Recent Comments

1. about 8 hours ago on Clay Jones

   The PRC is currently having astronomical unemployment, especially of the young. The PRC governmental solution is to redefine any young adult who has never held a job for a significant time. So, no longer are they unemployed young adults. They now are “full time children” and therefore no longer in the ranks of China’s unemployed. Suddenly, the numbers are more attractive.

   It makes me think that perhaps McCarthy should have long ago used a similar approach for Gaetz, Greene, Boebert, Santos, Kean, et. al. and redefine the entire Brat Pack as full time children who are therefore not employed.

   Too late now. Will the Democrats save him and hope he will finally re-learn how to work in a bipartisan manner since McCarthy actually has a history of having done so and at one time rejected anti-democracy reactionaries, or will a different candidate emerge who is able to work with both parties. There are those on both sides who can not do that, but there also are those on both sides who can and who regularly do. Heck, there are bipartisan coalitions in the House for specific issues and the members of those point to actual solutions; why not generalize outward and provide the nation with people who negotiate, who learn, who are open minded, who are civil, and who use those skills to place the nation before political parties?

2. 5 days ago on Gary Markstein

   Ah, but he does have his security blanket gavel, which he cradles next to his face while he sucks his thumb.

3. 13 days ago on Jeff Stahler

   Ah, the 1950s and early 1960s. The current pattern is over half of our nation’s wealth being held by the top 5% (and 69% by the top 10%), with the majority of Americans having progressively more pinching situations, and currently those with the largest incomes are also getting the best tax breaks when looking beyond what is needed just to stay alive. We lose much more on wealthfare than on welfare. The highest rates of income taxes paid by the wealthy in recent centuries was during the 1950s and the early 1960s when our nation was most profitable. A much greater amount of the national wealth was concentrated in the middle class back then.

   Opportunities to join the middle class were larger, too. There were more job training programs of various types. Not everything was concentrated on going to college, though that is certainly right for a number of us (but not all). High schools had apprentice arrangements with local merchants to teach students their fields, and certainly our high school had areas which taught interested students aspects of construction, auto mechanics, hair styling, and more so that they left high school with skill sets and a diploma showing those.

   People could advance their educations by joining the military. These days Tuberville (he who speaks without learning or thinking and who lives in a different state that that which elected him) has blocked over 300 military promotions, and the reactionary subset (dangerous extremists) of the Republican Party in the House of Representatives is blocking all governmental funding legislation (despite the deadline at the end of this month) including not permitting a vote even on funding our military.

4. 13 days ago on Jeff Stahler

   Reduce the compensation packages for the chief executives and members of the Boards. These are the pay (not extra compensation like Golden Parachutes, company cars, etc according to the source I used) of CEOs of the three companies compared to the average worker.

   Stellantis. 365 to 1

   GM. 362 to 1

   Ford. 281 to 1

   Is the CEO at Stellantis really worth 365 line workers who actually make the cars? Sorry, but no.

   In recent decades we have all seen the same pattern repeat itself over and over with major companies failing FROM THE TOP DOWN. It is a logical thing for all who invest to take into account when also looking into the more standard things like P/E ratios and savings vs debts of companies whose stocks MIGHT be of interest.

5. about 2 months ago on Non Sequitur

   a relevant poem from 1917 (so off copyright)

   The golf links lie so near the mill

   That almost every day

   The laboring children can look out

   And see the men at play

   — Sarah Norcliffe Cleghorn, “The Golf Links Lie So Near the Mill”

6. 2 months ago on Jack Ohman

   Remember, too that peaceful assembly does not equate to violent coup, and honoring peaceful recounts do not equate to calls for violence, calls to stop a legal proceeding, nor to invent a specific number of added votes, and certainly not attempts to negate the votes of the people of any state either by discounting all votes or by putting impersonators into the Electoral College.

7. 2 months ago on Jack Ohman

   You know the “definition” of mental health in an older adult, right? The person becomes less interested in not looking like an idiot, but far more interested in not behaving like an idiot. Somehow, I don’t think that calling for the suspension of the Constitution but freaking out when called “Mr.” fits the definition.

8. 2 months ago on Jeff Danziger

   Ah, someone else who keeps on top of news on Emerging Infectious Diseases… Yup: Florida, Leprosy Capital of the United States. (Its endemic there, in Texas, and in Louisiana, folks, but Florida, especially central Florida, has by far the most cases in the nation.) Fortunately, it is treatable, though the course of treatment takes 6 month to a year.

9. 2 months ago on Jeff Danziger

   Ah, the state which leads in cases of leprosy (Hanson’s Disease).

10. 2 months ago on Jack Ohman

    Well, when Trump talked about the suspending the Constitution he did in effect say that because that is the year that our current Constitution (and from that our current form of government) began. (Earlier was a congressional confederation with an earlier version of a constitution.