Folks are upset that Trump and DOGE may shut down USAID and cut U.S. foreign aid spending (state-sponsored NPR). This is consistent with a classic 2005 interview “For God’s Sake, Please Stop the Aid!”. Quotes below, but not in quote style for improved readability (my highlights i … | Continue reading
I recently visited friends who own 80 acres in Napa County, part of the San Francisco Bay Area. The wife describes herself as a “political moderate” and the husband as “apolitical”. Here’s a sticker on the front door: Once inside, hanging on the wall: The local gourmet establishm … | Continue reading
Back around 1990, a federal government economist whom we knew decided that he wanted to live overseas at taxpayer expense. He applied for and obtained a job as USAID, currently in the news as a target for Elon Musk’s Efficiency Nazis (TM). USAID paid our hero for about 6 months t … | Continue reading
The latest National Assessment of Educational Progress scores are out and American public school students are doing worse than ever. “American Children’s Reading Skills Reach New Lows” (NYT): In the latest release of federal test scores, educators had hoped to see widespread reco … | Continue reading
A recent trip to San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA)…. They’ve gone big into Yayoi Kusama, still productive and creative at age 95. Both of these works are from 2023! (Perhaps she had some help with the physical construction.) The “Get in the Game” exhibit appears to be … | Continue reading
Honda is in talks to merge with or purchase Nissan. I can’t figure out the rationale. In the old days maybe you’d say that it takes a long time to build factories, establish dealer networks, etc. and, therefore, Nissan’s assets might be valuable. But Tesla and BYD started from no … | Continue reading
Today is the 80th anniversary of the Yalta Conference, in which the UK, US, and Soviet Union agreed on plans to force German civilians to work as slaves for years after the war. Clearing minefields was a popular assignment (popular with the assigners, that is) and also agricultur … | Continue reading
“The parents who dared to question Newton’s educational equity experiments” (Boston Globe): The three mothers had always voted Democrat. One had a Bernie Sanders mug on her desk. They worked in helping fields — international aid, mental health, yoga instruction. They volunteered … | Continue reading
Donald Trump has demanded that Canada stop sending us fentanyl and undocumented migrants. (why wouldn’t Canada try to keep at least all of the migrants for itself since we are informed that low-skill migrants make any country richer?) Canada refused to try to do this so Trump has … | Continue reading
One tends to think of government as slow-moving, but President Trump’s order to stop preaching the rainbow flag religion seems to have been implemented at near-Silicon Valley speed. As of Friday evening, all of the CDC pages that recognized gender as distinct from sex seem to hav … | Continue reading
LLMs don’t have gender IDs as far as I know and, therefore, the LLM equivalent of gender dysphoria would be an LLM imagining that it identifies as some other LLM. Has this ever happened? From techradar.com: As you can see, after trying to discern if I was talking about Gemini AI … | Continue reading
More than 36 acres of Pacific Palisades were burned, which is a tragedy, of course, but also an opportunity for California’s central planners. We are informed that California is suffering from a housing crisis, an affordable housing crisis, a crisis of unhoused people, and a cris … | Continue reading
I’m so old that I mail out hardcopy Christmas/New Year’s/Kwanzaa cards. Quite a few friends hadn’t received them by New Year’s, which seemed odd because I’d put nearly all into a mailbox before Christmas. One friend sent me a picture of the card that he received in Berkeley, Cali … | Continue reading
Friends have been asking me about this evening’s crash between a U.S. military Black Hawk helicopter and a Canadair Regional Jet (CRJ) that was on final approach to DCA (Reagan National). It’s a terrible tragedy, of course, and has led to speculation on X regarding terrorism. A r … | Continue reading
I was concerned that links from this blog to X posts by President Biden and trailblazing VP Kamala Harris would be broken by the transition to dictatorship. Yet it seems that my fears were unfounded. In Why do the non-Deplorables deplore the Trump shooting? I included a tweet fro … | Continue reading
My mom had a first-rate art history education, was an accomplished artist herself, and had a fine eye for talented work by others. How did the art that she collected do as an investment? One example is “Elijah Ascending to Heaven” by “Shalom of Safed” (Shalom Moskovitz) in 1973. … | Continue reading
A healthy tennis-playing 77-year-old friend in the Boston suburbs had his first stroke recently. It occurred 12 hours after he was injected, for the first time, with the newish RSV vaccine. He’s recovering reasonably well, but perhaps he needs some better friends. Having heard ab … | Continue reading
Here’s a recent video from Gaza showing a well-fed population, undamaged buildings, armed and uniformed soldiers, and freshly washed (/waxed?) vehicles: The ceasefire has started and the Hamas terrorists are out of the tunnels again, parading through the streets of Gaza pic.twitt … | Continue reading
Happy National Florida Day, celebrated every year on January 25 to commemorate the founding of Florida becoming a state on… March 3, 1845. (CBS makes no attempt to explain the apparent discrepancy.) Let’s check in with someone who should have paid more attention to National Flori … | Continue reading
The January harvest of physical mail included a Quest Diagnostics bill for $5.86 (maybe the third paper one they’ve mailed out regarding this McDonald’s sandwich (not meal)-sized bill; they have a credit card on file and when I tried to pay it by bill number on their web site it … | Continue reading
Today is the Costco shareholder meeting. The Board recommends against studying whether Costco’s race-/gender-/2SLGBTQQIA+-based discrimination programs (“DEI”) are harmful. Here’s their argument for continuing to discriminate, from the annual meeting notice: And we believe (and m … | Continue reading
As of last month, the New York City Department of Health wants the peasants back into masks: COVID-19, flu and RSV are all currently spreading in NYC. Wearing a mask in crowded indoor settings can help protect you and protect others if you’re sick. Well-fitting masks, such as KN9 … | Continue reading
Loyal readers know me as someone who rejected the SUV religion almost as early and often as I rejected Faucism (saliva-soaked cloth face rags, lockdowns except for liquor and marijuana stores, and school closure as a way of slowing down SARS-CoV-2). Today I have a shameful admiss … | Continue reading
For parents and students in the East Bay (of San Francisco, California), a reminder from a school bureaucrat, who has stayed entirely “neutral”, to “to follow the example set by Presidents Biden and Obama” (for better readability, not in quote style): DUSD Community, In the Unite … | Continue reading
American democracy ends in five minutes. We’ll be weeping not only for the end of Science-guided rule but also because of Climate Change since it was forecast to be the coldest Inauguration Day in 40 years. Let’s try to push through our shared tears to think about Mark Zuckerberg … | Continue reading
I visited TikTok.com at 11 pm Eastern time last night: I wasn’t a regular TikTok user, but I don’t remember any education- or work-related content there. If Americans aren’t viewing TikTok anymore will there be a huge boost in American productivity and GDP as a result of all the … | Continue reading
From the New York Times, immediately before the election, “Biden Wanted to Fix Immigration, but Leaves Behind a System That Is Still Broken”: President Biden’s legacy will largely be limited to his success in lowering border crossings. But his approach has drawn criticism, and so … | Continue reading
“Hailing a Car in Midtown Manhattan is Becoming More Expensive” (NYT, January 5, 2025): Many of the vehicles that crowd the tolling zone are taxis and cars for ride-hailing services such as Uber and Lyft. The new tolls will not fall on the drivers of those vehicles, who are often … | Continue reading
My mother‘s 1955 bachelor’s thesis, “The Synagogue and its Architecture”, uses the term “Palestine” 24 times, the adjective “Palestinian” 8 times, and the adjective “Palestinean” once (maybe this is a misspelling). Example from the Preface: The thesis uses the term to describe pr … | Continue reading
An elite Californian posted with satisfaction a state-sponsored NPR story about how stupid people in Louisiana were, especially with respect to the mpox vaccine. I decided to see if ChatGPT had advice regarding avoiding mpox (not to be conflated with the racist “monkeypox virus”, … | Continue reading
I’m hoping that the Tesla Full Self Driving experts will weigh in on a question… does FSD work better on the newest roads with the clearest markings and most logical designs? In Maskachusetts, for example, there are a lot of ambiguous situations due to heavy traffic combined with … | Continue reading
Who here has experienced Tesla Full Service Driving 13.2? A friend who is very tech-savvy and skeptical says that it was awesome on a couple of trips that he did in a sister’s car in Los Angeles. As a joke I asked a venture capitalist/Bitcoin bro friend in Miami when he’d be gett … | Continue reading
Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of South Park, grew up in Denver. When Casa Bonita, their favorite childhood restaurant, went bankrupt during the coronapanic lockdowns, they bought it and spent a rumored $40 million restoring it to its former glory. It’s tough to get a r … | Continue reading
According to Democrats, this is the final week for same-sex marriage in the United States. NBC, about 6 weeks ago: I wonder if anyone told the happy couples in the article that “have children” is a process that, with the best current technology, can be rushed only to a certain ex … | Continue reading
The news out of Los Angeles isn’t great lately. Here’s a photo of Pacific Palisades: It looks as though some concrete structures are still standing. My engineering/planning question for today: Why aren’t all houses in fire-prone parts of California made from concrete? In Florida, … | Continue reading
I made it to the USAF Academy in Colorado Springs last month. It’s home to just over 4,000 students, hardly any of whom learn to fly while there. The school has about 20 Cirrus SR2x piston-powered aircraft and some gliders. This fleet enables the typical cadet to take between 4 a … | Continue reading
Inflation is whipped, except that the most significant cost for a typical person remains unaffordable (the “housing affordability crisis”), with government intervention required. The latest affordability crisis (i.e., Americans not being rich enough to afford what used to be cons … | Continue reading
“California’s population is finally increasing — thanks to this demographic” (San Francisco Chronicle, December 2024): After shrinking during the pandemic and then stagnating for several years, California’s population is finally growing — thanks to immigration from abroad. Native … | Continue reading
The Netgear switch that I purchased in May 2022 (to run TP-Link Omada: like a mesh network, except that it works (alternative to UniFi), which is still working great) for $180: I was in a conversation with some friends, one of whom is a UniFi zealot, and wanted to check the power … | Continue reading
Regina Greenspun died at age 90 on January 6, 2024 at her home in Abacoa, Jupiter, Florida. My father wrote most of his own obituary, but my mother didn’t leave any guidance so this post should be considered as one person’s memory of Regina augmented by what was found in some rec … | Continue reading
Kamala Harris told us that Donald Trump would end our (beloved) democracy and rule as a (hated) dictator. Today she tells us that it will be her “sacred obligation” to certify the end of democracy and the beginning of the hated dictator’s rule: Today, I will perform my constituti … | Continue reading
I was shopping for stamps back in December in order to send out our family’s Christmas/New Year’s/Kwanzakkuh cards. I discovered that the USPS is about 4.5 years late with the health care provider worship: (The Greenspun Version of this stamp would be large enough for the followi … | Continue reading
How’s the UK doing now that has been properly governed by the pro-Hamas Labour Party for half a year? On track for success? The last 20 years or so don’t seem to have gone well for the Brits. “Young women are starting to leave men behind” (Financial Times, September 2024) was sup … | Continue reading
Happy New Year again! Let’s look at the new prices for the new year in our inflation-free economy or, at worst, our 2 percent inflation economy. We have a United Healthcare policy for our family (two adults, two kids). The deductible/out-of-pocket limit for the family is $6,500/y … | Continue reading
Based on Twitter and the BBC, folks in the UK are upset about “rape gangs”/”grooming gangs” in which Muslim men had sex with a lot of girls from the UK’s legacy population (“white”). Example (BBC): I’m surprised that people are surprised. The UK is an Islamic nation (as mentioned … | Continue reading
I’m looking at going out to California after teaching FAA private pilot ground school (free and open to the public) at MIT. Here’s a guide to what an elite is willing to pay in order to avoid sitting with the peasants for 7 hours: $700/hr. Prices as of December 19, 2024: Some “ex … | Continue reading
Today is the one-year anniversary of Claudine Gay purportedly “resigning” from Harvard. NYT: Babylon Bee had a different angle: Less than a month earlier: Being a supporter of the Islamic Resistance Movement (“Hamas”), UNRWA, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in their struggle agains … | Continue reading
The New York Times right now: The Cybertruck spontaneously combusted like a Spinal Tap drummer. (Wikipedia says “the vehicle was discovered to be filled with firework materials and gas canisters” and, therefore, the incident could have been equally described as “a car bomb explos … | Continue reading