Interested in escaping to the mountains for all or part of the summer? Here’s a report, based on 2023 visits, regarding three possibilities. Park City, Utah (elevation 7,000′) is the best choice if you’re passionate about Pride and 2SLGBTQQIA+. The city purchased at least 100 tr … | Continue reading
“Anheuser-Busch CEO says his company will continue to support the LGBTQ community” (NBC, June 28): Anheuser-Busch InBev will continue to support the LGBTQ community despite backlash over a Bud Light advertising campaign featuring a transgender influencer that has simmered for n … | Continue reading
Overheard in Delft… a chubby California blonde was on her iPhone describing the marvels of the city to friends back in Sacramento and San Francisco: “It’s incredibly clean, not like the cities in our country.” This was late on a Sunday afternoon and, in fact, the streets and sid … | Continue reading
In Rainbow-first Retail (examples from Bozeman, Montana), I displayed photos of retail shops whose owners invested time and money to ensure that consumers wouldn’t be able to enter without paying obeisance to America’s state religion. But 2SLGBTQQIA+-ism is our state religion and … | Continue reading
Remember to listen to the credentialed experts, such as Hal Berghel, Ph.D. computer nerd. A 1995 academic paper… “The inevitable demise of the Web”: There is no doubt that the fastest growing part of the Internet is the World Wide Web. From its inception in 1990, the Web has es … | Continue reading
Just a day after my arrival in the Netherlands, the government has fallen. “Mark Rutte: Netherlands coalition government collapses in migration row – reports” (BBC): His conservative VVD party had been trying to limit the flow of asylum seekers, following a row last year about … | Continue reading
“A $100 Billion Wealth Migration Tilts US Economy’s Center of Gravity South” (Bloomberg, June 29): Some 2.2 million people moved to the Southeast in just over two years. That’s roughly the population of Houston. Maskachusetts did its share to unload rich people with lockdowns … | Continue reading
Here’s what the Twitter feed of a Miami TV station looked like back in Pride Month: Is this appropriate 2SLGBTQQIA+ promotion? The sacred Rainbow appears next to an article about Jose Salvador Hernandez, whose alleged actions are nothing to be proud of: Deputies were later c … | Continue reading
Nominally “private” colleges and universities get so much money from taxpayers that they are essentially part of the government. Taxpayers fund tuition grants that go straight into the colleges’ pockets. Taxpayers subsidize student loans that boost revenue by letting students pay … | Continue reading
I always wondered why Supreme Court Justices didn’t quit their $400,000ish/year (total compensation) jobs and become law firm partners making $5 million/year arguing cases. Why live like civil servants when they could easily be living the multimillionaire lifestyle? And why not r … | Continue reading
For British Readers: Happy Traitorous Rebellion Day. For Americans: Happy Great Patriotic Revolution Day. One of the freedoms for which we ostensibly rebelled and that would not have been available had we stayed part of the British Empire is enshrined in our First Amendment. We … | Continue reading
Folks: I’m heading over to mostly-peaceful Europe this week. I’ll be at the Delft University of Technology in Holland for a few days and then going to Ireland (Dublin, Sligo, and Belfast) for some aviation projects. If anyone would like to get together over there, please email ph … | Continue reading
Our National Parks get less than 10 percent of their budget from entrance fees. In other words, people who don’t go to the parks are subsidizing people who do go to the parks. A 2015 report found that visitors paid $186 million in fees directly and $85 million via concessions (fo … | Continue reading
Gift shops at National Parks sell books, stickers, posters, and quilts featuring all of the parks for those who wish to try to hit them all (my favorite is a scratch-off). If you’re old and remember when the “National Park” designation was reserved for truly spectacular places yo … | Continue reading
The New York Times finally acknowledges a story that has been widely reported elsewhere… “Hunter Biden Settles Child-Support Case”: According to court documents, Mr. Biden, 53, agreed to pay a monthly sum, which was not disclosed, to Ms. Roberts, as well as turn over several of … | Continue reading
3.5 years after coronapanic began, the National Park Service web site: Tours of Glen Canyon DamFollowing guidance from the White House, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and state and local public health authorities, the dam is closed to the public. In case th … | Continue reading
The old race-based college admissions system has been axed by the Supreme Court. Fortunately, however, the majority has explained how colleges can run a new race-based system: “At the same time, nothing prohibits universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race … | Continue reading
Here’s a suggestion for showing your passion for all things 2SLGBTQQIA+: drink a few Bud Light Clamatos. From Bryce Canyon earlier this month… Separately, have Bud Light sales recovered yet? At least in Florida, folks didn’t seem to be holding the company’s excursion into tran … | Continue reading
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 adm … | Continue reading
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 Pre … | Continue reading
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 … | Continue reading
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+. … | Continue reading
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 dangerou … | Continue reading
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 peop … | Continue reading
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 … | Continue reading
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 … | Continue reading
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 depres … | Continue reading
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 … | Continue reading
We recently visited the Glen Canyon Dam, which destroyed Glen Canyon and replaced it with a reservoir to hold surplus water in a river that doesn’t have any surpluses (calculations were made in the early 20th century, a period of remarkable wetness when compared to the previous 8 … | Continue reading
As the U.S. population grows (Pew forecast), let’s consider what kind of residential environment will be enjoyed by the country of 450+ million… We live in Abacoa, a New Urbanism community developed 25 years ago by the MacArthur Foundation, which didn’t need to make the last nic … | Continue reading
Sad to think about the folks inside the OceanGate Titan right now. Usually the flip side of innovation is danger, as demonstrated by Deepwater Horizon (see Ten years since Deepwater Horizon set a depth record). How innovative is the Titan? Here are the most critical specs: Le … | Continue reading
“Fed Chair Sees ‘Long Way to Go’ on Inflation Fight” (NYT): “Inflation has moderated somewhat since the middle of last year,” Mr. Powell said. “Nonetheless, inflation pressures continue to run high, and the process of getting inflation back down to 2 percent has a long way to g … | Continue reading
I subjected 7- and 9-year-old boys to H.G. Well’s War of the Worlds as an audio book recently. It wasn’t as big a hit as I expected. I enjoyed it, though! I didn’t realize how topical the 1895 book was. *** spoiler alert *** I wonder if it is time to update this book for a mode … | Continue reading
“First in the nation gender-affirming care ban struck down in Arkansas” (from state-sponsored NPR): The ruling by U.S. District Judge James Moody Jr. on Tuesday says the state of Arkansas violated several sections of the U.S. Constitution when it banned all gender-affirming tre … | Continue reading
I hope that your Pride Month is going well. Let’s talk about the intersection between Pride and commerce…. In some sense it isn’t surprising that retailers would have some percentage of their stores devoted to 2SLGBTQQIA+ merchandise because at least some percentage of customers … | Continue reading
Today is Juneteenth, when the Black working class can work and pay taxes so that the white laptop class (federal government workers) can enjoy a day off. But where does the Black working class have the opportunity to pay taxes to fund leisure for white laptop class members who ar … | Continue reading
I hope that all white readers who are members of the laptop class and/or government employees are enjoying their paid holiday for Juneteenth. For readers (like me!) who suffer from reduced income as a consequence of reduced working hours, let’s have a look to see whether we can a … | Continue reading
President Biden says “We will never stop taking action in his honor.” regarding George Floyd: A brother, a son, a father was taken from the Floyd family – with George's murder, they lost a piece of their soul.We will never forget what happened that day.We will never forget … | Continue reading
A government building in Salt Lake City, Utah photographed this morning: The sacred symbol of the official state religion flies 3X higher and is perhaps 20X larger than the American flag. How exactly does the DA’s office worship Rainbow Flagism, though? Does the District Atto … | Continue reading
New Hampshire has long been wrongly considered a “tax-free” state. There was no income tax on wages and, unlike other New England states, there was no death tax. But for successful people there was always a 5% tax interest and dividends to consider. The state’s web site, however, … | Continue reading
There’s been some drama around what is supposed to be an event that everyone can agree on. “LA Pride pulls out of Dodgers’ Pride Night after drag nun group is disinvited” (The Guardian): LA Pride has pulled out of an annual Pride Night hosted by the Dodgers after the team disin … | Continue reading
Here are a couple of neon sculptures by Eric Adams, the artist who now serves as New York City mayor, in the lobby of the Whitney museum, just above the ticket desk ($25 for an adult): Our sanctuary cities are somewhat undersupplied with migrants due to a shortage of buses … | Continue reading
A friend’s daughter in NYC is soon to turn a disposable fetus into a precious baby. This transformation will cost her $5,000 out of pocket. She couldn’t find an ob-gyn in Manhattan without agreeing to the “concierge” plan and says that this is the direction of primary care in the … | Continue reading
“NAACP Issues Travel Advisory in Florida” (NAACP): the NAACP Board of Directors issued a formal travel advisory for the state of Florida. The travel advisory comes in direct response to Governor Ron DeSantis’ aggressive attempts to erase Black history and to restrict diversity, … | Continue reading
One of our greatest modern writers, Martin Amis, died recently (New York Times). Cancer got him at age 73. I didn’t know this until I saw his obituary, but he was our neighbor here in Palm Beach County, Florida. I wrote about one of his books here: Lionel Asbo by Martin Amis. Ex … | Continue reading
How’s the “show me the man and I’ll show you the crime” prosecution of Donald Trump going? I’ve been out in the Mountain West and can’t keep up with all of the legal attacks. I’m reminded of my 2007 blog post, Idi Amin’s advice to Richard Nixon: [Idi] Amin sent a letter to Ric … | Continue reading
An event with slightly lower probability than the sun falling out of the sky… “DELTAHAWK’S JET-FUELED PISTON ENGINE RECEIVES FAA CERTIFICATION”: Featuring an inverted-V engine block, turbocharging and supercharging, mechanical fuel injection, liquid cooling, direct drive, and 4 … | Continue reading
“Ted Kaczynski, ‘Unabomber’ Who Attacked Modern Life, Dies at 81” (New York Times): After his arrest, Mr. Kaczynski’s extraordinary biography emerged. He had scored 167 on an I.Q. test as a boy and entered Harvard at 16. In graduate school, at the University of Michigan, he wor … | Continue reading