So sad

Regardless of whether Joe Biden is lying, misinformed or confused this is so sad. Maybe sadder is how many people will believe him and a little the mainstream media will care.

Omar Out

Even MSNBC understands

“The decibel level at which Democrats are arguing in Omar’s favor is designed to convince you that a grave injustice is being done to her. But the relevant precedents, Omar’s conduct and the case her fellow Democrats made against her betrays the theater of it all.”

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/ilhan-omars-committee-removal-was-long-time-coming-rcna68872

48% of Democrats can’t denounce socialism

House of Representative Resolution: “Congress denounces socialism in all its forms, and opposes the implementation of socialist policies in the United States of America,”

For: 219 Republicans , 109 Democrats

Against: 86 Democrats

Present: 14 Democrats

Vaccines-Biden stuck on impulse power

Trump’s Operation Warp Speed developed a 1st generation, new vaccine for a new virus in an astonishingly short time and was the highest benefit to cost ratio of any government program since the Manhattan Project.(1)

Unfortunately, Biden seems to be stuck in impulse drive and has done little to accelerate the development of the 2nd generation vaccine needed. 

Since early 2022 there have been calls to develop 2nd generation vaccines and since August 2022 it was clear that repeated mRNA boosters making essentially the same spike protein antigen was problematic. mRNA Boosters seem to cause B cells to switch from producing IgG1/3 to producing IgG4. This class switch was associated with a reduced capacity of the spike-specific antibodies to mediate antibody-dependent cellular phagocytosis and complement deposition  This reduction in booster vaccine efficacy was not seen with adenoviral vectors. (1)(2)

(1)https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2022/04/an-operation-warp-speed-for-nasal-vaccines.html

(2)https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/sciimmunol.ade2798?rfr_dat=cr_pub++0pubmed&url_ver=Z39.88-2003&rfr_id=ori%3Arid%3Acrossref.org

ChatGPT - Biased

ChatGPT is a relatively new web based artificial intelligence program that is quite good and can actually answer most questions, creat content, etc., BUT turns out its programmers have their own political biases that will limit its usefulness. One example below. 

Biden is intellectually dishonest

Lying - to make an untrue statement with the intent to deceive.

Intellectually Dishonest - to make a factual statement out of context with the intent to deceive.

Biden often makes claims that sound like he is doing a great job: reducing debt, lower gas prices, lower inflation, lower deficits, more jobs, etc.  However, if you listen carefully, he makes these claims relative to arbitrary baselines, often influenced by the negative effect of the pandemic. If his claims are looked at in context they are completely intellectually dishonest.

A quick review of Biden's first 2 years:

Fixing the debt problem - NOPE - The US continues to increase the size of its debt and more critical, significantly increasing the size of it's unfunded liabilities (Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security.) Money doesn't grow on trees and someday the US will have a big problem with its debt that will require massive cuts to entitlements either directly or indirectly through significant inflation.

Gasoline Prices - NOPE - still higher, still restricting crude production and still stealing from strategic oil reserve.

Natural Gas Prices - NOPE - still higher and still restricting production.

Inflation - NOPE - prices are higher and climbing faster.

Mortgage Rates - NOPE - higher.

Deficits - NOPE - still higher than normal.

Jobs - NOPE - too many people not working

 

Biden killing nuclear power

NRC (1) staff has proposed an alternative risk evaluation approach in the draft Part 53 rule, the alternative evaluation of risk insights (AERI), that results in mathematically impossible conditions(2).

(1) https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/fs-reactor-license-renewal.html

(2) https://thebreakthrough.imgix.net/AERI-whitepaper-2.pdf

World NEEDS more nuclear energy

The increased intensity of energy usage has been a critical factor in the successful development of the world.  Energy for industrialization, farming, light, fresh plentiful inexpensive food, clean water,  temperature control, computers, transportation, medical equipment, etc, have all contributed to the successful development of the developed world. The world currently consumes ~565 EJ (1 exajoule = 174 million barrels of oil.)

However, and unfortunately, there are still billions of people on the earth, primarily in undeveloped parts of the world, that do not have access to cheap abundant energy and are still living with limited food, temperature control, access to medical care, transportation etc. 

It is estimated that the world will need 1.6-2.8 times more energy than currently produced to provide adequate energy supply for the developed world to attain the standard of living of the developed world.

With this clear need for significant more energy for the world the questions becomes one of what type of energy should be used.

There is a current trend towards claiming that renewable, primarily wind and solar,  energy is the answer based on the claim that these energy sources are clean and have reached the cost of fossil fuels.

However, what is ignored in this position, ignoring any discussion regarding their cleanness, is their hidden cost.  For both wind and solar there is a significant additional cost required because there are extended periods when the wind doesn't blow, or blows to hard, and when the sun doesn't shine.  This means that when you add electrical generating capacity based on solar or wind, you have to build and operate a completely additional redundant system to cover the time that renewables aren't produce.  Whether these are fossil fuel, nuclear, or energy storage, they are costly and required.

The question seems to be what energy source might be best.  Based on economics, if you believe that fossil fuels have a significant externality, then nuclear fuel would be the most cost effective solution and specifically the Small Modular Reactors (SMR) recently developed that greatly improve the already safety of nuclear power.

And for those concerned about the storage of nuclear power waste there are two pragmatic solutions.  First is to just store long term the small amount of waste.  A typical large nuclear power plant might produce a cubic yard of solid nuclear waste. Second, and even better, would be to utilize high temperature nuclear reactors to further burn/utilize the spent fuel from SMRs to generate more electricity, more fuel and reduce the remaining waste to a tiny fraction, ~6 inch cube. 

ESG hurts

Legally maximizing shareholder value keeps politics out of markets and  will be best for everyone’s wealth. 

Adding additional constraints on companies can never help.

Pressuring companies to add any efficiencies to society, or their business operations is not a good idea

Hmmmmmm

 

Fair Tax proposal good starting point

Our income tax system is extremely complicated and a significant cost on society. It taxes investment and work. The current tax code is approximately 2000 pages in the associated rulings over 9000 pages. 

The minimum tax burden today is estimated to be 32.3%, on incremental income, i.e. working more and making more. This includes income tax, Social Security, tax, Medicare, tax and corporate taxes. Everyone needs understand that corporate taxes are essentially passed on to consumers, workers, and shareholders, essentially taxing them.

There is a proposal to replace the entire IRS income tax with a consumption tax of 23% and offer a cash payment to all households up to the equivalent consumption tax at the poverty level. 

A consumption tax is the most efficient way to tax and economy. 

I support, the concept of a fair tax. 

Proposal:

Consumption tax if 23% of what you spend. 

Provide cash payments to offset consumption tax up to poverty level income/consumption. 

Current:

Income tax minimum 10%

SS tax 12.4%

Medicare tax 2.9%

Corporate tax passed on to customers, workers and shareholders ~7% 

Minimum 32.3% on ALL income

You spend less than you make.

No IRS reduces cost of government

No complicated forms reduces cost of tax prep

Why don't these black lives matter to BLM?

 

Leading Cause of Death for Young Black Males: Homicide not Police.

Using the most recent data from the CDC, 2021, on the cause of death and the Washington Post's Police Shootings we see that blacks are being murdered at more than 10 times the rate of whites and almost 100 times the rate they are shot by police and even of these police shootings only 3.4% were of unarmed victims. And based on the 2020 FBI Crime in the United States 88% of black homicides are committed by blacks. 

If black lives matter, and I think they do along with all other lives, I am amazed that more people, especially the Democrats and BLM, are not focusing on reducing the black homicides.

And while poverty is a minor factor in crime rate, it is clear that there are other key factors correlated with race that are associated with higher crime rates

Border (Still) Out of Control

Biden’s border policies continue to be a mess, put many innocents at risk AND allow Mexican cartels to get rich.

I support immigration. A lot of immigration. But legal immigration, with a mix of merit based  (engineers, scientists, entrepreneurs, doctors, mathematicians, etc.) and opportunity-based (people who want to work hard, adopt American values, and get ahead). 

(Note-The numbers are the apprehensions. We do not know how many people get through without being apprehended.)

Woke is wrong

The invasion of our education system by wokeness  will only increase the disparities. Just a small sample of the craziness:

Alison Collins, the Vice President of the San Francisco Board of Education, has declared meritocracy to be racist even in the selection of students at advanced or gifted programs.

Professor Natalie Gosnell has declared that astrophysics is a racist field. “As an astrophysicist, I’m a product of institutions that are steeped in systemic racism and white supremacy…The [tenets] of white supremacy that show up [in physics] of individualism and exceptionalism and perfectionism… it’s either-or thinking, and there’s…no subtlety, there’s no gray area.”

University of Rhode Island and Director of Graduate Studies of History Erik Loomis who has defended the murder of a conservative protester and said that he saw “nothing wrong” with such acts of violence. (A view defended by other academics). Loomis is now back in the news with a declaration that “Science, statistics, and technology are all inherently racist because they are developed by racists who live in a racist society, 

University of Illinois math professor Rochelle Gutierrez triggered a national controversy over her work “Building Support for Scholarly Practices in Mathematics Methods” in which she criticized math classes as a “tool of whiteness.” 

CUNY Professor Laurie Rubel has published a peer-reviewed article in the  Journal of Mathematics Education arguing that the concepts of meritocracy and “color-blindness” are ideological precepts that work against minorities. 

Alan Derskowitz, writing in Newsweek, piled on: “Colleges Are Now A Breeding Ground for Mediocrity, Not Meritocracy.” 

Are Woke University Policies Killing People? They May Soon mindingthecampus.org

Sky not falling

Sky not falling

The US doesn’t need to default on its debt even if the debt ceiling is not raised

There is no economic reason that a debt limit should force a default.  The Treasury could easily pay interest and principal on treasury debt before any other payment.  Congress could even pass a law stating that fact.

Treasury secretary Janet Yellen should say out loud, right now "we pay principal and interest on treasury debt first, before anything else." President Biden should back her up.

Two points on the debt limit, 1 serious 1 fun johnhcochrane.blogspot.com

Reparations Wrong!

The fact that any group of people could come up with this proposal is evidence of how messed up we are becoming.

San Francisco African American Reparations Advisory Committee recommendations(1):

Pay eligible black residents age 18 years and older $5 million apiece

$97,000 annual income for low-income blacks for the next 250 years

Comprehensive debt forgiveness program that clears all educational, personal, credit card, payday loans

From some perspectives there have been a form of reparations for almost 60 years with affirmative action - where all things being equal blacks were given advantage over whites. It is estimated that affirmative action has cost the US over 12 trillion (2)  dollars over this time. While how much of that was gained by whom is ambiguous, what is clear is that most Americans are not descendants of slaveholders nor did they gain an advantage from slaves and it is impossible to blame the disparities between blacks and whites today on slavery more than 100 years ago and systemic racism today. 

(1) https://sf.gov/sites/default/files/2023-01/HRC%20Reparations%202022%20Report%20Final_0.pdf

(2) https://vdare.com/articles/when-quotas-replace-merit-everybody-suffers

Autocracy vs Democracy

Democracy – the Executive branch, negotiating with the House and the Senate to increase the debt limit. 

Autocracy – the President demanding to get what he wants.

Democrats Support THEIR Protests

Democrats Support THEIR Protests

There seems to be a significant difference between how Republicans and Democrats compare the BLM riots during summer of 2020 and the Capital riots in 2021. 

Dems Living in Lala Land

Almost half of Democrats, as of December 14, 2022, still believed that the Hunter Biden emails are fake.

Intellectually lazy, willfully ignorant or  intellectually dishonest?

You ARE either Male(w testes) or Female(w ovary)

Biology

Humans have sexual reproduction organs called gonads. Females have ovaries.  Males have testes

The developmental biology of humans defaults to producing a female. If there is a functioning SRY gene present and with normal functioning developmental biology a male will be produced. 

The SRY gene is normally on the Y chromosome. 

EXCEPTION In extremely rare (1:100,000) instances of birth defects or developmental disease affecting genes and normal development there can be an individual born with ambiguous or malformed genitalia and/or who is unable to develop into a fully formed adult. The result can be an individual without a functioning gonad, with impaired functioning of one type of gonad, with one gonad if one type and a not fully developed gonad of the second type. There has never been an individual with both a functioning ovary and functioning testes. 

Adults should be free to claim to be whatever sex they want to be: male, female, trans-male, trans-female, binary, fluid, etc,. But there are issues with letting everyone act however they want including but not limited to; trans females competing with females in sports; trans females with male genitalia exposing themselves to females.  There can also be issues with gender conversion treatments and procedures for children because, for the most, part these are irreversible and result in sterility and lack of sexual satisfaction. Gender conversion of children should be limited to rare instances where due to genetic and/or hormonal aberrations it is clear that such treatment is warranted.

And last, people should be free to have loving and sexual relationships with whichever consenting adults they choose. 

Biological Sex

Females are humans with ovaries and males are humans with testes.

Most babies are born with a clear biological sex. Babies are made when a sperm from the testes carrying either an x or a y chromosome, fuses with an egg from an ovary carrying an x chromosome, to create a zygote. The result 99.78% (1) of the time is a zygote with xx chromosomes or xy chromosomes.

The zygote then further divides to form the embryo which continues to develop and differentiate into various structures, tissue types and organs. One of these organs is the bipotential gonad that will ultimately develop into an ovary or a testes depending on multiple complex factors and signals that affect its development.  The key factors in this development is the SRY gene which is normally only on the y chromosome.

The xy embryo, with the SRY gene and normal genetic and hormonal functioning, will develop into a newborn male with testes.  With normal genetic and hormonal functioning, as the male matures and reaches puberty, increased testosterone production will further develop the male with the typical male characteristics. 

The xx zygote, without SRY and with normal genetic and hormonal functioning, will develop into a newborn female with ovaries.  With normal genetic and hormonal functioning, as the female matures and reaches puberty, increased estrogen production will further develop the female with the typical female characteristics. 

With inherent normal differences in genetic and hormonal functioning there is a natural variability of sexual characteristics with each sex.  There can be very masculine males and less masculine males and the same variability within females.

In rare cases, 1.7% (1), there are conditions called Differences in Sex Development (DSD) involving genes, hormones, ovaries, testes, reproductive organs, and genitals, affecting newborn development or the further development of the adult. These still result in a male or female with either ovaries or testes, however, depending on the severity of the condition, the appearance, genitals, reproductive organs, or ovary or testes function can differ significantly from typical.

And in extremely rare instances, 1:100000 (2), there have been individuals with both testicular and ovarian tissues, ovotestes, that may be able to make sperm or eggs, but not both, and whose genitals, reproductive organs and physical traits can be ambiguous.

 Sexual Identity

There is a great deal of discussion regarding sexual identity or gender. Recent research indicates that 1.6% of adults consider themselves transgender, a different sex than assigned at birth, or nonbinary, their sex can be either or both and vary (3).

 

Sexual Orientation (4)

 

(1)    https://ihra.org.au/16601/intersex-numbers Intersex Human Rights Australia Ltd

(2)    Ceci M, Calleja E, Said E, Gatt N. A case of true hermaphroditism presenting as a testicular tumour. Case Rep Urol. 2015

(3)    Pew Research Center December 2022

(4)    https://news.gallup.com/poll/389792/lgbt-identification-ticks-up.aspxBiological Sex

Dr. Riittakerttu Kaltiala knows gender medicine. She is the top expert on pediatric gender medicine in Finland and the chief psychiatrist at one of its two government-approved pediatric gender clinics, at Tampere University in Helsinki, where she has presided over youth gender transition treatments since 2011.

Kaltiala thus concurs with NHS England, which recently noted that social transition—using a child’s preferred name and pronouns—is “not a neutral act” but rather one that can solidify what is otherwise likely to be a passing phase into a more permanent state of mind, or “identity,” and put the minor on a path to drugs and surgeries. The NHS now warns of the risks of social transition in children and recommends it only for adolescents who have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria and have provided informed consent.

The Finnish Paediatric Society, the counterpart to the American Academy of Pediatrics, has come out against governmental support for gender self-identification in minors in a statement to the Finnish parliament. Likewise, the Finnish Medical Association wrote that “the decision to limit legal gender recognition to adults is a good one.” These statements run directly counter to the American Academy of Pediatrics

https://www.thefp.com/p/gender-affirming-care-dangerous-finland-doctor

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/science/articles/finland-youth-gender-medicine

https://twitter.com/moxlosllc/status/1645526218811523072?s=46&t=Y4fVsDnz2q8uZ3VNKeco4A

https://twitter.com/moxlosllc/status/1639664240683528192?s=46&t=Y4fVsDnz2q8uZ3VNKeco4A

https://www.nas.org/academic-questions/33/2/in-humans-sex-is-binary-and-immutable