2021 archive
Opportunity Cost 0
Gabriel Young points to news reports that the two decades the United States spent accomplishing almost nothing in Afghanistan (aside from the capture of Bin Laden) suggests that, as a society and a government, the United States is incapable of rational cost-benefit analysis. Here’s a bit; follow the link for his ideas about what might have been more effective use of those trillions.
(snip)
In addition to the immeasurable human toll, the Associated Press reports that the US spent over 2 trillion dollars on direct costs of the Afghanistan war alone (Knickmeyer, 2021). The AP points out that because the funds for the war were borrowed, the total cost of merely the war itself could easily exceed 6.5 trillion dollars, in addition to 2 trillion more on future care for veterans and 6 trillion on top of that already spent on other aspects of the War on Terror, which will also incur spectacular interest if not paid off. All told, the cost of the Afghanistan war and related efforts could easily add up to between 10 and 20 trillion dollars.
Vaccine Nation 0
At the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Kevin McDermott marvels at the stupid. A snippet:
“Steal MAGAnolias” 0
As Farhad Manjoo points out, we live in parlous times. Here’s a bit of his article:
If One Standard Is Good, Two Must Be Better 0
At Psychology Today Blogs, Jeremy Sherman offers a taxonomy of hypocrisy.
School Daze 0
The American dream is rapidly becoming the American nightmare.
Aside:
My mother was a teacher. I refuse to visualize her debasing herself in such a manner.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Show politeness to innocent bystanders.
The driver of the pickup truck started to drive off, and the driver of the Camaro called out for someone to stop him. A person standing in the Benny’s parking lot, who had not been involved in the accident in any way, took out a gun and began firing, ostensibly at the pickup truck that was driving off.
The shooter did not hit the pickup truck, but did hit a 2012 Infiniti G24 that was stopped at the intersection and was occupied by a 53-year-old man who was also not involved in the accident in any way.
QOTD 0
Rex Stout:
Efforts to censor what people read are not justified under the American system.
Quoted from a speech attended by John Jakes in Jakes’s introduction
to Stout, Rex, Over My Dead Body (New York: Bantam, 1993), p. vii.
“Manufacturing Enemies” 0
Michael in Norfolk takes a look at Fox News’s faux war on Christmas and its maleficent implications.
Maskless Marauders, a Snitch in Time Kills Nine Dept. 0
The stupid. It burns.
The Coupprint 0
Will Bunch suggests that the plan of Donald Trump and his dupes, symps, and fellow travelers to overthrow the results of the 2020 election, as revealed in a Powerpoint presentation obtained from Mark Meadows, deserves far more attention than it’s getting. Here’s a bit from Bunch’s article; follow the link for the rest.
“Social” Media Isn’t, Reprise 0
At the San Francisco Chronicle, Kevin Frazier argues forcefully that the proliferation of “smart” devices and social media is–er–not beneficial to school children. A snippet:
Students survived without a tether to their iPhone for most of human existence. Let’s get back to that era. Let’s figure out how to deal with the logistical problems we understand — like how to coordinate rides home in the absence of phones — rather than continue to test if social media is as bad as “many researchers” think it is.
An Ill-Advised Alliance 0
PoliticalProf is concerned that Republicans have clasped a viper to their bosom (and, by extension, to that of the polity itself).