Recent Comments

1. about 17 hours ago on Non Sequitur

   Size of government isn’t the real problem. When Reagan “shrank” it the first time, he cut civilian employees, in some agencies by 1/3, but he actually increased the total number of people working for the government — because the workload didn’t shrink. He nearly doubled the number of contract employees, which tripled the cost [you don’t just pay for one contractor to replace a civilian employee, you pay admin, travel, etc.; and civilian employees were paid about 1/3 less than the contractors replacing them.

   The real problem is that ‘government’ is supposed to be non-political. Politics should be left in Congress. Government agencies come into being when private and individual doesn’t work for the country as a whole. Their missions are to protect and serve the “people” and the “country” in specific areas. Politics seems more concerned with placating business.

   Agencies need a well-defined mission, qualified personnel, the power to enforce regulations under their authority, and a realistic budget. If they don’t have the teeth, they can’t do the job. E.g., agencies responsible for health and safety standards [e.g., USDA, FDA] have to fight political battles every time they propose standards. When they do get standards established, they often lack the personnel for testing, enforcement, etc. They have to rely on internal testing and ‘self-regulation.’ And we’ve seen just how well that works. /s

   What’s the deaths of a few thousand people in comparison to keeping a business highly profitable? Of course, if all businesses/people were honorable, then we wouldn’t need all those agencies . . .

2. 1 day ago on Non Sequitur

   “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.” . . .

   “The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”

   [Animal Farm, George Orwell, 1945]

3. 1 day ago on Non Sequitur

   I don’t think it was a greasy spoon — no spoons involved.

4. 1 day ago on FoxTrot Classics

   Schools in the ‘50s-60s required girls to take ’home ec’ [boys couldn’t], which taught cooking, nutrition, sewing, gardening, etc. We were supposed to become perfect mothers, wives, and homemakers. We were never asked if that is what we wanted to be. We knew how to cook and clean. That just wasn’t what our lives were all about.

   By the mid-60’s, we had realized that even if we wanted to be the perfect mate and mother, we needed more income to have the perfect [or even the not-so-perfect home life]. And a lot of us also discovered that we liked have ‘outside’ jobs and professions. And that’s when home perfection gave way to efficiency. My working mother’s week-day schedule:

   Get up, feed pets, let the dog out [30 min]; make breakfast [15 min]; get kids and spouse* up [15 min]; eat breakfast [15 min]; make lunches [15 min], locate backpacks/books/coats, etc and get kids to bus stop and/or school [15-45 min, depending]; get ready for work [30 min]; drive to work [30 min]; work [9 1/2 hours - including ‘lunch break’ at 3:00 to take kids** to soccer practice]; leave work, do errands, pick up kids from soccer [60 min]; drop off other kids and drive home [45 min]; prepare and eat supper [60 min]; kid time-review homework/baths/stories [90 min]; clean kitchen/do laundry/straighten house/get things ready for tomorrow/do homework — working on masters, and sleep [~7 hours].

   *Spouse worked ‘in the city’ so couldn’t participate in week-day activities.

   **Every mother in my kids’ classes worked and most weren’t able to get their kids to and from activities. I was lucky and could help out.

   Thank heavens for the crockpot!

   And what we needed was a school that required boys to take home ec as well — there are no rules that only women can cook and clean. And plenty of men cook — they just call themselves chefs instead and do it for money.

5. 3 days ago on Non Sequitur

   “Those who don’t learn from history are condemned to repeat it.” George Santayana

6. 3 days ago on Non Sequitur

   1. It takes time to count all those paper ballots in states that didn’t allow computers. 2. It takes time to count absentee and mail-in ballots in states wouldn’t allow them to be counted until after Election Day. 3. It takes time to count military ballots, especially in states that wouldn’t allow them to be counted until after Election Day. 4. Many elections were very close and required automatic recounts. 5. There were even a few states that threw out votes claiming a variety of problems [e.g., they didn’t qualify for an absentee ballot because they were out of the country] — some of these are being challenged in court.

   If you recall the last presidential election, it was still being contested in January. . .

   And, actually, it is House and Senate races that are taking a while, not the presidential race.

7. 3 days ago on Non Sequitur

   One of the memes being circulated the past few weeks: “I will never be able to respect anyone who cares less about the rights of their daughters, sisters, nieces, girlfriends, and wives, than they care about the price of a carton of eggs.”

   Aside from the question of morality and ethics being raised, it’s really sad that so many people forget we live in a capitalistic democracy, where prices are set by supply and demand [and greed] and not by the government. Why do so many people blame the government/President for things he obviously has little or no control over?

   If you want to blame someone for the high price of eggs, blame the economic system of supply and demand — when hens are destroyed for bird flu, you have to wait for new chicks to hatch and grow before they can lay eggs. And you have to pay people to raise them and feed them and gather and pack the eggs and ship them and the truck drivers to deliver them to stores and the store owners having the store n the first place — and also the stockers, cashiers, basket collectors, maintenance people and cleaners, etc. who keep the store going so you can come in and buy eggs. That’s all part of the business model — not the government’s.

   All the President and government can do is offer grants, loans, incentives to stimulate business and pass regulations to protect workers, consumers, and our country, from dangerous business practices. Prices don’t go down until business feels the need to lower them.

8. 3 days ago on Non Sequitur

   We are not amused.

9. 3 days ago on Non Sequitur

   And, since he continues to throw friends and lawyers and potential successors to the wolves or they end up disbarred, publicly discredited, and/or in jail, who will ascend to the thrown when he dies? And will his faithful followers remain faithful? Even Trump can’t live forever.

10. 3 days ago on Non Sequitur

    US immigration policies 1800 on:

    The US encouraged relatively free and open immigration during the 18th and early 19th centuries, and rarely questioned that policy until the late 1800s. However, “Nativists” — people who held a strong anti-immigrant sentiment — primarily targeted Catholic and Jewish immigrants, particularly Irish and East European Jews, as threats to ‘American’ culture and values.

    After certain states passed state immigration laws following the Civil War, the Supreme Court in 1875 declared regulation of immigration a federal responsibility. As the number of immigrants rose in the 1880s and economic conditions in some areas worsened, Congress began to pass immigration legislation.

    The general Immigration Act of 1882 levied a head tax of fifty cents on each immigrant and blocked (or excluded) the entry of idiots, lunatics, convicts, and persons likely to become a public charge.

    The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 [after they had spent 10 years building the transcontinental railroad] and Alien Contract Labor laws of 1885 and 1887 prohibited certain laborers from immigrating to the US. Immigration from other Asia-Pacific groups were added in 1917. Except the Philippines, which was a US colony, so its citizens were US nationals.

    In 1920 [post WWI], immigration expert and Republican Senator William P. Dillingham introduced a measure to create immigration quotas, at 3% of the total population of the foreign-born of each nationality in the US as recorded in the 1910 census. In early 1921, the newly inaugurated President Warren Harding called Congress back to a special session to pass the quota law. This evolved into the Immigration Act of 1924, which limited the number of immigrants allowed entry to 2% of the total number of people of each nationality in the US as of the 1890 national census and it completely excluded immigrants from Asia. And this Act has been tweaked every few years since — one of our nation’s more shameful political footballs.