of Laphraoig, Talisker, and “Murdered Out” dark roast from Black Rifle Coffee, Steve and “Lucretia” drink to the appointment of Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court, smack around Biden a little (but only a little because otherwise it would be elder abuse), and then resume our discussion from two weeks about about liberal education and Leo Strauss’s famous....

I know we promised listeners that last week’s episode would be the beginning of a three-part series on liberal education rightly understood, but the passing of Justice Ginsburg has thrown us off our plan. But rather than go in for the usual punditry about confirmation battles and the effect this will have on the election, Lucretia and I decided to step back and take on a truly radical perspective....

Is there room for another book on the rural voters who delivered the surprising outcome of the 2016 election? Yes, there is, when the book is Trump’s Democrats, by Stephanie Muravchik and Jon A. Shields, just out from the Brookings Institution. Muravchik and Shields do something unusual in this book; rather than do yet another excursion into survey data and statistical mumbo-jumbo... Source

Well now we’ve done it! This week Lucretia and I decided to take a break from downing whisky shots over the latest crazy news headlines and drag listeners back into the classroom for a new mini-series. I get lots of emails and comments from listeners and readers about why we surrender the term “liberal” to deep leftists who are profoundly illiberal. It’s a great question, and so Lucretia and I......

This week’s three whisky happy hour centers around three percentage numbers: 99, 93, and 100. In looking at the latest craziness from higher education, Lucretia and I conclude scientifically that 99 percent of all college professors give the other 1 percent a bad name (sort of like lawyers); the “93 percent of protests are peaceful” sounds about as meaningful as “the Japanese flyover of Pearl... S...

Today is the 4th anniversary of the appearance of one of the most memorable political essays in American history, “ The Flight 93 Election,” written by the pseudonymous author “Decius.” It began with this memorable attention-grabber: 2016 is the Flight 93 election: charge the cockpit or you die. You may die anyway. You—or the leader of your party—may make it into the cockpit and not know how to......

As I’m sure you’ve heard, Trump the Dictator is messing with the U.S. Post Office in an attempt to steal the election. He’s removing blue boxes from corners! He’s taking mail processing machines out of service! He’s tying the shoelaces of mail carriers! Can artificial snowstorms be far behind? Or genetically modified super dogs to chase mail carriers away? This is one of those frenzied stories......

After a one week hiatus for jury duty, the Three Whisky Happy Hour with Steve and Lucretia is back, but with a role-reversal: Lucretia bartends this week! Partly this is so Lucretia can school Steve on how to think about vigilantism and the case of Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old who has been charged with murder for what appears to have been self-defense in the Kenosha riots earlier this week. S...

This week’s Power Line Three Whisky Happy Hour finds Charles Lipson bellying up to the bar for a flight of whiskys that begins with a tale of his mis-spent youth discovering the “bootleggers and Baptists” hypothesis in the course of violating numerous federal and state laws, as well as his legendary Henry Kissinger impression. We take up three topics to go with three shots of whisky: the rapid......