Supreme Court saddens the guys working at our house today

by philg

The “abnormal” Republicans on the Supreme Court prevented the working class from paying for elite kids’ gender studies degrees. “Supreme Court blocks Biden’s student loan forgiveness program” (CNN):

In a stinging defeat for President Joe Biden, the Supreme Court blocked the administration’s student loan forgiveness plan Friday, rejecting a program aimed at delivering up to $20,000 of relief to millions of borrowers struggling with outstanding debt.

The decision was 6-3 with Chief Justice John Roberts writing for the conservative supermajority.

Roberts said the government needed direct authorization from Congress.

“The question here is not whether something should be done; it is who has the authority to do it.”

The liberal dissenters said the majority is basically making political decisions.

“The Court acts as though it is an arbiter of political and policy disputes, rather than of cases and controversies,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote.

The end of this glorious scheme comes just as there are three guys working at our house. One is a plumber rebuilding the Watts 007M3 backflow preventer, a 20-year-old device that protects the public water supply from contaminants (SARS-CoV-2?) that could be introduced from our house’s irrigation system, which is entirely separate and fed by “reclaimed water” (maybe we don’t want to know the details?). There are two guys installing a new garage door that meets the latest code for impact resistance (shooting 2x4s at the door with a cannon) as well as wind resistance. I actually went up to W8 wind resistance, which is required down in Miami, on the theory that the New York Times might be correct about the appropriate level of climate panic. (Hurricanes may actually be getting less common; see “Declining tropical cyclone frequency under global warming” (2022) from Nature Magazine)

(The new garage door should pay for itself within a few years because it is insulated, unlike the other one, and it will give us a discount on homeowners insurance, a rare Florida problem that the New York-based media does not exaggerate!)

I wonder if these hard-working guys are experiencing personal sadness that, while they can still pay for the elites’ new Teslas, they can no longer fund elite kids’ college tuition and, indirectly, enrich anthropology professors and administrators.

Separately, it’s interesting that what is constitutional is now entirely predictable based on the political party of the Supreme Court Justice. A layperson might be excused for thinking that these sacred legal principles are entirely arbitrary!

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Supreme Court Justices agree with Harvard that Asians have no personality

by philg

The nation’s most enthusiastic racialists have had their sails trimmed. “Supreme Court Strikes Down Race-Based Admissions at Harvard and U.N.C.” (New York Times):

Race-conscious admissions programs at Harvard and the University of North Carolina are unconstitutional… Former President Barack Obama, who broke the color barrier in the nation’s highest office with his election in 2008, denounced the Supreme Court’s decision on Thursday to eliminate race-based affirmative action in college admissions.

For those of us with Asian friends, however, there is a silver lining. Wikipedia:

Dissent: Sotomayor, joined by Kagan, Jackson[a]
Dissent Jackson[a], joined by Sotomayor, Kagan

We can now tell Asians that at least two of the nation’s top judges have officially confirmed Harvard’s diagnosis of Asians as having no personality. (“Harvard consistently rated Asian-American applicants lower than others on traits like “positive personality,” likability, courage, kindness and being “widely respected,” according to an analysis of more than 160,000 student records filed Friday by a group representing Asian-American students in a lawsuit against the university.” (NYT 2018))

MIT is already set up to keep its victimhood apparatus going. The Infinite Corridor earlier this week was devoid of victimhood-by-skin-color signs. The new religion is discrimination by “class”:

How will the victimhood administrators determine the class membership of an applicant for a job or a degree? Maybe by skin color?

From https://mitadmissions.org/blogs/tag/case-class-awareness-support-and-equality/:

Here’s some interesting text:

As far as admissions goes, I have heard people say things like “I didn’t get in because I wasn’t enough of a special snowflake” or “They probably gave my spot to a minority.” I have also heard people (@me) say “I probably only got in because I’m a girl.” This is a toxic mindset that was discussed in the forum. Sure, no college admissions process is perfect. However, you don’t get accepted or rejected for your identity. If you got in, rest assured that you are qualified, you are capable, and you have potential. If you didn’t get in, you may also be all of these things and simply not an ideal fit for the school– but you didn’t get turned away for something as trivial as the concentration of melanin in your skin.

The Supreme Court majority found exactly the opposite: students did get accepted or rejected for their identity.

A great NYT photo:

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Frontiers of English: “this Pride” like “this Christmas”

by philg

Email received this month from Marriott’s W Hotels division:

Not “this Pride Month”, but simply “this Pride” as in “this Thanksgiving” or “this Christmas”.

If you’ve been wondering why we celebrate the state religion just one month per year, the folks at Marriott promise “W Bangkok continues Pride year round, with programs scheduled through 2023.”

Readers: will saying “this Pride” stick as an English idiom?

Some more examples… from a California state senator:

From a physician in the UK:

From a newspaper in Portland, Oregon:

From the Village Voice (NYC):

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Should a company have to offer lower rates to the 2SLGBTQQIA+ before it is allowed to call itself an “Ally”?

by philg

From Salt Lake City, just outside the public library:

Morgan Stanley says that it is not merely an “ally” but a “proud ally” of the 2SLGBTQQIA+. However, as far as I am aware, the bank does not offer discounts or preferential rates to customers who identify as 2SLGBTQQIA+. Should the Federal Trade Commission shut them down for false advertising unless they can show concretely what they’re doing for 2SLGBTQQIA+ customers worldwide? A company shouldn’t be able to obtain the “queer advantage” (see book below from the Salt Lake City Library) without paying for it, should it?

Separately, the New York Times says that humanity faces a “climate emergency” and an “existential crisis”. At the same time, I think that the newspaper takes money for ads for single-family homes (inherently energy-inefficient) and pavement-melting SUVs. Maybe the FTC can’t shut them down for hypocrisy, but perhaps the NYT could be forced to add a “context” box under every claim that the Earth is going Full Venus: “This newspaper profits from ads for SUVs and single-family homes.”

A few more examples…

Experian‘s all-month Twitter presence:

Will they give higher credit ratings if they see charges from Grindr? If not, what is Experian doing for the 2SLGBTQQIA+?

Pfizer:

The Pfizer web site:

Not to be left out… Novartis:

From Microsoft, in the search box at the bottom left of the Windows 10 home screen:

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How are folks in New Orleans doing in the 115-degree heat?

by philg

Email from the New York Times:

The Morning: 115 degrees Fahrenheit

Today, New Orleans will reach 113 degrees in the heat index. Houston will reach 111. Mobile, Ala., and Jackson, Miss., will also surpass 110. And those are only a few of the places that will experience dangerous heat this week.

In New Orleans, the heat index will hit 111 degrees today, climb to 115 by Thursday and remain above 110 for the week.

From the Google:

Whether the high temp this week will be 98 or 115, I hope that our brothers, sisters, and binary-resisters in New Orleans can find a way to stay comfortable.

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Djibouti and Puerto Rico

by philg

Happy Industrial Workers of the World Day.

From the World Bank, here’s a chart of labor force participation in Puerto Rico:

41 percent of the folks who are 15+ work. Compare to 70 percent in Singapore, New Zealand, Jamaica, and Ghana. Where can we go to find places where people are less likely to work? Djibouti!

Related:

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Why do Covidians gather en masse?

by philg

Our kids watched part of a Miami Heat v Celtics basketball game. 20,000 people gathered indoors, more or less on top of each other, in a sold-out TD Garden (in Boston’s North End). Hardly any fan had a mask on.

From 2020 through mid-2022, preventing deaths tagged to COVID-19 was important enough to Bostonians that they equired 5-year-olds to get injected with an experimental vaccine before going into public places, closed businesses (except “essential” marijuana stores), and required everyone (but especially children down to age 2) to wear masks.

It is the official position of Science that COVID-19 vaccines do not prevent infection by SARS-CoV-2 nor transmission of a SARS-CoV-2 infection. (There are also plenty of other lethal respiratory viruses that can spread when 20,000 people gather indoors.) Why were the Covidians of Boston willing to cram into this arena rather than #StayingHomeSavingLives and watching the game on TV?

The risk of a deadly mutation is increased every time that humans gather en masse. “No, the COVID-19 Pandemic Isn’t Over” (Cleveland Clinic, May 2023):

Simply put: If the virus is circulating, it’s also mutating. As we learned during the delta variant surge, some of those mutations can have devastating consequences.

Same idea in less clinical language:

I remain baffled by folks who say that they haven’t changed any of their Covidian opinions yet they’re doing everything possible to help SARS-CoV-2 spread and mutate. Can someone please explain this?

The Covidians who are still masking and/or staying in their bunkers strike me as more logically consistent. Here is a sampling:

I’m also not surprised when Floridians gather en masse. In 2020 they said that they were still going to attend school, work, and social events despite SARS-CoV-2 so it makes sense for them to be living in the same way now. But why did the Covidians change? It can’t be vaccinations. Nearly 200,000 Americans died with a COVID-19 in 2022, quite a few of them in a state of grace (after having received the Sacrament of Fauci).

(Separately, we were sad that Miami came in 2nd in the NBA Finals, but #2 isn’t terrible!)

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Diversity is our strength, NASA edition

by philg

Many moons ago, so to speak, I was a Fortran programmer on the Pioneer Venus project. Here’s a recent tweet from my former employer:

There’s “space for everyone” and “different perspectives” are valuable. But on the other hand, there is no space for perspectives from taxpayers who fund the agency.

Also, why is it just “LGBTQI+”? Why not 2SLGBTQQIA+?

Finally, if the future of the galaxy is female, according to Science and the baseball cap below, why does NASA hire anyone who identifies as of the 73 other genders recognized by Science? Why is “diversity” better than betting on the winning gender?

Related:

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Test deep submersible designs for 2-3X the number of dives that will carry humans?

by philg

Department of Fighting the Last War… let’s talk about ideas that could have prevented the Titan tragedy.

The potential for failure of a pressure vessel is something that aviation has been dealing with since at least the 1930s (Boeing 307). The cycles of pressurization and depressurization are known to cause metal fatigue and, sometimes, lead to catastrophic failure. Certification authorities, such as the FAA, require structural analysis to certify a cycles or hours limit and this may be extended once there is more experience with the airframe. Running the cycles up to 90,000 (many short hops) contributed to the failure of Aloha Airlines Flight 243, a Boeing 737.

The reasonable standard of safety for deep-sea exploration and tourism is lower than for commercial airline travel. However, what about a rule that you have to build at least two of each design and use one as a sanity check on the pressure vessel design and ability to tolerate cycling fatigue? Don’t send humans on a 50th dive in a machine unless its sister ship has done at least 100 or 150 robot-only dives to the same depth. (If additional protection from fatigue-related failures is desired, increase the number of sister ships and the multiplier for how many dives they must survive compared to the human-occupied dives.)

Note that this procedure wouldn’t guarantee safety. Portions of the de Havilland Comet were subjected to 16,000 simulated cycles and the finished design nonetheless suffered a catastrophic failure with passengers on board (though the airplane that failed had some construction method differences from the prototype that was tested). But it is better than finding out the cycle limit with humans on board. And every machine that goes to the ocean floor will have a cycle limit.

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Amazon Prime: one-week delivery to small towns

by philg

During our three-week sojourn in the American desert we discovered a few nice-to-have items from Amazon. These were available for overnight delivery to our house in Palm Beach County. Changing the delivery zip code to a small town in Utah, however, resulted in an update: one week (e.g., to Moab, Utah, full-time population of 5,000). Maybe it was just a question of price? There was no faster option offered at any price.

In its early 2-day-always-anywhere incarnation, Amazon Prime was a great leveler and put people in small towns on an equal footing, as far as convenience went, with people in big cities.

Maybe this is why Amazon went into the business of streaming interminable TV shows? People in out-of-the-way parts of the U.S. can binge-watch while they wait for their Bluetooth headphones?

Perhaps this will save bricks-and-mortar retail? Moab has a local bookstore that has survived nearly 30 years of competition from Amazon:

(Note the success of Rainbow-first Retail (examples from Bozeman, Montana) here, with the sacred symbol of the official state religion directly over the “Children’s Books” sign.)

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