phoenixvoice
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No, we should not be automatically pausing the social security benefits of those listed as age 100-119. Instead, they should be individually investigated. Do you have any idea how disruptive (not to mention bad press) it would be to a 100+ year old person to have that check ripped away? Such people don’t usually drive and have often never operated a smartphone, likely not a computer. Heck, their living children may not drive nor use a smartphone nor the internet. A woman at a care home that I perform at recently turned 100. Please, please — in our zeal to protect taxpayers we must not throw away these people just because there may be fraud. Assign case managers. Find out if they live. Show some respect.
This suggests that combating microplastics would require us to give up … using washing machines.
LOL
Because who could imagine a world where we wear clothing made out of something other than plastic?
As someone who discovered that she did not like the feel and texture of clothing made from synthetic fibers years ago, I find the quoted statement highly unimaginative.
Order blocking doge from treasury records
One ironic part of this…
The HIPAA law creates all sorts of safeguards around personal health information. However, in practice, and according to the law, such health information is routinely viewed, accessed, shared, and even edited by a plethora of health-related individuals who have “business agreements” with the health provider with primary responsibility over the data. Essentially, the business agreement outlines that the business partner promises to honor HIPAA and safeguard the information, and that is that.It is reasonable to suppose that the same would be true of doge — the individuals in doge “super-duper promise” not violate the security of the data.
In practice, the data is too vast for it to be quantified by any individual or small group of individuals — not even Elon Musk’s brain can handle even a small part of it. There is no realistic concern about the individuals having access to the data. What is more relevant is the computer system (probably an AI of some flavor ) that has access to the data and the disposition of that data. That computer system should probably either become a perpetual part of the federal government or should, quite frankly, have the data purged from it once doge has completed its task.
Call me stupid, but it looks like the global term “independent media” is a misnomer. Sure, it maybe “independent” of local officials and local government funding, but it is completely dependent upon US government funding!
This is a ridiculous situation.
Go learn to be truly independent. Live up to your niche-name.
Kids behind in reading…
I wonder whether the primary culprit might be tablet and smartphone use by kids. I see so many parents at the supermarket who have handed devices to their children. When I see a frazzled mom with engaged children, quizzically looking about, mischievous with no device to lull them, I consider approaching her and congratulating her for avoiding the “easy way out” of parenting-via-device and instead, actually parenting.Of course…it is hard to know which kids will waste their time with recreational device use and which ones will make good use of it. One of my sons chose to watch primarily educational videos during his computer time, and learned a great deal. He still does this occasionally, when he takes a much needed break from his computer engineering studies — he shares them with me when he finds one that may interest me, and then I also learn something. I have a six year old piano student currently who started using YouTube on his iPad to learn to play his favorite songs on the piano. His bewildered parents then took him to get piano lessons. Now, I use the iPad to give him his weekly piano assignments in a way that is accessible to a pre-reader.
Gaza
Don’t resettle the people. If there is worry about children playing with unexploded ordnance , etc., then clear a bit of land, build high-rise housing, and then invite the Gazans out of their tents to live safely while more land is cleared. Don’t dispossess people. Don’t take from them what little is left — the homeland that they have clung to. It is wrong to dispossess people after fire and flood; it is wrong to dispossess people after war. Let the people choose.Rank and file FBI personnel should not be fired over their assignments. However, perhaps they should testify and become whistleblowers, now that their jobs are not on the line for revealing Jan 6 related issues.
*sigh* A lot of the produce around here comes from Mexico. Some could be instead sourced locally, but avocados just don’t set well in the Phoenix area — the trees grow, but no fruit. I’m not looking forward to small avocados at $1 each. We eat a lot of avocados in my home….
Regarding Cuba and Venezuela…the US needs to stop hating on these two countries simply because their governments are socialist/communist. If we expect the rest of the world to respect OUR form of government (there was a time when it was considered odd and strange), then we need to respect the forms of government in other countries. Yes, there are always groups in every country that don’t have so much power, and are very upset about it, claiming that they are “oppressed.” Just like the government-employed wokesters are having hissy fits in the US at being told to remove pronouns from email signatures may claim oppression, the wealthy capitalists who no longer have power in Cuba and Venezuela claim oppression. Look, oppression is what the Gazans are experiencing — it isn’t just a reversal of economic fortunes or a change in “the rules of the game” that makes the old rules (which benefitted a specific minority) not work any longer. (Now, there are surely some groups and individuals in Cuba and Venezuela that are being minorly oppressed by the governments — but that is the case in nearly every country, including the US, and the people of the country need to address it. This sort of small oppression still does not approach the level oppression of the Gazans by the Israeli government, which is exponentially higher — it does not approach the level of oppression experienced by Donetz and Lugansk from 2014-2022.)
Venezuela is a tiny country and — let’s be honest — the reason why the US keeps meddling with it is because it has vast oil reserves, not because of its form of government. The Venezuelan government is not compliant to the US — that is why the US keeps meddling. And Cuba? Its natural resources aren’t so great, but it has strategic importance, and when the US snubbed it during the Cold War, it turned to the USSR, and the US is still sore about it.
Because of The Fed, income taxes are not really necessary…but they provide the cover required for the government’s money (mis)management. Personal income tax made it a requirement to track the income of each individual…but since then, social security and Medicare and unemployment insurance have been added into the mix and these also require such tracking. Layered on top of that are SNAP, Medicaid, and a host of “need-based” programs that are directed at the poor, which also require income tracking. Specifically, states administering these programs use the quarterly reports that employers make to government about their employees’ wages to corroborate what needy citizens report as their income to aid agencies. On top of all of that, many other need-based programs rely upon the states’ determination of eligibility of SNAP to determine eligibility for things like the Obamaphone, free school lunch, discounted internet for families with school-aged children, discounted dental care at county dental clinics, free/discounted fees for standardized tests, waiving of court filing fees, half-price Amazon Prime, and discounted tickets for local museums.
So, wash away income tax…but we’d still need to find a way to fund social security, Medicare, UI, etc. And, aid programs would still need income data, otherwise they would have to be reformulated to work in a different fashion. It is a bit of a conundrum.
I started a substack. There isn’t so much there yet — a couple of current posts and I am slowly putting up things that I have written over the years and never published before.
The Phoenician Muse on Substack
A teaser for today’s post:
What happens when human drivers are de-coupled from the process of choosing a driving route? Their active minds may never see the value in learning to navigate via landmarks or to become comfortable with the cardinal directions. Without their digital navigator, their human navigation skills may never develop. This leaves them in a nascent, juvenile state in this area, prone to anxiety without their technology companion.Panama Canal
Very interesting. I am not in the habit of trusting Ted Cruz, but his words on the state of the canal are straightforward enough.
Just as I find it logical that Russia would have interest in Ukraine and which of its border states are in NATO, it is logical that the US would have interest in details surrounding the Panama Canal — even more so since the US built the canal. The treaty is the most salient aspect — I did not previously realize that the gift of the canal to Panama was conditional.
Canada, health coverage…
If Canada joined the US…I don’t think that it is clear at all what would happen to their health care. It might continue to be state-run. Or, it might get sold to the big US health-care companies. The US health care system has huge problems — as a nation, we are very sick, with many infirmities, and the top of the US health care system sees the people as revenue streams. The Canadian health care system has long waits for things like surgeries and is encouraging euthanasia! As far as the health care systems of the two countries, it is a match made in hell.
Although the J6 panel certainly skirted the rules of justice (Liz Cheney and witness tampering,) I don’t think that the sweeping Biden pardon was because all involved were corrupt or guilty. I suspect the reason was two-fold: (1) a tit-for-tat pre-emption of the expected pardons for J6ers and (2) a part of the “pardon smokescreen” that the Biden administration was trying to create.
The “pardon smokescreen” didn’t work very well.
If the ridiculous “preemptive pardons” stand, then it is imperative that all their dirty deeds be revealed, fully. If they cannot get jail time, then, instead, they must become publicly hated and shamed.
Pre-emptive pardons
…it has been like one of those “wait for it” videos — knowing that *it* is going to happen, and the closer it gets to the ending timestamp of the video knowing that it is going to come any moment now — and then it hits…but is no where near as exciting as the buildup.
Dr D
It’s all young, addicted, ultra-far head-in-a-blender liberal women on TikTok.Also, my kids tell me that their father’s fiancée’s teenage daughter with cerebral palsy LOVES TikTok — she was in love with a boy on TikTok and therefore decided that she needed to be a boy, just like him. My daughter has the fiancée’s old phone, and the screen has TikTok burn-in, because the fiancée uses TikTok with such frequency. My son with many challenges came out of his room Saturday night on a rant because TikTok was going away, railing against and blaming Donald Trump for taking it away. I had to spend a few minutes letting him know that, indeed, Trump was not president when the law was passed, did not sign it into law, and is not currently president and not the one enforcing the ban, but will become president Monday and is planning a 90-day reprieve. My son declared that on Monday Trump should repeal the law. I sighed — he took Civics last year and passed the class, didn’t he pay any attention? — and informed him that a president cannot unilaterally repeal laws, Congress can repeal and the courts can invalidate them as unconstitutional. Gee whiz — I think that he has been watching too much TikTok.
Man’s financial clock
…which is why it should not be surprising when some enterprising women decide to buck the entire system and take care of both sides of the equation on their own. I did not set out to do this, but when the children’s father essentially abdicated his role as “provider” about 13 years ago, I shouldered it up.
Interestingly, my daughter has a friend whose mother is a well-paid veterinarian. She has two children, and the father was a sperm donor. They live in a very nice home in a very nice neighborhood. With what I have dealt with since the children’s birth, I can totally understand why some women would deliberately choose the “no man” route. At the same time, my youngest sister married a very nice man who is handy around the home, great with the six kids, works hard and provides sufficiently. She supplements the family income by tutoring other children. My sister’s life is the sort of outcome that I was aiming for.
(BTW – the veterinarian with sperm donor kids shows that just because a woman may be a “feminist” and not want a “traditional family” does not necessarily mean that she will not “settle down” and raise children. Biology is very strong — stronger than “radical feminist” ideologies.)
Rubio’s pivot on Russia
I expected that some of this would happen. There are many politicians who bend whichever way the wind goes. When the wind was blowing in a way that did not align with the mass of people, they look like RINOs, like “war hawks,” neo-conservatives. Currently, Trump is the dominant political power, so they align with Trump. As long as Trump is their “golden ticket,” they will do his bidding and accurately reflect his wishes.
Of course, there are others who are wolves in sheep-clothing. I am more concerned with the golden tongues advising Trump that Canada should become part of the US, digital ID for voting, etc. There are powerful forces (i.e. Bilderberg Group) that want a one-world government and push any policy that moves in that direction.
Biden and all of his “commendable” pardons and commutations…I keep thinking, okay, when will he add in the pre-emotive pardons for all of the Dem lackeys, HRC, etc. He might even throw one in for DJT, to try to blow some smoke to cover pardons for the Dem lackeys. Only 2 days left, so we shall see….
@ JB-hb
That is one reason why I like the neighborhood that I live in. Small, old, unpretentious homes. Non-nosy neighbors. 8 months ago someone a block over started reporting everyone to various authorities for minor violations. I got to know my neighbors better as a result. One complaint was because I had hens. I contacted my surrounding neighbors all they all gave written permission for my hens to be within so many feet from their homes — because they really didn’t care about my hens, but did care about the city letting us all alone, and did care about not permitting one neighbor to rule over the rest of us.
JB-hb
Require non-flammable building materials
2. Allow cheap constructionHmm…
I suspect that those two are mostly mutually exclusive — non-flammable building materials are typically much more costly.Block construction and adobe and cement and stone — aircrete might be a good option. Steel container homes. Ceramic tile roofs and steel roofs.
These are *not* cheap.
Cheap construction is typically easy to burn.
@ Orobouros
I always wonder where these impressions about “all the women” come from, (or “all the people in AZ.”)
Because I constantly run across people who break the expected mold.Or maybe it is just me, and my family? But—my dear friend and client and her late spouse did not follow the trends regarding how to live with sudden wealth. And my lesbian singing student, well, I introduced her to Oliver Anthony’s music last week and she loves it. Do I inadvertently attract people who are not like “everybody else?” Or is it simply that I am looking for outliers and I find them because I have my eyes open for them, and I expect them to be there?
The women in my family don’t tend to do “the trades,” but they cook very well, they preserve food, they garden, and they sew. They also have from 3-6 kids. Cooking, food preservation, vegetable gardening, and sewing are just as practical and important as “the trades.” My own daughter is currently focusing on sewing, and has begun to alter clothes and also sew them from scratch. I also alter my own home, paint, put up drywall, use power tools, put up gutters, etc. — I have no interest in doing these things for others.
If you want to find people that defy expected molds, hope and expect them to exist — because they do exist, and you won’t typically find them unless you believe that they are there.
Tulsi Gabbard
Value compromise “because one has to” is not a one-way ticket. For some, their values change or adjust to accommodate. But for others, the value compromise “sticks in their craw,” and causes them to constantly seek to change external circumstances so that they may, once again, live in harmony with their values. My gut instinct about Gabbard is that she is the latter type, based on observation and interviews that I’ve watched. Of course, we aren’t really going to know until she has been in the position of DNI for a couple of years—or longer.
What are we expecting? We know that DC is corrupt. We can have leaders who are white as lily-snow, who never compromise, not one iota — but then, those types of individuals usually never make it into politics. And, quite frankly, when they do make it into positions of leadership they are often so rigid that they cannot skillfully apply their values to the nuanced situations that reality presents. At the end of the day, we have DJT and we have the team that he has gathered. There are turbulent waters ahead and I have confidence that DJT’s team is better at the helm than the headless “Biden/Harris Admin.”
I prefer Gabbard as DNI over anyone the Dems would vote for and over anyone the RINOs would prefer. I want to see this play out.
Tulsi
Look exactly at what she reputedly said, because words are important:
“ Tulsi Gabbard has assured me in our conversations that she supports Section 702 as recently amended and that she will follow the law and support its reauthorization as DNI,”
As DNI, her job description would be to “follow the law,” not to “make law.” As a Representative, her job was to “make law.” Technically, Section 702 is probably in violation of the 4th amendment…but now we get to murky territory: a duly passed law that may violate the Constitution. Technically, it is the Court’s job to parse these things out when Congress fails to perform proper due diligence (which is much of the time.)
Also, there are differences between “rules” and “laws.” As DNI, Gabbard would have the capacity to change rules, but not to make nor amend laws. Then there is the capacity for not enforcing laws…but that would also be at the discretion of the president, who may fire her at will.
I say, let’s get these people into positions of power and see what happens. Gabbard already experienced DC once without coming away morally compromised — let’s see if she can do it again, albeit with much more responsibility. I tire of all this talk — I long for the opportunity to see the actions of these individuals.
Pachamama
DBS mentioned yesterday that apparently there were Pachamama traditions that included child human sacrifice. That muddies the waters considerably. One could say, “Oh, that isn’t done anymore,” — but there is always the danger that some future person will find out about an ancient practice, and decide to resurrect it, convincing others of the same. Hence why so often the traditions were folded into Catholicism but the names were left behind, I suppose. Perhaps the Pachamama statue is better placed in a museum than in the Vatican.
There are plenty of human traditions that are best left as a relic. I personally find animal sacrifice distasteful, but it is much more preferable to human sacrifice. Better to scapegoat a goat than a human! And believing that a young child with deformities or maladies is a fairy changeling, and leaving it out defenseless in the elements, hoping the fairies will take back their child and return the human child, whole and perfect, is a cruel way to deal with birth defects.
I wonder whether the Argentine tradition of snapping a graphic photo of the mother nursing her infant has any link to these Pachamama traditions?
Of course, we have our inanities as well….
…putting a neurotoxin deliberately in the drinking water so that companies peddling it can make a buck…
…injecting half the world’s population with a toxic substance that has been studied very little…again, so a few can make a buck and/or improve their power position in society.I am no longer shocked that Rome’s aqueducts were lined with lead.
Pachamama
Oh, good heavens! A quick perusal of many Catholic traditions show that they are co-sourced from older, pagan traditions. But, indigenous South American religious traditions, now, when those are merged with Catholicism, that is “bad” and “evil” and “heresy.”
Do some thinking.
The reason why “satanism” is bad is because you have a group of people committing human sacrifice and ritual sexual abuse — one can condemn it based on the framework of Christianity, calling it “satanism,” or worship of Baal, etc., or it can simply condemned on its own merits, completely irrespective of any religious overtones.
Everything a human is capable of doing can be done by AI, and machines can do it well,
No.
AI cannot “do” genuine empathy. And empathy is at the root of human interactions.Greenland, Canada, Panama Canal, and now the renaming of the Gulf of Mexico…there are problems at home that need to be addressed, these other things are nonsense. I am on board with the celebrating the 250 year mark — I think that such a thing will take some steps towards healing the divides in the country. The expansionist stuff is ridiculous. I knew that there were going to be parts of the 2nd Trump presidency that I abhorred…I thought that I would have to wait at least until Jan 20 to find them out.
Gas Powered Tankless Water Heaters
In Argentina, back in the 90s, that was the only type of water heater I ever saw while I was there.
My own parents strongly suggested that debt was only advisable for purchasing a home, car, or education — but strongly advised against debt for education. These days, I wouldn’t go into a debt for a car, either.
Tboc
because you were stupid enough to believe that those who hold an injust advantage were going to teach YOU how to gain an injust advantageI don’t see the point of making fun of young adults for their naïveté. Most young adults have not seen enough to understand these sorts of injustices because their parents, teachers, etc., have specifically raised them not to see them. And this doesn’t happen because the parents are trying to mislead the children, but rather because with “good parenting” a structure is created and the child is guided to accept the structure. (With “bad parenting” the structure is more amorphous, and the control methods are coercion and pain. Children of bad parents often find it easier to see the corruption in the world as they have been acquainted with it all along.). It takes a long time and more experience to realize that student loans have been crafted specifically to “snooker-in” young adults into a form of indentured servitude in order to control them throughout their lives.
We teach children structures other than coercion and pain because such good parts of our culture come from morality and ethics and discipline and self-control — to teach them otherwise hampers them in different ways. I see it as the responsibility of the parents to help their young adult children not to be taken advantage of. Some parents do this by supporting their children financially through college. I can’t do that, so I taught my children to get good grades and strongly suggested that they attend the local state university so that they would be eligible for need and academics based grants and scholarships and can live at home to save on expenses.
Ayii, John Day, the Courageous Discourse article about avian flu contains a video about the culling of chickens. I sit here with 4 chicks peeping, scratching, fluttering in their brooder a couple yards from where I sit, and 15 more hens are in their yard space behind my home. In moments I will get up, and tend to them, making sure their food and water is sufficient for the day. It breaks my heart to see their cousins slaughtered mercilessly, suffocated, for made-up reasons. (It is one thing to quickly and cleanly kill a bird for food, quite another to torture it to death.)
I have often heard the sentiment that there is great cultural degeneration since the 1950s, when families were portrayed by television in an idyllic way and musicals on Broadway had themes of heterosexual marriage being the pinnacle goal. I hear people saying that “things always get worse” and we cannot return to that “better” time. I have long suspected that view is false — that, rather, this is something that cycles through human culture. Also, the same corruption now existed then — but in the 1950s there must have been something in the culture that craved the honorable, traditional role models that were portrayed in film and television. I am beginning to see how and why the cultural cycle turns. I can see how the people en masse weary of drag queens and P Diddy and Pakistani gang rapes. We weary of corrupt police, lawfare, and pay-to-play politics. Instead, there is a longing for role models who embody our ideals, who make tough- but correct- choices. The cultural tide is starting to turn. It is an interesting phenomenon to observe.
What are the chances that the hostages abducted by Hamas are already dead? Considering the death and destruction rained down on Gaza, the starvation, et al., keeping the prisoners alive would be very difficult. In a hostage situation, you don’t mount a rescue by bombarding the kidnappers and all of their surroundings, and also mounting a siege — that is retribution for the act, not a rescue of the prisoners. The hostages are simply being held up as a totem by the Israeli government and Zionists to emotionally bind people to their genocidal cause.
DBS
Anyone who has dabbled much with the current “state of the art” so-called Artificial Intelligence (and I use the term loosely) is aware of AI’s propensity for error, including the existentially dangerous propensity for being unaware of it’s own mistakesWhen you think about it, AI’s training to “think” is based on human language. No wonder it makes mistakes — big ones — and is unaware. Humans do that while speaking/writing all of the time.
PCR
Showing respect for women was somehow undervaluing them and treating them unequally*sigh*
Well, that is because in many, many instances, the women were being undervalued and treated unequally.Now, women have to earn their respect, just as men must earn respect.
Except in narrow circles (such as the pages of Cosmopolitan), most women who brag about multitudes of sexual conquests are not respected.
Has PCR ever wondered what it is like to be the woman sitting in the car passenger seat waiting for the man to open her door when they are both in a hurry? When she is perfectly capable of opening the damn door? It becomes ridiculous (it isn’t a carriage 3 feet off the ground, and I’m not in a corset with a tightly cinched waist.). The door thing can be nice on a formal date, but I haven’t the patience with it on a routine basis.
When I actually could use the help, I appreciate it. (I have deliberately avoided learning wiring…at some point I seem to have decided that it was “a man’s job.” But I enjoy putting up drywall, mudding and taping, texturing and painting. I measure and mark, but I prefer to keep my hands far, far away from rapidly spinning sawblades. When something is too heavy or bulky and a man is available, I ask for help. If I am alone, I often get creative with furniture dollies, etc. And…if I am going to keep up my strength as I age, it is important to lift things that I find heavy.)
Personally, I think what has happened to the Boy Scouts is terrible. There is room in the world for both gendered and non-gendered kids groups and sports and schools. There are advantages and disadvantages to both models.
I read or watched Cheaper by the Dozen many years ago — maybe both? I looked up information about the actual family. The father died and the mother had to finish raising the kids alone. How difficult that must have been! Especially in a world that frowned upon women taking up the role of breadwinner, that would have told the mother that she must remarry a man to support her and the children—quick! What about the mother taking her time, remarrying only if she wished to, and to someone that she really wanted to be with?
After I took my power back and ejected my ex from the home the last thing that I wanted was to import someone into my life who was going to tell me how to live and how to parent and to whom I would be beholden financially. Because all of that was part and parcel to the idyllic world described by PCR.
Red Never trust a millionaire and that goes double for billionaires.
I agree with the sentiment, however…being a millionaire isn’t all that much these days. My grandparents on my mother’s side made that mark by living off my grandpa’s salary and investing my grandmother’s — they retired at age 50, bought an acre of land, built a big (but very unpretentious) house, farmed half the acre, and traveled some in the winter months until their health was not well enough for travel. Grandpa died at about 85, and grandma at 95. They were examples of frugality for me. I suspect that my parents technically qualify, (I’ve never asked,) but only because my father, (a corporate and business accountant who never “climbed the ladder” much because he was too nice,) safely invested during his working years, they bought homes that appreciated before they sold them (always one at a time — the place where they lived,) and they received some sums when their parents passed. As a result, they have had no debt for the past 20 years, and their current investments include mortgages on the homes of two of their children. They currently live in a modest 3-bedroom home — one for them, one for guests, one for my mom’s sewing and crafts — with a combined commons area that easily fits them, my family, and my sister’s family. They do all of their own landscaping, and are happily growing food from their garden.
I have realized over the past two decades that my best clients for my computer business are all millionaires — many are fine people.
A million just isn’t what it used to be.
So, I think that I’d have to adjust the statement to be “ Never trust a deca- or centa- millionaire and that goes double for billionaires. ”
