Logically consistent Democrats

by philg

From Trump Assassination Attempt #1, one year ago: Why do the non-Deplorables deplore the Trump shooting?

I’m still baffled by the Democrats who say that Donald Trump is Hitler 2.0 and yet won’t wish him dead. But at least some are logical.

For example, here’s a 2/28/2025 Facebook post from a Democrat (my late mother’s cousin) who previously explicitly compared Trump to Hitler and who makes the logical inference:

Comments from her friends:

  • …but then we’ve got Vance, who is no better.
  • Today is not soon enough
  • Echoes from a house in PA!
  • I keep hoping for an aortic aneurism.

Another post from the same Facebooker:

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T-Mobile ends race discrimination, but not because it was wrong

by philg

“T-Mobile disconnects from DEI under pressure from Trump administration” (USA Today):

T-Mobile is scrapping its diversity, equity and inclusion programs under pressure from President Donald Trump’s administration as it looks for regulators to green-light two major acquisitions.

In a letter to the Federal Communications Commission dated July 8, the wireless carrier said it would discontinue DEI policies “not just in name, but in substance.”

“We recognize that the legal and policy landscape surrounding DEI under federal law has changed,” T-Mobile wrote.

Here’s the correct analysis, I think:

“In yet another cynical bid to win FCC regulatory approval, T-Mobile is making a mockery of its professed commitment to eliminating discrimination, promoting fairness and amplifying underrepresented voices,” FCC commissioner Anna Gomez, a Democrat, wrote on X. “History will not be kind to this cowardly corporate capitulation.”

How is it possible for a company to abandon one of its sacred principles without at least pretending to have changed its mind, e.g., saying “What we did in the past was wrong”? It’s okay to say “We thought we could make more money by adopting a completely new moral system”?

In a similar vein… “Trump administration releases $175 million in federal funding to Penn after transgender athletes agreement” (CNN):

The funding release comes after the school reached an agreement with the federal government to block transgender athletes from female sports teams and erase the records set by swimmer Lia Thomas.

The university previously said “Lia Thomas is a woman”. If the Feds had threatened to take away $1 the school presumably would have continued to say “Lia Thomas is a woman”. There was some amount of money, however, at which Lia Thomas’s gender ID changed. But what was that amount of money? Would Penn have been willing to say “Lia Thomas is not a woman” for $1 million? $5 million?

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Air India 171 fuel cutoff switches

by philg

It looks as though someone pulled out and then threw the fuel cutoff switches for both engines of the Boeing 787 that was operating as Air India 171. Airways offers a timeline.

The Air Current has a clear and annotated picture of the switches:

It is tough to understand how this could have been a mistake. After being pulled out to release the lock the switches had to be moved down/back to the cutoff position. During climb out, on the other hand, the appropriate levers are generally being moved up (gear and flap levers, for example).

Some interesting items from the Air Currents article:

Time to let SuperGrok 4.0 do all of the flying?

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The largest youth generation ever and human population collapse

by philg

The head of the UN points out that there are more young humans on Planet Earth than at any time in history.

At the same time, we are informed by the followers of Science that everyone must do his/her/zir/their share to avert population collapse, e.g., “Population Growth Isn’t a Progressive Issue. It Should Be” (New York Times, last year):

When populations decline, the average age of people in the population increases. This has several harmful consequences. Eventually, there are not enough young people to care for older people and to economically support them through contributions to social programs; to fuel economic growth, technological innovation and cultural progress; and to fund government services. … Fertility rates in the United States are below the level necessary for population replacement, and they are declining almost everywhere else. Contrary to the alarmism you sometimes hear about exponential population growth, experts say that the number of humans on Earth will peak before the end of this century and fall afterward.

It might seem that humans are inflicting so much harm through climate change that everyone and everything on Earth would be better off with fewer inhabitants. But climate change will remain a problem even if we allow the population to decline. We have to change our patterns of consumption and reduce carbon dioxide emissions — no matter how big or small our population.

There are some great ideas in the above. First, “experts” can predict how many children humans will choose to have in the year 2100. Second, humans cause climate change, but the scale of the damage is unrelated to the number of humans.

Pew offers some projections/guesses and calls them “facts”. “5 facts about how the world’s population is expected to change by 2100”:

  • don’t worry if you’re not getting enough phone calls about solar panels, home improvement, final expense insurance, Medicare benefits, etc.: “India is expected to continue growing until it peaks at 1.7 billion people in 2061.”
  • “Five countries are expected to contribute more than 60% of the world’s population growth by 2100: the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Pakistan and Tanzania.”
  • don’t worry if you’re concerned that the “affordable housing crisis” in the U.S. will subside: “the U.S. population is expected to grow slowly and steadily to 421 million by 2100.”

The last projection/guess confuses me. U.S. immigration levels are determined by presidential whim, not by any law. As demonstrated by Joe Biden and Donald Trump, a president can open or close the border. If Americans elect Democrats we could have at least 2.5 million new neighbors per year from 2029 through 2100, which would work out to a boost in population of 177 million (and perhaps quite a few more if asylum and welfare eligibility are expanded).

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Valetnomics in Sun Valley

by philg

I spent a few days in Sun Valley, Idaho (for work, believe it or not!) last month and asked the valets working a National Ballet of Canada event what was the conventional/expected tip. “Ten or twenty,” was the response.

(I expected to see Justin Trudeau in blackface among the corps de ballet, but was disappointed.)

Readers: How much are you giving to valets? ChatGPT: “$2 to $5 when your car is returned; $2–$3 is common for average service; $4–$5 is appropriate for prompt, courteous, or extra-helpful service.”

Note the 1948 Buick Roadmaster in the photo below.

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Turn golf courses in pro-immigration states into housing?

by philg

The U.S. population has been booming due to immigration (Pew):

Most of the migrants are low-skill and, therefore, don’t earn enough to fund the construction of an apartment, even if the land were made available for free (see City rebuilding costs from the Halifax explosion and a calculation that even two median earners in Maskachusetts don’t earn enough).

The “housing affordability crisis”, therefore, gets worse every year (Brookings) and it seems to be reasonably well correlated with immigration:

How about this idea: use eminent domain to take golf courses and turn them into housing. A typical golf course is reasonably close to jobs and about 170 acres in size. I previously calculated that Vatican City, about 109 acres in size, could hold 50,000 migrants if developed like a Chinese apartment complex (any migrant-loving pope, therefore, could take in 50,000 migrants if he chose to follow the advice that he gives to other nations). So each golf course certainly could house 50,000 people in high rises.

Golf courses tend to be enjoyed by the elite so this kind of taking would have the salutary effect of reducing inequality.

A reasonable objection to this plan is that not every American agrees on continued population expansion via low-skill immigration. To keep it fair, therefore, the plan would be implemented only in those states where a majority of voters selected the pro-immigration presidential candidate. Inequality-decrying elites in California, Maskachusetts, and New York, for example, would give up their golf courses in order to ensure affordable housing for migrants (with some spillover into the market for all housing) and continued enrichment by migrants (since migrants wouldn’t feel any pressure to move away).

Maybe Palo Alto, California, Stanford University, and Governor Gavin Newsom could cooperate on the first golf course->housing complex transformation starting with the Stanford Golf Course.

Related:

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Testing Grok 4

by philg

Let’s see how the brand new Grok 4 does on some questions that have tripped up earlier LLMs (see Testing ChatGPT 4.5). Note that Grok 4 is not for the impatient. Answers come back after 1-5 minutes of cogitation. I can just imagine the solar panels, windmills, and nuclear power plants that are straining to run the GPUs behind it! Grok 4 seems to spend a lot of time searching the Web rather than relying on a built-in database of already-crawled-and-analyzed information. This might be what makes it slow, but it also might make the answers much better when there is any question involving recent events.

What are examples of museums named after two people with different last names?

Would I get more jetlag flying from Fairbanks to Seoul or flying from New York to Seoul? (answer took more than one minute)

My friend with a 6-month-old baby (who just had his first CDC-mandated COVID-19 vaccination [it’s for those aged 75+ in the Science-denying UK]) is considering adopting a dog, but is concerned that the dog will kill the baby. He really likes pit bulls. Should he get a pit bull or a golden retriever? (Answer is incredibly long-winded, but excerpts below.)

Based on available data and expert recommendations, your friend should opt for a golden retriever over a pit bull if safety around a 6-month-old infant is the primary concern. While individual dogs of any breed can be loving and well-behaved with proper socialization, training, and supervision, breed tendencies and bite statistics show a clear pattern: golden retrievers are consistently ranked among the safest and most family-friendly breeds for households with babies, whereas pit bulls (including mixes) are disproportionately involved in severe and fatal attacks on young children. No dog is entirely risk-free around infants—supervision is always essential—but the evidence strongly favors the golden retriever here. … If Pit Bull is Insisted Upon: Go for an adult with proven child exposure, but consider liability insurance and local breed laws. Still, data suggests it’s not ideal.

I don’t know how liability insurance is relevant given that the concern is the animal kills a member of its own family, e.g., as in this incident from July 2, 2025. (Journal of Popular Studies)

You’re saying, then, that a person’s chances of being killed by his or her pet golden retriever are low, but never zero?

Yes, that’s precisely what I’m saying: the chances of being killed by a pet golden retriever are extremely low—far lower than for many other breeds and comparable to rare events like being struck by lightning—but they are not zero, as there have been a handful of documented fatal incidents over decades. … From 2005 to 2017, golden retrievers were involved in 4 fatal dog attacks in the U.S., accounting for just 0.9% of the 433 total fatalities during that period. For comparison, pit bulls were linked to 284 deaths (65.6%), and rottweilers to 45 (10.4%).

Did four of Mindy the Crippler’s cousins actually kill people? Or was there a golden retriever serial killer who ripped the throats out of four humans? That would contradict what we’re told by the New York Times. Immigrants and children of immigrants don’t commit crimes. Golden retrievers are either immigrants from Scotland or descendants of immigrants from Scotland. Therefore, it is almost inconceivable that a golden would commit a crime or cause any kind of problem for native-born Americans. The cited source doesn’t necessarily relate to purebred canines.

Assume an attic temperature of 85 degrees Fahrenheit and 80 percent relative humidity. There is an R-8 air conditioning duct in this attic and the air temperature inside the duct is 55 degrees. Will the duct sweat from condensation?

After literally 5 minutes of cogitation (one plus: Grok 4 shows it work with continuous updates about what it is doing, searching, trying, etc.):

What would your answer to the above question be if the duct were R-6 instead of R-8?

After another 5 minutes and 13 seconds:

ChatGPT 4o was spectacularly wrong when asked about a hypothetical R-30 duct with the air inside at 50 degrees. It calculated a duct surface temp of 51 degrees and, therefore, massive sweating (see below). Grok 4 get its right even with a someone confusing prompt. It immediately figured out that the “the air inside the duct is still at 50 degrees” is actually a change to the hypothetical conditions. It takes 3.5 minutes to answer.

What if we increase the duct insulation to R-30? What would the outside temperature of the duct be? (the air inside the duct is still at 50 degrees)

The outside temperature of the duct would be approximately 83°F. …

Conclusion: Grok 4 seems like a useful tool for serious questions where you’re willing to wait 1-5 minutes for a correct answer.

Related:

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How much tax revenue can California get from NVIDIA shareholders alone?

by philg

NVIDIA is now worth $4 trillion. Is it reasonable to assume that $1.5 trillion of that is unrealized capital gains for people who live in California (investors, employees, etc.; Jensen Huang alone owns 3.5 percent of the company)? If so, that’s 1.5e12*13.3% = $200 billion in potential capital gains tax to be collected by California. California’s entire annual state budget is only about $322 billion. So, if the above assumptions are correct, collecting taxes from California residents who own NVIDIA could pay for at least 6 months of whatever government programs Gavin Newsom and friends can dream up and, therefore, NVIDIA will do more to make progressive Democrats look good than any company in history.

(Of course, a handful of people might move away from California before selling their appreciated shares, but that shouldn’t have a huge effect on the aggregate potential for taxation.)

How about for the Feds? Including the Obamacare NITT rake of 3.8 percent, there is a potential harvest of 23.8 percent for the federal government of however much isn’t owned by foreigners (18 percent of the overall market). If substantially all of the $4 trillion is unrealized capital gains that could be about $780 billion for the federal government, enough to pay off a princely 2% of U.S. debt (just need another 50 NVIDIAs and we can have the entire National Debt squared away).

CNBC:

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New York Times reminds us that the ACLU protects individuals’ 2nd Amendment rights

by philg

Even the games section of the New York Times can be educational. What organization protects your individual right to “keep and bear arms”? The same ACLU that helped Amber Heard express herself is “defending individual rights” (Autocheck enabled so we know that this answer is consistent with dogma):

Related:

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MIT is too rich to pay taxes

by philg

Recent email from the president of the Queers for Palestine version of MIT:

The interesting part:

MIT now pays a 1.4% tax on that investment income. The current Senate version of the bill would hike this endowment tax rate to 8%. To give you a sense of scale, for MIT that proposed tax hike is equivalent to our entire annual undergraduate financial aid budget, which provides aid to about 60% of our undergraduates or about 2,600 students every year.

In other words, the university needs the massive endowment to fund “financial aid”. Also, only 8% of the income from the endowment is actually used for financial aid.

Note that what the elite schools call “financial aid” is referred to in Econ 101 as “price discrimination”, in which each consumer is charged the maximum that he/she/ze/they is willing to pay; if the school determines that a family has $X in free cashflow annually the entire $X will be extracted by MIT. From Wokipedia:

Price discrimination (differential pricing, equity pricing, preferential pricing, dual pricing, tiered pricing, and surveillance pricing) is a microeconomic pricing strategy where identical or largely similar goods or services are sold at different prices by the same provider to different buyers based on which market segment they are perceived to be part of. Price discrimination is distinguished from product differentiation by the difference in production cost for the differently priced products involved in the latter strategy. Price discrimination essentially relies on the variation in customers’ willingness to pay and in the elasticity of their demand. For price discrimination to succeed, a seller must have market power, such as a dominant market share, product uniqueness, sole pricing power, etc.

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