Analytics

Tuesday, May 14, 2024

Post #6744 M: This Beloved Mechanic Was Zoned Out of His Own Garage; 5 Million Missing Unemployed; McClanahan on Necessary and Proper

 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

This Beloved Mechanic Was Zoned Out of His Own Garage

5 Million Missing Unemployed

McClanahan on Necessary and Proper

Choose Life

Political Cartoon

Courtesy of Steve Kelley via Townhall

Musical Interlude: Duos

Simon & Garfunkel, "Fakin' It"

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Monday, May 13, 2024

Post #6743 M: Weekend Update; An Austrian Critique of the New MMT Documentary; Why Fast Food Has Gotten So Expensive

 Quote of the Day

Some painters transform the sun into a yellow spot; 
others transform a yellow spot into the sun.
Pablo Picasso  

Weekend Update

An Austrian Critique of the New MMT Documentary

Why Fast Food Has Gotten So Expensive

Choose Life

Political Cartoon

Courtesy of Michael Ramirez via Townhall

Musical Interlude: Duos

Simon & Garfunkelm "The 59th Street Bridge Song"

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Sunday, May 12, 2024

Post #6742 Commentary: The 2024 Senate race over Retiring Sen. Cardin's MD US Senate Seat

 I as a minority pro-life libertarian who doesn't relish having to write about abortion. It's a really difficult issue to discuss. It seems counter-intuitive to suggest the State should intervene in family planning decisions. But contrary to the propaganda of ideological feminists, I am not suggesting that there should be birth quotas for fertile women, that the state restrict elective surgeries preventative against future impregnation, that the state should meddle in/regulate voluntary sexual behavior. The issue I fundamentally have is the Non-Aggression Principle being violated against innocent preborn children Keep in mind many abortions are performed after 12 weeks/3 months: when the baby is fully recognizable, has all organs intact and functional, including brain and heart. We are no longer talking abstract principles of liberty here, but the rights of another human being worthy of respect and protection.

Does that mean we pro-lifers want to sanction pregnant women who abort, as Donald Trump seems to think in his transparent pandering for the pro-life vote? No. We know Trump ran for the Reform Party in 2000 as strongly pro-abortion choice. He similarly dodged questions on whether he ever donated to Planned Parenthood, the largest US abortion provider. We are empathetic to any woman who has .lost her child. We realize that the deternined pregnant woman will find abortifacients or services in a different jurisdiction or the black market. Our focus is on moral persuasion of providers who at one time honored the Hippocratic Oath and its prohibition against dispensing abortifacients.

I had no doubt a deep blue state like  Maryland (despite historical ties to Roman Catholicism) is unambiguously pro-abortion choice. I am well-aware of how the pro-aborts have seized on the offense since the Dobbs decision, which simply returned abortion regulation to the states which traditionally held the police and health regulatory authority. Some states, like California. had liberalized abortion before Roe.

The pro-aborts have engaged on 2 fronts since Dobbs: (1) codification of Roe v Wade at the federal level and (2) propagating atate abortion rights particularly at the state constitutional level. The latter has been more successful as pro-life goups have issues with pragmatic lines over restrictions 

The former point is in complete denial of the Dobbs decision. SCOTUS determined there was nothing in the Constitution enabling the federal government to encroach on the rights of the states in relevant policies. This includes pro-life restrictions or pro-abort liberalizations/ The only thing that would enable federal action is an amendment. For all practical purposes a constitutional amendment requires a super-majority of both the House and Senate to pass, then a supermajority of states to ratify. This is essentially impossible in the Congress alone, never mind the fact that there are enough red states to block it.

I knew when the pro-aborts pushed codification, inevitably the pro-life side, led by people like former VP Pence, would push restrictions. And of course, the self-righteous pro-aborts would fearmonnger on the natural response to their codification efforts.

This sets the stage for the current Maryland race to succeed retiring US Senator Cardin.Two prominent Democrats, Congressman Trone (MD-6) /and Angela Alsobrooks, a Maryland county executive. I don't even watch that much local TV, and I've been swamped with countless pro-abort ads from federal and other Dem candidates. Trone in particularly has promoted himself as someone who self-righteously shouts down those nefarious protestors at clinics. Both prominent Senate Den candidates are fearmongering former Gov. Hogan helping Trump take over the Senate, kill the welfare state and senior entitlements, and "throwing away our legal rights.

To date, I've seen only one Hogan ad:tough on Southern border immigration, poining out as governor he had no support for sanctuary cities. He is facing some Trumpkin I've never heard of. There has been no love lost between Hogan and Trump, with Hogan at one point seriously considering challenging Trump for the nomination. I was actually surprised to hear Hogan running for the office after hearing him rule it out earlier. Let's be clear: if any Republican can win the seat, it's Hogan, a popular two-term governor. I haven't heard Hogan address abortion but he seems to understand the political reality of permissive MD laws  and opposes federal bans (contrary to Dodds).

I've seen varying polls on Trone or Alsobrooks vs. Hogan flipping high single-digit leads.It's hard to say because Hogan-bashing ads by Trone and Alsobrooks have been saturating the airwaves.

I have to publish this post now with the Senate primary Tuesday. As I write, Trone seems to have an edge over Alsobrooks but she seems to have some late momentum, possibly a statistical tie going into Tuesday. I'll just be glad when they stop talking about abortion, which isn't a federal issue. Oh, I know they'll try to use it this fall: it's been their one-trick pony since Dobbs. Planned Parenthood says Hogan has a record of opposing abortion. But I suspect Hogan is going to force the Dems to address the economy and immigration. Difficult to say who I'll vote gor this fall--Hogan or the LP nominee, but I could see myself voting for Hogan over the Dems 

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Post #6741 Social Media Digest

 Twitter

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Post #6740 M: Japan’s half-baked Yen Defense; Nullification News; Who’s to Blame for Campus Censorship?

 Quote of the Day

Curiosity is a lust of the mind.
Thomas Hobbes  

Japan’s half-baked Yen Defense

Nullification News

Who’s to Blame for Campus Censorship?

Choose Life

Political Cartoon


Courtesy of Al Goodwyn via Townhall

Musical Interlude: Duos

Simon & Garfunkel, "At The Zoo"

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Saturday, May 11, 2024

Post #6739 J

 Pandemic Report

The latest stats from CDC:




The COVID surge tailoff continues, with reported hospitalization lows (note that CDC has switched from hospitalization counts to ratio data). The FLiRT variants have now displaced JN.1 with more than a third aggregate market share.

Ehe latest news items of interest include but are not restricted to:

  • AatraZeneca, facing in a drop of sales volume, is withdrawing its vaccine from the global market. It received early scrutiny over reports of rare alleged blood clots  
  • Besides public program fraud, other types of COVID fraud are being prosecuted, including
  • Sanctions imposed during the pandemic continue to be eased:
    • a doctor whose license was syspended after engaging in vaccine misinformation was reinstated
    • a Chinese journalist who had reported on Wuhan data was released
  • mRNA manufacturers are looking to expand beyond COVID vaccines, e.g., to flu and RSV
  • New York State enacted immunity laws during the pandemic including (notoriously) nursing homes
  • HHS has estimated COVID vaccine ads saved thousands of lives and billions in costs
  • A recent study shows people with heart failure live longer when protected by COVID vaccines
  • Social distancing tactics protected nearly 2/3 of Americans from getting infected before vaccines were available and likely helped  prevent 800K Americans from losing their lives but at staggering economic, social and human costs
  • A recent Oxford study suggests ways cccines worked to mitigate severe illnessm including lower relevent concentrations of infected cell counts and fewer inflammation markers
  • Finally, we look at the struggle for a global pandemic treaty from a lessons learned from this pandemic; this includes among other things resentment over limited at best vaccine production capacity in the less developed world and thorny issues like the scope of alerts from source locations like China's limited disclosures at the start of the pandemic.

Other Notes

Blog statistics are still likely bloated although not as much as over the last several weeks. Fo example, last month reported 15K vs a long-time trend of 1-3K/month. This month's trend  is just over the high end of the long-term trend. My statistics on Twitter/X are at record lows in part because my tweeting is inconsistent  Some days I don't publish any tweets in part uninviting trends, busy work schedule, etc.

It's time I rant about one of my (and I'm sure others') pet peeves other stupid and/or aggressive drivers. By stupid, I'm including things like getting hit from behind while at a stop at an intersection. Two times I remember:an older Asian (foreign?) dude at night in California and the other a mother obviously paying more attention to her baby than the traffic. The aggressive ones do things like slowly encroach into your lane, effectively forcing you off the road to avoid  a collision. Then there are the passive-aggressive ones who target you for some reason, will hop in front of you and then slam on their brakes. I'll never forget some Illinois bonehead cop who let some motorist back on the highway. I'm on I-55 S going back to a distant Chicago suburb where my first brother lived, with my visiting parents in the back seats. This asshole jumps right in front of me; I'm driving maybe 55 mph and he was doing maybe 10-15. If it wasn't for my great reflexes I and my parents would have died that day. I was literally standing on my brakes and miss a collision by mere inches. And get this--the cop pulls ME over.. He kept me waiting like 10-15 minutes. He finally said, "I bet you're wondering why I pulled you over..." No shit. "It was all my fault for letting him back on the road. I didn't want you chasing after him." My folks were clueless about what was going on--they didn't see like my car inch closer to this guy's bumper and praying for my brakes to stop the progression. The folks had wanted to see me for dinner  while visiting my brother's family but didn't have a car with them.

Otherwise, the worst incident was back in my native Texas. I'm a big Bobby Goldsboro fan.(He's probably best known for his sentimental hit Honey He also sang my favorie anti-war song Btoomstick Cowboy.) So I was driving to Gilley's in Pasadena where he was scheduled to appear, when this guy in a big truck forced me off the road as described above. He was psychotic, pointing at me in pure rage. I could see his shotgun dangling near the back window. His significant other was pleading with him to let it go. It scared the living hell out of me; I didn't trust a psycopath with a rifle at close range. I went straight home. To this day, I've necer seen a famous entertainer/act in person..

There are other pet peeves I have, including but not restricted to rubbernecks, traffic weavers, people who will deliberately cut you off from a  lane change (especially when you are in an outgoing exit lane as you enter the road), but what really annoys me are self-entitled drivers who don't want to wait their place in line but try to get the jump on traffic by rushing down a closing lane and then force their way into the adjacent lane. I'm willing to play the nice guy and take turns with merging traffic but there are always assholes who will try to tailgate their way in front of you. There are times I will let it go because I don't want the hassle of a potential car repair.

Believe me, I've had more than my fill of congested  traffic around Chicago, Los Angekes, Silicon Valley, the DC beltway, DFW loop, and Houston. I've driven through NYC to 2 New England funerals. I had a doctor drop me as a patient for being late in Baltimore 695 traffic (to discuss blood workup) .

My current work assignment has me commuting through the Baltimor harbor tunnels (2 lanes each direction: you generally have 2-3 miles of bumper to bumper traffic somtimes backed up for half a mile or more, like on the spur to 895 from 97N. There's something offputting about mototists racing down a closing lane while the rest of us in the left .lane inch our cars closer to 895  with its own lane merge.

In theory it should be an hour commute each direction  but usually it's more like 50% more or double that. I already miss remote work but because of security reasons, that's not possible. 

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Post #6738 M: Remy: Fortnight (Taylor Swift Parody); McClanahan on The American "Illiberal" Tradition? ; Politicians don't care about inflation

 Quote of the Day

Write to be understood, 
speak to be heard, 
read to grow.
Lawrence Clark Powell  

Remy: Fortnight (Taylor Swift Parody)

McClanahan on The American "Illiberal" Tradition?

Politicians don't care about inflation 

Choose Life

Political Cartoon

Courtesy of Chip Bok via Townhall

Musical Interlude: Duos

Simon & Garfunkel,"For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her"

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