My Father Was Wrong

The headlines read, "Consumers Power US Economy" and "Consumer Spending Props Up GDP." So it turns out that my father did not get it right when he commented many years age that, "Hell, we can't all make a living selling each other hamburgers."

Logic Does Not Prevail

The name of the show is "America's Got Talent," but it has contestants from South Africa, Germany, Austria... Apparently America does not have enough talent to sustain a talent show.

My wife harasses me about my expectations that people will behave logically. "Dear," she says, patiently, "that person has no idea why they changed lanes, and I won't guarantee you that they even know that they did change lanes."

Reality-based Reporting

Which statement more accurately reflects reality? "The Dow plunged more than 600 points," or "The Dow dropped 2.3% yesterday." Just asking.

The term "scientist" seems to have lost all meaning. A news item today reports that "scientists" have calculated that if "information" is sent into a black hole which is connected to another black hole in a different universe by a wormhole, then very little of that "information" would make it through to that other universe because most of it would be destroyed by the two black holes.

I am not making this shit up. The "scientists" used "computer models" to make this profound determination.

What Purpose Tariffs?

If the United States makes blivets, and some other nation makes blivets and is shipping them to this country at a price lower then the ones we make here, then import tariffs on blivets make very good sense. They protect the American makers of blivets by making foreign blivets less competitive with our own and discouraging the foreign country from exporting them to this country.

But when no one in America makes widgets, putting import tariffs on widgets merely results in the American consumer paying a higher price for widgets. The country making the widgets and shipping them to this country could not care less. In this instance, tariffs do not “punish the exporting country.”

Apparently, someone in the White House does not understand that simple principle, because, while some of the things he is putting tariffs on are produced in this country, he is also slapping tariffs on things that we do not produce in this country. In many cases we could produce them, and in some cases we used to produce them, but presently we don’t produce them.

Reality Asserts Itself

When I was a kid, I was growing up in a nation which touted itself as having the highest standard of living in the world. We bragged about having 5% of the world’s population and using 25% of the world’s resources. And we didn’t just state it as an abstract fact, we bragged about it as if it was some sort of accomplishment.

I forget the precise numbers, but I do recall thinking at the time that maybe we shouldn’t take such pride in them. My parents were certainly not anything approaching socialist in their thinking, but they did teach me a basic sense of fairness. More important, they along with our education system taught me to stay in contact with reality.

We assuaged whatever little shred of conscience we had by assuming that the rest of the world would someday pull themselves up to the same standard of living that we enjoyed. I viewed that assumption with a somewhat jaundiced eye, since the numbers seemed to me to indicate that there weren’t enough resources for that to happen, and that if the world’s standard of living were to equalize then ours would have to drop a bit.

Logic kind of bites idealists in the ass when they touch base with reality. In the real world, when the standard of living is the same everywhere, then 5% of the world’s population can no longer consume more than approximately 5% of the world’s resources. There’s no such thing as a free lunch.

And that process is happening now. The standard of living all over the world is rising, and it’s rising pretty fast. We are trying to maintain “economic growth” and it’s not happening, and we are pointing fingers everywhere. All the finger pointing is useless. It’s an effort to avoid maintaining contact with reality.

The world’s standard of living is equalizing, and for it to do so our standard of living has to decline a bit. I don’t know why we’re complaining; we did it to ourselves when we shipped all those manufacturing jobs overseas.

It had to happen. If it wasn’t that it would have been something else. The world wasn’t going to sit back and let us hog all the good times forever. Eventually, reality asserts itself.

Perhaps "Politically Correct," But...

The British Army is doing away with such gender specific titles as "rifleman" and "infantryman," because they are no longer sufficiently intelligent to understand the term "man" simply as "a member of the human race, gender unknown," as it has been used since the English language evolved. Apparently the concept that a word can have more than one meaning is too complex for today's "politically correct" mind. Anyway, they are now going to more neutral titles such as "infantry soldier" and "infanteer."

Really. "Infanteer?" They're too infantile to see the irony in that title? Oh Lordy.

Fearmongering Prevails

The headline, featured on Google News, reads, "NASA Detects Planet-Killer Asteroid That Might Hit Earth Next Year." On reading the article, in International Business Times, we find the the orbit of this "planet killer asteroid" is presently calculated to miss the Earth by 3.9 million miles, but the article goes on to say that the orbit could be altered by, "heat from internal or external sources such as the Sun," or by "a gravitation keyhole," which turns out to be "a certain area in space that’s affected by the gravitational pull of a nearby planet."

I'm not sure how it thinks the Sun's heat is going to alter the asteroid's orbit before it reaches Earth's neighborhood, but why let trivial details interfere with a good scare narrative.

The whole article is gibberish, actually, and it makes no attempt to explain why these orbit altering influences would change the asteroid's orbit toward Earth but not away from it.

So the asteroid presently appears likely to miss by 3.9 million miles, but may be altered to hit the Earth, or could be altered to miss us by 7.8 million miles.

I read this nonsensical bullshit so that you don't have to.

Medical "Studies"

The “medical study” with respect to caffeine use and migraines that was on the news a few days ago is a perfect example of why I pay no attention to “medical studies” in the news today.

The stated conclusion was that three cups of coffee per day (or less) would not trigger migraines, while four or more cups of coffee could. That conclusion was obviously bogus. Any neurologist who knows anything about migraines can tell you that caffeine is known to resolve migraine, and that the mechanism by which it does so is well documented. (It constricts blood vessels.)

That neurologist will also tell you that caffeine’s role in triggering migraines is not well known at all. There is anecdotal evidence that it might, as well as that more than a hundred other factors might, but there is no documentation of the mechanism whereby any of them, including caffeine, might do so.

Finally, that neurologist will tell you that in many patients with frequent and severe migraines, a majority actually, caffeine appears to play no role whatever in triggering migraines. I happen to be one of those patients.

Having read a conclusion which was at such obvious odds with medical reality, I went searching to see who performed the study and how they performed it. The result did not really surprise me. The description of the study began, “They asked patients who frequently experienced migraines to keep a diary for six weeks,” and went on to say that, “In all, 98 patients completed these diaries.”

This is the state of medical science in the US today. A “medical study” now consists of fewer than 100 untrained persons keeping notes for six weeks.

The number of ways in which this study are invalid are so numerous that it’s hard to know where to start. 1) The number of participants, 98, is several orders of magnitude too small to provide anything like meaningful results. 2) Lay persons notoriously keep highly inaccurate “diaries,” and relying upon them to determine meaningful medical conclusions is malpractice. 3) Six weeks is too short a period of time, again by several orders of magnitude, for any conclusion to be even remotely valid. 4) The juxtaposition of the so-called “trigger” and the onset of the migraine is highly variable, and yet no one questions the cause/effect relationship.

In other words, “I drank four cups of coffee in the morning, and late that afternoon I had a migraine.” If someone claimed that a truck hitting him in the morning was the cause of him falling down in the afternoon, his claim of cause and effect might be questioned.

Making the “study” even more nonsensical is that these diaries did not report the types of “caffeinated drinks” consumed, not differentiating between a 24oz Red Bull energy drink and a 6oz cup of green tea, so the “researchers” did not have the slightest idea of the amount of caffeine that was under consideration.

The great “health care debate” being held by the Democratic Party might be entirely moot, if this is the quality of the medical profession that is going to be providing the health care about which we are arguing.

Wierd

San Diego has a severe shortage of rental properties, and is considering passing a law to impose rent control. So, let's see. If I'm a builder and can build a building which will rent apartments, but will not be able to rent those apartments for enough money to make a profit, am I going to... Never mind.

Turnaround

Two years ago the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare, was the best thing passed by Congress since the Social Security Act championed by FDR. It was the best thing to happen to Americans since the Civil Rights Act. It was living proof that Barack Obama could walk on water.

On Wednesday, nine Democrats on a stage ganged up on and viciously berated Joe Biden for defending Obamacare, demonizing him for wanting to keep it in place.

Relativity Bites

Where does the cart go, relative to the horse? Democrats seem to be having a hard time figuring that out.

They have decided that it is essential to impeach Donald Trump, but they are having trouble coming up with a specific crime upon which to base the impeachment. They keep throwing shit against the wall, and all of it just slides down and lands on the floor. Except that which they throw in the fan. We all know where that ends up.

They also pursue racial equality by claiming that white people are evil. Somehow, they cannot see how that misses the boat.

Due Process

I made the mistake of watching the Mueller testimony on NBC this morning, and so was forced to hear Jake Tapper yammering about the “vast right wing propaganda machine” afterward. Fortunately, I had already finished my coffee by the time he came up with that one. I also got to hear about the Democrats on the panel, “failing to counter falsehoods from the Republicans” on the panel.

Here are some of the “falsehoods” that the Democrats “failed to counter.” I would actually have enjoyed seeing them try.

One Republican questioned why Mueller had gone to such a major effort to say that the investigation was unable to prove beyond doubt that Trump was innocent of obstruction of justice. Given that our system of justice requires a prosecutor to investigate and prove guilt, not innocence, because the latter is presumed, it was strange for the report to declare that, “If we had found enough evidence to declare him innocent, we would have said so.” In fact, no such evidence is actually needed.

He went on to refute Mueller’s claim that the investigation could not make a determination of guilt or innocence because of an OLC policy that a sitting president cannot be indicted, given that Mueller had made a determination on the issue of complicity with Russian meddling in the election. Claiming that the OLC memo permitted Mueller to make a decision one issue but prohibited him from doing so on another issue is indefensible.

Another Republican made the point that even if Trump did interfere with Mueller, he was not obstructing justice since what Mueller was doing was not justice. Given that Trump knew that he had not been complicit with the Russians, he was actually trying to prevent Mueller from perpetrating an injustice. I’m not sure there’s a valid legal point here, but for someone who thinks of justice in terms of right versus wrong… I’d say the Democrats were wise not to argue this point.

Yet another Republican pointed out that Mueller’s report acknowledged that Joseph Mifsud lied to the investigation not once, but at least three times, but that he was never charged with lying to investigators. Most of the people who were indicted were indicted for lying, but Mifsud, who started the whole “collusion” mess, was never charged for lying. This questioner wanted to know why, which Mueller refused to say, and suggested that it was because Mifsud was actually a founder of the conspiracy to begin with.

Democrats beat the drum endlessly about Trump’s efforts to fire Mueller, or have him removed, but even Mueller admitted that firing the head of the investigation would not have stopped the investigation. He admitted that he himself interviewed “very few” of the witnesses, so it’s pretty hard to say that firing him would even have hindered the investigation. It’s pretty hard to claim Trump's animus for Mueller as “obstruction,” then, and no one even claims that Trump tried to disband the investigation itself.

Democrats were the ones more prone to introducing falsehoods, with several of them charging Trump with witness tampering based on phrases including things that “could support an inference” of some evil intent or another. Let me repeat that concept upon which they want to convict President Trump, namely that something “could support an inference that…”

We don’t need no steenkin’ “due process.”

Mueller was all over the place with his inability to charge Trump with obstruction of justice. First he said that it was due to an OLC memo that a sitting president cannot be indicted. The implication of that seemed to be that if he was not president he would have been indicted, which caused him to get that “deer in the headlights" look and stammer out a different answer.

The second answer was that due to that memo he could not even evaluate the evidence as to whether or not it constituted a crime. If he concluded that it did, said so, and did not indict, it would be unfair because in effect the president would be charged but would not be able to defend himself in court.

(That sort of conflicts with the fact that he did evaluate the evidence on “collusion” and say there wasn’t enough to indict. It also begs the question of why, if you cannot even evaluate the evidence, are you spending two years and tens of millions of dollars collecting it?)

Anyway, his thing about self defense sounds very noble, but he seems perfectly okay with accumulating as much garbage as he can and dumping it out for public consumption and then pulling a Pontius Pilate by washing his hands and saying, “Here it is, and I’m not going to comment on whether he’s a crook or not. Hint, hint hint, wink wink.”

Which sounds impartial, but actually makes him an asshole.

A Couple of Thoughts

An article today says "brain waste is cleared most effectively when sleeping on one's side," so people who sleep that way have less trash in their brain and are less prone to Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and other brain diseases. I'm not so sure about that. I sleep on my side, but I have Parkinson's and, according to my wife, my brain is full of all sorts of trash.

On a related note, my since she retired my wife is on a house organizing spree. She's doing a very nice job, and I'm loving the results, until she told me that she is "throwing out everything that's old and worn out." I found that statement rather alarming until she assured me that no, that did not include me.

Interestingly, she did not claim that I am not old and worn out, merely that she is not throwing me out.

Pushing Their Agenda

The “big one” occurred at Daytona today when Clint Bowyer attempted to pass Austin Dillon for the lead and Dillon attempted to cut him off to prevent the pass, a move known as “blocking,” causing a wreck which destroyed some twenty race cars. Blocking is against the rules in most forms of auto racing, but not in NASCAR, where it is very common.

And very destructive, as today’s wreck illustrates, which is why most forms of auto racing have rules prohibiting it. I’ve never quite figured out why NASCAR refuses to prohibit it, and they’ve never offered an explanation.

When the wreck occurred the announcing staff went to great length to offer reason why they thought Dillon was not blocking. The reasons included that when Bowyer crossed Dillon’s rear from right to left it somehow caused Dillon’s car to turn left, but only after Bowyer then pulled up alongside him. They also said that Dillon did not go left on purpose, but that Bowyer’s car being nearby had caused Dillon’s car to go out of control and Dillon was just, “saving the car.” A third explanation was that being passed caused a loss of control which caused Dillon to become, “just a passenger.”

When somebody gives you no fewer than three reasons for something, you can be pretty sure than none of them are true. When you are telling the truth, you only have one story – you don’t need three.

Sure enough, the drivers involved sort of destroyed the announcers’ fantasy when interviewed while the carnage was being cleaned up. Bowyer said that Dillon was not only blocking, but that he did so twice. Dillon himself admitted that he was blocking and that yes, it was pretty stupid. The announcers were sort of nonplussed by that.

The announcers had been prating all day that blocking was a feature of racing at Daytona; that it was exciting, necessary, and in fact entirely desirable. They were even severely critical of one driver for not blocking when another driver attempted to pass him for the lead, and succeeded.

So when Dillon blocking Bowyer caused a massive wreck, if the announcers had been willing to admit that he was blocking it would have destroyed their little fantasy about how wonderful a feature blocking is at Daytona. They would have been pointing out that it had just caused a massive wreck.

This all proves that the announcing crew for NBC is no better than the one at Fox. They are more concerned with pushing their agenda than they are with informing the viewer as to what is happening.

Making Points Backwards

My blogging diminished for a while because there seemed little that was really worth talking about, but the Democratic primary election process starting up has produced an embarrassment of riches. This thing is a real clown parade.

Today’s thought is Kamela Harris and her thoughts on what she should do as president to “protect and defend the constitution” of the nation. Pertinent to the point I plan to make is that the constitution specifically says that all powers not specifically designated to the federal government are reserved to the states.

Harris stated this past week that she believed that yes, the federal government should return to imposing federally mandated school busing. She didn’t say so specifically, but one would assume that she wants that done by the Department of Education, since she used the phrase “return to” and it was the DoE which did it in the past. Her reason for the need for it was that, “is that if the states won’t do it then the federal government needs to step up.”

This is not an argument about what is right or wrong about school busing, it is about the federal government and its power over the states. Harris’ position would seem to indicate that she sees states as nothing more that geographical divisions of the nation, and does not acknowledge the right of states to exist as political entities, acting in accordance with the principles and beliefs of the people of each state.

This is the same person however who, as Attorney General of California, informed the law enforcement community of that state, all law enforcement agencies, that they were not required to comply with federal laws or assist federal officers in dealing with issues related to persons in this nation without permission. She went even further and said that not only were they not required to do so, but they were specifically forbidden to do so and, since hers is a “sanctuary state,” they were permitted to hinder the efforts of federal officers in their efforts to enforce federal laws.

Again, this is not an argument about what is wrong or right at the border, but is about the balance of power between federal and states. This action makes it very clear that Harris believes states have the right not only to act politically in accordance with their own principles and beliefs, but to do so in direct opposition to federal laws.

She is inconsistent. Not only does she say on one issue that states are sovereign, while saying on another issue the federal government is, but she is inconsistent in a manner precisely backwards from where she would be if she were reading the constitution.

The issue of immigration control and naturalization is specifically designated to the federal government by the constitution, and yet Kamela Harris claims that her state can ignore the government’s laws on that issue and follow its own policies instead.

The constitution is silent on the issue of education, leaving that as an issue to be controlled by states, and yet Harris is adamant that states do not have the right to implement their own policies in the conduct of that process.

I think we all know what the real problem is here. The real problem is that she is not thinking about these issues at all, but is simply using them as “stalking horses” in a manner that will pander to constituencies and secure votes for her path to the presidency. They are merely talking points to be used as steps toward the power of the White House.

Maybe the Rules Are Wrong.

I swear, Formula 1 deliberately looks for ways to screw up their product. They finally had an exciting race today. Close racing pretty much start to finish, with a pass for the lead on lap 89 of 91. Then the officials announced that there may have been a rule infraction on the winning pass. When the television station had to leave the air, 45 minutes after the end of the race, officials had not yet announced a decision as to the possible infraction, so we did not know who actually won the race.

How are the race drivers supposed to comply with the rules when the officials do not know how to enforce them? It takes as much as an hour to decide whether or not a driver's action was in accordance with a rule, so how is a driver supposed to make that decision when he is piloting a car at speeds in excess of 200 mph?

NASCAR has a similar problem. The cars go through a "technical inspection" before each race, which they often fail as many as three times. A three time failure draws severe penalties, even though a failure may be by as little as .001" from the standard. Perhaps the problem is not the teams and their mechanics. Perhaps the problem is the ridiculous expectations set by the rules.

Update, 12:20pm: Formula 1 finally announced no penalty for the pass, and Max Verstappen was allowed to keep his well earned win.

Unlike the race in Canada where the win was taken from him because the stewards deemed that he had made an "unsafe return to the track." It took them more than 20 minutes to arrive at that conclusion, but somehow Max was supposed to arrive at the same conclusion in a fraction of a second while driving a car at over 100 mph in the grass with treadless tires. Sort of like driving on black ice and hitting your brakes. It would have been a disasterous move on his part, would have wrecked both him and the car trying to pass him, and yet after 20 minutes of deliberation that was the decision the stewards concluded he should have made.

How Does That Help?

Kamela Harris raised her hand when asked, "How many of you have a health care plan which would abolish private insurance?" Turns out, of course, to be the wrong position because millions of people want to keep their present private insurance plan. She changed her position, saying that she "didn't understand the question."

So she gets that people won't vote for someone who wants to abolish private insurance, apparently, but why does she think that people will vote for a person who cannot understand a simple question like the one that was asked? It wasn't a trick question, and it wasn't one of Todd's lengthy inane lecture type questions. It was stated precisely as above.

Only in California

It's not just what California does; sometimes it's the way they do it, or the reasons that are given for doing it.

This state recently allowed those in the country illegally to obtain drivers licenses. I have no real problem with that; other states have done the same. My problem was the reason given by then Governor Moonbeam. "We want them to be safe as they drive to and from work." First, how does having a drivers license make them safe while they are driving? Second, people in this country illegally are not allowed to work.

Now California has passed a law restoring the tax penalty for failing to obtain health insurance. I have no real problem with that either, although I think doing it on a state basis to replace a federal issue is a bit stupid. It does not, however, apply to those who are in the country illegally. They do still qualify for the subsidy if they do choose to obtain health insurance, though, through the "Covered California" health insurance program.

Short form, no penalty if you don't, but cash assistance if you do. But only for illegals. Those who are here legally pay a penalty if they don't. In California, you are treated better by the state if you are illegal.

The program, "Covered California," is a real doozy, too. The ins and outs are complex, but along with the new penalty law the state winds up taking money from people who make between $30,000 and $50,000 and gives it to people making as much as $150,000.

Time to Panic?

"According to Pentagon officials, vessels secretly controlled by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Navy (IRGCN) fired several missiles at the U.S. destroyers USS Maddox (DD-731) and USS Turner Joy (DD-951) yesterday while they cruised in the Gulf of Tonkin, just off the coast of Vietnam. The missiles failed to strike either warship.

The move came as a shock to Seventh Fleet, which expected Iran to attack U.S. forces on the other side of the world in the Persian Gulf."

Relax. The quote is taken from The Duffel Blog.

Drunken Voting

I suspect that most people believe that the reason bars and liquor stores are closed on election day is because the government doesn’t want to have people voting while they are drunk. Actually, the reason has to do with a law against “buying votes,” because politicians used to get people to come to the polls by buying them drinks when they did so. They assumption was that the voter would vote for whoever bought them the drink which brought them to the voting booth.

It’s still illegal to buy votes, but only if the politician uses his own money or campaign funds. It’s perfectly legal to buy votes with taxpayer money, such as by promising jobs or government programs, which Democrats got to first with their promise of “a car in every garage and a chicken in every pot,” along with FDR’s “New Deal.”

In this election Democrats have gone completely nuts with buying votes using taxpayer money. Kamela Harris and several others are offering “reparations” for the “victims of slavery” which ended more than 150 years ago and of which there are no longer any living victims.

Elizabeth Warren has added reparations for “Native Americans” who had their land stolen, perhaps unaware that we’ve already done that by allowing them to legally steal money from the white man in their casinos. She also wants to provide reparations to same sex couples who overpaid taxes because they weren’t allowed to get married, because the only reason for getting married is to pay lower taxes.

Most of the Democratic candidates want to cancel most or all student loans because… Well, they don’t really say why other than that repaying the loans is hard. They don’t claim that the loans were imposed against the will of the persons who took them on, and they don’t claim that the college educations were not delivered.

They’ve apparently given up on cancelling home mortgages, which was all the rage in the 2016 election. For some reason they don’t want to cancel or pay off any credit card debt, and they are rigorously trying to pretend that debt due to medical expenses does not exist. They are just hot to trot on student loans.

Andrew Yang is a “direct buy” guy; he wants to just give $1000/month cash to every man, woman and child, $12,000 per year, cash on the barrelhead with no strings attached, for doing nothing. That would be an illegal buying of votes, except that he’s promising taxpayer money, not his own. It's money taken from people who do work for a living and given to people who don't work for a living. To be fair, it's paid to everyone, so it's also given back to people who do work for a living, which is confusing but seems to make sense to Andrew.

Cory Booker is a bit of a piker compared to that, he just wants to give a $5000 one-time payment to each person at time of birth. He calls it “baby bonds” and says that money, if invested in the stock market, could be worth $50,000 when the kid is 18 years old. It could also be worth about 50 cents, but even if he’s right, how far does $50,000 go?

Maybe it would be better to open the bars and let people vote while drunk.