Category Archives: Uncategorized

The Privilege Tax

In the scheme of catchy phrases, Deutsche Bank has come up with a good one. After all, who (but me) argues that privilege is good, something we should all aspire to and something we should wish on everyone?

As brightening vaccine prospects tease a return to pre-pandemic normalcy and employers map out when and how remote workers return to the office, analysts at Deutsche Bank are proposing a “privilege tax” on post-pandemic work from home to subsidize lost wages for low-income workers.

Deutsche argues that remote workers contribute less to the economy’s infrastructure while still receiving its benefits, and says that a 5% tax on individuals levied against their wages on days they decide to work remotely would “leave them no worse off than if they had chosen to go into the office.”

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There Is No Magical Plan To Stop COVID

For many, the mere mention of COVID brings a harangue about how Trump failed a nation, between the idiocy of ingesting bleach to the choice to reopen as if it was just like the common flu. But as much fun as it is to blame Trump, it contributes nothing toward addressing the totally anticipated spike now happening. What happens now?

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Seaton, Roasted

Our Friday Funny boy man turned 40 this week. As 1 Corinthians 13:11 says:

When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

Finally, they’s (that’s still your preferred pronoun, right Chris?) two beautiful children (the paternity remaining something of a mystery according to Dr. S.) will get to play with their Christmas presents this year without “dad” demanding his turn on the Big Wheel. After all the laughs he’s given us, both of which were pretty okayish, the least a few of his friends and family could do is pay him back in kind. Continue reading →

1st Circuit Establishes The “Harvard Says So” Doctrine

When Allan Bakke claimed he was the victim of reverse discrimination, the Supreme Court held that affirmative action, using race as one of many factors to achieve the overarching pedagogical good of having a diverse student body, a compelling state interest as was expressly held in Fischer, was not unlawful. Not because it was reparations for past discrimination, and not a quota.

At the time, it was highly controversial, enough so to cause a fractured plurality opinion, but the use of race as a consideration, among others, seemed on the right side of a line that prohibited discrimination based on race. Back then, the argument that discrimination favoring an “oppressed” race was itself a favored goal. The idea would have been considered ludicrous and unlawful. But Bakke never drew a real line between the use of race as a “plus” factor and unlawful discrimination. Continue reading →

The Last Vote Cast

Biden won. Get over it. And so it begins that credit for the win is claimed, and with that credit comes the demands.

One Black woman—historic, dope, progressive, passionate and competent, though she is—is not a sufficient salve for the festering wounds of American racism and sexism. . . .

Meanwhile Black communities will demand that she represent an actual progressive agenda on race and gender justice. In the end, her job as Vice-President is to support Biden in delivering on the policy promises he made, and to push him to do more. Her presence begins rather than ends a conversation about what America owes Black women.

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Toobin’s Fall From Grace

Conor Friedersdorf saw the issue as a spectacular confluence of errors combined with one disingenuous curiosity. Why, in this age of putative sexual freedom but for hysterical sexual repression, did an act of masturbation become the yank of death?

“When Occam’s Razor suggests someone humiliated himself through a combo of technological error, pandemic circumstances, bad judgment, & bad luck, it seems like we should react w/ empathy, politeness, & forgiveness, as we would want to be treated, rather than punitive mockery,” Atlantic staff writer Conor Friedersdorf tweeted. In a tweet, CNN’s Brian Stelter sympathetically clucked that Toobin had “been sidelined at a pivotal moment in the run-up to the presidential election” (despite CNN having hundreds of talking heads who could theoretically also serve Toobin’s role). Vox reporter German Lopez said in a now-deleted tweet, “Not sure someone getting caught doing something almost everyone does should be a national story”; he then, inexplicably, went on to compare the media’s treatment of Toobin to the issue of mass incarceration.

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When Reason Seemed Obvious

Since the rise of social justice as a religion, and accelerating after the election of Donald Trump in 2016, some folks have “awoken” more than others. My old pal, Radley Balko, is one them, having had an epiphany along the way. Once the Agitator, he surprisingly, yet not at all surprisingly, took his former roomies and colleagues at the libertarian magazine Reason to task. Radley, a long-time libertarian, had a beef.

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Dear Altice

At 5:16 am, the internet died. Not for you, perhaps, but at Casa de SJ. No reason. It was just gone, which wasn’t exactly shocking as it disappears three or four times a week, for an hour or so, regularly. It’s been this way since Altice USA purchased Cablevision in 2016.

They still call the service Optimum, but the name is aspirational. It’s not a matter of a cable company being callous toward its customers, as was the hallmark of Cablevision’s service, but that they no longer deliver. The downside of a connected world is when the company you pay to provide the connection simply fails to deliver regularly, there isn’t much to be done. Continue reading →