…are worse than robber barons.
Yes. Yes they are.
Category Archives: Business
Venezuela
No, it’s not a “humanitarian” crisis. It’s just another example of the inevitable failure of socialism.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Is “liberalism” creating a soulless monoculture?
There’s nothing liberal about it. It’s totalitarian.
Chromebooks
…are about to get awesome.
This seems like what I probably need. My Gateway laptop is impossible to use on a plane unless I’m in first class (which I rarely am), and it’s getting a little long in the tooth, with some keys starting to fail. It also tends to hang after a while in Fedora 23. So if I can replace it with something with a touchscreen and separate keyboard, compatible with my Android phone, that’s probably the way to go now.
The Real Racists
…are those who think that “people of color” can’t make it on their own. Because that’s, you know, “progressive” thinking, and always has been.
The Libertarian And Green Party
Let them in the debates: “Our third parties are fielding credible candidates as Democratic and Republican parties give us shady characters.”
“Shady characters” is being kind.
MUOS Failure
So we have a perfectly good military communications satellite stranded in the wrong orbit. If we were a truly space-faring nation, we’d send something up to give it a tow. In a few years, with things like ACES, we’ll be able to.
The Empire Strikes Back
An incumbent Tea Partier has been knocked off in the primary. Those opposed to spending will have to step up their political game, but this also shows that all politics is local. The farmers wanted (almost literally) their pork.
[Update a few minutes later]
This seems related somehow: Political moron Meg Whitman is joining forces with Hillary Clinton to defeat Donald Trump.
[Update a couple minutes later]
This seems related, too: “The soul-sick leadership ‘elite’ in America.”
Scare quotes because there’s nothing elite about them at all. They’re incompetent vain greedy power-hungry hacks.
Why NASA Human Spaceflight?
Jeff Foust writes that that’s the question the media should be asking of the presidential campaigns. I agree; until we know why we’re doing it, it’s not possible to come up with sensible way of how to do it.
And this is an interesting parenthetical:
…perhaps, the answer would be not to spend the money at all: in the mid-2000s, the Republican Study Committee, a group of conservative members of the House of Representatives, proposed cutting funding for President George W. Bush’s Vision for Space Exploration as part of a broader set of spending cuts. The chairman of the committee at the time? Then-Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana, now Trump’s running mate.
Though there’s no requirement that it be the case, historically, the vice president has generally been responsible for space policy (going back to Johnson), though that has been much less the case in the second Bush and Obama administrations (thankfully, in the case of the latter).
Blogging
I’m taking a little break from house renovation to post a few things on a Sunday morning, but we have a lot to do still, and not sure when we’ll get back home to California. It’s kind of weird/depressing to be living (and kind of camping out) in the (unfurnished) old house again. It has a gourmet kitchen that we remodeled ourselves, but few utensils and tools (e.g., we have a fancy GE Advantium microwave, but don’t have a toaster). We did get a good inflatable queen bed, and it’s fairly comfortable. We bought a little gas camping grill which is a pretty good deal for $40 at Home Depot, and grilled steaks last night on the patio by the pool, and tossed Caesar salad in a bowl she bought at Walmart. We don’t necessarily mind buying things we can’t take back to California, because we can leave them with her son who lives in Lake Worth.
Patricia’s not generally a Walmart shopper, but she was amazed at how low cost useful items were. It’s why Sam Walton has brought more Americans out of poverty than any government program.
BTW, we’re trying to sell the house ourselves. If we give it to another realtor, they’d end up taking two thirds of our equity in commission, which just seems crazy for what they actually do. Easier to drop the price and take the difference ourselves. If you know anyone crazy enough to actually want to live in south Florida, it’s a great house in as good a neighborhood as they come, given that it’s in south Florida. Note that while a lot of people have been getting rid of their screened pool enclosures, I’ve steadfastly insisted on keeping ours, to protect ourselves from the deadliest animal on earth. It’s particularly worth noting now that zika has shown up in Miami.
[Update Monday morning]
Here’s the web site that’s listed in the Craiglist ad, with a lot more pictures.
Dumb Luck
What’s with the post-modern emphasis on it?
As noted, it provides an excuse to redistribute from those who have “won life’s lottery” (as Dick Gephardt once put it), to those less “fortunate,” who then can purchase steaks on food stamps from a hard-working sales clerk who has to get by on hamburger, or worse.
It’s worth noting that there are some fields in which a lot of luck is involved, because the supply of “talent” (such as it is) vastly exceeds demand (e.g., Hollywood). When you see a family of actors (e.g., the Baldwins or Afflecks), it’s because once one of them is in, they then have the connections to bring in the others. And they know it. The guilt they feel knowing that they lucked out while others equally talented didn’t make it probably drives a lot of their “liberal” (which isn’t really; it’s leftist) guilt.