Shaky Danny

  I wrote this shortly after the Democratic Convention: This recent convention solidified five deficiencies of the Democratic Party. Rather than addressing these well-known criticisms, the liberal elite, the party owned them with a nice helping of Jingo. One is their use of the term middle class. Looking down from the upper I suppose what they see is the middle class. I wrote about class in my book, Another Data Processing Book. In US land we have nine classes, a tic tac toe board, upper, middle and lower both ways: Upper upper Middle upper Lower upper Upper middle Middle middle Lower middle Upper lower Middle lower Lower lower     Most of us are middle-lower and lower-lower. There is a big bulb at the bottom with a long tail stretching out into the distance. Somewhere on that tail you can parse out a small segment that contains the population middle-middle. We aren’t ...

  I was put off by the choppy narrative of Unlikely Allies by Joel Richard Paul. But it confirmed my view of conspiracy. A conspiracy is just a group of people who agree. Usually, it’s just someone alone in their motel, sucking on whatever, watching CNN saying: -I guess that worked. The book also highlighted how common it is to have infiltrators, provocateurs and opposition. Ben Franklin and Silas Deane understood and accepted that and still accomplished their objectives. When Franklin finally arrived in Paris to support Deane he was wearing a fur hat. The narrative gives reasons but fails to mention that Franklin was also teasing the French about giving up Canada and its French citizens for Haiti after the Seven Years War. Franklin loved teasing and double entendre.   In the book Arthur Lee is painted as the villain who falsely accused Dean. But where was Franklin? To have a case there should be a shortfall. Deane is unable to give account but Franklin had to know ho...

Humans differentiate on location and association. We change location to meet association and change association to meet location. Two material conditions of the US constitution were taxing whiskey [i] and protecting slavery [ii] . The document is designed to frustrate popular will. Political parties are intended to ameliorate that frustration. We now have a small group of Republicans preventing the passage of a popular defense bill that contains appropriations for Ukraine and Israel. America has always been a nation of divided loyalties. Some Americans have loyalty to Mother Russia. That is an influence. There is also a material cause. Republicans focus on the border while ignoring immigration policy. Republicans like undocumented immigrants who know their place. Republicans terrorized the undocumented immigrant’s children when it looked like they may get status and eventually become voters. That’s when Mexicans got insulted and the fruit rotted on the ground and stores close on M...

  A ridiculous amount of effort is spent criticizing Hillary Clinton’s character. When elections are that close, every infraction is magnified. There is a much simpler material explanation. It is pathetic how cheap Congress is. Most of their time is spent on phone banks raising money. There was a moment when it looked like Chicago’s alderman Vrdolyak would be sent to Congress. Imagine: -This is a billion-dollar appropriation? I get more than this for a zoning variance. Occasionally money rains on Washington. World War II was cost plus. Johnson unleashed Taiwan. When Nixon made the China deal, they had so much cash they were shoving it into filing cabinets. Reaganauts were Nixon wannabes. Bush Sr. held up the Saudis for Kuwait. Hillary Clinton was queen. She shook down healthcare so hard their teeth rattled. Everyone in Washington should love Hillary Clinton. The Saudis had to sit down, and Ross Perot complained about the service. Insurance and Pharmacy were in a bidding war t...

  Back when Chicago had winters, I once dragged myself through the slush into a travel agency and said: -Get me out of here. I hate to travel. There is some remarkable geology. In Lacrosse Wisconsin there are bluffs. There is a fun mix of prosaic and profane seeing people living on and around the bluffs. There are also the plaques. In Pennsylvania there is mention of Jumonville. George Washington at the age of twenty murdered Jumonville causing the French and Indian War which lead to the Seven Years’ War, which lead to our revolution. The revolution was not popular, ask the Tories, who respected the king, paid their debts, and opposed slavery.  The Evanston Illinois light house, built in 1873 after the North was freed of the South’s hatred of boondoggle. Why of all the stretches of sand along Lake Michigan was the light house built here? The light house was an emotional reaction to the sinking of the Lady Elgin in 1860. In Milwaukee there is a wonderful plaque explaini...

  Anyone who says “peace in the Mideast” should be slapped. They are announcing that what follows is stupid. Peace never had anything to do with the Mideast. The statement is arrogant. How would you like to hear “peace in the US”? American policy in the Mideast should be mute. It is disgusting to hear Americans advise and excuse each group their atrocities. Americans are never short of advice. “Debate” in the US has circled around who’s better. It is not going to convince anyone that they should shut up and take it because their families had it coming.   No one has rounded up their criminals. Here is a quick review of America’s relationship, keeping an American eye for the man behind the curtain and the emperor’s clothes: Before World War II, the countries of the world refused Jewish refugees from Germany. Germans made that a big deal. During and after the war Churchill sent Jewish refugees to Palestine. British grabbed Palestine from the Ottomans. Some Pan Arabism is no...

  Venezuela has the largest oil reserves of any country in the world. We don’t yet know about the artic circle, Somalia, or the Philippines. In spite of their resources, history and wealth, the US sanctions against Venezuela and Cuba have succeeded. The refugees are proof. It is silly to blame those governments because they couldn’t effectively fight the US. The only thing holding up those nations is their own desperate need for sovereignty. Maybe Venezuelans should install a Saudi prince. Everyone has noticed that the United States absorbed the Ukrainians and Venezuelans are on the street. The Ukrainians flee war. The Venezuelans flee poverty. Ukrainians got here first. There are more Ukrainian refugees. Venezuelans have more skills, that is why they came. As far as the initial brunt of refugees, the Orthodox take care of their own and Catholics don’t. The pope finally popped the Texas bishop. I don’t know how much say that bishop had, but he was representing his constituency....

Brandon Johnson has just been elected mayor of Chicago. Except Byrne we have always elected lawyers, even prosecutors, in the hope that they would avoid indictment. So far, they have. Johnson is the first schoolteacher. As a teacher Johnson is trying to approach crime from a Confucious perspective, systemically. Here are some obvious concerns: A court clerk just made the mistake of self-publishing a book about a recent case. In general police, prosecutors, judges and even clerks should be cautious publicly expressing opinions that could be thrown back at them, endangering testimony, and convictions. It is unfortunate that people closest to issues are precisely the ones constrained from public discussion. Police are not screened for clerical aptitude. Clerical tasks are a major part of police work, especially investigations. Back in the 90’s the federal government confronted domestic violence. Their solution was the development of a form that must be filed if the husband was not arr...

  Recently there has been some fluff that we couldn’t find American workers to build a new integrated circuit plant. Our workers say it is because they are not getting enough money. Boomers bemoan: -Our kids are too dumb to get the jobs we used to have. Depend on Americans to find the racist reason even when it is against us. Foreign workers may get less than citizens, but that is not enough for a business decision, particularly on a subsidized plant. As I explain in this blog in Income Disparity and Bribes , in 1969 America removed discretionary fund as an accounting entry. This has several consequences. Companies moved the amount in that entry to executive compensation, so it is now after tax. Piketty’s book Capital in the Twenty-First Century has a graph showing executive compensation on an upward diagonal from 1970 on. CEOs used to get ten times base earnings. Take the difference then apply the tax rate gives us the total compensation, for the bribes and kickbacks require...

  In Another Data Processing Book I have an essay on affirmative action. I also have a blog entry In Defense of Privilege . In light of recent events, I am revisiting them here. Most people seem to believe that affirmative action meant that we simply instituted quotas. Affirmative action law was passed by whites. If you could demonstrate merit, and not very strictly, you didn’t have to have quotas. So, case by case, company by company, school by school, it was proven in a court of law that they had legacy, employees’ kids, preferences, that they did not select on merit. They had quotas and now the question was how big those quotas should be. This maximized work for the lawyers. That is why there are law firms devoted to civil rights law. Current arguments against quotas have a misplaced notion of fairness The arguments of the time focused on institutional autonomy. They used phrases like “academic integrity”. Invariably these institutions receive federal money. They recognize ...

  Christine asked: -Why is Canada burning? Without hesitation I responded: -Lumber companies planted the wrong trees and it got warm. Seems glib, but in this case my cynicism was correct. If you go out on Google Earth, it is clear that the arboreal, original Canadian forest did not burn. Lumber companies proffer all sorts of rationalizations. Whatever they say, it didn’t work. If they take refuge in regulation, consider the Exxon Valdez. Exxon Mobil went into court and said that Alaska did not require double wall tankers. Everyone laughed because the reason for that was because Exxon had lobbied against it. Covering North America in soot is a lot worse than dumping oil on beaches. Lumber companies have no refuge. This is their game. They ran it. Lumber companies don’t own all the land, but they did the cutting. They didn’t know it was getting warmer? The cutover areas flamed. Arboreal sometimes burns, not like this. Please prevent these boobies from planting trees. Th...

Small segments can have disproportionate influence in politics. Lenin’s conscious cadre works. The reality TV segment awakened the fascist segment and the Russians. Brexit and Trump satisfy the agenda of ending their respective empires. Republicans threatened to use the debt ceiling to bring down the empire. Because they were upset that Alfred Doolittle, the undeserving poor, was in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. The Republicans were mad at all sorts of things, they coalesced on their antipathy towards Doolittle. As Doolittle points out in My Fair Lady , being poor doesn’t improve character. We all have a Doolittle in the family. Our families Doolittle hates welfare. He qualified for disability. He has Multiple Sclerosis from dealing crack. So, he can’t work, except for the side job disassembling cars. You can’t live on just disability. Doolittle is a good son; he got his parents on disability as well. Take Ella. This was a while ago. Ella started as Ella Fitzgerald...

Many people in Oak Park, a suburb of Chicago, are installing sewer valves for their homes. Some years back we had an impressive deluge and this is a reaction. Your stack or stand pipe may drain directly out to the street sewer. Putting a check valve or flapper in the way means that when the system hits load those houses refuse service and the overall pressure on the system will increase precisely at the time it is stressed. If you don’t have a flap then super tough on you, the effluent has to go somewhere. A product that creates its market. Once everyone has flaps there should be popped flaps or broken pipes. Flaps are necessary on flood plains. As flood plain construction is common it is difficult for other municipalities, such as Oak Park, to deny their use. Chicago used to require a basement floor drain. You were expected to share your suffering with your neighbors. Most people have their stack drain into their own sewer that then drains into the street sewer. This is a nice fea...

The Supreme Court functions as a safety valve. When the court fails, it is a big mess, we have had a civil war. In 1974 people were voting with their feet. Illegal abortion was so prevalent that the court had to act. The prisoner’s dilemma underlies our concept of justice. Say a juror is fixed. How does the juror know that they will be paid? If they are paid ahead of time, how does the fixer know the juror will stick? At this time, it has been announced that there are five judges who will rule against abortion. The early decision is a blatant loud fart. As Biden explained, it ignores the ninth amendment. The ninth amendment is intended to prevent this argument. As Pogo said: -I got rights I ain’t even used yet! If privacy or women’s equality are rights, then abortion should be legal. Buttigieg explained why abortion, whatever the term, should be a private family, not an arbitrary government decision.  It is a difficult medical and personal decision made in hard circumstance...

  After Awoken , Lindsay Ellis will always be suspect. Alien romance has been done. It is a common theme on Star Trek : -Dr. Bashir we have discovered a new life form. -Does it fuck? Dr. Bashir is a slut. There are vampire romances, werewolf romances, zombie romances… In Awoken the love interest is Cthulhu. -As she fell into his arms, arms, arms. -There were tentacles where no tentacle should ever go. In Axiom’s End , the protagonist Cora, recovering from a malignant narcissist father, falls for a manipulative extraterrestrial war refugee, Asterisk. Asterisk confuses her squeamishness over killing him with kindness. Get very nervous if someone regards you as kind or nice. Asterisk resembles a grass hopper Dr. Seuss character. Asterisk’s appeal is kind of a cuddly networked dildo, not much privacy, almost as good as a lesbian. The couple overcommit right away. Cora keeps assuming that Asterisk regards us as savage. She doesn’t consider that he is projecting. I had dif...