Author: philg

What was so bad about Joe Biden’s debate performance?

by philg

After four years of celebrating Joe Biden as one of America’s smartest and sharpest residents, the New York Times watched one TV show and decided that the former Savior of our Democracy was too feeble-minded to run for reelection (but it is okay for him to be Commander in Chief of the world’s largest military for another six months?).

I was mostly peacefully sleeping in Portugal when the debate happened, but the kids asked to see some of it so we cued up a highlights reel for them this evening. Now I’m even more confused. Biden behaved exactly like the Democrats I know in Massachusetts, New York, and California. Given the slightest prompt, he expressed rage about Donald Trump supposedly having sex with a paid female 20 years ago, “lying”, or saying something outrageous. I’ve heard plenty of 20-to-65-year-old Democrats respond in exactly the same manner.

I’ve also poked around in a transcript of the debate and can’t find anything in the wider event that seems unusual. If anyone questions the wisdom of open borders in a cradle-to-grave welfare state at a gathering in Cambridge, MA, the Harvard graduates come back with a prepared script of anti-Trump talking points: sex with porn star, praised Nazis as “fine people”, is a convicted felon, is a racist, will end our democracy, etc. The talking points have no relevance to the policy question, e.g., whether the border should be open or whether the working class should be forced to pay back student loans for college graduates. Joe Biden stumbles over his words more than a 25-year-old Harvard graduate would, but he conveys the same scripted anti-Trump message.

I was, actually, more surprised by what I saw of Donald Trump in the video. I hadn’t seen a video of him since 2020, I think, and it was remarkable how little he’s changed. God loves Trump and is preserving him for some reason known only to Him/Her/Zir/Them?

One thing that I was pleased to see in the transcript was Biden repeating his prophecy of doom for the human race:

He had not done a damn thing with the environment. He – out of the Paris Peace Accord – Climate Accord, I immediately joined it, because if we reach for 1.5 degrees Celsius at any one point, well, there is no way back. The only existential threat to humanity is climate change. And he didn’t do a damn thing about it. He wants to undo all that I’ve done.

Humanity is on track to be wiped out, in other words, but there is no need for Democrats to rush into congestion pricing, no need to cut back on importing humans from low-carbon economies into our high-carbon economy, no reason to redirect almost all federal spending into solar cells and windmills, and no reason to lock Americans down to prevent CO2 emissions from unnecessary trips. (We had lockdowns to fight a virus with the potential to kill a small percentage of old/sick people, but we shouldn’t do anything significant about a situation in which 100 percent of humans might die, including the young and healthy.)

Separately, what if Donald Trump should win and our democracy actually does, therefore, end? Our local Palm Beach County library is preparing both Black and white patrons for the (horrifying) possibility:

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Alex Kowalski memorial at the National Corvette Museum

by philg

Today it has been one year since we lost Alex.

Here are the memorial tiles that a few of us got together on, installed at the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, Kentucky:

He loved engineering and cars, so it seemed fitting that he be remembered at this temple of American engineering excellence.

The photos above are from the museum staff. I am hoping to stop in Bowling Green at some point in the next year or two to see the tiles for myself.

Related:

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What will the Labour Party do in the UK?

by philg

The British voted for Brexit and Conservative rule so that they wouldn’t be replaced by low-skill migrants. Rather than say “Sorry, asylum is no longer available in the UK,” the government that they elected presided over record-high immigration, but no longer of skilled carpenters from Poland and math wizards from Hungary (Wikipedia says “Net migration into the UK during 2022 is reported to have reached a record high of 764,000”).

So perhaps it isn’t surprising that the handful of non-immigrant voters left in the UK booted the Conservatives out. (Note that Labour won 34 percent of the vote, which means they’re far less popular among Brits than Hamas is among Palestinians. (BBC: “The latest survey in June said that almost two-thirds of Gazan respondents were satisfied with Hamas – a rise of 12 points from December – and suggested that just around half would still prefer Hamas to run Gaza after the war ends, over any other option.”))

But what will the Labour Party do? Could Labour conceivably further expand low-skill immigration? Britain is already an Islamic country if we measure by the number of hours devoted to religious activity. How about taxes? Britain offers low taxation for those who start and run companies (see Move to the UK if you’re an entrepreneur? (10 percent capital gains tax)). Will Labour raise those rates? The UK is kind of a basket case economically (maybe a year of coronapanic lockdowns and restrictions wasn’t such a great public health idea, given that wealth and longevity are correlated?). Can an underperforming economy like the UK’s be squeezed to send more tax revenue to Labour’s wise central planners in London?

In the UNESCO World Heritage town of Guimarães, Portugal we found that popular enthusiasm for seizing the means of production was still alive in Europe:

But how could the means of production be seized in the UK when the country hardly produces anything anymore?

The Labour Party’s platform says what they want, but not how they’ll do it:

In their “first steps” document, they actually sound rather, um, conservative in many respects:

They’re going to secure the border and get tough on criminals while keeping taxes low! What did the “Conservative” party actually do, then?

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Crossing an arch dam in Portugal

by philg

Below are some photos of Vilarinho das Furnas Dam, a 310′-high concrete arch dam on the Rio Homen in northern Portugal. People are trusted to walk across the dam, drive across the dam, etc. 24/7. We didn’t notice any gates, security personnel, etc. after walking down from Campo do Gerês.

Is there anything similar in the low-trust society that the U.S. has become? The Hoover Dam is heavily secured. This web page about some dams in Washington State details quite a few restrictions on some obscure dams:

Vehicles that can’t be easily searched aren’t allowed across. Nobody can go across after 5 pm. In a society that reveres the noble undocumented, without whom we would be impoverished, documents are demanded.

Photos of the Portuguese dam:

The reservoir that is impounded:

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Would Donald Trump, or any other president, do a better job if ruling from a New York State prison?

by philg

Loyal readers will be familiar with my love for Calvin Coolidge (great biography by former WSJ reporter Amity Shlaes, incidentally), born on this day in 1872 and our President from 1923-1929. Coolidge did not stray too far from what the U.S. Constitution says that Presidents should do, i.e., appoint people in the executive and judicial branches, sign legislation, and veto legislation. Modern-day presidents exhibit precisely the opposite of Silent Cal’s behavior. They’re flying around, giving speeches, comforting those who’ve suffered from a natural disaster or a crime, offering opinions on matters that the U.S. Constitution would seem to reserve to state legislatures and governors, etc.

Let’s suppose that the Democrat dream of imprisoning Donald Trump comes true. And let’s further suppose that the Democrat nightmare of Donald Trump winning the November 2024 election comes true. (I never believe that a Republican will win because my theory is that the majority of Americans want a planned economy and an ever-more-comprehensive welfare state.) How well could a U.S. president govern from the confines of a New York State prison cell? Personal theory: way better than if he/she/ze/they were trying to government from the White House. The imprisoned president would have much more time to read legislation and decide whether to sign or veto than a president constantly shuttling around the country (and world) on Air Force One. Depending on the restrictions imposed by New York Democrats, an imprisoned Trump might end up working in much the same manner as Silent Cal!

From MSNBC:

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Do Mercedes aluminum wheels have visible lug nuts or bolts?

by philg

Question for Europeans and Mercedes nerds: Can a new Mercedes have aluminum wheels without visible lug bolts (I’ve been told that Mercedes uses bolts rather than the conventional nuts)?

Sixt rented me a 2024 E 300de at the Lisbon airport with the exterior covered in dirt/grime. This was at the end of a 1.5-hour rental process (line at the office in the terminal then a second line at the office in the parking garage). They cleaned the windows so that it was safe to drive, but didn’t clean up the wheels or body. Maybe because it was so dirty, they didn’t notice a scratch on one of the wheel covers that Sixt Porto complained about on return (the car was clean due to having been driven through rain so any scratches were 10X more prominent). Sixt later emailed saying they were going to charge me for an “aluminum rim” (they never sent me a photo of the purported damage). I happened to take a photo of the car and the detail below shows a wheel with no visible lug bolts/nuts and what I think is shiny black plastic. Does a 2024 Mercedes have some kind of magic system for attaching aluminum wheels where lug bolts/nuts aren’t visible? (The car actually failed after two days of our rental and was replaced with a similar-looking one that definitely had plastic wheel covers. During the final return in Porto, I found some Mercedes cars in the Sixt parking lot that had aluminum wheels and the expected visible lug bolts.)

Detail from Car #1:

The original photo from which the above was taken:

A random Mercedes in the Sixt Porto lot with conventional aluminum wheels and standard visible lug nuts:

Is there some magic alternative Mercedes system for wheel attachment in which the first photo above can be of an aluminum rim and not a plastic wheel cover?

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Ideas for billionaire memorials

by philg

As noted in Where are the gardens and museums created by the Silicon Valley rich? we seem to be undersupplied with public physical infrastructure relative to the number of super rich Americans. Jeff Bezos was happy to spend about 400 million dollars recently on a sea-level house in Florida (bought three houses recently for a total of $234 million, but there will surely be some renovations), but there is no “Bezos Museum of Contemporary Art” nor a “Bezos Contemplation of Two-Day Delivery Garden”.

Maybe some of our multi-billionaire brothers, sisters, and binary-resisters will be more interested in a lasting physical legacy after their deaths. If so, here’s some inspiration from Lisbon…

The Marquis of Pombal was an important administrator tasked with cleaning up after the 1755 Lisbon earthquake (make sure to stop in the quake museum early in any touristic visit to Lisbon!). He was the Herbert Hoover of 1755, in other words (Hoover ably directed the clean-up after the Climate Change-caused Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, giving Americans for the first time the idea that a bigger government could be more powerful than Nature). Here’s how the Portuguese remember their hero:

(photographed from a 7th floor terrace in the Bankinter building.)

You might reasonably ask how a private citizen can get a town or city to devote a public square to his/her/zir/their memory. Answer: money! Chicago, for example, has $52 billion in unfunded public employee pension obligations (source). America’s richest could plug that hole and enable politicians to keep promising more lavish compensation for government workers. In exchange, a prime downtown location for a monument like the above. (They’d better set this up before the last billionaire departs for Florida!)

Let’s take a closer look at the Lisbon monument:

What would the monument depict for an American multi-billionaire? Why not the acts that led to the riches? For a Warren Buffett monument there could a scene where he closes the door on an IRS official hoping to collect some taxes (combination of business acquisition deferrals and insurance reserve). For Larry Ellison there could be a scene where the cover page of the IBM System R SQL manual is ripped off and replaced with an Oracle cover page. For Judith Faulkner it could be a doctor entranced and baffled by a computer screen while a patient languishes and dies. For those whose billions are derived from family court litigation, e.g., MacKenzie Scott (Bezos) or Melinda Gates, there could be a tally of every time that the billionaire engaged in a sex act with the defendant prior to initiating the divorce lawsuit, e.g.,

For private equity heroes, the monument would depict half of the workers being given pink slips while the other half are loaded down with 80 lbs. of debt per worker. Where I’m stuck is in figuring out what to put on the memorial for a Wall Street billionaire. What are the heroic acts that can be depicted for someone whose billions come from high-risk trades that proved lucky or smart daily trades?

New York State will need to collect about $16 billion per year in fees from billionaires in order to plug its structural budget deficit (source regarding the gap between what politicians promise and what they hope to collect). There are plenty of spots in Central Park in which a deceased billionaire could be glorified. California has more like a $50 billion gap between what politicians want to spend and what can be extracted from the peasants (source). How about a series of memorial parks along Sand Hill Road and another one down near LACMA?

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Why isn’t everyone celebrating Marine Le Pen’s victory in France?

by philg

The United Nations assures us that “We need more women leaders to sustain peace and development”:

The evidence is clear: wherever women take part in a peace process, peace lasts longer. In fact, a peace agreement, which includes women, is 35 per cent more likely to last at least 15 years. And without the solid foundation of peace, development is doomed to be unstable and unsustainable.

A recent Secretary-General’s report to the Security Council called women leadership and participation in peacebuilding a “prerequisite for the fulfillment of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.” In other words, without women’s participation, we will not achieve lasting peace; and without the stability of peace, we will not achieve sustainable development.

Put forward by the Resolution 1325, the idea that women should be given greater access to leadership roles in peace and security is closely aligned with the aim of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5, on gender equality and women empowerment.

The Science confirms this theory across all domains. “Women leaders make work better. Here’s the science behind how to promote them” (American Psychological Association):

When more women are empowered to lead, everyone benefits. Decades of studies show women leaders help increase productivity, enhance collaboration, inspire organizational dedication, and improve fairness.

Why would any company or country ever select a non-woman as a leader? McKinsey says that diversity leads to huge profits (NVIDIA’s GPU development lab is a rich tapestry of Black and Latinx engineers in a wide array of gender IDs?). Note that, predictably, two white males say that McKinsey’s work in this area is just as beneficial to society as McKinsey’s work with Enron and the opioid pill vendors. “McKinsey’s Diversity Matters/Delivers/Wins Results Revisited”:

Combined with the erroneous reverse-causality nature of McKinsey’s tests, our inability to quasi-replicate their results suggests that despite the imprimatur given to McKinsey’s studies, they should not be relied on to support the view that US publicly traded firms can expect to deliver improved financial performance if they increase the racial/ethnic diversity of their executives.

More from the United Nations, this time a complaint that only 26 of the world’s countries have implemented McKinsey’s recommendations and selected female heads of state:

Given all of the above, shouldn’t we expect celebratory and congratulatory tweets from the United Nations, UN Women, McKinsey, et al. following Marine Le Pen’s recent electoral victory in France, the world’s 7th largest country by GDP (while working 32 hours/week and taking 8 weeks of vacation per year!)? Instead, the Guardian describes female leadership in France as “unthinkable”. The Washington Post says “Marine Le Pen is now part of France’s mainstream. That should scare us all.”

Separately, no discussion of France is complete without this poster:

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A pleasant mansion and garden in Sintra: Biester

by philg

Elon Musk frets about our planet being underpopulated, a point of view likely to be confusing to anyone who has visited Sintra, Portugal. A garden built for quiet reflection, such as Quinta da Regaleira, will be packed with more than 1,000 tourists at a time in the shoulder seasons. It looks good from some angles, e.g.,

but to get into the most famous part, the “Initiation Well” (an underground tower), it was a 1.5-hour wait on June 12, 2024, less than two hours after the attraction opened:

How typical is this degree of crowding? Google said that we visited on an unusually quiet day:

Unless the city starts charging a $200 per person daily decongestion fee, there is no way to recreate the experience for which these palaces and gardens were built. You’ll be sitting in traffic and/or walking long distances up and down hills and waiting in line to get into even the smallest garden feature.

We found an exception to the above rules.. Biester Palace, the mansion that tourists haven’t learned about yet. Built with a banking fortune at the end of the 19th century, the palace appears to be in shabby condition in The Ninth Gate, a 1999 Roman Polanski (pregnant wife killed by Manson family) film starring Johnny Depp (future cash cow for Amber Heard until she made the mistake of partnering with the ACLU). There’s an entrance right next to Quinta da Regaleira and if you do decide to brave the Pena Palace you can exit via the top entrance to catch the bus there.

Here’s the view from the top of the park (mansion on the right side of the frame):

The interior hasn’t been redecorated to its former glory, but the rooms aren’t bare:

There are some great views of the Moorish castle above Sintra (Muslims controlled and colonized Sintra from about 722 AD until 1147):

Stop at the tea house for a friendly service, almost-free prices (about 1 euro for a coffee; 3.5 euros for a massive fresh-squeezed orange juice), and delicious pastry.

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A Constitutional amendment to impose an age limit of 67 on the President?

by philg

An immigrant physician friend, simply based on videos that she watched in 2020, diagnosed Joe Biden with dementia four years ago and referred to him as “the senile puppet” long before the New York Times editorial board noticed that anything was wrong. Democrats now believe that Joe Biden’s cognitive abilities are insufficient to handle the job of U.S. President. Democrats also hate Donald Trump and there are at least some Republicans who prefer Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley to Mr. Trump.

I wonder if these groups could get together and do a quickie amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would impose a mandatory retirement age of 67 (the current Social Security full retirement age for those born after 1960) on the job. We need three-fourths of the states to ratify such an amendment and then both the Republicans and Democrats would have to nominate younger politicians for the November election.

We’ve already got a minimum of 35:

Why not a maximum?

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