Jim Meigs

Columnist for @WSJFreeEx newsletter from @WSJOpinion; Sr fellow @ManhattanInst; Former @PopMech EIC. I beg to differ.

[Emma Camp @emmma_camp_]

I have spent the past several years convincing myself that I can fix this through sheer force of will

[Eric Nelson @literaryeric]

It's weird to keep hearing Scott Bessent say that if Iran can't import or export anything, their economy will collapse, and if the US can't import or export anything, our economy will soar.

[Jim Meigs @jamesbmeigs]

Wow.

[Sam Weller @Sam__Weller]

This is the most remarkable story Ray Bradbury ever shared with me. He told it late at nigh, sitting in his den of antiquities and mementos. Take five minutes to read this. It’s pure magic.

#Writing #Living #Creativity #RayBradbury #Book

[Scott Lincicome @scottlincicome]

"It is time to stop treating the outcome of tariff policy as a hypothetical. The experiment was run in 2001 and failed. It was re-run on a grand scale since 2017 and failed. It is not good economic policy. And in a month it will prove to be poor politics as well" 🔥 https://t.co/gOtw3vlCdK

[Jim Meigs @jamesbmeigs]

Maybe Najya is the one who should have a contract to write essays for the New York Times.

[Charles C. W. Cooke @charlescwcooke]

Nikole Hannah-Jones’s daughter is smarter and wiser than her mother, and is correctly outraged by the ideological zealotry that led her mother to privilege a bunch of mawkish nonsense over her only child’s wellbeing.

[Max Evans @_MaxQ_]

Starship transiting the Sun this morning during Flight 14 — prior to this morning's mission, this has never been captured before with the world's largest and most powerful rocket.

I’ve ached over this shot for years, mainly for two reasons: what does methane exhaust look like silhouetted against the Sun, and how violent are the acoustic energy waves from 33 Raptor engines on the Super Heavy booster?

Well...now we have an answer.

📸 - @NASASpaceflight

[Emma Camp @emmma_camp_]

Want to reduce crime on the subway? Enforce the fares.

My latest for @WSJFreeEx

[Scott Manley @DJSnM]

So glad to see this footage from a Starlink, not the one with the big lights doing the tile survey, just the regular type deployed in daylight, using its engineering camera.
And now it's probably headed up hill to its final operational orbit.

[Jim Meigs @jamesbmeigs]

Another big step forward for @SpaceX Starship.

[SpaceX @SpaceX]

Starship performs its orbital insertion burn and enters orbit of Earth for the first time

[Garry Kasparov @Kasparov63]

🎯 No one tries to use human shields against Russia or Iran or Hamas. It would be nonsensical, as they target civilians to begin with.

[Jim Meigs @jamesbmeigs]

What an adventure!

[Richard H. Ebright @R_H_Ebright]

Radio-tagged Monarch butterfly RHE_Alpha has favorable winds today--8 knot tailwinds--for an overwater flight south-southwest from its stopping point last night on BP Argus oil rig to Gulf Coast of Mexico.

Fingers crossed for first full-trans-Gulf migration by a radio-tagged Monarch.

[Garry Kasparov @Kasparov63]

Stating facts. The Cold War-era UN's purpose was to prevent open war between the US and the USSR. Based on time spent, the post-Cold War UN's purpose is to condemn Israel while ignoring or covering up the crimes and terror of Islamist states, groups, and other dictatorships.

[Free Expression @WSJFreeEx]

If Democrats win the House and possibly the Senate in the midterms—then perhaps the White House two years from now—will they suddenly embrace judicious policies that appeal to centrist voters? Don’t count on it, writes @jamesbmeigs
https://t.co/ijWHPlAIe7

[Jim Meigs @jamesbmeigs]

@aakashgupta Here's the best song ever written about dive bars:
https://t.co/xHp7BJLXsd

[Jim Meigs @jamesbmeigs]

My father liked window seats and always carried his mini-binoculars. He often told a story about a time he was flying home from Europe. Everyone had their shades down, but he woke up mid-flight and raised the shade to peek out.

He saw a massive ice sheet from horizon to horizon. The Greenland Ice Cap! He watched in awe as it passed under the plane.

Soon people started yelling at him to close the shade. It was too bright!

"I wanted to tell them, 'But it's the Greenland Ice Cap!,'" he said.

The phrase, "But it's the Greenland Ice Cap!" became a kind of shorthand in our family meaning: "Something incredible that you absolutely should not miss."

[Jim Meigs @jamesbmeigs]

@PJamesJenkins @WSJFreeEx Would you fly on an airline that uses this philosophy to hire aircraft mechanics or pilots?

[The Wall Street Journal @WSJ]

From @WSJFreeEx via @WSJOpinion: It’s the biggest temptation in politics. We see a terrible policy being pursued by our political opponents and decide the solution is to go even harder in the opposite direction, writes @jamesbmeigs.
https://t.co/kxSjsUCihj

[Stewart Brand @stewartbrand]

Concur.

[Jim Meigs @jamesbmeigs]

The public health backlash follows the same dynamic: Fauci and our public health elite abused their power. Federal health agencies needed an overhaul.

But instead of carefully rebuilding credibility in our health system, Trump installed an anti-vax zealot who is doing a lot of harm. That’s not going to end well, either for the country or for Trump’s reputation.
https://t.co/QDIZeR6nwG

[Jim Meigs @jamesbmeigs]

Here’s an almost irresistible political trap: You see a bad policy being executed by your political opponents. Then, when your team is in power, you go hard in the opposite direction, eventually going so far overboard you lose public support.

Example: Biden’s border policy was egregious. Trump had a strong mandate to fix it. But the administration’s deportation policies soon became chaotic and heartless and the public turned against them. Now Trump is underwater on what was once one of his most popular issues.

I talk about this and other examples in my @WSJFreeEx column today.