Author: philg

Jeffrey Epstein was at the heart of the decision to fight Iran and also at the heart of the decision to stop fighting Iran?

by philg

“AOC says Trump is willing to ‘risk world war’ by using Iran attack as Epstein files distraction” (Independent, March 5, 2026):

New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has slammed President Donald Trump over the joint U.S.-Israeli airstrikes on Iran, accusing him of “risking world war” to distract from the ongoing Jeffrey Epstein scandal.

“And every time he’s [used the U.S. military], it has been consistent with a spike or a revelation in what is happening with the Epstein files. I don’t think that that coincidence is something to dismiss off the cuff. I think that he feels existentially tied to it.”

Kentucky Republican Rep. Thomas Massie, who spearheaded the passage of the Act last year, posted on X Sunday afternoon: “PSA: Bombing a country on the other side of the globe won’t make the Epstein files go away, any more than the Dow going above 50,000 will.”

A Democrat from Oregon:

If bombing Iran distracted people from digging into the Epstein files, how does walking away and leaving the Islamic Republic of Iran with intact oil industry, electric power plants, and everything else it needs to rebuild its weapons factories and military help distract people from digging into the Emmanuel Goldstein-Trump connection?

Separately, I’ve lost track of how people explain that the Biden-Harris administration, with exclusive and complete access to all Epstein files for four years, wasn’t able to find anything regarding Donald Trump that was worth leaking to the press. Friends from and in Maskachusetts believe, as a matter of established and verified fact, that Donald Trump, as part of his association with Jeffrey Epstein, either (1) raped a 13-year-old girl, (2) killed a 12- or 13-year-old girl, or some combination of the two. Why wouldn’t the Democrat-run Biden administration have been motivated to release all of the evidence related to these kinds of crimes by a political opponent?

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Compare estimates of white male economic importance from TV viewers, streamers, and readers?

by philg

I often ask folks outside of Florida whose primary source of news is from New York-based media for their estimate of how often a typical house in coastal South Florida is hit by a major hurricane. The estimates range from between 1 and 5 years. (The historical prevalence if more like every 50+ years; Palm Beach County was last hit in 1949 and Tampa has gone more than 100 years (since 1921).)

While watching an NCAA Final Four game with our local basketball fans I observed almost no white males in the commercials. There was an occasional white female with a Black sex partner (spouse or “date”). There was an NCAA house ad in which a fictitious college classroom was presented and there were a few white male students learning from the wise (Black) professor. The overwhelming number of people presented as business executives or valuable consumers, however, appeared to be either Black or Hispanic. A viewer might easily imagine that a restaurant, for example, would be able to prosper without any white male customers and, certainly, any business could be run without any white male employees.

I wonder if this suggests a good subject for a sociology or social psychology master’s thesis:

Compare the estimates of white male economic importance in the U.S. made by the following groups of people: (1) those who watch broadcast TV with commercials, (2) those who watch streaming services such as Netflix, and (3) those who neither watch TV nor stream (all four of them in the U.S. who actually read books?).

What actually is the importance of non-Hispanic white males in the U.S.? ChatGPT says that white males are 30% of population, pay 37-40% of all federal receipts, and receive only 10-15% of welfare. In other words, they’re perfect “tax cattle”. How about in driving the S&P 500’s apparently unstoppable rise? ChatGPT says white males are 72 percent of Fortune 500 senior executives.

(What about white women who do appear in the TV commercials that I saw, but at low levels of representation? ChatGPT says “as a group, women almost certainly receive more in government benefits than they pay in taxes, especially if you include benefits tied to children” (the “single mom” cheat code for 18+ years of taxpayer-funded life) and “White women, as a group, likely receive slightly more in government benefits than they pay in taxes over their lifetimes—but they are much closer to balance than women overall.”)

Some examples of a white-male-free U.S.:

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Won’t Iran use the two-week ceasefire to regroup, rearm, and raise money by exporting oil?

by philg

How does the U.S. benefit from a two-week ceasefire in the war against Iran? I’m sure that some of our pilots could use a rest, but otherwise isn’t the main beneficiary our adversary? Iran’s oil industry wasn’t damaged so the regime can keep loading up tankers with crude and shipping it out to customers via the Strait of Hormuz. Thus, the Islamic Republic’s stockpile of cash will soon be back where it was. Iran can dig any buried missiles out of damaged buildings and bunkers and set them up on launchers ready to go on April 21. Iran should be able to get many of its weapons factories back into production as well since the U.S. didn’t damage Iran’s electric power grid or generating stations. Every Islamic Republic military officer or political leader who was busy running from bunker to bunker and fearful that a traitor would rat out his GPS coordinates to Israel or the U.S. can go home, shower, and relax.

Iran has already said that it isn’t going to do any of the things that the U.S. has demanded, e.g., give up making ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons. Is there a realistic chance that the Islamic Republic will change its mind during the two weeks of this ceasefire?

The pro-Iran/anti-Israel in DC featured by the WSJ:

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Wall Street Journal upset that a place at Duke opens up for an American

by philg

As 18-year-olds and their parents manage their grief over the stack of rejections received from elite colleges, here’s a Wall Street Journal article for those who were rejected by Duke (95 percent rejection rate): “He Had a Full Ride at Duke—Until America Cut Him Off”.

(This article could also be inspiring to Americans graduating next month from Duke with crushing student loan debt. They can sleep easier knowing that some of the money they borrowed and must pay back (unless Kamala Harris is defrosted and elected?) was used to give “a full ride” to a migrant.)

The villain of the article is Donald Trump, of course, referenced 6 times. Here’s a peculiar Trump reference. The South Sudanese are so smart that they thrive at Duke, but they aren’t smart enough to realize that any migrant is an enricher. They refused to accept a migrant on the grounds that he was Congolese rather than South Sudanese:

Trump’s displeasure with South Sudan began when it refused to accept a man being deported by the U.S. The man was Congolese, South Sudanese officials said, but the administration didn’t want to take no for an answer.

South Sudan has a GDP per capita of less than $400. We’re informed that migrants are an economic boon to any nation. Why doesn’t South Sudan want to become richer by accepting migrants from Congo?

A separate question: if migrants enrich the U.S. as a whole, why are migrants at Duke being funded by American students paying tuition at Duke? Shouldn’t full tuition for migrants be paid with federal tax dollars on the grounds that every migrant makes the U.S. better off?

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Cost of attending the NCAA Final Four games

by philg

Does anyone have a favorite in tonight’s NCAA basketball final?

A friend who works in finance went to the NCAA Final Four games on Saturday. It’s about three hours round-trip from NYC in a two-decade-old mid-sized business jet, which he chartered for about $40,000 plus $2,500 for Signature Indianapolis’s event fee (over $13,000 per flight hour, in other words). The black car service was $900 round-trip to the stadium, normally an 11-minute drive from Signature IND. “Rental cars were $1,000,” he said, “and due to terrorism concerns you supposedly can’t park anywhere near the stadium.” How much were the tickets? One of his companions is so elite that he got prime seats for free as a donor to one of the universities (it’s the same ticket/seat for two back-to-beack games).

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Shout-out to Igor Sikorsky after the F-15 pilot/WSO rescue in Iran

by philg

Let’s have a shout-out for Igor Sikorsky, the pioneer in mass-production of helicopters, in honor of the recent successful rescue of an F-15 crew (pilot + WSO/”Wizzo” (also a competent pilot)) in Iran. Sikorsky’s perspective:

If a man is in need of rescue, an airplane can come in and throw flowers on him, and that’s just about all. But a direct lift aircraft could come in and save his life.

[later] For me, the greatest source of comfort and satisfaction is the fact that our helicopters have saved up to the present time (1969) over fifty thousand lives and still continue with their rescue missions. I consider this to be the most glorious page in the history of aviation.

I guess we should also thank the Soviet revolutionaries who drove Sikorsky, already a successful aircraft designer and industrialist, out of Russia and into Connecticut in 1919.

Finally, of course, let’s celebrate the tough-to-imagine bravery of U.S. military helicopter crews. Just in time for Easter, they enabled a man to rise from being presumed dead.

Who wants to place bets on the forthcoming Netflix movie? The helicopter door gunners will be female, Black, trans, gay, or all four?

Separately, foreign haters seem to concentrating on the cost of the mission. Here’s a white flag waver (Frenchman) showing photos of aircraft costing less than one day of tax revenue from NVIDIA employees and investors and implying that the cost of the rescue was too high:

From the Islamic Republic of Great Britain: “The MC-130J aircraft used to rescue the second US airmen cost more than $100 million (£77 million) each”

No mention of the fact that a Minnesota day care could burn through $100 million of tax money without ever having even a single child come through the front door.

Our brothers, sisters, and binary-resisters across the Atlantic seem to have some difficulty understanding the productivity of the U.S. economy. Separately, since hardly any of NATO members will let us use their airspace or bases (Germany and the UK are exceptions?) what is the value of continuing to spend U.S. tax money on NATO? We don’t have a dog in the Europe-Russia tension. If when we’re actually at war our European bases become useless due to airspace closures by purported allies, e.g., France, Spain, and Italy, what value does the U.S. get out of NATO?

Related:

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Happy Easter from the Obesity Bunny

by philg

Costco wants to make sure that everyone has a very happy Easter indeed. Behold, a 10 lb. chocolate bunny at $140:

It’s from Maud Borup, a company in the Islamic Republic of Minnesota that claims to be both “Women Owned” and “Veteran Owned”.

What will Costco do if they have any of these left? Sell them for kids’ birthday parties? What is the practical occasion on which 10 lbs. of chocolate is useful?

(I searched to see who is supplying them with the actual chocolate and came up empty. They definitely don’t start with beans.)

Separately, some tasteful Easter decorations in the Canterbury Place neighborhood of Abacoa.

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Iran war listening from Audible

by philg

Audible last month was promoting “Islamic Heritage” even ahead of “Black Creators”:

What does Audible feature in this category? Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s extensive and popular writings? Gemini’s summary:

  • Marriage and Puberty: Khomeini maintained that the appropriate age for marriage was puberty, which his legal framework defined as nine lunar years for girls.
  • Sexual Contact Rulings: In his work Tahrir al-Wasilah (Volume 3, Page 229), Khomeini outlined that sexual intercourse with a wife is not allowed until she reaches the age of nine. However, the text states there is “no objection” to other forms of sexual enjoyment, such as “touching lasciviously, hugging and rubbing the thighs,” even with a suckling infant.
  • Legal Framework: Following the 1979 Islamic Revolution, these teachings became the basis for Iranian civil law, which permitted the marriage of girls as young as nine with the consent of their fathers or a court permit.
  • Reproductive Age: In the same text, Khomeini mentioned that intercourse is permissible once the girl reaches the age of nine, regardless of whether the marriage is permanent or temporary

How about the Hadiths?

Sahih al-Bukhari 5134 (Book 67, Hadith 70): Narrated by Aisha: “The Prophet (ﷺ) married her when she was six years old and he consummated his marriage when she was nine years old”.

Audible does have Sahih al-Bukhari, but it isn’t featured. Neither is the Qur’an. The choices concentrate on support for Hamas, pointing out that Muslim societies are the true repositories of feminism, and that Islamophobia is irrational (there were four domestic jihads in the first two weeks of March 2026, shortly before I captured these screens, including the Austin jihad of Ndiaga Diagne (3 infidels dead; 15 wounded) and the Old Dominion University jihad of Mohamed Bailor Jalloh (1 infidel dead; 2 wounded)):

My personal recommendation for Iran war reading: Pre-Mamdani Election Reading: King of Kings

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$1559 of lab work for $103

by philg

An average day in the U.S. health care system. Here’s a Quest Diagnostics bill for some blood tests:

The good news is that the patient paid only $103 for the tests ($83 via insurance; $20.67 via an efficient paper bill mailed in USPS) that are worth $1,559. The rain on this parade is that there is no world in which these tests are worth 15X what Quest gladly accepted as payment under United Healthcare’s negotiated rate. The only time that $1,559 would have kicked in is if Quest were pursuing a patient whose insurance fell through the cracks somehow.

I still can’t figure out how it is legal for Quest or any other health care provider to pursue an uninsured patient for 15X the fair price for its services (where “fair” = what 98% of customers pay).

Related:

  • San Francisco’s city-owned, Mark Zuckerberg-financed hospital ripping off patients with bills that are 6X the fair price: New York Post
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Schrödinger’s job market: “strong” and “slow” at the same time (NYT)

by philg

Home page of the New York Times today, the job market is “strong” (top story) and “slow” (just below):

We were informed that Donald Trump’s border closure would destroy the U.S. economy (see U.S. economy defies Science and Immigrants expand our economy, but millions of immigrants exiting the U.S. don’t shrink our economy) and that native-born Americans aren’t willing to work. Yet the number of workers in the U.S. keeps growing even as the number of migrants shrinks and also as the number of federal government jobs shrinks.

Details:

The labor market put in a strong showing in March, as wintry weather receded, strikes concluded and businesses started looking beyond the significant uncertainty of President Trump’s first year in office.

[We had certainty under the capable steady hands of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Now we have frightening uncertainty]

  • Health care dominance: Even factoring in the addition of 31,000 jobs from workers ending a strike in California, the sector continued to lead gains, adding 76,000 positions. Manufacturing, which has been trending down for three years, added 15,000 jobs and construction grew by 26,000.
  • Federal government still contracting: The federal government shed another 18,000 jobs in March and is down a total of 355,000 positions, or 11.8 percent, since reaching a peak in October 2024.

Separately, we’ve been told that Donald Trump’s “without any plan” war against Iran would destroy both the world economy and the U.S. economy. Do investors agree with the wise prophets at the New York Times and CNN? Compared to the no-war situation a year ago, U.S. stocks are up 22% in nominal terms (19% in real dollars if we use official BLS CPI):

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