politics – Shortwoman.com

Infrastructure

The other day a bridge collapsed (no, not the one in the picture). Old news, right? The NTSB is investigating, and they’re going to find that maintenance that should have been done, repairs that should have been made, renovations that should have been budgeted for, weren’t. I can say that without fear of contradiction; only the details are yet to be determined.

It’s not the first bridge to collapse, just the first big one this year. There’s other things that fall down when they aren’t supposed to as well. For a long time, we’ve been putting off repairs on our bridges, roads, schools, and other infrastructure, and the bill is coming due. It’s been bad enough for long enough that even Trump ran on promises to put money into infrastructure. This appealed to many of the people the Clinton campaign urged to “be reasonable.”

The Biden Administration did manage to get an infrastructure bill passed, but it’s probably too little and spread out over too many things. We also need state and local governments to get out the checkbooks and say “we need to fix this stuff before somebody gets hurt.” Oh but that will raise taxes. This is one of those cases where an ounce of prevention really is better than a pound of cure.

Regrettably, state and local governments want to argue over whether masks are important and what books should get banned instead of making sure the road less travelled remains a road at all.

Shorties or Dare

How do you solve a problem like Maria: And why are we still dragging our feet about making sure Puerto Rico gets the help it needs? Fun fact: Puerto Ricans have been American Citizens for over a hundred years. Oh, Source.

On wages: Or, didn’t know Axios was still out there.

Diet Tip: HCG is the only “diet drug” out there with a black box warning saying it doesn’t work for weight loss.

On Hunting: and the NRA.

And finally, Oopsies: Turns out there are many corporate owned Democrats that take a bunch of money from the private prison corporations that benefited from family separations.

I believe

I believe that both political parties have lost their minds. They’re both so far out of touch with what their voters want and need that they may as well run the country from Mars.

I believe that the no-fly list as it exists today — with many ways on, no clear way to get off if there’s an error and no accountability — is a dumb idea exceeded only by PreCheck. PreCheck is proof that the whole process is Security Theatre, and that some people are willing to pay for convenience. It assumes that nobody ever hides radical tendencies, nobody ever becomes a Bad Guy, nobody ever goes crazy, and certainly nobody ever has their identity stolen. Oh yeah, and the current long airport security lines? They may well be designed to manipulate you into paying.

I believe that making the no-fly list into a no-gun list is also stupid. Funny how nobody suggested the idea until we had some Muslim mass shooters. The problem is that none of them were actually on the list. In fact, this last asshat was actually removed from the watchlist. Twice. Yet now sensible ideas such as universal background checks are being conflated with this bad idea.

I believe that the Second Amendment — along with the rest of the Bill of Rights — was written by men who overthrew the legal government.

I believe that, since it costs 18 times as much as life in prison (not just a little bit more, but 18 times more!) and there’s the possibility of making a mistake, there is no reason to support the death penalty. Conservatives should oppose it on fiscal grounds. Liberals should oppose it on fairness grounds. The end.

I believe that Obamacare is neither as good nor as bad as everybody says. I further believe it could be greatly improved by allowing people to buy in to Medicare: a public option that means I don’t have to enrich for-profit insurance companies to follow the law.

I believe that a social safety net is a good thing. Don’t believe it? You don’t even need to read Les Miserables to understand how that works, you can now watch it.

I believe immigration is hopelessly messed up in this nation. That is partly due to quotas, which are both artificially low and outright discriminatory against people who are not white and English speaking. Illegals need to “go to the back of the line“? That line is something like 17 years long. Talk about a sick joke.

I believe that America’s largest employers, including and especially the military, deserve to know that any high school graduate from any school in the United States has certain skills in reading, writing, and math. However, I believe that Common Core is not that standard.

I believe in school choice. I also believe that taxpayers should not pay for your choice if it is not a public school. And as many rules as get forced down as a condition of receiving funds? Parents should not want money that could have strings attached later.

I believe it’s entirely possible that I’ve become so liberal that I’ve come around the other side of the spectrum and somehow become conservative. In fact, I actually agreed with Glenn Reynolds about something. I suppose there’s a first time for everything.

Book Review: Fire Touched

I know it’s been a long time since I put out a book review. Forgive me?

The opinions presented are my own. I’m not getting paid for this review. I bought my own copy and read it pretty much as fast as I could.

This week, the latest entry in Patricia Briggs‘s “Mercy Thompson” series came out. I’ve been following this series since the 3rd book was new (and the Alpha and Omega series from the beginning). So for those not familiar with the world: Mercy is a VW mechanic whose Native American heritage shows up in the form of being able to turn into a coyote; her husband is the Alpha of the werewolf pack in the Tri-Cities area of Washington state; due to circumstances that would take multiple novels to fully explain, the Faerie races have declared war on the United States Government; the werewolves are trying very hard to stay neutral in this war with limited success.

This particular installment begins when Mercy wakes with an uneasy feeling. Little does she know that by nightfall, she will be on the evening news after the pack defeats a troll on a bridge, and she makes an interesting declaration. You can check out the first chapter here. Or get your own digital copy here.

Let’s be clear. This novel is a bit of a departure from the tone of the series. The first half or so is pretty amusing, since Mercy does have a rather wicked sense of humor. However, lacking is that tear-jerker climax about 70-80% of the way through the book. This is a book that is primarily concerned with the plot arc. It establishes certain facts that will assuredly be important in the next books. It ties certain short stories into the larger plot. Bonus appearance by Baba Yaga! This is not the place to pick up the story, but it is a decent read.

And I do seriously wonder how Mercy’s lavender plant will turn out. It could be very interesting indeed.

In closing: a little bit of TPP; a few NSA, FBI, encryption, and privacy items for you; exercise and your brain; a bit of political stuff (psst! He’s right behind you!); Vegas judges; I notice Generation X is missing from these graphs; and bonus kittens.

Next Time… on Dragonballlllll Zeeeeeee!

Normally my Picture This posts are pictures I actually took myself. This is an exception.

This handsome fellow is Vegeta, Prince of a nearly extinct race of space-faring warriors called the Saiyans. He never bothered to have himself crowned king after his father died during the destruction of his home planet.

And this is his son, Trunks. Well, strictly speaking it’s his son from an alternate future, come back to help keep the Earth from being destroyed by androids.

The other day I realized that Trunks is drawn with Vegeta’s face and purple hair. They even have the same charming scowl. Here, the resemblance is easier to see this way:

At least he has his mother’s eyes.

In Closing: Same Old Story; checking my privilege; yeah, that helps; deserving; and painting a 737.

Blood from a Turnip

This morning when I woke up, I had 67 email messages in my inbox. Over 60 were asking for donations: this candidate, that political movement, charities and whatnot. There were more in my spam folder, and yet more that had already been filtered to a “political” folder.” Another half dozen begging messages or so have arrived every hour since then. More than a few have tried to guilt me into giving, imploring me to help unlock matching funds, defeat political bad guys, or simply implying that my lack of giving must surely be a mistake. Yes, I did a bunch more “unsubscribes” today. Part of me wishes I had thought to add up the minimum recommended donations for each one of these emails.

Let’s just say for the sake of argument that I have a total 80 begging emails today — remember, that’s just today, and that’s a bare minimum. And let’s say that on average each one asked for “only $5.” In real life, some asked for only $3, and others asked for $20. So, 80 emails times $5 each is $400.

Yeah, not gonna happen.

I do declare, I have no use for Debbie Wasserman-Schultz or Reince Priebus.

EDIT: 4 more emails asking for contributions arrived while I was writing this post!

For the record, the other emails were almost exclusively asking me to buy stuff. At least I would have something at the end of that transaction.

In Closing: hush now; Japan has always had a knack for making things smaller; let’s do this over the Holidays and hope nobody asks a bunch of questions; well, being forced to buy a product from highly profitable corporations is better than nothing, I guess; Unintended Result; nothing to hide, in a world where buying gardening supplies can get you a SWAT raid; and thank goodness Radley Balko is out there telling the truth.

10 Observations on the New Star Wars Movie, No Spoilers

Image from IMDB, so please visit them. Yes, I actually paid money to see it. In 3D no less. So in no particular order, my observations:

Dear Directors of 3D Films and Trailers: If you could please stop making it appear that things are aimed right at my head, I’d appreciate it! — Thanks!
It turns out that nurses “long ago in a galaxy far away” use pretty much the same therapeutic communication that nurses use here on this planet.
There is nothing in The Force Awakens that suggests the Zahn Trilogy didn’t happen. However, the Extended Universe might no longer be canon.
There are details of the soundtrack that I am distinctly unhappy about. Williams uses a 19th century technique that pairs characters and/or events with thematic material. I was ok with “Luke’s Theme” becoming “the Skywalker Theme,” but now it’s just the “Rebels doing cool stuff theme.” Best moments of the soundtrack were the strategic usage of “Leia’s Theme” and “Kenobi’s Theme” (also known as the “crazy old powerful Jedi wizard theme”).
All those things you suspect? Yeah, probably true.
I would love to be wrong about this one, but it sure looked to me like the right corner of Harrison Ford’s mouth droops a little bit.
J.J. Abrams knows how to play up a scene for maximum suspense, before doing the obvious thing.
Of course there’s a trash compactor!
Droids are good at comic relief. And it’s amazing how small an astromech can be these days!
Nice set up for the sequel. Hope they don’t screw it up.

In Closing: TPP is still not good; Department of Homeland Stasi; liars; obvious; sandwiches. I hope to put together something soon about the current proposal to make the No-Fly List into a No-Gun-Buy List — a proposal that only got traction after a mass shooting happened to be perpetrated by a Muslim instead of an angry and/or crazy white man.

Hindsight

Apparently, former Fed chief Ben Bernanke has a new book about how he saved ~~Christmas~~ the economy. That means a bunch of econ bloggers and Serious People have to say something about it. The NYT Sunday Book Review likes it, although they called it “a bit of a slog.” You can buy your own copy here.

In Closing: least of our worries; unfortunately I don’t see a way to solve this problem; I bet we laugh at this fashion trend a decade from now; yeah that’s a problem; breaking the rules; maybe you could have educated the patient up front?; and voting.

Is that the best you can do?

Today I came upon this image:

I agree that the news media often choose not to report things that are important in favor of things that get ratings. However, the list of “what you should know about” is focused on environmental issues and barely gives lip service to other important things the media isn’t covering. Here’s a few things you should know about that might not make your evening news:

The TPP isn’t dead yet; if it gets ratified, you will have fewer rights and corporations will be more powerful. Heck, you might not even know the TPP was a thing if you relied on the evening news.
The cops can use devices that force your cell phone to tell them where you are — unless a judge catches them.
You aren’t imagining. You are working harder for less.
Those politicians out there trying to earn votes for an election over a year from now are mostly bought and paid for by special interests.
There’s probably a kid that died in your metropolitan area, too.
There are multiple humanitarian crises going on in the world right now.
Over 40,000 Americans commit suicide each year. That works out to one every 13 minutes, and one a day in my city. You might be able to do something about that.
Since the list was a bit food centric, here’s a food item: Congress doesn’t think you need to know where your meat was raised.

And that’s just a short list.

In Closing: Liverpool; ramen; resume; then she should find a job that doesn’t require her to do things that conflict with her religion (oh, you thought I was talking about that marriage license thing?); not having the desired effect on his image;

Thoughts on the State of the Union Address

The President characterized the Trans Pacific Partnership as “Americans writing the rules.” It would have been more accurate to say corporations writing the rules. I did like how he dealt with Republican clapping when he announced that he’d run his last election. I wonder if maybe he didn’t ask Senator Franken for some tips on dealing with hecklers. Here’s somebody who actually knows something about economics talking about some of the President’s tax ideas. I do hope his college proposal doesn’t just extend the time when youngsters have the security of not having to necessarily have any skills.

The Republican rebutting the President (whose voice I find patronizing and annoying, but that’s on me) called Keystone XL a “jobs” bill when it is nothing of the sort. And once more I ask: if this stuff is so great and it’s going to create so many jobs, how come the Canadians are letting us ship it here rather than processing it there?

On good and bad habits: it’s apparently easier to do yoga while sober (I’ve never done it drunk, so I don’t know); thinking and doing; America isn’t the only nation that has a racism problem; healthy eating tips; avoiding salt doesn’t necessarily have to be one of those tips.

In Closing: fair housing and Ferguson; sensible; pointlessly gendered; 100 students; not a bad simplified explanation of how viruses work; the boy who rode his bike; and exploding kittens.