Redefining Reality

After a report saying that the nation has experienced a second quarter of negative growth in GDP, which has been the definition of a recession for more than fifty years, the White House is denying that we are in a recession because two quarters of negative growth is not the definition of a recession as everyone has thought for the past half century.

Just like we thought that a vaccine was a product that prevented the spread of an infectious pathogen. We were set straight on that one by the Biden White House. A vaccine does not stop the spread of a disease, like the smallpox vaccine did, it merely “reduces the risk of hospitalization or death.”

So we are now told that a recession is not defined by negative GDP, but is defined by “a much broader spectrum of data points,” which for some reason they cannot list for us. Probably because they have not made them up them yet. After all, the second negative GDP quarter was only announced yesterday.

From Politico we learn that the “National Bureau of Economic Research's Business Cycle Dating Committee can determine whether the U.S. economy is in a recession, based on a multitude of factors that can only be found several months or up to a year after a recession actually begins.” And, presumably after the current election cycle has passed as well.

Economist Ben White provided a tweet reading, “Yeah I did a bad tweet a while ago referring to two negative q’s in a row as  a recession. Should have known better at the time but it had been a while since I’d studied recession criteria and that’s not it.” Right. It had, "been a while since I’d studied recession criteria."

That was not particularly illuminating, so he amplified that the actual definition is “NBER and lots of data points beyond GDP.” He, too, does not elaborate on the “lots of data points.”

Wikipedia, which cannot be used for toilet paper because it is a virtual source, admits that its article, “may be affected by the following current event: Increased political debate in the United States.” No shit.

Anyway, it says that a recession, “In the United States, a recession is defined by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) as ‘a significant decline in economic activity spread across the market, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP, real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales’."

Wikipedia follows that with the statement that, “In the United Kingdom and most other countries, it is defined as negative economic growth for two consecutive quarters,” which is basically saying that the NBER, and the White House, are full of shit, which is kind of awesome.

Note that, despite its name, the NBER cited repeatedly above is a private economic research organization.

I don’t really care what the “lots of data points” are, two quarters of negative GDP growth tells me we are in a recession, and my observation and common sense told me that several months ago.

Say What?

A military expert is challenged with respect to his predictions on the war in Ukraine. "You have been predicting that the Russians will soon run out of missiles, ammo and men since mid-March. And yet as predictions go it never seems to come to pass." 

The expert responds, "It is an ongoing process." 

And we keep paying attention to these oracles of wisdom, seeking their "wisdom"  and publishing their opinions.

Echoing Obama

It was only a matter of time before Biden was parroting Obama with, "If Congress won't act, then I will," by means of imperial executive order.

Because we don't need no stinking constitution.

When in Doubt, Overreact

I love the hyperbolic overreaction to many of the recent Supreme Court decisions.

"Omigod, the government is not allowed to regulate carbon emissions any more!" 

Well, yes it is,  only the Supreme Court says it has to be done by elected legislators, not by unelected bureaucrats.

Roe v. Wade

Polling regarding the most recent Supreme Court decision is almost entirely stupid, because is seeks opinion on the legality of abortion, and the Supreme Court made no decision on that issue whatever. What it decided was simply that it is not a federal issue, is not an issue to be decided by the constitution, and that it must be decided by each state rather than by a federal court.

Each state is perfectly free to rule that abortion is entirely or partially legal within its borders, and many have done so. That includes California, which is experiencing rioting over the supposition that the Supreme Court outlawed abortion. Actually, the Supreme Court's decision had no effect whatever in this state, where abortion remains available to precisely the same degree that it did before the ruling. 

The media has not helped. Robert Kuttner, of The American Prospect, said of the ruling that, "the Court’s ruling today does a lot more than criminalize abortion." It did nothing of the sort, of course, let alone "a lot more." The Wall Street Journal referred to the decision as "eliminating a constitutional right to an abortion," which is another fiction. There was never a "constitutional right to an abortion," and this decision merely eliminated the fiction perpetrated by an earlier court.

What the Supreme Court even said in its ruling is that if the people of this nation want a nationwide legal right to abortion, then they can prevail upon their legislators to pass a federal law to that effect. Such a law would not be struck down because, while the constitution does not contain a provision guaranteeing abortion, it does not contain one prohibiting abortion either. The Court said explicitly they would have no problem with such a federal law should Congress decide to pass one.

Will Congress hear what was said and pass a law reflecting public opinion? Not only no but, "Oh, hell no." That would require a level of courage far above that which is possessed by Congress. They want no part of any decision on which the nation is anywhere near to being evenly divided. They punt such decisions to courts, and the executive branch. That's why they leave it to the President on all matters affecting the use of military force. That's why they will not pass a budget until the President proposes one, so that the media will endlessly prate about "the Bush tax cuts," even though Congress passed them. That's why "Obamacare" is called "Obamacare" even though Obama had almost nothing to do with any of the few good parts.

They won't pass an abortion law either; won't even allow the media to let the voters know that such a thing is possible.

"We Can't Look"

This is Willy protecting his sister, Missy, while their dad is watching a Dutchman in an English car being chased by a Spaniard in an Italian car for more than twenty laps. (Formula 1 does live up to its claim of being international racing.) A certain amount of swearing and yelling seemed like it might be pending.

Carlos Sainz was never more than 1.05 seconds behind Max Verstaffen, and was often as close as 0.025 seconds for the entire 20+ laps, and all it would have taken was for Max to breathe wrong and he would have been passed. The pass never happened, and the swearing and yelling was averted. A small amount of screaming did occur when the Red Bull took the checkered flag, but the cats are used to that.

Sunday's Stock Car Race

Dale Earnhardt Jr said that Sunday’s race at Charlotte, NC was a “good race” which he enjoyed watching.

I would like to know what his definition is of “bad racing.” There were 28 caution flags during the race, on average one every 14 laps, and 17 of 38 drivers (45%) failed to finish due to crashes.

Not sure how anyone could describe that as a “good race.”

Failure to Think

 Is building homes for the homeless really a solution?

You have a family member who is running a fever, with a temperature of 105 degrees. You take him to a doctor who says he will solve the problem by putting the person in a bathtub filled with ice water.

If you have any capacity for critical thinking, you know that the fever is not the problem. The fever is the result of an underlying illness, and you expect the doctor to discover that underlying illness and to treat it.

So why do we settle for politicians “solving the homeless problem” by simply building homes for the homeless?

When a politician sees a person living in squalor on the street, he tells us that we can take care of that person by saying that the person’s problem is that he/she is “homeless” and giving that person a free home.

But being homeless is not that person’s problem any more than the 105 degree temperature was your family member’s problem. Being homeless is the result of a problem that the person had before they became homeless. That problem might be any one of or a combination of many things; alcohol or drug addiction, mental health issues, family problems, employment problems and more.

To actually help that person it is necessary to look at her/him not as a member of a class (“homeless”), but to look at him/her as an individual and determine why that person lost their home to begin with, and to help them with that problem.

But that is hard to do, and politicians don’t do hard things.

On "Rushing In"

I have an explanation, I suspect, for the cops in Uvalde who loitered outside the school. They were pretty sure that it would be necessary to shoot and kill the shooter inside, and that the shooter was a person of color. 

They also knew that if you take down a criminal who is a person of color, you will be put on trial for murder and will spend the rest of your life in prison.

On Banning Guns

A person becomes enraged and drives his car into a crowd of people, killing many. Not hypothetical. It has happened more than once. How many times has it resulted in calls to ban automobiles?

Clarity of Thought

According the the latest Rasmussen poll, 44% of the American public approves of the job Biden is doing, while only 26% think America is heading in the right direction.

 How many people inhabit both the "performance approval" and "wrong direction" groups is not readily apparent from the poll, but clearly, even if 100% of the "right direction" group are Biden supporters, 41% (18% of the 44%) of Biden supporters approve of the manner in which he is leading this nation in the wrong direction.

Moon Soil?

"In a NASA-funded study, scientists at the University of Florida grew plants in soil collected from the moon, according to a study published Thursday in the journal Communications Biology." 

 I'm not sure why they're so excited about this. The best tomatoes I ever ate were grown at the University of Arizona Agricultural Extension using no soil at all.

Photographic Evidence, Not

I have found it interesting that so many news items lately, especially with respect to the “Special Military Action” in Ukraine, but not limited to that subject, are accompanied by photographs which actually seem to prove the content of the article to be inaccurate.

For instance, one article went on at great length about Russia digging trenches with bulldozers and committing mass burials of bodies in Ukraine. It was accompanied by an aerial photograph of a field filled with what are obviously neatly dug individual graves in precise rows, so clearly visible that the viewer can see that one row and part of another are still open and waiting to be used.

Another article was reporting the tale of a Ukrainian soldier who had observed the destruction by artillery of a Russian column attempting to cross a river which he said would require “about ten pontoon segments” to bridge. He went on to report that the artillery began when eight segments had been placed and that dozens of tanks were destroyed and about 3000 Russian soldiers were killed.

That article, too, was accompanied by an aerial photograph, showing four tanks, a river and some pontoons. One pontoon spanned halfway across the river so it would take two, or at most three, of them to facilitate the river crossing, and in any case only two pontoons were shown in the photo.

I really don’t get the media’s process of, “I’m going to show you a picture that illustrates the falsity of the story I just told.” Weird.

Government Speak

San Diego Gas & Electric paid $100 million for a franchise to deliver power to the city of San Diego just one year ago. It was the second such payment, agreed upon after the first franchise expired. There was only one bidder; which is quite understandable, since SDG&E already had the infrastructure in place and any other bidder would have to purchase that infrastructure from SDG&E if they were to assume the franchise.

The city then formed what it calls a "consumer cooperative," in which the city  purchases power from other producers and delivers it to SDG&E customers over SDG&E power lines, passing a law that forced SDG&E to accept the proposition and set the transmission rates that SDG&E could charge. They also made it automatic that all consumers in the city are automatically enrolled in the "cooperative."

 

Calling something that is owned and operated by the city government rather than by the membership who are consuming the product a "cooperative" is pretty weird. It's actually a form of socialism, but of course the city government didn't want to go down that rabbit hole.

This action, of course, made the franchise worth far less than SDG&E paid for it, but the city government considered that a feature, not a bug. Any time a government can screw a business, it will leap at the opportunity.

So the local newspaper carried a headline on May first, when the "cooperative" went into effect and the franchise was officially breached, "SDG&E Monopoly Ends Today." Monopoly, forsooth.

Waiting

There has been quite a lot in the news lately about a mysterious outbreak of unexplained hepatitis in young people. Unexplained as in not caused by the usual viruses and causes.

Most people think that hepatitis is a specific disease, but it’s not. It is merely a “disorder,” meaning that there is something wrong in the liver. It can be caused by a number of things, most of which have been identified.

This latest outbreak has not been, and current thinking is an adenovirus. Not very likely, actually, since the virus in question has been around for a very long time, is extremely common, and has never caused hepatitis before. Why would it do so now?

I have been waiting for someone to connect this liver ailment to an article regarding the Pfizer Covid vaccine, describing an issue which almost certainly applies to all mRNA Covid vaccines.  The article is very technical and a bit difficult to read, but it says a couple of things that are of concern.

One is that the mRNA in the vaccine does transcribe into DNA in human cells, which it was not supposed to do, and the other is that the liver is one of the primary places that it does that. In other words, the mRNA vaccine is, in fact, engaging in genetic engineering in the people who receive the vaccine, the vaccine is actually "gene therapy," and specifically the DNA change is happening in the liver.

Is that connected to the hepatitis outbreak? I have no idea, as the subject is way over my head, but why is no one asking that question?

Define "democracy"

We charmingly claim that the United States, and the local governments within it, are democratic because we elect representatives who govern in accordance with the principles and wishes of the citizenry which elected them to office.

Case in point, a headline that reads, “San Diego County Supervisors vote 3-2 to redefine ‘woman’.”

Specifically, the council passed an new ordinance which makes it illegal to discriminate against women in the City of San Diego. On the face of it, such an ordinance would seem to be entirely symbolic, since state and federal laws already make it illegal to discriminate based on sex, but the City Council injected a twist.

The new ordinance provides that the protection, “extends to transgender women, gender nonconforming women, youth, and those assigned female at birth, which includes transgender men and intersex communities.” 

"Intersex communities?"  The ordinance includes both transgender women and transgender men, so the City Council apparently believes that you are a woman and are protected as such even if you declare yourself to be a man. I’m not sure I get that, but I am old enough to not quite understand the principles of transgenderism.

To make sure the ordinance is not unclear, it continues to declare that, “the term ‘discrimination against women’ includes any distinction, exclusion, or restriction on the basis of gender and sex assigned at birth.” Assigned by whom?

So far, that is all just a case of Democratic Party liberalism, no big deal, and the ordinance passed with three Democrats voting for it and two non-Democrats voting against.

There was, however, a time for public discussion prior to the vote, and 437 members of the public spoke against the measure, while only 40 spoke in favor of it. One person said that, “[I]t is an honor to be women, and the idea that men can simply identify as one, is degrading to all women.”

So with the public speaking more than 10:1 against the measure, all three members of the Democratic Party voted in favor of it. The irony is hard to miss, but pretty much all Democrats will miss it.

Clickbait

Every once in a while, I bite. I can't help it. Curiousity.

One deal shows the little black diamond on a tape measure and says it's going to tell you why it's there. I've never survived all the clicks, gotten past all of the other "facts" (many of them nonsensical), that might be required to find out. I know it has something to do with the center of studs in the wall of a house, but I didn't learn that by hitting clickbait.

Another one is going to tell you why there are holes in the prongs of an electric plug. Hell, I'm a licensed electrician, so I probably should know that. Embarrassingly, I don't. I've hit that clickbait several times, spent endless hours clicking "Next," crashed my computer twice, and I still don't know.

I read comments, so if you know, feel free.

 

Update, Wed. Apr 20: Aha. I was right; the holes in the electric plug are definitely not to engage a detent in the socket.  Some guy dismantled a bunch of sockets and none of them had any such detents. 

 

Turns out that, according to the National Electrical Manufacturers Association the holes are "optional, but if present must be located as illustrated above and are for manufacturing purposes." Most plugs are cast, and the holes are for a rod to hold the prongs in position while the material is poured into the die and allowed to solidify.

Unhinged

There is a bill pending in the California legislature, and one like it at the federal level, which would mandate that all companies with 500 or more employees adopt a 32-hour work week, paying overtime to those who work more than 32 hours in a week.

Politicians refer to it as a “populist” concept, and workers are thrilled at the idea of working fewer days/hours per week. As far as I can tell, economists are silent on the subject so far, but I have gone through all of the economic problems that this country is suffering at the moment, and it seems to me that every one of them would be made significantly worse by this policy.

We have shortages of practically every product one can name, so let’s have workers work fewer hours, make fewer products, and create even more severe shortages. Why does anyone think that this is a good idea?

Perhaps the idea is that more workers will be hired to fill out the work week, but we also have a labor shortage, so how is that going to pan out? We can’t fill the job openings we have, so let’s create more job openings. Really?

Inflation is eating up wage gains, so the pay that workers are receiving is  buying less and less.  So let’s reduce their buying power even further with a reduction of their income due to shorter working hours. Brilliant.

If we increase workers’ hourly pay to offset the reduced hours it would mean increasing the price of the products they are producing. That would make inflation even higher than it is now, and it’s already the worst it has been in four decades. Who thinks that is a good idea?

On the other hand, reducing working class income means less consumer spending, which trashes the economy. We all want to see that happen, right?

This nation has broken out in an epidemic of highly contagious stupidity, which seems to have originated in California and is spreading out of control.

Hot Air

The endless ranting about how Democrats are going to “lose control” of Congress in this year’s midterm election is beginning to get on my nerves.

For one thing there is no guarantee that any such thing is going to happen. Democrats are still very much in control of the election process, a process while lasts almost an entire year and of which “election day” in November is more or less merely symbolic. It is done mostly in back rooms (no longer “smoke filled”) and involves primary elections in which only party hacks and fanatics vote. 

 

In the last general election involving the US Senate in California, voters were offered a choice between two Democratic candidates, both of whom were females.

You call that a democratic (small ‘d”) election?

And that's assuming that today's elections are legitimate, which is by no means assured. Maybe they are, but I would not stake my fortune making a bet on it.

 
Even if it did happen, there is no reason to think that it would effect any meaningful change in governance of the nation. No Republican Congress has ever undone anything that the preceding Democratic ones have done in several decades.

The last time we had Republican control of both houses of Congress we had a Republican president in the White House, and Congress claimed it could do nothing because it was hamstrung by the Democratic minority which “blocked its initiatives at every turn.”

Funny how a Democratic minority can frustrate a Republican majority, but the inverse situation creates an unfettered Democratic control of Congress, which can be frustrated only when one or two of its own party members refuses to “toe the line.”

14,610 Days

To save you the time of breaking out your calculator, that is 40 years, the length of time since the last time I got drunk. It's also the last time since I had a drink of alcohol. Same thing.