Reverie

Malkin has a funny article arguing that The Dreaded Wall is the only infrastructure project that Democrats don't like. "Boston's Big Dig black hole, the nation's most expensive highway project, burned through $25 billion and was plagued by deadly engineering incompetence, endless cost overruns, leaks, lawsuits and debt. California's high-speed rail boondoggle is a $100 billion bullet train to nowhere. Gov. Jerry "Moonbeam" Brown promised a 2020 completion date for the miracle transportation system. The latest estimates predict it won't open until at least 2033, and the costs keep rising. Seattle's ill-fated Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement topped out at $4 billion in local, state and federal funds for a two-mile bored road tunnel that will finally open next month — nearly four years behind schedule and hundreds of millions of dollars over budget."

Happy birthday, Kampuchea. On January 5, in 1976, Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot announced a new constitution changing the name of Cambodia to Kampuchea. Ah, the People!                       

The Saudis Arabia government, the people who arranged the murder of Khashoggi, are now demanding justice and the death penalty for the men who did the killing. Imagine their mindset. Imagine what they must think of themselves--and the public. Governments are fun.

In a similar vein, Chinese telecommunications firm ZTE Corp. hired former Senator Joseph Lieberman, who was the Democratic party’s vice presidential nominee in 2000. He is conducting an "independent assessment" of what concerns members of Congress, the executive branch and U.S. businesses have about national security risks that ZTE’s products may pose, according to a disclosure form filed by his firm. Like O.J. hunting the killer. Incredible. American politicians in the employ of China intel. Politics is the willing suspension of disbelief.

Total federal outlays — not counting state and local expenditures — represent roughly 20 percent of gross domestic product.

 Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Michigan – told supporters regarding Trump: “We’re going to go in and impeach the motherf***er."

She's probably not mad at his crassness.

The first thing the new House started  to talk about was raising taxes. The next is the promise that the investigations will begin. The political shoe is now on the other stupid foot.

Populism. This is a word that is being thrown around as if it means something definitive. It has become pejorative, "anti-elite" as if that meant anti-educated. My understanding of the word comes from its original meaning in the late 1800s in the U.S., monetary and agricultural. It's become an insult the establishment uses to defend itself. Expect to see it in discussion of Trump's decision to leave Syria. Trump is a jerk, but that does not mean our decisions in Iran, Iraq, Libya, Egypt, Yemen and Somalia have been well thought out. The real risk with Trump is that he is so incompetent he will make the return of the original idiots look like an upgrade.

An interesting article in the HuffPo, which is beginning to take itself seriously, viciously attacked Romney's anti-Trump article in the WashPo, continuing the policy of Wack-a-Mole aimed at any non-Dem who might start to emerge. No one will be allowed to take advantage of anti-Trump rhetoric except them.

60% of the return of stocks is buy-backs. Apple pays the equivalent of 9.5%.

In 1800, 75% of [an American's] working man's expenditures went for food alone. By 1850, that had dropped to 50%. Today it is a little more than 11%. --The Wall Street Journal, September 20, 1996

37 percent of all American adults now say they prefer socialism to capitalism. A 2016 Harvard University survey revealed that 51 percent of Americans aged 18 and 29 say they reject capitalism outright. If anyone was looking for evidence of a failure in American education, this It.

The CEO of Apple just said in a interview that the greatest contribution of Apple in the future will be in the field of health. These major companies see that health care is where the money is.

(DXCM--the winner of the JPMorgan Health Conference presentation-- is developing a product with Verily, due 2020.)

Whoa! BP made a massive 1 billion-barrel discovery at its Thunder Horse field off the tip of Louisiana. Executives are crediting their investment in advanced seismic technology and data processing for speeding up the company’s ability to confirm the discoveries at Atlantis and Thunder Horse. BP says it once would have taken a year to analyze the Thunder Horse data, but it now takes just weeks. Whoa.

Remember the settled science of Peak Oil?

With no progress in the much ballyhooed Wall, White House officials said an increasingly likely option is for President Trump to declare an emergency. They always default to the assumption of power.

Americans donated $410 billion to charity last year.

 

AOC's pronouncements point to the essence of all politicians, the promise of social happiness through the hard work and sacrifice of others.

A civil rights institute in Alabama has withdrawn an award for Angela Davis, the longtime radical political activist, author and academic. The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute's board of directors had chosen Davis to receive its "Fred Shuttlesworth Human Rights Award" at its annual gala next month. But the institute decided to withdraw the award and cancel the annual gala at which Davis, a Birmingham native, would have been honored. It is said the award was withdrawn because of her opposition to Israel. Apparently being a supporter of the homicidal Communists and the Black Panther Party was ok.
"When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou sayst,
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty," – that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."       
 Sooo,if beauty is a virtue, is ugliness a vice?

Ocasio-Cortez suggested that the wealthiest Americans ought to pay a marginal tax rate of as high as 70% to fund a “Green New Deal.” “It only has ever been radicals that have changed this country,” she said. “Abraham Lincoln made the radical decision to sign the Emancipation Proclamation. Franklin Delano Roosevelt made the radical decision to embark on establishing programs like Social Security. If that’s what radical means, call me a radical.”  Shallow, illogical, and silly.  That statement is as dumb as anything Trump has said.  Voting rights for dolphins is radical too.   

Explorers and producers are finding themselves in the midst of an increasingly heated debate in Norway on the future of fossil fuels, with calls for cuts to incentives, more drilling restrictions and higher taxes.