I don’t have a television at home nor do I have internet beyond what I can do on my phone. It’s just too distracting and obnoxious and I like the walk to the library.
I find myself even listening to the radio less and less as all it is about these days is pushing gun control and banning plastic straws. Hardly relevant to my life.
Maybe I’m just hiding from the pain of modern living by watching videos about farming and off-grid living but I don’t know, so much of modern life is based on what the politicians think will score them points than reality.
Maybe I’m a luddite, but I actually enjoy technology that makes life easier and better rather than the horrors that contemporary media and news brings into one’s home.
When Donald Trump bought 436 acres in upstate New York two decades ago, he envisioned adding two new championship golf courses to his collection.
He bought the wet, overgrown, tree-tangled parcels that sit miles off a state parkway beginning in 1998 for less than the current price of a two-bedroom condo in Trump Tower.
But local leaders nixed the golf-course plans and his subsequent efforts to sell it to a homebuilding company faltered. So he gave it away.
Mr. Trump’s request is extraordinary for several reasons. The United States economy is still growing solidly and consumers are spending strongly, making this an unusual time to push for monetary accommodation, particularly negative rates, a policy that the Fed debated but passed up even in the depths of the Great Recession. It is also typical for countries with comparatively strong economies to pay higher interest rates, not the “lowest” ones.
Negative rates, which have been used in economies including Japan, Switzerland and the Eurozone, mean that savers are penalized and borrowers rewarded: Their goal is to reduce borrowing costs for households and companies to encourage spending. But they come at a cost, curbing bank profitability.
While it’s unclear how effective they have been as a policy tool — some research suggests negative rates could curtail lending — they are increasingly a reality in much of the world as central banks rush to support economic growth and investors look for safe assets
I think we can all agree on who is the bonehead here.
Thomas Hofeller preached secrecy as he remapped American politics from the shadows. The Republican Party operative, known as the master of the modern gerrymander, trained other G.O.P. operatives and legislators nationwide to secure their computer networks, guard access to their maps, and never send e-mails that they didn’t want to see published by the news media. In training sessions for state legislators and junior line drawers, he used a PowerPoint presentation that urged them to “avoid recklessness” and “always be discreet,” and warned that “emails are the tool of the devil.”
Hofeller did not follow his own advice. Before his death, in August, 2018, he saved at least seventy thousand files and several years of e-mails. A review of those records and e-mails—which were recently obtained first by The New Yorker—raises new questions about whether Hofeller unconstitutionally used race data to draw North Carolina’s congressional districts, in 2016. They also suggest that Hofeller was deeply involved in G.O.P. mapmaking nationwide, and include new trails for more potential lawsuits challenging Hofeller’s work, similar to the one on Wednesday which led to the overturning of his state legislative maps in North Carolina.
That’s what the signs often say, protesting the president’s official actions and unofficial remarks and tweets about immigration. But did you ever take time to think about the meaning of the word illegal?
Here is how the Merriam Webster Dictionary defines illegal:
not according to or authorized by law
I think too often we view law on its face as as a legitimate authority, when in many cases its just a justification for the coercion by the government against private citizens and businesses. Law doesn’t have any force on its own – it only exists as a justification for legal action.
While undoubtedly law is good in the sense it limits the power of government and provides predictability and certainty for citizens and businesses – lawis not moral or right.
To be illegal is not to be a bad person or entity but it does subjects an individual or business to the risk of prosecution or court judgement against the entity for violating a set out policy by law makers.
