Author: philg

Academic lectures on a modern subject: the Black Death

by philg

I’m listening right now to “The Black Death: The World’s Most Devastating Plague” by Dorsey Armstrong, a professor at Purdue. Unfortunately, due to coronavirus, this is a timely subject. Fascinating topic even without the connection to our latest events.

Oh yes, guess where the author says the first wave of plague that hit Europe in the 14th century started? The Hubei province of China, in 1331.

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  • “Immigration is the Reverse Black Death?” (Professor Armstrong concurs with other scholars that the reduction of population by 50 percent led to an enormous boost in income and standard of living for the survivors and their descendants; the U.S. is trying this in the other direction and expecting the same result!)
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Wall Street billionaire thinks Hillary Clinton was going to deliver precisely the correct amount of social justice

by philg

Lloyd Blankfein, who amassed a fortune of more than $1 billion while working at Goldman Sachs, was a supporter of Hillary Clinton, and therefore justice, back in 2016 (Business Insider). It made sense to Mr. Blankfein to have higher income tax rates, at least for individuals and corporations that did not push activities offshore (with help from Goldman?), to fund a larger welfare state.

If helping 50 percent of Americans with fatter government paychecks and welfare checks (Hillary) is good, then helping 80 percent (Bernie) has to be better, right?

Wrong! Apparently one can have too much social justice. “Bernie Sanders Would ‘Ruin Our Economy,’ Says Ex-Goldman Sachs Boss” (NYT, February 12):

Lloyd Blankfein warned on Twitter that Mr. Sanders was “just as polarizing” as President Trump.

Bernie Sanders has proposed a wealth tax on the richest Americans, blasted big businesses for turning huge profits while paying little in taxes and said he believed billionaires should not exist.

“If I’m Russian, I go with Sanders this time around,” he wrote, referencing that country’s efforts to support Mr. Trump in 2016.

(i.e., to discourage working class Americans from referring to The International Jew, a Wall Street billionaire Jew says that U.S. election outcomes are determined from a foreign capital; nobody would ever make the leap in reasoning from “The most important things in the U.S. are controlled by Putin and his buddies” to ” The most important things in the U.S. are controlled by international Jewish financiers”)

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NYT: all of the good Mexicans migrated to the U.S….

by philg

… leaving behind the bad Mexicans to run their own government in Mexico.

“Trump Got His Wish. Mexico Is Now the Wall.” (New York Times, February 7):

Dozens of Mexican National Guard troops equipped with helmets, batons and transparent shields coalesced on the highway connecting the Mexican cities of Ciudad Hidalgo and Tapachula to stop a caravan of migrants heading to the United States from Central America.

Mexico has effectively turned into an extension of Mr. Trump’s immigration police beyond American territory. And this is the case on multiple fronts: On the southern border with Guatemala, they prevent Central American migrants from coming into Mexico

That’s why I am surprised by the indifference shown by so many Mexicans over the abuses of the National Guard and the vicious attacks on social media aimed at Central Americans. Those xenophobic comments remind me of those I have been hearing for decades here in the United States

Ordinarily, the NYT likes to portray “brown people” as virtuous, especially if they’re living in U.S. taxpayer-funded public housing, soaking up the Medicaid dollars, and voting for the favored candidates of the coastal elite. But when the “brown people” vote and run their own government to suit themselves, the NYT is ready to scold. (But this cannot be whitesplaining?)

[Separately, let’s look at how much the two countries spend to control the border. Mexico spends roughly $6 billion per year on its entire military (Trading Economics), including jet airplanes, Navy ships, etc. The U.S. spends $21 billion per year, more than triple, to run Customs and Border Protection.]

If the NYT informs us that Mexicans in the U.S. are good while Mexicans collectively in Mexico are bad, isn’t the only logical explanation that most or all of the righteous Mexicans migrated to the U.S. prior to the Dark Age of Trump (TM)?

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Given that Donald Trump is our President, what products should be on sale for Presidents’ Day?

by philg

Happy Washington’s Birthday to everyone who wants to celebrate slaveholding, locating the capital city on the same river where you have a plantation and where you’ve invested in a canal, profiting from land stolen from the Native Americans, etc. For the rest of us, Wikipedia says

Colloquially, the day is also now widely known as Presidents’ Day and is often an occasion to honor the incumbent president and all who have served as president, not just George Washington.

What should merchants put on sale today in order to honor Mr. Trump?

My friends on Facebook refer to him as “Cheeto” so perhaps Cheetos should be on sale? (always a happy day for me!) On the other hand, The Donald is not on record as being partial to this ultimate snack food. Diet Coke, on the other hand, is high on the list.

The Boeing 757 and Citation X aircraft that Trump owns are no longer in production so they can’t be put on sale in a special Trump Edition. Sikorsky may not want to feature the S-76 so soon after the Kobe Bryant tragedy.

What non-food product would be Trump-related and fun for a Presidents’ Day sale?

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Middle class Californians pay for all Tesla owners’ electricity

by philg

“Top Seventeen Surprises From The First Year Of Driving A Tesla EV” (Forbes):

I was amazed when my electricity bill went down after I got the car, rather than up. This is because in California, EV owners get access to a special electricity pricing plan that is much cheaper at night and more expensive in the afternoons. Charging the car at night is of course a win, but I also moved things like pumping the pool to the night, and so the overall bill dropped. And of course my gasoline bill went to zero for this car.

In other words, Californians who struggle to pay rising rents and afford a 10-year-old Ford Focus pay the rich guy’s electric bill, at least for his Tesla and also for part of the pool pump. What better way to fight inequality?

(In Massachusetts, no similar deal is available and thus it costs about the same to buy “fuel” for Tesla, per mile, as it does to fuel an efficient gasoline-powered car of the same size.)

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Michael Avenatti, as my friends saw him

by philg

Some posts from my Facebook friends, many of whom have coastal elite jobs (e.g., university professor), regarding Michael Avenatti:

And, in case you missed it, Avenatti has released a sworn declaration from an eyewitness who knows both Dr. Blasey Ford, Julie Swetnick and Brett Kavanaugh, ready to testify to the sordid behavior Kavanaugh engaged in.

It’s good that the GOP left time this week for the can of worms to crack open. Kavanaugh’s freshman year roommate at Yale believes her (Debbie Ramirez). Meanwhile, Kavanaugh has taken to campaigning on Fox News (as one does?). Avenatti has a fourth victim. Dr. Ford is not alone: her courage allowed others to come forward. And since probabilities multiply, the chances of all of them being actors in a Democratic plot to torpedo this nominee are roughly zero.

Are Trump and his cronies sleazy thugs? Yep. Would Avenatti, a canny lawyer, make a baseless allegation? Not a chance.

I’m watching history being made … Not only did we all—most of us—hear the audio of a sobbing child who had been separated from her parents and relatives. Tonight, according to the tough-talking attorney, Michael Avenatti, I heard that some of those kids and parents were told that the kid was just going to be taken for a bath. The parent told her child it would be all right. Then the child didn’t see her parent again. Let’s hope that’s fake news. Resist!

Avenatti was not idly boasting when he said Trump would not serve out his term.

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Brilliant way to upsell airline passengers: renumber the seats

by philg

I recently bought a ticket on Virgin Atlantic from BOS to LHR, July 6-15 (meet friends at the Glyndebourne opera and then maybe out to Oslo). The available coach seats are all way in the back of the plane, starting at row 40 and going up into the 60s. Who wants to wait for 40+ rows of people to deplane into the massive queues at Heathrow before getting off? Maybe it is time to pay up for Premium Economy or Business.

But wait… can they really cram that many seats into an Airbus A330? Even an Airbus A380 in high-capacity configuration (suitable for chartering to deliver a daily supply of 840 new migrants to cities and countries where the virtuous claim to want to welcome everyone!) can’t have 65 rows of seats, can it? The seatguru map shows that rows 12-15 don’t exist in Virgin’s A330. And rows 26-39 don’t exist. The “back of the bus” seat numbers actually start in the middle of the wing. The 50s are the new 30s!

Would you pay a 50 percent premium to move from row 22 to row 21? How about from row 40 to row 25? That has to be a better deal, right?

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Why are people calling Michael Bloomberg a “racist”?

by philg

“The Notorious Michael R. Bloomberg: His racist stop-and-frisk policy as New York mayor can’t be forgotten.” (NYT):

“Ninety-five percent of your murders — murderers and murder victims — fit one M.O.,” Bloomberg said. “You can just take the description, Xerox it and pass it out to all the cops. They are male, minorities, 16 to 25. That’s true in New York. That’s true in virtually every city.”

That could be considered a sexist (“male”) or ageist (“16-25”) statement just as easily as “racist” (“minorities”; but actually a “minority” race in NYC was white at the time).

CommonDreams:

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said Thursday that Democratic presidential candidate and businessman Michael Bloomberg is “just a billionaire trying to cover up authoritarian and racist policy” if he does not commit to providing relief to those ensnared by the racist stop and frisk policy he supported as mayor of New York City.

Why isn’t Mr. Bloomberg’s (“Mini Mike’s”?) identification of a gender ID and age category objectionable to anyone?

[Loosely related: My own definition of “racist”: someone who disagrees with me.]

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Cruise ships in the time of plague

by philg

Even if coronavirus isn’t a serious statistical risk from being on a cruise ship, I wonder if the public health response will trim the sails (so to speak) of the hitherto unstoppable industry.

Consider the passengers on the Diamond Princess in Japan. Best case for the healthy ones is to be stuck at the dock for 14 days, mostly in their tiny cabins. From NPR:

On the ship, passengers — including some who had already spent two weeks aboard the vessel before the quarantine doubled their stay — are told not to leave their rooms. They visit the deck in shifts, for a rare breath of fresh air.

But there could be days of quarantine after a scare, right? So if you book a cruise from Date X to Date Y you won’t have any guarantee of getting back to work, family, and other commitments.

Does this prove the old adage that being on a boat is like being in prison, except that you can’t drown in prison?

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