The number of voters who got mail-in ballots and either came to polls to try to drop off those ballots (we cannot accept your mail in ballot at the polling place on election day! Post office is down the street) or just came to vote without returning the mail ballot surprised me this time. I think a lot of people signed up for permanent mail ballot status and forgot all about it - now they get a mail ballot for every election whether they want it or not.
*For those worried about double voting - sending the mail ballot AND voting in person - the in-person vote means the county will not count the mail ballot (if received). Every mail ballot is checked in before ever opening the envelope, just like we check in the voter on our iPads at the polls. If the voter voted in person on election day, the mail ballot is discarded without opening. That's part of the reason mail-in ballots cannot be counted until after election day.
Great edition of the PS today loaded with many interesting articles! I would like to share a few of my reactions.
The "near enemy" is always more despised and feared than the far one. To some sects generally aligned with the Democratic Party, Biden is the near enemy and Trump is the far one. Many of these people will absolutely not turn out to vote in November, or vote for a protest candidate. This is nothing new. Some time ago Republicans Bill Weld and Mitt Romney were elected governor of Massachusetts, because Democrats were so divided.
I thought Chick-fil-a had gotten past the issue with supporting anti-trans and anti-gay lobbyists about 10 years ago. They once donated company money to them, but quietly ended that. While there are some owners who still make such contribution that is qualitatively different from the business itself. If you were to apply that standard to determine boycotts broadly, then there would be a large number of companies you would not patronize. Certainly 100% of public companies would make the boycott list. My thoughts on this subject are largely informed by Adam Ragusea (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZS1A4dIDIQM)
I am not a fan of Patrick "Pat" Quinn, but I agree that a referendum on sports team subsidies is a good idea. Whenever I hear reports citing economists on public money for sports venues or hosting of Olympic events, they say it is not worth it. A counter argument is that Economists ignore effects that are valuable but are difficult to measure. It seems to me like this is what makes it a good topic for a referendum. The issue is understood well enough by the pubic, it is not a proxy for some other issue (like sanctuary city status is), and leaving the decision to elected officials is highly susceptible to corruption.
Steve Chapman is great. I have never read an article by him that was not intriguing to me.
I always knew, when the election people kept saying there were a hundred thousand ballots not returned, that number was a joke & the current results have proven that.
But there's no excuse for them to allow mailed ballots to be accepted more than the Friday after the election.
The idiots & outright anti-Semites trying to shut down the DNC are showing their true colors, they just hate Jews!
I'm with Pat Quinn, we don't want to pay for their stadiums. The Bears are worth at least $6 billion & could borrow all the money to build one, either on the Michael Reese property or Arlington Park. But are the banks that stupid to lend money for those money pits? University of Chicago economist Allan Sanderson has shown over & over, they're never worth the money.
Plus why should we build these billionaire thieves a second set of stadiums, when we did that for them 30 years ago & are nowhere near paying those money pits off!
I think the state Supreme Court took up that creep Smollett's case so they can put a finality to it & finally send him back to the prison sentence he so rightfully deserves. He's a total moron & according to IMDb, he hasn't worked as an actor since 2019, all due to his lies about the attack. No sane producer wants to work with him.
NBC's astoundingly moronic hiring of McDaniel isn't a new thing. Don't forget, they also hired wing-nut Megyn Kelly from Fox [alleged] News, several years ago, she turned out to be a total flop that actually angered the women they thought would watch her show & then had to pay her $35 million to go away, because they gave stupidly her a five year iron clad contract, actually thinking they were in a competition with other outlets for her. Except that turned out to be a lie, no one else wanted her! Now she writes fake articles about herself & her useless opinions for Murdoch's NY Post, under the pen name of Ariel Zilber, she obviously must pay to have the paper run them, as she certainly has NBC's cash to pay for that.
"allowing abortions up to 15 weeks of gestation." I use to naively believe that the people writing these laws didn't understand pregnancy, and didn't realize most women might not realize they are pregnant -- earlier than 15 weeks but not as early as some opponents want the restriction to kick in.
then I realized they absolutely know and just want to punish women and pander to their ignorant, uneducated base.
"crackpot theory that “chemtrails” from airplanes are part of government experiments to disperse chemicals into the atmosphere."
Given some of the sh*t our government has done since Its inception, I wouldn't call this outlandish. Except for the fact that there are likely more efficient, cheaper and more clandestine ways to dispose of chemical waste.
didn't realize there was discrimination between iPhone users and non-iPhone users to that level but then of course there is because fucking humans always gotta look at differences.
For a while i had a android and and iPad but couldn't get my text messages on the iPad (even though you can use your phone number for FaceTime) and it was inconvenient. i got back into the apple ecosystem for that reason.
Wow, and I thought I didn't like country music! I've been meaning to look for Beyonce's country hit and glad to have it dropped in my lap this morning.
I like EZ's ideas about changes to mail in voting. I would also like to media to stop pronouncing winners before the votes are counted. I don't care how statistically accurate their methods may be, because I believe that it undermines the confidence in the result. I think it was in the 2020 presidential election that the 'winner' in Arizona was announced with 0% of the vote counted. Reporting tallies is fine, but there is zero reason to report the AP prediction of winners.
while i've been delighted to participate in each level of Tweet Madness ‘24, incl'g today's Elite 8, i was shocked & dismayed that the Magic Johnson tweet failed to make the final 8. IMNSHO, a nat'l-champion worthy tweet.
that said, almost all of the E8 are excellent too.
There is certainly ample room for reasoned debate about the Israeli war with Hamas, but it is sickening to see the blatant anti-Semitism that is on display in our streets and college campuses.
Our good friend Judith Raanan, who with her daughter Natalie were captured and taken hostage by Hamas on October 7th from the Nahal Oz kibbutz and who were also the first hostages released by Hamas have told us a great deal about their experiences, and Judith is also speaking publicly about this. Upon being taken hostage they were marched on foot across the border and then loaded on to vehicles and taken to the Hamas command center, And then down into the tunnels. The command center was located inside a large hospital, and when the Hamas terrorists paraded them and their fellow captives inside, the nurses and other staff gathered around and were trilling in celebration.
A poll that was taken inside Gaza in Oct-Nov last year prior to the start of the Israeli offensive by the Arab World for Research and Development (largely funded by the EU) reflected that 75% of respondents supported the October 7th terrorist attack, and 80% opposed a peace with Israel involving a two-state solution. This is the fanatical mindset that Israel has right at its border.
President Biden is increasingly bowing to the Democratic hard left who is demanding that Israel cease its offensive in Gaza. But the IDF cannot stop until the Hamas terror organization has been totally demolished inside Gaza. The US and our allies tragically killed a million or more German civilians in the bombing and invasion of that country in World War II, yet there was absolutely no thought given to a ceasefire until the Nazis had been thoroughly defeated. Hamas has always had the ability to stop the Israeli offensive immediately upon release of all the hostages, laying down their arms and leaving Gaza. But they refuse to do so, and Israel must continue to finish the job for their own self-preservation. 🇮🇱🙏
EZ - In your description of Edwin Eisendrath, you failed to mention that he was a former Chicago Alderman. (He was the Alder of my ward, back in the day - one of the Lakefront "Goo-Goos" (good government City Councilors), as the old-time Dem Ward pols called them back then. (See what I did there?)
Loved your non-call-out call-out of John Kass ("idiots", "addled conspiracy theorists"), but call a spade, a spade, I say.
Word around the Cook County courthouses is that a large majority of the judges supported O'Neill-Burke, rather than Harris - not because she used to be one of them, but because they are unenthused about the additional influence of Toni Preckwinkle (and her agenda) on the Cook County justice system.
As a lover of language, I love the word "dubiety", as I, too, had never come across it before.
The plastics industry's scam on the world regarding its cynical "recyclability of plastics" claims (knowing full well how plastics' complexity makes recycling a virtual no-go, ranks right up there with the fossil fuel industry's campaign against global warming/climate change. The Koch brothers' influence (especially) through their PACs' spending over the past 3 (4?) decades has helped drive climate denialism in this country to an extent that far outstrips any other western nation. The Republican Party is the only major political party in the Western World that denies anthropogenic climate change. However, I do believe that we will eventually get to a place where the sorting of plastic materials - the Achilles heel of plastics recycling - will get to a point where, applying technology, it is economically viable to recycle plastics.
Democratic Socialists are not Democrats. They do not see a significant difference between the GOP and Democrats. They are fine with chaos and disruption, as they believe it will create opportunity for them. They believe that Biden and the party has failed progressives and will never be sufficiently socialist. They also know that the $3 billion in annual military aid to Israel and the $14 billion in supplemental aid package request will not change under either.
The Pope expressd major dubiety
Especially when not in sobriety
What worried him most
Was the Holy Ghost
Who really rattled his world-famous piety.
The number of voters who got mail-in ballots and either came to polls to try to drop off those ballots (we cannot accept your mail in ballot at the polling place on election day! Post office is down the street) or just came to vote without returning the mail ballot surprised me this time. I think a lot of people signed up for permanent mail ballot status and forgot all about it - now they get a mail ballot for every election whether they want it or not.
*For those worried about double voting - sending the mail ballot AND voting in person - the in-person vote means the county will not count the mail ballot (if received). Every mail ballot is checked in before ever opening the envelope, just like we check in the voter on our iPads at the polls. If the voter voted in person on election day, the mail ballot is discarded without opening. That's part of the reason mail-in ballots cannot be counted until after election day.
Great edition of the PS today loaded with many interesting articles! I would like to share a few of my reactions.
The "near enemy" is always more despised and feared than the far one. To some sects generally aligned with the Democratic Party, Biden is the near enemy and Trump is the far one. Many of these people will absolutely not turn out to vote in November, or vote for a protest candidate. This is nothing new. Some time ago Republicans Bill Weld and Mitt Romney were elected governor of Massachusetts, because Democrats were so divided.
I thought Chick-fil-a had gotten past the issue with supporting anti-trans and anti-gay lobbyists about 10 years ago. They once donated company money to them, but quietly ended that. While there are some owners who still make such contribution that is qualitatively different from the business itself. If you were to apply that standard to determine boycotts broadly, then there would be a large number of companies you would not patronize. Certainly 100% of public companies would make the boycott list. My thoughts on this subject are largely informed by Adam Ragusea (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZS1A4dIDIQM)
I am not a fan of Patrick "Pat" Quinn, but I agree that a referendum on sports team subsidies is a good idea. Whenever I hear reports citing economists on public money for sports venues or hosting of Olympic events, they say it is not worth it. A counter argument is that Economists ignore effects that are valuable but are difficult to measure. It seems to me like this is what makes it a good topic for a referendum. The issue is understood well enough by the pubic, it is not a proxy for some other issue (like sanctuary city status is), and leaving the decision to elected officials is highly susceptible to corruption.
Steve Chapman is great. I have never read an article by him that was not intriguing to me.
Trump, a threat to society,
Is a source of major anxiety.
Now he's hawking the Good Book,
A terrible look
Amid dubiety about his piety.
I always knew, when the election people kept saying there were a hundred thousand ballots not returned, that number was a joke & the current results have proven that.
But there's no excuse for them to allow mailed ballots to be accepted more than the Friday after the election.
The idiots & outright anti-Semites trying to shut down the DNC are showing their true colors, they just hate Jews!
I'm with Pat Quinn, we don't want to pay for their stadiums. The Bears are worth at least $6 billion & could borrow all the money to build one, either on the Michael Reese property or Arlington Park. But are the banks that stupid to lend money for those money pits? University of Chicago economist Allan Sanderson has shown over & over, they're never worth the money.
Plus why should we build these billionaire thieves a second set of stadiums, when we did that for them 30 years ago & are nowhere near paying those money pits off!
I think the state Supreme Court took up that creep Smollett's case so they can put a finality to it & finally send him back to the prison sentence he so rightfully deserves. He's a total moron & according to IMDb, he hasn't worked as an actor since 2019, all due to his lies about the attack. No sane producer wants to work with him.
NBC's astoundingly moronic hiring of McDaniel isn't a new thing. Don't forget, they also hired wing-nut Megyn Kelly from Fox [alleged] News, several years ago, she turned out to be a total flop that actually angered the women they thought would watch her show & then had to pay her $35 million to go away, because they gave stupidly her a five year iron clad contract, actually thinking they were in a competition with other outlets for her. Except that turned out to be a lie, no one else wanted her! Now she writes fake articles about herself & her useless opinions for Murdoch's NY Post, under the pen name of Ariel Zilber, she obviously must pay to have the paper run them, as she certainly has NBC's cash to pay for that.
I must admit that I have teased the Green Bubblians.
"allowing abortions up to 15 weeks of gestation." I use to naively believe that the people writing these laws didn't understand pregnancy, and didn't realize most women might not realize they are pregnant -- earlier than 15 weeks but not as early as some opponents want the restriction to kick in.
then I realized they absolutely know and just want to punish women and pander to their ignorant, uneducated base.
"crackpot theory that “chemtrails” from airplanes are part of government experiments to disperse chemicals into the atmosphere."
Given some of the sh*t our government has done since Its inception, I wouldn't call this outlandish. Except for the fact that there are likely more efficient, cheaper and more clandestine ways to dispose of chemical waste.
didn't realize there was discrimination between iPhone users and non-iPhone users to that level but then of course there is because fucking humans always gotta look at differences.
For a while i had a android and and iPad but couldn't get my text messages on the iPad (even though you can use your phone number for FaceTime) and it was inconvenient. i got back into the apple ecosystem for that reason.
Wow, and I thought I didn't like country music! I've been meaning to look for Beyonce's country hit and glad to have it dropped in my lap this morning.
I like EZ's ideas about changes to mail in voting. I would also like to media to stop pronouncing winners before the votes are counted. I don't care how statistically accurate their methods may be, because I believe that it undermines the confidence in the result. I think it was in the 2020 presidential election that the 'winner' in Arizona was announced with 0% of the vote counted. Reporting tallies is fine, but there is zero reason to report the AP prediction of winners.
while i've been delighted to participate in each level of Tweet Madness ‘24, incl'g today's Elite 8, i was shocked & dismayed that the Magic Johnson tweet failed to make the final 8. IMNSHO, a nat'l-champion worthy tweet.
that said, almost all of the E8 are excellent too.
There is certainly ample room for reasoned debate about the Israeli war with Hamas, but it is sickening to see the blatant anti-Semitism that is on display in our streets and college campuses.
Our good friend Judith Raanan, who with her daughter Natalie were captured and taken hostage by Hamas on October 7th from the Nahal Oz kibbutz and who were also the first hostages released by Hamas have told us a great deal about their experiences, and Judith is also speaking publicly about this. Upon being taken hostage they were marched on foot across the border and then loaded on to vehicles and taken to the Hamas command center, And then down into the tunnels. The command center was located inside a large hospital, and when the Hamas terrorists paraded them and their fellow captives inside, the nurses and other staff gathered around and were trilling in celebration.
A poll that was taken inside Gaza in Oct-Nov last year prior to the start of the Israeli offensive by the Arab World for Research and Development (largely funded by the EU) reflected that 75% of respondents supported the October 7th terrorist attack, and 80% opposed a peace with Israel involving a two-state solution. This is the fanatical mindset that Israel has right at its border.
President Biden is increasingly bowing to the Democratic hard left who is demanding that Israel cease its offensive in Gaza. But the IDF cannot stop until the Hamas terror organization has been totally demolished inside Gaza. The US and our allies tragically killed a million or more German civilians in the bombing and invasion of that country in World War II, yet there was absolutely no thought given to a ceasefire until the Nazis had been thoroughly defeated. Hamas has always had the ability to stop the Israeli offensive immediately upon release of all the hostages, laying down their arms and leaving Gaza. But they refuse to do so, and Israel must continue to finish the job for their own self-preservation. 🇮🇱🙏
EZ - In your description of Edwin Eisendrath, you failed to mention that he was a former Chicago Alderman. (He was the Alder of my ward, back in the day - one of the Lakefront "Goo-Goos" (good government City Councilors), as the old-time Dem Ward pols called them back then. (See what I did there?)
Loved your non-call-out call-out of John Kass ("idiots", "addled conspiracy theorists"), but call a spade, a spade, I say.
Word around the Cook County courthouses is that a large majority of the judges supported O'Neill-Burke, rather than Harris - not because she used to be one of them, but because they are unenthused about the additional influence of Toni Preckwinkle (and her agenda) on the Cook County justice system.
As a lover of language, I love the word "dubiety", as I, too, had never come across it before.
The plastics industry's scam on the world regarding its cynical "recyclability of plastics" claims (knowing full well how plastics' complexity makes recycling a virtual no-go, ranks right up there with the fossil fuel industry's campaign against global warming/climate change. The Koch brothers' influence (especially) through their PACs' spending over the past 3 (4?) decades has helped drive climate denialism in this country to an extent that far outstrips any other western nation. The Republican Party is the only major political party in the Western World that denies anthropogenic climate change. However, I do believe that we will eventually get to a place where the sorting of plastic materials - the Achilles heel of plastics recycling - will get to a point where, applying technology, it is economically viable to recycle plastics.
Democratic Socialists are not Democrats. They do not see a significant difference between the GOP and Democrats. They are fine with chaos and disruption, as they believe it will create opportunity for them. They believe that Biden and the party has failed progressives and will never be sufficiently socialist. They also know that the $3 billion in annual military aid to Israel and the $14 billion in supplemental aid package request will not change under either.
There once was a priest of great piety
Whose habits inspired dubiety
On Tuesdays he snuck
To Sally’s to ****
Well, priests need a little variety!