Analytics

Sunday, April 30, 2023

Post #6216 Social Media Digest

 Facebook

Twitter

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Post #6215 M: Socialists Hate This Question; Everything is political: board games; IRS Agents Are Untouchable

 Quote of the Day

One that desires to excel should endeavor in those things 
that are in themselves most excellent.
Epictetus  

Socialists Hate This Question

Everything is political: board games

IRS Agents Are Untouchable

Choose Life

Political Cartoon

Courtesy pf Michael Ramirez via Townhall

Musical Interlude: #1 Hits of 2008

Leona Lewis, "Bleeding Love"

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Saturday, April 29, 2023

Post #6214 M: Tucker Gets Fired; Vivek Ramaswamy's campaign against 'Woke, Inc.' McClanahan on We Should Listen to George Kennan

Quote of the Day

It is no profït to have learned well, 
if you neglect to do well.
Publilius Syrus  

Tucker Gets Fired

Vivek Ramaswamy's campaign against 'Woke, Inc.'

McClanahan on We Should Listen to George Kennan

Choose Life

Musical Interlude: #1 Hits of 2008

 Usher, "Love in This Club" ft. Young Jeezy

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Friday, April 28, 2023

Post #6213 J

 Pandemic Report

The latest stats from WaPo: 13.3K


The latest from CDC:



About 13.3K cases daily as basic stats taper down, with deaths and hospitalizations near a pandemic low. CDC continues to modify its recommended vaccine policy, including international visitors to a single recent bivalent booster counting for fully vaccinated.

Fauci's post-audit critique of the US response to the pandemic:
We thought we were the best-prepared country in some respects from a scientific standpoint, as manifested by the overwhelming success of the rapid development of the vaccine, that we did very well. But when it came to the implementation of public health, the uniformity of a response, the communication, the ability to get data in real time, we really fell very short,

He identifies two major publicv policy problems:
  •  "Divisiveness of our politics"
  • "The fracturing of the US health care delivery system"

Other Notes

Blog stats are modestly up over last week but barring huge numbers this weekend, we're probably going to fall a third off the pace of the last couple of months

USPS Informed Delivery, the "sneak peek" of imminently deliverable mail and packages, can be annoying. For example, if I'm not expecting something from the IRS, it can mess with your mind until the postal carrier delivers the mail. Then there are the unexpected package deliveries. Sometimes it can be something like a sales promotion from a past/current vendor. Amazon and its sellers sometimes partner with USPS.. USPS doesn't give you a lot of information about the vendor. Take yesterday. I got a notice, also tracked by Shop, I got a partial extract of what apparently seemed to be an infant nutrition company. What the hell? I'm an older bachelor, no dependents. Had someone hacked a credit card? Long story short, it was indeed from a nutrition company--but not in my name. I guess a past resident had not corrected her address with the vendor. I've been at this address for maybe 18 months. The local post office doesn't do a good job filtering out past residents, maybe up to 20%. Life's little problems.

I started on my drive to the supermarket when my cellphone started chirping every few seconds. What the hell? Sometimes my 6 siblings get into text exchanges (coincidentally) often during my infrequent driving, but usually I see sender notices on my dashboards. Not now. It was annoying enough to make me want to pull off the road and turn off my phone. When I got to my destination, it's not like I had a popup of alerts, but I decided it had to be related to a coffee cup app I had recently installed, it may have had to do with going beyond my home network; I quickly turned off the audio notifications and force-stopped the app

What am I talking about? An Amazon company had a recent special on an Ember coffee mug. (still pricey). I am a coffee drinker, although not a Starbucks addict like a former SC supervisor.  So, the way this works is you have a heating/charged element in the bottom of a small (IMO) coffee mug and there's a charging element in the coaster, which you connect to a nearby socket. You use a Bluetooth connection to the app. The documentation suggests an initial charge time of 1.5 to 2 hours for the empty mug; it took me longer. Thee's a horizontal light in the front bottom of the mug if grasped with your right hand.

Connection can be finicky and you may have to work with a button in the center in the bottom of the mug. I've occasionally had to reset connection, including things like ensuring an empty, clean mug, clearing app data, resetting the power connection, restarting the phone, etc. It can take some patient trial and error. You can get exasperated and say, "Screw it! It's easier simply to nuke it a couple of minutes in the microwave or use a thermos." Normally after connection, assuming the mug isn't empty you'll see a degree F reading usually the heating element will ripple across the scale until the temperature has reached a 134 degree target/. You may need to toggle with the caret/arrow below the scale to turn on the heating element or reset the coffee button, e.g., my temperature seems stuck at 79 degrees. The nice thing is once it reaches your target, it's like setting your thermostat and you're set until you finish your mug.

My newest toy is a mini-PC, which is shaped like a smaller, thicker external drive with a number of ports/connectors on both edges. It's the only system I have with Windows 11 Pro installed. Attach an HDMI monitor, keyboard and mouse you're in business; configure your WIFI connection, update your Windows patches, attach cloud storage accounts, install some software. connect an external drive, do a backup.  Fairly inexpensive backup system. 
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Post #6212 M: McClanahan on Is American Secession Workable? ; Home for Disabled Animals Under Threat by City; How Tucker Carlson’s Vulgar Messages Helped Seal His Fox News Exit

 Quote of the Day

A competent leader can get efficient service from poor troops, while on the contrary an incapable leader can demoralize the best of troops. - General of the Armies John J. Pershing  

McClanahan on Is American Secession Workable?

Home for Disabled Animals Under Threat by City

How Tucker Carlson’s Vulgar Messages Helped Seal His Fox News Exit 

Choose Life

Political Cartoon

Courtesy of Al Goodwyn via Townhall

Musical Interlude: #1 Hits of 2008

Flo Rida, "Low" (feat. T-Pain)

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Thursday, April 27, 2023

Post #6211 M: Criminal charges for flying a drone; "Why do you CARe so much??"; Why More Older Americans Never Want to Retire

 Quote of the Day

Nothing but heaven itself is better 
than a friend who is really a friend.
Plautus  

Criminal charges for flying a drone

"Why do you CARe so much??"

WSJ: Why More Older Americans Never Want to Retire

I myself have no short-term plans to retire, even as others I know have retired by my age, including younger siblings (unlike me, with pension plans). There are a number of reasons, some of which were mentioned in this clip (not involving my input): I enjoy my work as an IT professional. my retirement savings have taken a big hit since 2020, I am concerned that senior entitlements are on a short-term unsustainable course, and I expect my current health insurance will be more limited under Medicare (at minimum, I would have to find a new doctor). 

But to be honest, a number of us older Americans aren't ready to retire to a boring lifestyle of TV shows and playing horseshoes. In some cases, you can even work remotely. My dissertation adviser Richard Scamell got his PhD from UT in the early 70's, so (if still active), he celebrated his 50th anniversary as a professor. If you add a typical 5-6 years for 2 advanced degrees past a bachelor's degree at 21 (?), that would put him at least in his late 70's. (This assumes continuous schooling, typical college age and no compressed degree programs. For instance, I earned my first degree at 19. But I started my second Master's part-time 5 years later.) As far as I can tell, he is still in the UH faculty; he's not listed as retired or as a professor emeritus. (I last contacted him at his school email back in late 2019 after Bruce Breeding, my officemate who also had him as a dissertation chair, had passed.)

Choose Life

Musical Interlude: #1 Hits of 2007

Alicia Keys, "No One". And that's a wrap on 2007.

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Wednesday, April 26, 2023

Post #6210 M: McClanahan on Do We Need a Barbarian to Save Us from Barbarians? ; Chicago Bears Fans Get Ripped Off; Stossel Confronts a Professor

 Quote of the Day

The proposition that the people are the best keepers of their own liberties is not true. 
They are the worst conceivable, 
they are no keepers at all; they can neither judge, act, think, or will, as a political body.
John Adams  

McClanahan on Do We Need a Barbarian to Save Us from Barbarians?

Chicago Bears Fans Get Ripped Off

Stossel Confronts a Professor

Choose Life

Political Cartoon

Courtesy of Gary Varvel via Townhall

Musical Interlude: #1 Hits of 2007

Chris Brown, "Kiss Kiss (Feat. T-Pain)"

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Tuesday, April 25, 2023

Post #6209 M: McClanahan on Why Lincoln Should Never Be Used to Defend Conservatism; 9 Reasons Why Being A Man Is Awesome; Hornberger on The Racism of the Minimum Wage

 Quote of the Day

You have to believe in yourself. - Sun Tzu  

McClanahan on Why Lincoln Should Never Be Used to Defend Conservatism

9 Reasons Why Being A Man Is Awesome

Hornberger on The Racism of the Minimum Wage

Political Cartoon

Courtesy of AF Branco via Townhall

Musical Interlude: #1 Hits of 2007

Kanye West, "Stronger"

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Monday, April 24, 2023

Post #6208 Rant of the Day: The GOP, Abortion, and "The Tennessee Three"

I have not been a Republican since the spring of 2016 and then I was more of a conservative coalition affiliate. I've not volunteered for any GOP campaign, and I haven't made contributions. (I did make 1 or 2 modest contributions for the 2008 McCain campaign, which I've endlessly regretted for political and other reasons). (Plus. I never got the promised souvenir tire gauge, which represented Obama's energy policy.) 

It's somewhat paradoxical being a promoter of pro-liberty politics; in part, this reflects a variation of Bastiat's infamous distinction between things seen and unseen. It's easier to demonstrate the effectiveness of government when you're dealing with tangible goods and services, e.g., a filled pothole. a new highway or bridge, obtaining a passport for upcoming travel, etc. During the 2013 shutdown, "nonessential" departments and personnel were furloughed, e.g., national parks, zoo, NASA--probably any tourist attraction in DC. I was up for a contractor position, and it took 2 months vs. a few days to process.

The fact is that libertarians and conservatives do not necessarily disagree with the goal or good intentions of prospective Statist legislation as with the structural approach, moral hazard, unintended consequences, and economic inefficiencies of the general government's central planning. The general government was intended to focus on enumerated responsibilities, like common defense, interstate commerce, and trade. Things like health regulation and police power are vested in the states as one would expect by the principle of Subsidiarity.

On the question of abortion, I've been pro-life all my life, including in my salad days of being a social liberal. I strongly supported the Dobbs decision rolling back Roe v Wade and Casey, precedents and this would have been true even if I were pro-abort. Abortion had traditionally been restricted by the colonies and states, initially under English common law.by the quickening. There was simply no constitutional basis for intervening against state responsibilities under the Tenth Amendment.

I've written multiple abortion related posts since the leak of the Alito majority decision, and I'm not going to repeat them here.  Although abortion has been rejected by my Catholic faith since the Didache, I did not know that until my college years; I knew the scientific fact that human life begins at conception. This isn't a moral crusade; I knew a number of blue states had radically liberalized abortion before the Dobbs decision, and motivated women from more restrictive states could travel to them. There are legal abortifacients. It's not even clear to the pregnant woman herself if/when she knows she's pregnant. Short of unacceptable breaches of individual liberty like a police state, we need to focus on persuasion.

Trump in 2016 was a classic example of inept handling of the GOP on the issue. Trump had convenient conversion on the issue just like Romney. Consider this from his brief campaign for the 2000 Reform Party nomination for POTUS:

In 1999, Trump publicly said he was a supporter of abortion rights as a matter of women’s choice. In an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Trump was asked whether he would ban abortions, or at least “partial-birth” abortions. He said he would not, and that he is “pro-choice in every respect.”

“I’m very pro-choice,” Trump said in that 1999 interview. “I hate the concept of abortion. … But still, I just believe in choice.”

I remember in his 2016 campaign, there was a question of whether Trump had ever donated to Planned Parenthood (a leading abortion provider), and Trump deliberately sidestepped the issue, claiming he had no specific memory but he had made lots of donations over the decades and couldn't rule out the possibility.

However, Trump knew the pro-life constituency was key to political support, and perhaps he felt he had to remain true to his law-and-order perspective, so "Donald Trump tells @MSNBC"There has to be some form of punishment" for abortion". I've been in the pro-life movement for decades (no, no leadership positions or rallies), e.g., emails from pro-life websites, pro-life groups on social media. But I've never heard a pro-lifer advocate prosecuting women who aborted their babies. At the risk of oversimplification, we tend to focus on providers and advocates and regard pregnant women who abort as victims of tragic pregnancies like miscarriages. In fact, the Catholic Church has a ministry focused on post-abortion counseling. Trump soon after his gaffe had to walk it back; to mw, a consistent Trump critic during the life of this blog, it was just another example of his poor impulsive, surface-level decision-making.

Now post-Dobbs, the GOP seemed caught completely off-guard by decades-old exceptions for rape and incest. I understand the notion the preborn child should not pay for the sins of his father but these cases are literally in the rounding error of all abortions. We need to focus on moral persuasion, not allow the pro-aborts define us as unreasonable ideologues in a pluralistic society.

I have to admit cringing on hearing Chuck Todd endlessly obsess that the American people overwhelmingly approve of abortion on demand. First, I am not impressed with the tyranny of the majority on the subject of natural rights. Second, for most of the last few decades generally speaking Gallup has found a plurality of Americans have regarded abortion as morally wrong and/or consider themselves as pro-life. I do think moderates are concerned about where to draw the line, including short durations and a few exceptions.

 In past essays and tweets, I have suggested that the median 12-week abortion period in Europe is roughly comparable to the traditional quickening criterion with most body parts and organs well-formed and operational. Up to 90% of abortions occur in this period. Some states have floated a 15-week period.

Then there's the kerfuffle over U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk who has ruled that the abortifacient drug mifepristone, part of a common potent 2-deug protocol, was improperly approved by the FDA more than 20 years ago. Reportedly more than half of abortions are medication abortions. Let me point out I am personally opposed to the use of abortifacients, just like Hippocrates, but I am skeptical of purported safety concerns of a widely distributed drug globally with over 20 years of history and patient medical histories. The FDA hasn't withdrawn approval, something it has done up to 600 times for safety or effectiveness reasons for other drugs. 

Finally, after Biden and the Dems repeatedly sought to codify the so-called right to abort at the federal level (which is no less a violation of the Tenth Amendment than Roe, etc., by SCOTUS), some Republicans have floated the idea of a federal abortion ban. From a constitutional standpoint, this is no better than Roe codification. But it's not even politically viable with a filibustering Senate Dem caucus, not to mention a Dem POTUS. I'm not sure why some Republicans have raised it unless it's a response to the Roe codification gambit. I would advise GOP Congressmen to declare victory over returning the issue to the states and not give independents reasons to vote for Dems in federal elections.by trying to impose unpopular restrictions in blue states.

Now, as to the "Tennessee Three": the talking points on both sides are stupid. We are talking about 3 Tennessee gun control Dems (2 black males, 1 white woman) who, in the aftermath of a trans mass shooter at a Tennessee private school, went to the state assembly floor to protest, at least one with a bullhorn. The Republican leader responded with expulsion votes for all 3; the white legislator barely missing expulsion, unlike her black colleagues (with bullhorn(s)) The 2 ejected black legislators have been reappointed to the legislature.

I don't disagree that the legislators' protest violated House rules. and an appropriate sanction was warranted. But expulsion seems disproportionate, and the racially disparate outcome raises questions

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Post #6207 M: New mortgage rule hurts good credit homebuyers; Will AI Steal Our Jobs (or End Us)?

 Quote of the Day

As a cure for worrying, 
work is better than whiskey.
Thomas A. Edison  

New mortgage rule hurts good credit homebuyers

Will AI Steal Our Jobs (or End Us)?

Hornberger on Ron DeSantis Has Some Explaining to Do

Choose Life

Political Cartoon

Courtesy of Steve Kelley via Townhall

Musical Interlude: #1 Hits of 2007

Soulja Boy, "Crank That (Soulja Boy)"

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Sunday, April 23, 2023

Post #6206 Social Media Digest

Twitter

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Post #6205 M: Top 3 Ways Economic Growth Will Solve Climate Change; Ticket and Collect; Why do public schools suck and what should we do about them?

 Quote of the Day

All you'll get from strangers is surface pleasantry or indifference. 
Only someone who loves you will criticize you.
Judith Crist

Top 3 Ways Economic Growth Will Solve Climate Change

Ticket and Collect

Why do public schools suck and what should we do about them?

Choose Life

Political Cartoon

Courtesy of Bob Gorrell via Townhall

Musical Interlude: #1 Hits of 2007

Fergie, "Big Girls Don't Cry"

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Saturday, April 22, 2023

Post #6204 M: What liberals Mean by "Book Banning"; How Government Schools Use Bad History to Promote the State; SOHO Forum: Does the 1619 Project have anything to teach us?

 Quote of the Day

A room without books is like 
a body without a soul.
Marcus Tullius Cicero 

What liberals Mean by "Book Banning"

How Government Schools Use Bad History to Promote the State

SOHO Forum: Does the 1619 Project have anything to teach us? 

Choose Life

Musical Interlude: #1 Hits of 2007

Sean Kingston, "Beautiful Girls"

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Friday, April 21, 2023

Post #6203 J

 Pandemic Report

The latest stats from WaPo:


The latest from CDC:



The trend is in the right direction with 13.8K daily new case average. About 98% of the country's counties are considered low risk. Again, a disproportionate number of these is concentrated among senior citizens, where we know we have waning antibody counts after 6 months or so prior vaccination. As I tweeted earlier this week, the FDA/CDC approved a second round of bivalent boosters for senior citizens and the immunocompromised. We also see a deemphasis of the original alpha vaccines in favor of the bivalent omicron boosters. We continue to see a number of political post-pandemic issues, including unspent federal pandemic funding clawbacks, reversal of public policies, including reinstatement and backpay for those Chicago city workers who resisted the city vaccine mandate and increasing attention to long-COVID, which includes post-infection long-term or recurring symptoms, like fatigue, etc.

Other Notes

Overall, blog readership has been stuck in a low-readership rut this month, with a rare one-day 100+ pageview day this past week, but even with that, I would need to nearly double this month's numbers over the coming week to match the last couple of months. Twitter is now down to a few hundred impressions a day; I think I have had just one 1K+ impression day over the past month and no viral tweet for a few weeks now.

An interesting trend. One of my cloud storage subscriptions now comes bundled with VPN software/services and with dark web monitoring. I know dark web monitoring became more bundled when Norton acquired LifeLock; one of my credit cards has such a service. I already have a VPN subscription. The main hassle is some websites may track your IP/device and reject an unrecognized one. I know my legacy VPN subscription sometimes causes issues with Internet searches, password managers, and/or certain websites. This gives me another option on my cellphone.

Annoying. I'm still the absent-minded professor. I put my Garmin devices in a "safe" place somewhere. I recently updated my Garmin software and my devices need updating 

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Post #6202 M: McClanahan on Remembering John T. Flynn; Bud Light's Brilliant Marketing Move; Norberg's New & Improved: Written Language

Quote of the Day

There is no such thing as justice in the abstract; 
it is merely a compact between men.
Epicurus  

McClanahan on Remembering John T. Flynn

Bud Light's Brilliant Marketing Move

Norberg's New & Improved: Written Language

Choose Life

Musical Interlude: #1 Hits of 2007

 Plain White T's, "Hey There Delilah"

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Thursday, April 20, 2023

Post #6201 M: McClanahan on What is "Nationalism"? ; How to Survive a Bank Collapse; Why homelessness is worse in California than Texas

 Quote of the Day

There is an inverse relationship 
between reliance on the state 
and self-reliance.
William F. Buckley, Jr.

McClanahan on What is "Nationalism"?

How to Survive a Bank Collapse

Why homelessness is worse in California than Texas

Choose Life

Musical Interlude: #1 Hits of 2007

Rihanna, "Umbrella" ft. JAY-Z

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Wednesday, April 19, 2023

Post #6200 M: McClanahan on Are We Headed for a "French Revolution" in America? ; Illegal Fentanyl Primarily Smuggled by US Citizens; Stossel on The Full Alex Epstein

 Quote of the Day

The most powerful weapon on earth is 
the human soul on fire.
Field Marshal Ferdinand Foch  

McClanahan on Are We Headed for a "French Revolution" in America?

Illegal Fentanyl Primarily Smuggled by US Citizens

Stossel on The Full Alex Epstein: the Moral Case for Fossil Fuels, Renewable Energy, and Green Deceptions

Choose Life

Political Cartoon

Courtesy of Tom Stiglich via Townhall

Musical Interlude: #1 Hits of 2007

T-Pain, "Buy U A Drank (Shawty Snappin')"

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