Monthly Archives: May 2020

A Retaliation and Response

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The Trump administration is musing about ways to stop Iran from trading its sanctioned oil to sanctioned Venezuela.

Some US officials have advocated restraint, arguing that the US should only intervene if the Iranian shipments become a permanent fixture, according to people familiar with the matter.

Never mind that restraint will guarantee that Iranian shipments become a permanent fixture, since if these officials become ascendant, they will infect all of the administration with their timidity.

No, a perfectly fine way to halt, with considerable permanence, Iranian sales and shipments to Venezuela would be to seize the tankers, offload the cargo, and then send the tankers to the breakers. That will make even this first instance very costly to the Iranian government.

Iran has warned it will retaliate if its ships are blocked, calling it an act of “piracy.” …that interference with the oil deliveries would be met with “immediate and firm response.”

The effort would provide us with useful intelligence on Iran’s methods, capabilities, and modes of operational thinking. That wouldn’t be all bad.

A Tale of Two States

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A Wall Street Journal editorial provided the comparison.

Since 2010

  • New York’s population has grown from a skosh under 19.4 million to a skosh over 19.4 million
  • Florida’s population has grown from 18.8 million to 21.5 million
  • New York’s spending has increased by $43 billion—about $570,000 for each additional person
  • Florida’s spending has increased by $28 billion—a $10,400 increase per new resident
  • New York’s spending on worker retirement benefits has nearly doubled
  • Florida’s spending on worker retirement benefits has grown by one-sixth of that
  • New York’s Medicaid consumes 40% of the state budget—twice as much as education
  • Florida spends about the same on schools as on Medicaid—and has an older population—retirees don’t flock north to New York
  • Florida’s private job growth has been about 60% higher than in New York
  • Florida’s finance job growth has been 25%
  • New York’s finance job growth has been 9.7%—and New York is supposed to be our financial city

Currently,

  • New York’s 2021 budget was for $177 billion
  • Florida’s 2021 budget (albeit not yet signed by the governor) is for $93 billion
  • New York’s spending is 35.9% Federal (taxpayer nation-wide) dollars—$63.5 billion
  • Florida’s spending is 32.8% Federal dollars—$30.5 billion

And after all this, New York still is demanding more Federal dollars—$61 billion worth—not just from the good citizens of Florida, but from the good citizens of all of the other States in these United States.

There’s one more difference between the two States: one is run by Progressive-Democrats, the other by Republicans. You know which is which.

Aside: both States use Federal dollars—the dollars of taxpayers from all the other States as well as those two—for enormous portions of their budgets. It’s time to do away with Federal transfers of taxpayer dollars from one State to another, except in time of declared regional or national emergency. Leave all those transfers in the originating States for their own use.

Usages

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The Associated Press has decided, from the depths of it Politically Correct garbage can, that “mistress” ought not be used anymore. Instead, folks should use “companion” or “lover” instead.

This means, of course, that Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, must be a companion to the Dark. Or maybe the Dark Lover.

A woman can no longer be Mistress of Ceremonies. Is it companions or lovers that ceremonies and rites have?

Nor can a woman be Mistress of her own home. No, the lady of the house must be her husband’s companion. Or lover. Either way, she’s no longer…mistress…of her fate, but merely an object for the man of the house.

She can’t even employ or supervise servants: she can’t be their mistress. Isn’t companion, though, a bit familiar for an employer-employee relationship?

Is the woman now the Headcompanion of a school? I shudder to think of the kind of school that has the AP‘s demanded other usage: its Head….

Little girls can no longer be Mistress. Little boys, though, are still Master. That’s the patriarchy of the AP raising its ugly head. A patriarchy of an especially ugly form, since little girls now can only be…what?…of the Master.

The change is broad. According to the AP, England no longer can only be Burns’ mistress of the seas, but only their companion; although, as any sailor knows, lover of the seas isn’t necessarily far wrong.

The Associated Press is beclowning itself.

Backwards

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The transportation departments of a number of States are backing away from transportation projects, infrastructure projects that they have been claiming are desperately needed. Their excuse? They “need” more Federal aid. The already allocated $15 billion isn’t enough, they’re bleating.

The States have this backward. They don’t need Federal aid—the dollars of taxpayers in other States—they need to let their own citizens get back to work, including, perhaps beginning with, infrastructure projects like these road projects.

The States will then get all the “aid” they need: directly, in the form of income and business tax revenues from those businesses and employees working on those projects, and indirectly from the general, vast pickup in overall economic activity that would result from releasing American citizens from homebound gaol.

Active Dependency

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The Transportation Security Administration is looking into the prospects and processes for taking passenger temperatures among all of TSA’s actual security duties.

Airlines have been pushing for the Transportation Security Administration to start taking passengers’ temperatures as part of a multifaceted effort to keep potentially sick people from boarding planes and to make passengers feel more comfortable taking trips again.

Such a thing is supposedly to cost under $20 million, and it won’t cost passengers anything. Instead, all of us taxpayers will be paying for the passengers’…concerns. To the extent those exist; it is, after all, the airlines pushing, not pax.

There are better uses for the money, though. One would be simply to pass the bucks along to me, and I’ll undertake to not travel by air. That would net out to considerably less than the twenty mil, though, as I’d owe a heft tax bill, even after the 2017 tax cut.

Seriously though: nothing is keeping airlines from taking passenger temperatures themselves. The foolishness of this actively seeking dependency on government to do for us is getting old and tired.