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China’s “one child” policy is also the Achilles Heal with respect to the country’s military based expansion. When our son was in middle school studying Mandarin, his class did an exchange program with a sister school in China. They visited the US living with their exchange buddy. And our son stayed with Danial’s family when he visited Shanghai. Among the things that struck me from all this was the how central to his family Danial is. To his parents he is their universe. Their everything. OK, so are our children to us. But in a country where near every child is an only child, that reality presents a different gravity when you send young people off to die in an unnecessary conflict.I still believe that the Russian soldiers who lost their lives in Ukraine will bring about some form of revolt and likely the exert the leverage necessary to end this senseless conflict. Sons and daughters coming home in body bags where the force behind ending Vietnam and Russia’s incursion into Afghanistan.If China where to engage in a bloody conflict in Taiwan, a country showing signs of fierce independence similar to Ukraine, I suspect the body count would be so painful it could break China. In the end, never underestimate the power of a grieving mother.
| yes | 6,945 |
joshbarnes But I understand jeepCK's point: Why not draft and process the reversal legislation? That would draw more attention to Trump/GOP impact on the debt and on income inequality. Why didn't they try to do it and talk about it? Let the GOP vote against what's right...at least attempt to do the right thing. Might open a few more eyes to the priorities of the GOP!
| no | 1,454 |
There is no mention made of how science and technology companies have monopolized many industries, crushing innovation. Examples would be Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Johnson and Johnson to name but a few. These companies buy up smaller companies and suppress competitive research. If you want innovations, we need anti-trust legislation to promote competition in America. Why not use government funding to promote smaller companies, for starters?
| yes | 6,042 |
When it came to foreign policy, Mr. Trump was actually quite successful. He encouraged India, Japan and Australia to join the Quad to be a check on China. He pushed through Abrams accord to advance peace in middle east. He started imposing tariffs on China to punish them for anti competitive practices. He pulled out of Iran deal. He encouraged our NATO partners to spend more on defense ( atleast 2% of GDP according to treaty). Our NATO allies like Italy, Germany, Slovenia etc spend less than 1% of defense while we spend 3%. Mr. Biden has not reversed any of Trump's foreign policy which shows Mr. Biden and his team understands the success of Trump's foreign policy. I hope Mr. DeSantis can take that lead. There needs to more sanctions on Iran as they threaten our ally Israel. Israel needs more support to ward off Palestinian threat and threat from Iran. We also need to spend more on military as China is challenging liberal world order. We need more ships and planes to patrol south china sea. DeSantis's record in congress and his speeches now point to this. Hopefully he can win and implement these policies. Our competition with China would be similar to our cold war with Soviets. We need more military spending to counter China, because as Raegan said Peace can be achieved only through strength.
| yes | 7,327 |
If you want to know why highways keep getting expanded, even though it doesn't reduce traffic, just follow the money map.Auto companies, oil companies, tire companies, road construction companies, and a dozen other industries all benefit when more roads and highways are built and expanded. All of these 'good corporate citizens' do their patriotic duty and make ample "campaign contributions" to the legislatures and politicians who decide where the money gets spent. Follow the money... the 'roads and highway' lobby is very effective in keeping us doing the same things over and over, even when it doesn't solve the problem.
| yes | 7,798 |
Bill it’s shockingly not much either. I think it can start at around $5,000.Caveat, clearly a lot of money. But not when you’re paying off a congressperson to do your bidding.
| yes | 9,600 |
Teachers definitely shouldn't incorporate it into their lesson plans, or it will be painful when "Open" AI decides to end this beta and make it paid access only. And as far as cheating goes, schools could easily prevent it by having students write their essays during school in a computer lab on Word or something.
| no | 286 |
I’m unemployed right now. A friend suggested I look into the local school district for openings. My immediate response was “No! Schools are too dangerous.” I didn’t take a second to think about it. We live in a red neck conservative state. Changes to gun laws aren’t going to happen unless they can think of any more ways to make them more lenient. Open carry for minors?
| no | 4,100 |
Oriflamme , Well that is quite literary and well done. As a psychotherapist of 40 years of practice, now 83, I would add the developmental perspective that we all see through more windows than we knew were in our house - as we grow older. As the doctor generously shares with her readers that she is bringing new life into her world of previously no children, I am smiling at her good fortune and imagining the work, yes, but the joy ahead of her. She may in fact have "outgrown" her current practice of critical care patients and is ready to embrace a new chapter. What some call a mid-life crisis indeed may be a fortunate waking up to new views and pressing urges Not everyone gets blessed like this, or takes on a new open path when it appears. Only the very lucky. I wish her the best possible joys of parenthood. By the way, the comments this honest piece brought forth are just wonderfully honest in return - on a topic that needs to be talked about! Made my day.
| yes | 8,960 |
John Dumas Really?! Do you know what graduate student stipends look like? They are around 15-20K a year. Basically its. tiny stream of money to keep you alive while you work away on the professor's projects. The analogy holds. Also, it is a voluntary system so if you don't like it...then don't participate in it.
| no | 4,808 |
The idea that people without a college education vote Republican out of ignorance and racism is comforting to NYT readers but not supported by data. Bill Clinton was successful because he focused his attention on how his policies would affect the bond market (the “Agg”). Looking at the Bloomberg Barclays index over the last few years makes it easy to understand why people without college education prefer Trump to Biden.
| yes | 5,492 |
Gigi For a number of years now we've been reading of Italian towns with significantly declining populations offering fixer upper homes for as little as €1.00...
| no | 2,023 |
I like the link this piece poses between paranoia and "Easter eggs," though I think the author elides several important distinctions between "finding Easter Eggs" and that older process of decoding we used to call "close reading." Close reading, the cornerstone of humanistic education, is a sustained act of attention to tiny details across a painting or text that allows the reader to piece together various and transcendent patterns in order to make new meanings from art. That seems closer to what is required to make sense of a Bruegel painting or an extended acrostic in a medieval poem.By contrast, "finding Easter eggs" is just that - noticing one detail that pops out, tweeting about it, and watching it disappear back into the texture of the text. Indeed, the author writes that "unlike an allusion — a tip of the hat to a previous work — an Easter egg, when found, is an anachronistic disruption, an anti-mimetic breaking of the fourth wall to make room for a joke, clue or grievance." Finding an "egg" strikes me as lazier, less additive, and less imaginative than close reading, and therefore suited to what the author notes is the short shelf life of cultural artifacts right now, as well as the short attention span of audiences. I'd go so far as to argue that paranoia of the kind we see in conspiracy theories comes from bad close reading - that is, finding a single "egg" and blowing it up into a narrative, without the patience or evidence we once found in close reading.
| yes | 8,472 |
Steve Bannon is involved. 'Nuff said.As reported by other sources.... “I’m not backing off one inch on this thing,” said former Trump adviser Steve Bannon in an interview. Earlier in the day, he repeated his claims of election fraud in Brazil and called on the current president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who beat Bolsonaro, to open up an investigation.We Americans apologize to our democratic sisters and brothers in Brazil for exporting Trump's insanity and criminality.
| yes | 9,843 |
Banal? It's not just the exteriors. I live in a city, Jersey City, where the operative word for the interiors is 'luxury condo' which boils down to this: a rectangular box, maybe 22x12 (throw in 9 foot ceilings) with floor to ceiling windows at one end and a granite counter at the other separating the stainless steel kitchen utilities. add two small, and I mean really small, boxes for bedrooms, a bathroom decked out in marble and, wallah, 'luxury.' More like 'boring.' Oh, and did I forget the $650,000 price tag?
| yes | 8,577 |
while I am in agreement mostly with professor Desai, Cyrpto is not going away just yet. The price of Bitcoin has risen almost 5G in the period between writing this and it's publication. " Another manifestation of magical thinking is believing that the best hope for progress on our greatest challenges — climate change, racial injustice and economic inequality — are corporations and individual investment and consumption choices, rather than political mobilization and our communities". Except for the fact that corporations have bought and paid for all our politicians and the lack of a center or any chance of bipartisan cooperation. I personally think that the fringes are going to strengthen in the short term. Which will drive fringe thinking forward like lemmings towards a cliff. Investing is gambling, and the game is rigged every investor should have that as a foundation for how they invest. Instead of following stock, crypto, prices follow where the whales are feeding ( giant hedge funds). the markets is manipulated by these monsters. The trick is not be greedy , like casino gambling knowing when to leave the table is key. Make a profit and move on and remember that you are gambling, they just call it investing so you feel better.
| no | 1,926 |
Think of it this way -- LastPass is like a safe that's been found to be not as secure as it should be, as compared to no safe at all.I'm currently working on changing passwords, but thanks to LastPass, I've been protected by my unique, long passwords in at least five data breeches.In the end, the hackers won't be able to crack my reasonably strong master password before I can change my important passwords and debit and credit cards. They'll get nothing out of this.If you used a password like MushroomBridge123, I feel sorry for you, but even so, you can almost certainly take action in time -- report your credit and debit cards lost and stolen, change critical passwords like Google, Microsoft, and your bank, and you won't lose a dime.
| no | 3,742 |
Thanks to intense lobbying from President Donald J. Trump, Dutch firm ASML was not able to sell its world class extreme ultraviolet lithography machines to China for the past several years. But the Dutch are showing reluctance to continue this policy under Joe's regime. Meanwhile, Chinese firm Huawei has announced that has developed its own UV light source that does not rely on ASML's technology. So it seems that China is on its way to developing cutting edge sub-10 nanometer chips. On top of that, China has announced a 1 trillion yuan program (USD145 billion) to expand production of 28nm chips that are still the workhorse chips for home appliances and automobiles. The Chinese have been buying lots of 28nm lithography machines. It appears that the Chinese are planning on flooding the world with cheap 28nm chips and depriving Western companies of the revenue from making 28nm chips. So while the Biden regime has issued innumerable press releases touting the CHIPs act, US manufacturers will probably become more dependent on government handouts under Joe.
| yes | 9,290 |
Thanks to Gail for common sense views on the IRS and taxation in general. Tax rates 70 years ago on the wealthy were in the range of 80-90%! And none of them were homeless or starving because of it. Today the top tax rate is 37% for individual single taxpayers with incomes greater than $539,900 ($647,850 for married couples filing jointly). In my opinion, a not unreasonable rate of taxation for people making that kind of money, especially with all the exemptions and deductions allowed them.The Republican defund the IRS movement is an outgrowth of wealthy corporations and individuals not wanting to pay any tax, not wanting to contribute to the common good, except where they themselves choose in the form of philanthropy. It's Me Me Me now, not us.
| no | 3,018 |
Rick Brown Interesting observation. I got to add that R&D in a corporate environment absolutely doesn't like messy stews and long-term bets. It is a struggle to push for investing in "leaps" concept that are yet highly speculative. Startups typically only have a few years to achieve sufficient proof of concept and develop a path to a commercial product. It is hard in this concept to tackle big leaps. Even when you do, disrupting a market with a totally new product tend to be blocked by incumbent when they control part of the value chain you are trying to insert your product into. I worked in chemical innovation, clean tech and nano-technology. Most of the stuff I developed never made it past demonstration scale. Not because it did not work, because competitive pressure forcing adoption of new technology was not there. For example, saving 15% on producing a commodity chemical while also enabling capture of CO2 emission was not enough to get someone to build the first plant. I guess timing was wrong. With large carbon tax the $$$ are looking better.
| yes | 6,850 |
Tobias W. I guess the question I have for you is, why are such a shill for Microsoft and/or corporate America?
| no | 2,600 |
Ex-pat Steve //As anyone who knows anything about wars will know, they always become LESS popular as more bodies are returned to grieving parents and those parents start asking why their sons died.War is immensely popular domestically when government spending ramps up to support war industries, particularly for a nation that has faced international sanctions for 30+ years regardless of how it behaved.No clearer example of this exists than in the US. The vast majority of its voting public absolutely supports the military industrial complex, and absolutely believes that any war is justified under the guise of vague patriotic terms like you see parroted in these comments about spreading "democracy", which in reality just means other countries having leaders that cooperate with whatever the US wants. The only exception to this broad citizen support was Vietnam, and that was more for the draft rather than the merits of invading Vietnam instead. There were no widespread protests about American military involvement in South/Central America, Iran or Afghanistan because there was no draft for any of those military adventures. There would be no middle/upper class people in Appalachia or the South if it were not for the pork belly spending on military contracting firms.
| yes | 8,053 |
Trump's quarters were protected by Secret Service as a former President. Biden as former VP, his garage was indeed not protected especially when he was not physically present.Hillary Clinton's email server was also wide open. The intellectual dishonesty amongst progressives is astounding.
| no | 4,951 |
Roger "Unhinged" is a good description of this rubbish.<a href="https://www.cato.org/blog/bidens-border-policy-not-open-borders" target="_blank">https://www.cato.org/blog/bidens-border-policy-not-open-borders</a>
| no | 835 |
I definitely feel that my parents (who fell on the leading edge of the baby boom) centered the message in my teen and young adult years that academic and professional success were more important. Is this the main reason I am now in my 40s and single with no children? No, I would not say that. But I wouldn't say it had no effect, either. Now I see some commenters firmly defending this outlook for their own children, but I wonder whether they are thinking about not just the medium-term future but the much longer-term one -- when they aren't here, who WILL be here for their kids?Obviously people shouldn't only have children so they have caregivers in their old age -- that's actually a pretty bad idea. But if you DON'T have kids, then you do need to think more creatively and open-mindedly about your support structure as you age. I don't have siblings, and while I do have fond relationships with many of my cousins, some live a considerable distance from me and we don't have the kind of daily interactions that keep those ties extremely strong. Instead, my "chosen family" (close friends of as much as 40-plus years' standing) is of paramount importance to me, and part of the reason for that is that I know we may be leaning on each other as we get older. I suspect this is true for more and more Americans -- the shape of family will look different and the social context will feel different, but it will still exist and constitute ties that can be counted on.
| yes | 9,086 |
L.A. County to Pay $20 Million for Land Once Seized From Black Family California officials seized a beachfront property from Willa and Charles Bruce in 1924. Los Angeles County returned it to their great-grandsons last year. Now they’re selling it back. The great-grandchildren of a Black couple whose beachfront property in Southern California was seized by local officials in 1924, and returned to the family last year, will sell it back to Los Angeles County for nearly $20 million, an official said on Tuesday. California officials seized a beachfront property from Willa and Charles Bruce in 1924. Los Angeles County returned it to their great-grandsons last year. Now they’re selling it back.
| yes | 7,034 |
Bruce Rozenblit one thing I took from the release of trumps tax returns was: in 2015 & 2016 his wages, which is what SS & Medicare contributions are based on was in ‘15 the low 5 figures less than $20,000 in ‘16 it was under $10,000. Which obviously means he was paying a pittance into those programs.Then, in ‘17,’18, ‘19 & ‘20 when his wages, as President we’re over $390,000 he was paying the full SS toll and Medicare on the whole amount.Maybe, though he was the leader of the free world that’s why he was so nasty, ornery, cantankerous and obnoxious. I can see him grousing” I have to pay these taxes?Herein lies the problem with funding these essential programs, in 2020 Jeff Bezos paid himself a salary of $85,000 as head of Amazon, another short changing of society at large.
| yes | 6,936 |
The Washington Post has this same story by a different author who followed one of the water truckers who had to drive god knows where to fill up his truck.The trucker had a bag full of quarters and, 25 cents at a time, bought 6000 gallons for 85 quarters -- a pathetic $21.25.For 6 THOUSAND gallons of culinary water. That's 2.92 cents per gallon.I live in Utah and this heavily government subsidized impossibly cheap water is a massive part of the problem. Nobody wants to conserve cheap water. The folks in this subdivision are about to discover the REAL cost of water -- all the thousands spent on pipelines, reservoirs and who knows what else -- so they can sit in the middle of nowhere and complain about big government. But it is silly that they can still take their can over to that tap and fill up for 3 cents a gallon.
| no | 1,491 |
Maureen Boler. Exactly. Private equity and speculation in the rental housing market is creating a situation where young people and families cannot afford to rent in popular city cores. Why pay $3000 in rent when you can buy somewhere else for that same amount. Private equity will follow the money and figure out a new way to torture young lower and middle class people. No one talks about how private equity is driving the cost of living up across the board.
| yes | 9,567 |
"... (in 2013) voted to pass a budget resolution that would have cut more than $250 billion from Social Security and Medicare over a decade. In 2017, like most other Republicans, (DeSantis) voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act and to cut taxes on corporations, high-earners and wealthy heirs."DeSantis, like other Republican candidates, are deathly afraid of Town Hall settings because it exposes these universally unpopular attacks upon seniors and non-wealthy tax-payers.Like Trump, DeSantis is a Megaphone Politician.Unlike Trump, DeSantis is no good at telling the bald face lies that cover-up the plans of a Republican House and Senate.
| no | 798 |
L.I.R.R. Service to Grand Central Begins at Long Last The Long Island Rail Road is connecting to Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan, saving commuters as much as 40 minutes — and costing $11.1 billion. For half a century, transit leaders in New York have aspired to extend the Long Island Rail Road to Grand Central Terminal, tunneling a new path to save passengers time commuting between Long Island and the East Side of Manhattan. The Long Island Rail Road is connecting to Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan, saving commuters as much as 40 minutes — and costing $11.1 billion.
| no | 2,297 |
Tim Thumb And multiple analytic reviews have shown that over the long haul (10+ years), index funds outperform actively managed funds. But the financial services industry including media don't like to publicize that fact becuase it would put many of them out of business.Just google "boggleheads" and read "The Little Book of Common Sense Investing" by John Bogle and endorsed by Warren Buffett. That alone will point you to an easy path to investing (and retirement) without paying a financial advisor.
| yes | 5,087 |
Having been on all sides of downsizing activity over a long career at one of the worlds largest corporations, I can say without doubt the business school and consultant mentalities of these past several decades have removed any semblance of humanity from the already stressful process of downsizing. Corporations employ mass layoffs as a regular employee management tactic, extending far beyond its histrionic use as an emergency measure in conditions of financial peril. Executives are too lazy and risk averse to properly train their managers to recognize and adjust the careers of individuals who may not be up to performing specific tasks.  Instead, CEOs use mass layoffs as their primary tool to get rid of non-performing employees, disrupting corporate morale and unfairly targeting many good workers by using error prone, statistically driven processes. Layoffs are also abused as tools to position companies for acquisition, often for the sole purpose of rewarding the corporate executives who engineer these transactions with ridiculous financial rewards. With CEOs so heavily incentivized to lay people off on a constant basis by the Wall Street financiers, ever increasing numbers of ham-fisted debacles just like those at Twitter and Google are inevitable. Younger generations are fast losing their tolerance for greed driven, executive dishonesty about “caring” for workers. Generational change is in the air.
| no | 1,334 |
Beyond tiresome. Why is it these two insist on dumping on the world over and over again? Oh I get it — $$$. They lost me when in the middle of a pandemic, mind you, and people losing their loved ones, they sat in Oprah’s Shangri-la to whine about royal life. They’ve parlayed Megxit into a money making enterprise at the expense of *his* family. They will keep doing so because they know that his family will not respond. Why should they. Not to mention there’s media companies ready to transact on his birthright.The palace could always revoke the NDAs so that the royal aides can sit down with the Brit version of Oprah (whoever that is), and recount the alleged bullying inflicted on them by MM.SPARE us!
| no | 1,075 |
Garland is not doing his job, similar to how the US Army is too timid to deal with their own top brass, like the Flynn brothers. 17 security agencies inside the Beltway, costing taxpayers $3 billion/day, and not one could come to the assistance of nearby Capital cops.
| no | 2,957 |
As a couple struggling financially at the moment, we hereby volunteer to face increased scrutiny from the IRS in exchange for $400,000 a year.
| no | 1,001 |
Kenneth Gorelick "Ever since the days of Nixon and Watergate, one mantra has been, "it's not the crime: it's the cover-up."He hid it from the public. That's the Cover-up! CBS, not Biden, made it public. Why did he hide it? What else did he hide? Who had access to his garage? To the Penn Center? Since it was people who worked for him who did the search, how do we know they did not destroy any documents? Remember they were his attorneys not the FBI. Did hunter Biden have access to them? Hunter has made 10s of millions of dollars in international deals with shady customers including Ukraine and China. Were these documents part of what they were paying for? Obviously they were not paying for a drug addict with no discernible skills. But you are correct: It's the Cover-up that smells.
| no | 1,316 |
Hunter Greer The problem is NOT ''entitlements'' (where not all citizens invest in proportionally I might add), but it is defense spending. (which is multiples of all of the other top countries combined) We are all in this together, which means that if we invested into any program proportionally and Progressively, then all of them would be working and solvent for generations,Take the FICA cap as an example. Social Security would be solvent and could be expanded in benefits if all paid into it proportionally to their income and wealth, but they do not. If we had single payer, then again all would be paying into the program, so that there would NO need for private programs. There are many examples of this all throughout the rest of the industrialized world. I suppose we could just ignore all of the above, keep our heads in the sand and let republicans have their way through inaccurate statistics. We could also have an equal society.
| no | 3,954 |
Bill House vacancies are managed differently than Senate vacancies. If Santos resigns, the open House seat would be filled through a special election, not by an interim appointment made by the state's governor. If one of New York's two U.S. senators were to resign or otherwise not be able to hold the job (owing to indictment, illness or death), then yes, the democratic governor would replace them with an interim appointment, almost certainly a democrat.
| no | 776 |
Help! A Check-In Agent’s Mistake Made Me Miss an Antarctic Cruise and I’m Out $17,000. An American Airlines error kept a traveler from getting to her cruise’s departure, but the carrier wouldn’t take financial responsibility and her trip insurance refused to pay. Then our columnist stepped in. I was set to take what for me was the “trip of a lifetime,” a $17,000 Antarctic cruise with Australia-based Aurora Expeditions. But when I tried to check in for my flight from Nashville to Santiago, Chile (via Miami), the check-in agent insisted that entering Chile required two forms I had never heard of, even though I had researched the requirements carefully. I missed my flight, and the cruise. When I complained, American Airlines quickly refunded the (nonrefundable) flight, but Aurora would not give me credit for a future cruise and my travel insurer, Trip Mate, denied my claim. I’d like American to acknowledge in writing that they made a mistake and use that to ask Aurora to reconsider and to file an appeal to Trip Mate. Can you help? Deborah, Franklin, Tenn. An American Airlines error kept a traveler from getting to her cruise’s departure, but the carrier wouldn’t take financial responsibility and her trip insurance refused to pay. Then our columnist stepped in.
| yes | 6,300 |
I certainly wouldn't want to dampen your clickbait (what is this, something like your twentieth "think piece" about this book?), but I suggest you narrow in on a target. Sure, the British tabloids are ugly. We certainly have aggressive media outlets in America as well. But I'm not sure that claiming some conflict of interest because Piers Morgan actually speaks to members of the Royal Family themselves is wise. I can point to such coziness with public figures even within the pages of the Times. As for Harry and Meghan, we can all sense the worm turning in America. Sure, it's our nature to throw our arms open to celebrities who want to find safe haven on our shores because of "persecution" elsewhere. But the obvious pander begins to stink after a certain time, and Americans are just as quick to tire of these celebrity tales of woe and destroy what we have raised up.My instinct is that Meghan was a mediocre actress who managed to work her way into this family. She married a man who had a long history of outrageous public behavior (Nazi party outfits anyone?). Together they have decided to monetize and make public any rancor within their family which to me is an unseemly thing to do . Now that they've cashed their checks, life in Santa Barbara is about to get much less pleasant. And one assumes they have destroyed any remaining goodwill within their family as well, and the personal tragedy of that will probably not dawn on them until more time has gone by.
| yes | 5,646 |
Sure- Dems would like credit so we can continue to govern in a way that demonstrates that we care for everyone- not just ourselves. But telling those we support that we deserve credit seldom works. We are barking up the wrong tree.Better to build relationships with our neighbors and work together to solve problems based on upstream issues. Take child anxiety, mental illness and behavior problems. Start with a good diet. Provide breakfast and lunch with fresh unprocessed food in schools and watch 50% of the problems melt away. Don't believe me? Look at the Appleton WI case study.Take the Fentanyl crisis. 100,000 deaths and $1 Trillion in tax payer dollars per year. Think about the lives and $ we'd save if we decriminalized all drugs, provide safe havens for drug user coupled with programs to support jobs, housing and trauma work. We'd put the cartels out of business. Oh look- one of the immigration issues solved without a war.Take unwanted pregnancies. Instead of abortion debates, look to giving support to young people for ways to prevent pregnancies or the responsibilities of parenthood. Start with the easier issues and work up to the tougher ones once you have trust and compassion for each other.
| no | 3,841 |
In 2018 I had a shoulder replacement. While I was in the hospital, an expensive housekeeper came in to refresh and clean my apartment before I came home. Did it look and smell nice? Yes. But. She threw out things I needed and wanted without consulting me, “reorganized” (again, without my consent or request) my 5K books by color and size, stacked my mail and clips (I’m a journalist who saved my work in print) in assorted boxes so high and bulky that I still can’t open the vertical blinds in my home office because they’re blocked), and lots of other gratuitous things. It is now 2023 and I’m still searching for my passport, birth certificate, and collection of Walker Percy books. Sometimes asking for help backfires. And I’ve been depressed and overwhelmed by how much I have correct ever since she came in here. Sigh.
| no | 2,037 |
Our GOP have spent trillions of American dollars in China . They built nuclear weapons and nasty military all of which will be used against us. I am retired Army and love my country why are the GOP anti American. Don’t pay taxes want permit less gun and don’t need health care. Their leaders and millions of rich don’t pay taxes and without them paying also a country ceases to exist.
| no | 67 |
Prof Frank….maybe it should read, “the companies have already spent more than 2 billion (to gain) the support of many local and state elected officials.”
| yes | 6,368 |
james And one of the most egregious things is the fact tfg received an $80 million tax refund over 10 years ago. The IRS disputes he was entitled to that and has been negotiating with him for 10 years. Why hasn´t this gone to Court to be decided?
| yes | 5,466 |
fatboyfatboy The infrastructure you refer to is not just built for 13 million (to use a random number), but actually designed for that. I.E. suburban development falls apart over a certain size. If we want infrastructure for 40 million we are going to have to get away from the suburban, car-centric model. It is not financially viable, and it is not physically viable.
| yes | 9,650 |
My artist friend recently died just short of age 103. He kept abreast of sports and hard news. A major prize-winning traditional watercolor painter, he painted daily. He lived alone in his home, rising each morning to open his window shade as a signal to the neighbors and texted six others to, as he said, “let them all know I’m still alive.”
| no | 2,577 |
There is so much to unpack here, much of it cultural.I grew up in New York City. Cops and gangsters had guns and the nearly mythological rich people who outfitted themselves at Abercrombie and Fitch for big game hunting on safari or perhaps moose hunting in the north woods. Nobody else was likely to have a gun, want a gun, or know what to do with a gun, and certainly not in a populated area.In rural areas, some people had hunting rifles because hunting was a popular sport, perhaps something of a hangover from pioneer days. Some people in the SW also had holsters inside the driver side door of their cars where they kept pistols, supposedly to be able to shoot a snake should they open the car door and spot one where they planned to step. The current nationwide obsession with guns, up to automatic and military style weapons, is part of a great cultural divide which has been widening for decades, especially since, as mentioned, the Brown decision. That was the inflection point at which the age of Jim Crow came to a close and the anger and humiliation of the Lost Cause South and their conservative sympathizers boiled to the fore.Nixon and Reagan exploited and capitalized on wedge cultural differences and animosities and our evolving economy pushed us to where we are today: cutthroats furious with each other over what America is and what it should be while the rest of us look on in horror.Only a serious paranoiac truly needs to go heavily armed to the grocery store.
| yes | 5,810 |
Home "tax any entity with 25% in any market". That unfortunately won't help until tax laws changed. Any real estate developer or owner with multiple properties, who has a lawyer, already has a separate LLC or LLP or SubS corp for each property (& no personal liability). So it would have to reach specific human investors/owners to work. I was a commercial real estate lender for decades & saw their tax returns and, more importantly, their financial statements. The biggest pay $0 taxes in year in and out.
| yes | 9,087 |
Perfect. Voters soundly rejected Trump and the extreme MAGA types in 2020 and 2022, and yet, here they are, with powers way in excess of their numbers.Hopefully people will finally open their eyes to the rot in the Republican Party and throw them out on their kiester in 2024.
| no | 2,752 |
I wonder how many other countries have this sort of divide. What is far more worrisome here is that people are shamed into hiding what they know or understand on a subject. America has a long tradition of anti-intellectualism. Many Americans resent anyone who is an expert in any field. It strains the meaning of the word elite to extend it to any person with a college degree. Furthermore, deciding and stating that being knowledgeable, using polysyllabic words, understanding science, etc., is an elitist "thing" is a disservice to the people who are, in fact, knowledgeable and at the leading edge of their field or experts. It takes a lot of hard work to become an expert. That hard work and expertise has plenty of mistakes behind it. How else does one become an expert?Until more Americans understand that we are all in this together no matter what place we occupy in America, we're going to see this ugly problem again and again. As long as some Americans can buy their way out of their civic obligations, dodge taxes, evade justice, or receive far more attention from our lawmakers because of their riches, there are going to be severe tensions between the richest and the rest of us. Someone wants it that way. Or, to be more accurate, the GOP likes it that way.To quote Socrates: Nice GOPeople.
| yes | 6,755 |
Kay Johnson In short: financial, trade, and energy co-dependencies, as well as fragile promises to heads of states, and an inherent lack of complete secularization in politics. As long as we allow countries to be governed by a single person, this invariably is the long-term result.We're appalled because this gruesome events happen to what we name civilized society, and trading partner. It's all over the news, and we're currently constantly reminded of it. It's absolutely horrific and weDo you have any idea of the numbers of deaths, sexual violence cases, and other unspeakable atrocities there are in areas of conflicts in so-called "uncivilized" regions, where media coverage has dried out due to lack of financial interest?
| yes | 7,915 |
To relive all your fears, the US government will now take over sales of all generic drugs, private sales will no longer be allowed. Once hired, a worker will not be fired. They will receive no expense spared healthcare, with no co-pay, no deductibles and full choice of any doctor in the world. All employees will receive 6 weeks vacation, and all bank hoildays. After retirement at 50 years old, regardless of starting age, they will continue to get paid at the top 10% of all income earners and receive all benefits for life. All their children will receive full educational expenses, including luxury room and board for up to 12 years of post secondary education. Upon completion of said education, they will be guaranteed a salary in the top 10% of all income earners as well.To achieve all these wonderful results, you will only be charged the low fee of $1 per pill.
| yes | 5,301 |
A neurosurgeon should have enough social skills to know that it's not reasonable to talk about marriage and kids 10 weeks into a relationship. A sister can tell her brother his behavior is disrespectful and suggests that he isn't very committed and should address that before marriage (truly, no finacee has an agreement that sexting with others is ok... nevermind the questions you should have about someone you can't put down sexting at his mom's birthday party). Whether the brother left his phone out, asked his sister to snap a picture with the sexts right there or if she was snooping is a whole other issue. The $400 friend is undoubtedly a deadbeat -- either ashamed or worse unashamed. It's not forgetfulness. And the newborn, well, it depends a lot on how newborn -- a week old? 6 weeks old? More? Remember that the father is watching his own father die and no zoom call to a dying man will replace getting a single photo or few minutes of them physically together. RSV risk is real, but so is the father's grief. Even the linked article begins with 'Typically, air travel is appropriate for most healthy, full-term infants'.
| no | 4,216 |
Jessa No we are not. The problem is priorities. Individual taxpayers like you and I pay in around 84% of the federal government's total revenue, and corporations only 9%. And yet, out of this year's $1.6 trillion budget, over half ($858 billion) is for 'defense.' We spend more on defense than the next 8 countries combined and it is sick. We should spend some of that money instead subsidizing childcare, K-12, and free college at state schools. An educated kid is much more valuable to society than a missile. And Congress has 'borrowed' $2.9 trillion from the Social Security Trust fund and NOT PAID IT BACK. Now the R's are making mouth noises about cutting Social Security. We'd be fine if they paid the Trust Fund back and you wouldn't have to worry about it.No, you are allowing the Wall Street greed-heads to pound a nice little wedge - if you hate me and I you, then they hope we won't notice them picking our pockets.Priorities of a corrupt Congress and policy fleecing us for the benefit of the very rich. Both affect you and both affect me. Not my fault - not your fault. But, hey, Wall Street is doing great!
| yes | 9,091 |
Holly When you open it's mouth you get two helpings of Pez.Cause it's Trump!
| yes | 6,365 |
Baba of course the sister cannot control her brother's behaviour - where does she say that she *wants* to do this? However the situation involves her family environment and her relationship with her future sister in law. You personally would prefer to remain blissfully ignorant if your spouse was cheating on you, and for members of spouse's family to say nothing to you despite being aware of the cheating out of respect for an assumed but likely non-existent open relationship?
| yes | 8,887 |
OldRugger Reagan opened his campaign with an overt appeal to racism--he kicked it off in Philadelphia, Mississippi, a location whose name had long been a by-word for white supremacist violence--and brought in corruption on a grand scale with him once in office, more than I think he had any idea of, although he was clearly willing to serve as the charming face of the right-wing takeover. Like the people who put him in office, he was okay with trampling on a whole lot of others. That more people didn't see it at the time frustrated me greatly then, and saddens me now.
| yes | 7,682 |
This was a thoughtful, interesting, and original exploration of what this short bit of video does to the viewer. However, it will represent an abdication of the paper’s responsibilities to the public if it ends here.Things are getting wildly out of control in the retail space, and it isn’t some sort of spiritual malaise. Owners and CEOs are responsible for the decisions that people on the line like this. The decision to have a single cook on duty, at a restaurant known for late night visits after bouts of drinking, seems like the worst kind of irresponsible cost-cutting, almost guaranteed to escalate unpleasant interactions between employees and customers.A culture that centers the consumer as the definition of a citizen, at the expense of workers, breeds an ethos that equates being served with individual rights: whether it is a Black man throwing a chair or some white Call of Duty cosplayer open carrying semi-automatic rifles into a shop. The consequence is an escalation of inconvenience into a potentially dangerous conflict of perceived aggrievance.The list could go on – but you get the idea.At our stores in Brooklyn, we’ve had to offer, for the first time in nearly 20 years of operation, professional training in the de-escalation of potentially violent encounters. Something is wrong when you’re asking hourly retail employees to put their bodies in front of that kind of potential danger and it would be great if the Times looked into it.
| no | 3,295 |
Empowering a Communist Chinese dictatorship was never a good idea unless you were a member of the <1% that wanted to destroy America's working class & make huge profits doing so.We could have had better relations w/ China w/out giving them most favored trading status or entry into the WTO. Life would have still improved in China, just slower & our working class wouldn't be so disenfranchised that they hang their hopes upon rogues like Trump, Steve Bannon & Qanon conspiracies.But the genie is out of the bottle & we have to deal w/ that.Chinese expansion, like Japan in the 1940s, has a choice of two directions: outward into the pacific & a blue water navy or north & west into Asia.Making Japan, S.Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, Phillipines & the U.S. Navy stronger vis-a-vis China is the best way to deter them taking an east/south strategy as Japan took in 1941.The collapse of the integrity of Russia's security forces make an Asian strategy more likely.China could easily invade Mongolia using the exact same pretext Russia used in Ukraine. Russia clearly anemic now, would do nothing. The Tran-Siberian rail runs thousands of miles along Mongolia & Manchurian borders.China could then invade Kazakhstan, its west-most province is west of the Ural river, technically putting it in Europe. Russia would have to confront this but China would surely crush the now anemic Russians. China could then take nearly all of Siberia.Prediction: Russia applies for NATO membership w/in 10yrs.
| yes | 8,479 |
Having lived out there for many years driving big trucks there have been enormous changes at travel centers on the turnpikes in the east. covid was the instigator and everything that went with it. The travel centers restrooms were never clean ,except maybe in Ohio ,yet there were employees and all the food courts were open . After covid nearly all the food providers closed down ,on the PA turnpike they still are and help is impossible now to this day. Imagine getting to work 5 to 7 days with gas prices and paying tolls for minimum wage.I guarantee there's no sign on bonus or 20.$ per hr. like some fast food providers pay in resorts but there should be for turnpike food and maintenance workers.
| yes | 7,899 |
Todd Sure, but it's worth noting that these are stills as well. Will we ever progress to the point of doing this with video? Will that form of AI eliminate the depthlessness and "uncanny valley" effect that we see in some CGI? Will it be possible to actualize these designs in a budget-friendly way for studios? Blade Runner 2049 and Dune (2021) had budgets of $150+ million. Perhaps a future version of this can produce better films, more cheaply. But I don't think it will be as simple as cranking a dial.
| yes | 7,336 |
Dan This places Amazon in 98th place out of 27,872 spots in terms of largest donors, OpenSecrets data shows.
| no | 2,199 |
Evan I think that ship has sailed in this technical illiterate country. We cannot even make a toaster oven. Look at Boeing, GE etc. hollowed out by corporate greed. Have been my whole working career in manufacturing, technology and automation. It is pretty simplistic to think that you can just open a can of engineers or qualified technicians. Even if the willingness is there it will take decades to catch up. China produces annually as many engineers as we have in this country.We are more concerned about abortion rights and gay marriage.
| yes | 9,692 |
David China's military expenditure has been increasing steadily during the last decade. China can also spend it without the existing external commitments of, say, the US military. (People will inevitably bring up US military spending if you mention China's, without any consideration of the far more extensive stabilising international role the US military plays.)Personally, I think that internal disruption in China is likely to increase their military ambitions rather than stop them.
| yes | 5,447 |
Kalidan your position is not unfounded, but requires perspective. Every nation on earth has conquered, enslaved, pilfered and occupied another land that is not its own. You failed to mention Arab nations, now armed to the teeth by the U.S. and Germany (Egypt and Qatar have Leopard 2 tanks, just not Ukraine). Middle eastern and near eastern countries swept through North Africa in the 7th century all but exterminating the native Berbers, and forcing survivors to convert to Islam and change their language to Arabic. That wave of conquerors more recently pushed into SubSaharan and western Africa, killing people based on their ethnicity and race. After Obama and Biden destabilized Libya and started the great subsaharan migration to Europe, Arab Libyan militias opened and continue to operate open air slave trading centers that have been confirmed to exist by reputable journalists. So yes, the West has a dark history, and Europeans share a huge amount of blame for their bellicose, colonial past, but name a country that hasn’t done the same thing. Should all countries be exempt from being armed if they have a bellicose past?
| no | 3,975 |
This question of consciousness or not is somewhat irrelevant: great for navel gazers and students (or pretenders) of philosophy everywhere—and AI ethicists perhaps.But the mundane, boring realities of machine learning will erode the value, quality and sanctity of so much of the human experience far more quickly than any conceivable convergence on an AI singularity or machine consciousness.The next few generations of DALL-E and ChatGPT (and the absolutely predictable multitude of copies, pretenders, descendants that will quickly surpass them) will, with staggering speed, completely erode the value of human creativity. Why pay an artist to invent something for you—painting, poetry, music, written stories—when some $5/mo service tied to an app on your phone will do it for you? And it will be compelling, personalized, and utterly convincing. It will be satisfying.We're not prepared for this world. We don't know what it looks or feels like when our humanity is rendered largely irrelevant because 80% of the world won't care that their consumable media is synthetic. Yes, it's not 'consciousness' — but most people won't care. It doesn't have to come very close.We're already struggling with the loss of human dignity and purpose. I suspect we'll look back on the 20's as a time when we passed the rubicon, and our free markets made a summary and devastating judgement on the value of human sanctity. This is the banality of evil, expressed by machine.
| yes | 8,326 |
I was informed by the daughter of my employer that he was closing the business. After almost 30 years working part time at this small company, he didn’t have the courtesy to tell me himself. They asked me to stay on and triple my hours with no extra pay. The final insult was the severance package… $500, but only if I signed an agreement not to sue for more!
| no | 544 |
Free markets depend on transparency of pricing. The price of labor is no different. As others have said, private employers are posting, at least here in Colorado, pay ranges... not a list of everyone's compensation. The major corporation I work for is still very weird about this- while required in Colorado, they only publish pay range information when there is an opening, and most openings are filled in about 48 hours, often internally. Unless employees here are actively watching for this information it vanishes and we still don't know.
| no | 2,666 |
The Democratic Party with an over whelming Majority hasn't delivered on Education, Housing ,Healthcare, Jobs or even a sensible Energy Plan.Kathy Hoschul is no better than Cuomo. $800 million for a Stadium in suburban Buffalo, More Casinos and no aid to NYC for the illegal migrant problem.Ooops, I forgot rising Crime and Bail Reform!
| no | 2,646 |
Maybe there are just too many restaurants? I found this OpEd interesting and appreciated her candidness. But we know that 60% of Americans have no money set aside for an emergency; they are living paycheck to paycheck. A $60/person dinner is out of their reach. Then you have another segment of Americans who, when choosing a restaurant for a celebration, are perfectly happy at Outback Steakhouse or another chain restaurant. And then you have others, like me, who will go out and splurge on a nice dinner but are increasingly put off by the additional service fees added to a bill and the very obvious hint that a 20% tip is no longer adequate. Add in the enormous increase in the cost of a bottle of wine or cocktail and I also have significantly reduced my dining out budget. So these aspiring restauranteurs are catering to a smaller and smaller audience. Major cities can support fine dining but then again its the newly opened restaurants that get the buzz and the seats filled. Think about the mainstay restaurants in your town; I remember the Odeon, Danny Meyer's restaurants, why have they survived when others failed? What magic do they have that others don't?
| no | 1,178 |
There can be no negotiation with an ex KGB agent who denies Ukraine's right to exist as a sovereign nation. Any "armistice" would be quickly violated by russian hybrid warfare would would then re-escalate into the open conflict we have now. The only way out of this is to defeat russia on the battlefield because force is the only thing putin knows and respects.
| yes | 9,773 |
Folks,Lots of quacking about passwords. It is truly no big deal. If someone steals your banking information and uses it to write themselves a check, just complain to the bank and they will fully refund your $$$.So the culprit gets into you medical history. Now they know you have hemorrhoids. If someone hack's your passwords, the world will not end. You will not die. It might be a bit time consuming to repair the damage, but, you will survive. Put a smile on your face and carry on.
| no | 216 |
Zac and the other deficit hawks:The US has been in debt most of its history. Hamilton began the process by creating new debt to pay for old debt. The cycle has continued ever since. and yes, government can pay off debt by creating money any time it wants to -- as long as it doesn't do so too fast. The greatest danger in borrowing, creating, and spending too much too fast is not debt: it's catastrophic inflation, which will likely occur long before debt becomes a problem. Middle class Germans learned this painful lesson when inflation wiped out their life savings in the 1920s. For all our concerns about inflation today, this won't happen here any time soon (thanks to the Fed Res among others), and investors know it. Indeed, wealthy Americans (many of them Republicans) continue to buy bonds from the US government because they know that over time Uncle Sam has proven to be the best guaranteed investment around. If they were really worried he would default, they wouldn't continue to do so. In 1945 US debt was approximately 125% of GDP. By 1970 -- after years of government borrowing and spending -- it was reduced to about 23%. Why? Because all that spending lead to a surge in economic growth the likes of which had never been seen before: revenue increased, debt shrunk, and Americans prospered. It worked for Alexander Hamilton in 1793, and it's still working now -- unless, that is, the GOP decides to blow it all up by refusing to raise the debt ceiling....
| no | 739 |
Decline? Is Stephens serious? Morgan Stanley has revived its GDP forecast for China upwards from 5% to 5.4 for 2023. J.P. Morgan has similarly revived its GDP forecast for China's GDP upwards. And where was this real estate collapse that Stephens,et al, were gleefully predicting? It did not happen. Now the U.S. Fed. predicts U.S. GDP growth will be less than 1% in 2023. China's GDP measured in PPP is about $30 trillion compared to the U.S. measured at $25 trillion. China is now a city of modern cities with advanced high speed railways. China is heavily investing in A.I. and automation. Entire Chinese ports are now automated. I do not see China in decline. I think it is folly to underestimate that country's capacity for advancement and change.
| yes | 8,640 |
Kurt Pickard Call the NYT and see if they have a deal for "All Access" Mine is $6/4wks for a year, includes Cooking, Games, and Wirecutter.
| no | 109 |
I want Joe Biden to run for a second term. He has accomplished a tremendous amount in very turbulent times. I appreciate the productive lull we had the last two years and I like that he will handle this group of childish representatives with calm and dignified contrast. Having a second term will let the investment into building our infrastructure take hold. It will be fun to see our new chip factory and other advances liberate us from foreign dependencies. Time would be better spent letting readers know about investments that are allowing medications to be made in the US and lowering the cost of drugs. Investment that was part of the Build Back Better bill. Revenue should be flowing in to our treasury because the bill impose a 15% minimum tax on the corporate profits that large corporations—with over $1 billion in profits—report to shareholders. This means that if a large corporation says it's profitable, then it can't avoid paying its tax bill
| yes | 5,635 |
"...the House will propose substantial spending cuts to balance the budget in a decade, a goal that would be impossible without cuts to some or all of the major health entitlement programs — Medicare, Medicaid and Obamacare."First, it's not about cutting those programs working people contribute to their entire work lives. It's also about restoring the taxation of the upper class earners-the rich, who have had their tax rates slashed with perks such as interest carry over. Remove all those perks and loopholes, restore the 35% corporate tax rate, increase the income eligible to be taxed for SSI, and restrict SSI benefits to those who actually need them. I have a neighbor who is worth millions, collecting the max SSI. What sense does that make when others barely eke out a living?To point out some of the senselessness with an equally valid argument; I have contributed to the education of all my neighbors since 1983 through property taxes. Should I then claim them back since I had no children? As dumb as many HS "graduates" are today I suggest the money not well spent.
| yes | 7,727 |
Mr. Douthat's opening sentence in this piece:"For two years we have debated whether the essential feature of the Jan. 6 riot, the mob stirred up to storm the Capitol in frustration over the 2020 election..." foretells a problem in conservatives and Republican reality testing or, at least, an inability to tune in a TV network with a commitment to actual news.Jan 6 was not a just a riot, it was at attempted insurrection. Jan 6 was not born of "frustration over the 2020 election" -- although admittedly many were frustrated with Biden's win -- it was the product of a (poorly planned, somewhat stupid) plot by the President of the United States, many of his staff, some members of Congress and many of his political allies to directly challenge the peaceful transition of power, a Constitutional mainstay of American government.
| no | 3,185 |
ExpatScientist : So, Republicans are going to further expand the budget of the IRS so that the rich actually pay the taxes owed? (Remember that for every $1 of increased IRS budget, we get $6 back in taxes actually owed but not being paid.). They're going to close the "carried interest" loophole?Or, like they way they negotiated concessions from Kevin McCarthy, are they going to use extortion to achieve their very unpopular goals of defunding Social Security - and then blame Democrats for gibing in to Republican extortion. As is traditional.
| yes | 7,534 |
Go ahead, and widen the roads. CA roads were mostly planned and developed in the 50's. Population is more than 3x increased since then. The right answer isn't to make people even more miserable for having the temerity to drive.Mass transit has a long way to go before it's a desirable option in most areas. It's unavailable, expensive, slow and inconvenient. In most cases, when you factor in a need for a car and parking to even get to it, it doesn't actually solve the problem.These are fixable - with a concerted public commitment and investment. But transit advocates instead fixate on trying to keep driving miserable, rather than solving their PR/funding problem by fixing the problems with mass transit.
| no | 349 |
Nicholas Mellen that's just a pyramid scheme and kicking the can down the road and using sweatshop labor is morally wrong. This reasoning also ignores the jobs that will be lost due to automation in the coming years from fast food, to shipping to transportation. Expanding work visas to bring in the skilled people we need like nurses is the solution not open borders.I do however agree withtaxing the utra rich you in
| no | 2,179 |
Mr. Douthat points to the ‘promises’ that supposedly drew voters to Trump: ‘to bring back jobs lost to China and build new highways, to protect Social Security while ending illegal immigration…’Tell me, which of those ‘promises’ did the Trump administration keep? The answer is NONE. Same answer for the promised ‘millions and millions of jobs,’ ‘bring back beautiful clean coal,’ ‘beautiful healthcare plan that costs less and covers everybody…’ You name it, it did not happen.Biden has delivered over 10 million jobs, nearly 400,000 a month over the past 12 months; unemployment is 3.5% — lowest since 1969 — and many have returned to the workforce to ease the labor shortage. Major Biden-sponsored legislation is bringing manufacturing back to the U.S.; expanding access to healthcare; restoring and modernizing infrastructure. Yet all we hear from the Trump camp is more nonsense about ‘American Carnage’ and ‘the failed economy.’So what accounts for Trump’s cult-like following? Why did thousands of white ‘conservatives’ engage in hand to hand combat at the Capitol to keep him in the White House after he lost the election by over 7 million votes?Let’s get real. It’s anger, resentment, xenophobia, racism, venality, and in many instances plain old antisocial, sociopathic violence.Running that pathetic fool Herschel Walker for Senate and using Byron Donalds as a placeholder doesn’t cover the stench of violent white nationalism and xenophobia that blankets the GOP in 2023.
| no | 359 |
I have a question. If Harry (and H&M as a unit) are to be loathed for airing dirty laundry about their estranged family, why does no one mention loathing Samantha Markle?She literally does not exist in the media for any reason except trashing her estranged family member. Or the father, too, Mr Markle in Mexico, who gradually sold out all credibility for ££ from the British tabloids. Where is the vitriol for them, and their narcissism and greed?
| yes | 5,692 |
Paula 029 If you think that she was welcomed with open arms why weren't their statements from "the firm" in her defense about the racist and colonial language that was used to cover her? Why was there no statement to say that the media was lying about her supposed behavior? I will tell you why, because they were pretending to accept her openly, while planting the negative stories themselves. She was very willing to perform her duties but she wasn't supported at all. Whether its because she is American, bi-racial, previously married, her parents were divorced, whatever, they missed their chance to show that they could still be relevant in todays world and connect with the people today especially the people they colonized. She was their ticket and they instead threw her under the bus and blew it. But no, they only pretended to support her and people with blinders on fell for it like you did, while the rest of us could see the truth.
| no | 1,898 |
Gen Z’s Distorted Sense of Selfie As the #NoFilter trend wanes, young people are experimenting with new ways to warp images of themselves online. Enter the traffic mirror. Mercedes Jimenez-Cortes often takes pictures of herself in the domed mirrors that hang in parking garages. The mirrors turn an everyday scene surreal, bending concrete like it’s jelly and exaggerating the size of Ms. Jimenez-Cortes’s face, her iPhone or her extended middle finger. As the #NoFilter trend wanes, young people are experimenting with new ways to warp images of themselves online. Enter the traffic mirror.
| no | 4,794 |
Anyone in big tech who’s been reading the news since last summer probably already anticipated the risk of layoffs and if they were smart have started looking at other jobs. When I look at job boards every company - small and large - has open engineering roles, it’s definitely still a very high demand role when you look at companies at large.
| no | 2,985 |
To those saying we can’t build anything, I would remind everyone that hourly train service between Miami and Orlando is starting this year. And that service came about so fast because it’s completely private: No “concerned citizens” can tell their pols to quash it. The problem is entirely political. It’s sad thinking of the tens of billions already spent between Bakersfield and Merced with High Speed Rail in the relative middle of the nowhere while this bridge sits unused in the middle of the Bay. Connect it to the abandoned line through Niles, then use the old SP right of way over Altamont Pass and connect that to the High Speed Rail.Instead of that plan costing a few billion, CA is going to spend tens of billions on new tunnels into the Bay that won’t be done for decades. Such a sad tale. If we want decent passenger rail, we should pay the private railroads to do it.
| yes | 5,429 |
I was visiting a friend overseas, and she was talking about how she had told her teenagers that they could do whatever they wanted as adults -- including blue collar jobs. Then I explained to her that the minimum wage in the U.S. was $7.25 an hour. "We don't pay a minimum wage," she said. "We pay a living wage. If I were in the U.S., I think I would be more stressed about what my children were going to end up doing."Of course there are occasional blue collar jobs in which people can do well financially. But we have set up a society in which the stakes are too high if someone does not fall within a certain set of desirable skills or a certain education level. We could do much better as a society with fewer billionaires and more working class people making $40k to 60k a year. (Of course, if everyone were paid that well, fewer people would be able to become billionaires. Most billionaires are directly or indirectly in their positions because of wage theft.)
| yes | 6,206 |
“Every year, states spend billions of dollars expanding highways while other solutions to congestion, like public transit and pedestrian projects, are usually handled by city transit authorities and receive less funding.”99% of people ride in cars every day and 99% of final destinations in the US will never be practically served by traditional mass transit. This is not a political position. It’s a reality in California and Texas alike. It’s also antiquated thinking to believe the mass transit solutions of the past are the solutions of the future. Another interesting but racist comment made by the author of this article is to say that black and brown people are disproportionately affected. If the reverse was true, it disproportionately affected White preppie, would it be less of an issue?
| yes | 7,352 |
Imisswalter34 Well said but a trillion dollars of damages and 200,000+ plus lives have been lost while hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent on new weapons, when the entire debacle was avoidable. Right now in Africa, 36M people are hungry and at risk of starvation.It's ridiculous that Russia's demand for a neutral zone in Ukraine was not listened to. The West needs to learn that not everything it wants is available. World peace is more important than Western muscle flexing. Sometimes you have to agree to terms you don't like but can live with.
| yes | 9,109 |
Greg The property tax rate and sales tax percentage you note are not particularly high. It helps to remember, too, that the property tax for a $1,500,000 home in California will be many times the amount for a comparable home in Florida.I'm curious as to why you left out the subject of state income tax, of which Florida has none. That one trumps all others when comparing the total tax burden across our fifty states. No state income tax and the lack of a state sales tax is why I chose New Hampshire for retirement.
| no | 2,607 |
MSPWEHO Agreed. Also today we reach our debt limit deadline. Investors are being told to brace for chaos. For me and millions like me whose investments are in the form of a 401k that we have little control over this translates to sitting there watching your 401k nose dive hard. All courtesy of the Republican party and their game playing and base stupidity. I propose a new holiday today. As my fellow Americans watch their 401k nosedive yet again due to moronic Republican games we call this day "THANK A REPUBLICAN DAY". Make sure to thank all the Republicans in your life for once again tanking markets and the economy to showboat their stupidity. Thanks Republicans both VOTERS and POLITICIANS. Thanks for the trashing of my retirement.
| no | 2,527 |
"I’m sorry Biden didn’t invest the kind of political capital into immigration reform that he did into the infrastructure and climate change bills."You can't pass immigration reform on reconciliation which is how the Inflation Reduction Act (ie the climate change bill) passed. Yes, infrastructure passed over the filibuster, but you have to remember a spending bill like that is putting billions of dollars into the pockets of contractors nationwide who are a core GOP constituency. You'll note how many GOP congress critters who voted against the bill still manage to make it to photo ops of projects funded by it. Immigration reform has no such financial coat tails and its a much more intractable issue than spending money on roads.
| no | 4,848 |
Trump gave Billions of dollars away to his Billionaire donors through tax cuts. Now, Republicans are saying that Biden needs to cut spending to pay for those tax cuts and the resulting budget deficit. Seems to me Trump and Republicans should have budgeted and payed for those Billions in tax cuts to Billionaires when they signed the tax cuts into law. Republicans are trying to force Biden to be the bad guy, when they spent the money on a huge giveaway to their donors - Republicans once again being fiscally irresponsible
| no | 1,811 |
Bret characterizes the proposed efforts of the Inflation Reduction Act as an effort to "squeeze more money out of the very rich" — when actually the purpose of more funding to the IRS (which Bret agrees is the purpose at the outset) IS TO ENSURE THAT THEY PAY WHAT THEY OWE.He is oblivious of the fact that the vast majority of audits taking place are of those making way south of $200K or $400K. But of course Bret sheds no tears for them or their hardship.And his alternative is to change the tax code to close the loopholes by which the wealthy hoard their generational wealth — WHILE AT THE SAME TIME ARGUING AGAINST FUNDING THE MEANS TO ENFORCE WHATEVER TAX CODE WE HAVE.Jesus wept.
| no | 618 |
politicsandamericanpie yes, the Queen is well liked. Beneath her smile is some serious bits of intervention with Parliament. William just inherited the Dutchy of Cornwall worth a billion pounds, and other estates from Charles without paying a single pound in tax.Interested? Google is your friend, and The Guardian could help, too.
| no | 4,396 |
Russia is a knife at the throat of not only Ukrainebut of free and democratic societies throughout the world. How do you negotiate with an opponent you cannottrust in word or deed; and more importantly claims that your country, ethnic identity, your culture does not existexcept as an extension of greater historic Russia? How can there be peace when the price for peace is theultimate dissolution of your state and perception of yourculture past , present, future? Ukraine is fighting to survive. Period. While Putin is aliveand Russia in the grip of his personal madness there is no alternative. Support truth, freedom, democracy; support Ukraine,Russian poison cannot be victorious and allowed to spread.
| yes | 7,412 |
One Nasty Woman Lilly offers a patient co-pay program for Mounjaro wherein insured patients whose insurance rejects payment can get the drug for $25 per month. It's getting annoying constantly reading about "rich people" this and that. In the near term, the patient co-pay programs make paying (mostly) a non-issue. In the long term, insurance will absolutely cover these drugs. We are all programmed to believe every possible health issue on earth stems from obesity (it doesn't).
| no | 4,821 |
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