Tip Johnson

Independent Writer & Director

[0xDipper @Dipper_pol]

Charlie Munger's single most powerful mental model, in one story:

FedEx's whole business depends on packages moving between planes at one hub every night. for years they couldn't get the night shift to do it fast enough. they tried moral persuasion. they tried everything. nothing worked.

then someone noticed: the crew was paid by the hour. finishing fast literally made them less money. so management switched them to pay-by-the-shift - go home when the job's done.

the problem vanished overnight.

his rule: "show me the incentive and I'll show you the outcome." people aren't irrational - they act rationally inside whatever system rewards them.

the danger is your trusted advisors. the surgeon who removes healthy organs, the broker whose pitch is never "within hailing distance of objective truth" - mostly not evil. just following the incentive until they start to believe it.

"never, ever think about something else when you should be thinking about the power of incentives."

~1hr talk, free. Munger on the invisible force behind almost every human decision ↓

[Larry Elder @larryelder]

“The world does not realize—[and much of it does not care] how close Hamas brought us to Armageddon on October 7, 2023.

“It intended to force Hezbollah to commit to a full-scale invasion of Israel from Lebanon, and then to trigger incursions from Syria and Jordan.

“With Israel overrun by enemy forces on four fronts, and videos of barbaric atrocities inspiring millions around the world, a West Bank uprising would have erupted the same day—and Iran, the Houthis, and the Iraqi militias would undoubtedly have joined ballistic missile fire.

“On October 7, 2023, the threat was existential. And every day Israel has fought since then has been to prevent that existential threat from rearing its head.”
— @EylonALevy, former Israeli government spokesman

[DrPopCulture @DrPopCultureUSA]

“I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down'.”

Bob Newhart

[Western Lensman @WesternLensman]

Left clip, June 7. Molly Jong-Fast tees up Rick Wilson to smear the Platner accuser as a right wing operative

Right clip, Today. Fast is dismayed that Democrats ran Platner without proper vetting

“I don’t know we got here!"

Media revisionism on this is going to be next level

[Peter Clack @PeterDClack]

There should never have been an ideologically driven campaign to dismantle coal, oil and gas.

This was a colossal policy failure. The UN dived headfirst into the global warming agenda for political reasons, transforming natural climate variability into an ideological stampede that demonised fossil fuels — without proven, affordable, practical alternatives ready.

No organisation on Earth is less suited to lead environmental policy than the UN. The result has been costly and counterproductive.

China’s coal boom proves the point: 94 GW under construction in 2024 alone, with more approvals flowing. They pair it with renewables, but coal remains the reliable backbone keeping industrial costs low. Globally, coal, oil and gas still supply around 81% of primary energy; wind and solar just 3-6%.

Nuclear is the logical pivot. The best path was always a steady transition to nuclear — large plants for big load centres, Small Modular Reactors for regional and industrial clusters. They are factory-built, carry passive safety and have shorter timelines.

Progress is building. The US is funding first-of-a-kind SMRs (GE Hitachi BWRX-300, Holtec SMR-300, NuScale), Canada is advancing at Darlington and there are partnerships in the UK, Sweden and Poland.

The first commercial rollout is targeted for late 2020s to early 2030s, though delays are chronic.

Exploding electricity demand from AI data centres is now forcing the issue — renewables alone can’t deliver the baseload. If the West had prioritised nuclear over the renewables gamble, we’d likely have cheaper, cleaner, more reliable grids today.

Tech giants are now actively bypassing traditional regulatory bottlenecks by directly financing or partnering with nuclear providers (like recent SMR deals in the US).

Nuclear generation is hitting record highs, with 15 new reactors adding around 12 GW soon. The IAEA has repeatedly raised its outlook: in the high case, capacity more than doubles to around 992 GW by 2050.

But trust and public money have been eroded by wind and solar’s failure to deliver reliable transition — leaving no replacement in sight.

Yet, the most obvious solution has been staring the West in the face all along.

[Apple Lamps @lamps_apple]

In 2021, Republicans warned Democrats that their $1.9 trillion spending binge would trigger massive inflation and pleaded with them to cut it down to around $700 billion.

Progressive Sen. Chris Murphy’s response was to demand even more spending and sneer, “Cry me a river.”

Democrats were warned. They did it anyway. Americans paid the price. Within just four years, the cost of living for the average family surged by $14,300 per year. Permanently.

[Overton @overton_news]

Scott Jennings just blew up the Democrats’ favorite excuse.

They’re now claiming Graham Platner wasn’t properly vetted, but Jennings wasn’t buying it for a second.

He reminded the CNN panel that prominent Democrats like Ro Khanna, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Tim Walz all knew about Platner’s past — and backed him anyway.

JENNINGS: “The only thing I disagree with is when she said that he hadn’t been vetted.”

“No, he had been vetted!”

“All of the things that have been stated, it was all out in the public and people like Ro Khanna, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Tim Walz, the Bulwark, Pod Save America, all these people came together to overlook it all, to explain it all, to rationalize it all.”

“He was vetted. People knew all these things and a whole bunch of Democrats in Maine showed up and voted for him anyway. And a bunch of donors from around the country sent him money anyway.”

“I agree with Alyssa’s question. What changed? Why are you bailing on Graham Platner now?!”

“You already signed off on Nazi tattoo, a self-described communist, somebody who’s had rape fantasies, somebody who has been on a social media platform known as a playground for predators.”

“And on and on and on and on and on.”

“And the difference between this accuser and the previous one is simply this, she’s a liberal. It’s okay, I guess, for Democrats that their candidate’s assault conservatives.”

“But he broke into someone’s house. And apparently, according to her, raped her. And because her politics are correct, they can now believe it.”

“All of this whole thing is disgusting. But to say that they hadn’t vetted him, or that they didn’t know about all this is totally false.”

“They knew it and they signed up for it, and I don’t know why they’re backing away from this scumbag today when they had already signed off on all that other crazy behavior.”

@ScottJenningsKY

[The Rabbit Hole @TheRabbitHole]

Thomas Sowell 🔥🔥

[ABSOLUTE BRAZILIAN @Absolutebrazil]

Ele caminhando e fingindo que está cansado e olhando os espaços que vai atacar

Do nada ele acelera e dá uma cabeçada precisa

Como os velhos dizem, quem corre é a bola.

[Wesley Hunt @WesleyHuntTX]

The next time Democrats roll out “affordability,” talking points, ask them if they’ve read this story yet.

[Secretary Brooke Rollins @SecRollins]

When I took over @USDA, we found taxpayer dollars funding grants on "racial injustice" in the pest control industry, research on queer and BIPOC farmers in San Francisco, and studies on transgender menstrual cycle issues.

That wasn't serving America's farmers and ranchers.

So we canceled those grants, called off 900 DEI trainings, and began reorganizing USDA to refocus the Department on its core mission. That was a good start—but there is much more work to do.

For too long, Washington prioritized a radical political agenda over the people who feed, fuel, and clothe our nation. Meanwhile, input costs soared, family farms struggled, and in 2023 America became a net food importer for the first time in generations.

Our measure of success is simple: prosperous farmers and ranchers, a stronger rural America, lower costs, and restoring America's food security. 🇺🇸🧑‍🌾

[SaltyGoat @SaltyGoat17]

“ENVY WAS ONCE CONSIDERED TO BE ONE OF THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS BEFORE IT BECAME ONE OF THE MOST ADMIRED VIRTUES UNDER ITS NEW NAME, ‘SOCIAL JUSTICE.’”

-Thomas Sowell

[The Conservative Alternative @OldeWorldOrder]

TEDDY ROOSEVELT: "Complaining about a problem without proposing a solution is called whining."

[Peter Clack @PeterDClack]

Every cow on Earth is part of a closed CO₂ loop.

Herbivores don’t create new carbon. They’re effectively CO₂ neutral. Cattle are nature’s great grazers — bulk feeders turning roughage into protein while keeping grasslands healthy. Without them, vast areas would atrophy into lifeless, nutrient-poor topsoil.

The carbon a cow emits today was pulled from the air by the grass it ate just months earlier. It’s a rolling ledger: no net addition to the global system.

Through photosynthesis, plants turn atmospheric CO₂ into carbohydrates. Cattle eat the grass, digest it, and return that same carbon to the atmosphere as CO₂ and CH₄. Nothing extra destabilises the system.

Within roughly a decade, that methane oxidises back into CO₂ — ready for the next season’s grass to breathe in again.

Cattle aren’t a new source of greenhouse gases. They’re recyclers in the biogenic carbon cycle.

[Сarm1ne @carm1nee]

Carl Icahn paid a consultant $250,000 to figure out what 173 employees did "we can't figure out what they do either" - he fired all 173 - profit went from $1 million to $96 million

this is him breaking down his two biggest trades on camera, why he believes most CEOs in America should be fired, and the pattern that makes every company he touches more profitable

"173 people in new york city, five floors. I said what do you guys do? they said you just don't understand, it's a very complex business. I paid a consultant a quarter million dollars. he said we can't figure out what they do either"

"I closed the new york office. we kept seven people. today the company makes five times what it made before we bought it"

"I knew nothing about the airline business. the company was losing $200 million. my critics said we'd be bankrupt. today we're recording $300 million"

"sooner or later all companies end up run by idiots. the number two man by definition has to be a little worse. it's anti-darwinian. I call it survival of the unfittest"

bookmark & watch the full conversation ↓

[Steve Ferguson @lsferguson]

Yesterday I had a post that went viral about Haitians here on TPS getting mortgages.
As you can see here, there are special programs for H-1B visa holders with no US credit.
Why can't Americans get the same benefits as foreigners.
Have you had enough yet?

[STORM NEWS 📰🗞️ @storm1news]

BREAKING - The man who incited a mob to surround teenage girls simply for taking a photo with ICE, while threatening them and attempting to doxx them, has been identified as Mark Holodnak, the Democrat Committee Treasurer for Arizona District 12.

Give his boss a call.

[Benjamin Domenech @bdomenech]

“Fellow Citizens, I am not wanting in respect for the fathers of this republic. The signers of the Declaration of Independence were brave men. They were great men too — great enough to give fame to a great age. It does not often happen to a nation to raise, at one time, such a number of truly great men. The point from which I am compelled to view them is not, certainly, the most favorable; and yet I cannot contemplate their great deeds with less than admiration. They were statesmen, patriots and heroes, and for the good they did, and the principles they contended for, I will unite with you to honor their memory.

“They loved their country better than their own private interests; and, though this is not the highest form of human excellence, all will concede that it is a rare virtue, and that when it is exhibited, it ought to command respect. He who will, intelligently, lay down his life for his country, is a man whom it is not in human nature to despise. Your fathers staked their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, on the cause of their country. In their admiration of liberty, they lost sight of all other interests.

“They were peace men; but they preferred revolution to peaceful submission to bondage. They were quiet men; but they did not shrink from agitating against oppression. They showed forbearance; but that they knew its limits. They believed in order; but not in the order of tyranny. With them, nothing was “settled” that was not right. With them, justice, liberty and humanity were “final;” not slavery and oppression. You may well cherish the memory of such men. They were great in their day and generation. Their solid manhood stands out the more as we contrast it with these degenerate times.

“How circumspect, exact and proportionate were all their movements! How unlike the politicians of an hour! Their statesmanship looked beyond the passing moment, and stretched away in strength into the distant future. They seized upon eternal principles, and set a glorious example in their defense. Mark them!

“Fully appreciating the hardship to be encountered, firmly believing in the right of their cause, honorably inviting the scrutiny of an on-looking world, reverently appealing to heaven to attest their sincerity, soundly comprehending the solemn responsibility they were about to assume, wisely measuring the terrible odds against them, your fathers, the fathers of this republic, did, most deliberately, under the inspiration of a glorious patriotism, and with a sublime faith in the great principles of justice and freedom, lay deep the corner-stone of the national superstructure, which has risen and still rises in grandeur around you.

“Of this fundamental work, this day is the anniversary. Our eyes are met with demonstrations of joyous enthusiasm. Banners and pennants wave exultingly on the breeze. The din of business, too, is hushed. Even Mammon seems to have quitted his grasp on this day. The ear-piercing fife and the stirring drum unite their accents with the ascending peal of a thousand church bells. Prayers are made, hymns are sung, and sermons are preached in honor of this day; while the quick martial tramp of a great and multitudinous nation, echoed back by all the hills, valleys and mountains of a vast continent, bespeak the occasion one of thrilling and universal interest — a nation’s jubilee.”

- Frederick Douglass

[Eric Daugherty @EricLDaugh]

🚨 HOLY CRAP! CNN's Dana Bash just got OBLITERATED for trying to say leftists didn't vandalize Lincoln Reflecting Pool

SEC. DOUG BURGUM: We CAN prove it!

BASH: People cutting a 350 foot gash in the reflecting pool?!

BURGUM: "Dana, I'm not SURE WHY YOU and others in the media keep questioning it! Literally it will NEVER just 'peel off!' The ONLY way to end up with SLICES in one spot and not the other is someone PHYSICALLY CUT IT. The pool itself is not leaking, it's finally been fixed, and the American flag blue is working...the REAL scandal is the fact the state of our capital was in disrepair! NO ONE talked about the pro-Hamas graffiti, and we're STILL talking about it."

BASH: But it's now closed

BURGUM: Because it's the 4th of July and there were FIREWORKS! Now the fence will come down.

She's a joke!

[Chris Martz @ChrisMartzWX]

On today's date in 1901, over half of the U.S. was at or above 90°F and nearly 9% of the land area was at least 100°F. The same weather occurring this week occurred exactly 125 years ago, but according to most climate alarmists, it was just weather in 1901, but this week's three-day event is undeniable proof that we are facing a climate catastrophe.