Kansas has now tested GOP tax orthodoxy twice. First it slashed taxes, promising an economic miracle; all it got was a huge deficit. Then it revoked the tax cuts, which the right says should have been a disaster; instead, the budget is back in surplus 1/
Paul Krugman
@paulkrugman
Tax-cut religion has had no success stories – not one. Yet its grip on Republican ideology and policymaking just keeps getting stronger 2/
Republican orthodoxy on Science and Economics are transparent scams. And after enough decades, it becomes an IQ test for the voters.
@Teve: In all seriousness I’ve asked the Libertarian and Libertarian-ish participants in this blog to comment on Kansas, given that it is the largest Libertarian experiment tried to date and I don’t see how it can be described as anything but an abject and total failure. Do they disagree and think it was actually a success? Or do they feel it falls under the “No True Scotsman” category? But no matter how many times I try to start the discussion, no reply.
Based on my comments I obviously think Libertarianism is just like most of the other “isms”: a proposed system of governance based entirely on an incredibly simplistic intellectual model and a woefully naive understanding of human reality. But I am open, even anxious, to read what modern Libertarians view as serious works describing 21st century party tenets. After all, surely something has changed in the four decades since I read my first book on Libertarian thinking. Which, by the way, I briefly thought was insightful, until my then 19 year old mind started actually trying to fit its thesis into actual real life and realized it just didn’t match reality at all. So I’ve asked, repeatedly, for recommendations from our Libertarian contributors, but again, silence.
I suspect Doug feels it is fruitless to participate in such a discussion given the un-receptivity and downright hostility to his philosophy that often manifests here. But surely someone else can contribute?
In all seriousness I’ve asked the Libertarian and Libertarian-ish participants in this blog to comment on Kansas, given that it is the largest Libertarian experiment tried to date and I don’t see how it can be described as anything but an abject and total failure. Do they disagree and think it was actually a success? Or do they feel it falls under the “No True Scotsman” category? But no matter how many times I try to start the discussion, no reply.
from that article:
But the era of good feelings in Kansas could be short-lived. The nonpartisan Kansas Legislative Research Department forecasts revenue to level off and begin declining as soon as next year as growth slows. Republicans in the state legislature are pushing to restore some of the tax cuts, arguing that the Brownback plan failed not because it cut taxes but because it failed to keep spending in line.
Supply-Side Economics Cannot Fail, It Can Only Be Failed.
Which, by the way, I briefly thought was insightful, until my then 19 year old mind started actually trying to fit its thesis into actual real life and realized it just didn’t match reality at all.
That’s about when I was a libertarian. Records can show that in my very early 20’s I was even registered Libertarian Party in Wake County NC. But you eventually realize it’s a naive utopianism.
It reminds me of Zhang Yimou’s film “Hero”: amazing artistry, but amazing artistry being used to propagandize authoritarianism, so it becomes horrifying instead of beautiful.
arguing that the Brownback plan failed not because it cut taxes but because it failed to keep spending in line.
Well, they do have a point. If you match spending to budget things tend to work out better. If only citizens of the state will stop wanting stuff like roads and schools and fire fighters who make living wages and stuff.
But basically, yeah; it cannot fail, it can only be failed.
ETA:
But you eventually realize it’s a naive utopianism.
Two senior administration officials confirm that the president is planning on announcing Executive Action today to add the citizenship question to the 2020 Census. @CBSNews
@Stormy Dragon: I was reading that article in the print mag last night and realized I’ve never read any asian SF. Kinda curious what the cultural differences will be.
An unexpected difficulty from our move to gentrifying Silver Lake (Los Angeles) has been wildlife. We have squirrels, hawks, quite a talented mockingbird, raccoons, a skunk who wanders by nightly (security camera footage) but most troubling of all: coyotes. The coyotes are a very real danger to my wife’s dog and cats because while we have a fence, coyotes laugh at six foot barriers.
Which made me ponder the fact that these are species that saw the rise of homo sapiens and decided, “I can work with that.” They succeeded because they adapted and exploited. Long ago I wrote an intro for a Jack London novel. London loved evolution, had no real idea how it worked. He was enamored of sharp teeth and ferocity. But the wolf is on life-support, kept alive only by human intervention, while his scruffy, disrespected lesser sibling with the creepy vocalizations, wanders prosperous suburbs with the swagger of a West Side Story street gang. It’s not survival of the meanest, it’s survival of the most fit in a given environment.
You would not believe how much time we have spent trying to solve the simple question of how to let a crippled Chihuahua take a dump without some canine desert devil leaping the fence, grabbing a tasty snack, and leaping back. (My wife rejects my environmentally-sound advice to let nature take its course.)
And that’s not even getting into the skunk who met our brand-new, this’ll totally stop the skunk gate, with open contempt. I watched my security camera video. Took him less than a minute to get past my gate. And now, just to rub my face in it, the arrogant bastard has extended his wanderings, meandering around the property. Hey, human, you taping me? How about I jump in your pool? Haw haw haw.
@michael reynolds: I read a few years ago about an urban coyote in some surprisingly major city who had learned how to read crosswalks and would wait on the corner until the light turned the correct signal to cross.
So Jeffrey Epstein negotiated a plea in Florida in 2007 in response to claims that he sexually molested young girls.
For that agreement to be accepted by the court didn’t he have to allocute before the judge and describe his crimes?
Is this confession a matter of public record?
Zhang Yimou’s film “Hero”: amazing artistry, but amazing artistry being used to propagandize authoritarianism,
There are many, many subjects that can get a Chinese director into trouble, and so there are a few plots that get repeated because they have proved “safe” over a significant period of time. Just as in the US a director might do their boy-meets-girl Rom-Com, or their one-man-stands-against-a-whole-band-of-outlaws Western, or their 7-strangers-thrown-together mystery-adventure, one of the most well trodden Chinese movie plots concerns an ancient and noble hero who discovers the emperor/emperess/regional ruler/god is actually corrupt and reaches the penultimate moment of action, whereupon they decide that bringing down even a corrupt ruler will plunge society into chaos, and so they decide to keep quiet or even sacrifice their own life. In addition to “Heroes” another example of this that made its way to the west was “Detective Dee and the Dancing Flame”. I seem to recall a few other lower budget productions that had variations on this, but have to admit that with my limited Chinese and the quality of the subtitles I may have gotten them wrong in some ways.
@michael reynolds: After a recent coyote sighting in our neighborhood and knowing our cat has come back pretty mangled on three occasions this year, I did a search for papers on coyotes eating pets. An apparently reputable one estimated that in areas bordering humans, small pets (cats, chihuahuas, Pomeranians, etc) make up 20% of the coyote diet.
@michael reynolds:
Coywolves are a thing. Incredibly ballsy, frighteningly intelligent, uncanny valley thing. In fact, major cities like Toronto and Chicago have to deal with coywolf dens in heavily-used city parks. They don’t have the same shy instincts other wild canines do – these things will go right up to a human construct with no hesitation. They’ve got the human world figured out. Nature had a documentary on it a year or two ago.
The first time I saw one out in the open, it was nearing dusk and I thought it was a lost pet in front of the house across the street. I got within 30ft I realized it wasn’t a scruffy looking greyish mutt. It wasn’t shaped like a coyote, far more like a Sheppard in terms of size and shape. It honestly looked like a dog. I froze, it just looked at me like “please, what you were thinking”, and walked even closer to go right past me. I’ve seen it dozens of times since and swear the only reason nothing’s happened in the neighborhood is because it chooses to live off wildlife and trash then start something. It leaves the pets alone, it leaves the people alone but that’s *clearly* it’s choice, not ours. Thank god we’re infested with rabbits – I’d rather the bunnies go down then somebody’s poodle.
I’m in the SF Valley, and way too often see the same Coyote wandering down THE MIDDLE OF MY SUBURBAN STREET at 2am when I get home. I have four dogs, but there are alot of feral cats in my neighborhood. Every spring, there are feral kittens all over the place. A few months later, they’re all mysteriously gone. Not so mysterious. That smart coyote knows where there are good meals, year in, year out.
That could never happen here, because (1) we don’t have any national educational policy, and (2) the powers that be rely on fake news too much to permit such education.
@DrDaveT: Yes… sort of. This Judge Dee can do Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon style kung fu and finds himself in the court of the Empress. So a huge distance from the historical Di, the Chinese tales, or the Von Gulik stories I read some years ago.
But you eventually realize it’s a naive utopianism.
Still, better than Neo-nazi hate, or cynical both-sider-ism, although it is often paired with the latter.
The results of attempting to apply it still suck, of course, but Libertarianism seems to be a very common stepping stone in emotional and political development for a lot of people on the left, who end up at a “maximize freedom” position. I mean, once you recognize that corporations and the wealthy and generations of poverty and racism limit people’s freedom as much if not more than the government does, you’re basically a Democrat.
It’s dog DNA mixed in that makes them dangerous, with no dog DNA they would avoid humans like coyotes and wolves do.
We have lots of coyotes where I live, (Phoenix far suburbs, golf course community), I see them every day while bike riding, but they are pure coyote, don’t bother people. (We are also overrun with rabbits so they are well nourished).
Too late for anyone to see it if I comment on James’ minimum wage post of a couple days ago, so I’ll put this here. Wonkblog has a pretty good rebuttal to the CBO release on the $15 minimum raise. Says that not only does the CBO not settle the issue against raising the min wage, there’s a consensus in favor.
The central question in the minimum-wage debate has shifted. Where economists once asked, “Will raising the wage floor kill jobs?” they now ask, “Just how transformative could a higher minimum wage be?”
They can move onto bigger questions now that new, high-quality research has pushed economists to acknowledge that raising the minimum wage hasn’t, in recent decades, destroyed jobs by making workers too expensive.
@Gustopher: Really? I associate Libertarianism more with the Pauls and their indescribably racist newsletter (it literally referred to dark skinned people as “mud people” and questioned whether they were human). It’s hard to see these people as eventually becoming Democrats when there is a conveniently racist national party ready and eager to embrace them.
@gVOR08: The Wonkblog rebuttal is interesting but I wonder about this:
In the most definitive study to date, published this year in the top-rated Quarterly Journal of Economics, economists Doruk Cengiz and Dube as well as Attila Lindner of University College London and EPI’s Zipperer evaluated the local effect of more than 130 minimum-wage increases since 1979 and showed the fall in jobs paying less than the new minimum wage had been fully offset by the jump in new jobs paying just over it.
Unlike previous work cited by the CBO’s 2014 report, which typically focused on high-risk groups such as high-schoolers and restaurant workers, the new analysis measured effects across the entire labor market, Zipperer said. Autor called it “the most important work on minimum wage effects since Card and Krueger’s work” and said that it should win over some skeptics and “shift the weight of consensus.”
First, I do think it makes sense to consider the impact at the bottom and weigh it heavily. Modest upward pressure on wages for those making $30/hour might have massive aggregate effects on paper but marginal effects in practice. But job losses have massive effects in practice.
Second—and I just don’t have the time to delve into the studies—I wonder if the types of places that are enacting higher minimum wages are simply different than the country as a whole in ways that skew the analysis. To take the obvious known example, Seattle is comparatively rich and I wouldn’t expect a hike in the minimum wage to spark major job losses.
Second—and I just don’t have the time to delve into the studies—I wonder if the types of places that are enacting higher minimum wages are simply different than the country as a whole in ways that skew the analysis.
I’m also not very familiar with the studies but I’ve been reading economists say for several years now that the data very thoroughly show that minimum wage increases have only a very minimal effect on employment. There is an enormous trove of data for them to crunch the numbers on, too, because 29 states, including thoroughly red ones like North Dakota and Montana, have minimum wages higher than the Federal, and States pass these laws asynchronously, which makes it easy to control for multiple variables. Over a hundred other countries also have national and regional minimum wage laws too.
@MarkedMan: I’m just guessing here based on my experiences 20 years ago as a young libertarian, but I doubt the Pauls are a major factor. Nine times out of ten I would say somebody just read The Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged and got a little intellectually drunk. 🙂
(in case anyone hasn’t seen it, Adam Lee wrote a marvelous series of roughly 200 blog posts going page by page through Atlas Shrugged and pointing out the…issues the book has.)
Really? I associate Libertarianism more with the Pauls […]
It’s really worth taking a peek at the Wikipedia page on libertarianism, and then at the detailed pages on left-libertarianism and right-libertarianism. It’s a good introduction to a very confused situation full of very confused people.
The key, to me, is that libertarianism is not outcome-oriented: it’s not trying to accomplish anything (apart from the obvious “let me do what I want” at the individual level). People who think in terms of social outcomes — prosperity, justice, progress, happiness, whatever — thus tend to gravitate away from libertarianism when they realize that a genuinely libertarian society would suck at achieving those goals. That leaves only two kinds of libertarians — the ones who genuinely value personal liberty over all of those other things that society can provide, and the ones in deep denial about what a genuinely libertarian society would be like.
@James Joyner: James, I’m not blaming you for this, but Conservative economists have moved the goal posts so far on this issue they have lost all credibility. For decades they were able to convince people that significantly raising the minimum wage would cause disaster – an exodus of jobs, businesses closing en masse, cats and dogs living together. Then a bunch of cities and a few states started raising the minimum wage and if there were any negative effects along these lines, it was buried somewhere around the noise floor. So the conservative economists were wrong. Dead wrong. Absolutely wrong. And now they want to start from the new location on the field and be taken as credible without any analysis or explanation as to why they were so wrong in the first place.
Sure, we can back of the envelope it and say Boston, NYC, Seattle are different and so shouldn’t count, but that is not what the conservative economists said beforehand. Pure and simple, they got it wrong and have no explanation or even acknowledgement that they did.
but that is not what the conservative economists said beforehand. Pure and simple, they got it wrong and have no explanation or even acknowledgement that they did.
Fair enough. I’m not going with Club For Growth estimates, though, but rather the nonpartisan CBO. I’m amenable to the argument that they’re using outdated methods but not really in a position to evaluate that claim.
two different women came up to me today in the parking lot of a Walmart asking me to sign a petition to ban illegal immigrants from voting. I don’t know what kind of scam this is, but it’s definitely a scam.
ETA: it’s north Florida and it was a Walmart, so I’m guessing somebody is spending a few thousand bucks across the state to whip up angry white Republicans.
@Teve: I’ve seen a similar group in front of the County Clerk’s Office in Charlotte County FL. They’re trying to put this on the ballot as an initiative to drive up R turnout. Same stunt Rove used to pull with anti-gay marriage stuff.
The key, to me, is that libertarianism is not outcome-oriented: it’s not trying to accomplish anything (apart from the obvious “let me do what I want” at the individual level).
Back in the late 80s, the Republicans were pushing the line of “equality of opportunity, but not a guarantee of outcomes” which really appealed to my younger, libertarian-leaning self.
But then, there’s the question of how to guarantee equal opportunity. George H. W. Bush was going to be the education president. Jack Kemp wanted enterprise zones in the inner cities to boost investment there. None of this actually happened, but the empty promises were very fulfilling.
Had you asked me my beliefs, I would have said that I was fiscally-responsible mostly-libertarian.
Not quite the classic social-libertarian, fiscal-conservative — I wanted to balance the budget through automatic tax increases, rather than any suggestion of automatic spending cuts, believing that pressure from the voters would lead to a limiting of government (I still mostly favor this, which I now call a reverse sequester, at least way more than the idiotic sequester). Government should enforce antitrust and environmental regulations, and that’s about it. Gay marriage, abortion, etc., all fine — what’s going on in your crotch is not the government’s business.
It’s a hop skip and a jump to Libertarianism with a capital L.
Honestly, my beliefs haven’t changed that much. Understanding of other power structures that need a strong check (even there, I would point out that corporations are government chartered entities, and their power is an extension of the state), and a bit more empathy for minorities, but the values haven’t changed — maximize freedom.
Sure, we can back of the envelope it and say Boston, NYC, Seattle are different and so shouldn’t count, but that is not what the conservative economists said beforehand.
When Seattle raised the minimum wage to $15/hr, the prevailing wage for entry-level, unskilled labor was $12/hr (roughly, and I forget where I got that number, so take it with a grain of salt), with many places already being $15/hr.
The percentage delta was not big. People couldn’t take jobs for dramatically less and pay rent, even with roommates.
I think the conservative economists are spouting nonsense when they say … well … anything. But Seattle is different from Oklahoma, where a $15/hr minimum would be an increase of more than a trivial percentage. Seattle is different from eastern Washington for that matter.
I think the conservative economists’ claims on the minimum wage are a lot like the Laffer Curve… valid at some extremes that we are not remotely near. Literally doubling the minimum wage might put it into a situation where those claims are valid, in regions where the prevailing wage is close to the federal minimum.
@michael reynolds: It may be useful to your theory to remember that while a wolf is a predator, a coyote is both a predator and a scavenger–and as my innertubes link told me, mostly an opportunist.
@Just nutha ignint cracker: And London and other British cities are notorious for having foxes all over the place….
We get coyotes here in the Windy City. I still remember the one in 2007 that strolled into a Quiznos in the summer and took a nap in the refrigerated drinks section.
Honestly, my beliefs haven’t changed that much. Understanding of other power structures that need a strong check (even there, I would point out that corporations are government chartered entities, and their power is an extension of the state), and a bit more empathy for minorities, but the values haven’t changed — maximize freedom.
Yeah, but if you mean actionable freedom, you don’t mean Libertarian, because actual freedom to choose requires government to enforce that freedom. Absence of government equals “might makes right”, always. Maximal freedom of choice for the most people requires a lot of government intervention, to undo the natural tendency of wealth to concentrate and the natural tendency of the powerful to do whatever they feel like to the less-powerful. Libertarians are people who either believe that they would magically be part of the doing-unto-others minority, or who have a religious belief that coercion by government is evil but coercion by free individuals is not.
‘Robot umpires’ debut in Atlantic League All Star Game
MLB has decided to use the Atlantic League as their proving ground for all kinds of possible rule changes, ranging from pitch clocks to robot ball-and-strike umps. They are also (per tonight’s news) going to test drive a rule that would let batters “steal first” on any pitch not handled cleanly, with the possibility of being thrown out if the catcher retrieves the ball quickly enough. I rather like that one.
As for robo-umps… the evidence is overwhelming that humans are not as good as electronic systems at judging whether or not a ball passed through the rulebook strike zone. Since the robots’ errors are random and the humans’ are systematic, I prefer the robots.
Person A: “I don’t understand why the Evangelical Republicans are fine with giving Israel 4 billion dollars a year, because abortions are paid for by the state. Doesn’t that mean our tax dollars are subsidizing their abortions?”
Person B: “Hi, Israeli here. Gender reassignment surgery is also free and paid for by the government here. We’re pretty progressive.”
@Teve: The most recent theories that I’ve seen on minimum wage show that low wage jobs are fairly durable because the ones that aren’t essential to operations get eliminated or replaced by automation. Businesses in general don’t hire people because they “have money available;” they hire people to expand their market share, boost production, and so on. Occasionally, I read of a business closing because of wage increases (a hardware store 20 miles away from my town will be doing that at the end of this month), but those businesses also tend to be sole proprietorships and/or are marginal anyway–as is the case of the hardware store 20 miles away. The minimum wage increase was simply the last nail in the coffin.
@Gustopher: I just read a little factoid in one of those “best places” type articles that was claiming that Seattle was 76.5% higher than the average for cost of living. Considering that the median home price there has been pegged at a little over $700k–down 4.5% from last year–I wouldn’t be surprised. I know I can’t afford to live there any more, but it was a good place to grow up in, until about 68 or 69.
actual freedom to choose requires government to enforce that freedom.
I think it helps to think in terms of freedom and rights. Freedom just needs the government to get out of the way, whereas rights require government involvement: e.g. freedom to smoke marijuana vs rights to buy with confidence and security. And ultimately, the two compliment each other. Growing up poor, sick and ignorant is no freedom at all. Truly maximizing freedom requires government involvement in the economy, in health care, and in education, which of course means people can’t just do whatever the hell they want. And for that, people must outgrow adolescence. Oops! I meant Libertarianism.
@Kit: I always ask libertarians to show me an example of a modern society that followed libertarianism and managed to remain stable and fruitful. They can’t do it. It doesn’t exist.
(and no, I don’t mean a small village government in 11th century Iceland, either. If you have to stretch that far back, you’ve got a pretty piss-poor argument.)
Libertarianism mainly appeals to a certain type of bright young men who a) don’t know history b) have never had to take care of someone else c) don’t know law, and d) don’t understand human nature. MIT is littered with them. In my day, half of what MIT female students did in their interactions with MIT male students was explain how life really works, not the one they had made up in their heads.
@Gustopher: I added to the down vote you gave me, just on the basis of bad grammar. How many times can a grown man mix up “here” and “hear”? Never mind the uncorrected random iOS mid sentence capitalization….
Over the years people have pointed me to “Reason” magazine as the voice of the intellectual Libertarian. I read a few articles but they struck me as very Conservative-Think-Tank-ish, i.e, they have a point to make and simply ignore any solid evidence against that point, instead arguing against straw men. But I assumed that as far as Libertarians are concerned they were staffed and edited by the adults in the room. However, I just got done with Preet Bharara’s book and there is a brief passage in there about the tactics the magazine took when they decided his work as US Attorney General was inconveniencing them. Think of every negative stereotype of Libertarians as ignorant but opinionated and nasty, and how they would react when an authority figure started challenging them. Think of the reddit doxing crowd. Think of the Gamer-gate incels.
If libertarianism has any intellectual future, then it will need to evolve. But that sort of work can only happen after the current keepers of the flame die off. As Paul Samuelson put it: Inexact sciences like economics advance funeral by funeral.
, I just got done with Preet Bharara’s book and there is a brief passage in there about the tactics the magazine took when they decided his work as US Attorney General was inconveniencing them.
Dangit now I’m going to have to read his book. He already has one of the best podcasts out there.
his work as US Attorney General was inconveniencing them. Think of every negative stereotype of Libertarians as ignorant but opinionated and nasty, and how they would react when an authority figure started challenging them. Think of the reddit doxing crowd. Think of the Gamer-gate incels.
I’ve never heard of this situation. Is there a summary somewhere of what happened?
@Teve: I had put the audiobook on hold at the library several months ago and was actually a little reluctant when it came up. I’m not a fan of biography for the most part so wondered if it was simply going to be his life story. The other alternative was that it to be rehashing his podcast to which I listen every week. It turned out to be neither. Basically, every section starts with something he feels is important about the pursuit of justice within the legal system, he expounds on that and then gives examples from his experience. You can tell he isn’t a professional essayist but I found it insightful and interesting.
Paul Ryan, the failed V.P. candidate & former Speaker of the House, whose record of achievement was atrocious (except during my first two years as President), ultimately became a long running lame duck failure, leaving his Party in the lurch both as a fundraiser & leader……
8:10 PM – 11 Jul 2019
Donald J. Trump
….When Mitt chose Paul I told people that’s the end of that Presidential run. He quit Congress because he didn’t know how to Win. They gave me standing O’s in the Great State of Wisconsin, & booed him off the stage. He promised me the Wall, & failed (happening anyway!)……
Donald J. Trump
….He had the Majority & blew it away with his poor leadership and bad timing. Never knew how to go after the Dems like they go after us. Couldn’t get him out of Congress fast enough!
Some tech news:
“Say hello to Scotty, the oldest and biggest T. rex ever found” (SciWorthy)
“Nintendo Switch Lite: What we know so far”
(Gamespot)
“Is your Smartphone secretly listening to you?”
(Consumer Reports)
(I know mine is)
“Amazon’s Prime Day” July 15 (The Verge)
“IKEA’s range of smart lighting is expanding”
(The Verge)
“New Cadillac Escapade could pack Camaro ZL1’s 650 horsepower V8 report says” (CNET)
Who said muscle cars were a thing of the past?
“Quantum teleportation is science fiction technology in real life”
(Northrup – Grunman)
@Teve: It arose because some commenters in Reason threatened to kill the federal judge who sat for the dark web Silk Road trial which, if deemed a credible threat, is a crime. This criminal enterprise did end up involving actual murders, so any threats to the judge’s life was taken seriously. As part of the investigation Bharara’s office requested the IP and any other information about the commenters. Reason refused so the AG’s office issued a subpoena. If it ended there some might think Reason’s editors were being principled. (I wouldn’t be one of them.) Instead Reason started a highly personalized campaign against Preet Bharara specifically both in the magazine and in Twitter and other social media. It appeared designed to inflame the lunatic fringe into doxing him and worse. They seem to have been careful not to host the inevitable doxing themselves or personally commit any crimes, and tread on the side of “only expressing an opinion no matter how vile”. But if this is the behavior of Libertarianism’s elite, then it basically fulfills the worst stereotype I have of them.
@Teve: Here’s the link to the publisher’s page. He only mentions the Reason stuff in passing, towards the end. You can tell it pissed him off but on the other hand the guy went after mob bosses, powerful politicians, wealthy sociopaths and (literally) attempted cannibals. He seems to take threats seriously, and understands the damage that can be done by reckless and immature people like those at Reason, but I think he takes it all as part of the job.
@Kit: Other than that it’s hard to sustain growth in an altruistic effort to help people not named (insert name here) over the course of a generation? No, I don’t see one.
@Tyrell: My smartphone is never close enough to me to hear anything I say. I use it as a home phone and take my 3G phone with me where I need a telephone but not a laptop.
Also, I only give out my home phone number to business contacts for substitute teaching. About 5 total people in the United States know that number.
@Kit: Because people will become tired of raising the minimum wage for “those people” year after year. If you get it statutorily indexed, you get a different result, of course, but so far, localities have only been able to index to inflation, not a fixed rate of growth over and above inflation. Launch and initiative calling for the minimum wage to be raised, say 7% a year, guaranteed and see how far you get.
A huge part of glass-blowing, which I didn’t even realise until now, is the ability to name your work after some sort of potentially seminal lost prog rock album. At one point, someone announces that they’ve made something called No Peace Without Struggle. Another names their piece A Framework for Unconditional Inspiration. Then there’s Lachrymatory View (For Cleo), and Existential Awakening, and – my favourite – a rudimentary cartoonish killer whale simply entitled Duality.
Liu Cixin’s War of the Worlds
I need to get the Interliberry Loan desk busy on getting this trilogy.
Republican orthodoxy on Science and Economics are transparent scams. And after enough decades, it becomes an IQ test for the voters.
@Teve: Very clever.
@Teve: In all seriousness I’ve asked the Libertarian and Libertarian-ish participants in this blog to comment on Kansas, given that it is the largest Libertarian experiment tried to date and I don’t see how it can be described as anything but an abject and total failure. Do they disagree and think it was actually a success? Or do they feel it falls under the “No True Scotsman” category? But no matter how many times I try to start the discussion, no reply.
Based on my comments I obviously think Libertarianism is just like most of the other “isms”: a proposed system of governance based entirely on an incredibly simplistic intellectual model and a woefully naive understanding of human reality. But I am open, even anxious, to read what modern Libertarians view as serious works describing 21st century party tenets. After all, surely something has changed in the four decades since I read my first book on Libertarian thinking. Which, by the way, I briefly thought was insightful, until my then 19 year old mind started actually trying to fit its thesis into actual real life and realized it just didn’t match reality at all. So I’ve asked, repeatedly, for recommendations from our Libertarian contributors, but again, silence.
I suspect Doug feels it is fruitless to participate in such a discussion given the un-receptivity and downright hostility to his philosophy that often manifests here. But surely someone else can contribute?
@Teve: A minor quibble. It should be “modern Republican orthodoxy”. The Party did not use to be this way, at least not en masse.
from that article:
Supply-Side Economics Cannot Fail, It Can Only Be Failed.
That’s about when I was a libertarian. Records can show that in my very early 20’s I was even registered Libertarian Party in Wake County NC. But you eventually realize it’s a naive utopianism.
@Teve:
It reminds me of Zhang Yimou’s film “Hero”: amazing artistry, but amazing artistry being used to propagandize authoritarianism, so it becomes horrifying instead of beautiful.
Well, they do have a point. If you match spending to budget things tend to work out better. If only citizens of the state will stop wanting stuff like roads and schools and fire fighters who make living wages and stuff.
But basically, yeah; it cannot fail, it can only be failed.
ETA:
Well apparently not everyone does.
@Stormy Dragon: I was reading that article in the print mag last night and realized I’ve never read any asian SF. Kinda curious what the cultural differences will be.
An unexpected difficulty from our move to gentrifying Silver Lake (Los Angeles) has been wildlife. We have squirrels, hawks, quite a talented mockingbird, raccoons, a skunk who wanders by nightly (security camera footage) but most troubling of all: coyotes. The coyotes are a very real danger to my wife’s dog and cats because while we have a fence, coyotes laugh at six foot barriers.
Which made me ponder the fact that these are species that saw the rise of homo sapiens and decided, “I can work with that.” They succeeded because they adapted and exploited. Long ago I wrote an intro for a Jack London novel. London loved evolution, had no real idea how it worked. He was enamored of sharp teeth and ferocity. But the wolf is on life-support, kept alive only by human intervention, while his scruffy, disrespected lesser sibling with the creepy vocalizations, wanders prosperous suburbs with the swagger of a West Side Story street gang. It’s not survival of the meanest, it’s survival of the most fit in a given environment.
You would not believe how much time we have spent trying to solve the simple question of how to let a crippled Chihuahua take a dump without some canine desert devil leaping the fence, grabbing a tasty snack, and leaping back. (My wife rejects my environmentally-sound advice to let nature take its course.)
And that’s not even getting into the skunk who met our brand-new, this’ll totally stop the skunk gate, with open contempt. I watched my security camera video. Took him less than a minute to get past my gate. And now, just to rub my face in it, the arrogant bastard has extended his wanderings, meandering around the property. Hey, human, you taping me? How about I jump in your pool? Haw haw haw.
@michael reynolds: I read a few years ago about an urban coyote in some surprisingly major city who had learned how to read crosswalks and would wait on the corner until the light turned the correct signal to cross.
So Jeffrey Epstein negotiated a plea in Florida in 2007 in response to claims that he sexually molested young girls.
For that agreement to be accepted by the court didn’t he have to allocute before the judge and describe his crimes?
Is this confession a matter of public record?
@michael reynolds: @Teve: Coyotes are very intelligent.
@Stormy Dragon: @Stormy Dragon:
There are many, many subjects that can get a Chinese director into trouble, and so there are a few plots that get repeated because they have proved “safe” over a significant period of time. Just as in the US a director might do their boy-meets-girl Rom-Com, or their one-man-stands-against-a-whole-band-of-outlaws Western, or their 7-strangers-thrown-together mystery-adventure, one of the most well trodden Chinese movie plots concerns an ancient and noble hero who discovers the emperor/emperess/regional ruler/god is actually corrupt and reaches the penultimate moment of action, whereupon they decide that bringing down even a corrupt ruler will plunge society into chaos, and so they decide to keep quiet or even sacrifice their own life. In addition to “Heroes” another example of this that made its way to the west was “Detective Dee and the Dancing Flame”. I seem to recall a few other lower budget productions that had variations on this, but have to admit that with my limited Chinese and the quality of the subtitles I may have gotten them wrong in some ways.
@michael reynolds: After a recent coyote sighting in our neighborhood and knowing our cat has come back pretty mangled on three occasions this year, I did a search for papers on coyotes eating pets. An apparently reputable one estimated that in areas bordering humans, small pets (cats, chihuahuas, Pomeranians, etc) make up 20% of the coyote diet.
@michael reynolds:
Coywolves are a thing. Incredibly ballsy, frighteningly intelligent, uncanny valley thing. In fact, major cities like Toronto and Chicago have to deal with coywolf dens in heavily-used city parks. They don’t have the same shy instincts other wild canines do – these things will go right up to a human construct with no hesitation. They’ve got the human world figured out.
Nature had a documentary on it a year or two ago.
The first time I saw one out in the open, it was nearing dusk and I thought it was a lost pet in front of the house across the street. I got within 30ft I realized it wasn’t a scruffy looking greyish mutt. It wasn’t shaped like a coyote, far more like a Sheppard in terms of size and shape. It honestly looked like a dog. I froze, it just looked at me like “please, what you were thinking”, and walked even closer to go right past me. I’ve seen it dozens of times since and swear the only reason nothing’s happened in the neighborhood is because it chooses to live off wildlife and trash then start something. It leaves the pets alone, it leaves the people alone but that’s *clearly* it’s choice, not ours. Thank god we’re infested with rabbits – I’d rather the bunnies go down then somebody’s poodle.
@michael reynolds:
I’m in the SF Valley, and way too often see the same Coyote wandering down THE MIDDLE OF MY SUBURBAN STREET at 2am when I get home. I have four dogs, but there are alot of feral cats in my neighborhood. Every spring, there are feral kittens all over the place. A few months later, they’re all mysteriously gone. Not so mysterious. That smart coyote knows where there are good meals, year in, year out.
@MarkedMan:
Is Detective Dee the same character as the famous (and semi-historical) Judge Dee?
Estonia has decided that it is part of a good public education to be trained how to recognize fake news.
That could never happen here, because (1) we don’t have any national educational policy, and (2) the powers that be rely on fake news too much to permit such education.
@DrDaveT: Yes… sort of. This Judge Dee can do Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon style kung fu and finds himself in the court of the Empress. So a huge distance from the historical Di, the Chinese tales, or the Von Gulik stories I read some years ago.
@Teve:
Still, better than Neo-nazi hate, or cynical both-sider-ism, although it is often paired with the latter.
The results of attempting to apply it still suck, of course, but Libertarianism seems to be a very common stepping stone in emotional and political development for a lot of people on the left, who end up at a “maximize freedom” position. I mean, once you recognize that corporations and the wealthy and generations of poverty and racism limit people’s freedom as much if not more than the government does, you’re basically a Democrat.
@KM:
It’s dog DNA mixed in that makes them dangerous, with no dog DNA they would avoid humans like coyotes and wolves do.
We have lots of coyotes where I live, (Phoenix far suburbs, golf course community), I see them every day while bike riding, but they are pure coyote, don’t bother people. (We are also overrun with rabbits so they are well nourished).
Too late for anyone to see it if I comment on James’ minimum wage post of a couple days ago, so I’ll put this here. Wonkblog has a pretty good rebuttal to the CBO release on the $15 minimum raise. Says that not only does the CBO not settle the issue against raising the min wage, there’s a consensus in favor.
@gVOR08: Sorry, doing this on an iPad I somehow lost the embedded link. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/07/08/its-not-just-paychecks-surprising-society-wide-benefits-raising-minimum-wage/
@Gustopher: Really? I associate Libertarianism more with the Pauls and their indescribably racist newsletter (it literally referred to dark skinned people as “mud people” and questioned whether they were human). It’s hard to see these people as eventually becoming Democrats when there is a conveniently racist national party ready and eager to embrace them.
@gVOR08: The Wonkblog rebuttal is interesting but I wonder about this:
First, I do think it makes sense to consider the impact at the bottom and weigh it heavily. Modest upward pressure on wages for those making $30/hour might have massive aggregate effects on paper but marginal effects in practice. But job losses have massive effects in practice.
Second—and I just don’t have the time to delve into the studies—I wonder if the types of places that are enacting higher minimum wages are simply different than the country as a whole in ways that skew the analysis. To take the obvious known example, Seattle is comparatively rich and I wouldn’t expect a hike in the minimum wage to spark major job losses.
@James Joyner:
I’m also not very familiar with the studies but I’ve been reading economists say for several years now that the data very thoroughly show that minimum wage increases have only a very minimal effect on employment. There is an enormous trove of data for them to crunch the numbers on, too, because 29 states, including thoroughly red ones like North Dakota and Montana, have minimum wages higher than the Federal, and States pass these laws asynchronously, which makes it easy to control for multiple variables. Over a hundred other countries also have national and regional minimum wage laws too.
@MarkedMan: I’m just guessing here based on my experiences 20 years ago as a young libertarian, but I doubt the Pauls are a major factor. Nine times out of ten I would say somebody just read The Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged and got a little intellectually drunk. 🙂
(in case anyone hasn’t seen it, Adam Lee wrote a marvelous series of roughly 200 blog posts going page by page through Atlas Shrugged and pointing out the…issues the book has.)
@MarkedMan:
It’s really worth taking a peek at the Wikipedia page on libertarianism, and then at the detailed pages on left-libertarianism and right-libertarianism. It’s a good introduction to a very confused situation full of very confused people.
The key, to me, is that libertarianism is not outcome-oriented: it’s not trying to accomplish anything (apart from the obvious “let me do what I want” at the individual level). People who think in terms of social outcomes — prosperity, justice, progress, happiness, whatever — thus tend to gravitate away from libertarianism when they realize that a genuinely libertarian society would suck at achieving those goals. That leaves only two kinds of libertarians — the ones who genuinely value personal liberty over all of those other things that society can provide, and the ones in deep denial about what a genuinely libertarian society would be like.
@James Joyner: James, I’m not blaming you for this, but Conservative economists have moved the goal posts so far on this issue they have lost all credibility. For decades they were able to convince people that significantly raising the minimum wage would cause disaster – an exodus of jobs, businesses closing en masse, cats and dogs living together. Then a bunch of cities and a few states started raising the minimum wage and if there were any negative effects along these lines, it was buried somewhere around the noise floor. So the conservative economists were wrong. Dead wrong. Absolutely wrong. And now they want to start from the new location on the field and be taken as credible without any analysis or explanation as to why they were so wrong in the first place.
Sure, we can back of the envelope it and say Boston, NYC, Seattle are different and so shouldn’t count, but that is not what the conservative economists said beforehand. Pure and simple, they got it wrong and have no explanation or even acknowledgement that they did.
@MarkedMan:
Fair enough. I’m not going with Club For Growth estimates, though, but rather the nonpartisan CBO. I’m amenable to the argument that they’re using outdated methods but not really in a position to evaluate that claim.
two different women came up to me today in the parking lot of a Walmart asking me to sign a petition to ban illegal immigrants from voting. I don’t know what kind of scam this is, but it’s definitely a scam.
ETA: it’s north Florida and it was a Walmart, so I’m guessing somebody is spending a few thousand bucks across the state to whip up angry white Republicans.
Thousands of people have taken a Facebook pledge to storm Area 51 to ‘see them aliens’
I 100% support this, because I have a 55 inch TV and just bought a 12-pack of extra butter popcorn at Walmart for $2.98.
@Teve: I’ve seen a similar group in front of the County Clerk’s Office in Charlotte County FL. They’re trying to put this on the ballot as an initiative to drive up R turnout. Same stunt Rove used to pull with anti-gay marriage stuff.
@gVOR08: Will GOP voters ever get tired of being played for fools?
@James Joyner: sorry. Accidentally downvoted you when I meant to upvote
@MarkedMan: sorry. Deliberately downvoted you due to spite.
I understand everyone’s shit’s emotional right now.
@DrDaveT:
Back in the late 80s, the Republicans were pushing the line of “equality of opportunity, but not a guarantee of outcomes” which really appealed to my younger, libertarian-leaning self.
But then, there’s the question of how to guarantee equal opportunity. George H. W. Bush was going to be the education president. Jack Kemp wanted enterprise zones in the inner cities to boost investment there. None of this actually happened, but the empty promises were very fulfilling.
Had you asked me my beliefs, I would have said that I was fiscally-responsible mostly-libertarian.
Not quite the classic social-libertarian, fiscal-conservative — I wanted to balance the budget through automatic tax increases, rather than any suggestion of automatic spending cuts, believing that pressure from the voters would lead to a limiting of government (I still mostly favor this, which I now call a reverse sequester, at least way more than the idiotic sequester). Government should enforce antitrust and environmental regulations, and that’s about it. Gay marriage, abortion, etc., all fine — what’s going on in your crotch is not the government’s business.
It’s a hop skip and a jump to Libertarianism with a capital L.
Honestly, my beliefs haven’t changed that much. Understanding of other power structures that need a strong check (even there, I would point out that corporations are government chartered entities, and their power is an extension of the state), and a bit more empathy for minorities, but the values haven’t changed — maximize freedom.
@MarkedMan:
When Seattle raised the minimum wage to $15/hr, the prevailing wage for entry-level, unskilled labor was $12/hr (roughly, and I forget where I got that number, so take it with a grain of salt), with many places already being $15/hr.
The percentage delta was not big. People couldn’t take jobs for dramatically less and pay rent, even with roommates.
I think the conservative economists are spouting nonsense when they say … well … anything. But Seattle is different from Oklahoma, where a $15/hr minimum would be an increase of more than a trivial percentage. Seattle is different from eastern Washington for that matter.
I think the conservative economists’ claims on the minimum wage are a lot like the Laffer Curve… valid at some extremes that we are not remotely near. Literally doubling the minimum wage might put it into a situation where those claims are valid, in regions where the prevailing wage is close to the federal minimum.
@Gustopher: Also downvoted myself, as I really shouldn’t be humoring my spite so much.
@michael reynolds: It may be useful to your theory to remember that while a wolf is a predator, a coyote is both a predator and a scavenger–and as my innertubes link told me, mostly an opportunist.
ETA: @KM: Hadn’t heard of coywolves. Interesting!
@Just nutha ignint cracker: And London and other British cities are notorious for having foxes all over the place….
We get coyotes here in the Windy City. I still remember the one in 2007 that strolled into a Quiznos in the summer and took a nap in the refrigerated drinks section.
It’s the End of the World as We Know It
‘Robot umpires’ debut in Atlantic League All Star Game
ESPN
@Gustopher:
Yeah, but if you mean actionable freedom, you don’t mean Libertarian, because actual freedom to choose requires government to enforce that freedom. Absence of government equals “might makes right”, always. Maximal freedom of choice for the most people requires a lot of government intervention, to undo the natural tendency of wealth to concentrate and the natural tendency of the powerful to do whatever they feel like to the less-powerful. Libertarians are people who either believe that they would magically be part of the doing-unto-others minority, or who have a religious belief that coercion by government is evil but coercion by free individuals is not.
@Mister Bluster:
MLB has decided to use the Atlantic League as their proving ground for all kinds of possible rule changes, ranging from pitch clocks to robot ball-and-strike umps. They are also (per tonight’s news) going to test drive a rule that would let batters “steal first” on any pitch not handled cleanly, with the possibility of being thrown out if the catcher retrieves the ball quickly enough. I rather like that one.
As for robo-umps… the evidence is overwhelming that humans are not as good as electronic systems at judging whether or not a ball passed through the rulebook strike zone. Since the robots’ errors are random and the humans’ are systematic, I prefer the robots.
Exchange I just witnessed on Twitter:
Person A: “I don’t understand why the Evangelical Republicans are fine with giving Israel 4 billion dollars a year, because abortions are paid for by the state. Doesn’t that mean our tax dollars are subsidizing their abortions?”
Person B: “Hi, Israeli here. Gender reassignment surgery is also free and paid for by the government here. We’re pretty progressive.”
@Teve: The most recent theories that I’ve seen on minimum wage show that low wage jobs are fairly durable because the ones that aren’t essential to operations get eliminated or replaced by automation. Businesses in general don’t hire people because they “have money available;” they hire people to expand their market share, boost production, and so on. Occasionally, I read of a business closing because of wage increases (a hardware store 20 miles away from my town will be doing that at the end of this month), but those businesses also tend to be sole proprietorships and/or are marginal anyway–as is the case of the hardware store 20 miles away. The minimum wage increase was simply the last nail in the coffin.
@Gustopher: I just read a little factoid in one of those “best places” type articles that was claiming that Seattle was 76.5% higher than the average for cost of living. Considering that the median home price there has been pegged at a little over $700k–down 4.5% from last year–I wouldn’t be surprised. I know I can’t afford to live there any more, but it was a good place to grow up in, until about 68 or 69.
@Teve:
Ditto.
Just a thought on minimum wage. Why not:
1) have it pegged to inflation so that it automatically changes every year;
2) have it initially pegged to the local cost of living so that a Seattle would start at 100% and Sh!tville might start at, say, 33%;
3) over the span of a generation, have the local minimum follow a formula that slowly brings the wage up to something approaching the full value.
Any reason that wouldn’t work?
@DrDaveT:
I think it helps to think in terms of freedom and rights. Freedom just needs the government to get out of the way, whereas rights require government involvement: e.g. freedom to smoke marijuana vs rights to buy with confidence and security. And ultimately, the two compliment each other. Growing up poor, sick and ignorant is no freedom at all. Truly maximizing freedom requires government involvement in the economy, in health care, and in education, which of course means people can’t just do whatever the hell they want. And for that, people must outgrow adolescence. Oops! I meant Libertarianism.
@Kit: I always ask libertarians to show me an example of a modern society that followed libertarianism and managed to remain stable and fruitful. They can’t do it. It doesn’t exist.
(and no, I don’t mean a small village government in 11th century Iceland, either. If you have to stretch that far back, you’ve got a pretty piss-poor argument.)
Libertarianism mainly appeals to a certain type of bright young men who a) don’t know history b) have never had to take care of someone else c) don’t know law, and d) don’t understand human nature. MIT is littered with them. In my day, half of what MIT female students did in their interactions with MIT male students was explain how life really works, not the one they had made up in their heads.
@MarkedMan: You’ll rue the day!
P.S. Having read some stuff by Murray Rothbard, the only thing I can conclude is that he was a nut.
@Gustopher: I added to the down vote you gave me, just on the basis of bad grammar. How many times can a grown man mix up “here” and “hear”? Never mind the uncorrected random iOS mid sentence capitalization….
@DrDaveT: That’s the best and most compact non-sarcastic critique of Libertarianism I’ve ever seen.
@grumpy realist:
Yeah, it’s a stepping-stone philosophy, like Objectivism or Communism.
Over the years people have pointed me to “Reason” magazine as the voice of the intellectual Libertarian. I read a few articles but they struck me as very Conservative-Think-Tank-ish, i.e, they have a point to make and simply ignore any solid evidence against that point, instead arguing against straw men. But I assumed that as far as Libertarians are concerned they were staffed and edited by the adults in the room. However, I just got done with Preet Bharara’s book and there is a brief passage in there about the tactics the magazine took when they decided his work as US Attorney General was inconveniencing them. Think of every negative stereotype of Libertarians as ignorant but opinionated and nasty, and how they would react when an authority figure started challenging them. Think of the reddit doxing crowd. Think of the Gamer-gate incels.
If libertarianism has any intellectual future, then it will need to evolve. But that sort of work can only happen after the current keepers of the flame die off. As Paul Samuelson put it: Inexact sciences like economics advance funeral by funeral.
@MarkedMan:
Dangit now I’m going to have to read his book. He already has one of the best podcasts out there.
@MarkedMan:
I’ve never heard of this situation. Is there a summary somewhere of what happened?
@Teve: I had put the audiobook on hold at the library several months ago and was actually a little reluctant when it came up. I’m not a fan of biography for the most part so wondered if it was simply going to be his life story. The other alternative was that it to be rehashing his podcast to which I listen every week. It turned out to be neither. Basically, every section starts with something he feels is important about the pursuit of justice within the legal system, he expounds on that and then gives examples from his experience. You can tell he isn’t a professional essayist but I found it insightful and interesting.
😛 😛 😛 😛 😛 😛 😛 😛 😛
CNN says Acosta is gone.
Some tech news:
“Say hello to Scotty, the oldest and biggest T. rex ever found” (SciWorthy)
“Nintendo Switch Lite: What we know so far”
(Gamespot)
“Is your Smartphone secretly listening to you?”
(Consumer Reports)
(I know mine is)
“Amazon’s Prime Day” July 15 (The Verge)
“IKEA’s range of smart lighting is expanding”
(The Verge)
“New Cadillac Escapade could pack Camaro ZL1’s 650 horsepower V8 report says” (CNET)
Who said muscle cars were a thing of the past?
“Quantum teleportation is science fiction technology in real life”
(Northrup – Grunman)
@Teve: It arose because some commenters in Reason threatened to kill the federal judge who sat for the dark web Silk Road trial which, if deemed a credible threat, is a crime. This criminal enterprise did end up involving actual murders, so any threats to the judge’s life was taken seriously. As part of the investigation Bharara’s office requested the IP and any other information about the commenters. Reason refused so the AG’s office issued a subpoena. If it ended there some might think Reason’s editors were being principled. (I wouldn’t be one of them.) Instead Reason started a highly personalized campaign against Preet Bharara specifically both in the magazine and in Twitter and other social media. It appeared designed to inflame the lunatic fringe into doxing him and worse. They seem to have been careful not to host the inevitable doxing themselves or personally commit any crimes, and tread on the side of “only expressing an opinion no matter how vile”. But if this is the behavior of Libertarianism’s elite, then it basically fulfills the worst stereotype I have of them.
@MarkedMan: wow i had no idea. I definitely need to get this. Is this Doing Justice?
@Teve: Here’s the link to the publisher’s page. He only mentions the Reason stuff in passing, towards the end. You can tell it pissed him off but on the other hand the guy went after mob bosses, powerful politicians, wealthy sociopaths and (literally) attempted cannibals. He seems to take threats seriously, and understands the damage that can be done by reckless and immature people like those at Reason, but I think he takes it all as part of the job.
@MarkedMan: If it’s Doing Justice I can put a copy on hold at the local liberry. But after 3 weeks I still have 18,000 pages to go in Quicksilver. 😀
@Kit: Other than that it’s hard to sustain growth in an altruistic effort to help people not named (insert name here) over the course of a generation? No, I don’t see one.
@Just nutha ignint cracker: I don’t follow. Why would it be hard to sustain growth?
@Teve: “Doing Justice” is the one. His only book. Here’s the missing link.. Here’s another.
@Tyrell: My smartphone is never close enough to me to hear anything I say. I use it as a home phone and take my 3G phone with me where I need a telephone but not a laptop.
Also, I only give out my home phone number to business contacts for substitute teaching. About 5 total people in the United States know that number.
@Kit: Because people will become tired of raising the minimum wage for “those people” year after year. If you get it statutorily indexed, you get a different result, of course, but so far, localities have only been able to index to inflation, not a fixed rate of growth over and above inflation. Launch and initiative calling for the minimum wage to be raised, say 7% a year, guaranteed and see how far you get.
From an article over at the Guardian:
@MarkedMan: Glad you liked it 🙂
@Teve: Talking about this?
https://news.osu.edu/in-the-city-coyotes-know-to-look-before-crossing-the-street/
Here’s video of one waiting for a light before crossing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELUmfyDj_Pc