I’m a fan of John Derbyshire and listen to his podcast each week. I did not subscribe for the pay version at Taki because I could not get their pay service to work. My first rule of commerce is that if you make it hard for me to do business with you, I will not do business with you. The Taki pay model, at least from my experience, was designed to chase away customers.

But, John would post his transcripts and audio later in the week on his site so I could listen to it there. Now I see that Taki has this up claiming that Derb has gone dark. They have scrubbed their site of his content so it is reasonable to assume there has been a falling out between Derb and Taki. On John’s site he says he shall return in two weeks.

I have no idea how popular Radio Derb is as a podcast. I enjoy it a great deal. John has a great voice and a good eye for content that will play well as audio. I listen to a lot of podcasts and I count his as one of the better ones. But, I’m a fringe guy and my tastes are surely not mainstream. Still, Derb has to be one of the more popular contributors at Taki.

John is a good example of just how far left the Overton Window has moved in my lifetime. Not so long ago John would have been a typical conservative commenter. When he began writing for National Review, he was rather conventional in his opinions, but much more empirical in his presentation. Today he is considered a fringe weirdo, a man wearing a tinfoil cap. That’s what happens when the inmates take over the asylum.

Let us hope he has not permanently disappeared.