interiors

My response to the NYT article Who Will Watch the Agents Watching Our Borders? : The attack dogs are quite happy to have unfettered access to fresh meat. Restraining them, so that they would be fair and humane, and maybe even useful, runs counter to the savage mentality they embody. We have all read how immigration is actually a benefit, reducing crime, increasing salaries, improving the lives of immigrants as well as their surroundings. What would an animal like that attack dog about value or humanity, since it only wants more fresh meat, with comfort in knowing that they won't be restrained in the future...

I wrote a few responses to an article, Why More Democrats Are Now Embracing Conspiracy Theories in the The New York Times, first here and then here . The text of the first: If nothing else, conspiracy theories allude to things, while not absolutely true, are certainly possible, or hint at things that, while not an outright takeover, are concerns. Trump only needs an excuse, a terrorist incident, a violent leftist response, to initiate quasi-fascist control, a reduction in rights, harsh military responses to protests, increased surveillance, etc. His coziness with Russia, if not quite indicating a puppet-in-chief, indicates a lack of wariness that might be necessary when Russia does decide to invade another Eastern European country, or say, deploy military that threatens Europe. The fact that his advisors are all financial people, military hawks, with a [secretary] of state from Exxon, point to a possible war. A conspiracy theory would be that they are there to create a war,...

My response to Disabled, Shunned and Silenced in Trump’s America in the The New York Times: Thank you for this article. I had not read that the buffoon had removed the Disabilities section. It foreshadows what we know to come, hatred, ignorance, and abuse of the idiot in chief...

As part of an online back in forth on Google+, after a person claimed that US immigration ruined developing economies, I collected bits of useful information regarding the effect of emigration on the sending country. I used fairly open search terms, emigration effects, and although there were studies that were mixed about emigration, they were few, and one of those is not a study. One idea I've read, although did not find corroborating evidence of, stated that the drive to emigrate drove up the capabilities of the people left behind. Yes, developed countries often take the best of the developing world, but the drive to emigrate focuses many on education, so the ones left behind, and the country they inhabit, are better off. As an example, if you have 100 people in a country, and you have a system that says 10 can leave that score highest on an exam. Sixty (60) try to raise themselves by studying. At the end, 10 leave, leaving 50 more educated than when they started. So yes, the 1...

Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine My rating: 5 of 5 stars Not quite poetry in the traditional sense, thoughtful and powerful writing. View all my reviews

Wow, another highlighted comment, this time for a response to Krugman's post, And the Trade War Came : Trump might have made inflammatory statements about trade, from his cabinet choices it looks like a ploy to increase defense expenditures and oil profits. His hard-right appointees will unsettle regions, if not lead to all-out war, and doing so requires increases in defense, and a disrupted oil flow will increase the cost of oil that will increase Exxon's profit margin and turn US extraction profitable. Even his anti-terrorism slant would lead to profits in companies tied to Peter Thiel, Palantir. Expanding infrastructure and real estate deals, disguised as urban renewal, could also assist Trump, or at least enlarge his influence over the real estate world. You might be right in predicting he will increase tariffs, as well as foul trade in other ways, but most presidents tone down their rhetoric once they are in power. Unless Trump's business empire can benefit from di...

Another comment was noted as a NYT Pick, this one in a Krugman comment thread, Populism, Real and Phony - The New York Times A recent article implied that liberals weren't accepting populism, and of course we aren't, at least the US variant. In Europe there are different populist movements, left and right, although underlying the hostility of the fringe might be economics issues, the the left looks to be against austerity while the right tends to be proto-fascist. In the US, there only seems to be an authoritarian right. Obviously we are not incorporating the fascism of the right, and would only be willing to deal with the underlying human welfare concerns, not directly support the racist, xenophobic, militaristic, and sexist policies those groups express. Another post of mine in the same comment section was somewhat more popular, although not noted as a NYT Pick, in response to someone writing that we shouldn't imitate Republican obstructionism: The agendas are entir...