Common sense gun safety

by philg

From the typical person’s perspective, the most reasonable interpretation of the Second Amendment is that it entitles him/her/zir/them to have a gun and prevents everyone else from having guns.

It seems that at least one of our top politicians agrees. “House Democrat says she sleeps with gun nearby after clashing with El Salvador’s president” (The Hill):

Rep. Norma Torres (D-Calif.) said in a new interview that she sleeps with a gun nearby after receiving “hateful messages” for clashing with El Salvador’s president on Twitter.

Torres, 56, is the only member of Congress born in Central America and the co-chairwoman of the Central Americans Caucus. She spoke with the Los Angeles Times for a story published Thursday about trading barbs with El Salvadorian President Nayib Bukele on issues of migration and human rights.

One tweet from last month included a photograph of a Salvadoran father and his young daughter who drowned attempting to cross the Rio Grande River into the U.S.

“This is a result of narcissistic dictators like you interested in being ‘cool’ while people flee by the 1000s & die by the 100s,” she wrote.

Bukele responded by calling on Latin Americans living in California’s 35th District to vote Torres out of office.

“She does not work for you, but to keep our countries underdeveloped,” he tweeted in Spanish.

Contrast to 2019, “Rep. Torres Calls for Common Sense Gun Control Policies” (official house.gov web page):

Congresswoman Norma J. Torres (CA-35) published an op-ed with the Inland Empire Daily Bulletin commemorating the four-year anniversary of the San Bernardino shooting, which claimed 14 lives, including two of her own constituents, on December 2nd, 2015.

“I’ve been on the other end of the line from gun violence,” Congresswoman Torres writes. “I’ve heard the earsplitting crack of a firearm going off, and experienced the horrific moment when a desperate voice on the other end screams in pain and then goes silent. I know exactly what the price is for Congressional inaction on gun violence, and I’m disgusted to see innocent people continue to pay for it with their lives.”

“The problem we have is access,” Congresswoman Torres continues. “We can’t legislate troubled thoughts out of someone’s head, but we can pass laws that prevent a gun from winding up in that person’s hands.

(Mx. Torres was referring to the jihad waged by Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik)

From 2016, “IE Congresswoman Norma Torres On The Future Of Gun Control” (NPR):

Inland Empire Member of Congress Norma Torres – a Democrat representing the IE’s 35th District – was among the representatives who participated in a member “sit-in” in the House chambers a few weeks ago. The sit-in participants were demanding that the majority Republicans in the House allow a vote on stalled gun safety legislation.

See also Giffords.org:

Torres has a demonstrated record of advancing lifesaving gun violence prevention measures and will never stop fighting to keep California communities safe from gun violence.

Related:

Full post, including comments

Small business autopsy

by philg

Looking for a place to rest in between practice helicopter instrument approaches last month, I stumbled on Mike’s Runway Diner at the Auburn/Lewiston Airport (Maine). From the restaurant’s Facebook page….

We are a family owned business that offers Americana comfort food at a reasonable price. Our portions are huge and everything is prepared fresh and you can sit along the runway and watch the planes. (318 Likes; 334 followers; 230 check-ins)

March 8, 2020: Happy Sunday. Come out and enjoy this great day at Mike’s Runway Diner. Sit along side the runway and watch the Planes take off and land while enjoying a great meal.

March 18, 2020: As many of you have heard we had to close the Restaurant due to the Coronavirus pandemic. We will be open tomorrow Thursday from 7am to 11am for to go orders only. We will keep the page updated as to when restaurants can open again. Remember to isolate and wash your hands

April 17, 2020: Mike and I are still unable to get certain provisions to run the restaurant. We will keep every one updated on when we will be able to open back up. Stay safe and indoors.

May 14, 2020: Good morning. As of now Mike’s Runway Diner is on track for opening at the beginning of June. We will keep our page updated . Thank you for all the support we have received during the closure. Mike and I look forward to seeing our favorite people (our customers). See you soon 🙂 Mike and Heather

July 5, 2020: We are still working on trying to open back up. Waiting on the restrictions to lift. We look forward to seeing everyone again soon. Mike and Heather

July 29, 2020: Well the time has come to say good by. Corona got the best of our restaurant and we were not able to move forward. Mike and I thank everyone for your business, love and support. We will cherish everyone and the memories for ever. Thank you and we will miss you all. Mike and Heather

(Minor corrections made to the above for readability.)

A partial screenshot:

Related:

Full post, including comments

Sacrament of Masks preserved at the Apple Store

by philg

The Church of Shutdown abandoned the Sacrament of Masks, at least for the vaccinated, here in Massachusetts at the end of May. The ritual is kept alive at the Apple Store, however. From the Burlington Mall, today:

Things are quieter at the Microsoft Store and Lord & Taylor (both closed):

Adjacent parking lot (Burlington, MA is 3.3 percent Black, so Black Lives Matter… mostly in other towns):

Although masks are now merely “advised” (only for the unvaccinated) rather than required by governor’s order, more than half of the folks in the mall and at a nearby supermarket were masked.

Full post, including comments

Profiles in Corporate Courage

by philg

Happy Pride Month! I would love to hear everyone’s plans for celebration. We have a two-car garage here in Maskachusetts and, for compatibility with neighbors’ yard signs, I had thought about painting one door in a rainbow flag and the other in a permanent Black Lives Matter sign, but now that we’ve sold the house (signed P&S) and are moving to Jupiter, Florida I am not 100 percent sure that the new owner shares my commitment to social justice.

I’ve never wanted an Apple Watch (an iPhone in the pocket is embarrassing enough), but the company’s courageous commitment to Pride is tempting me to “celebrate all year long”. From the U.S. site:

A detail page:

Some text underneath:

Weaving together the colors of the Pride flag, the Pride Edition Braided Solo Loop band features a unique, stretchable design that’s ultracomfortable and easy to slip on and off your wrist. Created by weaving 16,000 recycled polyester yarn filaments around ultrathin silicone threads using advanced precision-braiding machinery, then laser cutting the band to an exact length for a custom fit. The band offers a soft, textured feel and is both sweat and water resistant.

Apple is proud to support LGBTQ advocacy organizations working to bring about positive change, including Encircle, Equality North Carolina, Gender Spectrum, GLSEN, the Human Rights Campaign, PFLAG National, the National Center for Transgender Equality, SMYAL, and The Trevor Project in the U.S., and ILGA World internationally.

This Pride Edition watch/band is not available from Apple’s United Arab Emirates page, otherwise a mirror image of the U.S. page. Perhaps folks in UAE don’t need to hear the Good News about Rainbow Flagism? From “LGBT rights in the United Arab Emirates” (Wikipedia): “Male homosexuality is illegal in the UAE, and is punishable by the death penalty under sharia law.”

See also, from Titania McGrath, a comparison of major corporations’ Pride Month displays in non-Muslim versus Muslim regions.

Brush your teeth with pride and shave without toxic masculinity (P&G owns Gillette)….

“We prefer to think of it as the Blue Screen of Pride”:

From diversity.google: “The Gayglers is comprised of LGBTQ+ Googlers and their allies. The group not only leads the way in celebrating Pride around the world, but also informs programs and policies, so that Google remains a workplace that works for everyone.” Apparently, “around the world” does not include Arabia:

Should we ask Melinda Gates to fund a project to help these companies translate their Pride Month messages into Arabic, Urdu, Indonesian, etc.?

Related:

Full post, including comments

Biden builds a tunnel to rival the Swiss

by philg

Your tax dollars at work… “At Long Last, a New Rail Tunnel Under the Hudson River Can Be Built” (NYT):

After four years of stalling by the Trump administration, officials in Washington approved the $11.6 billion project for federal funding.

The Biden administration has indicated its support for the project and the transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, has acknowledged its importance to the economy of the region and the nation. “This is a big step for the Northeast, and for the entire country, as these tunnels connect so many people, jobs and businesses,” Mr. Buttigieg said in a statement announcing the approval.

The existing Hudson River tunnels, e.g., the Lincoln Tunnel, are approximately 1.5 miles long. How then can this project be said to rival the Gotthard Base Tunnel, which is 35.5 miles long and 8,000′ deep through a solid granite mountain in Switzerland? The actual cost of the Swiss tunnel was roughly the same as the best-case estimate of what this NY/NJ tunnel might cost!

Related:

  • “The Most Expensive Mile of Subway Track on Earth” (NYT): “The estimated cost of the Long Island Rail Road project, known as “East Side Access,” has ballooned to $12 billion, or nearly $3.5 billion for each new mile of track — seven times the average elsewhere in the world. The recently completed Second Avenue subway on Manhattan’s Upper East Side and the 2015 extension of the No. 7 line to Hudson Yards also cost far above average, at $2.5 billion and $1.5 billion per mile, respectively.”
Full post, including comments

Order your backup generator now (36-week waiting list for the part and one year for the install)

by philg

An aviation friend runs a sizable business installing backup generators here in the Northeast. Media coverage of the outage that afflicted Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi, has driven demand to an all-time high. That high demand combined with coronapanic-related restrictions at the Generac factory have resulted in a 36-week lead time when he places an order for a whole-house standby generator. “We also have to get permits and install and, like every other business,” he said, “we can’t compete with $600 per week from the government so we can’t hire anybody. I tell people that if they order now we’ll install their generator in a year.”

Full post, including comments

Low skill migrants make the U.S. richer, but will impoverish Spain

by philg

“‘Come On In, Boys’: A Wave of the Hand Sets Off Spain-Morocco Migrant Fight” (New York Times):

Spanish officials say Morocco increasingly sees migrants as currency for financial and political gains after it let up to 12,000 flood into a Spanish enclave in North Africa over two days.

Normally, Morocco tightly controls the fenced borders around Ceuta, a six-mile-long peninsula on Morocco’s northern coast that Spain has governed since the 1600s. But now its military was allowing migrants into this toehold of Europe. Over the next two days, as many as 12,000 people flowed over the border to Ceuta in hopes of reaching mainland Spain, engulfing the city of 80,000.

The crisis has laid bare the unique pressure point Morocco has over Spain on migration. Spanish government officials and other experts say Morocco increasingly sees the migrants as a kind of currency and is leveraging its control over them to extract financial and political prizes from Spain.

“It’s not acceptable that a government allows for attacks on their borders” because of disagreements over foreign policy, Pedro Sánchez, Spain’s prime minister, said on Monday.

Hours after the migrants began pouring into Ceuta, Spain approved 30 million euros, about $37 million, in aid to Morocco for border policing. The transaction was reminiscent of Turkey’s deal with the European Union under which it was paid to stem the flood of migrants onto European shores after the Arab Spring and decades of turmoil in Afghanistan.

The same newspaper has informed us for more than five years that low skill migrants make existing Americans vastly wealthier. Yet it runs an article without expert analysis questioning the assumption that Spain will become poorer with every additional low skill migrant (to the point that it is worth paying Morocco and Turkey to keep migrants away). And, if the brightest minds of American academia and politics are correct about the high value of low skill migrants to a modern economy, why isn’t there a bidding war among EU nations for the 6,000 migrants per day coming into Ceuta?

From 2017 Agadir, a beach resort on the Atlantic coast of Morocco (Ceuta is just inside the Mediterranean).

A map for context, which the NYT does not provide:

Separately, if American economists and Democrats are wrong about the value of low skill migrants, would it be smart for Spain to give up this little corner of Africa? If migrants cross at the rate of 6,000 per day and each migrant costs 1 million EUR in lifetime welfare, the Spanish are getting poorer at the rate of $7.3 billion per day because of their ownership of this city of 80,000 people (i.e., the residents of Ceuta would have to pay taxes at the rate of $91,250 per day each in order to make ownership of the chunk of land financially rational). For comparison, the $4 trillion in coronapanic “stimulus” spending by the U.S. government works out to about $10 billion per day.

Related:

  • “Yes, Immigration Hurts American Workers” (Harvard econ prof shows that low skill migrants actually do make Americans richer… but only those who are already relatively rich, e.g., apartment building owners, restaurant chain owners, government employees, non-profit refugee-industrial complex workers, etc.)

Full post, including comments

Memorial for the Paycheck Protection Program

by philg

Yesterday was Memorial Day and also the final application deadline for the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans (actually grants, since they don’t have to be paid back). Small business owners who relied on this deadline and focused on completing income taxes, complying with various local COVID-19 restrictions, trying to hire staff, and serving customers, however, were denied loans due to funding having run out on May 5 (source with some history).

So the most successful enterprises might turn out to be those who were most plugged into and aggressive about claiming government bailouts.

Full post, including comments

Has the world been more peaceful since coronaplague broke out?

by philg

From a year ago, in Memorial Day thought: Will coronaplague bring us years of peace?

Maybe there won’t be too many more sacrifices among soldiers worldwide for the next few years. Do countries that have shut down their societies, schools, and economies have the will or the wealth to go to war? What would they fight for? To conquer a territory that is also shut down and packed with inhabitants who are entirely dependent on government welfare?

What actually happened? Did the world overall see fewer conflicts and loss of life through war or was conflict intensified due to shutdowns?

Full post, including comments