Good grief! “Lucretia” and I take a week off, and everything goes to hell. Minneapolis starts rioting again, and Democrats in Washington start their own riot over court-packing. Meanwhile, the officer who mistook her service revolver for a taser and shot Daunte Wright was publicly identified within 48 hours (Kim Potter), lost her job, and now faces criminal charges, while we have passed Day 100... Source...
Winston Churchill wrote that “No two cities have counted more with mankind than Athens and Jerusalem. Their messages in religion, philosophy, and art have been the main guiding lights of modern faith and culture.” For Easter and Passover Steve and Lucretia decided to take up the Jerusalem side of this theme with the help of a forgotten figure who was a major influence on the young Churchill—the... Source...
Last night we had one of our special live Zoom events for Power Line VIP subscribers, but a gremlin seems to have prevented many VIPs from getting timely notice of the link to the event. So we decided to post up the audio of the event for VIPs who didn’t get a link or who were unable to join us for whatever reason–and for any curious listeners who want to hear what they’re missing! Source
So we’re a day late getting this episode ready because we went on location, and recorded live in a real bar, located in an undisclosed location in the Free State of Texas. Here as we do show prep I’m having a glass of Oban 14, and Lucretia is having some Glenlivet, and for our recording segment I switched to one of her favorites, MacCallan 18, which, I had to admit, I liked a fair bit... Source...
In honor of “President” Biden’s attempt to imitate Chevy Chase imitating Gerald Ford on the steps of Air Farce One, this week’s episode launches with some appropriate custom bumper music (the headline should give you a clue), and then “Lucretia” and I resume arguing whether our format should put metaphysics ahead of malts—in other words, business before pleasure—or whether whisky malts are... Source...
So for this episode “Lucretia” and I were going to discuss, and ask for audience input on, whether we should change the name of our format to “Cocktails Against Communism,” but owing to some technical glitches that we seamlessly fixed over an extra glass of single malt so that you won’t even be able to guess where the patches are, we completely forgot! Maybe next week. In the meantime... Source...
This episode rolls out our new motto for the 3WHH format—”The podcast dedicated to meta-malts and metaphysics!” “Lucretia” isn’t so sure, but we’ll roll with that until we change to a sports-talk format, which will happen on the 4th of Never. Anyway, after reviewing a surprisingly busy week in important whisky news, we introduce three new short regular segments: the Magic Numbers... Source...
This week has something for everybody, as our three segments (we actually stick to format this week!) range from Mr. Potato Head (now Zir Potatx Head apparently) to Winston Churchill, with a detour to throw some rotten tomatoes at Smith College, and then on to a sequel of sorts to last week’s seminar, in which we point out how today’s leftist racism is the direct descendant of the “scientific... Source...
This week we shake up the format a bit, and skip over our gratuitous whisky reviews and commentary on the top news stories of the week, and head straight in to the classroom for our long-postponed seminar on constitutional originalism, rightly understood. We do this by focusing in on four “mystery passages” about constitutional interpretation from prominent jurists, and ponder what are some... Source...
Well, we had planned to continue our tutorial on the natural law basis for genuine constitutional originalism, but we two professors reverted to form and didn’t prepare! And we’ve got standards, so we’re not going to fake it. Instead, we got distracted by the news of the week, including France—France!—deploring the wokeness of American university culture and calling it a threat to French culture. Source...
Another week, another dismal article in The New Republic (a former magazine) to beat up. We promise not to make a habit of this, lest TNR get an anti-stalking injunction, but this week’s TNR howler, “Originalism Is Dead; Long Live Catholic Natural Law,” is so stupid that we had to smack it around as another stepping stone to our ongoing conversation about constitutional originalism. Key question... Source...
What episode offers you “spice that ramps up the palate, carried forward by the full body, hearty proof, and mouth-coating texture”? This edition of the Three Whisky Happy Hour, if the latest reviews of our choices in the Whisky Advocate are any indication. Alas, we remain unable to resolve our “peat-versus-sweet” single malt debate. In any case, we know the magazine is just a shill for Big Whisky... Source...
Almost exactly a year ago I had Spencer Case on the show from Wuhan, China, where he had a front row seat to the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Spencer is now back in Wuhan, finishing up a post-doc fellowship at Wuhan University, where he is working on two books and a pile of academic articles. Spencer has also started his own podcast, Micro-Digressions, and it is worth a listen if you have... Source
By popular demand from listeners, “Lucretia” takes over hosting duties this week and gives Steve another thrashing about election fraud issues. But along the way we review the extremely ominous first 72 hours of the the Harris-Biden Administration, and conclude that the Harris-Biden presidency is going to be several notches to the left of the Obama Administration. On the never-ending question of... Source...
Settle in with your favorite single malt for this extra-long episode that offers a deep dive into the election results with Henry Olsen, the Trump-sympathetic analyst who concludes that Democrat voter fraud did not determine the outcome of the election. He fields a lot of fastballs and curveballs from me and “Lucretia” about why so many Americans can harbor reasonable doubts that the election was... Source...
I was caught up short yesterday when I spotted, on the generally very pro-Trump American Greatness website, William B. Allen’s article entitled “Let Us Impeach Him.” It pays to read past the headline of this article, because the argument is not what you think: it’s not a “get-him-out-office-as-fast-as-we-can” manifesto. Rather, Prof. Allen argues that we should take our time and impeach Trump... Source...
Lucretia and I decided to pour triple shots and host an open bar episode of our regular whisky-drenched dialogue with two special guests, Power Line co-founder John Hinderaker, and Charles Lipson, frequent contributor to The Spectator and other publications. Partly this is because Steve wanted some company in the weekly “getting-thrashed-by-Lucretia” moments. And also because we taped this episode... Source...
For anyone looking for some welcome comic relief from the dreadful scene of this week, here is the episode for you! M. Stanton Evans As a few select people know, I am currently writing a biography of the late, great M. Stanton Evans, who passed away in 2015. Stan was one of the key figures in the conservative movement from the late 1950s (he was the principal author of the “Sharon Statement” that... Source...
We begin the New Year by examining three breaking news stories (to go with three shots of whisky, of course), all of which add up to the conclusion that the liberal learning curve is flat. First, Portland’s Mayor Ted Wheeler is finally starting to understand that Antifa is an anarchist group that you can’t reason with like a teenager. Second, Nancy Pelosi’s fancy home in San Francisco was... Source...
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... Source...
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!”... Source...
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... Source...
“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... Source...
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... Source...
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... Source...
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. Source...
