Young Americans see Kamala Harris as the “candidate of change”

“Poll Finds Harris Rising as She Challenges Trump on Change” (NYT): A national Times/Siena poll found Kamala Harris with a slim lead over Donald J. Trump. Voters were more likely to see her, not Mr. Trump, as a break from the status quo. Ms. Harris, who is 59, was seen by a wide … | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 1 month ago

Why does Kamala Harris laugh so often?

Here’s a video of Kamala Harris saying that she’ll agree to spend $trillions (debt that will eventually be paid back at least partially by taxes on Chinese immigrants? What role did they play in this drama?) in reparations to Americans who identify as descendants of former slaves … | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 1 month ago

The Democrats of Wisconsin

If Oshkosh is a typical Wisconsin city, we can infer from the signage at the local office of the Democrats that Rainbow Flagism is their #1 concern. Photos from July: What else did we find downtown? A person reduced to sleeping in a doorway: I’m wondering if this is evidence for … | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 1 month ago

Enriched by immigration on Indigenous Peoples’ Day

Native Americans tried and failed to defend their borders back in the 15th and 16th centuries. The result has been a fall from 100% of the population to about 1% (enrolled members of various tribes; the number grows to between 2% and 3% if we count Elizabeth Warren-style self-ide … | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 1 month ago

One year until many of the world’s PCs can be taken over by a 10-year-old?

As the righteous in Tim Walz’s Minnesota, California, and Maskachusetts observe Indigenous Peoples’ Day and deplore the time when a hated Jew inflicted a Nakba on the entirely peaceful Native Americans, let’s look at the 21st century way to conquer a big part of the world. From M … | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 1 month ago

Attempt to preserve democracy #3

October 12, 2024, roughly 8 pm Eastern Time: “Man arrested near Trump Coachella rally intended to kill former president, sheriff says” (Fox 11). By my account, that’s the third attempt by an American patriot to preserve our democracy (assuming that we accept Democrats’ characteri … | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 1 month ago

Florida’s recovery from Hurricane Milton

Our brushed-by-Milton neighborhood in Palm Beach County is almost completely cleaned up. There were some tornadoes nearby that significantly damaged houses and I can’t figure out why. “NWS: EF3 tornado with winds of 140 mph tore through Avenir community in Palm Beach Gardens” (WP … | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 1 month ago

Power restoration after Hurricane Milton

Landfall: October 9, 2024 at 8:30 pm. Supposedly about 4 million customers lost power (source: Ron DeSantis press conference). Mid-afternoon the next day: Early evening: The morning of the second day: Apparently there was power at the big airport in Tampa because they resumed ope … | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 1 month ago

Are the world’s most accomplished people doomed to disappoint us when they offer political opinions?

It is conventional among Democrats to deplore Elon Musk’s refusal to change with the times and adopt the latest progressive dogma. And, indeed, despite Musk being objectively one of the world’s most accomplished people, the opinions that he expresses or retweets are conventional … | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 1 month ago

Why not a simple web site or phone app to determine whether one must evacuate?

An American faced with hazardous weather who wants to know whether to evacuate his/her/zir/their house or apartment must first do a web search to find a site that maps flood or evacuation zones, typically A through E. Then the citizen, documented immigrant, temporary protected st … | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 1 month ago

The smartest person in the world says that AI will end civilization within 20 years

I hope that we can all agree that whoever wins the Nobel Prize in physics is either the smartest person in the world or very close to having that distinction. This year’s smartest person is Geoffrey Hinton (WSJ): A 2023 interview (Guardian): Hinton has been fielding a new request … | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 1 month ago

The nation’s smartest voters (New Yorkers)

We are informed by New York-based media that New Yorkers are highly intelligent Followers of Science and that voters in Arkansas, for example, are stupid. Let’s check out their respective politicians. Arkansans have sent Tom Cotton to the House and now Senate in three elections. … | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 1 month ago

Does Israel need a strategic bombing capability?

Today is the one-year anniversary of the fighting started by the Islamic Resistance Movement (“Hamas”), UNRWA, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad on October 7, 2023. The dragged-out low-intensity nature of of the battles over a 76-year period seem to show the potential for humanitaria … | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 1 month ago

Does Kamala Harris propose “Socialism” or “Xboxism”?

My response to an X user who wrote “Usually it’s an exaggeration to claim that the other side is lunatic socialism. With Kamala 2024 that’s become a reality we face.”: I don’t think that it is fair to call Democrats “socialists”. Under Socialism, e.g., in the Soviet Union, able-b … | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 1 month ago

Lowriders in Fort Worth

The leisure hours of a software expert witness at trial are few. I did find time to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month by walking out of the war room and into Fort Worth’s Sundance Square for a September 21st event “Celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month with a vibrant showcase of lo … | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 1 month ago

Lebanon takes a victimhood master class from Hamas

Palestinians have run a master class in victimhood since October 8, 2023. Westerners accept that there has been a “genocide” in a part of the world whose population is growing. The Islamic Resistance Movement (“Hamas”) has demonstrated that it is possible to convince Westerners t … | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 1 month ago

Should my friend apply to a Massachusetts town for permission to turn his house into a for-profit migrant shelter?

A friend owns a 6,000-square-foot house in our former suburb of Lincoln, Maskachusetts. Loyal readers might remember the 2019 post Harvard graduate discovers that the suburbs are packed with narrow-minded white heterosexuals: The old white guy who led the First Parish church in o … | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 1 month ago

Florida after Hurricane Helene

It looks as though Florida is more or less cleaned up after Hurricane Helene. All schools were open as of yesterday: Today in Perry, I announced that all school districts are open following Hurricane Helene. It’s essential for kids to have a sense of normalcy, uninterrupted educa … | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 1 month ago

Why doesn’t the U.S. try to buy migrants from Europe?

We are informed that low-skill migrants make the native-born richer and that, therefore, a country’s borders should be mostly open (albeit never described as “open borders” because that is hate speech/conspiracy theory). We also informed that Europeans don’t want to be rich… ”Eur … | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 1 month ago

Why can’t supervisors and replacement workers unload container ships during the longshoremen’s strike?

When the typical business is hit by a strike it is able to continue operating at a reduced capacity via the use of supervisors and/or replacement workers (airlines are an exception due to FAA regulations; see “Unions and Airlines”). Why are Atlantic and Gulf Coast U.S. ports comp … | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 1 month ago

Checking on the Snowflake stock price

On April 1, 2021 I began questioning the value of Snowflake (SNOW) stock relative to Oracle (ORCL). I did a follow-up two years ago, How is Snowflake stock doing?: SNOW is down nearly 30 percent while the S&P 500, thanks to Joe Biden’s careful stewardship of the U.S. economy, i … | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 1 month ago

Fifth anniversary of Kamala Harris defending freedom of speech

Five years ago, today: Look let's be honest, @realDonaldTrump's Twitter account should be suspended. — Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) October 1, 2019 In case the above is memory-holed, an image version: (Professor Saad corrected his typo (“FREE societies”) in a follow-up, so this … | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 1 month ago

Who is the fink in Lebanon? And why didn’t Hezbollah leaders leave their bunker after the apartment buildings were cleared?

Hezbollah has been having some difficulties lately in Lebanon, a country that should be a near-ideal host for an anti-Israel organization (almost as good an ideological fit as within Harvard University, Columbia, Dearborn, Michigan, or Minneapolis). Lebanon declared war on Israel … | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 1 month ago

Birthday Reflections

I’m 61 today, a stereotypical age for a 1950s father to drop dead from a heart attack (that would have been attributed to the stresses of work, adult female supervision, concerns around children, etc.). This post is to reflect on things that I’ve learned in the past year. From Fo … | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 1 month ago

Hurricane Helene Holiday…

…. for the schoolteachers here in Palm Beach County. The forecast called for some rain, winds of about 20 knots, and for the storm to track off Florida’s west coast (i.e., “the other coast”) and then, in a move sure to delight Democrats, directly over Ron DeSantis’s house in Tall … | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 1 month ago

Our AI Overlords at the railroad crossing

On my way back downtown from the Fort Worth Stockyards, Uber pinged me. The company’s giant AI brain was concerned that I had been stopped for a few minutes. Our GPS position showed that were in the middle of a road… at a railroad crossing. Speaking of AI, we have a GE Monogram b … | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 1 month ago

Why do homeless Americans tend to wear surgical masks?

I’ve spent a few weeks in downtown Fort Worth, Texas recently. It’s a lively city center with visual art, music, outdoor events in Sundance Square, restaurants, etc. The terrain is well-suited to cycling and there is a bike share system with reasonably good coverage for places th … | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 1 month ago

What do the United Nations “Temporary” Peacekeepers do when Hezbollah sets up a rocket shop next to their base?

“U.N. peacekeepers take cover as Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Israel trade attacks” (from state-sponsored NPR, July 2024): Literally in the middle of this confrontation is the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, created in 1978 after Israel invaded the neighboring country. Despit … | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 1 month ago

Can Kamala Harris shoot someone who breaks into her house?

“Harris tells Oprah any intruder to her home is ‘getting shot'” (Reuters): Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday issued a warning to any potential home intruder: “If somebody breaks in my house, they’re getting shot.” The Democratic presidential candidate and gun owner made th … | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 1 month ago

Will Kamala Harris and fellow Democrats have to make Puerto Rico a state before implementing their new taxes?

Kamala Harris has big dreams for what rich people can do for the U.S. Treasury via new taxes and higher tax rates (see The Harris unrealized capital gains tax and Bidenflation and Unrealized capital gains are already taxed by the federal government… for example). The typical Amer … | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 1 month ago

What do Democrats dream about now that vaccine passports are passé?

The big Democrat dream in 2021 was a segregated society in which Deplorables who refused to vaccinate their 8-year-olds against a virus that kills 82-year-olds would be excluded. See, for example, Vaccine papers checks in the Cradle of Liberty (December 2021, regarding Boston’s o … | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 2 months ago

A standard day in the American health care system…

Here’s an August 2024 bill for a walk-around heart monitor that was used by a patient in February 2024: The price to an uninsured person would have been more than 10X the real price of the service ($3985 vs. $331). I still can’t understand how it is legal for health care provider … | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 2 months ago

Has Joe Biden prevented Kamala Harris from fixing most of our nation’s problems?

Here’s Kamala Harris talking about her plans for late January 2025: When I’m president, I will take on corporate landlords that unfairly raise rents on working families. — Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) September 10, 2024 What’s stopping her from doing this now? Is Joe Biden such … | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 2 months ago

Tesla CyberTruck as the perfect substrate for an art car?

I’ve seen a few wrapped Tesla CyberTrucks lately. Apparently folks aren’t in love with the stock look and in the vinyl age don’t need to be. For the first time in the history of cars we have tons of people who are happy to pay $100,000 for a vehicle and then happy to pay some mor … | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 2 months ago

Could all of our phones be blown up by a cyberattack?

“How could Israel have triggered Hezbollah pager explosions?” (Daily Mail): … the cause of the explosions was likely the lithium batteries that power the pagers. While lithium-ion batteries are commonly used in consumer electronics, they can overheat and catch on fire – even expl … | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 2 months ago

American Vaccine Inflation

I can’t figure out why Science hasn’t converged on opposite sides of the Atlantic regarding vaccines. Let’s leave COVID aside for the moment since one’s level of coronapanic is inevitably a political decision. Let’s look at the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine. The techn … | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 2 months ago

You need a 275 knot airplane if you’re based in South Florida

A recent email to a friend in the aviation world: Florida isn’t the greatest for 150-knot GA. If you fly for two hours you end up in a place that looks almost exactly like the place where you live (flat, palm trees, a beach nearby, etc.). It’s not like going from BED to MVY, BTV, … | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 2 months ago

Kamala Harris is happy that the danger to our democracy persists

Six days ago (i.e., a couple of months since the first attempted assassination of Donald Trump) Kamala Harris said that Donald Trump is “a danger to … our democracy”: Take it from the people who worked for him: Donald Trump is a danger to our troops, our security, and our democra … | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 2 months ago

Hispanic Heritage Month at the science museum

I hope that everyone has fully prepared for National Hispanic Heritage Month, which starts today. Friend’s daughter at the Boston Museum of Science: “Why are all of the signs in Spanish when everyone here is white or Asian?” From August 2021, when Marjorie Taylor Greene was suspe … | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 2 months ago

New York Times: After welcoming 50 million non-European migrants, Europe is poor and needs more government spending

“Europe’s ‘Reason for Being’ at Risk as Competitiveness Wanes, Report Warns” (New York Times, 9/9/2024): Europe must increase public investment by nearly $900 billion a year in sectors like technology and defense, according to a long-awaited report published Monday in response to … | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 2 months ago

Back to school at Brown University

We’ve got a mole inside Brown this year. Here’s “Clouseau’s” report on how freshman year started… (not in quote style for readability): Before classes began, all students were required to read an 86 page report on Brown’s relationship with slavery (TLDR: Slavery was bad and insti … | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 2 months ago

The Harris unrealized capital gains tax and Bidenflation

The Democrats’ latest tax schemes, recently highlighted by Kamala Harris, include collecting tax on unrealized capital gains. To me, one of the strangest things about the US tax system is that losses are taxed as capital gains so long as there is even the slightest amount of infl … | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 2 months ago

Changing Perceptions of Jihad in New York City

It’s the 23rd anniversary of 9/11, described by Wikipedia as “Islamist terrorist suicide attacks”, and the first 9/11 anniversary since soldiers of the Islamic Resistance Movement (“Hamas”), UNRWA, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad invaded Israel (October 7, 2023). At least on Septem … | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 2 months ago

New York Times features an expert on parenting…

… who has never been a parent. “I Love the Kids in My Life. And I’m Raising None of Them.” (Glynnis MacNicol, NYT, 9/7/2024): I have no children of my own… In America, there is a persistent, pernicious belief that the only way to be invested in a child’s life is to be a parent — … | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 2 months ago

Is the camera on the iPhone 16 Pro different from the camera on the iPhone 15 Pro?

Almost as exciting to progressives as a new COVID-19 vaccine… Apple has announced the iPhone 16 (two cameras/lenses) and iPhone 16 Pro (three cameras/lenses). For us photo nerds, plainly, the 16 Pro is the only device of interest. I can’t figure out what’s different, though. Here … | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 2 months ago

A Massachusetts Kamala voter solves what she perceives as the “Israel-Palestine Problem”

We walked to a friend from Maskachusetts shortly after the noble Gazans made the news for amputating a young American citizen’s arm, holding him hostage for 11 months, and then executing him shortly before he would have been rescued by the IDF. Hersh Goldberg-Polin was 23 years o … | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 2 months ago

How are Brazilians doing now that they’ve eliminated the biggest threat to their democracy?

Here’s Jair Bolsonaro, characterized by media elites as “far right”, “authoritarian”, and “a threat to democracy”, in 2023 (from “Exiled Bolsonaro lives it up in Florida as legal woes grow back home” (Guardian)): The Brazilian masses responded to elite advice and voted to preserv … | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 2 months ago

NASA at Oshkosh (saving our planet with plastic bags)

From nasa.gov: The NASA pavilion at EAA AirVenture (“Oshkosh”) 2024: (These are the plastic bags that are good for the environment?) What else was going on? NASA arranged to have a Boeing Starliner parked in front: The NISAR mission was featured. This was supposed to be launched … | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 2 months ago