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One headline says it
Here’s the problem with statistics, especially the mean, encapsulated in one headline: People are living longer but it’s not evenly distributed. Well then, you can’t say PEOPLE. You should say rich people are living longer, and everyone else is dying faster. Since 1980 longevity and happiness were transferred upward along with wealth.
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Random language notes
1. Spam email from Grammarly: Apply to Jobs With Confidence. Sorry, I don’t have confidence in a grammar and style app that thinks ‘apply to jobs’ is preferable, and doesn’t capitalize consistently. You ‘apply for jobs’ and you ‘apply to General Motors’. (If you had good afterlife connections you might ‘apply to Jobs’ for a…
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Start with quality.
Last week I wrote up a contest between the first coast-to-coast airmail flight and a group of Essex cars. The cars won. Hudson touted the event in a 1922 pamphlet which omits the airmail comparison entirely. By this account the project was originated by the Post Office in an attempt to widen the range of…
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Making it worse
RFK wants to ban all vaccines. He’s been working on this goal for many years as part of his genocidal Gaian agenda. The antivax personality has traded sides twice. Before 1970 antivaxers were mostly fundamentalist Christian and “right-wing”. Identitarian ideology is based on an OCD need for purity in everything, from thought to race to…
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New crime, old failure of media
This is a new form of fraud! The report by KHQ is overly vague to protect identities, but the subject is clear enough. An older homeowner was at work, and his neighbor called to tell him that somebody was changing the locks on his house. There were also appraisers and others looking over the property.…
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Another reason for Desistance
Well, there are already billions of reasons to stay out of the Machiavelli crap, but here’s one that might be relevant in the online world. Right now ABSOLUTELY EVERYONE in the online world is MANDATED AND REQUIRED to line up in two opposing armies about the BIG STORY, which apparently has something to do with…
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Regrowth
From RealClear, an article with hopeful signs. The article misses the former strength of smaller cities. It mocks the NYC bigotry but basically agrees with NYC that the universe ends at the Hudson River. The term “flyover country” was not just a snobbish put-down but a reality as a handful of core cities – New…
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More Ponca action
Last week I noted that the house across from Grandma’s apartment in Ponca is for sale. I reprinted my account of the Folly that used to be there, and the puzzle about where it was. Now Grandma’s apartment itself is for rent! The address given by Zillow is for the lower left apartment, but the…
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Another answer
Previous item repeated Carver’s answer to Machiavelli. Now repeat Henry Ford’s answer. = = = = = START FORD ANSWER: This 1935 Ford promotional film starts with a long florid speech by a pompous grandiose announcer, introducing an important address by Henry Ford himself! Mr Ford will announce the company’s way of countering the Depression.…
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Machiavelli loves them
Everyone is riled up today, marching in the two assigned Machiavelli ranks, because some dude was killed somewhere. I’ve vaguely heard of the dude, maybe some kind of celebrity in Political Reality TV. These riled-up periods are good for me: they force me to turn away from wasteful scrolling toward creating or resting. I gave…
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Watchclock 2.0
The latest Post Office podcast discusses a massive increase in mail thefts since the Trump torture camp. When most people were relying on mail and Amazon and DoorDash, organized crime grabbed the opportunity. Mail thefts, mostly for IDs and checks, increased by a factor of 2. Armed robberies of postmen increased by a factor of…
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Ponzi is a fake argument
Too many arguments sink into irrelevance when one side insists A is a Ponzi scheme and the other side says it isn’t. Bitcoin and Social Security are both called Ponzi at times. The definition of Ponzi is much more nuanced and fuzzy than we usually think. Intention is important. Two classic examples show the real…
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Another Post Office anniversary today
Yesterday was Neither Snow nor Rain Day. Today is also a notable point on the PO timeline. The Post Office podcasts feature several Firsts or attempted Firsts in postal transportation, including the first balloon flight in 1859. The PO could define routes and transport methods as suitable for mail. Every new development was soon postalized,…
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Today is & day!
Time to reprint again the genuine history of the symbol, which doesn’t match the standard etymology. = = = = = START REPRINT: I’ve always been bothered by the bizarre-sounding etymology of Ampersand. The symbol itself is no mystery: just a stylized version of et. But the usual etymology for the name doesn’t make a…
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The Swami
First of three old coin-op machines. Starting with an overview of the cafe and a rehash of the Swami fortune teller. = = = = = Here’s a downtown scene. The cafe is on a corner, the Kellogg printing plant is across the street, and an apartment hotel is on the other corner. Duplex tenant…
Polistra's Mill
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