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Topics - Jim Logajan

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1
Spin Zone / Cheating to win at the polls is good!
« on: March 24, 2024, 09:19:52 AM »
Most Terrifying Poll Result I’ve Ever Seen’: Scott Rasmussen Surveys America’s Elite 1%
Quoting:
When veteran pollster Scott Rasmussen surveyed a group of Americans he calls the elite 1% earlier this year, he discovered a startling number who say it’s OK to win an election by cheating.

The elite 1%—individuals who make over $150,000 a year, live in densely populated areas, and have postgraduate degrees—are overwhelmingly liberal. They give President Joe Biden an 82% approval rating, compared to his 40% average from the rest of Americans.

Rasmussen asked these liberal voters: “Suppose that your favorite candidate loses a close election. However, people on the campaign know that they can win by cheating without being caught. Would you rather have your candidate win by cheating or lose by playing fair?”

Among all Americans, just 7% said they would want their candidate to win by cheating. But that number rose to 35% among the elite 1% and skyrocketed to 69% among those who are part of the politically obsessed 1%, meaning they talk about politics every day.

“I’ve been polling for a very long time and the last finding is the most terrifying poll result I’ve ever seen,” Rasmussen told The Daily Signal.

Rasmussen spoke to “The Daily Signal Podcast” about his findings and his upcoming plans for a weekly TV show. Listen to the full interview or read an edited transcript below.

2
Pilot Zone / Joining the ranks of airplane owners
« on: February 25, 2024, 12:10:53 AM »
A little story on how I came to buy an airplane:

Our flying club wanted a plane with more useful load than the C-150 we are leasing. We had four members for a few months but dropped back to three. We had set  a limit of about $5000 each toward the purchase. We'd borrow the rest and looked for something under $45k - $50k as a stretch. That meant something like  Cherokee 140 or the like. C-172 prices had climbed into the flight levels, so they were out of the question.

I volunteered to guarantee a bank loan to the club's nonprofit corporation. I decided to seek a loan via AOPA Finance and spent a couple weeks working with them but they couldn't find any lenders under any circumstances that would lend to a flying club, regardless of who signed a personal guarantee. I asked if they had any lenders who would finance a purchase by my wife and I in which case we would lease our plane to the club. This was a week before Christmas. AOPA Finance said they'd look into it but never followed up. I was getting antsy so decided to try lightstream.com on December 29. Their rates for a 12 year term on $30,000 were between 9.34% and 13.74% (their rates for something other than an RV/Boat/Aircraft were typically even higher. AOPA was claiming rates between 7.1% and 9.99%) My wife was good with us covering the difference.

I plugged in claimed income and assets and submitted a loan request to Lightstream. Within hours I got an approval at 9.64%. I expected them to ask for supporting proof of income and assets but they didn't. And there would be no lien on the airplane (they make clear the borrower should NOT list them as a lienholder on any vehicle registration.)

As it happened I found two C-172s for sale below our limit: N7303A (on trade-a-plane; located Los Alamos, NM; asking $50k) and N7305A (on one of the Facebook aircraft sales groups; locate West Liberty, KY; asking $42.5k firm) Asking prices were close to vref.com estimates. I found it interesting coincidence both came off the assembly line one airplane apart.

Anyway, after doing some comparisons and dithering made an offer on N7303A. Closed on Feb 9, flew United to Santa Fe on the 11th. Flew the plane from Los Alamos to Rapid City on the 12th.

I'm leaving it up to the other two members on whether the club should lease or buy the plane from us. It feels odd to finally own a plane after all these years of renting since I considered an ownership stake being too expensive for just a hobby thing. Even if sold to the club I'll still have an equity claim on the plane.

3
WSJ: Biden Knowingly Kept and Shared Classified Material, Special Counsel Concludes

President Biden was sloppy in holding on to classified material related to some of his most consequential policy debates as vice president, eager to show that history would prove him right, according to a special counsel investigation that yielded no criminal charges but is likely to add a new dynamic to the 2024 presidential contest.
...
Hur said in the report that he didn’t think prosecutors could pursue a criminal case against Biden over the classified material, in part because there were some innocent explanations for Biden hanging on to the material that jurors might find convincing. “Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” the report said.
...
Trump and his supporters have accused the Justice Department of a double standard in treatment. “If you’re too senile to stand trial, then you’re too senile to be president. Joe Biden is unfit to lead this nation,” said Alex Pfeiffer, a spokesman for MAGA Inc., a political committee that supports the former president.


4
Spin Zone / Florida bi-partisan authoritarians
« on: January 25, 2024, 12:21:32 PM »
Florida lawmakers vote to restrict children's access to social media:
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/florida-lawmakers-vote-restrict-childrens-access-social-media-2024-01-25/

"The Florida House of Representatives approved on Wednesday a bill aimed at barring children aged 16 and younger from social media platforms, following similar action in several states to limit online risks to young teenagers.
Passed by a bipartisan vote of 106 to 13, the measure would require social media platforms to terminate the accounts of anyone under 17 years old and use a third-party verification system to screen out the underaged."


Thinking of the children!
Everyone, including adults, using social media in Florida will need to expose their true identity to prove they are old enough (or prove they don't live in Florida)  to use social media.

5
Spin Zone / Some people did something
« on: December 07, 2023, 07:56:20 PM »
82 years ago on this date.

6
Spin Zone / Remy: Moving to South Dakota
« on: December 01, 2023, 04:01:40 PM »
The state we retired to got some musical attention from Reason.com:

https://reason.com/video/2023/12/01/remy-moving-to-south-dakota/


7
I had only read the headlines about a claimed libertarian candidate doing well in Argentina, but didn't think it would go anywhere or maybe he isn't really libertarian. South American political labels may not translate well.

Whatever the case, it seems he won.
This is a news story on his win and his big plans: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHWzltnZ00Y

This a story Reason magazine had on his candidacy:
https://reason.com/podcast/2023/10/27/marcos-falcone-can-a-libertarian-still-win-in-argentina/

8
Spin Zone / It's just acting!
« on: November 15, 2023, 09:37:08 PM »

9
Pilot Zone / Registering drones with the FAA
« on: November 02, 2023, 07:29:05 PM »

10
Spin Zone / Great place for retirees!
« on: July 28, 2023, 05:46:13 PM »


11
Spin Zone / Behold Your Fellow Citizens!
« on: July 11, 2023, 10:22:21 PM »
Some insight into the state of the nation.  I sincerely hope this is staged and/or showing only a tiny minority.


12
Spin Zone / Climate Change, the sequel
« on: July 07, 2023, 07:58:38 PM »
The WSJ made the following editorial yesterday that is dead on relevant to some of the questions raised in the closed thread:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-white-house-tells-the-truth-about-climate-change-global-warming-gdp-temperature-economic-growth-52aaf575?st=qo0bho4bvfhmlbr&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

In case the link fails to work, here is the text (the actual article includes a projected GDP change vs Temperature change graph):

"The White House Tells the Truth About Climate Change
A report reveals that global temperature changes barely affects economic growth.

The journalist Michael Kinsley famously noted that “a gaffe is when a politician tells the truth.” By that standard, the White House committed a doozy in March when it released a paper on climate change’s effect on the U.S. economy. Its findings undermine any claims of an ongoing climate crisis or imminent catastrophe.

The report, produced by the Council of Economic Advisers and the Office of Management and Budget, assesses how the economic consequences of climate change could be integrated into federal budgeting. The report’s first figure—reproduced nearby—shows 12 independent peer-reviewed estimates of how America’s gross domestic product would decline as the global temperature rises.

While the estimates differ, each shows an economic impact of less than a few percentage points for a few degrees of warming. The consensus, apart from two counterbalancing outliers, is that today’s warming of 2.2 degrees Fahrenheit has reduced GDP by less than 0.5%. That is trivial, considering real GDP has grown by more than 800% since 1950. If warming reaches 4.5 degrees—about what the United Nation’s climate panel projects for 2100 under plausible scenarios for future global emissions—the consensus reduction amounts to less than 2%. In other words, if the average annual GDP growth rate is 1.5% for the next 80 years, the economy would grow 232%. A 2% climate-change effect would reduce that growth to 225%. As physicists say, that’s a difference “in the noise.”

Economic modeling combined with climate modeling can only be described as a doubly dismal enterprise, rife with uncertainties and untestable assumptions. The White House report offers caveats appropriate to its projections, including that the impact estimates are uncertain, that the consequences of climate may be uneven across sectors and regions, that GDP isn’t the only measure of climate’s effect, and that some types of impacts are omitted.

But, critically, the report also omits America’s amazing capacity to adapt, if not thrive, under a changing climate. The U.S., excluding Alaska and Hawaii, has warmed about 2 degrees Fahrenheit since 1901. Despite that warming, the nation has flourished: Its population has quadrupled, its average life expectancy soared, to 79 years from 48, and its economic activity per capita multiplied around sevenfold. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projects a comparable warming for early next century, but our nation’s experience should lead us to believe that climate change will be only a minor detriment to national welfare. Even hypothetical tipping points—practically irreversible changes such as disintegration of the Greenland ice sheet—are projected to have only minimal effect on the global economy.

A later section of the White House report reinforces how little future greenhouse-gas emissions are expected to affect the U.S. economy in coming decades. It projects that today’s “debt-to-GDP ratio” will rise to 111.2% at midcentury if the world is on a path to achieve net-zero emissions by 2075, while it would rise to 112.6% under an equally unlikely high-emissions scenario. There is little doubt that many factors other than climate—such as technology and trade—will be far more consequential for the economy and debt over the next 25 years. The 1.4% difference between these two extreme scenarios is, again, in the noise.

The report’s authors should be commended for honestly delivering likely unwelcome messages, even if they didn’t make a show of it. The rest of the Biden administration and its climate-activist allies should moderate their apocalyptic rhetoric and cancel the climate crisis accordingly. Exaggerating the magnitude, urgency and certainty of the climate threat encourages ill-considered policies that could be more disruptive and expensive than any change in the climate itself."


13
Spin Zone / Biden trips again
« on: June 01, 2023, 12:56:07 PM »

14
Spin Zone / Musk announces new CEO of Twitter
« on: May 11, 2023, 07:45:06 PM »
Musk was silent on the person's name. The WSJ claims, as an inside scoop, that Linda Yaccarino is in discussion for the position.  I did a quick search and found that she had interviewed Musk just a few weeks ago:


15
Spin Zone / Political board games
« on: April 28, 2023, 07:26:21 PM »
A few misses iMHO but I think most of the humor is worth a few minutes of your time:


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