Category: American Life

Fiber-to-the-home arrives in Cambridge, Massachusetts

by philg

Cambridge, Maskachusetts turned down a fiber-to-the-home deal with Verizon FiOS roughly twenty years ago. Rumor had it that Comcast was funding some pet projects for politicians and, therefore, Verizon couldn’t get authorized to compete with Comcast (not yet “Xfinity”).

As part of the process of unloading my old condo in Harvard Square, I tried to figure out if fiber-to-the-home had become available without me noticing. The answer is “sort of”. More than 90 percent of the city is remains a Comcast-only (Xfinity) territory. But the city has provisioned symmetric gigabit fiber to city-owned public housing apartments. Those entitled to public housing pay $35/month for Internet that those who pay property tax could only dream of having. (It might actually be free for those who refrain from working; there is a Digital Equity Plan to relieve people of this $35/month and multiple full-time “digital navigators” get paid to help those who don’t work maximize their enjoyment of free or near-free Internet.) Jesus pointed out, “The last will be first, and the first last” (Matthew 20:16). This translates to “gives [public housing] residents access to the highest internet speeds available in Cambridge at the lowest cost.”

The person who pays $100/month in rent (including utilities) gets faster and more reliable Internet than the person who lives in a $10 million house on Brattle Street and pays property tax. The taxpaying chumps will get hit for $100/month by Comcast for comparatively terrible service.

What does a person who hasn’t worked for four generations do with Gigabit fiber? Streams multiple movies and sports games in 4K:

What do Cambridge officials work on besides keeping their tax cattle in an Xfnity ghetto? Mayor Sumbul Siddiqui was born in Pakistan and might have enjoyed fiber-based Internet there if her family hadn’t chosen to enrich us here: “Fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) internet is growing rapidly in Pakistan, with over 2.6 million subscribers as of February 2026.” (Google AI). City Hall was hosting a “Sexual Assault Awareness Month” event instead of a “Escape the coax ghetto” event:

Here are some of the shirt-based messages:

The one with the Star of David was almost next to a sign showing that future Cambridge residents will be, like the current mayor, primarily Islamic:

(Note the nod to the native-born Blacks in the background. Their lives matter and also they have already been replaced by migrants (see Replacement of Black workers by migrants in Cambridge, Massachusetts from MLK, Jr. Day 2026).)

Why would the mayor highlight sexual assault instead of the monthly assault of residents paying high prices for inferior Internet? Wikipedia says that her family never got out of taxpayer-funded housing (Rindge Towers and Roosevelt Towers; sometimes enrichment by migrants means native-born taxpayers have to pay for the migrants’ apartments for 20, 40, 60, or a few hundred years (multi-generational)). So, from her family’s perspective, Xfinity’s monopoly and decades-old infrastructure is irrelevant.

(Note that folks in Maskachusetts don’t seem to be serious about discouraging what we now regard as sexual misconduct. Age of consent is 16, which means that everything Jeffrey Epstein is established to have done would have been legal in Boston. (He admitted to some sort of sex act with a 16-year-old.) It would be almost impossible to prosecute an Epstein imitator in MA because he could raise the “she consented” defense.)

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Ozempic/GLP-1 drugs are yet another way for Boomers to steal from those of working age

by philg

Just as GLP-1 drugs hit the mainstream, the last of us Baby Boomers hits the minimum Social Security retirement age (1964+62=2026).

Working-age slaves pay taxes to fund Boomers’ Medicare. These costs will increase because GLP-1 drugs are expensive. Working-age slaves pay taxes to fund Boomers’ Social Security (our beloved Ponzi scheme). Boomers will now live 10 years longer because they’ll all be back to their design weight via GLP-1. A Boomer who lives longer will drain Social Security, thus forcing those of working age to pay higher tax rates and/or receive lower benefits themselves (maybe those of current working age will become eligible for Social Security at age 85?). A Boomer who lives longer in a state such as California will hog prime real estate due to Proposition 13 that caps property tax increases on long-held real estate (we have the same thing in Florida, but it is limited to a primary residence). Boomers who are mostly blind will inflict massive traffic jams on those of working age by going for jaunts in their self-driving cars, thus stealing time from the working age Americans who support the comfortably retired.

Here’s the latest expensive drug (Retatrutide) that the working age slaves will have to buy for us Boomers:

Google AI: “Experts estimate the monthly cost could range between $1,000 and $1,500+ once available. … Phase 3 trials are expected to conclude in Q3 2026, with potential commercial release following afterward.”

Novo Nordisk apparently learned from history:

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How about a school/camp that runs in Florida half the year and New Hampshire the other half?

by philg

It’s beginning to get hot here in South Florida. Rich people without kids generally stay in Florida for 4-6 months per year, 183 days/year if they’re anxious to preserve Florida as their primary residence/tax domicile. If that’s how people with infinite money live we can presume that it is a good way to live, I think (perhaps the Jeffrey Epstein and friends situation is a counterargument to that principle).

Carl G. Fisher created Miami Beach and, for his second act, wanted to build out Montauk on Long Island as the summer home for all of his customers.

What if we adapt Fisher’s idea for families with K-12-age kids? We set up a school that operates mid-October through mid-April (183 days/year or a little more) in Florida and then shuts down for a week while everyone moves up to New Hampshire. The kids can finish their school year up there and then the enterprise segues into summer camp mode, with activities all day every day for the same kids. The family can enjoy the best weather/seasons in the two states. The family won’t have to pay any state income tax (constitutionally barred in Florida so that should remain the state for 183+ days; NH could have an income tax, but presently does not), even if work is done in both places. The kids and adults will have built-in social circles in both places. If a great teacher doesn’t want to move, he or she can stay in Florida year-round and do the beginning and end of the school year virtually while the in-classroom students are organized by someone who is primarily a camp counselor.

The New Hampshire operation would run like a “family camp” in which everyone could meet for meals 3X/day if desired. Florida already has tons of restaurants and recreational facilities, so it would be more of a standard family life during the winter.

The main objection that I can see to this idea is the difficulty of scaling immediately to a sufficient size. A school with fewer than 200 students would presumably be overwhelmed with regulatory compliance costs and classes of fewer than 18 students would likely seem lame. Rich people are drawn to elite schools and it would be tough for an upstart traveling school to compete with The Greene School in West Palm Beach (founded by a billionaire; gifted students only) for quality, actual and perceived.

Also, there’s the question of where in New Hampshire to locate. Portsmouth has a fantastic airport, a beautiful river and ocean access, but it is expensive. Lake Winnipesaukee has a good airport (KLCI) and is in a traditional area for summer camps, but it is more isolated. The border towns with Maskachusetts could work because they provide quick access to Logan Airport for summer vacation trips, etc.

Obviously this wouldn’t work for most of the parents of the 3.4 million-ish school-age children who live in Florida, but why couldn’t it work for the parents of about 200 children?

From Helicopter images of the New Hampshire coast in foliage season:

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Wall Street Journal: Americans can’t afford to live in America because house maintenance costs too much

by philg

Happy National Home Improvement Month for readers who, like me, have been dumb enough to buy rather than rent. Also, Happy National DIY Day.

Previously, on this blog:

This month in the Wall Street Journal, “The Typical U.S. Home Is 44 Years Old—And Needs Tons of Work”:

More recent new construction hasn’t replaced America’s graying housing stock, meaning the age of the median home is a record 44 years, according to the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies.

The cost of home maintenance, even after accounting for broader inflation, has jumped. Structural repair costs grew by about 14.1% in real terms between 2022 and 2024, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. Plumbing jumped by 23.6%. The increase reflects the rising cost of individual parts and labor, and the larger size of necessary repairs.

This is on top of the rising costs of home insurance, property taxes and homeowners association dues, which are making it prohibitive for many to simply own a home, not to mention buy one.

The newspaper says “it [is] prohibitive for many to simply own a home, not to mention buy one” and at the same time tells us that the U.S. should have increased immigration, i.e., more demand for a relatively fixed supply of houses.

Our shabby/old house by Palm Beach County standards is 23 years old and that puts us in the top 25 percent of home youth:

Getting close to my 4% number:

Financial advisers traditionally suggested setting aside 1% of a home’s value annually for upkeep, but many now argue that isn’t enough. While 1% may cover routine upkeep, 2% to 3% provides a more realistic cushion for expected maintenance, home-improvement projects and unexpected repairs, particularly for older homes, said Angie Hicks, co-founder of home-services company Angi.

The Americans who were most eager to lock themselves into their homes during coronapanic will now bear a heavy burden:

Forty-nine percent of all improvement spending is now for necessary replacements like HVAC that owners can’t delay, said Rachel Drew, director of Harvard’s Remodeling Futures Program. The financial burden is particularly heavy in regions like the Northeast, where homes tend to be older.

Speaking of old, the article highlights the inability of folks in the Northeast to adapt to changed circumstances:

Mindy and Joseph Mevorah own an 88-year-old colonial [“more than 3,500-square-foot”] in Sands Point, a New York City suburb with plenty of old homes that is often considered an inspiration for “The Great Gatsby.” The house is due for a new coat of paint, a task they know to approach with caution. … “A new brick next to an old brick would look terrible,” said Joseph, 66. … The Mevorahs have stayed in their home for 29 years … They have a pool that could be a draw for future grandchildren. … When replacing their copper gutters a few years ago, they considered switching to aluminum, which would have been cheaper, but ultimately stuck with copper to preserve the home’s integrity. After all, they expect to be there for many years to come.

A 66-year-old in Florida whose kids were grown wouldn’t stay in a 3,500-square-foot wreck of a house. The Floridian would recognize that different kinds of real estate are suitable for different phases of life and likely move to a condo or small new house.

Circling back to the immigration theme… how can end-of-career financially comfortable Americans who struggle to afford house maintenance imagine that the U.S. can afford to house tens of millions of additional welfare-dependent low-skill immigrants?

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An actual skier goes to Aspen to ski

by philg

Lifestyles of the Rich and Not-so-famous… a 50-year-old friend who is a good skier reported to our chat group from Aspen. What does it cost to spend a week with the elite? For two parents and two adult children in a rented 2BR timeshare, the basic cost (airfare plus lodging) for mid-March was about $15,000 thanks to his wife, a business genius. If a mere mortal were to arrange this it would be $30,000. “St Regis nearby is $2400 a night, which is not the peak rate.” Note that this trip was booked before the ski season started, so the prices don’t reflect that fact that Colorado had no snow this year.

  • To save time, the family’s tickets were straight into the Aspen airport.
  • Tailwinds too strong for a landing in Aspen, so they are diverting to Grand Junction – that is a 2-3 hour drive
  • 20kt gusting 30
  • These small mountainous airports are bad news
  • And that is why I prefer SLC to all of them
  • But [wife] was hell bent on “trying out Aspen”
  • I have to say the turbulence right now is like on the Katana [Diamond DA20, a paper airplane, basically, in its response to wind]
  • Given the 3:30am wake up call, this trip is going to be a hoot now
  • They will need multiple buses to send this plane full of skiers with their gear
  • My friend used to vacation in Aspen all the time and I remember that he got stuck here because of the weather at least twice. Planes depart SLC pretty much in any weather. One time he was in Aspen with his kids for four days waiting for a flight. Couldn’t get a car rental because everything was rented, car services were all booked.
  • Just arrived in our hotel. 4 hours after landing
  • A guy told [wife] that we were lucky we got to grand junction; People were arriving in Ubers without their bags from Denver

(I personally would have booked a flight into Denver (“mile-high”), spent a night or two adjusting to higher altitude, and then proceeded 3.5 hours by car up to Aspen, 8,000′ above sea level.)

What’s the experience?

  • Aspen is about stopping to ski early because your salesman at David Yurman called you because your diamonds were ready for pick up
  • they definitely do have snow on slopes, just not as much as usual. Better than a good day on the East Coast
  • Ikon passes were $5k for 4 people [lift tickets]
  • [wife] is raving about the Franke coffee machine [in the condo]
  • Skiing is ok. Not as bad as we thought it would be. Icy at the bottom. Not crowded.
  • It is kind of a small mountain. Snowmass and Buttermilk are nearby but require a shuttle
  • I think I know who likes it: it is guys whose wives don’t ski
  • So they are bored in all other locations. Here they can go shopping or sit in restaurants. If you have a wife who doesn’t ski and bitches at you, then she will drive you nuts in Utah.
  • Women are visibly prettier.
  • too few slopes. They arent bad but Snowbird is a lot better
  • [daughter] just ran for 40 minutes at her usual pace here and said that it was noticeably harder because of the altitude

How about the elites?

  • Very few non whites. [quoting wife] “I just saw my first Asian just now. She was with a white dude, so the type that wants to be white”. Racism and stereotyping are rampant here
  • You have people dressed in furs on the top of the mountain – they actually dress up and go up there with their shopping bags
  • [wife] grabbed our skis from the valet and some woman in the elevator looked at her and said “why are you moving your own stuff…?” Implying that bell staff is supposed to bring it all to our room. We are clearly not used to the luxury lifestyle. These time shares are all run like hotels.
  • You should see some of the houses being built on the hills here. Like the Hamptons
  • Speaking of well-to-do people… Aspen sucks overall. all these dressed up people get old pretty quickly. restaurants are very nice but that’s the only advantage. after i ski all day, i really want to just be in bed or order in. we ordered in twice already.

Getting back home:

  • Aspen airport doesn’t disappoint on departure. We have been sitting on the ground for an hour because of “quite a few arrivals”
  • Embraer is being thrown around by rising air like a Diamond Katana
  • Honestly, I think Aspen is beyond overrated

Final answer?

[wife] might disagree but I think Aspen sucks. Definitely not for you guys. Since you don’t dress up in furs and blow $1k for dinner “to see and be seen”. I was moderately connected to these people and still am to some extent as you saw from my friend’s photos for example, but I don’t go to their parties, which are boring as f*ck. Regarding skiing Aspen is overall inferior to Utah and Vail. Not because all runs suck – there are a few good ones, but overall it is way too small. It is for a green/blue run crowd and has some harder ones so that experienced people can feel that the vacation didn’t totally suck. It is mostly about the town. This is literally it. I think one can cover this entire map in one day of skiing.

What if you wanted to live with dignity in Aspen? “A Robert A.M. Stern-Designed Home on Aspen’s Red Mountain Asks $70 Million” (WSJ):

Frederic “Rick” Bourke, the co-founder of the Dooney & Bourke accessories brand, is putting his Robert A.M. Stern-designed home in Aspen, Colo., on the market for $70 million.

Completed around 1993, the roughly 11,000-square-foot, seven-bedroom house is built horizontally along a rock face on Red Mountain, with tawny-beige stucco walls set atop a native sandstone base.

Bourke acquired the roughly 3.5-acre Aspen property in the late 1980s. The lot sits high on Red Mountain, about 800 feet above downtown. He asked Stern to design a family home there.

[from the big house to The Big House] Bourke’s neighbor in Aspen was businessman Viktor Kozeny. In 2009, Bourke was convicted of conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act for engaging in a scheme with Kozeny to bribe Azerbaijan government officials. Bourke spent almost a year in prison starting in 2013.

Here’s the VFR chart for the airport, a 8440′ and surrounded by mountains high enough that the FAA says not to fly below 14,600′ (you could still hit a mountain, though, with an altimeter reading of 14,600′ in the winter because the Earth’s atmosphere contracts in the cold and the true altitude is lower than what is indicated):

Airlines have a custom RNAV (RNP) N Runway 15 that supposedly takes them down to about 540′ above the runway before they need to be able to look out the window and see. The lowest approach available to general aviation, including the elites in their private jets, requires the pilots to see the runway when 2100′ above it (up to 91 knots approach speed; Cessna or Cirrus) or 2400′ above (91-120 knots; a lot of rabble-class bizjets) or 3200′ above (121-140 knots; the Big Iron for the Big Shots). This is actually more restrictive than ordinary visual (VFR) flying, which can be done with a ceiling of 1000′.

(In the plate below, notice that the approach features a second localizer that isn’t associated with any runway. This provides guidance for the missed approach. Imagine the consequences, especially in the pre-GPS days, of the obvious mistake of failing to switch the frequency or of forgetting how to use the back course of a localizer, something that the typical instrument-rated pilot might do in training and then never again.)

There’s also a GPS approach that has similar minimums for jets:

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Why do Iranians who support the Islamic Republic regime stay in the U.S. and pay taxes to fund our military?

by philg

Here’s a guy whose profile says that he lives in San Francisco and works at Google. In other words, Iman Rahmati pays taxes to fund the U.S. military.

Iman Rahmati says “Every piece of international law, every moral code, every sign of dignity in a nation, in an army, has been broken by Trump, Netanyahu, and their minions. Bombing hospitals, schools, civilians, universities, infrastructure, factories, etc. The west has zero moral superiority from now on. International order is fractured and no nation has the guts standing up to them, well except the one that is right now.”

Iman (note that this means “faith in Allah” according to ChatGPT and is distinct from “Imam”) is upset that his alma mater was bombed, blaming Israel (the basis for saying that Israel did this vs. the U.S. is unclear):

As it happens, this university has been under EU sanctions since 2014 for its work in “ballistic missile production”:

Obviously, this isn’t going to change the opinion of the righteous Iranian immigrant to the U.S. regarding the legitimacy of the attack on his alma mater. Therefore, the question of why he would want to stay in the U.S. and pay taxes to support the bombing of his alma mater, as well as other targets in the Islamic Republic of Iran, remains a live one. If he is smart and productive enough to work at Google he could presumably transfer to a Google office in Canada (follow Barbra Streisand), the Islamic Republic of Great Britain, pro-Hamas Al-Andalus (Spain), or even work from home after returning to help defend his beloved home country.

There have to be tons more Iranians who are in a similar position. They support the Islamic Republic regime and live in the U.S. and thus pay taxes to help the U.S. military either (1) bring down the regime that they support, or (2) militarily cripple the regime that they support.

From the New York Post… “Niece, grandniece of slain notorious Iranian Gen. Soleimani arrested by ICE while enjoying lavish lifestyles in LA”:

The niece of slain Iranian terror mastermind Gen. Qasem Soleimani – who showcased her luxe LA lifestyle on Instagram while bashing the US as the “Great Satan” – and her daughter have been arrested by ICE agents, the State Department announced Saturday.

Hamideh Soleimani Afshar, who allegedly celebrated attacks on US soldiers and military bases, and her daughter Sarinasadat Hosseiny, have had their green cards revoked over their ties to the Iranian regime.

“While living in the United States, she promoted Iranian regime propaganda, celebrated attacks against American soldiers and military facilities in the Middle East, praised the new Iranian Supreme Leader, denounced America as the ‘Great Satan,’ and voiced her unflinching support for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, a designated terror organization,” according to a State Department letter confirming the Friday arrests.

Afshar, 47, entered the US in 2015 on a tourist visa, was granted asylum in 2019 and secured a green card in 2021 from the Biden administration.

She made at least four trips back to Iran since receiving her green card, the Department of Homeland Security said.

(This is a great argument for eliminating asylum-based immigration in the U.S. Our government bureaucrats aren’t capable of distinguishing between members of a purportedly oppressive government and those who are actually opponents of said government. This makes sense since few government workers speak or read Farsi, Arabic, or the other languages prevalent in countries from which migrants claim asylum. And none of our government workers have first-hand experience with current events in all of the world’s most violent and dysfunctional societies from which, bizarrely, we have decided to prioritize immigration (the door is closed, however, to folks from Japan, Switzerland, and Taiwan!).)

I can understand why someone would hate what the U.S. government, including the U.S. military, does. And I can understand why someone who was born in the U.S. would stay in the U.S. under those conditions (few other countries will accept migrants as we do). But I can’t understand why someone who is at least a dual citizen and who has the right to leave the U.S. at any time would choose instead to stay and help fund the U.S. government.

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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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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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Bank of America customers get to pay $72.5 million to Jeffrey Epstein’s female associates

by philg

If you’re wondering why Bank of America needs to charge fees… “Bank of America Pays $72.5 Million to Settle Lawsuit by Epstein Victims” (New York Times, yesterday):

The lead plaintiff in the Bank of America lawsuit, an unidentified woman, came to the United States from Russia in 2011 when she was about 20. The lawsuit said Mr. Epstein had sexually abused her at least 100 times and coerced her into a “cultlike life,” in which she was totally dependent on him.

In 2013, Bank of America opened an account for the woman, then 22, at the direction of Mr. Epstein’s employees, even though she spoke little English and had no job or discernible source of income — all potential red flags for sex trafficking, the lawsuit said.

The two law firms representing the victims, Boies Schiller Flexner and Edwards Henderson, could be eligible to receive fees totaling 30 percent of the settlement amount, according to the court filing.

Note that Boies Schiller Flexner was Theranos’s law firm, absolutely critical to keeping the fraud going according to the book Bad Blood, and David Boeis was actually a Theranos board member (see Evaluating trustworthiness; lessons from Theranos).

So… this woman got paid to have sex with Jeffrey Epstein from age 20 to age 28. In addition to whatever she got paid at the time, e.g., via the Bank of America account at issue, she would have received about $3.5 million from JPMorgan, Deutsche Bank, and the Epstein estate. Let’s say with this latest settlement she’ll be up to $5 million, all tax-free because it will be payments for damages suffered. She says that she had sex with Jeffrey Epstein 100 times so that works out to $50,000 per sex act plus whatever Emmanuel Goldstein paid her on a current basis.

Loosely related… “[OnlyFans] proves that, when given the choice and opportunity, many women will choose to enter the prostitution industry voluntarily”

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Will the Iran situation persuade a few more Americans of the virtues of the 2nd Amendment?

by philg

The standard expression “You can vote your way into socialism, but you have to shoot your way out” could be adjusted for recent events in Iran, where a popular uprising doesn’t seem practical: “You can vote your way into Islamic Theocracy, but you have to shoot your way out”.

It seems that very few Iranians could shoot their way out even if motivated to do so. The Islamic Republic has a near-monopoly on gun ownership that is enforced by a Chicago or New York Democrat’s dream common sense gun control system:

The Islamic Republic purportedly has only about 20 percent support (poll), but could probably have stayed in power forever if not for its nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, Hezbollah, Houthi, and Hamas programs.

Could the divergence between what the Iranian people supposedly want (to the extent that can be measured accurately) and what the Iranian government does lead some Americans to reconsider their goals of eliminating private gun ownership in the U.S.?

(Note that I personally believe that Americans’ right to own guns will disappear within the next few decades, a casualty of our immigration system and the consequent creation of a society that is a random assemblage of humans without any common values. When shooting jihads such as Ndiaga Diagne‘s become weekly events, Americans will gladly surrender their rights in exchange for a perceived safety advantage, just as Americans meekly surrendered their First Amendment right to assemble during coronapanic.)

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