Pelé is the the only man to win the World Cup three times, winning with Brazil in the 1958, 1962 and 1970 tournaments. At the time of his first World Cup competition, Pelé was 17 years old and the youngest player to ever participate. In 1999, the International Olympic Committee gave him the honor of Athlete of the Century. RIP Pelé Read more →
Author Archive: Paul Epps
Individuals Have Rights
Individuals have rights, and there are things no person or group can do to them (without violating their rights). So strong and far-reaching are those rights that they raise the question of what, if anything, the state and its officials may do. . . . Our main conclusions about the state are that a minimal state, limited to the narrow functions of protection against force, theft, fraud, enforcement of contracts, and so on, is justified; that any more extensive state will violate persons’ rights not to be forced to do certain things, and is unjustified; and that the minimal state is inspiring as well as right. Two noteworthy implications are that the state may not use its coercive apparatus for the purpose of getting some citizens to aid others, or in order to prohibit activities to people for their own good or protection. — Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia Read more →
We Cannot Remain Silent, Except When We Can
We cannot remain silent about Elon Musk’s reckless decision to suspend numerous journalists’ Twitter accounts. — Center for American Progress, AFT and other progressives The New York Post responds: “Journalism is the cornerstone of free speech,” 14 progressive groups fume. “An attack on journalism” is an “assault on one of our fundamental pillars.” No, progressives can’t “remain silent” when that happens — unless, of course, it’s The Post reporting a story that’s unfavorable to a Democratic nominee for prez, as with the paper’s 2020 scoop on Hunter Biden’s laptop. When Twitter banned The Post for that, you could’ve heard a pin drop from the supposedly high-minded defenders of “journalism” and “free speech.” Read more →
Render Unto Ukraine What We Need at Home
Now, I don’t think it’s controversial to note that many Americans here at home are not doing very well. You can pick whatever problem you think is the gravest: lack of wage increases and wage stagnation; the need to work multiple jobs if you have children, especially even if you’re a married couple — the fact that one parent, if they want, can’t stay home and take care of their children any longer, what was a foundational property of American life for decades and that no longer is the case. It’s gone. There aren’t enough good jobs, so people have to work two jobs just to sustain their family, to pay other people to raise their kids, and to pay other people to take care of their elderly parents. Huge numbers of people are without health care. Some of those people without health care got Medicaid benefits during the COVID… Read more →
Ukraine: What is the Benefit?
I regard this as the most important question when it comes to the always profound debate of whether the United States government will involve itself in a war or, for that matter, it’s the most important question when it comes to debates over whether the U.S. government will do anything. In what ways has your life or the lives of your families been improved, secured, or enhanced by the more than $100 billion sent by the U.S. government to fuel this war on the other side of the world? Now, to be fair, there are some Americans whose lives have been materially improved by these expenditures. Those are the tiny sliver of Americans who own large amounts of shares of the leading weapons manufacturers. 2022 has been quite a poor year for the stock market in general. Stocks are down across the board. [NYSE has an overall loss of 13.3%… Read more →
FBI: Exposé of Our Spread of Misinformation is “Misinformation”
The “Twitter Files” have been coming out in installments over the last couple weeks or so, documenting how the FBI, CIA, the Democratic party, almost every major news outlet, and tech giants like Twitter collaborated to label any information that might make people want to vote against Democrats as “misinformation,” and using that label to justify hiding the information from public view. The centerpiece of this collaboration was the Hunter Biden laptop story, reported by the New York Post shortly before the 2020 election. 50 members of the U.S. intelligence community signed a letter, which, if you read it carefully, said that the laptop could be Russian “disinformation,” although there was no evidence that it was Russian disinformation, and they really had no way of knowing whether it was Russian disinformation, but that it looked like like the kind of sneaky trick that Russia would pull, knowing that it would… Read more →
It’s Great to Be an American
Stanford University has released a guide to eliminate “harmful language.” I haven’t read it. It must be pretty extensive as it has 10 “harmful language” sections: ableist, ageism, colonialism, culturally appropriative, gender-based, imprecise language, institutionalized racism, person-first, violent and additional considerations. Among the words the university urges people to avoid is “American.” People are instead urged to use “U.S. Citizen” because “American” typically refers to “people from the United States only, thereby insinuating that the US is the most important country in the Americas.” The Americas, the index notes, comprises 42 countries. Well . . . the United States is the most important country in the Americas. Or if it isn’t, what is? Anyway, this guide reminds me of a couple of things. George Orwell used to say “If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” And Salman… Read more →
EppsNet Book Reviews: Night Train by Martin Amis
A police officer investigates the apparent suicide of a longtime friend. There are layers here. Peel them away and each one is darker than the last. If you have someone on your gift list who you’d like to see become so depressed that they end their own life, give them this book. Rating: Read more →
Winter Palace
Most people know more as they get older: I give all that the cold shoulder. I spent my second quarter-century Losing what I had learnt at university. And refusing to take in what had happened since. Now I know none of the names in the public prints, And am starting to give offence by forgetting faces And swearing I’ve never been in certain places. It will be worth it, if in the end I manage To blank out whatever it is that is doing the damage. Then there will be nothing I know. My mind will fold into itself, like fields, like snow. — Philip Larkin, “Winter Palace” Read more →
Love Songs in Age
She kept her songs, they kept so little space, The covers pleased her: One bleached from lying in a sunny place, One marked in circles by a vase of water, One mended, when a tidy fit had seized her, And coloured, by her daughter – So they had waited, till, in widowhood She found them, looking for something else, and stood Relearning how each frank submissive chord Had ushered in Word after sprawling hyphenated word, And the unfailing sense of being young Spread out like a spring-woken tree, wherein That hidden freshness sung, That certainty of time laid up in store As when she played them first. But, even more, The glare of that much-mentioned brilliance, love, Broke out, to show Its bright incipience sailing above, Still promising to solve, and satisfy, And set unchangeably in order. So To pile them back, to cry, Was hard, without lamely admitting how… Read more →
A Berkeley Prof Explains Why Grocery Prices Are Skyrocketing
The question is why are they skyrocketing NOW? There's nothing in your tweet that hasn't been true for 10 years. You don't have to be a Berkeley prof to know that so why are you pumping out this BS? https://t.co/rtp6bJM65G — Paul Epps (@paulepps) December 22, 2022 Read more →
Why Must Teachers Buy Their Own Supplies?
That's mismanagement. Avg per pupil spending in US is almost $15K. 30 kids in a class would be $450K. Deduct the teacher's salary and there should be enough left for supplies. P.S. Non sequiturs and false choice fallacies are not REQUIRED for every post. https://t.co/PMisLtoe4a — Paul Epps (@paulepps) December 21, 2022 Read more →
My Boyhood Sports Icons are Dying: Franco Harris
I’ve always thought Franco Harris was wildly overrated as a running back, but he was a four-time Super Bowl champion so there’s that. RIP Franco Harris RIP Franco Harris The immaculate reception happened 50 years ago this week. pic.twitter.com/T9FXJPvs3y — McNeil (@Reflog_18) December 21, 2022 Read more →
Labels, Concepts, Division, Polarization
The following is excerpted from Lateral Thinking by Edward de Bono: It is like having two wooden boxes side by side into which one is putting ping-pong balls. The balls have to go into one box or the other. . . . If one of the boxes is labelled “black balls” and the other one “white balls” then each ball is dropped into the appropriate box depending on whether it is black or white. If there are any grey balls then some sort of decision has to be made as to whether they go into the black box or the white box. Once the decision has been made the balls go into the white box just as if they were white or into the black box just as if they were black. The apparent nature of the ball has been shifted to make it fit in with the established pattern.… Read more →
COVID Vaccine Side Effects
Every drug commercial you see on TV, half the commercial is a voice-over listing all the side effects, many of which are worse than the disease that the drug is intended to treat. May reduce your body’s ability to fight infection, which could lead to serious illness or death . . . “Death” is almost always in there somewhere. And these are drugs that have been through years of trials, full FDA approval, not just emergency approval or experimental approval or whatever it’s called for the COVID vaccines. What are the side effects of COVID vaccines? Who knows? There wasn’t time to test for them, except very short-term stuff like you might feel tired or you might have a sore arm. In the software business, we call this “testing in production,” meaning we don’t have time to fully test the product in a non-destructive way, so we slam it into… Read more →
Why Is a Same-Sex Marriage Bill Historic When It’s Already Legal in Every State?
I’ve seen a lot of coverage on this and I couldn’t count the number of times I’ve seen the bill described as “historic.” I can, however, count the number of times I’ve seen mention of the fact that same-sex marriage and interracial marriage are already legal in all 50 states: Zero. I know people, probably you do as well, who’ve been in same-sex marriages for decades. I know people (including me) who’ve been in interracial marriages for decades. So what is historic? Read more →
The Employment Numbers WERE Wrong. Implications for Elections?
It looks like I was right about the employment numbers not making sense, which is maybe not such a good thing, in that everyone could see the same things I saw and yet I didn’t notice anyone (including “reporters”) asking “Why am I being told things that do not match up with reality?” Thank god I’ve been assured by powerful people that there is no possible way our government could propagate these same kinds of mistakes (lies?) with regard to election results. Read more →
What Does “Woke” Mean?
Recently I’ve heard “woke” defined as being awake to injustice, particularly racial injustice. That takes the edge off it. It makes it sound like a good thing, except to the extent that it propagates untrue ideas like racism is everywhere, or anything you don’t like is racist. Having an awareness of injustice is universal though, isn’t it? Although people have very different ideas about what’s just or unjust, everyone has their own sense of it. It doesn’t require a new word. We have words like “compassionate” and “empathetic” that seem to mean the same thing. I don’t think even the person or persons who coined the word “woke” meant it to be as inoffensive as “being awake to injustice.” I think it was intended to be confrontational. Here’s another possible definition: Making sweeping, prejudicial generalizations about race, gender and sexual orientation. I like that definition better. I think it’s useful… Read more →
My Dismay at Bruce Springsteen’s Facelifts is Boundless
Bruce Springsteen never had good skin. And his face was kind of puffy. Take a look: And that’s when he was still young. Now who is this 70-year-old guy? You might say he works out, eats right, that’s how he stays young-looking. There are no exercises to tighten your face, as far as I know. 70 years of gravity takes its toll. You might say that the photo is retouched and you’re probably right, but there are enough unposed Springsteen photos available with the same tight face. The hair is fake too, by the way. Here’s a selfie taken on the occasion of becoming a grandfather. Didn’t have time to slap on the toupee. I’m not taking a position against cosmetic surgery or other artificial ways of looking younger. Getting old and having to look at yourself sucks. But you have to be true to who you are, and Springsteen… Read more →
Twitter Files and Two-Party Politics
Most major media outlets united to disseminate an absolute lie concocted by the CIA: the Biden archive was "Russian disinformation." Not one media outlet that spread this lie has admitted that they did this or explained what happened. https://t.co/BYsLbH5lbR — Paul Epps (@paulepps) December 10, 2022 The media outlets listed above, along with most others, will not and cannot recognize any scandalous or improper behavior by leading Democratic politicians. Ask them to name any. The same is true for individuals who are quite happy to parrot the statement that Twitter is a private company that was perfectly entitled to enforce its Terms of Service. Hence, a nothing burger. I don’t know if anyone is even arguing that point. However, the Terms of Service violation cited for killing the laptop story had to do with hacked materials. Of course, there were no hacked materials and there was no evidence of hacked… Read more →