Pahrump, Nevada report

by philg

My friend wanted to go to Death Valley so we landed at 74P, the Calvada Meadows Airport. A couple of enroute snapshots and then the PC-12 on the ramp, such as it is:

The runway is smooth, but narrow, and there is a fair amount of loose gravel on the ramp. Due to the 4,080′ length combined with hot+highish, very few jets could operate here. That said, it is much better than the National Park Service-maintained airports in Death Valley! (see Why do we have trouble maintaining infrastructure if we’re richer than ever? (Death Valley examples)) On the third hand, there is no security so it might be smarter to leave a high-end plane a KHND and do a bit of extra driving.

Enterprise in Pahrump is awesome and came out to fetch us far faster than the airport folks could bring over a fuel truck. Navigating to the most famous Pahrump establishments is challenging because Google Maps at first claims that they don’t exist:

If you need energy before meeting your friend Hunter at Sheri’s Ranch and want to celebrate Kilmar Abrego Garcia, stop at Tina’s Tamales for pupusas (“Abrego’s actual statutory withholding claim hinged on his claim his mother ran a successful pupusa business, which drew Barrio 18’s (criminal) attention”). It’s next door to Enterprise:

(the French bakery in town is also good, but is comically slow (30-45 minutes to make a sandwich) so don’t go there for anything unless it is premade or you’ve called ahead)

If you take the longer northern route to or from Las Vegas you’ll pass the Nevada Test Site for nuclear bombs (especially for “peaceful uses” of nuclear bombs, as demonstrated by the entirely peaceful Iranians, recently the victims of unprovoked aggression):

Related:

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Why are Climate Change alarmists also Strait of Hormuz alarmists?

by philg

If you believe in climate change, shutting down the Strait of Hormuz is the best thing that ever happened to Mother Earth because it reduces fossil fuel supply and, thus, reduces CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuel. Bizarrely, however, people and organizations who’ve been reliable climate change alarmists describe the closing of the Strait of Hormuz, and the resultant obstruction of oil and gas exports, as a catastrophe. Example from today’s New York Times:

Here’s CNN. For a Follower of Science, the headline should be “Key method of destroying our planet shut down” and high oil prices should be welcomed as a spur to conservation. Instead, we learn that high oil prices should be “fixed” (i.e., oil should be cheap enough to burn in a profligate Earth-destroying CO2-emitting-as-fast-as-possible manner) by Trump and that the strait being closed is a bad thing.

An Obama-generation Democrat in 2022 says that he wants to make it illegal for people to purchase gasoline or, at least, the cars that burn gasoline. This will be an “important climate change policy”:

A few years later, Gavin Newsom is excoriating Trump for causing an increase in the price of the product that he thinks should be outlawed because use of that product is harmful:

Here’s a representative young Democrat saying, in July 2025, that we need to take climate change seriously:

Here is the climate change alarmist, less than a year later, saying that gas prices should be lower so that people can afford to buy and operate that 12 mpg SUV:

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Should people prepare for the AI/Robotics Age by getting into public housing now?

by philg

TL;DR: An LLM might take your job but it can’t take your public housing entitlement.

Let’s suppose that the AI/Robotics revolution happens gradually enough that Americans don’t feel that a total revamp of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society welfare state is required. Those employed as drivers, for example, get replaced over a 20-year period as vehicles that don’t have the requisite hardware for self-driving age out of the fleet. FAA regulation for supplemental type certificates remain so onerous that it is cheaper to pay two pilots on each flight than to retrofit an Airbus A320 or Boeing 787 for self-flying.

Let’s assume that AI/robotics renders only about half of the U.S. workforce unemployable (we’ll keep our high minimum wages so anyone with below-median skills, health, beauty, or strength won’t be able to work legally). That means there will be a gradual, but huge, increase in demand for taxpayer-funded housing (public housing or Section 8). Even before ChatGPT was launched (November 2022), there was already a long waiting list for a taxpayer-funded apartment and, oftentimes, the waiting list was so long that authorities closed. Here’s a March 4, 2026 snapshots from New York City’s taxpayer-subsidized housing web site:

The last window of application to be placed on a waitlist (not to get housing!) was almost two years ago. Nationwide, waiting times, for those who are fortunate enough to have gotten on the waitlist, are apparently typically between 2 and 10 years.

Is the smart move for a young person to get into the welfare system now while the waitlists are still no more longer than 10 years? He/she/ze/they can (1) refrain from work, (2) have a child, and/or (3) be diagnosed with a disability.

Related:

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Starbucks billionaire advocates for higher tax rates and moves to Florida

by philg

Washington State moved to add to its portfolio of state income taxes yesterday by imposing a 9.9% tax on income over $1 million/year (“House passes millionaires tax 52-46 after day-long debate”). Also, yesterday, the Starbucks billionaire Howard Schultz announced his move to Miami:

In 2022, Washington State imposed a 9.9% tax on the only income that a guy like Schultz is likely to have (capital gains). They also have a 35% death tax (estate tax). Moving to Florida will save Schultz and his wife more than $1 billion because the Florida income and estate tax rates are 0%.

Schultz says that he yearns to pay higher taxes:

(Taxing “all capital gains as [ordinary] income” would be truly epic given that capital “gains” aren’t calculated with respect to inflation, i.e., a person who sells a property or stock at a loss in real dollars may still owe capital gains tax due to the rise in nominal dollars.)

Also from 2019:

“I myself should be paying higher taxes — and all wealthy Americans should have to pay their fair share. I think we can all agree on that,” Schultz said at the university.

Maybe this is the explanation for why Howard Schultz won’t be joining Donald Trump in Palm Beach. From 2020:

“In my view, our choice this November is not just for one candidate over another,” Schultz wrote in a letter to supporters. “We are choosing to vote for the future of our republic.” Schultz went on to say, “What is at risk is democracy itself: Checks and balances. Rigorous debate. A free press. An acceptance of facts, not ‘alternate facts.’ Belief in science. Trust in the rule of law. A strong judicial system. Unity in preserving all of our rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Taking aim at President Trump’s repeated attacks on voting by mail – which many Americans feel is a safer option due to health concerns over in-person voting at polling stations amid the coronavirus pandemic – Schultz stressed that it’s “essential that Americans turn out to vote, that every American is able to vote safely, whether by mail or in person, and that every vote is counted. It would be a grave miscalculation to think this election is secured for a Biden victory.”

He believes in Science, but voluntarily moves to a state that rejects Science and a city that rejected masks in favor of partying on?

Speaking of Science, what has the proud owner of a condo in a beachfront Four Seasons building (i.e., sea-level coastal exposure to Climate Change-caused hurricanes) said about Climate Change? In 2019, he said that he was “gravely concerned about our planet, climate change and things that we have to do” (though he wasn’t on board with Full AOC)

What does ChatGPT have to say about a guy who is moving within an easy drive of Alligator Alcatraz?

Schultz has also backed a legalization/citizenship approach on immigration. In his 2019 Purdue speech, summarized by GeekWire and OnTheIssues, he called for “common-sense immigration reform,” including “a path to citizenship for Dreamers” and broader legalization measures. Florida’s recent immigration policy has moved in the opposite direction: SB 1718 bars local funding for IDs for people without proof of lawful presence, invalidates certain out-of-state licenses issued to unauthorized immigrants, requires some hospitals to collect immigration-status information, and strengthens penalties tied to employing unauthorized workers.

What about the move to a state with the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection guarantee is taken seriously?

Schultz’s race- and DEI-oriented corporate activism is also hard to square with current Florida policy. His “Race Together” initiative and his broader view that companies should engage on racial issues fit poorly with Florida’s anti-DEI direction. Florida’s Board of Governors regulation now bars state universities from spending state or federal funds to “promote, support, or maintain” programs that advocate DEI or engage in “political or social activism,” and the regulation defines DEI in part by reference to classifications based on race, gender identity, and sexual orientation. Florida law also restricts certain race- and sex-related instruction in education settings

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Does Iran’s indifference to being bombed highlight how dangerous they would have been as a nuclear power?

by philg

The leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran have been indifferent to everything that the infidels have thrown at them. Their leaders have been killed. Their infrastructure is being degraded. New York Times:

Across Iran, more than 90 million people are trapped between two terrifying realities. American and Israeli leaders, whose bombs are razing ever more parts of their infrastructure, have called on Iranians to use this as an opportunity for liberation. And their rulers, determined to cling to power, have threatened more bloodshed against whoever dares answer that call.

A week after the U.S.-Israeli strikes that killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Mr. Trump expressed his desire to play a role in selecting the country’s new leader — perhaps from the very authoritarian system that he has urged Iranians to rise against. The authorities responded by appointing the dead leader’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, a hard-line cleric, as the successor.

For days, American and Israeli bombardments have pulverized Iranian military, intelligence and police sites across the country. And yet, there is no clear indication of a collapse in the government’s deeply entrenched and ideologically motivated security forces.

Apparently, Iranian leaders don’t mind being martyred and they certainly don’t seem to care if their subjects suffer. Does this highlight how dangerous Iran would have been with nuclear weapons mounted on ballistic missiles? (the NYT said it would take them about “a decade” to build a significant number of nukes plus delivery missiles) How do you deter a nuclear power if the rulers of that power don’t care what happens to themselves or the country that they’re ruling?

Loosely related…

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Perfect photo for Bernie Sanders and Ro Khanna’s “tax the rich” effort

by philg

The perfect photo for stoking envy among the peasants:

(It’s an Aston Martin V12 Vantage (10 mpg?) in front of a Pilatus PC-24 (not as spacious as a typical billionaire’s Gulfstream, but useful for getting into smaller airports) in front of an FBO called “Million Air”. Austin, Texas.)

Separately, it would be a lot simpler to tax billionaires if the federal government eliminated or capped charitable deductions and imposed a foreign remittance tax on nonprofit orgs. Currently Bill Gates’s and Warren Buffett’s fortunes, for example, can be entirely sheltered from income tax via the money going into the Gates Foundation. Then the Gates Foundation can export the money away from the U.S. economy for $20 (wire transfer fee) by sending it all to Africa. With a cap on charitable deductions, Bill Gates and his subordinate-turned-wife-turned-plaintiff would have had to pay 20 percent federal capital gains tax plus 3.8 percent Obamacare tax. Let’s assume an additional 25 percent tax on sending money to Africa. and the U.S. Treasury could have become fat and happy as a result of Bill Gates’s success with Microsoft. Billionaires, despite trying, haven’t figured out how become immortal. Thus, they’d all pay 40 percent at death via estate tax on any money that wasn’t given to a nonprofit. Eliminating charitable deductions or capping the deductibility at $1 million per lifetime could be called the Elvis Presley Spirit of Charity Act of 2026. That’s because Elvis didn’t write off his charitable contributions, saying “that would take away from the spirit of the gift.” The Bernie and Khanna “steal 5 percent every year” plan seems doomed to fail because if you accept their reasoning (billionaires are too rich and didn’t truly earn their wealth) then the rate should be much higher than 5 percent. By contrast, there is no obvious reason for unlimited charitable deductions, especially given how lavishly nonprofit orgs spend.

What does Million Air look like inside, you might ask?

(It would look better if a slob hadn’t left his jacket on the chair at right…. said slob being yours truly (it was down near freezing in the morning).)

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Brave fighters against Islamophobia in New York prove law professor’s point

by philg

Yesterday, CBS ran a headline communicating to readers that the noble leader of NYC was attacked: “FBI launches terrorism investigation after homemade explosive device ignited outside of NYC Mayor Mamdani’s residence”. The article, however, tells a different story:

New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch told reporters on Saturday that an anti-Islam protest was organized by people associated with Jake Lang, a pardoned Jan. 6 rioter and far-right influencer. A group of counter-protesters, numbering more than 100, also gathered, and two young men from Pennsylvania, angered by the anti-Islam protest, brought the homemade bombs to the gathering, intending to cause harm, law enforcement sources told CBS News.

Videos showing the chaos from the protests, verified by the CBS News Confirmed team, show a man apparently yelling “Allahu Akbar” – or “God is Most Great” – just as a protester, identified as 18-year-old Emir Balat, of Pennsylvania, allegedly throws an “ignited device.”

Jake Lang falsely asserted that some percentage of Muslims living in a non-Muslim society would inevitably choose to wage jihad, as seen in the follow examples:

Thus far, the story seems to be that two Muslim-Americans, both children of immigrants, wanted to show how wrong Mr. Lang was regarding the above. They manufactured bombs and threw them at Mr. Lang and surrounding haters infected with irrational Islamophobia.

Let’s step back for a moment and consider this classic lecture by a law professor:

CNN: “two men arrested in connection with the device admitted to being inspired by ISIS”.

Since, as a practical matter, being a violent criminal isn’t against any New York State or City law, they could have been back out on the street already if they hadn’t talked about ISIS to the police. Instead of being free to work on their next jihad, therefore, they now face the potential of federal terrorism charges and actual prison time.

Lesson from the law prof: “Don’t Talk to the Police”!

Fakely related… (source)

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AI catastrophists will feel better if they become climate catastrophists?

by philg

A friend in San Francisco is an AI catastrophist, as least as far as the economy is concerned. He’s not worried about robots taking over and, after reflecting on the damage that humans say that humans have caused to Mother Earth, killing all of the humans. He’s concerned about the value of his three-unit building in San Francisco. I said, “Why don’t you become a climate change catastrophist? You won’t have to worry about the trajectory of the U.S. economy if all cities except Denver are inundated by melting in Greenland and Antarctica.”

As a starting point towards transitioning (always a beautiful process!) from AI Doomer to Climate Doomer, here’s a 2015 article on how even Orlando (100′ above sea level) is doomed once Greenland and Antarctica melt:

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LBJ Library: remembering America’s most consequential president

by philg

It’s the 61st anniversary of Lyndon Johnson going all-in on the Vietnam War. Wikipedia:

On March 8, 1965, 3,500 troops went ashore near Da Nang, the first time U.S. combat forces had been sent to mainland Asia since the Korean War.

Last month, I visited the LBJ Presidential Library in Austin. One of the challenges was coordinating a meeting there with an Austin-based friend and not referring to it as the “LGBTQ Library”. LBJ is the author of the modern U.S.:

  • He opened the borders for the first time since 1924 by signing The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, ultimately driving the percentage of immigrants in the U.S. to an all-time high and with an explicit rejection of the idea that immigrants should share language, culture, or religion with existing Americans or with each other
  • Johnson created the first federal programs, Medicare and Medicaid, for which there is no Congressional control of spending. (I.e., spending expands according to how many medical procedures doctors and hospitals can dream up and bill for) These have grown into the largest federal spending programs, a “hold my beer” situation for those who asked “What could possibly cost more than running the U.S. military?” (nearly 90 million Americans are on Medicaid, originally characterized as a “safety net” program)
  • He signed the Gun Control Act of 1968, which dialed back Americans’ Second Amendment rights
  • Johnson set up food stamps (later “SNAP/EBT”)
  • He signed the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1965, which created a bizarre patchwork of taxpayer-funded housing for some, but not all, Americans who met income criteria (apparently contrary to the 14th Amendment’s promise of Equal Protection; Person A gets a free apartment while Person B, identically situated, gets a place on a waiting list or is told that the waiting list is full (contrast to Medicaid and food stamps, in which every eligible person is treated equally).
  • Johnson signed the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, thus giving us NPR and PBS to sing the praises of all of the above

Most of the above Great Society legislation was opposed by Republicans, but didn’t seem crazy because it was done during a period when the U.S. was enjoying rapid economic growth. Had that rate of growth continued forever, the new programs might have been affordable.

(Note that Lyndon Johnson was the anti-Milton Friedman. Friedman said that one couldn’t have open borders and a welfare state. Johnson opened the borders and simultaneously dramatically expanded the welfare state.)

Approaching the library, one sees the effects of Johnson’s immigration policy. There is a sign encouraging people who don’t know enough English to understand the word “here” (a translation to “aqui” is required) to decide who will run roughly 40 percent of GDP (local, state, and federal governments):

If you love concrete you’ll love the architecture:

Johnson was an early adopter of technology, apparently. While he was serving in Congress, his wife purchased a radio station, which became fantastically more valuable due to favorable FCC rulings on what hours and power it could use and also due to advertisements placed on the radio station by businesses who wanted Representative Johnson to vote in particular ways. (“Johnson, Virtually Penniless in 1937, Left a Fortune Valued at $20‐Million” (NYT, 1973; that’s about $150 million in today’s mini-dollars)) This foray into government-regulated entrepreneurship and subsequent personal wealth isn’t highlighted at the library! Johnson campaigned by helicopter in 1948, a type of machine that wasn’t mass-produced until 1943:

The history wall gives equal weight to the Beatles playing on TV and to a U.S. President being shot and killed:

Who will agree with me that Johnson was the most consequential U.S. president? Even if he had done nothing other than open our borders, I think it is fair to say that Lyndon Johnson changed the U.S. more than any previous president. Some might cite Abraham Lincoln, but we could easily have ended up in an EU-type situation with our brothers, sisters, and binary-resisters in the Confederate States of America (which would have certainly abandoned slavery within a few years after 1865 since slavery was abolished nearly everywhere outside of the Arab/African world by 1888 (timeline)).

Still relevant, John Q. Public pays for whatever Lyndon Johnson dreamed up…

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New York Times Iran Vibe

by philg

It’s been a week since the U.S. attacked the peace-loving leaders of a peaceful Islamic theocracy. Let’s look at some of the wartime propaganda.

Sunday, March 1, a day after the hated dictator launched airstrikes while poolside in Palm Beach, the deaths of most of Iran’s senior leaders was just slightly more important than the second most important story: the Jeffrey Epstein saga. 93 million Iranians were without leadership for the first time since 1979, but also why didn’t the hundreds of U.S. government lawyers across multiple administrations manage to prosecute more of Jeffrey Epstein’s elite friends? (We know that it can’t be because it wasn’t actually criminal for Larry Summers to try to have sex with a 43-year-old or for Prince Andrew to be introduced to a 26-year-old female in a jurisdiction where the age of consent was 16.)

Today, the stories all seem to be reminding readers that Donald Trump is incompetent and mindlessly aggressive. Here’s part of the NYT front page in which Trump refuses to compromise while the Iranians are reasonable (apologizing):

CNN assembled PhD experts to do a “forensic analysis” and they concluded that war is damaging to infrastructure:

NYT, today, says that attacking Iran is pointless and, by implication, only a moron would order such an attack:

Also from today, the NYT says that only an incoherent (stupid) person would consider killing folks who chant “Death to America” while building nuclear bombs and ballistic missiles to deliver them to American cities:

The peaceful people of Lebanon, who declared war on the Zionist entity, never recognized the State of Israel, supported the October 7 attacks by Hamas (80%; 60% support among Lebanese Christians; 32% wanted to bravely attack Israel to help their brothers, sisters, and binary-resisters in Gaza), and continue to fire projectiles at Israeli civilians are sadly forced to flee their homes because of Jewish aggression:

(The Israeli attacks on Beirut actually do confuse me. The Israelis told the Lebanese to evacuate and then bombed some empty buildings. How does that reduce Hezbollah’s ability to fight? The apartment buildings weren’t being used as forts.)

Another sympathy-provoking story from Lebanon. Merely because they declared war on their neighbor and refused to accept any peace treaty over a 75-year period, some Lebanese can’t sleep comfortably in their own beds:

Trump is far worse than Vladimir Putin (March 6): “Mr. Trump has demonstrated a willingness to disregard international norms and engage in foreign adventurism by fully exploiting Washington’s might.”

From March 3, perhaps it would make sense to prevent a nation of 93 million people from building nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles that could deliver them anywhere in the world, but not if 900 people are killed:

(Comparison to the Bad Old Days: The U.S. killed 100,000 residents of Tokyo on March 9, 1945 and rendered 1 million homeless.)

In a politically diverse discussion group on Facebook, a passionate Democrat posted about 20 times about rising oil prices. In other words, Donald Trump has now convinced Democrats to support Islamic theocracy and also cheap fossil fuels for maximizing climate change. (Greta Thunberg has similarly been posting in support of the Islamic Republic of Iran; you’d think that at least she’d be happy that oil prices are higher and, therefore, that consumption will be lower.)

My own social media post on how Donald Trump has caused suffering on the home front:

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