Post #3934 M: The final post of 2018; an Introduction to Libertariansm

Quote of the Day

Always say less than necessary.
Robert Greene  

A Libertarian Podcast Leaves Youtube

An Introduction to Libertarianism

Tucker Carlson Takes On the Neocons

The Disaster of WWI

Choose Life

Political Cartoon

Musical Interlude: Childhood Christmas

Dan Fogelberg, "Same Old Lang Syne"

Post #3933J;: What is wrong with some people?

We humans are a notoriously judgmental sort, even with people we are close to, even with our family and friends. But I'm frequently astonished by how other people treat my property. I'm going to cite a few examples to make my point.

• My luggage has taken hits at an alarming rate. To cite my most recent return flight: my mom had purchased/picked out some nice oversized colored luggage tags on sale at an outlet mall. I was using a blue one, which made it fairly easy to locate my luggage. All that remained of the tag when I got my suitcase was a thin strap of leather. How the hell did that happen? Did they try to pick up the luggage by its tag? Then there was time they destroyed the telescopic back handle of my luggage (same suspect reason). I've also previously written how I had an American Airlines flight canceled out of San Antonio, eventually getting transferred to Delta, but I had to retrieve my luggage--only to find the luggage thoroughly destroyed to the point it had to be heavily taped up just to move it. No personnel in sight, no explanation, apology or compensation. I had to limp my way to Delta, and an agent there had to apply another layer of tape. The luggage barely made it home, unusable for future use. Do these people have a conscience?
• A second example was a jewelry case I bought some time back for Mom for Christmas . It had stained glass inside; I shipped it USPS. When Mom got it, the stained glass in the jewelry case was totally shattered. Dad (who was working for USPS) said I should have marked it "fragile" more and/or upgraded the shipping; give me a break! Postal workers should be treating packages as if their own.
• Recently I subscribed to an Amazon minestrone soup carton .shipment. Someone took the shipment from my door, ripped open the box and tossed the contents in front of my door, damaging the product in the process.
• While I was an all but broke UH PhD student in my 20's, I was coming out of a strip mall (with an S&L where I kept my checking account) off Westheimer (a busy west Houston street). Some businessman in a suit was waiting in the INCOMING lane of the two-lane side street waiting for traffic to clear (I assumed he was waiting to cross lanes but wasn't sure why he was sitting in the incoming lane), which in Houston can take forever. We must have been sitting there for 2 minutes, and he never once looked in my direction. Just as the traffic clears, before I can react, he cuts across my lane and crushes my left fender. We get out of our cars, and he's looking at his car bumper in my fender, and says (I'll never forget), "Was that dent there before?" Long story short, he was insured by Traveler's, and I even drove to their Houston facility to get an estimate made. I was trying to get Traveler's to issue the check so I could have the repair done while visiting my folks for Christmas. I had filed a police report, where I made a slight factual error in describing the number of lanes in the side street; he was (illegally) in the left (incoming) lane, and the only relevant fact in the police report was that JT was in the lane next to mine, and I was in the right lane (in more ways than one) and JT hit my car by cutting across my lane. The bastard claims agent then used the incidental error in the police report to rationalize denying my claim! The dishonest son of a bitch then told me my alternative was to find a witness to corroborate my claim (this was before cellphones with embedded cameras, etc.), which effectively put the burden of proof on me. If I had known Travelers would pull a scam like that, I would have asked the driver whose car JT's was blocking to give me his contact information. After the fact, it was impossible--and it really didn't matter, because JT had already admitted it to his insurance company--that's why I had come to them to do a damage assessment. I went back to JT and told him that he had to do the right thing, but JT responded that he had done his part and wasn't involved in the claim agent's actions. My insurance company wouldn't have anything to do with it, because I wasn't at fault. I wasn't about to let the sons of bitches get away with it. I looked into taking him to small claims court. Somehow the dishonest claims agent got wind of it and called me, screaming I couldn't do that because JT was insured with them. In the meanwhile I couldn't get the case in small claims because JT avoided getting served. So one day I saw constables approaching my residence in UH graduate student housing, thinking how odd it was that they were coming in person to tell me JT had been served. Nope, they were serving ME! JT was counter-suing with probably one of the weirdest statements in legal history, claiming he had been in the outgoing/right lane (that was a lie), that at the last minute I had squeezed up between him and the curb, and he couldn't avoid hitting me. Once he sued me and admitted to hitting my car, it was game over. My insurance company entered the picture and quickly forced Travelers to pay off the claim. I'm still not sure why JT counter-sued; maybe in his own way he was trying to get his insurance company to do the right thing. But this is the same guy who had asked if the dent already existed, and I think he was more pissed I was going after him in small claims court. I still haven't forgotten JT and the claim agent, both of them deserving getting their asses kicked.

There is a liberty concept at play in the background, of course: the tragedy of the commons, i.e., when everybody owns something, effectively nobody owns it. For example, would I have pursued JT if I had been driving a government car? Probably not. 

And So 2020 Begins

I'm modestly surprised just the month after the mid-terms Elizabeth Warren is already signaling her decision to seek the 2020 nomination. As I tweeted, I seriously doubt Warren will be the nominee, but Warren's candidacy may reflect the fact that Clinton will not seek a rematch, in my opinion Trump's best hope for reelection.

I'm not a pundit and certainly not someone who can speak of the allegiance of the Democratic Party. I think that Biden can make a credible argument that he can win back Trump's blue-collar Midwest/East coalition that Clinton lost (e.g., WI, PA, and MI), and the emboldened leftists like Warren may divide ideological support with Sanders, Harris and others, like the GOP conservatives in 2016. There is considerable talk of Beto O'Rourke, who lost a closer-than-expected challenge to Cruz last month, might pose a generational candidate, like JFK or Obama. You never can tell; I remember thinking Clinton's chances in 1992 were a long shot.

I suspect, but could be wrong, that the Democrats will fall behind Biden, much like they fell behind Kerry's 2004 challenge to G.W. Bush, realizing that a leftist like Dean would be a lost cause. They thought Kerry's Vietnam experience posed a credible challenge for independent-minded voters, and Kerry came close. Biden comes across as likable, maybe not like "I like Ike" but many voters may see him as the anti-Trump.

I cannot rule out that Trump, seeing the writing on the wall, may walk away from an FDR/Hoover blowout. I do not see him winning back the independents who at last glance had a 31% approval rating. He can't win reelection without independents. If we see an economic slowdown and/or unemployment picking up, Trump almost certainly would be scapegoated (there's a reason he's bashing his own Fed chief Powell). I wouldn't rule out Trump thinking lightning could strike twice in 2020 muddling his way to reelection, but it's intriguing to think what a Trump LBJ exit would mean. Maybe someone like Ben Sasse? One could only hope....

Post #3932 M: Blogger's Birthday; Trump is WRONG on Trade

Quote of the Day

God could not be everywhere, so he created mothers.
Jewish proverb  

Happy Birthday to Me!

Trump is WRONG on Trade

Andrew Johnson Has Something in Common with Bill Clinton

Political Cartoon

Courtesy of the original artist via FB Being Libertarian

Musical Interlude: Childhood Christmas

Darlene Love, "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)"

Post #3931 M: Unsustainable California; The Day of Reckoning For Big Government

Quote of the Day

That which seems the height of absurdity in one generation 
often becomes the height of wisdom in the next.
John Stuart Mill  

The Rise and Fall of California

Rand Paul On Spending and Recent Policy on Syria and Afghanistan

Ron Paul On the Day of Reckoning For Big Government

Choose Life

Political Cartoon

Musical Interlude: Childhood Christmas

Brenda Lee, "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree"

Post #3930 J: Business Changes; the Love/Hate Relationship with TSA

Airport Parking and My Most Recent Trip

I've often parked in public (vs. private) airport lots, except at BWI. I don't recall why I turned to private lots there; maybe the long-term public lots were full near Christmas nearly 20 years ago. (I wasn't living locally then, but the company let me fly home for Christmas vs. Chicago, and I was using a company leased car vs. a rental.) I've not always gone out of BWI since my original 2004 relocation; depending on flight and/or work schedules, I've occasionally flown out of Dulles and Reagan.

Preflight Airport Parking (off-site) offered a number of amenities, like bottled water, a daily newspaper, prompt shuttle service, but I especially liked being able to reserve a guaranteed spot during the busy holiday season--or at least know I had to look elsewhere for a spot vs. risk missing my outgoing flight.

Last year, my first time to go to Preflight after leaving MD in 2013 went as usual. And so after getting my leave approved and getting my round trip to Texas secured, I went to Preflight to get my reservation done--and it was like the business had disappeared. There is a related Preflight hub of airports serviced, but no link to BWI. An initial Google search turned up nothing. Had they gone bankrupt? Had they rebranded? I asked a colleague, long-term Baltimore resident, at work; he didn't have a clue, had always used the public lots. I eventually settled on another private lot using a finder service; nearly all boosted their rates for the holiday season. I noted with interest a number of local hotels rented spots bur had obscene tax/other surcharges. The lot I chose was unusual in that it required prepayment (and your car keys, as I later discovered. I was particularly worried because I didn't realize my return flight was booked in at 1 AM. I still have nightmares about flying into Charleston about 2 AM 3 years ago; there were no Uber cars available, and I had to wait over an hour for a taxi to drive me home about 15 minutes away. My anxiety only grew as after the fact I came across hostile customer reviews complaining about long delays, even failures in return shuttle processes, some claiming they had to hire a taxi to take them to the lot.

I was still obsessing over what happened to Preflight; I eventually noticed that Google was promoting ads for a company called BullsEye Parking. I had ignored the ads; after all, I had already prepaid my parking elsewhere. But I was curious why Google was promoting that business vs. others in the search results. As soon as I drilled into the link, I soon read a familiar set of amenities. No reference to being the former Preflight, but I looked at the street address and Google still had a cached copy of old Preflight with its street address, a match. Finally, one of Google's links had a blurb like "BullsEye Parking, formerly known as Preflight,..." Mystery solved.

I'm not sure what happened; I was on their mailing list. I vaguely recall getting a message about their frequent parking program, but my current job doesn't require flying to other facilities. If they did promote the business name change, it wasn't recent and may have been buried among thousands of other emails.

As for the trip to and from airport parking, my Garmin was perfect, except when it asked me if I was okay for toll roads, I didn't realize it was assuming no-cash EZPASS roads. I don't travel the toll roads frequently enough to justify getting a replacement transponder (I think I have one in a moving box somewhere from my Chicago days). Maryland will go after you for unpaid tolls on no-cash tollways;  there are some hoops to jump through to find and pay your toll (I think I may have done it before), but in this case I avoided the "express" tollways (I still had to do the tunnel toll but there are cash booths). The Garmin seems to hate cash booths; it keeps telling me to go on EZPASS lanes. I may give in and get a new transponder; the cash booths are sparse and inconvenient (usually at the far right)

I didn't experience any unusual issues other than a delay in getting my car reclaimed. (They had mistakenly classified my car as a Chevy, and the shuttle driver had taken but did not return my parking receipt linked to my parking permit--I had not memorized my permit number (they wanted me to place the permit in view of my dashboard to avoid towing).  She was finally convinced when my FOB horn button found the "Chevy". A little hassle because of an error in their bookkeeping but not bad overall.

The TSA: A Mixed Experience

I knew TSA had a new expedited precheck category but since my flights have been infrequent lately, mostly holidays and family events like funerals, I really hadn't looked into it. On my outgoing trip to Texas. It was a LONG line. My PC bag held multiple devices (including my Amazon tablet), the shoes, my jacket, my keys, my wallet--oh yes, I got scolded over a couple of cough drops left in my pocket. I forgot about the stupid belt, and my jeans promptly fell down in full view of a 3-year-old girl, probably scarring her for life. (I was wearing underwear, but nobody needs to see that.) I had the longest pat down I've ever had in my life, including my former girlfriends and personal doctors; it was professional, but I was miserable. It probably took 10-15 minutes in the post-scan area before I was ready to proceed to my gate. The whole process is a kabuki dance: does anyone really feel safer because my belt buckle has been scrutinized, an agent pokes a baby's diaper, or someone checks a voluptuous woman's breasts?

The return trip was a different story. I still don't know how or why such a wonderful thing happened, but my boarding passes showed a TSA precheck status, meaning I could go into a much shorter line with streamlined scanning processes--no hassles over removing shoes, jackets, belts, removing laptops from bags, etc. I think it was my fastest time through security since the pre-9/11 days.

I don't know what I did to earn this status, but I hope to repeat the experience in the future.

Post #3929 J: UPS v USPS; Power Car Windows Problems

The Absent-Minded Ex-Professor

Let's be clear: I have mixed feelings about the USPS. I've published multiple posts opposing the anachronistic monopoly, the corrupt crony unionism and its unsustainable labor costs, etc. Although it boasts a quasi-independent status, Congress shackles the USPS from operational flexibility in pricing, human resources,and cost-cutting decisions (shuttering/consolidating money-losing facilities, etc.) There are some bad personal experiences, including being punched from behind in the kidneys by a postal worker in El Paso while I was disputing a postal insurance claim with a supervisor (I had returned a piece of software for refund, and the vendor was claiming it never received the package), some hostile carriers, including one who often dumped my mail in a common bin and "lost" an irreplaceable Christmas/birthday package from my parents. Operating hours were often inconvenient; I remember while working as a road warrior for Oracle from Chicago I often flew in at 2 AM on Saturday morning and then had to set my alarm early so I could collect the mail for my post office box before flying out the next day. (Many consultants today work a flextime 4-day week with a travel day, but I had to eat travel time in flying to and from the West Coast.)  It frustrates me to no end that decades after supermarkets, restaurants, and other businesses have extended retailing into hours more convenient for workers on a regular schedule, the Post Office works the same business hours, except for a partial Saturday schedule, and it's talked about eliminating that.

I had to fit my schedule to the Procrustean policies of the USPS. (However, the USPS is not alone; car dealer maintenance shops, often protected against local competition, and doctors' offices also display similar behavior. One classic example (see a related discussion in a segment below) was during one of my 6 car power window failures (it's like your car windows, even ones you've never lowered like my back passenger windows, slowly sink into the car door, and you can't raise them). I was trying to get an appointment on a Thursday with heavy thunderstorms forecast over the weekend. The local Chevy dealership said they could fit me in 6 days later. I reminded them of the forecast and asked what I was supposed to do in the interim/ "Cardboard and duct tape." Let's just say I found a nearby Pep Boys that could do the same work without an appointment and much cheaper.

On the other hand, my Dad, who struggled starting a second career after retiring as an Air Force jet mechanic, finally found one at the USPS (not as a carrier), and one of my goddaughters/nieces (with a phenomenal work ethic) has found her niche as a carrier.

Interestingly, this story is somewhat connected. I decided not to do the cheaper boxed cards this year, but to do individual Hallmark cards for my 6 siblings, Mom and a close family relative. (My list has shrunk the last 2 years with the deaths of a favorite paternal aunt and maternal uncle.) I am getting sticker shock from fast food  combos starting in the $7.50-10 range and greeting cards starting at over $5 (I'm not talking gimmicks like embedded objects or song clips: just full-sized cardboard ones, say addressed to brother, wife and family.) I don't think WalMart discounts the list price on the cards, although it's possible Hallmark prices the list prices for WalMart card stock. It would be nice if the envelopes, especially for larger sizes requiring extra postage, came with postage-paid. I think there was some experimentation with this concept. (It would be an interesting idea if the USPS marketed prepaid odd-size greeting card envelopes.)

WalMart was running a couple of minor promotions including a multi-card discount and a small Christmas bear stuffed animal discount. (I can recall in the past they used to give away small toys as a purchase incentive.) I have a couple of baby grandnieces and thought it might make a cute gift for one of them. I decided to use one of my Amazon boxes; I had to get some packaging tape and package labels; I also printed out labels for my Christmas cards and had my postage stamps ready for mounting on the sealed cards. The local post office was closed on Sunday, but a UPS Store was open until a rapidly approaching 3 PM. In my rush, I saw my (unstamped) cards and grabbed them on the way out, thinking I could mail them on my way out.

The small gift box for my California grandniece weighed close to nothing; I expected to pay a few bucks, maybe up to the original price of the bear (around $7-10). But I wasn't prepared for the shock of getting quoted (I shit you not) $24+ by some clerk who obsessively measured the box. We're not talking expedited shipment--he was talking 8 day delivery and their "cheapest" rate. When I objected, he said my grandniece lived in California (coast-to-coast), and when I mentioned USPS, he said I would only save like 40 cents. No sale, moron! Screw UPS! I don't think my original purchase from Amazon Prime cost $24 and it was much heavier. (If Amazon had to pay that kind of shipping cost, it would be out of business.) Preoccupied with the rain and the UPS nonsense, I dropped my cards off at the Post Office.

I then got home, noticed my stamp book out and had an "oh, shit!" moment. As my Mom would point out later, haste makes waste. The USPS wouldn't toss some $50 of cards over my bonehead mistake, would it? The postage cost was trivial compared to the cost of the cards. An attempt to contact the USPS was unsuccessful. I had a couple of days before my flight to Texas to go buy and mail out substitute cards (yes, this time stamped).

I sent out a message to my siblings saying I would cover any postage due in the unlikely event the original cards were delivered. Long story short, some of them were eventually delivered (after my replacement cards), yes, with postage due. I was suitably impressed with USPS flexibility, not that I intend to repeat my mistake. And while I visited Mom, she mailed out multiple family gift packages via USPS--which dwarfed by my stuffed animal package in size and weight--with shipping costs like $15.

So let's just say I have some new appreciation for the USPS, and UPS' mishandling of the incident has given the USPS a new opportunity to regain my business. Second chances are rare; let's hope they've learned from past mistakes.

Power Windows--Again!

I mentioned in the above segment that I've had to have my power windows repaired 6 times; each of the 4 at least once and the driver's side twice. Granted, my Government Motors car is over 15 years old, and repairs go with the territory (but overall not as high as new car payments). Not that many miles on it considering--maybe 104.5 K. What really bothered me is  GM discontinued the brand a few years after I bought it, and each major repair becomes a life or death decision: are OEM parts available? Can they find parts in junkyards? In my most recent repair (which involved a part to my transmission shift mechanism), they managed to find an OEM part in Puerto Rico (all but inaccessible due to the recent hurricane) but later found the part in a local junkyard. In South Carolina, my brake line snapped just before I moved to Arizona, and it took a Chevy dealer a week to say they wouldn't do the work. I found a brakes place which fabricated its own lines (i.e., did not need OEM parts); the repair bill was hefty but cheaper than finding another car, and my bank, which financed my original car purchase, was balking at floating another car loan. (My credit rating is excellent, and my bank over the past few months has emailed a few promos for car loans, so I may consider a purchase in the near future.)

More recently I have worked at a government facility with restricted vehicle access. So every day I have to hand over my ID to security guards at the facility. I've noticed that my driver's side window was starting to react sluggishly, particularly in cold weather recently. So I've frequently had to open my door to hand over my ID. Normally I would roll my window all the way down; one day I found it would only go up halfway and didn't budge. So a stiff breeze hit my face the rest of the way to work. After work, the weather had warmed up for me to close the window.

Over the following days, I was hesitant to test the window and when I did, only a few inches. The guards at  my closest gate seemed to tolerate a partially open window, but when I went to another gate after running an errand, I got yelled at by the security guard who gave me 2  options: the window down all the way or open the door.

So after dropping my second round of Christmas cards (see the first segment)at the local post office, I headed back to the same major gate; this time I gambled on whether the temperature was too cold for the car window and rolled it all the way down. To my annoyance, once on the facility, the window would only go up halfway again. During my lunch period, when it hit the forecast high of 40 degrees F, I went out to my car and managed to close the window except for an inch or two. And it stayed that way until I returned from a trip to Texas, nervously watching news of thunderstorms going through the area. The window finally sealed shut, and I'm not touching it.

Post #3928 M:: Restricting Self-Defense; Central Banks

Quote of the Day

In the end, we will remember 
not the words of our enemies, 
but the silence of our friends.
Martin Luther King  

Note to Readers: I've Resumed a Regular Publication Schedule

Reagan On Restrictive Gun Policies

The Protestant Reformation and the Roots of Individualism

The Fed and Other Central Banks

Choose Life

Political Cartoon

Musical Interlude: Childhood Christmas

Newsong, "The Christmas Shoes"

Post #3927 M: How San Francisco Kills the Housing Market; Year in Review

Quote of the Day

Discovery consists in seeing what everybody has seen 
and thinking what nobody has thought.
Albert von Szent-Gyorgyi  

San Francisco v Apartment Building

Prager U Comedy Year in Review

Political Cartoon

Musical Interlude: Childhood Christmas

Bobby Helms, "Jingle Bell Rock"

Post #3926 M: The Unconstitutional Yemen War

Quote of the Day


The Democrats are the party that says 
government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. 
The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work 
and then they get elected and prove it.
P.J. O'Rourke 

Ron Paul on the Unconstitutional Yemen War

Musical Interlude: Childhood Christmas

Nat King Cole, "The Christmas Song"

Post #3925 M; Happy Christmas!

Quote of the Day

We must be the change we wish to see in the world.
Mahatma Gandhi  

Surviving a Progressive Family Member Christmas

Musical Interlude: Childhood Christmas

Bing Crosby, "Adeste Fideles"

Post #3924 M: Censoring Clarence Thomas' Name

Quote of the Day

A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus 
but a molder of consensus.
Martin Luther King, Jr.  

Clarence Thomas Building

Musical Interlude: Childhood Christmas

Bing Crosby, "Silent Night"

Post #3923 M::Censoring Disney Songs?

Quote of the Day

The grand aim of all science is 
to cover the greatest number of empirical facts 
by logical deduction from the smallest number of hypotheses or axioms.
Albert Einstein 

"Kiss the Girl" v Ideological Feminism

Musical Interlude: Childhood Christmas

Gardiner Sisters, "What Child is This?"

Post #3922 M: Ron Paul on Afghanistan

Quote of the Day

My father gave me the greatest gift anyone could give another person, 
he believed in me.
Jim Valvano 

Ron Paul on Afghanistan

Musical Interlude: Childhood Christmas

Andy Williams, "The Most Wonderful Time of the Year"

Post #3921 M: A Reason Christmas

Quote of the Day

Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.
Chinese Proverb  

A Reason Christmas

Trump's Changed Policy on Syria and Afghanistan In the Right Direction

Musical Interlude: Childhood Christmas

Bing Crosby, "Silver Bells"

Post #3920 M: Remy on Christmas and Our Tax Laws; Why Government Healthcare Fails

Quote of the Day

Look back over the past, 
with its changing empires that rose and fell, 
and you can foresee the future, too.
Marcus Aurelius  

Remy on Christmas and Tax Breaks

Why ObamaCare Will Not Work

Political Cartoon

Musical Interlude: Childhood Christmas

Bing Crosby, "Do You Hear What I Hear?"

Post #3919 M: Does Silicon Valley Control Us?

Quote of the Day

In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, 
two is a law firm, 
and three or more is a congress.
John Adams  

Stossel On Whether Social Media Media Manipulates Us

Ron Paul On the Phony Government Shutdown Crisis

Musical Interlude: Childhood Christmas

Celtic Woman, "Hark the Herald Angels Sing". I consider this the definitive version of the classic carol; what Maeve does at the end raises the performance to the heavens.

Post #3918 M: Parody of Intolerable Leftist Attacks on 70 Year Christmas Songs

Quote of the Day


I like a man who grins when he fights.
Winston Churchill 

NOTE TO READERS: Due to upcoming travel plans, daily posts in the near future may be shorter than usual and/or pre-scheduled.

I Agree with Lassman's Christmas List

My Greatest Hits: Dec. 2018

Definitely some improvement in readership over the past month. although individual  posts are down maybe 40% or so from the beginning of the year

• Post #3887 M: Liberty at the Family and
• Post #3914 M: Unintended Conseq
• Post #3894 M: Tyson Timbs v India
• Post #3898 M: RIP, GHW Bush; Th
• Post #3913 M: Are Vintage Christm

Parody of Politically Correct Attacks on Christmas Music

NO!

Choose Life

Political Cartoon

Musical Interlude: Childhood Christmas

TSO, "Christmas Canon"

Post #3917 M: The Evil of Eminent Domain; The Rise and Fall of Sears

Quote of the Day

One man practicing sportsmanship 
is far better than 50 preaching it. -
Knute Rockne  

Eminent Domain in Indiana

The Rise and Fall of Sears

Ron Paul On the Senate, Yemen and Saudi Arabia

Christmas Around the World

Political Cartoon

Musical Interlude: Childhood Christmas

TSO, "Christmas Eve/Sarajevo"

Post #3916 M: Intolerant Leftism

Quote of the Day

Your mind will answer most questions i
f you learn to relax and wait for the answer.
William S. Burroughs  

Intolerant Leftism

Law School Bans ICE Externship

I'm no fan of Trump's immigration policies, but politically motivated restrictions on legal opportunities are corrupt.

Friedman on Overregulation

Choose Life

I normally check these type videos, partly because I don't want to call attention to a failed pregnancy. So I often check the video channel, hoping to see clips of babies. When I checked this couple's channel, no baby clips, and I had a sinking feeling. I finally located the clip in sequence. About 8 clips later, she announced her fifth miscarriage. I kept the clip because I think it's important to hear from women who have experienced heartbreaking tragedy. I know my maternal grandmother, one of my sisters, and two of my nieces have gone through the experience. God bless this young couple and possibly millions of people who share their sadness. The blessing of a child is God's greatest gift.

Political Cartoon

Musical Interlude: Childhood Christmas

Nat King Cole, "The Christmas Song". Another selection from my high school choir holiday concert.

Post #3915 J: Christmas Memories

Christmas Memories

As I start this commentary, AMC is playing "Prancer", a movie about a young girl who becomes convinced an injured reindeer she encounters is one of Santa Claus' infamous reindeer and she is determined to nurse him back to health. One of the reasons I like the movie is a bonding memory with my late Dad. The young protagonist in the movie has a particularly loud, off-key singing voice (you have to be talented to be so bad), and hearing her would drive my Dad nuts. I found Dad's reaction hysterically funny. In part, Dad had hearing aids (he spent years as a USAF jet mechanic and the years on working near the flightlines took their toll) that never seemed at work well; he could barely hear me over the phone with various squeals from his aids and he would invariably hand the phone over to my Mom.

I thought Dad's annoyance was hilarious; I would tease him about getting a VHS or DVD of the film as a Christmas gift. Maybe it was part of getting older. I remember he once accused me of stirring up some excitement with my two oldest nephews; I mean my Dad had 7 kids, and noise came with the territory; I didn't remember him rebuking us similarly; of course, by then most of us had left the nest, so maybe he had become accustomed to the quiet.

I have some weird memories associated with certain movies. I don't think I ever saw or heard of "It's a Wonderful Life" until the early 1980's. I had been working in the APL timesharing industry. APL is an interpretive (vs. compiled) programming language which had been introduced by IBM in the 1960's; it was cryptic, concise, heavily mathematically notated, and idiosyncratic (it reads from right to left); as a southpaw with 2 math degrees, I took to it like a duck to water. Unlike everyone else involved with APL, I was obsessed with documentation (the inspiration for my eventual dissertation), which generally didn't exist in production environments. It wasn't for my benefit, but I didn't want to spend the rest of my career as a maintenance guru fixing other people's crappy code. For me to advance, I had to leave code much more manageable than I found it.

In this case,  I was working with a newly married couple. what I remember most about the petite wife is that she (let's call her Janice) was a coxswain (rowing team, the "quarterback" seated at the stern, not one of the (often 6-foot) rowers) with Olympic ambitions. The guy (let's call him "Clark") was one of those guys who had basically worked his way up from the mail room types, and the company had basically decided to market a project he had been working on, called CASHFAST, a product designed around facilitating real estate cashflow analysis. Clark had sort of a love/hate relationship servicing the product; it had grown past his ability to do it on his own, but he had never worked in a team concept and had a hard time letting go of the project (not to mention his sense of job security). I was the guy who was given the undesirable task of debriefing Clark.) So I was in a conference room, trying to interview Clark, and it was like pulling teeth dealing with Clark's bipolar, manic depressive attitude on CASHFAST: at times, he was sick and tired of dealing with the pressure of maintaining CASHFAST and wanted to be relieved of the responsibility, while on the other hand, it was his baby and he was concerned of his own role and influence after the transition.

What would invariably happen during these debrief sessions is that just as I was making progress in the debrief, Janice would call Clark in the conference room to discuss their plans for the evening after work, etc. Once that happened, it was impossible to get Clark back on track.

So I finally went to my boss and said, "You have got to stop Joyce from calling into the room because I can't make progress with Clark with all the interruptions." Now managers in my experience apparently all take a course in Bonehead 101; you have to deal with the situation with subtlety. The next thing I know both Clark and Janice are giving me the silent treatment for 3 weeks.

Clark was a sentimental guy; I think I have a Howdy Doody face, and people often will tell me things I would never think to bring up personally in a conversation. Like, "Ron, would you believe Janice is the first and only woman I've ever slept with?" No kidding: Clark is the kind of guy you would vote "Most Likely To Remain a Virgin". And he was obsessed with "It's a Wonderful Life".

I don't recall when I finally saw "It's a Wonderful Life" for the first time (probably within 2-3 years later), but I remember when I first heard about it. There are parts of the story that still bother me. (SPOILER ALERT!) As every viewer know, the incident which triggers George Bailey's meltdown is when Uncle Billy goes to the bank to make an S&L deposit, and sees his family's nemesis Potter in the bank with his newspaper. (I think it may have covered George's younger brother Harry, who was awarded a Congressional Medal of Honor for saving a troop transport from Nazi attack.) In the process, he picks up Potter's paper  to boast about his two nephews, later unknowingly returning the newspaper folded around his intended deposit.

Oh, I'm sure in Potter's mind, he didn't steal the S&L deposit; he didn't force Uncle Billy to hand over his deposit. What's more astonishing is that when Uncle Billy first realizes he doesn't have the deposit when he goes to the teller's window, he doesn't seem to recall his encounter with Potter.

So, the movie wouldn't be the same without all his family, friends, and customers coming out of the woodwork to replace the stolen deposit. Of course, Potter's intent to end the S&L under scandal is foiled. there's a part of me that would have liked to see Potter pay a price for stealing the deposit.

Weird Dreams

I had another one, this type involving an MBA scenario. In this case, the business of a flamboyant black florist/entrepreneur based out of Baltimore is failing. (I don't know any black florist and none of the characters seem familiar.) It turns out the florist's son is in the class and is appointed project lead by the professor.

The son is seated at the head of the table and I sit down in the first chair to his right. He then turns to me and asks me what to do. And I stammer that I don't know enough about salient facts: is this case a situation of not being able to control costs? Of unsustainable debt? Of not responding to a changing marketplace and competitor strategies?

The florist's son interrupts me: "You're wasting my time." He then turns to the woman across the table and says, "Do you have anything constructive to say, unlike Ron, who isn't up to the task?"

When I respond, he turns to me to say, "You're done. Go away."

I'm not a psychologist, Maybe it's a metaphor for living in a world where my political opinions and other thoughts are abruptly dismissed, even by my own family and friends.

Post #3914 M: Unintended Consequences of the MeToo Movement; Pro-Liberty Legislators

Quote of the Day

Everyone takes the limits of his own vision 
for the limits of the world. 
Arthur Schopenhauer  

The #MeToo Movement Results in Risk Mitigation Strategies

As a single white male in academia and then as a high tech professional, I've always been very wary of meeting with female colleagues, students, or supervisors one on one, of doing or saying the wrong thing, to be accused of leering itself. I've never said or written anything of a sexually suggestive nature, I required my office door to be open whenever a coed visited my office while working in academia. I've never dated a student or female colleague or supervisor. There have been a handful of times I did try to ask out a former student or a work colleague, but it didn't happen (they weren't interested and it stopped there): in fact, my job was threatened twice after unsuccessful attempts (one manager had a strict nepotism policy and had fired his receptionist when she married a fellow programmer/analyst). Most guys have felt the disappointment of rejection: just imagine how it feels to have your colleagues and management learn of the rejection.

In the other case, the woman claimed that I had been badgering her for dates, refusing to take no for an answer. This was a blatant lie. I only tried to ask her out twice, months apart, and I asked her to lunch at the building cafeteria. The first time she said she had a boyfriend, she was hoping for a marriage proposal; I said something like "Well, if I'm not your type, I won't ask you again." And she said--this is verbatim, "No, I would like to keep my options open." Now, ladies, if you're not interested, don't say something like that; it sends out a mixed message. I was giving her an easy out. I didn't know if and when I should ask again; maybe I should have waited for her to make the next move. I didn't have her personal contact information. She worked in another row of cubicles at work, and we didn't work together on any project or work assignment (she basically worked as a sales associate, and I was a DBA; we basically supported the same major client, but it ended there). I never approached her for over 2 months; if we saw each other it was only like passing each other in the hallways, etc.

To this day, I don't know what happened. All she had to do to my lunch invitation is say, "No, thank you, and please don't ask again. I'm not interested." No, she was out to get me fired. Don't ask me her motivation; maybe I was her scapegoat for her boyfriend not proposing over the Christmas break. I would later find a predated typewritten letter left at my desk, warning me that she had reached the end of her patience with my attempting to badger her into a date, and she would file a complaint with management the next time it happened. This had no basis in reality; it was a total fabrication, meant to frame me/document her frivolous complaint with HR. What she did was evil, pure and simple. I am not a psychologist; I can't explain her behavior. This incident, of course, killed any interest I had in her, and she was terminated while I was working in Brazil some 6-7 months later: good riddance. (I didn't have anything to do with it, but I do recall one day she had done something at the client site that had prompted our boss to get paged over the intercom several times over a half hour). For some odd reason after my return, an executive secretary gave me purported contact information on a sticky note. I didn't know why--maybe they wanted to see if I would make an attempt to contact her; the last thing I heard was a rumor she was going to get a Master's in psychology. Well, good for her: at least she would finally be seeing a psychologist. I tossed the sticky note on my way out of the building.

So when the MeToo movement insists women (alleged victims) do not lie, I know that's bullshit, because it happened to me, and I'm like the nicest guy you would ever meet. I even worried about making an attempt for a first kiss with the girls or women I've dated.  I'm not in a state of denial that there are real female victims out there, but the idea that women are incapable of lying, including about sexual misconduct, is patently absurd. We already know about convicted rapists who later got their convictions overturned on DNA evidence.

I was always the least likely person to engage in sexual harassment. I graduated high school at 16, started on my first Master's degree at 19, never had a car until I was 22. I was a shy, socially inexperienced geek (at least one former girlfriend laughs at the shyness claim), and at least two gorgeous coeds made the first move while I was in undergraduate school, not that I ever considered myself  God's gift to women.

Kibbe and Pro-Liberty Legislators

Social Media Digest

Facebook: A Reason Column Asserting a Government Shutdown is Bad

A libertarian portal thinks a government shutdown is a bad thing? Maybe only because it never lasts long enough.

Facebook comment

The Politics of Envy is corrupt. All political whores covet their neighbor's goods.

Facebook Being Libertarian comment on federal workers and USPS getting a paid holiday for Bush's funeral

Pay postal workers not to work during the busy holiday season? Government logic in action.

Lucas Patenaude Ronald A Guillemette yeah because he chose to die near Christmas, how selfish of him right?
Manage
Like · Reply · 1h · Edited
Ronald A Guillemette
Ronald A Guillemette Lucas Patenaude Only a Statist would think it's appropriate to celebrate one of their own at the expense of taxpayers or consumers.

The death of a 7-year-old immigrant girl while under Trumpian custody is inexcusable. Government prohibitions never work; we need to liberalize our immigration policies like Eisenhower did with some success. https://t.co/zBmHGQ8pzJ

— Ronald Guillemette (@raguillem) December 16, 2018

One of the few purported domestic accomplishments during the Presidency of recently deceased G.H.W. Bush was the ADA. Like all interventionist policies, it hurt employment prospects for the very people it was intended to help. https://t.co/DRUtQP3Eqc

— Ronald Guillemette (@raguillem) December 16, 2018

This is one of the true national holidays that we libertarians celebrate. Unfortunately, the government has treated our natural rights as mere exceptions to its arbitrarily extended authority and constantly seeks to narrow their scope. #BillofRightsDay

— Ronald Guillemette (@raguillem) December 15, 2018

Pelosi says that she will keep the government shutdown indefinitely before funding Trump's wall. Ha! Is she really going to starve her special interests vs. accommodate the much cheaper wall? If she meant it, I might vote for her to be President!

— Ronald Guillemette (@raguillem) December 15, 2018

The individual mandate has ALWAYS been unconstitutional. Forcing people to pay more than their true risk to subsidize others is theft, pure and simple. If government is going to tax, it needs to do that transparently, not by quasi-government takings. "Affordable Care Act"

— Ronald Guillemette (@raguillem) December 15, 2018

Well, Trump promises he won't snub Gingrich on Air Force One. https://t.co/IhLZ6ZZHuq "Newt Gingrich"

— Ronald Guillemette (@raguillem) December 13, 2018

Trump will always be remembered as the incompetent American President who frittered away his political capital on an economic illiterate agenda of anti-immigration and unprovoked trade wars. #TrumpShutdown

— Ronald Guillemette (@raguillem) December 11, 2018

I would be happy to support a government shutdown if it meant getting serious about spending reform. But let's not forget the political whore Trump worked with Chuck and Nancy to do away with sequester. #TrumpShutdown

— Ronald Guillemette (@raguillem) December 11, 2018

The leftist Dems spending other people's (including their grandchildren's) money is magical pixie dust for the economy. The Republicans believe breaking windows in foreign lands improves the economy. (So do Dems; ask them how FDR ended the Depression.)

#TrumpShutdown

— Ronald Guillemette (@raguillem) December 11, 2018

I'll never vote Democrat. #SeduceMeIn4Words

— Ronald Guillemette (@raguillem) December 8, 2018

Life, liberty and property. #SeduceMeIn4Words

— Ronald Guillemette (@raguillem) December 8, 2018

Murder is murder, a violation of fundamental rights of another human being. The ideology or motivation is irrelevant. The "War on Terror" doesn't justify the war crimes of Bush, Obama and Trump against foreign civilians. "Heather Heyer"

— Ronald Guillemette (@raguillem) December 8, 2018

Choose Life

Political Cartoon

Musical Interlude: Childhood Christmas

Vaughn Monroe, "Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow"

Post #3913 M: Are Vintage Christmas Songs Politically Incorrect?; Wage Gender Gaps and Worker Choices

Quote of the Day

Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions. - Albert Einstein 

Is "Baby, It's Cold Outside" PC?

Ha, ha! When I included the song in yesterday's music video segment, I was totally unaware of the controversy. I did include a political cartoon mocking political correctness, but I'll take credit for personally mocking intolerable PC police.

The French Climate Change Tax Rebellion

FEECast: Harvard Study Shows Gender Wage Difference Is Due to Voluntary Work Choices

Choose Life

Political Cartoon

Musical Interlude: Childhood Christmas

Bing Crosby, "White Christmas". The biggest hit song of all time.

Post #3912 M: PC Christmas Carols; the First Amendment in Schools; When Dems Cut Regulations

Quote of the Day

Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions 
which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. 
Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.
Albert Einstein  

The Reality of the First Amendment in Public Schools

Dems Once Embraced Deregulation

Ron Paul and Rev. Sirico

Two of my favorite pro-liberty figures.

Choose Life

Political Cartoon

Musical Interlude: Childhood Christmas

Leon Redbone & Zooey Deschanel , "Baby, It's Cold Outside". No, this version didn't happen during my childhood, but it's my favorite version of a classic.

Post #3911 J: Iced Tea and Wrestling

An Amazon Comment Postscript

I seriously doubt people are just breathlessly waiting to hear the next thing I'm going to write on Amazon, but I wanted to wrap up a couple of loose ends from prior comments.

Before I do say, have you seen the Amazon TV spots? I don't remember in past years, and maybe I'm simply part of a targeted audience Amazon covets; maybe they have a deal with my cable provider. I know online they do it. I'll suddenly see an item I looked at on Amazon, a past purchase maybe, in ad space on a website. Sometimes it's charming, but it's overdone, it can get to be annoying, even a little creepy. I do like the TV spots with the infectious "can you feel it?" hook. There were rumors that one of my nieces/goddaughters might end up working at Amazon.

As a professional Oracle DBA, I wasn't really thrilled with how Amazon was boasting about how it has weaned itself off Oracle database technology. (Familiar readers know I first encountered Oracle as a grad student at UH, when documentation came in 3-ring binders and SQL*PLUS was called UFI, for user-friendly interface. When I was forced out of academia in a recession, I reinvented myself as an Oracle DBA, but it took a while to get my foot in the door. Oracle has its own issues (I once worked for them as a senior principal consultant). But what many people don't know is that Amazon is a huge presence in cloud computing, and unsurprising, as the database business is maturing, Oracle wants a piece of the cloud computing market, and my guess is that Amazon isn't crazy about funding its competition. )

Now one point I made recently was you needed to know your prices, and the example I gave was that Amazon was charging something like $24 for 48 Lipton gallon iced tea bags, while Sam's Club was charging $10.52. I noted I meant to restock on my last trip to Sam's Club; either they were out of stock or I must have overlooked them. I could have bought them via Internet, but Sam's Club wants you to double your membership cost for free delivery, and it would cost $5 to ship two boxes. I noted that still, I could get 2 boxes of product for just over the same price for one box, even with free Prime delivery.

So soon after my post (and the timing might be purely coincidental), but the next time I was on the site, there was some sort of a flash ad that had me looking for Lipton tea again, and their price exactly matched Sam's Club, and I qualified for free shipping with a minimum purchase of 2. So my shipment of 3 boxes arrived today.

I've never got an incentive in my blig history for promoting a product, but given all the publicity I've been giving to Lipton iced tea bags, I wouldn't mind getting some free product. Just kidding. It was initially an impulse purchase earlier this year, and now it's my go-to beverage at home.

Oh, and for anyone who was wondering, the missing Amazon purchase was delivered to the apartment office. Only I had to wait until Tuesday for pickup because the office wasn't open Monday. And Amazon seemed to go out of the way to let me know there were 70 Amazon lockers in the area I could use to pick up my delivered product. Very good to know.

Latest WWE Storytelling

I haven't done one of these in a while.  The WWE ran some interesting  storylines before or during Survivor Series. One was to run a predictable one-way invasion angle where Smackdown athletes dominated Raw's/, only to see (surprise, surprise) the Raw wrestlers sweep their inter-promotional rivals.

But ironically Smackdown Champ Becky (The Man!? Say what?) Lynch, originally to meet Raw Champ Ronda Rousey,  got accidentally injured by a punch in the face by Nia Jax, which forced WWE to book an alternate opponent, Charlotte Flair. Now how do you book two of their best female athletes, both babyfaces (good guys) without weakening them? WWE Creative turned Flair heel, getting disqualified with use of an illegal weapon (a stick).

The accidental injury caused by Jax is worked into the storyline, bur the natural feuds of Jax/Lynch and Rousey/Flair are abruptly dropped to focus on the heels' challenges for brand championships. It really doesn't make sense given (1) there are no longer brand-specific PPV's and (2) the Lynch/Flair feud is now a heel/heel pairing. (Of course, Jax/Lynch would be heel/heel, but within the context of a cross-promotion rivalry. Of course, they have now thrown Asuka into the mix with Flair and Lynch, which reminds me of the feud of Hogan and Andre the Giant making the way for Macho Man to win the championship. I didn't, however, like the way they recently had Asuka going after the heels with a stick. I would rather see Asuka being paired against Rousey or  Banks.  I'm also still waiting for WWE to unveil a ladies' tag team title. They've teased that with the Bailey-Banks' pairing.

It was an interesting idea to turn Daniel Bryan heel in putting the WWE belt on him. I don't like the way they have resorted to having Bryan and Nakamura win with crotch attacks. It would make more sense to have them rely on unnecessary dirty tricks, like brass knuckles, green mist, etc. I think a Bryan-Nakamura feud would be brilliant, but with both of them playing heels, it's hard to see it. And Bryan's promo skills as a heel suck--he seems to be running as a judgmental environmentalist presumptuously attacking crowds as anti-environmental. It comes across as more annoying than hostile. I mean, what's next--he starts a feud with a wrestler who he catches drinking with a plastic straw?

One of my favorites, Kevin Owens, disappeared from TV weeks back. They really haven't done much with Nakamura since putting the US title on me. They keep flirting putting the title on Strowman, but it's difficult to see how you take the belt off an unbeatable monster

Post #3910 M: On the Right To Make a Living; Misleading "Progressive" Statistics; We Need Unilateral Free Trade

aQuote of the Day

The day a person becomes a cynic is the day he loses his youth.
Marvin D. Levy  

On the Right To Make a Living

DEAD WRONG: Declining Statistics on Animals Based On Changing Units of Analysis

We Need Unilateral Free Trade

Choose Life

Political Cartoon

Musical Interlude: Childhood Christmas

Arthur Fiedler/Andrews Sisters, "Sleigh Ride". We are now going into a short series of secular seasonal snowy/wintry classics, some of which I sang as part of a high school choir, like the following.