Friday Fauxlosophy

We often wonder what is the greater challenge, to improve our circumstances or manage our expectations

Black history month


February each year is both Black history month, and also the shortest month of the year. What  most Americans are surprised to learn (to hear the strident Republican reaction to the replacement of justice Antonin Scalia) is that black presidential terms are shorter as well, in that they seem to be insisting that Mr. Obama is not allowed a full four years to do his constitutional presidential duty of nominating Supreme Court justices. And when they say, "let's decide it by an election", newsflash; we already did. President Obama was elected by a combined 13 million votes in his two elections, compared to George W. Bush who's plurality was a little under 3 million in his two terms.

Some Republican Math


Watching the Republican debate, and what Paul Krugman calls their "Time Loop" approach to everything being about taxes and many of their personal pronouncements to be to fight "wealth redistribution", you can't help but remember when Bill Clinton raised taxes just a little bit on high incomes and....we had the best economy in the last half-century. And the stock market went up 300%, so let the saying go forth "A tea party Republican is someone who thinks with his taxes go down by 2% and his stock portfolio goes down by more than 35% he came out ahead." 

Our reference point is the stock market under a Bill Clinton presidency vs that of George W. Bush.

Sloppy Paper Work

Yesterday in LA the ultimate argument for paper organization was made. It seems when you buy a winning lottery ticket in CA you have 180 days to claim your prize, unlike in CT where you have a year. Well, last August some guy or gal bought a ticket, never turned it in, and it expired at 5:00pm yesterday. We would have thought the store owner would have used his security camera to track the winner, as gets a cut as well. Oh, the amount the winner lost through sloppy paper work? 63 million. Ouch.

Repeating Prejudice


Any religious or ethnic group who has suffered prejudice in earlier times, and practices that same bigotry in present times, at the very least explains and possibly justifies what was done to them in past times.

To be or not to be


I think one definition of important people in our lives, personal and public, is that they give us lessons on how to live. Keep in mind these lessons can be what "to be" and....every bit as important what "not to be".