Paul M. Jones

Calling people stupid is simply a performance for the fellow travelers in your audience. It’s a way that we can all come together and agree that we don’t have to engage with some argument, because the person making it is a bovine lackwit without the basic intellectual equipment to come in out of the rain. So the first message it sends -- “don’t listen to opposing arguments” -- is a stupid message that is hardly going to make anyone smarter.

The second message it sends is even worse: “If he’s stupid, then we, who disagree with him, are the opposite of stupid, and can rest steady in the assurance of our cognitive superiority.” Feeding your own arrogance is an expansive, satisfying feeling. It is also the feeling of you getting stupider.

via Only Stupid People Call People Stupid - Bloomberg View.

The bulk of homeownership expenditures go to the top fifth of households by income, who typically could afford to purchase a home without subsidies.  According to estimates by the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation, more than three-fourths of the value of the mortgage interest and property tax deductions goes to households with incomes of more than $100,000, and close to a third goes to families with incomes above $200,000.

Yet another reason to start stripping back entitlements, including things like mortgage interest deductions. Via Chart Book: Federal Housing Spending Is Poorly Matched to Need -- Center on Budget and Policy Priorities where there is a pretty chart. Hat tip to Arnold Kling where the comments are enlightening.

I think middle school was always h*ll on Earth, but I didn’t know how bad it could be until eighteen girls bullied my son by using the school authorities as weapons.

If the rule is “don’t fight” and “if I feel uncomfortable, I’ll go to the authorities” clever bullies are always capable of running to the authorities with stories, real, invented or exaggerated. In the case of my son they were wholly invented, and to boot these girls were perpetrating violence on him out of sight of the authorities. (Which I only know because I accidentally observed it.) BUT the authorities believed it was possible to completely suppress violence, and that the physical side of it was the only violence, and that a big, strong male must be at fault, always.

We’ve seen what the “don’t fight” and “use the authorities as whips instead” has done in our society at all levels. The male is always guilty and always suspect, but women can make up things out of whole cloth and no one questions it, because “they’re not violent.”

This puts power in the hands of women and men of a certain stripe: the weasels, the tale bearers, the plausible liars, the yellow streaks of sh*t, who would never face another man (or woman) in the full light of day, but who will lie and connive their way to the top.

This way, anti-bullying initiatives become bullying. Someone was discussing on FB how the Goodreads “anti-bullying” groups come down like a ton of bricks on any author trying to defend his book, or anyone else trying to protect himself from group evisceration.

Same as it’s ever been. Take away physical weapons, and people will use the authorities as physical weapons. (And psychological ones too, which is worse.)

So let's stop thinking of the ladies as being above reproach, and above being questioned about their stories. Via Bullies Knights Savages and Komissars | According To Hoyt.

A gender pay gap, albeit one that is rapidly decreasing, still exists; but the good news is that when occupation, contracted hours and most significantly age are taken into account, it all but disappears. In fact, the youngest women today, even those working part-time, are already earning more each hour than men. We need to ask why this is not more widely known and question the motives of those who seem so desperate to cling to a last-ditch attempt to prove that women remain disadvantaged. We should be telling today’s girls that the potential to do whatever job they want and earn as much money as they please is theirs for the taking, rather than burdening them with the mantle of victimhood.

via Cut the crap about the gender pay gap | Feminism | spiked.

Neither the income tax nor its oppressive bureaucratic collector can be fixed. It cannot be reformed. It must be thrown into history’s dust heap of failed legislative experiments and replaced with the Fair Tax Act of 2013, or HR 25/S 122.

The Fair Tax is a simple, fair and transparent national consumption tax that treats everyone the same -- no loopholes, exemptions or exclusions -- not even for Congress.

As such, this legislation represents the largest transfer of power back to the people since the writing of the Constitution.

And the Fair Tax is the only tax replacement plan with 85 cosponsors committed to disbanding, defunding and forever eliminating the IRS.

Benjamin Franklin once said, “the ordaining of laws in favor of one part of the nation, to the prejudice and oppression of another, is certainly the most erroneous and mistaken policy.”

It’s time to end the most prejudicial, oppressive, erroneous and mistaken policy ever forced upon the American people. It’s time for the Fair Tax.

via No, the IRS cannot be fixed --- it must be abolished and replaced with the Fair Tax | WashingtonExaminer.com.

(I'm sure there is a real name for the fallacy.) One sometimes hears, often in political arguments between opposed views where someone attempts a moderated stance, that "the truth lies somewhere in the middle." This may or may not be true; if one side is saying the equivalent of "2+2=4" and the other is saying "2+2=5", then the answer is not "somewhere in the middle." Likewise, if one side is saying the equivalent of "2+2=5" and the other is saying "2+2=6" then the answer is still not somewhere in the middle.

The short answer is "yes, at least, almost every speed limit."

Over the past 12 years, Lt. Megge has increased the speed limit on nearly 400 of Michigan’s roadways. Each time, he or one of his officers hears from community groups who complain that people already drive too fast. But as Megge and his colleagues explain, their intent is not to reduce congestion, bow to the reality that everyone drives too fast, or even strike a balance between safety concerns and drivers’ desire to arrive at their destinations faster. Quite the opposite, Lt. Megge advocates for raising speed limits because he believes it makes roads safer.

via Is Every Speed Limit Too Low?.

After a year spent writing my book, working on Aura, speaking at conferences and user groups, advising startups, and proposing new design patterns, I am back on the market.

I've been writing PHP code since 1999, and in that time I've been everything from a junior developer to a VP of Engineering. If you have a PHP codebase that requires some attention, especially a legacy app that needs to be modernized, I'm your man. I'm also excellent as a leader, mentor, manager, and architect, on small teams and on large ones.

Resume and references available on request. Contact me by email (pmjones88 at gmail) or on Twitter @pmjones if you want to talk!>

UPDATE (Tue 19 Aug): Well that was quick. I'm off the market again, and looking forward to productive efforts with my new employer. My deepest gratitude to everyone who expressed interest; I am truly humbled by the whole experience. Thank you to all.

The victims of literary status envy resent the likes of David Weber, and their perceived inferiority to the Thomas Pynchons of the world; they think the SF field is broken and need to be fixed. When they transpose this resentment into the key of politics in the way their university educations have taught then to do, they become the Rabbits.

The Evil League of Evil is fighting the wrong war in the wrong way. To truly crush the Rabbits, they should be talking less about politics and more about what has been best and most noble in the traditions of the SF genre itself. I think a lot of fans know there is something fatally gone missing in the Rabbit version of science fiction; what they lack is the language to describe and demand it.

via SF and the damaging effects of literary status envy.

Chinn was already a legend in Madison County, Mississippi, because of his unwillingness to bend to white power. David Dennis, then CORE’s Mississippi project director, recalls being in the courtroom of the county courthouse in Canton, Mississippi one morning in 1963, attending a bond hearing for a volunteer who had been arrested on a traffic violation, when C.O. Chinn walked in. Chinn was wearing a holstered pistol on his hip, which probably would not have raised an eyebrow if he had been white.

“Now C.O,” drawled the judge, “You know you can’t come in here wearing that gun.” Madison County Sheriff Billy Noble, was also in the courtroom; Chinn looked over at him, and responded, “As long as that S.O.B. over there is wearing his, I’m gonna keep mine.”

The enmity between Chinn and the sheriff was well known throughout the county and, half-expecting a shootout, Dave Dennis thought to himself, “We’re all dead.” But the judge spoke coaxingly to both men: “Boys, boys, no. Why don’t you put your guns on the table over here on the table in front of the bench. Let’s be good boys.” Both men walked to the table, and -- eyeing one another “very carefully,” Dennis remembers -- set their pistols down.

via Strong men keep a-comin’ on - The Washington Post.