Author Archives: eehines

Why Not Both?

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Emma Waters and Dr Marguerite Duane, in  their WSJ Letters letter, propose invest[ing] in restorative reproductive medicine as an alternative to in vitro fertilization mandates.

First, a correction to their distortion of Leonard Lopoo’s op-ed regarding IVF as a means of addressing our nation’s baby deficit. Waters and Duane accuse Lopoo of pushing for IVF funding mandates. This is textbook gaslighting. Lopoo was very much in favor of subsidies, not mandates. He did mention one mandate—one State’s requirement that insurance cover IVF—in passing at the end of his piece, but merely as one example of how financial support for IVF can lead to increases in live baby birth rates.

Given that—financial support to allay the high cost of IVF—why do Waters and Duane insist that there must be a choice between the two? Even given IVF mandates, why must there be a choice between the two?

The short answer is that there need not. Support for IVF and research into the causes and mitigations of reproduction-related medical problems actually go hand-in-hand. One treats precursor conditions, and the other treats realized after-the-fact conditions, with considerable overlap in that second set of conditions.

Beyond all that, why not these two together with a host of other means that also encourage having babies, along with other, non-medical means of achieving population growth—legal immigration, for instance, color/ethnicity-blind free markets, lower income tax rates?

I Want My…Maypo

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Late in the Biden administration, as the lede notes,

Documents obtained by The Free Press from the Environmental Protection Agency reveal that, despite handing out $20 billion in grants to eight nonprofits just before President Donald Trump took office, the federal employees who reviewed grant applications had concerns about high salaries, conflicts of interest, and oversight of taxpayer money.

After he was confirmed to the office, EPA Secretary Lee Zeldin

called for a Department of Justice investigation and had the money, most of which resided in 129 Citibank accounts, frozen.

Naturally, the NGOs are suing, because they want their filch fruits restored. Just to be sure, they’re also suing Citibank, whose since the freezing has been nothing but obeying a government directive, which they have to do unless and until a court overturns the directive.

Never mind that the staffers expressed, in writing as part of their reviews of the grants during the application process, concerns about excessive-seeming pay for NGO executives; NGOs’ cost claims that had no explanation, much less rationale, for them; or apparent lack of oversight planning.

It’s illustrative of these NGOs’ entitlement mentality that they think they should have the money just because they want it. It’s also one more reason for the necessity of taking several machetes to the jungle undergrowth of Federal government spending.

Another Reason…

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…we can’t trust those of the Left, and why even the Left can’t have nice things. This one is the smear campaign against the Progressive-Democratic Party’s Senator from Pennsylvania.

It began with a once-trustworthy senior aid to John Fetterman, Adam Jentleson, who sent a letter to Fetterman’s doctor after Fetterman’s recovery from his stroke was readily apparent. Jentleson wrote that

the senator was suffering from “conspiratorial thinking” and “megalomania” while experiencing “high highs and low lows.” In “long, rambling, repetitive and self-centered monologues,” Mr Fetterman was “lying in ways that are painfully, awkwardly obvious to everyone in the room.” Mr Jentleson also said the senator was “preoccupied” with Twitter and driving “recklessly.”

Jentleson’s attack is only the most overt and blunt instance. There is a constant susurration behind closed doors and behind certain backs of concerns—carefully couched as being for Fetterman’s declining welfare, of course—for his mental state.

Fetterman’s mental disability? his deviation from the Left’s orthodoxy: he’s more moderate than the Left thought he would be and want him to be. He’s no radical, extreme Leftist firebrand thrower.

I was bothered, in the beginning, by Fetterman’s medical fitness for office following his stroke. But once he became able to communicate with the aid of a laptop translator so he could read what people were saying rather than having to process audio, the center of his stroke’s damage, it became clear that his mind was sound, and regardless of what anyone might think (anyone other than those of the Left) of his politics, he was, and is, quite rational. He no longer needs his laptop for this purpose, and his speaking difficulties, also typical of strokes, have long since nearly fully abated, too, outcomes increasingly typical of stroke rehab.

The smear and its rationale are reminiscent of the Soviet Union’s persecution, and consignment to its gulag, of those who disagreed with the Communist Party: such disagreement was ipso facto proof of their insanity and of the necessity of sequestering them away from “normal” society.

The Truce of the Barbarian

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Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a cease fire truce for the three days covering its victory in WWII celebration, and then he increased his attacks on Ukraine. Then he offered low level talks between his underlings and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s subordinates, supposedly for this Thursday in Turkey, basing his offer on renewal of the same talks he pretended to engage in 2022 in Turkey to address his claimed underlying cause of his invasion of Ukraine: ending Ukraine’s continued existence as a fully independent and sovereign nation and exposing it, in that newly and drastically weakened state, to renewed invasion and final conquering and occupation.

Zelenskyy responded,

demanding that Russia start a cease-fire on Monday [yesterday], and saying he would be waiting for Putin “personally” in Turkey on Thursday.
“There is no point in prolonging the killings,” Zelensky wrote on social media. Later in his nightly address, the Ukrainian leader reiterated his intention to go to Istanbul for talks. “And I hope that this time, Putin won’t be looking for excuses as to why he ‘can’t’ make it,” he said.

If Putin is a no-show in Istanbul Thursday, Europe and the US—this means President Donald Trump (R)—need to stop slow-walking weapons, ammunition, and logistical support for Ukraine, and start delivering them in the numbers and at the pace the Ukrainians have said they need in order to succeed in defending themselves against the barbarian’s threat to their existence.

It isn’t possible to negotiate with a barbaric entity who only understand conquer and enslave. His truces, his commitments, cannot be trusted. Ever.

In the end, the only way to achieve Trump’s—and Zelenskyy’s—goal of “ending the killing” is to destroy the barbarian invasion and drive the barbarians out of Ukraine.

It’s that Time Again

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Some of what passes for my sense of humor….

It seems there were two frogs sitting on a lily pad, when all of a sudden, a fly came along. One frog put out his tongue, ate the fly, and started laughing hysterically. Soon the other frog joined in the laughter.
Later in the day, the other frog ate a fly and the two frogs burst out in laughter. As time went on, the frogs enjoyed the flies so much that the sight of a fly would cause them to double up with pleasure. But of course, the most pleasure came when the fly was actually eaten.
A third frog hopped up to the first two and asked what was so funny.
The first frog answered “Time.”
“Huh?” asked the third frog.
The second frog explained: “Time’s fun when you’re having flies.”

A king carried environmentalism too far when he prohibited hunting of any kind. Soon the realm was overrun with lions and tigers and bears.
“Oh My!” shouted the people. They revolted and threw the king out of the country. It was the first time the reign was called because of the game.

When Thomas Edison invented the lightbulb, he had trouble selling it. People just didn’t trust this “new” way of making light. In order to promote his idea he decided to go around the country installing lights in different towns in order to drum up publicity. While in Oklahoma, Edison stopped by an Indian reservation and offered to put lights in any building they wanted. After much thought the Indian chief decided that he wanted lights in his outhouse, so he could see what he was doing at night. This made him the first man to wire a head for a reservation.

What goes down but never goes up?
An elephant in an elevator.

What’s the best way to raise a baby elephant?
With a forklift.

Why do elephants need trunks?
Because they don’t have handbags.

Why are elephants so wrinkly?
Because ironing them takes way too long.

And that’s enough of that.