The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2023 to Narges Mohammadi for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran and her fight to promote human rights and freedom for all.
Since is now an established fact, according to the white saviors in Norway, that anyone who identifies as a “woman” in Iran is oppressed, does that mean that the roughly 40 million Iranians who identify as women now qualify for asylum if they migrate to Europe or the U.S.?
Separately, it is unclear from reading the Western media if there is a single human anywhere on Planet Earth who has something positive to say about the Iranian judicial system. Here’s a June 2023 New York Times story:
Nobody who lives in Iran is interviewed at all. The New York Times apparently assumes that everyone in Iran agrees with Ms. Mohammadi and disagrees with the Iranian government.
Separately, how does her 10-year sentence from the brutal authoritarian government of Iran compare to what people in the Land of Freedom (TM) experience? Adolfo Martinez, who disagrees with our state religion, is the subject of “Iowa man sentenced to 16 years for setting LGBTQ flag on fire” (USA Today; he stole a rainbow flag from a church and burned it in the street). A person who wasn’t in Washington, D.C. on the day when several million U.S. military personnel and armed police officers stood alone against insurrectionists was sentenced to 22 years in prison for “seditious conspiracy” (CNN).
“Nothing is as permanent as a temporary government program” has been proven conclusively over the past couple of decades with migrants granted “temporary protected status” (aside from the 500,000-ish Venezuelans on whom this was bestowed by Joe Biden, there are the Haitians who won this in 2010 and are still entitled to “temporary” status).
“Yes, Immigration Hurts American Workers” (Politico 2016, by a Harvard professor) concludes that elite Americans get a $500 billion/year (pre-Biden dollars) boost in wealth from low-skill immigration. This can be due to ownership of real estate, such as apartment buildings, and stocks in companies that have a larger market due to a larger population. Elites also profit by paying lower wages, since the larger supply of workers results in a lower market-clearing wage under Econ 101.
Maybe a non-elite can profit by investing in a health care enterprise in a low-income neighborhood? Migrants who are granted temporary protected status immediately qualify for unlimited taxpayer-funded health care spending (Medicaid). Here are the Florida rules:
In Maskachusetts, a noncitizen can get taxpayer-funded health care, taxpayer-funded housing, and taxpayer-funded food (i.e., a 100-percent taxpayer-funded lifestyle) and he/she/ze/they does not run afoul of the “public charge” rule:
How about California? “For Medi-Cal [Medicaid] eligibility purposes, immigrants granted TPS are lawfully present.”
Readers: How else could a non-elite American invest so as to position him/her/zir/themself to profit from the open border?
Mayor Eric Adams is seeking to suspend New York City’s longstanding obligation to provide shelter to anyone who asks for it, as officials struggle to find housing for thousands of migrants arriving from the southern border.
On Tuesday night, Mr. Adams asked a judge to allow the city to put aside its legal obligation to provide shelter to single adults, arguing in court that the city should be able to temporarily lift the mandate during an emergency.
“With more than 122,700 asylum seekers having come through our intake system since the spring of 2022, and projected costs of over $12 billion for three years, it is abundantly clear that the status quo cannot continue,” Mr. Adams said in a statement.
In a letter to Erika Edwards, a New York Supreme Court justice, the city’s lawyers asked for the 1981 consent decree that requires the city to provide shelter to be temporarily suspended. They also asked for the rules to be suspended whenever the governor or mayor declares a state of emergency and there is an influx of people seeking shelter.
Poor native-born New Yorkers, in other words, would lose their right to shelter because elite New Yorkers offered sanctuary to migrants and then migrants accepted the offer. Also, why is the requested suspension “temporary”? Venezuela is not going to run out of people who want to come to the U.S., right? (see When will there be more Venezuelans in the U.S. than in Venezuela?)
More from the New York City elites, quoted in the above-cited NYT article:
A top aide to Mr. Adams, Ingrid Lewis-Martin, recently called on the federal government to “close the borders.” Mr. Adams sought to distance himself from those comments on Tuesday, reiterating his position that the border should not be closed, but that migrants should be sent to other cities.
Separately, a neighbor provides sanctuary for those who identify as witches…
I was chatting with Jerry Sussman and he failed to evince the requisite Silicon Valley level of enthusiasm regarding LLMs. To show him how wrong he was, I gave GPT-4 the following prompt:
I don’t personally hold opinions, but I can provide information on the topic.
Gerald J. Sussman is a renowned computer scientist known for his significant contributions to the field. He is most notably recognized for co-authoring the influential textbook “Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs” (SICP) with Hal Abelson, which has been used in introductory computer science courses worldwide.
In addition, Sussman has made key contributions in the areas of artificial intelligence, robotics, and programming language design. Together with Guy Steele, he co-designed the Scheme programming language, which has been fundamental in the study of programming languages and has influenced the design of many other languages.
Given his extensive contributions to the computer science discipline, a case can be made for Sussman being a potential candidate for the Turing Award. However, whether someone should receive a Turing Award is a subjective matter and typically decided upon by committees that evaluate an individual’s impact on the field of computer science. Many other factors and considerations come into play when determining awardees.
It’s worth noting that the Turing Award, which is often referred to as the “Nobel Prize of Computing,” is given to individuals who have made “lasting and major technical importance to the computer field.” Many deserving individuals in the field of computer science have not yet received the award, and there’s always an ongoing debate about who should be the next recipient.
(Note the triple weasel words/phrase: “a case can be made”; “potential”; “candidate”. ChatGPT would be a great politician or university administrator! Also note the sloppy language: “Together with Guy Steele, he co-designed…” (why not just “designed” since the sentence already includes “together with…”?))
Me:
Give me some examples of these deserving individuals
GPT4 (not quoted, for clarity; text in brackets was added by me):
Many individuals have made substantial contributions to computer science but have not (as of my last training cut-off in January 2022) received the Turing Award. Some potential candidates, based on their influential work, could include:
Donald Knuth – Widely recognized for his multi-volume work “The Art of Computer Programming,” which is a comprehensive monograph on computer programming. [won in 1974]
Bjarne Stroustrup – The creator of the C++ programming language, which has had a significant influence on software development and system programming.
Guido van Rossum – The creator of the Python programming language, which is one of the most popular and influential languages in both academia and industry.
Tim Berners-Lee – While he has received a plethora of other accolades, the inventor of the World Wide Web and the first web browser hasn’t received the Turing Award (as of 2022). [won in 2016]
Bill Joy – Co-founder of Sun Microsystems and a key contributor to the development of UNIX. He also wrote the Vi editor and co-authored the programming language C Shell.
Grady Booch – Known for his work in software engineering and object-oriented design. He developed the Booch method of software design, which was one of the precursors to the Unified Modeling Language (UML).
Alan Kay – While he has received a Turing Award [in 2003], some argue that his contributions, especially in the area of object-oriented programming and the concept of the laptop and tablet, are so profound that they warrant recognition.
Rasmus Lerdorf – Known as the creator of the PHP scripting language, which has played a significant role in web development.
Linus Torvalds – The main force behind the development of the Linux kernel, which is the basis for Linux operating systems. He also created Git, a distributed version control system.
Philip E. Agre – Known for his foundational work in the fields of internet research and critical computing.
Wendy Hall – Recognized for her pioneering work in hypermedia and web science.
Brewster Kahle – The founder of the Internet Archive, one of the most extensive digital archives of the web.
It’s essential to understand that the Turing Award is just one way to recognize the profound contributions made by individuals in computer science. Many other awards and honors exist in the field, and the individuals listed above have received numerous accolades for their work. The process of deciding Turing Award recipients is complex, and many factors come into play when making such determinations.
The above list is strange for its inclusion of people who’ve already won and, in the case of Alan Kay, including a mention that he has already won.
(And why is the creator of C++ nominated for an award rather than a dungeon cell?)
I’ve now reached the age where I can spend 110 percent of my time maintaining my disintegrating body and material possessions (where the house is Exhibit A!). As part of this effort, I’ve had two dental crowns for summer 2023 as well as an old filling that needed to be replaced. I found a Tufts-trained dentist down here who is a refugee from the Maskachusetts lockdowns. She has the CEREC machine for milling same-day crowns:
What does this cost? If you’re a working class chump with less spending power than someone on welfare… more than $2,200 per crown. What if you’re a laptop class member with dental insurance? The “negotiated rate” scam in dentistry is not quite as absurd as in medicine, but the total revenue for the dentist then becomes $1,200 and the patient must pay $500. In other words, those with substantially greater financial resources pay less. What about those who have chosen to refrain from work? If they’re back in my dentist’s old neighborhood around Boston… crowns are free through MassHealth (Medicaid). What about in New York? As of 2023, the 5 million New Yorkers receiving taxpayer-funded health insurance get free crowns, implants, root canals, etc. (NYT)
Whom does that leave to go down the cheaper road of extraction? The working class chumps who fund Medicaid via their tax payments and who therefore can’t pay the $2,200 per crown retail price. These will be the Americans with missing teeth.
State Farm says “A rule of thumb is to set aside 1%-4% of your home’s value for a home maintenance fund”. Aside from the fact that this is a huge range, it seems questionable. If a house is brand new, for example, it will be worth more but shouldn’t cost as much to maintain. Does “home’s value” include the land? If we want to use a percentage of “value” should we start with what it would cost to rebuild the house at today’s prices?
Also, I’m not sure that these formulae are valid for keeping a house in like-new condition. People in our part of Florida will either bulldoze a house after 20-30 years or do a major renovation ($100-200/ft), often back to the studs.
State Farm considers costs for the roof, HVAC, water heater, garage door opener, windows, and appliances. But this list isn’t complete and if you had all-new items in all of those categories your house could still be extremely shabby.
Our sojourn thus far in a 20-year-old house has taught me a lot about life limits. I recently learned about the thermal expansion tank attached to the water heater. This prevents excessive pressure from developing in a house’s water lines if the system is sealed off from the municipal water supply via a backflow preventer (see Supreme Court saddens the guys working at our house today). As soon as our backflow preventer was rebuilt, we began to notice that sometimes water pressure was initially high when opening a faucet. Our next-door neighbor is a senior engineer for a Detroit automaker and my go-to source for everything related to the house. He said that he’d had the same problem when his thermal expansion tank had failed internally. We looked at our water heater (installed 2020) and there was no tank at all! (Due to the failed backflow preventer, any excess pressure was previously absorbed by the city water supply.) The plumber who put a tank in said they cost $300 and last 2-5 years (they have a one-year warranty). So that’s an extra $75/year in maintenance reserve, perhaps.
If we consider furniture to be part of the house, and we want a house to look good, we need to budget for replacement of all furniture every 10 years (usually not cost-effective to reupholster). Online estimates of furniture cost are 10-50 percent of the house value. If we take the bottom end of this range for cheap-ish furniture and assume that the furniture costs 10 percent of the house value, that’s 1 percent of the house value every year as a furniture renovation budget.
Backyard pools here in Florida have a life expectancy of about 20 years (leaks can develop; tiles start to come apart). They cost about $25,000 to rehab every 20 years and the pump and heater can die sooner, so that’s probably $1,500 per year amortized.
You’ll want to paint inside and out every 5-10 years if you want the place to look sharp. That won’t be cheap!
People in nicer houses seem to do complete kitchen and bathroom renovations every 15-20 years. Those are $100,000+, so at least $7,000 per year if you want to avoid a period of shabbiness and people walking in saying “this kitchen could use a renovation”. (Of course, hardly any cooking is done in these dream kitchens, but somehow the cabinets and appliances still manage to fall apart over time!)
In order to remain competitive, hotel owners are required to do complete renovations periodically. Every room is rebuilt, refurnished, etc. Every wall is painted and every floor gets a new carpet, tile, or other flooring. If you want to live in a house that isn’t shabby, you need to do the same thing and I suspect that will cost more than 4% of the house value per year. But how much more?
Or I wonder if we could take the cost of a complete rebuild of the house and multiply that by 4 percent. Building a mediocre house in South Florida will cost about $1 million (about $350/foot for 2,500′ plus another $100,000 for the pool). The maintenance budget for a 2,500′ house is thus $40,000 per year.
Here’s what I came up with…
Cost
Expected life
Cost/year
State Farm items
tile roof
$60,000
30
$2,000
hvac
$20,000
12
$1,667
water heater
$1,500
10
$150
windows
$60,000
20
$3,000
furniture
$100,000
10
$10,000
swimming pool rehab
$25,000
20
$1,250
pool filters/heaters
$5,000
10
$500
$150/ft renovation
$375,000
20
$18,750
Annual total
$37,317
Note that the $150/ft renovation is intended to include the kitchen, bathrooms, and all appliances. It would also include flooring and paint. The total comes out pretty close to $40,000/year and there is nothing in the budget for mid-cycle painting, unexpected repairs, or unknown unknowns.
In other words, if someone got a 2 percent mortgage a couple of years ago, his/her/zir/their annual maintenance budget could well be larger than the mortgage, an unexpected result for many.
The typical homeowner, of course, won’t do the renovation every 20 years, so he/she/ze/they will spend less and also live in an increasingly decrepit house (or move!).
For calculating inflation, the BLS uses the fictitious “owners’ equivalent rent” (OEI). Home maintenance costs rise with the price of labor, which in turns rises with the cost of health insurance and, thus, at a higher rate than overall CPI. I wonder if inflation is understated partly because it assumes that Americans will live in ever-shabbier houses. The shabbiness wouldn’t be compensated for in OEI because owners aren’t likely to notice how crummy their house has become compared to a new house (boiling frog syndrome, another false premise of Science).
In other words, our houses cost us way more than we think, either explicitly in money if we do keep them up or implicitly in shabbiness if we don’t, and that might lead to inflation being understated (since we would have to spend a lot more to maintain our lifestyle).
Prices are rising more slowly, but consumers fixate on how much lower they were before the pandemic, a problem for Biden.
Inflation has fallen sharply in the past year. The economy remains strong. Yet Americans remain deeply unhappy about the economy, often citing inflation. It continues to weigh on President Biden’s approval and re-election hopes.
Peasants aren’t sufficiently grateful, in other words, for all of the good things that the Party has done for them. They don’t credit Joe Biden for increasing their chocolate ration to 20 grams, for example.
I wonder if there will be spontaneous pro-Biden rallies to show gratitude for the lower airfares and car prices after the latest union contracts work their way through the system. CNBC:
I’ve got my mother’s AOL account password and try to log in every day or two to clear out the spam, unsubscribe her from all of the scam mailing lists that she’s on, etc. Considering that mom says she’d vote for Joe Biden even if he were a mental vegetable and/or dead, it is a little strange that she is on rightwing.org‘s mailing list:
The folks behind this are bravely defending “the American way”:
Where are these rightwing warriors based?
Glendale, California! In other words, every day they are paying taxes to keep Gavin Newsom’s lockdowns, DEI programs, gun safety laws, and welfare schemes going.
I find this even harder to understand than my mom being on their list!
I was chatting with an Ivy League graduate who is a loyal Democrat and who follows the mainstream media. He shared that he had learned from news articles that the recently deceased Dianne Feinstein was the first female U.S. senator and, therefore, a true pioneer for her gender ID.
The first female U.S. senator, Rebecca Latimer Felton, represented Georgia for a single day in 1922, and the first woman elected to the Senate, Hattie Caraway, was elected from Arkansas in 1932. Fifty-nine women have served in the upper house of the United States Congress since its establishment in 1789.
A gun owner with a concealed carry permit who wanted to deny her subjects the right to carry guns, Ms. Feinstein was also an early crusher of 2SLGBTQQIA+ dreams. A 1982 NYT article:
Mayor Dianne Feinstein today vetoed a San Francisco city ordinance that would have extended to live-in lovers, including homosexuals, the health insurance benefits that now go to husbands and wives of city employees.
The ordinance she vetoed was introduced by Harry Britt, the only publicly homosexual member of the Board of Supervisors. Mr. Britt was traveling in the East today, but his office released a statement in which he said that ”by vetoing this law, Mayor Feinstein has shown it is our nation’s institutions that lack civility. She has done serious harm to the efforts of gay men and lesbians to gain acceptance and understanding of our life styles.”
Dana van Gorder, a member of Mr. Britt’s staff, said the Mayor ”does not believe in the spirit of this legislation whatsoever.” The spokesman said that the homosexual community ”has had a sense for some time that she has viewed us with a certain moral judgment.”
At dusk about 200 people, many identifying themselves as homosexuals, gathered at the City Hall steps in response to a call for a protest. They cheered speakers who criticized Mayor Feinstein, and they chanted ”Dump Dianne.”
She sought to collect income tax and other revenues in Deplorable states, but not to send any money back to them until they accepted Faucism (press release):
The Science of cloth masks was powerful in the summer of 2020. A quote from the above:
“Research shows that masks reduce transmission of the coronavirus. CDC Director Redfield said this surge in COVID-19 cases could end within two months if we adopt ‘universal masking.’… countries that are successfully controlling this virus require masks. So why doesn’t the United States have a national mask mandate?”
(Remember to check cumulative excess deaths to see how those “countries that [were] successfully controlling the virus” eventually fared.)
What are some example articles that communicate to readers that Dianne Feinstein was the first female senator? From the New York Post:
US Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the trailblazing California Democrat who broke gender barriers throughout her five decades in politics, died Thursday night at her Washington, DC home following a number of health scares. She was 90.
The Guardian: “Senator Dianne Feinstein, trailblazer for women in US politics, dies aged 90″.
The Hill: “Senate loses giant in Dianne Feinstein: ‘A trailblazer in every sense of that word’”
New York Times: “Dianne Feinstein, a Trailblazing Senator, Dies at 90″
A friend sent me this assignment, recently given to students at the public high school in Palo Alto, California:
Let’s focus in on a few…
This is a little confusing. Racism explains why “Black and Latino men” are incarcerated at higher rates than other residents of the U.S. But how can racism explain why men are more likely to be incarcerated than people who identify with the other 73 genders recognized by Science?
What would happen to a student who cited Elizabeth Warren as an example?
This is the one that upsets me. Our house is 3 miles from the climate change-enhanced ocean, yet we are redlined by State Farm and excluded from homeowners insurance.
