Open Thread

What’s on your mind?

Comments

[darkknight9]

A joke that should be shared, not only because of the humor but because I hear my Dad's voice speaking the Dad part:
"My siblings and I went out to dinner with my dad and we started talking about dad jokes we liked. All of a sudden my dad goes 'I’ve only made 3 dad jokes my entire life and they’re all sitting in front of me right now.'"

[bloocow2]

Brutal

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

Favorite Dad joke: How did the police catch Quasimodo? They acted on a hunch.

[Frank Drackman]

Politically Incorrect Jokes??
“How do you stop 10 Black guys from raping a White Woman?????”

C’mon (Man!) you’ve heard it

Frank

[Krayt]

Why do you poison this site?

[Lee Moore]

What do we think of the proposed California Billionaires' Tax ?

Not ethically (boooring !) but legally. In particular the "stickability" of a tax like this to billionaires running for the exits. Are there any constitutional or federal constraints on applying such a tax to the worldwide assets (as opposed to just Californian assets) of folk who escape at various different times - eg

before the end of 2025
before the ballot
before the legislature has done its thing with it
and so on

Can California make it retrospective to people who departed in 2023 ?

What's the precedent on California's efforts to apply state income tax to ex residents ?

I imagine there are other potential dodges for Californian assets - eg selling them to a non Californian corportation, majority owned by non Californians. Can the taxers "look through" to a minority stake indirectly owned by an ex Californian ?

I ask in the spirit of philosophy only, as a non Californian and, tragically, a non billionaire.

[Commenter_XY]

I don't see how you can make a tax retroactive two years = Can California make it retrospective to people who departed in 2023

[Brett Bellmore]

As part of overturning 'Lochnerism', and clearing the way for fascist style central planning in the US, FDR's Supreme court adopted the position that the moment money enters the room, constitutional rights leave.

Today's Court has drawn back a tiny, tiny bit from that position. But I doubt they'll overturn existing precedent that a state can reach back within the same calender year.

Letting them reach back to prior years might get some pushback, though, and this proposal absolutely does that.

My advice, as little as it's worth, is that any billionaire stupid enough to still be living in California should flee before the end of this year. No state is going to do this just once.

[Sarcastr0]

Not doing Lochner is how you get fascism, Brett says.

Creating your own definitions is not an argument.
It is a good technique to switch from fringey radical to ridiculous crank.

[Michael P]

Gaslight0's straw man is as detached as ever from what anyone actually wrote.

The Lochner decision was incompatible with fascism, but there are other ways to corrupt a government once one undoes Lochner.

[Sarcastr0]

The Lochner decision was incompatible with fascism
No, actually.
A right to contract, and thus no labor or wage standards, does not mean industry cannot be coerced or even directly regulated towards fascist goals.

[Brett Bellmore]

"Lochner" was not just about a right to contract out your labor, it was economic liberty in general.

Which gets in the way of central planning, a fad that swept the West in the mid 20th century.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"A right to contract, and thus no labor or wage standards,"

I would support that, but unfortunately Lochner didn't go that far.

Lochner:
"The general right to make a contract in relation to his business is part of the liberty protected by the Fourteenth Amendment, and this includes the right to purchase and sell labor, except as controlled by the State in the legitimate exercise of its police power."

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Creating your own definitions is not an argument."

Yup. That's why men will never give birth, and gender and sex are synonyms.

[Michael P]

Grammatical gender isn't synonymous with biological sex, but the people trying to distinguish social gender from biological sex don't ultimately want to be called das Mädchen (German for girl, a neuter noun).

[Frank Drackman]

Which literally means “little Maid” fwiw

[Sarcastr0]

I can always count on you to drag trans stuff as an off-topic attack on the Dems.

[Bwaaah]

That's because you said, "Creating your own definitions is not an argument." I think TIP agrees with that, but you don't, really.

You just say shit.

[Sarcastr0]

Believe it or not I didn’t invent gender, nor make it distinct from sex.

Brett’s definition of fascism is wholly his own.

And TiP can’t stop bringing in trans stuff as an attack no matter the topic.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Believe it or not I didn’t invent gender, nor make it distinct from sex."

Nobody did. But they sure did try.

[Sarcastr0]

Awesome off topic shitpost. You gonna defend Brett’s take on fascism or just yell about the transes?

I sometimes wonder what happened to you to make you so fixated on trans stuff and school stuff.

[Brett Bellmore]

If it weren't for the left being fixated on promoting the trans stuff, they'd still be the harmless subject of eye rolling.

My take on fascism doesn't need a lot of defending, it is bog standard history outside of the left. The Foundation for Economic Education recounts the history: Economic Fascism

FDR's policies were straight up economic fascism:

FDR’s Economic Policies Were Closer to the Fascists’ Than His Defenders Will Admit

The FDR Court's anti-Lochner revolution cleared the way for, yes, fascist economic central planning.

[Lee Moore]

As Brett suggests, I think it is Sarcastro rather than Brett who has his own home grown version of fascism - though obviously in usual Sarcastro fashion he doesn't actually offer it up explicitly, merely sniping at Brett's. Anyway, departing from Planet Sarcastro and returning to Planet Earth :

pretty much everyone is familiar with this, from the practical founder of fascism, though perhaps Sarcastro will pretend not to be :

Everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state

But there’s more from the same source - all from his fascist period, not before -which I urge y’all to read with the question bubbling in the back of your mind – “does this sound more sympathetic to Calvin Coolidge, in the Lochner corner; or to FDR, in the anti-Lochner corner ?”

The question is often asked in America and in Europe just how much ‘Fascism’ the Amercian President’s program contains. Reminiscent of Fascism is the principle that the state no longer leaves the economy to its own devices, having recognized that the welfare of the economy is identical with the welfare of the people. Without question, the mood accompanying this sea change resembles that of Fascism. More than that cannot be said at the moment.

The moment being 1933, as FDR was getting started.

Fascism entirely agrees with Mr. Maynard Keynes despite the latter's prominent position as a Liberal. In fact, Mr. Keynes' excellent little book, The End of Laissez-Faire (1926) might, so far as it goes, serve as a useful introduction to fascist economics. There is scarcely anything to object to in it and there is much to applaud.

The Fascist State directs and controls the entrepreneurs, whether it be in our fisheries or in our heavy industry in the Val d'Aosta. There the State actually owns the mines and carries on transport, for the railways are state property. So are many of the factories… We term it state intervention… If anything fails to work properly, the State intervenes. The capitalists will go on doing what they are told, down to the very end. They have no option and cannot put up any fight. Capital is not God; it is only a means to an end.

If the 19th was the century of the individual (liberalism means individualism), you may consider that this is the "collective" century, and therefore the century of the state.

I add – as a fun bonus – Mussolini espousing utterly orthodox 21st century lefty dogma on race – a hundred years early :

Race ! It is a feeling, not a reality: ninety-five percent, at least, is a feeling. Nothing will ever make me believe that biologically pure races can be shown to exist today. Amusingly enough, not one of those who have proclaimed the "nobility" of the Teutonic race was himself a Teuton.

[DDHarriman]

What about creating your own definitions for "woman" or "equity" or "marriage" or "husband"?

[TwelveInchPianist]

Don't forget "racism" and "consent".

[Joe_dallas]

The SC has been extremely lax with the retroactivity of tax law.
As I recall there was a Washington state tax case (sales tax?) where Washington state made a retroactive change in sales tax. The case was relisted 7 or 8 times but was eventually denied cert. I am speaking from memory, so some of the details of facts may be off.

[Joe_dallas]

Dot foods Inc and it was a retroactive change to the business and occupation tax exemption.

[hobie]

The hayseeds sure get prickly when anyone tries to touch the donor class...er...I mean billionaires.

[Brett Bellmore]

The parasites sure get prickly when anyone tries to deprive them of a victim.

[hobie]

Meh...you guys don't think they should be taxed; we think they should. I don't consider people paying less in taxes (24%) than regular Americans (30%) as being victims.

[ThePublius]

First, what do you mean "we," do you have a mouse in your pocket?

Second, it's not an income tax that's proposed, it's a tax on wealth, i.e., net worth, so your 24%/30% comment is stupid.

I am vehemently opposed to taxes on assets, and on retroactive taxes.

And, eve n if your 24%/30% comment made sense, the wealthy pay FAR MORE DOLLARS in taxes than anyone else. In fact, less than half the population pays any income tax, and some even get a check at tax time, as with the EITC.

[Brett Bellmore]

I think they should be taxed on the same basis as anybody else: Enough to pay for the services they get from government, and no more.

You think that if you and a billionaire walk into a McDonalds, you should pay $7, and he should pay $7,000, because he's got the money. Screw that, that's the ethic of a thief.

[jb]

"I think they should be taxed on the same basis as anybody else: Enough to pay for the services they get from government, and no more."

How do you even measure the value of, e.g., the military to an individual person? In your system, do children of poor parents not get to go to school because they haven't made the necessary tax contributions? For that matter, what happens to orphans in your Hobbesian paradise? I guess hopefully they're not so young when their parents die that they can get a job and pay some taxes so the police will protect them a little.

[Armchair]

I'll add on to JB's bit here.

What's the value in services that a billionaire gets from the government? If you're just talking about individual medical care, that's a relatively small service expenditure for the government for a billionaire.

The real service expenditure the government makes for a billionaire is...protection/insurance of the billionaire's assets.

Let's face it. When you're that rich, people want to take or steal your stuff. Protecting or insuring your stuff costs a lot of money. That's what the government does. There's a reason that billionaires don't take $500,000,000 in gold and just stick it in a vault in Somalia. Because it would be stolen.

Instead, they put it in a vault in the US, because there is a government that protects their assets in the US. That protection has a value to the billionaire far far in excess of any services they personally obtain via health care.

[Lee Moore]

As it happens everyone is at risk of having their stuff stolen, and the rich have ways of protecting it by private means - eg by moving it to a safer place. Switzerland doesn't charge you extra taxes for moving your assets to a Swiss bank. It relies on taxing the bank on its profits. And, as it also happens, most very rich people derive their fortunes from assets that are exploited globally (and that of course is why there are hyperbolically rich people in the first place) - and the profits you earn from your business's sales in Europe or Asia do not depend on the protection of the American government.

However even stipulating to your claim, government spending on law enforcement is a fraction of total government spending - 10% top whack. And most of that is spent incarcerating thugs who prey mostly on the poor.

So even if you had a great argument, it would be a great argument for less than 10% of government spending. And the argument would support flat rate rather than progressive taxes.

As to jb's question about the value of the military - a first order answer would be to say that the military is worth about the same to each citizen. Virtually all citizens value their life and liberty, and that of their family, much more highly than they value their wealth.

[Randal]

a first order answer would be to say that the military is worth about the same to each citizen

But you're paying for a much larger military than would be needed to protect you and your fortune.

Imagine your apartment building charges a security fee for parking, $10 a month. Then some douchebag named Elon moves in with a Bugatti, and the fee goes up to $100 a month to hire a 24/7 armed guard for the garage. Fair?

[Lee Moore]

In that case, because you can see the price go up directly after Elon and his Bugatti arrive, then you can demonstrate that the extra $90 is down to Elon and so he should pay, not you. But that is not plausible.

Your hypo is not a great one (for your argument) because if Elon has a Bugatti and everyone else has a cheapo car, it's more likely that the presence of Elon's Bugatti is going to reduce the chances of anyone stealing your cheapo - who's going to steal a cheapo when there's a Bugatti to steal ?

At best you're arguing for a "flat tax" - ie he pays more by reference to the additional cost of protecting his Bugatti. Not a progressive tax.
To make a progressive tax work you'd have to argue that even charging for security by reference to the value of the car involves cheapo owners subsidising Bugatti owners - which is unlikely. Insurance costs are going to be pro rata to value. And you certainly aren't going to hire ten times as many security guards if there's a Bugatti in the garage. A much more realistic hypo would be that the apartment building contractually caps its liability for cars in the garage, and hires zero extra security staff if one of the owners decides to buy a fancy car, adding zero to the cost to other owners.

The Bugatti owner therefore keeps his car in the fancy high security private garage a block away, which charges prices commensurate with the higher value of the cars. Or even more likely, the Bugatti owner keeps his Bugatti in his own garage at his own fancy house behind his own fancy walls, protected by his own fancy security guards. Costing the people on the apartment building zilch.

And as a metaphor for the military - well, as we see around the world there's plenty of invading and stealing going on - and it's going on in poor countries. No doubt Putin covets Ukraine's mineral and agricultural resources, as well as the national conquest angle, but when military action to acquire stuff, it's land and minerals that are coveted. The sort of wealth Elon and the other US billionaires have is not the sort of wealth you can steal by military occupation. It can be destroyed, sure, but to get its value you have to allow it to operate in a profit making way.

From thieves, Elon type wealth is protected by its own fragility - even from the most prevalent type of thief - the government. From Luddites, it's vulnerable.

[Randal]

Wow that's a lot of weaseling. No analogy is perfect. Thanks for exhaustively cataloguing every irrelevant hole.

Anyway, as to the one substantive thing you've said...

To make a progressive tax work you'd have to argue that even charging for security by reference to the value of the car involves cheapo owners subsidising Bugatti owners - which is unlikely.

No, that's entirely likely. As you yourself pointed out, no one wants to steal your cheap-ass car when they've got a Bugatti on the other hand. That $100 fee is going almost entirely to protect the Bugatti.

Think of it this way. You could break into 100 poor people's houses, steal a crap TV from each, and pawn them for $50 × 100 = $5000. Or you could break into one rich person's house, steal a pair of diamond earrings, and pawn them for $5000.

Given that the rich person's house is 1% of the effort for the same payoff, the choice is simple.

In other words, concentrations of wealth become disproportionately riskier the larger they get. If your car is worth a tenth of the value of the one next to it, it's not getting stolen a tenth of the time. It's getting stolen never, all else being equal.

[Randal]

(I should point out, that's not the reason to do a progressive tax anyway. It's just demonstrating that Brett's idea for taxation also leads to a progressive tax if you actually take it seriously.

The real reason for a progressive tax is that it's more efficient on the whole.)

[Randal]

How do you price the value of government to a billionaire? Seems like the government is critical to the entire wealth-creation process. They control the money, the markets, the dispute resolution process, they prevent theft and facilitate recovery, and the military protects your billions against foreign attack.

This is where conservatives have a huge blind spot. It wouldn't be possible for someone like Musk to be as rich as he is without a national infrastructure to support him. He's admitted as much. Vast individual wealth isn't part of the "natural law," it's very much tied to government.

I think any kind of wealth tax is bad on policy grounds. But if you want to tax people based on the value of government services, rich individuals would owe pretty much their entire fortunes.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"It wouldn't be possible for someone like Musk to be as rich as he is without a national infrastructure to support him."

That same infrastructure is available to you and I as well, but for some reason me and (going out on limb here) you are not billionaires. So either the infrastructure unfairly favors Musk, or Musk is making more effective use to the infrastructure.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

I think you are correct that Musk is "making more effective use of the infrastructure" than are you or I or Randal, but that isn't at all a refutation of Randal's point.

[Brett Bellmore]

Most of what Musk benefits from is just ordinary law enforcement, the existence of roads, that sort of thing. He does use more of it than me, but if he were paying taxes proportional to his use of it, he'd be paying enormously less taxes.

Let's be clear about 'progressive' taxation. If you want spending that has low or even negative net benefit, you're not going to get it if the beneficiaries have to pay for it. You have to separate the beneficiaries and the people footing the bill, and see to it that the former are calling the shots.

So progressive taxation dumps most of the cost of government on a small minority of the population, so that politicians can find political support for policies that are wildly cost ineffective, that on net destroy wealth.

Not incidentally, this requires government to push up income inequality, because progressive taxation works best politically if there is massive income inequality.

[Randal]

Most of what Musk benefits from is just ordinary law enforcement, the existence of roads, that sort of thing.

That's just false. Most of what Musk benefits from is a court system, a monetary system, a corporate charter system, a competitive consumer market, a competitive and well-educated labor market, etc.

For example, the courts just awarded him $150 Billion or something. By your rule, he should owe that in taxes. That's stupid.

It's also why your analysis of progressive taxation is stupid. Musk depends on public education and subsidized higher ed to a much greater extent than the individuals who are actually getting educated - he wouldn't have a workforce without them. Same even with your favorite example of roads - how's his workforce gonna get to work without roads? Musk depends on a vibrant working class to support his wealth creation, and progressive taxes create a vibrant working class.

[Brett Bellmore]

"For example, the courts just awarded him $150 Billion or something. By your rule, he should owe that in taxes. That's stupid."

Yeah, that IS just stupid. Tesla awarded Musk $150B, and after several years of getting in the way, the courts just permitted Tesla to pay it. And you want to count that as the government giving Musk money, when they actually cost him legal expenses in getting the money he was already entitled to.

"Musk depends on public education and subsidized higher ed to a much greater extent than the individuals who are actually getting educated - he wouldn't have a workforce without them."

And that's similar brilliance, cut from the same material. The government taxes people so that they can't afford private education, they get an inferior education from the government, utilize that education to work for a living, and all the value they create for their employer is supposed to be treated as the government giving the employer money.

[Randal]

all the value they create for their employer is supposed to be treated as the government giving the employer money.

Even Musk agrees with this. All tech entrepreneurs agree with this. America's highly-educated workforce is the main reason they're here.

If you think America's workforce would be better educated without public education you're retarded. You're retarded.

[Armchair]

Here's a question for you Brett.

Musk has a lot of assets in the US. Tesla, SpaceX, etc. Those have significant value.

Why doesn't Russia or North Korea or China just invade the US and seize those assets? Is there any value that Musk receives due to the US Armed Forces protecting the US and assets within the US?

[Lee Moore]

Armchair : Musk has a lot of assets in the US. Tesla, SpaceX, etc. Those have significant value. Why doesn't Russia or North Korea or China just invade the US and seize those assets? Is there any value that Musk receives due to the US Armed Forces protecting the US and assets within the US?

Brett has already conceded that he does :

Most of what Musk benefits from is just ordinary law enforcement, the existence of roads, that sort of thing. He does use more of it than me, but if he were paying taxes proportional to his use of it, he'd be paying enormously less taxes.

The question - confining it to the value of the government service of protecting property rights - is whether Musk is getting a per dollar of property owned benefit in excess of yours. ie if Musk has $700 billion, and you have $700,000, is he getting more than a million times the value of goverment property protection services than you are ? Or to put it another way, is he getting more government property protection value than a million Armchairs are getting for their aggregate $700 billion of property assets ?

[Randal]

whether Musk is getting a per dollar of property owned benefit in excess of yours.

Oh Lee, you just fell right into the wealth tax trap! That would be the relevant question... if we had a wealth tax. As it is, Musk is taxed exactly zero for the privilege of having his assets protected by the US military.

(And the answer would be yes anyway. North Korea isn't interested in your $10k Bank of America balance. Musk has actual assets like car companies that would remain valuable to an enemy. Most people just have credit card debt.)

[Lee Moore]

As it is, Musk is taxed exactly zero for the privilege of having his assets protected by the US military.

I appreciate that this is a difficult point, but I expect you're smart enough to understand it. Musk's wealth consists of corporate stock, whose value derives from the market's estimate of the net present value of the corporation's net cash flows over the remainder of its existence.

Net cash flows of a corporation are post corporate tax. Thus Musk is already bearing the cost of those future corporate tax costs in his stock value - the taxes, even if they haven't yet been paid to the government, have already been deducted from Musk's wealth. If there were no corporate tax, Musk's shares would currently be worth more - by about 25% (I'm ignoring state taxes.)

People who might buy Musk's shares are going to discount the purchase price for those taxes, so that when they finally have to be paid, the cost is not going to fall on them - but on Musk.

So Musk's "wealth" is already taxed. Wealth taxes are about taxing it again.

[Randal]

That is the most retarded tax analysis I've ever read.

Suffice it to say, corporate taxes, like (federal) individual taxes, are based on income, not value. If Tesla had a vault of gold, the US military would be protecting it for free year after year.

The fact that corporate tax has an effect on share price is so enormously irrelevant it makes me fart. Know what else has an effect on share price? The fact that the US is protecting all of Musk's and his companies' assets (for free)!!

[Lee Moore]

It's Corporate Finance 101, and I still think you're smart enough to understand it. You're just pretending to throw a hissy fit.

If Tesla had a vault of gold, the US military would be protecting it for free year after year.

But it doesn't. It has future cash flows from its operations. Or rather it will have such cash flows.

Suffice it to say, corporate taxes, like (federal) individual taxes, are based on income, not value.

Here's where you're pretending not to get the point. Corporate taxes are based on income which are in turn based on cash flows. The (negative) expected value of those future corporate taxes is deducted from the value ascribed to the stock by the market TODAY, just as the market takes into account, TODAY, in its stock valuation, the positive expected value of the future pre tax cash flows (ie cash profits.) That is how corporate taxes get incorporated into stock values.

If you're really stumped by this, I suggest you work out the sums on this very simple illustration. Suppose Tesla exists as a corporation for two years. In year one it earns no profits (or cash.) In year two it earns $500 billion in pre tax profits (and cash) all of which is received on the last day of the year. (This is perfectly predicted by the stock market as at the beginning of Year 2.) The corporate tax rate is 30%, and taxes are payable at the end of each year. Musk owns 100% of Tesla for the first year, and then sells 100% of it to me at the beginning of Year 2. The discount rate that the stock market (and Musk and I) apply, as at the beginning of year 2, to a cash flow one year in the future is 10%.

1. calculate the price I am willing to pay at the beginning of Year 2, to buy Musk's Tesla stock.

2. calculate how much cash Musk would have if he hung onto the Tesla stock and didn't sell it, and instead received the whole of Tesla's cash at the end of year 2 as a distribution on dissolution. Assume zero personal tax.

3. calculate how much cash Musk would have at the end of year 2 if he accepted my offer to buy his stock at the beginning of year 2. He is able to invest the proceeds of his sale of stock at the same 10% discount rate. Assume no personal tax.

4. Assume Tesla was an unincorporated business, owned directly by Musk. Assuming he hung on to the business until the end of year 2 and then dissolved it keeping the cash. Assume no personal tax except 30% income tax on the profits of the business.

5. Repeat 1,2,3 and 4 but now assuming zero tax on corporate income (and zero on Tesla's income in example 4,when it is run as an unincorporated business.)

Now then - who is bearing the cost of the corporate taxes paid by Tesla ?

[Absaroka]

Aside from the accounting, we all benefit from an ordered society where, say, GM can build cars without having its factories looted, and Safeway can stock groceries without its stores being looted and ...

Sure, Safeway, Kellogs, and Anheiser-Busch make money off me[1], but I get something in return. I've tried going without food and didn't enjoy the experience[2]. It's an example of symbiosis, enabled by having that ordered society for all of us.

If Safeway has to hire a bunch of armed guards to stop looting, I'm going to end up paying for that.

[1]And probably me off them ... pension funds and what have you
[2]I lie. The hikes were wonderful, if not as wonderful as if we had food 🙂

[TwelveInchPianist]

"But if you want to tax people based on the value of government services, rich individuals would owe pretty much their entire fortunes."

Sounds like he's saying people should be taxed based on the cost, not the value.

[Randal]

The question is how to allocate the costs among the population. One obvious and popular way is to allocate them based on value. That's called "progressive taxation" since it's pretty clear that the people making more money are the ones getting the most value out of the state.

[Brett Bellmore]

Only people with armies who are capable of forcing people to buy the product whether or not they want it get to engage in that sort of pricing scheme.

People who can't shoot you if you refuse to purchase have to price according to how much the customer values the service, not how much the seller thinks they ought to.

Progressive taxation is just Willie Sutton with a side order of rationalization. That's all it is.

[Randal]

Musk et al are free to opt out of America if they find the taxes too onerous. No one's holding a gun to their head.

[Lee Moore]

If you wanted to allocate the costs of government based on value you’d have a flat rate tax not progressive taxation. The latter implies that each extra dollar you earn requires incrementally more government services than the previous dollar.
In reality it’s the other way round. To the extent that the Delaware courts eventually deciding to stop preventing Tesla from paying Musk what they had agreed to pay him can be described as valuable government services, it doesn’t cost the government more to provide such “services” in respect of $100 million of income than in respect of $10 million. Or in respect of the $0 million of income that the losers earned from the process,who occupied the court for the same length of time as did Musk.
The other little value that government provides aside from protection of property is protection of life and limb from criminals. The government’s services are equally available to all more or less. To the extent that Musk’s life gets more protection than mine, he pays for his own walls and private security. From which the government takes its cut.

[Lee Moore]

The other little detail I should mention is welfare. Hard to square that with the “value” theory of taxation.

Adam Smith, Mr Free Market, is widely supposed to have supported progressive taxation. But this is a misquote. Being a practical man he opposed taxing the poor on their staples while not taxing the rich on their rents. This at a time when there were actual poor.

[Randal]

The latter implies that each extra dollar you earn requires incrementally more government services than the previous dollar.

This is true if only for the obvious reason that concentrations of wealth require more protection. Try being a multi-billionaire without a nation's military on hand to protect the wealth. A country of poor people doesn't need nuclear weapons to keep it safe.

This at a time when there were actual poor.

What a shithead.

[Lee Moore]

A country of poor people doesn't need nuclear weapons to keep it safe.

You may want to work on that one a little more.

Not only are the Ukrainians on the phone, wanting to know what you've been drinking, but there have been lots of wars in the Middle East, and not a few in Africa, in your lifetime. Never mind South East Asia.

[Randal]

Choosing to miss the point on purpose I see. I guess that's a wrap.

[Krayt]

We The People hire them to do these things to smooth markets We The Free do in our own time. We are not servient to power hungry asses who go into government and feign they are the great reason this nation is great.

Again, government does not bless us with these things, it is not a gift from those grifters. We tell it to provide such so we can get on with business, from roads to courts to police to secure The People in their efforts, from theives, highwaymen, even the grifters themselves, as much as possible anyway.

A third time, the grifters are not some honorees who bring the nation stability. We The People tell them to do it.

[Riva]

Just so you know little “hobie,” in the aggregate, the majority of individual donors in high-wealth tiers lean Democratic. When you have a sane moment, would you mind defining what you mean by “hayseed”?

[DDHarriman]

He means any White who doesn't live da hood or is free from the tragedies of Democrat Multiculturalism.

[Frank Drackman]

12 years of Barry Hussein and the Autopen and the Po’ still pay Social Security (15.3% for your 1099 Uber driver)on their entire income while The Rich goes down to 2.65% at around 160k
Peoples also forget that BHO wanted to “let the Bush Tax cuts expire” which would have increased the lowest bracket from 10% to 15% (which is a 50% increase btw)
Funny how none of the State Sales Taxes are “Progressive” Martavious pays the same for his 40oz Malt Liquor as I do.
And the Lotteries every state except Utah and Ali-bama have? Don’t see many Elons in line to buy those. Lots of Julio’s, Jamal’s and Joe Dirts (with Jug-lish ringing them up behind the bullet proof glass)

Frank

[Lee Moore]

Social security is claimed to be a contributory pension scheme which we deserve to get BECAUSE WE PAID FOR IT. You pay a progressively lower rate on higher income because the pension you get does not rise proportionately with income.
In reality social security IS a welfare scheme for the poorer contributors because they pay less than the value of the pension paid, while it is a tax scheme for the richer, who get a pension worth less than they pay.
Though to be fair the folk who made the most out of social security are mostly dead. Social security is mostly a transfer of wealth from today’s and tomorrows workers to their parents and grandparents.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Social Security was an EMPLOYMENT scheme which ended when mandatory retirement ended.

It was intended to open up jobs for the younger under/un employed, which it did. This stopped with the Baby Boomers who have not given up their jobs.

[Michael P]

This is another good illustration of why people should leave California: https://open.substack.com/pub/sebastopol/p/an-unsettling-confrontation-in-the

[Dr. Ed 2]

I think the Billionaires deserve it -- they forgot about Gen X, they forgot about the middle class, and why should we care about them?

[Davy C]

Hmm... Since it seems to be an entirely new tax, due process might come into play. Blodgett v. Holden, 275 U.S. 142 (1927) says in the syllabus: "The Revenue Act of 1924, §§ 319-324, insofar as it undertakes to impose a tax on gifts fully consummated before its provisions taxing gifts came before Congress, is invalid under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment."

Untermyer v. Anderson, 276 U.S. 440 (1928), dealing with the same tax: "The mere fact that a gift was made while the bill containing the questioned provisions was in the last stage of progress through Congress we think is not enough to differentiate this cause from the former one, and to relieve the legislation of the arbitrary character there ascribed to it."

But then in United States v. Hudson, 299 U.S. 498 (1937), SCOTUS upheld a new tax on silver which looked back 35 days, partially justifying it by saying the taxpayers were on notice that Congress was looking at such legislation.

So, I think they could get away with legislation which looked back at least some. I don't think they could get away with taxing everyone who lived there in 2023.

[TwelveInchPianist]

That's true, the feds under FDR took everybody's gold, and even repudiated its debts denominated in gold.

[bernard11]

the feds under FDR took everybody's gold,

They didn't "take" everyone's gold. They did force the sale of gold to the government, at the then official gold price.

Nor did they cancel debts denominated in gold. What FDR did was declare "gold clauses" in contracts invalid. These clauses generally allowed the creditor to demand payment in gold. The debts still existed, but had to be paid in dollars.

[Absaroka]

"They didn't "take" everyone's gold. They did force the sale of gold to the government, at the then official gold price."

I think 'take' is the right word for a forced sale. If I go down the street offering people Blue Book for their car, some will sell and some won't. That's 'selling/buying', when both sides are happy with the price.

If I do the same thing but compel the 'sales' at gunpoint, I think it's eminently fair to say I 'took' the cars, at least from the folks who wouldn't have sold at that price willingly. And that's the clue - I don't need compulsion to 'buy', because the sellers are willing. When I compel the unwilling sellers, that's a 'take'. I may think it's a fair price, but the current owners obviously don't think so.

The penalty for not handing over your gold was $10000 and 10 years. That's a helluva bargaining chip, wouldn't you say?

Not to mention the govt forcibly bought the gold for $20.67, and the next year declared it was now worth $35. Pretty good ROI!

(and to be clear, I take no position on whether grabbing the gold was wise or not - I just don't think we should spin it like the sale was voluntary)

[Davy C]

Indeed. The 5th Amendment requires just compensation for a "taking", but doesn't say that a taking doesn't exist just because the person was compensated. It's still a taking if it's involuntary.

[Joe_dallas]

One provision of the Big Beautiful bill was a retroactive change to the statute of limitations for filing Employment retention credit refund claims which disallows refund claims filed after January 31, 2024. As a result, the change in the statute of limitations will cause the disallowance of previously filed valid refund claims.

The change in the statute of limitations was partly in response to the massive number of fraudulent ERC refund claims filed.

As Davy C notes, SCOTUS has been inconsistent with the application of retroactive law changes, especially in the area of taxation. There are probably up to a thousand previously timely filed valid ERC refunds that are now being disallowed. As such, I would anticipate a case on this issue reaching the SC.

[hobie]

https://youtu.be/CoJBpUHz7G0

From the annals of non-coal, lib-approved technology:

China has been able to maglev accelerate a 1.1 ton vehicle to 435mph in 2 seconds. This puts them on the cusp of being able to fire satellites and spacecraft into orbit one after the other. As well as launch fighter jets from a standstill without runways.

[ThePublius]

"As well as launch fighter jets from a standstill without runways."

I doubt the pilots could survive it.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, that's 35 thousand G's, even with the absolute best support possible, filling the pilot's lungs with fluid and floating them in a fluid matching their average density, their skeleton would rip through their body. You might be able to build a pilotless fighter drone that could take that, though.

OTOH, the next step after reusable rockets IS launching to orbit with mass drivers, and I'd rather we took that step before they did.

[Davedave]

35k g? What?

435mph is, give or take, 200 meters per second. Over two seconds that's 100 m/s/s, or roughly 10g. That's on the order of double a carrier take off or landing.

[Brett Bellmore]

I feel stupid. I run these calculations so often for rockets that I was thinking miles per second...

Yeah, you're right, it's not actually problematic, a properly cushioned human can take 10gs for a couple seconds without trouble.

[SRG2]

You can redeem yourself by working out how long the rail has to be to accelerate a rocket to escape velocity at 10g.

FWIW being able to launch a missile with no exhaust nor heat signature for a satellite to pick up and alert on is "interesting".

[hobie]

The article states the track used for 435mph was 1130ft long. So applying the only algebra I remember, that would mean for escape velocity of 25,000mph, would need a track 75,000 feet long. But I'm sure a lot of that is for stopping distance...which shouldn't be an issue for rocket launching.

I mean, just a little boost off the ground would reduce rocket loads and sizes immensely...wouldn't it?

[Michael P]

Those checking hobie's mistaken math will further need to correct the length of the track: it was 400 m, or roughly 1310 ft, not 1130 ft. And that did not include stopping distance, according to https://interestingengineering.com/transportation/china-maglev-hits-435-mph-in-2-seconds .

[Michael P]

Earth's escape velocity is 40270 km/h = 11186 m/s, which one can attain in 114 seconds at 10g. This would require a track almost 638 km long.

Anyone paying attention will not be surprised that hobie's "on the cusp of being able to fire satellites and spacecraft into orbit" oversells the status -- and not by a little.

(Position at time t after a dead stop at position zero with acceleration a is a*t*t/2, so hobie's linear extrapolation is wrong.)

[Dr. Ed 2]

"a track almost 638 km long."

High, not long, because it would have to be opposite the force of gravity to escape it.

The world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, stands at a height of 0.828 km (2,717 feet). 1/3 mile is about as high as you can go. You are talking a track almost 400 miles high -- the entire Northeast Corridor from Boston to DC is only 457 miles long.

[Michael P]

The attitude of the track between horizontal and vertical only matters once you start considering air resistance, which we were ignoring for simplicity's sake. Once you consider air resistance, as Brett pointed out below, you need a higher exit velocity and your calculations need to be revised in other ways.

[Dr. Ed 2]

The earth is curved and a straight track is inherently somewhat vertical -- any track of this length that wasn't would inherently be redirecting the projectile towards the earth.

The problem with any vertical or semi-vertical track is supporting the far end of it. The curvature of the earth at 400 miles would be 5 miles, i.e. the end of a 400 mile flat "horizontal" track would be 5 miles vertically above the earth's surface at the end -- and the entire thing would have to be supported with incrementally higher supports for all 400 miles.

Mount McKinley is the tallest mountain in the world from base to peak on land, measuring 18,000 ft or 3.4 miles. And your "horizontal" ramp would have to be 1.6 miles higher...

The real question with a curved track that followed the surface of the earth is would inertia cause the projectile to float up off the track, or would gravity re-direct it down to a continually dropping track? Either way, I don't see this becoming escape velocity in that it isn't directed away from the earth.

It's the same problem with the "space elevator" -- you can't build a structure that is five vertical miles up.

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, Earth's escape velocity is about 11.2kps. 10gs is 98.1 mps^2,
so 114 seconds of acceleration.

D=0.5*A*T^2, so 0.5*98.1*114^2= 637.5km long.

Launching from Pike's Peak, for tradition's sake, you'd be starting in the middle of Utah.

If you started at the Pacific ocean,
D=0.5*V*T
D/(0.5*V)=T
1500000/(0.5*11200)=268 seconds
A=V/T
11200/268= 41.8m/s^2, or about 4 and a quarter gs. Practical for manned launches.

Of course, as soon as you exit the (presumably evacuated!) mass driver, you slam into the air, and start pulling serious negative Gs. (That's mach 38!) You would need a fairly massive capsule to minimize that, and a very good ablative shield. The above calculations don't take into account speed lost blasting through the atmosphere.

The numbers look better if you settle for just enough speed to reach LEO, of course. I honestly think that mass drivers will eventually supplant rockets for reaching orbit. Probably coupled with a dynamic structure supported vacuum path to the upper atmosphere.

[hobie]

Even if it was as big as it needs to be, I think it would behoove a country to make its own national space ramp. You would only need one and it would take national security and stellar progress out of the hands of a couple of self-interested billionaires.

Sigh...I wish someone would figure out the space tether.

[Brett Bellmore]

Can't do it with physically realizable materials. Dynamic structures are the way to go, they don't have the same limits.

[Michael P]

(presumably evacuated!)

Getting a 600-km tube of several meters in diameter to hold a good vacuum will revolutionize railroads before space travel. A train going 1000 kph can tolerate a lot more air resistance than a spacecraft going ten times as fast: drag is another thing that increases with the square of velocity.

[Davy C]

Since nothing depends on the answer I used Google. It says 640 km. Enough that it would seem to be impractical to build so many that we wouldn't know exactly where to look for the launch. Google also says this would take 114 seconds, which would seem to be a problem for launching humans into orbit if you wanted them to live.

There's also the problem that the max velocity is at the *bottom* of the atmosphere where the air density is highest. Even if the craft could survive it, you're going to get *some* sort of heat signature. The craft is going to be building up heat for most of the time it's on the ground building up speed. The drag is also going to mean you probably need more initial velocity than the above calculation would indicate.

On the other hand, to launch missiles you wouldn't quite need *escape* velocity; the aim is for it to land somewhere. Google suggests about 4.8 km/s would be enough to get an object to anywhere on the planet (and that includes accounting for drag), much less than the 11.2 km/s escape velocity. This implies "only" needing 118 km or so for the rail and about 49 seconds at 10g.

[Dr. Ed 2]

The SR-71 got to 600 to 900 degrees Fahrenheit -- there is going to be a lot of wind resistance and related heating from that.

And with the amount of electricity that is going to be used, I can't help but think that there is going to be an electromagnetic signature as well.

[hobie]

Isn't the concept of liquid air (re The Abyss) still an actual thing?

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, it is. You do need mechanical ventilation when you're using it, it's a lot more work to draw into and out of your lungs than air, your diaphragm tires out, and it messes with your ability to keep stuff from "going down the wrong pipe", but it is a thing.

[hobie]

Heh, I read that Ed Harris literally nearly drowned so many times in filming that he punched James Cameron in the face then broke down crying.

[Riva]

Uh huh. They can’t make a pan that doesn’t rust in a week. Good luck to those Chinese astronauts. I suspect they’ll need a lot of spares.

[ducksalad]

They can make a pan that doesn't rust in a week. Just not the one they'll sell to you.

You've probably heard the story about the American engineer asking a Chinese colleague about the cheap tools at the dollar store. "We export those to the US. Only Americans are rich enough to afford tools that don't work."

[Riva]

Nope and unlikely there is any grain of truth there. China is not known for its quality manufactured goods in any context.

[ducksalad]

I doubt you're knowledgeable in every context.

[Riva]

And the personal insult. So on that note, and in line with your preferred level of discourse, F off asshole.

[bernard11]

China is not known for its quality manufactured goods in any context.

Bullshit.

I've actually imported a lot of manufactured goods from China - components for manufacturing equipment.

Find a competent manufacturer and develop a sensible process for specifying what you need and all the rest drawings, samples, etc., and you'll get fine products. of course there are el cheapo low-quality places, just as there are here. Avoid them. (We had a good long-term relationship with one, and when we needed a second we got recs from domestic manufacturers, and chose another one that worked out well.)

[Riva]

Bullshit yourself. You're probably referring to shopping on Amazon. Could be Walmart.

[Sarcastr0]

You complain about the level of discourse, and this is how you tend to post.

You love to dish it out; you complain incessantly when you have to take it.

Be the change you wish to see, or get out of the kitchen.

[Riva]

Ask Mr. bullshit above little communist girl that never cried. You assholes set the tone here for discourse. You want courtesy? Don't be an asshole.

[Sarcastr0]

So you're take is that it's not your fault that literally everyone you ever reply to deserves your angry insults.

Could you think of any other explanations for how you act?

[bernard11]

Fuck you, you useless, disgusting POS. I'm talking about actual orders placed by my company with Chinese foundries and satisfactorily filled by them.

You could relax a bit, you know. You've long since locked up the "VC Asshole of the Year" award for 2025, and are far ahead in the Asshole of the Decade race.

[Riva]

As noted to the little communist girl above, if you assholes want courtesy then don't be assholes. You set the tone for our exchange. And you're not even clever with your insults. That in and of itself is even more insulting. Or maybe you're just not clever.

[Brett Bellmore]

I've had vendors in China that would produce a quality component, and tell you if they couldn't. And I've had vendors in China that would tell you they could do absolutely anything to get the job, and then deliver shit.

"This component can only be made with 5 axis cnc grinding, do not quote it if you lack that capacity."

"No problem!"

Part comes back out of spec with obvious file marks.

And then they'd stop getting work from us.

But we're dealing direct with them, while Amazon is deliberately set up to make sure you can't figure out who's dealing in garbage, from top to bottom. Even the reviews are deliberately allowed to be mixed between products.

[bernard11]

But we're dealing direct with them, while Amazon is deliberately set up to make sure you can't figure out who's dealing in garbage, from top to bottom. Even the reviews are deliberately allowed to be mixed between products.

Of course.

But if Amazon is willing to sell junk, Chinese or not, then isn't the poor quality Amazon's fault, at least in part? I myself don't buy anonymous stuff from them.

[Dr. Ed 2]

The USS Gerald R. Ford uses that technology to launch aircraft -- and is having lots of problems with it.

China talking about its successes reminds me of Khrushchev claiming to be producing ICBMs "like sausages" -- when, in fact, they weren't....

Say what you want about Nixon, he *knew* that there wasn't a "missile gap" in 1960, and he could have won the debate (and probably the election) by releasing classified information, but didn't.

[SRG2]

China talking about its successes reminds me of Khrushchev claiming to be producing ICBMs "like sausages" -- when, in fact, they weren't....

Or perhaps they were, because the Soviets weren't producing many sausages either!

[Dr. Ed 2]

🙂

[SRG2]

I wonder about a hybrid system - initial acceleration from the rail transitioning to conventional rocketry as the rocket leaves the rail. Might save considerably on fuel, given that most of what a current rocket lifts is fuel.

[Michael P]

It really depends on the specifics.

https://www1.grc.nasa.gov/beginners-guide-to-aeronautics/ideal-rocket-equation/ gives a formula and works it for the example of a liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen rocket going to low Earth orbit. When I do the calculations, I get a mass ratio of 9.13 rather than the 10 indicated on that page. With a 500 mph boost (like the Chinese demonstration in this thread), MR only goes down to 8.6. With a 2000 mph boost -- needing about 16 times as much track, or 6.4 km -- mass ratio goes down to 7. That 25% or 30% savings in fuel is significant, but probably not a breakthrough in the economics.

[Brett Bellmore]

It's not 25% savings in fuel. It's 25% more mass available for structural redundancy.

Right now rockets have to be manufactured almost to perfection, because they have to stress every part of them almost to the breaking point to get the weight down enough to even make chemical rocketry to orbit feasible. Any part that isn't almost breaking during launch is wastefully heavy!

Reduce the fuel requirements 25%, and suddenly you don't need perfection anymore, you can afford to make things overdesigned enough that they can fall back to normal industrial levels of quality and still work. Everything becomes much cheaper.

But the real gain is getting away from rocketry altogether, as much as possible, because the difficulty of rocketry goes up exponentially with the change in velocity, because you have to carry the fuel to accelerate the fuel that accelerates the fuel, that accelerates your payload. Most of the fuel is used up accelerating fuel that gets thrown away!

But if you can switch to something like a mass driver, suddenly you're hardly throwing anything at all away, you're just spending electricity to accelerate a capsule that barely weighs more than the payload it contains.

As I relate above, you can build a mass driver on Earth's surface that's powerful enough to launch payloads into space, but if the mouth is even on the top of a mountain, you hit the air going mach 38, and suddenly your Gs reverse. Ideally you want a path through vacuum up into space.

That's possible using dynamic structures, such as <a href="https://nss.org/settlement/nasa/Nowicki/SPBI116.HTM&quot; There are other concepts, such as orbital fountains. The basic idea is that you have some mass that you electromagnetically accelerate ABOVE orbital velocity, it travels through a vacuum sheath, guided magnetically, and then returns to Earth to be turned around and sent back. The force necessary to bend its path back to Earth supports the whole structure against gravity.

This allows you to build structures resting on Earth that actually reach up into space, that can be built with ordinary materials, just some clever engineering, and you can support your vacuum sheath for the accelerator all the way up to where there's no air to run into when you come out the end. You can even reach space by using a conventional elevator!

So, why do we mess with rockets when something like a launch loop can be built with ordinary materials and engineering tolerances? Capital cost!

A launch loop and/or mass driver is extremely expensive to build, it only makes sense if you have a LOT of traffic into orbit to amortize the cost across.

But I think Musk is in the process of lowering the cost of rocketry enough to generate the traffic which would make non-rocketry approaches to reaching space economically feasible.

[Brett Bellmore]

Sorry about the bad link.

https://nss.org/settlement/nasa/Nowicki/SPBI116.HTM

[Dr. Ed 2]

One word: Wind.....

[SRG2]

Any part that isn't almost breaking during launch is wastefully heavy!

Reminds me of Colin Chapman's philosophy, any part that breaks is too light, any part that doesn't break is too heavy.

[Dr. Ed 2]

.

[Dr. Ed 2]

SRG2, remember why the Polaris is launched with compressed air -- what you would find here would be the rocket destroying the rail where it left it.

[SRG2]

I assumed that most sub-launched missiles use compressed air or other non-explosive method to clear the sub first, but didn't know the specifics with Polaris.

[Kazinski]

I've ridden on Shanghai's maglev train.

It seems like more an expensive curiosity than a practical prototype. Where I would question it use for launches is there needs to be significant infrastructure on the track, which seems like its only suited for frictionless (well except for air) acceleration, rather than a propulsion breakthrough.

Using in a vacuum, or near vacuum tunnel seems like it would get you the highest speeds for a launch, but not practical except at a fixed base,

[Armchair]

"This puts them on the cusp of being able to fire satellites and spacecraft into orbit one after the other."

Ummm.. No.

435 mph is 194 m/s. To put this in context, the muzzle velocity of a 16-inch/50 caliber Mark 7 gun (ie, the main guns on the Iowa class BBs of WWII), is 762 m/s. More than 3 times faster. Those guns were firing projectiles that weighed over a ton.

And while those were nice, impressive guns...they were not shooting anything into orbit. Or anywhere close. And were still shooting projectiles 3 times faster than the Chinese maglev acceleration.

Actually knowing the numbers and what they mean is important.

[SRG2]

Best thread of the week, btw

[ThePublius]

Recent news can make you see things in a different perspective.

I went to the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford on Friday. It's a fabulous art museum. It's right next to the UConn Hartford campus (building).

I was thinking of the heist at the Louvre. I saw that at the Wadsworth all of the 'guards' - and I use the term loosely - were skinny, uninterested college kids, many 98 pound women. Many of them weren't even observing; they were sitting on a folding chair in the corner of a gallery completely absorbed in a tablet or phone. They all had the same kind of tablet, I assume it was issued.

If you wanted to rob that place you could walk out with whatever, no one is going to stop you.

So stupid. I think they should hire retired cops and firemen, and other retired people, put them in uniforms, and arm them. Yes, the kids all had a uniform, of sorts, I think a black T-shirt and black slacks. "Stop or I'll browse!" Ha, ha.

[David Nieporent]

and arm them.

I'm not sure if you're the one who made that argument in a thread here regarding the Louvre theft a few months ago, but it remains terrible. Museums do not want people shooting in their galleries filled with precious works even when the places are closed, let alone when they're filled with tourists.

[hobie]

Just put a missile battery on the museum roof. When the perp flees you give him the Gulf of America treatment. It's how we handle all non-capital crimes these days

[Dr. Ed 2]

If only we did.

[Riva]

They want priceless works stolen even less crazy Dave. Air marshals are armed. I think it’s safe in a museum.

[hobie]

Nieporent, it's pointless to discuss security schemes with a shoot first/shoot often crowd. Achieving death is always the policy goal.

[David Nieporent]

I mean, I think the vast majority of museums would rather have a painting stolen than a patron shot (at the museum, I mean), but I admit I haven't seen a survey of museum administrators to that effect.

[Riva]

Believe it or not, crazy Dave but armed guards can discourage and combat theft without shooting patrons. Ease off on the crazy for the holidays. And try not to be a jackass, if possible.

[ThePublius]

The arms are primarily a deterrent. They could load with frangible bullets, which dramatically reduce collateral damage, but can stop or deter a thief. 'Though I don't know about the legality of shooting an art thief who isn't threatening your life.

[ducksalad]

Actually your anecdote tells us two things:

1. Despite all the fearmongering, mid-sized American cities like Hartford are really quite civilized, law-abiding places.

2. American criminals prioritize different things than European criminals.

[ThePublius]

Cooking.

I cooked Indian food yesterday. I know nothing about it, but I want to learn. I 'cheated' and used a kit, made by Patak's. I have used them before, I think they are quite good. I did the Butter Chicken, which I think was a British invention. They come with a really nice packet of spices, a packet of paste, and a packet of sauce, hence Patak's "three simple steps." You can use any protein you like, I used chicken thighs, cubed. It came out great. But, my kitchen and my hands still smell like and Indian restaurant. ????

I ordered an Indian cookbook, and I'll try without a kit someday soon, but it will require acquiring a vast array of spices.

But here's the thing. I had always cooked rice the same way, regardless of the type of rice. Now that I have five varieties on hand: Carolina long grain, Arborio, Basmati, Jasmine, and Carnaroli; I decided to research the recommended ways to cook these. I chose the Basmati for last night. I learned you should rinse it 'til the water runs clear, to remove the surface starch; then soak it in water for 10 to 15 minutes. Then the rest was what I have always done, 1.75 or 2:1 water to rice (by volume), dash of oil, dash of salt, bring to a boil and give it a quick stir, then cover and lower the heat to the lowest setting and don't touch it for 10 to 12 minutes. Then let it rest, still covered, for 5 to 10 minutes. Leaving it covered and undisturbed during cooking and resting is key, as the steam is necessary for even cooking. Came out perfect! Fluffy, nothing stuck to the sauce pan (stainless).

'Though I researched it I didn't eat with my hands! Although that's how and Indian would. I found a great videoon youtube explaining the technique. Maybe next time.

Oh, and naan. I love the stuff, and roti. They are apparently easy to make, I may do that next time. Roti is just flour and water. The difference is that nann is leavened, roti is unleavened. I bought the naan this time. Kind of expensive, like $5 for 4 pieces. You can fluff it up by toasting it directly on a gas burner. And butter it.

Anyone else into or interested in Indian food?

[Brett Bellmore]

I love Indian food, too. You should try biryani, it's pretty good, and not terribly hard to make. Kind of an Indian rice casserole.

[ThePublius]

I will try it, thanks! I just looked it up. It's somewhat reminiscent of paella. I guess all cultures of which rice is a staple have some variation on this concept.

By the way, I did a little searching for a tandoor oven; expensive!

[SRG2]

True to my heritage, I'm a big fan of Indian food - and yesterday went to the Curry Club in Port Jefferson, which has an outstanding all-you-can-eat buffet. I concluded years ago that the preparation time and spice requirements for Indian meant I'd just rather dine out or order in than make it myself (unlike Chinese, where I find it is practical to make it at home.)

FWIW "paella" is etymologically related to "pilaff", "pulao", "plov", etc. This suggests that it was not independently invented, but spread as rapidly as rice cultivation itself.

[Riva]

Comment removed

[ThePublius]

I looked at the Curry Pub on google maps. The pics look great. We have a realtively new place that I just discovered, Saffron By The Sea, in Fairhaven, just across the bridge from New Bedford. It's a truly beautiful place! All staff in uniforms, beautiful decor and spotlessly clean, incredible designer cocktails, and the food - wow. Superb. Not cheap, but not killer expensive. One beer, one dish, and roti came to $38 or so. I got Korma with goat. I'll be going back.

[hobie]

Yes, listen to Brett. The kabuli pulao below is basically a biryani. And like biryani, is far less involved spice-wise than typical Indian curries.

[hobie]

You've come to the right place Publius. I've got the perfect dish to get your feet wet before Indian: Kabuli Pulao - the national dish of Afghanistan. I made it last week (pictured here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/hoC2acvgPKTPxrMr6 ). It may be one of the most delicious things I've even made in my life. I used this recipe: https://falasteenifoodie.com/kabuli-pulao-afghanistans-national-dish/

It looks involved but it ain't. Just boil your lamb (I used chicken drums) in fragrant broth, then cook rice in said broth. For the candied topping I used what I had on hand: pistachios and dried cherries.

Also, don't be like me and wait all your life to try a rice cooker. It is a REVELATION! Impossible to fuck up and perfect rice every time. Yes, wash your rice three or four times. I use the Persian type of basmati called Sela; Longer, firmer grains. I no longer cook with American rice at all.

Then mound your rice on a platter and jam the drums into it

[Ridgeway]

Another pretty foolproof way to cook rice is to cook it like pasta. Add to a lot of boiling water, stir, cook to desired doneness, drain and fluff with a fork. Easy peasy.

[hobie]

True dat. For big events, boiling is my go-to.

[ThePublius]

Sounds and looks great! Thanks. I love lamb. I have a rice cooker, but haven't had much luck with it. My rice in a stainless saucepan comes out perfect, ever since I started adding some oil to the water, and leaving it alone as it cooks and rests.

Thanks,

[hobie]

"haven't had much luck with it"

What part of 'impossible to fuck up' have you managed to fuck up? If you put in a cup of rice you put in a cup of liquid. Or do as the Japanese do: however much rice you put in, put in enough liquid such that if you place the palm of your hand flat on top of the rice, the liquid should just submerge your hand.

[ThePublius]

The cooker I have is such that, despite being supposedly non-stick, the rice always sticks. I do much better with a regular stainless sauce pan. (All-clad, of course.) I really like the method I have now, and no reason to pull out another appliance. (I'm not even sure where it is anymore.)

[ducksalad]

Whoa there, hobie. The strict law of nature is two parts liquid to one part rice, at least for long grain rice.

ThePublius, you're doing or buying something wrong. My wife and I have made rice with a rice cooker at least twice a week for 30 years. That's like 20,000 times, 40,000 cups of uncooked rice, maybe 150 million grains of rice. When we turn the pot upside down onto a plate, each and every grain falls out on its own. Literally not one grain in 150 million stuck.

Rice cooker - buy Tiger brand at an Asian supermarket. Rice - buy Basmati from an Indian grocery.

[ThePublius]

Thanks, I guess my rice cooker sucks. But I'm all set now, I can make perfect rice in my saucepan: basmati, jasmine, Carolina, arborio, carnaroni, whatever.... Except the Arborio and Carnaroli are really reserved for risotto.

[SRG2]

Have you encountered Uncle Roger on FB?

[hobie]

Yes. He's hilarious. His quest for the ultimate fried rice - and I must agree with him - is this guy:

https://youtu.be/xFTXwNIU514?si=tpfepgcyqm7n5mwb

[ThePublius]

That's great!

[David Nieporent]

I did the Butter Chicken, which I think was a British invention.

Chicken tikka masala is British; butter chicken is not. And your post is making me hungry.

[Glaucomatose]

Chicken tikka masala is a great riposte to everyone who reflexively mocks English cooking without knowing what they're talking about.

Bacon sandos are another.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

I think the originator was actually in Scotland, if that's a distinction with any meaning.

[ThePublius]

I have a tikka masala kit, maybe I'll do that next. But I have a lot of leftover butter chicken. Maybe I'll portion it out with rice and freeze it.

I also want to try multiple courses including lentils and cumin potatoes.

[Krayt]

Chicken tikka masala is British

British the same way George Orwell is Indian.

I love both. I've had the most deliscious from a restaurant that barely survived covid, and thin, watery orange gruel. When you find a place that knows what it's doing, hang on to it.

[SRG2]

BTW it is my personal tradition to have a naan (garlic, for preference but I do not sneer at a keema naan) just before Passover, because the first matzah must have been very similar to it - made with yeast but not given enough time to rise and baked quickly in a primitive but no doubt hot oven.

[bloocow2]

I had a Vietnamese restaurant close to me that suddenly switched into a charity making Indian food.

They were pho profit, and now they're naan profit.

[David Nieporent]

I know you live overseas, but I support kidnapping you to the U.S. and then forcibly deporting you back where you came from for that pun.

[Michael P]

Extraordinary rendition isn't just for extremely fatty meats, friends.

[ThePublius]

That's interesting. I would have thought roti would be appropriate for Passover, as it's unleavened. But, still sounds good. I like the idea of garlic, parsley, and butter for naan.

Open to suggestions on softening-up slightly stale naan, I absent-mindedly left a piece out overnight.

[SRG2]

The Orthodox could accept roti only if they knew that the dough had not been standing for longer than 15 minutes.

I'd just moisten your stale naan a little and then heat it up in a toaster oven or air fryer (using the bake setting). I just wonder what kind of pervert has left-over naan 🙂 🙂 🙂

[ThePublius]

Ha, ha! I honestly took it out of the package and forgot about it, enthralled with the smell of the butter chicken. 🙂

[bernard11]

Orthodox rules about Passover food are, IMO, quite nitpicky and overcautious, banning green peas, lentils, and lots of other things. I doubt that roti would be acceptable.

[santamonica811]

Great to be reading here that so many of us enjoy cooking Indian food. My go-to dish is vegetable korma. A bunch of steps, but nothing complicated that could be screwed up. A ton of recipes online, including a bunch on YouTube that have instructive videos. Although I'm a vegetarian, a korma is just a type of curry or stew, and you could throw just about any meat or fish into it, so korma accommodates any dietary choices.

re Indian food in general. Yes, there are a fairly long list of spices. BUT...if you get 10 of the most common, you can make hundreds of dishes at home. Google recipes for 5-10 of your favorite dishes, making an ongoing list of the required spices. You'll end up with cumin, cardamom, fenagreek, coriander, turmeric, and of course: ginger, onion, and garlic. Plus a few others. You buy a jar of each of those spices, keep the jars in a cool and dark place (I keep mine in one of my fridges, but YMMV), and they will last for a year or longer. Easy-peasy.

[I quickly realized that, if I like the way a particular sauce tasted, there was--of course--no real reason not to chuck in whatever extra vegetables I happen to like. So, muttar paneer is, in theory, just peas and Indian cheese. But when I make it, I'll add cauliflower, carrots, spinach, etc.. Who cares--it's just adding vegetables to a delicious sauce!!!]

[Ridgeway]

Naan is one of those things where less is more. I prefer plain naan to any of the flavored or stuffed varieties.

Same with good bagels (though sesame or poppy seed definitely don’t hurt).

I could make the same argument for pizza too .

[SRG2]

In Italian pizzerias that sell rectangles of pizza by weight, they would sell you a pizza bianca consisting just of the pizza dough, brushed with olive oil and sprinkled with salt. And very fine it is too.

[bernard11]

Many bagel varieties are indeed bad ideas. Sesame or poppy seeds are fine, but no concoction beats a good onion bagel.

Well, a good bialy might match it, but these are hard to come by.

[Krayt]

The onion bagles I love have onion in it, and poppy seeds in it. Some places make onion bagles with onions sticking out every which way, like a badly sunburned guy's back, two weeks later.

Once a year I get a bag of onion, poppy seed, and egg bagels, and make sandwiches. I can't handle carb like that anymore.

[DDHarriman]

The NHS has existed for years in a perpetual state of emergency. This was the case before the pandemic hit, and it has only gotten worse. Hospital corridors overflow and routine procedures get canceled due to a catastrophic event commonly known as “winter.” It comes around every year, yet the system, despite annual funding increases, still somehow remains unable to cope.

A campaign to keep people away from hospitals during the holidays is underway, which includes begging the public to seek out other forms of treatment for “less serious” injuries and ailments. The British press compares the messaging to “Covid-era stay-at-home pleas,” which included asking patients who needed care to avoid medical facilities in order to “protect the NHS.”

Welcome to Democrat-style Healthcare. Perpetual money-sucking crisis with inferior output.

[SRG2]

How should the US healthcare system operate, in your view?

[TwelveInchPianist]

Decoupled from employers. We could probably accomplish this by making all health care, and not just employer-provided plans, tax deductible. And of course eliminating the employer mandate.

[Sarcastr0]

Of course, that would fuck over the poor.
Seems a pattern amongst the solutions on the right.

[Brett Bellmore]

Leaving somebody the hell alone is never "fucking them over", it's just leaving them alone. But setting that aside, charity doesn't exist in your world?

[Sarcastr0]

Fuck yeah let’s make health care for the poor a charity thing, not a societal obligation.

What could go wrong?

Libertopia always ends up as hell the moment you look closer and don’t pretend your rich.

[Brett Bellmore]

How quickly 'liberals' abandon the idea of involuntary servitude being bad. As long as it's serving THEIR ends, it's right as rain.

[Randal]

Involuntary servitude? Your delusions aren't obvious to the rest of us, please explain if you can.

[Sarcastr0]

I believe in not letting poor people die in droves.

You think this services my ends, because you don’t understand not being self oriented.

You have lots of things that not following your exact policy prescriptions means. Fascism. Slavery. Communism. Debt.

When confronted with the consequences of your simplistic worldview, you retreat to one of these accusations.

It prevents you from really thinking about issues. Just self-validation far as the eye can see.

[not guilty]

"How quickly 'liberals' abandon the idea of involuntary servitude being bad."

Brett, have you considered seeking treatment for your delusional thinking?

https://legalclarity.org/what-is-the-definition-of-involuntary-servitude/

Holding another person to involuntary servitude is a serious federal crime, per 18 U.S.C. § 1584(a):

Whoever knowingly and willfully holds to involuntary servitude or sells into any condition of involuntary servitude, any other person for any term, or brings within the United States any person so held, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both. If death results from the violation of this section, or if the violation includes kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse or the attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, the defendant shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for any term of years or life, or both.

As Mark Twain reportedly said, it ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.

[not guilty]

As SCOTUS expressly opined in United States v. Kozminski, 487 U.S. 931, 952 (1988), for purposes of § 1584, the term "involuntary servitude" necessarily means a condition of servitude in which the victim is forced to work for the defendant by the use or threat of physical restraint or physical injury, or by the use or threat of coercion through law or the legal process.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Parroting the words "societal obligation" doesn't erase the problem of scarcity.

How much health care does society owe the poor?

And why are the poor exempt from contributing to this societal obligation?

[Sarcastr0]

Brett think there is no obligation.

I don’t need an exact amount and type of social safety net to argue that is wrong.

It’s kind of disingenuous, in fact, to try and put the burden of an exact solution onto me before I can point out what isn’t a solution.

I’m not some ideologue with a ready made simplistic solution to everything. That really seems hard for some to grasp.

[TwelveInchPianist]

You haven't argued that this is wrong. You haven't really taken a position.

I mean, calling health care a "societal obligation" isn't even inconsistent with Brett's position that people can support it by donating to charities.

If you won't take a position beyond it's a social obligation and we shouldn't let poor people die, you're not really making an argument. Maybe we can just say it's a societal obligation and tsk-tsk the poor for failing to meet their share of the obligation.

[Sarcastr0]

Brett is arguing caring for the poor is an individual obligation, I'm saying it's a societal one.

That's two different positions, with me taking one.

You seem to be confusing societal with social.

[TwelveInchPianist]

You say there's a societal obligation (or a social obligation, there's really no distinction in this context), but you refuse to say how much or what society should do about it, so you're not really taking a position. And Brett isn't claiming it's an individual obligation, no one thinks babies should pay for their health care, for example.

And one way society can address its perceived obligations is to set up charities to handle them.

[Sarcastr0]

Again - this is nonsense.

I don't need a specific number of units of social safety net in order to say that coming out against a social safety net is wrong and bad.

You seem to think debate is 2 idealogues staking out positions they hold with unearned confidence and yelling at one another about it.

You have a good time with that; I, like most normal people, don't work like that.

[Brett Bellmore]

A "societal obligation" is just "Let's you and him be charitable." You'll rob Peter to pay Paul, and if Peter objects to being robbed you'll say he wants the poor to starve.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Of course, that would fuck over the poor."

No, that wouldn't fuck over the poor.

[Sarcastr0]

You posit for health insurance to be supported via tax deductions.

Yeah, that’s terrible for poor people.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Huh? I proposed eliminating the tax subsidy for employer sponsored health plans by making all health care expenses tax deductible. Read better.

[Sarcastr0]

It looks to me like your solution to health care coverage is everyone gets to pay for their own, individually, but they can deduct that cost.

That leaves the poor in the lurch.

If that's not what you're saying, feel free to explain.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"It looks to me like your solution to health care coverage is everyone gets to pay for their own, individually, but they can deduct that cost."

Well, I think families should pay for each other's health care and extended families should help each other out, but this has nothing to do with my comment, which was about decoupling health insurance from employment.

Decoupling health insurance from employment doesn't fuck over the poor.

As to whether or not a freer health care market fucks over the poor, I don't think so. Free markets are generally better for everybody.

[Sarcastr0]

Your comment was not so narrowly scoped as you claim:

"make[] all health care, and not just employer-provided plans, tax deductible. And of course eliminating the employer mandate."

That's not just decoupling, it's a specific method. And one that fucks over the poor, no matter how bull-headed you're going to be pretending you didn't say that.

[Magister]

"Generally" better for everybody is not universally better; free markets have winners and losers, and the poor are likelier to be losers than the non-poor. Certainly the poor would not be universally left in the lurch; only the ones who have employer health insurance under the current setup.

Barring a market failure, a working poor person with employer health insurance earns the value to the employer less the other costs the employer faces for that employee; in this case, the net cost of employer provided health insurance. Decoupling and a perfect market would mean the employee gets a raise equal to the employer's cost of that health insurance, and that employee to come out the same would have to buy health insurance with that extra money. But the employee lacks the buying power of an employer with many employees, and gets much less benefit from the deduction than an employer with far more income would get. So that employee would be left in the lurch.

(If people can deduct medical expenses for people other than their dependents, then employers might still find it beneficial to supply health insurance to attract employees and get the tax benefit they currently get. If it's a good deal for the individual employee, then it would be a better deal for the employer to continue that. But the poor person would then be living in a caveat emptor world with all the risks that their misjudgement might carry.)

[TwelveInchPianist]

I mean, do you even listen to yourself?

Me: We should decouple health care from employment.
You: That would fuck over the poor!
Me: No it wouldn't.
You: OK, but you probably have some other view that would fuck over the poor!

[Sarcastr0]

You're now just lying about what you yourself posted above.

What a ridiculous thing for you to do.

[SimonP]

It is remarkable to me how often the "conservative" solution involves more paperwork and rules imposed upon people with no individual expertise to navigate that bureaucratic noise.

Never mind your proposal does nothing for people whose medical expenses are less than the standard deduction (besides make them shop for their own health insurance/health care providers).

You also kind of bury the lede here, dropping "Oh and also I think that doctors shouldn't be state-credentialed, and insurance companies shouldn't be regulated by the states" further down the chain.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Never mind your proposal does nothing for people whose medical expenses are less than the standard deduction (besides make them shop for their own health insurance/health care providers)."

My proposal was clearly intended to eliminate the different tax treatment for employer sponsored health plans, so of course they would be above the line deductions.

And "making" people shop for their own goods and services is the single greatest thing you can do to improve those goods and services.

[Sarcastr0]

SimonP seems to somehow have made the same mistake I did in reading what you wrote and taking it as what you meant.

And he came to the same conclusion as to the flaw.

You're stated 'clear intent' is all cool and good, but your actual proposal has a lot of implications you gotta think about.

[SRG2]

The major issue with health care, IMO, is that it doesn't fit well into the capitalism framework I normally prefer. There is huge asymmetry in bargaining power and elasticities of supply and demand, nor do utility functions work well.

[TwelveInchPianist]

I'm not sure there are any examples of a capitalist framework being applied to it. The AMA creates disparities of bargaining power by limiting the number of doctors, and consumers have very little choice in the selection of health care plans.

[Sarcastr0]

True capitalism has never been tried!

[TwelveInchPianist]

Huh? Is anybody even claiming there's not massive intervention in the health care market?

We've chosen not to try anything remotely related to a free marked in health care.

[Sarcastr0]

Dude says capitalism doesn't align well with health care for a number of reasons.

Your reply is that we haven't really tried capitalism.

Do you see how that reply is not relevant to the comment you're replying to?

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Your reply is that we haven't really tried capitalism."

Yes, that's my reply. Do you disagree? No one is claiming that we have a free health care market, are they?

[Sarcastr0]

I think markets are not magic wands. And sometimes you can predict they will be a horror show.

Or you can check history, both here and elsewhere.

[jb]

"money sucking"

The US *government* spends 2-3 times as much money as the UK on healthcare, doesn't get anywhere near universal coverage, and many people face the exact same challenges as your unattributed quote describes in the UK.

But at least we've get some rich insurance execs out of it! That'll show the UK!

[Michael P]

many people face the exact same challenges as your unattributed quote describes in the UK.

Do they? I've never heard of US hospitals or private providers steering people away or canceling appointments during holidays to protect the system or because they overscheduled. My father is a now-retired pediatric ENT, and he always expected an uptick in December as people chose marginal visits or procedures to use some kind of use-it-or-lose-it benefit.

[DDHarriman]

Excessive and inefficient public healthcare spending is the fault of private health insurance executives and not the government bureaucrats who are doing the excessive and inefficient spending?

Is that really how you reason about this?

[jb]

Two things:

1) With the exception of the VA, the US still relies on private providers and often private insurance companies even for government-funded healthcare.

2) My point was actually the UK system is hardly money-sucking since it's vastly cheaper than any part of the US system. I guess your forgot your own original claim?

[Armchair]

Venezuela has a cheap health care system too. It's easy to be cheap when you just don't treat the patients and tell them to stay home instead.

[Armchair]

"many people face the exact same challenges "

That's like saying both Venezuelans and Americans face the exact same challenges in power outages. Technically true. But the degree of the challenge is quite different.

[Bunny495]

It seems there has been some real fallout from the new restrictions on UAVs, the technical term for what the unwashed public calls drones. DJI is the only realistic option for easy to use quality flying cameras at prices you can afford. The current administraion through a convoluted process has basically taken the position that unless a UAV is produced in America it is no longer legal. There may be some connection between Trump's son investing in an American company that produces UAVs and the administration's position.

Be that as it may it seems this fallout may have some effect on the administration's position. The DJI products are used to create ads/videos for real estate sales, a group that at least somewhat leans towards Trump. Big agriculture DJI products to monitor crops, spray them with chemicals, and check soil conditions which has basically eliminated "crop dusters". Maybe most serious, LEOs, EMTs, and fire departments all use DJI products and have been vocal in their displeasure with the ban.

As a long time UAV builder (built my first one in 2009) and owner there is no question in my mind this blowback will only increase. You can buy a quite capable DJI flying tripod with a camera for just over $US5,000 and a full Hollywood setup with a GPS ground station for under $US20,000 (both shooting in Prorez). No other off the shelf option foreign or domestic exists at any price and a custom built one will run low to middle six figures. This link is something of an overreaction but still.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ry-v9NLTkHg

[JoeFromtheBronx]

The Chargers lost by four points last night.

The usually reliable kicker (with a somewhat unfortunate name, though it does rhyme) missed a chip shot and an extra point (four points total). OTOH, in Houston's final drive, they were on the edge of field goal range before the final two kneel downs made it moot.

So, it might not have mattered in the end. It's a thought experiment since things would have gone somewhat differently with a tied score. That's how things work -- lots of moving parts, variables, etc.

Meanwhile, the Ravens (who need a Browns upset today to survive for another week) won a battle of back-ups with the Packers. The Packers had to go to a #3 at the end, which is also the fate of multiple other teams. The Packers, however, have a playoff slot.

[jb]

Those two backup quarterbacks both played really, really well. You'd imagine both of those guys would get a look by teams that need QBs. Hopefully Willis's injury is relatively minor.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Browns with the upset, stopping the Old Man near the goal line late.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"The usually reliable kicker (with a somewhat unfortunate name, though it does rhyme)"

With a name like that, he better be reliable.

[Bunny495]

The FSU Film School is certainly in the top tier and due to former student Burton Leon Reynolds Jr Hollywood connections several Hollywood shakers and movers show up to events put on by the film school to lecture and Q&A. Without exception everyone I have spoken to has the same reaction to AI in movies; they are in their own words "scared shitless". Here is a link to a short, 15 minute, video made for $US500 and 3-4 months (according to the makers). As Darth Vader would say "Impressive, most impressive".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gx8rMzlG29Q

[hobie]

Jeebus...that is simply remarkable. What all the guys playing around with this tech lack is what this little flick has in spades: thoughtful, compelling story and content. When they start making content that actually interests me [like this piece], then, yeah, god help Hollywood.

[hobie]

Not included in the end-of-year tributes to those who departed, is Judge Frank Caprio of the Providence Municipal Court. You may know him from the many YouTube videos of him giving grace, cheer, and compassion to all that came before him.

The little speech he gives here is moving and powerful. I don't know if he was religious, but he sounds so much more the disciple of Christ than the performative, mean, profit-driven Christianity of the Kirks and Vances.

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1790203135199374

[ThePublius]

I'm a big fan of Judge Caprio. No need to smear Kirk and Vance, though. It's enough to remember Judge Caprio for the wonderful person he was.

He got a huge send off! Have you watched the videos of the funeral procession and service?

[hobie]

I'm actually doing you a favor by bringing this up, Publius. If you hillbillies want to achieve the salvation you feel you're entitled to, then you need a daily dose of comparative Christianity with Judge Caprio and Kirk as the examples. Your wickedness and ancient hatreds - this MAGA 'fevre' - is your one-way ticket to Kirkland.

[DDHarriman]

Oh thank you wise & merciful hobie for shining your everlasting light on us!

We are so blessed.

[Dr. Ed 2]

He wouldn't be able to become a lawyer now -- he wouldn't have a day job that would pay for night law school and the ABA has banned part time study of law as best it could.

[Krayt]

H1b for lawyers! We have it for software and we have it for doctors and nurses, to reduce costs.

Well, it's time for H1bs for lawyers! And why not? Unlike medicine and engineering, nobody dies when they screw up. Well, not on a large scale anyway.

Well, ok, maybe, if you count politicians.

[Randal]

AI is accumulating crypto.

[DDHarriman]

73% of children in Brussels, the capital of Europe, are not European!
The Great Replacement has already happened.

Woah, this is stunning.
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/2004957887131500752

There are two groups who benefit from this. It isn't Whites.

[Krayt]

I pointed out something from college decades ago, where there is a pre-written history area where in one dirt layer is one culture, and in 100 years higher, a completely different one, and no one really knows what happened.

I don't know the migration replacement or overwhelm rate of current is, but I did not think it this fast.

Remember, the folks who pooh pooh this rate are down with scary hocky sticks of extinction rates and GW rates being vastly faster than natural oh no oh no oh no!

I wonder if 7-11 carries jiffy pop.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Brigitte Bardot, French femme fatale and cultural phenomenon, dies at 91

The actress and singer was a symbol of sexual revolution. She later became an animal-welfare campaigner and incendiary right-wing commenter.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2025/12/28/brigitte-bardot-dead/

Her barbed comments and commentary at times led to some legal problems. For instance, her son and ex-husband didn't like some of her comments in her autobiography, including comments about wishing her son was a puppy instead (she was an animal lover).

Also:

Despite her own initial rejection of her baby, she also complained that Mr Charrier had deprived her of access to her son for "trivial" (literally, in the French, "penis-nibbling") reasons.

Ah. Some of those foreign phrases are colorful.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/bardot-in-the-doghouse-for-wishing-her-son-was-a-puppy-1271393.html

One of her best films was Viva Maria!. She co-starred with another leading French sex symbol, Jeanne Moreau.

George Hamilton played a Mexican revolutionary.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

You should check out these weird music videos she made in France in the late 60's. Truly bizarre. They can be found on YouTube. Here's one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ai2As4XFZDY&list=RDai2As4XFZDY&start_radio=1

[JoeFromtheBronx]

I prefer Nancy Sinatra's These Boots Are Made For Walkin'.

[Frank Drackman]

They can walk on my back any day

[TwelveInchPianist]

She's 85.

[John F. Carr]

From the 1972 song "I Think I'm Going to Kill Myself" by Elton John and Bernie Taupin:

I'd make an exception
If you want to save my life
Brigitte Bardot gotta come
See me every night

[Frank Drackman]

Hey Now!

[SRG2]

One of the hottest actresses of all time. I don't expect I will need to die on that hill.

[not guilty]

Politico has a year end article analyzing how various prospective candidates for the 2028 Democratic and Republican presidential nominations performed during 2025. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/12/28/presidential-race-2028-candidates-analysis-00695164

What does it say about Republicans that Marjorie Taylor Greene (!) is mentioned seriously as a national candidate?

My own preference is Governor Andy Beshear of Kentucky. He has won three successive elections in a basically red state commonwealth, including unseating an incumbent Republican governor.

Politicians reared in the South are steeped in traditions of patriotism and respect for religion and the armed forces. That helped to hone Bill Clinton's political skills. George W. Bush was a nepot and a doofus, but growing up in Texas didn't hurt him.

Governor Beshear wrote an interesting op-ed which appeared last month in the Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/11/24/andy-beshear-democrats-politics-rural-voters/

[Armchair]

"What does it say about Republicans that Marjorie Taylor Greene (!) is mentioned seriously as a national candidate?"

That Politico is not being serious.

"My own preference is Governor Andy Beshear of Kentucky."

Too bad the Democrats won't nominate him. You're getting Mr. Gavin or Kamala the rerun. Or AOC if you're really unlucky.

[Bob from Ohio]

Harris

Due to Dem rules, South Carolina, like in 2020, is the first primary which counts. Its 25% black which means 50% of the Dem electorate. Add white middle class woman and its a Harris landslide and the race is over.

[Armchair]

Well... Harris is absolutely miserable at campaigning.

She only got the nomination in 2024 because she didn't have to actually campaign. When she actually tried to run in 2020, she bombed so hard that she pulled out before the actual primaries started. She looks good on paper, but even that only gets you so far.

Gavin can actually campaign.

[Bob from Ohio]

"Gavin can actually campaign."

Does not matter. He, like all the white male potentials, has very little black support. SC elected Biden because Clyburn endorsed him and therefore got the black vote.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"That Politico is not being serious."

And fortunately, candidates that no one thinks are serious candidates never win.

[Armchair]

Sometimes you can get a dark horse. Typically, you need the party to be particularly divided or weak with no one or two major contenders. Also helps tremendously for the dark horse to be independently wealthy.

That doesn't fit the current situation. You've got Vance as the major contenders. Rubio steps up if Vance falls for some reason.

[Bob from Ohio]

"What does it say about Republicans that Marjorie Taylor Greene (!) is mentioned seriously as a national candidate? "

Nothing because its just trolling from the Politico writer.

"Beshear"

No chance.

Like in Massachusetts and Maryland, some GOP one party states will sometimes vote for a Dem governor because the GOP has veto proof majorities so the Dem can't do much. Its meaningless for presidential or even senate election. Phil Bredesen was a popular governor in Tenn. but got smoked when he ran for senate in a Dem wave year.

Its going to be Harris.

[Michael Ejercito]

From Jack Marshall

https://ethicsalarms.com/2025/12/28/the-rest-of-the-story-remember-that-ucla-prof-punished-for-not-agreeing-to-give-special-consideration-to-black-students/

Well, this goes to show what I know. This month Santa Monica Superior Court Judge H. Jay Ford ruled against Klein and for UCLA on all three causes of action in Klein’s lawsuit demanding more than $13 million in damages for breach of contract, false light, and negligent interference with prospective earnings. Klein’s lawyers filed an objection to the entirety of the tentative ruling. The judge will review his decision at a hearing in January.

In his 30-page ruling, Ford held that UCLA had the contractual right to place Klein on administrative leave while it investigated the controversy surrounding Klein’s email. “UCLA had the right to determine what public response was necessary to address and mitigate the immediate [and] extraordinary public outrage toward both Klein and UCLA arising from the public disclosure of Klein’s email,” Ford wrote.

Immediate, extraordinary, and stupid. Klein’s response was a lot more diplomatic than mine would have been. I probably would have begun with “grow up.” No investigation should have been necessary to determine that the “controversy” over a professor’s completely correct and appropriate response to dumb request was contrived and indefensible. How was Klein’s email racist, unless it is racist to insist that black students be held to the same rules and standards as everyone else?

Oh. Right. That is racist.

[not guilty]

Do you perchance have a link to the ruling? There is no substitute for original source materials.

Without having read the order, it appears to me merely that a plaintiff suing for damages ($13 million at that) simply failed to prove up his claims to the satisfaction of the trier of fact. https://dailybruin.com/2025/12/23/court-tentatively-rules-in-favor-of-uc-administrators-in-lawsuit-by-ucla-lecturer

[Michael Ejercito]

The court ruled that Bernardo and the Regents did not violate Klein’s academic freedom by putting him on administrative leave. He added that Bernardo’s testimony – in which he said he was concerned about student safety – was credible.
This does raise a question.

Even did the original e-mail in question threaten student safety? The trier of fact gets great leeway, but in this particular instance (about Bernardo's testimony) finding that Bernardo was concerned for students; safety on the basis of the e-mail seems credulous?

[Dr. Ed 2]

I think we are about 18 months from racism no longer considered a bad thing. The word has been overused to the point where it no longer has a meaning.

[M L]

Minnesota seems to be following in the footsteps of the UK, enabling and turning a blind eye to rape of citizens by foreigners.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/serial-kidnapper-and-rapist-charged-federally

[Sarcastr0]

Anecdotes to fuel the targeting of a discrete and insular group via collective guilt.

We know this playbook.

Fuck the DoJ, and fuck you, ML.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Fuck the DOJ for...prosecuting rapists? Way to tell on yourself, dude!

[Absaroka]

Minnesota Public Radio's take:

"Federal prosecutors on Thursday charged a Minneapolis man in connection with a string of sexual assaults including of a 15-year-old girl. In two of the cases, Abdimahat Bille Mohamed, 28, avoided prison as part of a recent plea deal with the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office and allegedly raped his latest victim in September while on probation."

I don't care if he is descended from George Washington. If I counted right it's 5 rapes. That's 4 too many for a stiff prison sentence.

This isn't the proverbial 'just stealing bread to feed my children' or 'shoplifting because of a bad childhood'. Forcible rape is just inexcusable.

[TwelveInchPianist]

While on probation for the rape of the 15-year-old girl, Mohamed met a Mankato woman on Snapchat in mid-September and picked her up at her home. According to court documents, he allegedly took her to a hotel in Bloomington, where he held her against her will for six days and repeatedly raped her.

The no-jail-for-rape DA:

“The current federal administration is more adept at pardons for violent insurrectionists and drug traffickers than prosecutions,” Moriarty added. “If they intend to start caring about public safety and victims, we recommend they end their coverup of pedophiles and those who protect them.”

[Michael Ejercito]

This twit is just mad her precious rapist might face imprisonment.

[Sarcastr0]

Your choice of scope ignores the whole issue.

ML said: "rape of citizens by foreigners."

The DoJ said: "Minnesota’s radical soft-on-crime policies created an environment where predators believe they can act without consequence."

None of that generalizing based on the anecdote is established. With hindsight and of course a limited sense of what the actual situation with the state prosecutions was.

And this all comes alongside the full force of the federal bully pulpit being used to call this group of people unamerican and criminal.

Don't ignore the forest for the tree; we have bad people stirring up bad trouble against a group of people based on their national origin.
And using that to attack Dems as siding with them.

That's what going on. And it's going to get worse before it gets better.

[Dr. Ed 2]

When escaping a forest fire, don't worry about the individual tree....

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Your choice of scope ignores the whole issue."

As I said, your view of what the whole issue is telling. No fuckin' for the folks who let the guy off on probation for rape?

[Sarcastr0]

No, you're spouting bullshit. You think I like rape? Fuck off, it goes without saying that this guy is going to jail and that's good.

But this story is being used to push a white nationalist narrative about Dems being pro white rape.

I don't know what the story is behind the choices the state made, and I'm not going to retrospective them.

So quit with your emotionalist accusations and intimations.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"But this story is being used to push a white nationalist narrative about Dems being pro white rape."

Yes, and it's being used that way because they gave a dude probation for raping a fifteen-year-old. A decision that your refuse to criticize, which I find to be very telling.

[Brett Bellmore]

Letting somebody off for jaywalking doesn't do it for him, you really need to let somebody off for rape to get a proper hit off the "I'm tolerant!" crack pipe.

[Absaroka]

Well, FWIW I would leave out the 'Somali' and 'foreign national' part. I'm not sure that those wouldn't also be mentioned for an Irish green card holder. But my outrage at that is a thimbleful relative to my outrage that a rapist - a violent serial rapist in this case - gets probation.

"Don't ignore the forest for the tree"

ISTM you are ignoring the forest - probation for multiple rapes - in favor of the tree - that the nationality of the rapist was accurately reported.

"With hindsight"

A judge doesn't need hindsight to realize probation for forcible rape is outrageous.

"it goes without saying that this guy is going to jail and that's good"

Actually, he wasn't going to jail. That is precisely the problem.

[Sarcastr0]

I don't have enough information to know what went on in the state court cases and neither do you.

Confirmation bias means you're seeing only those probations that don't work out.
Doesn't mean there isn't a problem but one has not been established by this anecdote.

We sure can't trust if there's a larger problem because our DoJ can't stop lying and pushing hate at the Somali community in Minnesota.

As is the case with anecdotes, it alone does not have the to push more than it's specific facts. The impulse to do more is not something to be embraced.

This is the same as when the next mass shooting gives rise to a ton of policy proposals, none of which will be well founded.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"This is the same as when the next mass shooting gives rise to a ton of policy proposals, none of which will be well founded."

Well, it would the same if the next mass shooter were given probation. But you probably don't think that that is a valid comparison, because this is just rape, right?

[Sarcastr0]

Fuck you.

[TwelveInchPianist]

I'm sure you'll handwave this as counterfactual hypocrisy, but something tells me that if someone were given probation for a mass shooting, you wouldn't be like, gee, who am I to second guess the state officials...

[ThePublius]

Civility now, civility now!

[David Nieporent]

A judge doesn't need hindsight to realize probation for forcible rape is outrageous.

I don't know about this specific case and don't care enough to research it. But light sentences are not generally given out for crimes like rape because prosecutors or judges say, "Actually, I don't think rape is a big deal." Typically they're the result of a plea bargain because of problems with the case. (For example, the victim doesn't really want to testify.)

Okay, I broke down and clicked on the links above, and that's exactly what it says:

In her statement Friday, Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty, who is not running for re-election, said the state’s case against Mohamed was “substantially weakened” and county prosecutors “could not get the prison sentence we wanted” because of the “loss of critical witnesses.” But she noted that her team was still able to secure two felony convictions.

[Michael P]

Moriarty is generally a scumbag, and can be trusted as far as one can throw her office. Did they misplace those witnesses? Let them be subject to intimidation by friends or family of the accused?

Remember, this is the place where five Somalis pleaded guilty to trying to bribe a juror in a federal fraud trial last year: https://www.justice.gov/usao-mn/pr/fifth-juror-bribery-defendant-pleads-guilty-scheme-bribe-feeding-our-future-juror . Minnesota is trying hard to be as lawless as Somalia itself.

[Absaroka]

Well, maybe. It seems that there was DNA evidence for the rape that he pled to probation:

"the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension linked Mohamed’s DNA to the 2017 kidnapping and sexual assault of a 15-year-old girl in Minneapolis. In October 2024, the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office charged Mohamed separately in the earlier case.

In April, Mohamed pleaded guilty to felony charges of criminal sexual conduct in both cases, but he did not go to prison.

Following the terms of Mohamed’s plea deal, Judge Juan Hoyos gave Mohamed five years of probation for the rape of the 15-year-old"

So theory A here is that we have a tough-on-crime prosecutor and judge here, and the evidence just wasn't there - the witnesses clammed up and there was something wrong with the DNA evidence. And theory B is that the prosecutor and judge are, shall we say, more understanding of rape than the median American.

And Ms. Moriarty's response t the federal charges doesn't seem to be "Wonderful ... I just didn't have the evidence I needed, and hope the feds can get this dangerous predator off the streets".

So I'm going to google 'hennepin mary moriarty'...

[Absaroka]

... and I find her wiki bio and this news article (first and fourth hits, FWIW. Second hit was her press release and third was video only). She had a controversial tenure:

-she is a former public defender (yay! tough thankless job). It was a contentious time; the Minnesota Board of Public Defense voted against re-appointing her, and she sued and settled for $300k
-there was a controversy that she was soft on prosecuting the killers of Zaria McKeever. Enough that "An Assistant Hennepin County Attorney who had worked on the case for months also voluntarily removed herself from the case in protest. ... Governor Tim Walz authorized Ellison (state AG...ed) to take over the murder case from Moriarty over her objections".

There's more. Given the totality, Theory A seems less likely to me than theory B, but YMMV.

[Hugh]

Happy to see that professors Blackman and Bernstein have abandoned the cesspool of fascist pigs known as the Heritage Foundation, even if it took the revelation that the Heritage Foundation is a cesspool of fascist anti-semitic pigs to lead to said abandonment.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Are you at all familiar with the left???