If you don’t live in/near Florida, I recommend that you get a last-minute flight to Orlando or Tampa and then drive about one hour to Sun ‘n Fun in Lakeland. I went on Tuesday, the first day. Here are a few photos. P-51 Mustang and NASA’s Super Guppy: Feel better about flying… … | Continue reading
Happy World Art Day to those who celebrate… Newer and less famous than its Miami Beach cousin, Art Basel, Art Palm Beach 2026 happened at the end of January and your fearless host braved Climate Change and fallen iguanas (down to freezing overnight!) to bring you the story. It’s … | Continue reading
Ten years ago, here on this blog… Are markets so inefficient that global warming isn’t being priced properly?: During our two weeks in Ft. Lauderdale we learned that a beachfront house costs between $3 and $8 million. Most of these are approximately the same height above sea lev … | Continue reading
Lifestyles of the Rich and Not-so-famous… a 50-year-old friend who is a good skier reported to our chat group from Aspen. What does it cost to spend a week with the elite? For two parents and two adult children in a rented 2BR timeshare, the basic cost (airfare plus lodging) for … | Continue reading
If you’ve been wondering why multiple embarrassing stories about Eric Swalwell have been released in a seemingly coordinated fashion and why Democrats call for the accused-and-presumed-guilty rapist to drop out of the California governor’s race, but not to resign from Congress … … | Continue reading
Wall Street Journal, yesterday, “Iran Has Strong Cards Going Into U.S. Talks but Risks Overplaying Its Hand”: The question now is whether Iranian leaders will overplay this critical lever at the planned meeting in Islamabad, Pakistan, with Vice President JD Vance by insisting on … | Continue reading
Here’s a guy whose profile says that he lives in San Francisco and works at Google. In other words, Iman Rahmati pays taxes to fund the U.S. military. Iman Rahmati says “Every piece of international law, every moral code, every sign of dignity in a nation, in an army, has been … | Continue reading
Our sort-of-neighbor Tiger Woods (he’s about 15 minutes from Abacoa (in Jupiter) on Jupiter Island (not in Jupiter)) is in the news lately for having come to grief in a Range Rover. This reminds me of Why don’t heavy drinkers get Tesla FSD? (Tiger was charged with DUI, but de … | Continue reading
“AOC says Trump is willing to ‘risk world war’ by using Iran attack as Epstein files distraction” (Independent, March 5, 2026): New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has slammed President Donald Trump over the joint U.S.-Israeli airstrikes on Iran, accusing him of “r … | Continue reading
How does the U.S. benefit from a two-week ceasefire in the war against Iran? I’m sure that some of our pilots could use a rest, but otherwise isn’t the main beneficiary our adversary? Iran’s oil industry wasn’t damaged so it can keep loading up tankers with crude and shipping it … | Continue reading
As 18-year-olds and their parents manage their grief over the stack of rejections received from elite colleges, here’s a Wall Street Journal article for those who were rejected by Duke (95 percent rejection rate): “He Had a Full Ride at Duke—Until America Cut Him Off”. (This a … | Continue reading
Costco wants to make sure that everyone has a very happy Easter indeed. Behold, a 10 lb. chocolate bunny at $140: It’s from Maud Borup, a company in the Islamic Republic of Minnesota that claims to be both “Women Owned” and “Veteran Owned”. What will Costco do if they have … | Continue reading
Audible last month was promoting “Islamic Heritage” even ahead of “Black Creators”: What does Audible feature in this category? Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s extensive and popular writings? Gemini’s summary: Marriage and Puberty: Khomeini maintained that the appropriate age f … | Continue reading
An average day in the U.S. health care system. Here’s a Quest Diagnostics bill for some blood tests: The good news is that the patient paid only $103 for the tests ($83 via insurance; $20.67 via an efficient paper bill mailed in USPS) that are worth $1,559. The rain on this pa … | Continue reading
Home page of the New York Times today, the job market is “strong” (top story) and “slow” (just below): We were informed that Donald Trump’s border closure would destroy the U.S. economy (see U.S. economy defies Science and Immigrants expand our economy, but millions of immigra … | Continue reading
I went to the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex yesterday to watch at least $2.5 billion of our tax dollars getting incinerated via the Artemis II mission. The best graphic that I’ve found to explain this somehow comes from Al-Jazeera: My journey began with a flight (2005 C … | Continue reading
We recently received this bumper sticker in the mail, addressed to my late mother, a loyal Democrat. Happy International Transgender Day of Visibility to those who celebrate. Note that this is not to be confused with National Transgender HIV Testing Day (April 18) nor Internat … | Continue reading
… to Donald J. Trump International Airport. I wonder if the code will change from PBI to DJT. “DeSantis signs bill to rename Palm Beach International Airport after Donald J. Trump” (WPTV): Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed a controversial bill to rename Palm Beach International Airpo … | Continue reading
Families are preparing to hear from colleges for their teenage darlings. Each acceptance will come with a price tag of up to $400,000 plus the cost of the darling not being in the workforce for four years (foregone wages). In order to cheer everyone up who is facing these costs, … | Continue reading
As Women’s History Month comes to a close, let’s look at a February visit to the Pinball Hall of Fame, on the Strip in Las Vegas. This is essentially a big warehouse filled with old arcade games, indifferently maintained and many powered off. That said, it is a large enough co … | Continue reading
There was no No Kings rally here in Jupiter, Florida yesterday so I’m forced to rely on the New York Times to understand what one might have been like. Here’s one of their photos (source), I think from Minneapolis: Principal confusion: We’re informed that Minneapolis is a full … | Continue reading
A car weekend in Florida… (last weekend) I took the 10-year-old to the 12 Hours of Sebring IMSA race, conveniently located right next to the Sebring airport. Chevy, whose team finished just behind the Porsche 911 team, brought the latest Corvette ZR1X to the event: I’m not sur … | Continue reading
We’re not at war with Cuba, as far as I know, and Cubans don’t chant “Death to America” while building advanced weapons. Nonetheless, we’ve prevented Cubans from getting oil and, thus, generating electric power. From state-sponsored NPR… “How the U.S. oil blockade is taking a hig … | Continue reading
Instead of trying to stop immigration from countries where Jew-hatred is the norm, a California city decides to try to stop Jew-hatred with some elaborate non-binding words… “San Diego City Council adopts controversial definition of antisemitism” (state-sponsored KPBS): The secu … | Continue reading
A friend with an incandescent hatred of Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and Republicans in general bought a Tesla Y at the end of 2025 because he wanted to relax with FSD on regular trips from Boston to Manhattan. A base model RWD Tesla Y leased here in Florida, as of December 22, 2025: … | Continue reading
Oil collapsed to $20-25/barrel during coronapanic and Donald Trump tried to seize the opportunity to buy enough to fill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Exactly six years ago, from rollcall: The last point: Senate Democrats took credit for stripping out that money from the Se … | Continue reading
The standard expression “You can vote your way into socialism, but you have to shoot your way out” could be adjusted for recent events in Iran, where a popular uprising doesn’t seem practical: “You can vote your way into Islamic Theocracy, but you have to shoot your way out”. It … | Continue reading
Friends have been asking how the LaGuardia airplane-fire truck crash could have happened. Before reviewing any audio, my first guess was “Might be a controller error. Clear plane to land and someone else clears fire truck across runway.” That shouldn’t happen in general. Even if … | Continue reading
We took the kids to see Hoppers, the latest Pixar movie. It has some spiritual similarities to The Population Bomb (1968), whose author recently died. Stanford University prof. and Ivy League graduate Paul R. Ehrlich was famously wrong about human population growth leading to fam … | Continue reading
A couple of days ago, Donald Trump said that we would start doing to Iran what FDR and Truman did to Germany and Japan, i.e., attack the electric power generation that allows an enemy nation to run its weapons industry. Today, however, we learn that the U.S. is actually planning … | Continue reading
I’ve been trying to help our HOA (right there you can stop reading if you want to know the definition of a thankless effort) deal with our bulk cable TV contract and establish a bulk fiber Internet contract. I hit Consumer Reports for their survey of providers. For pure cable TV, … | Continue reading
Yesterday, the peaceful Islamic Republic lobbed a warhead 4,000 km (2,500 miles) from Iran to Diego Garcia (WSJ). Let’s compare to “In Trump’s Case for War, a Series of False or Unproven Claims” (New York Times, last month; note that a “False Claim” might be construed by some peo … | Continue reading
A friend last seen in Top Gun slows down to 25 mph (across Florida by EV) and Overheard at Oshkosh (“I’ve met 120 of the 30 people who flew in the first Top Gun movie.”), regarding the three F-15s shot down by a Kuwaiti crew in an F/A-18. (Not in quote style for readability) [in … | Continue reading
Cesar Chavez is in the news this week, e.g., “Cesar Chavez, a Civil Rights Icon, Is Accused of Abusing Girls for Years” (NYT) and now Democrat-run states such as California have tons of Cesar Chavez schools and streets to rename. ChatGPT estimates 43-45 public schools and as many … | Continue reading
I had an early Pho lunch with a Bay Area friend who is a passionate Democrat and, typically, a reliable source of Trump hatred. Instead of fuming about Trump’s unprovoked attack on peaceful Iranians that had begun two days earlier, however, he talked about his AI-assisted efforts … | Continue reading
Curtis LeMay: “I’ll tell you what war is about, you’ve got to kill people, and when you’ve killed enough they stop fighting” New York Times, regarding the untimely death of Ali Larijani, the guy who’d been running Iran: “Israel’s Killing of Ali Larijani Could Allow Military to Ti … | Continue reading
In order to avoid what Google Maps said would be a very un-rapid rapid transit ride, I Ubered into San Francisco on a Sunday morning to meet a friend for dim sum in Chinatown. If you get something at one of the take-away places, there is a nice patio above the Rose Park Sta … | Continue reading
While a lot of Americans, including the New York Times, seem enthusiastic about the idea that the U.S. is losing the war against Iran, Al-Jazeera publishes a perspective from a professor in Doha… “The US-Israeli strategy against Iran is working. Here is why”: When you look at wha … | Continue reading
Moe’s Books (Berkeley) moved all of the Gaza books to the back of the store (see A trip to Berkeley, California (November 2024)) Some of the books that were prominently displayed: Nearby Mrs. Dalloway’s Books features works on how to spend most of the day reminding kids … | Continue reading
As we solemnly observe International Day to Combat Islamophobia, let’s consider the ways in which the U.S. has been enriched by some Islamic immigrants who’ve recently made the news… Hezbollah was designed a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the U.S. in 1997. Ayman Mohamad Ghazal … | Continue reading
Flying over Yosemite from Las Vegas… … we landed in Concord, California, rode on “Transforce” tires, were admonished to “Coexist” with people of different religions, and arrived at a Thai restaurant with an all-gender restroom: The next day it was time to visit Berkeley … | Continue reading
Last month I stayed with friends near the north end of the Strip, near the new Fontainebleau Las Vegas (a $3.7 billion Florida export with a tortured history). The view from their terrace (note the Sphere towards the right): They showed me the Las Vegas Arts District, usually … | Continue reading
Let’s have a look at the New York Times right now. Every story on the front page seems to be about a failure of U.S. military. Russia is winning. We stole some oil tankers and that’s actually costing us money instead of making us money. Missiles are falling in northern Israel. Ma … | Continue reading
It’s Friday the 13th, a notorious day for bad luck. Speaking of bad luck, let’s look at the 29 men who died on the Edmund Fitzgerald on November 10, 1975. They’re the subject of an interesting new book: Gales of November by John Bacon. Not exactly a spoiler: everyone dies, just a … | Continue reading
“In Tehran, hope for change turns to panic: ‘They are turning the country into ruins'” (NBC): Prices on basic goods have ramped up about 10% since the war started, residents say. In other words, all of the military might that we’ve thrown at Iran has done less damage to their e … | Continue reading
My friend wanted to go to Death Valley so we landed at 74P, the Calvada Meadows Airport. A couple of enroute snapshots and then the PC-12 on the ramp, such as it is: The runway is smooth, but narrow, and there is a fair amount of loose gravel on the ramp. Due to the 4,080′ l … | Continue reading
If you believe in climate change, shutting down the Strait of Hormuz is the best thing that ever happened to Mother Earth because it reduces fossil fuel supply and, thus, reduces CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuel. Bizarrely, however, people and organizations who’ve been reli … | Continue reading
TL;DR: An LLM might take your job but it can’t take your public housing entitlement. Let’s suppose that the AI/Robotics revolution happens gradually enough that Americans don’t feel that a total revamp of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society welfare state is required. Those employed as … | Continue reading