There are few ideas more potent than the notion that all your problems are caused by other people and their unfairness to you. That was the royal road to unbridled power for Hitler, Lenin, and Mao — which is to say, millions of human beings paid with their lives for believing it. — Thomas Sowell Read more →
To find yourself, think for yourself. — Socrates
Minimum Wage: $33.58/hr?
Here’s a factoid someone posted on LinkedIn: If the minimum wage had kept up with CEO pay since 1978, it would be $33.58 an hour now. Assuming that’s true, it’s also true that a lot of people do not have skills worth $33.58/hr and it would therefore be illegal for those people to have a job. Also, no one is required to work for minimum wage. If you want to make $33.58/hr, get a job that pays that. If you can’t, then be happy that $33.58/hr isn’t the minimum wage and you can still get a job that pays what your skills are worth. Read more →
Healthy Enough to Type
I have a student in my class — let’s call him John — who missed the entire first week, so I sent him an email to the effect that I hadn’t seen him in class yet and what were his plans going forward. He replied that he had really been looking forward to the class but had a health condition that was going to force him to drop and who could he contact about a tuition refund. So he’s healthy enough to type. The class is online, so he could watch from his hospital bed if necessary. In short, I don’t believe him but what can you do? A slightly better way to play it, in my opinion, is to send me back an email saying “I’m typing this for John because he’s too sick to move his fingers. It’s really touch and go at this point. Please remember him… Read more →
Biological Women Will Be Extinct. Also: Roger Bannister
On this date, May 6, in 1954, in Oxford, England, 25-year-old medical student Roger Bannister became the first athlete to break the four-minute mile, finishing with a time of 3 minutes and 59.4 seconds. In other news, there’s currently a controversy over whether or not transgender girls and women should be allowed to compete against biological girls and women in sporting events. To that debate, we add a few more facts: The current men’s world record for the mile run is 3:43:13 by Hicham El Guerrouj of Morocco. The current boys’ high school record for the mile is 3:53:43 by Alan Webb. High school boys have been running sub-four-minute miles since at least the 1960s. The current women’s world record for the mile run is 4:12:33 by Sifan Hassan of the Netherlands. The athletic performance gap between men and women is so big that the best women in the world… Read more →
The Doors of Perception
We live together, we act on, and react to, one another; but always and in all circumstances we are by ourselves. The martyrs go hand in hand into the arena; they are crucified alone. Embraced, the lovers desperately try to fuse their insulated ecstasies into a single self-transcendence; in vain. By its very nature every embodied spirit is doomed to suffer and enjoy in solitude. — Aldous Huxley, The Doors of Perception Read more →
I Couldn’t Afford to Smoke if I Wanted To
I was at the local gas station/convenience store and the guy in line ahead of me was buying a couple of Monster energy drinks and a carton of cigarettes. “90 dollars,” the clerk said. I figured he must be buying a tank of gas as well and the price included that, but I asked the clerk when I got to the front of the line, “Did that guy just pay 90 dollars for two Monsters and a carton of cigarettes?” “Yeah — and those are not really expensive cigarettes.” “Wow, I remember when I could buy a carton of cigs AND fill my motorcycle for 15 bucks.” “I know what you mean,” the clerk replied, even though I’ve never smoked or owned a motorcycle. Read more →
We Owe All Students High Expectations
EppsNet at the Movies: Night in Paradise
I found this film first-rate in every respect except . . . SPOILER ALERT! . . . the way the death of the hero was handled. Didn’t like that at all. That being said, I hope if something similarly bad happens to me that my girlfriend will also pack a gym bag with guns and ammo and massacre an entire restaurant full of the people responsible. That’s a great scene. She comes in, locks the front door, a creepy gangster type comes over and says with a sleazy grin, “No more seats. Come sit with us. We’re nice.” “I didn’t come to eat,” she replies, cocking a gun under his chin. “And get your hands off me.” So he’s the first guy to end up with his brains on the ceiling but not the last! Rating: Director: Cast: IMDb rating: ( votes) Read more →
Thomas Jefferson: Why Are Democratic Cities Such Disaster Areas?
My fellow Americans – A lot of people ask me, “Tom, why are Democrat-run cities such shitholes?” I was reminded of this by President Biden’s upcoming “soak the rich” tax plan. In my view, there are three Democratic philosophies that destroy American cities. For example, did you know that Detroit in 1950 was the richest city in America? Now it’s a wasteland where half the residents can’t even read. The first philosophy is that Democrats hate rich people because “they don’t pay their fair share.” What is their “fair share”? What is your “fair share” of what someone else has worked for? I would suggest it’s nothing, but Democrats enact punitive tax rates on the most productive people, who then leave town and go somewhere else. The second philosophy is that Democrats hate business because corporate fat cats “don’t pay their fair share.” So they enact anti-business policies, the result… Read more →
And That’s the Truth: Columbus Cop Saves Black Girl’s Life
[And That’s the Truth is a feature by our guest blogger, Sojourner Truth — PE] I don care how old she is, if some 200-pound female be swingin a 6-inch kitchen knife at one o’ my chillen, I hope dey’s a cop there to shoot her. People say cops need more trainin’, that the cop shoulda tasered her, or hit her with a baton or some pepper spray, or shot her in the leg or sumthin. Man you dumbfucks be watchin too much television. Maybe he shoulda shot the knife right outta her hand like Clint Eastwood. When you get on a airplane, do you tell the pilot how to fly it? Do you tell doctors how to do surgery? Do you tell mechanics how to fix a motor? Maybe we need more trainin for chillen not to be stabbin people in broad daylight. I know they’s people think it… Read more →
Dershowitz on Maxine Waters
[Maxine Waters’] message was clearly intended to get to the jury. If you acquit, or if you find a charge less than murder, we will burn down your buildings. We will burn down your businesses. We will attack you. This was an attempt to intimidate the jury. It’s borrowed precisely from the Ku Klux Klan of the 1930s and 1920s when the Klan would march outside of courthouses and threaten all kinds of reprisals if the jury ever dare convict a white person or acquit a black person. And so efforts to intimidate a jury should result in a mistrial. — Alan Dershowitz Rep. Waters lives in a nice house in the wealthy Los Angeles neighborhood of Hancock Park. Her mansion is valued at $6 million. I guess living outside the boundaries of the district you represent is allowed, because Hancock Park is outside of her South Central LA district,… Read more →
Bernie Madoff and Barack Obama
The death of Bernie Madoff reminds me that I never understood why he was so vilified. He ran a Ponzi scheme. All of his investors knew it was a Ponzi scheme. They chose to get in, and gambled that they could time their exits just right. Some succeeded, some failed. . . . The fact that he not only claimed to return 10% in every kind of market condition but actually did so constituted something like proof positive that he was running a Ponzi scheme, for anyone who cared to take notice. So I think Madoff’s “lies” go into the same category as the alleged “lies” of Barack Obama when he said that under Obamacare, anybody who liked his/her old health insurance policy would be able to keep it. Nobody capable of arithmetic could have believed such an outlandish statement — unless they gave it no thought whatsoever, in which… Read more →
And That’s the Truth: The Talk
[And That’s the Truth is a feature by our guest blogger, Sojourner Truth — PE] Man I am so tired of hearing about “the talk” that black parents supposed to have with their boys. What do they talk about? “Carry guns in your car, resist arrest, get into a fight with a cop, flee the scene of a crime”? That ain’t the same talk white parents give, which is you have an encounter with a cop, you say yes sir, no sir, follow directions, be deferential. Have your day in court if it comes to that. Cop tells you to stand on your head, then stand on your fuckin head. Don’t be some “I know my rights” wiseass. Resistin arrest is a damn poor survival tactic. You dont even need a talk for that. All you got to be is a person living in America to know that. Black boys… Read more →
The Knowledge of What They Really Are
Let’s express this as clearly as it can be expressed. Any journalist who treats unverified stories from the CIA or other government agencies as true, without needing any evidence or applying any skepticism, is worthless. Actually, they are worse than worthless: they are toxic influences who deserve pure contempt. Every journalist knows that governments lie constantly and that it is a betrayal of their profession to serve as mindless mouthpieces for these security agencies: that is why they will vehemently deny they do this if you confront them with this accusation. They know it is a shameful thing to do. . . . Even when they learn that they deceived millions of people by uncritically repeating a story that the CIA told them was true, they will — on the very same day that they learn they did this — do exactly the same thing, this time with a one-paragraph… Read more →
Status
My phone showed a call from CHESHIRE CT, either someone from Connecticut or a Cheshire Cat, but I didn’t want to talk to either one.
Movin’ On
“I’m still mad at the former guy for killing 500,000 of us. Anybody else feel the same way?” “I’m actually mad that he kept you alive. Also, there are 3 million global COVID deaths. Who are you mad at about those? Also, aren’t you from Toronto? What do you mean by ‘us’?” “I mean human beings.” “If you care about human beings, then why are you using the 500,000 number instead of 3 million? I get it, you didn’t like Trump. He’s gone. Why are you still spouting the same low-IQ bullshit? Move on already.” Read more →
And That’s the Truth: Anti-Asian Racism
[And That’s the Truth is a feature by our guest blogger, Sojourner Truth — PE] The media dont give a goddamn about Asians unless they can fit em into a narrative that they like and thanks to some idiot in Atlanta shooting up massage parlors, Asians can be fit now into two narratives. The guy in Atlanta said massage parlors gave him a sex addiction so he had to shoot eight people. Six of em were Asian women. I dont know if’n youve noticed this but theres a lot of Asian women in massage parlors. But the narrative is white supremacy and he hates Asians. So why did he shoot the other two people? Does he hate Asians but he caint tell is someone Asian or not? And the other narrative is wealth disparity. See, you got them crazy rich Asians and then you got the Asians who aint rich… Read more →
International Transgender Day of Visibility
Did you know that March 31 is International Transgender Day of Visibility:? I didn’t know it either until today when someone posted an announcement on a corporate message board. It’s not even that new. It started in 2009. As Joe Biden would say, here’s the thing: 1) Everybody plays by the same rules. 2) Do whatever you want but don’t feel like you have to bash everyone over the fucking head with it. Is it within the rules for a woman to post on a corporate message board that she had vigorous intercourse with a man last night? And if someone takes exception she replies that she wants to recognize the accomplishments of heterosexual men and women, to celebrate the successes of the community and to educate those who may discriminate against cis-normative individuals? I feel like that would not be well-received, that we are implicitly operating under two sets… Read more →
Another Difference Between Men and Women
Breaking: USC has agreed to pay more than $1.1 billion to former patients of campus gynecologist George Tyndall, the largest sex abuse payout in higher education history. https://t.co/ipEtrsLGRc — Los Angeles Times (@latimes) March 25, 2021 My condolences to everyone involved in this painful case. Am I allowed to observe that men also have their genitals examined by medical professionals, who may be doctors, nurses or others, who may identify as male or female, straight or gay, but I’ve never heard of a man filing a lawsuit because he felt there was something wrong with the way the examination was conducted. Other than every single examination of male genitals being conducted in a way that was unquestionably above reproach, which seems unlikely, I don’t even want to speculate on the reason for the discrepancy. Also, my doctor, who identifies as female, once stuck her finger up my ass as part… Read more →