Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
Welcome to Thursday, May 9, 2024, and National Butterscotch Brownies Day, also known as “Blondies”. Those are okay, but chocolate is better. Here’s a photo of a a blondie from Wikipedia. They’d be good with morning coffee (pies, cinnamon rolls, and other such treats are underrated as breakfast foods).
Judge Aileen Cannon has indefinitely postponed former President Donald Trump’s classified documents trial in Florida, citing significant issues around classified evidence that would need to be worked out before the federal criminal case goes to a jury.
In an order Tuesday, Cannon cancelled the May trial date and did not set a new date. While Trump was in criminal court Tuesday for his hush money trial in New York, Cannon’s move means there are no trial dates currently set for the other three criminal cases against him.
By indefinitely postponing the classified documents trial, Cannon’s order pushes it closer to the 2024 election – and potentially afterward
Ha! If Trump wins they’ll delay it another four years, for who is going to put a sitting President on trial. The article continues:
The judge’s new schedule lays out all the legal disputes that Cannon must decide before a jury could hear the case. Cannon said that process will take at least until late July of this year.
Cannon noted in her Tuesday order that there are eight substantive pending motions she has yet to decide. She also reiterated that she believes the national security mishandling allegations in the case “present novel and difficult questions.”
Though all parties agreed that the case wouldn’t be ready to go before a jury in May, prosecutors still pushed for a July trial date, while Trump and his co-defendants proposed dates in August and September. Although Trump’s attorneys have continuously asserted in court filings that a pre-election trial would be “unfair.”
The further delayed trial also could put Trump’s two federal cases on a collision course.
In Washington, DC, the former president is charged with alleged crimes he committed during his presidency to reverse the 2020 election results. That case, also brought by special counsel Jack Smith’s team, has been on pause while the Supreme Court considers Trump’s claims of sweeping immunity. A decision from the high court is expected by July.
Trump is charged in the Florida case with mishandling classified documents and with working with two co-defendants, Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, to obstruct the Justice Department’s investigation. All three have pleaded not guilty.
Cannon said in her new scheduling order that she will hold a hearing on what had been considered Trump’s longshot request for records from the Biden administration.
Crikey, the only trial proceeding is the Stormy Daniels hush-money trial, in which, if convicted, Trump would probably get probation. He’s Teflon, I tell you!
On Tuesday night, more than a day after Hamas claimed to have approved what it said was the Egyptian and Qatari mediators’ proposal “regarding a ceasefire agreement,” the US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller finally declared publicly, “That is not what they did.”
Rather, said Miller, “They responded with amendments or a counterproposal.” The US, he said, was “working through the details of that now.”
On Tuesday night, more than a day after Hamas claimed to have approved what it said was the Egyptian and Qatari mediators’ proposal “regarding a ceasefire agreement,” the US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller finally declared publicly, “That is not what they did.”
Rather, said Miller, “They responded with amendments or a counterproposal.” The US, he said, was “working through the details of that now.”
In fact, close examination of the Hamas document, as issued (Arabic) by the terror group itself, shows that far from containing “amendments” or a remotely viable counterproposal, it is constructed with incendiary sophistication to ensure that Hamas survives the war and regains control over the entire Gaza Strip. (Quotations from the Hamas text in this piece are from a translation by the Qatari-owned Al Jazeera website.)
But that’s far from all.
It is also calculated to ensure that Hamas secures further key, immensely far-reaching goals without having to meet the prime Israeli requirement for a deal: the release of all the hostages. In fact, Hamas can abrogate the deal, with all of its key goals achieved and then some, while continuing to hold almost all of the hostages.
Among those goals is one of the most central Hamas objectives since it invaded Israel on October 7 — seeing its declared war of destruction against the Jewish state expand to the West Bank. By extension, the terms of the document are also designed to destroy US President Joe Biden’s grand vision of Saudi normalization and a wider Middle East coalition against Iran.
Much has been made of the fact that, whereas Israel has repeatedly insisted it will not end the war as a condition for the release of the hostages, Hamas, in the opening paragraphs of its own sinister alternate proposal, specifies that one “aim” of the deal is “a return to a sustainable calm that leads to a permanent ceasefire.” But relatively speaking, that’s splitting hairs: The proposal conveyed by the mediators to Hamas late last month, and described by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken as an “extraordinarily generous” Israeli offer, reportedly provides for an “arrangement to restore sustainable calm” — which sounds like a near-euphemism for a permanent ceasefire.
Let’s face it: Israel is going to take Rafah and destroy any power that Hamas has, and a “permanent ceasefire” is not in the cards. Further, the U.S. to punish Israel for not running the way the way Biden wanted, has suspended shipments of heavy bombs to Israel. That’s a big mistake, as I believe the “heavy bombs” are more useful for penetrating Hamas’s tunnels than the ones Israel has to use now. UPDATE: The U.S., which apparently wants Hamas to win, has suspended weapons sales to Israel. This will only lead to the death of more Palestinian civilians since U.S. weapons enable more accurate strikes. Biden, desperate to win the election, is using Israel as a political pawn. It’s reprehensible. Does he know that the ratio of Gazan civilians killed to terrorists killed is a bit more than 1:1: much lower than, say, the U.S. achieved in its war against ISIS? And that the deaths of Gazan civilians can be largely placed at the door of Hamas, who uses them as shields.
My problem is that I am a hardheaded pragmatist who lived in Beirut and Jerusalem, cares about people on all sides and knows one thing above all from my decades in the region: The only just and workable solution to this issue is two nation-states for two indigenous people.
If you are for that, whatever your religion, nationality or politics, you’re part of the solution. If you are not for that, you’re part of the problem.
And from everything I have read and watched, too many of these protests have become part of the problem — for three key reasons.
First, they are virtually all about stopping Israel’s shameful behavior in killing so many Palestinian civilians in its pursuit of Hamas fighters, while giving a free pass to Hamas’s shameful breaking of the cease-fire that existed on Oct. 7. On that morning, Hamas launched an invasion in which it murdered Israeli parents in front of their children, children in front of their parents — documenting it on GoPro cameras — raped Israeli women and kidnapped or killed everyone they could get their hands on, from little kids to sick grandparents.
Again, you can be — and should be — appalled at Israel’s response: bombing everything in its path in Gaza so disproportionately that thousands of children have been killed, maimed and orphaned. But if you refuse to acknowledge what Hamas did to trigger this — not to justify what Israel has done, but to explain how the Jewish state could inflict so much suffering on Palestinian men, women and children in reverse — you’re just another partisan throwing another partisan log on the fire. By giving Hamas a pass, the protests have put the onus on Israel to such a degree that its very existence is a target for some students, while Hamas’s murderous behavior is passed off as a praiseworthy adventure in decolonization.
Second, when people chant slogans like “liberate Palestine” and “from the river to the sea,” they are essentially calling for the erasure of the state of Israel, not a two-state solution. They are arguing that the Jewish people have no right to self-determination or self-defense. I don’t believe that about Jews, and I don’t believe that about Palestinians. I believe in a two-state solution in which Israel, in return for security guarantees, withdraws from the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Arab areas of East Jerusalem, and a demilitarized Palestinian state that accepts the principle of two states for two people is established in those territories occupied in 1967.
. . .The third reason that these protests have become part of the problem is that they ignore the view of many Palestinians in Gaza who detest Hamas’s autocracy. These Palestinians are enraged by precisely what these student demonstrations ignore: Hamas launched this war without permission from the Gazan population and without preparation for Gazans to protect themselves when Hamas knew that a brutal Israeli response would follow. In fact, a Hamas official said at the start of the war that its tunnels were for only its fighters, not civilians.
That is not to excuse Israel in the least for its excesses, but, again, it is also not to give Hamas a pass for inviting them.
My view: Hamas was ready to sacrifice thousands of Gazan civilians to win the support of the next global generation on TikTok. And it worked. But one reason it worked was a lack of critical thinking by too many in that generation — the result of a campus culture that has become way too much about what to think and not how to think.
Apparently Friedman wants to educate a new generation of Palestinian from the PA in peace and love, and then that new generation can forge the two states. But doesn’t he know that the young generation of Palestinians already want to kill Jews and eliminate Israel? And that he thinks it will take just a single generation before the Palestinian Authority, which already promotes and funds terrorism (remember the “Pay for Slay” program?) becomes tame and loving. The man is a moron.
Malgorzata’s comment when I sent her this story: ” Poor fool. He obviously has some trouble with Hamas and seems not to notice that the vast majority of Palestinians support Hamas. And he didn’t notice the antisemitism on campuses. He is only disappointed that they didn’t shout for a ‘two-states solution'”.
*Fending off a Congressional hearing, the mayor and police of Washington D.C. ordered a clearing of an encampment of George Washington University, arresting 33.
D.C. police arrested 33 people as they began clearing a pro-Palestinian encampment at George Washington University early Wednesday, authorities said, hours before the mayor and police chief were set to testify on Capitol Hill about why they had previously declined to take action.
Police Chief Pamela A. Smith said that starting Thursday, authorities “began to see an escalation in the volatility of the protests” at the school a few blocks west of the White House. She said that a university police officer and a counterdemonstrator were assaulted. On Tuesday night, demonstrators marched to the university president’s residence.
Police moved in shortly after 3 a.m. Authorities said demonstrators clashed with police at least once, and police deployed pepper spray on a public street just outside the encampment. As of about 8:30 a.m., police were still removing tents and had blocked the entrances to University Yard. It could not be determined how many of those arrested were GWU students.
Smith said the decision to clear the encampment was made Monday. She said police had evidence that demonstrators were preparing to occupy a campus building and had amassed items that could be used as weapons. She said they believed counterdemonstrators had infiltrated the camp, and that people from outside the D.C. area were planning to join the group. Police have yet to release the identities of those arrested, and Smith did not immediately reveal what evidence police had to support those beliefs.
The police chief said officers issued six warnings to disperse from the encampment on private property, and many people did. Smith said 30 people remaining in the encampment were then arrested, 29 on charges of unlawful entry and one on a charge of assaulting a police officer.
Smith said a second group of demonstrators from outside the encampment tried to reach the people being arrested, and officers used pepper spray three timeson those who were pushing or punching officers. Three people in that group were arrested and charged with assaulting police, authorities said.
Action was imperative here, as the presence of weapons, clashes with cops, and plans to occupy a building were even more serious than the issues we faced at Chicago. To paraphrase Johnnie Cochrane, “If you put up a tent, to jail you’ll be sent.”
Surprise fees are widely hated, but they are still sneaking onto the bottom of bills for everything from concert tickets to dinners out.
More companies are unbundling the cost of their goods and services, retail analysts say, tacking on 3% for swiping a credit card or adding a little extra for gas. With Live Nation Entertainment facing scrutiny over its ticketing process, singer Maggie Rogers recently urged her fans to buy tickets to her next show at the box office “like it’s 1965” to avoid fees, even showing up at one herself. The Cure’s Robert Smith, meanwhile, convinced Live Nation Entertainment subsidiary Ticketmaster to offer some fee refunds.
The upshot is that prices we see, whether on a restaurant menu or flight-booking site, are rarely the ones we end up paying.
Business owners say fees are needed to cover costs and show customers where their money is going. But retail analysts and advocates like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) say secondary fees diminish people’s ability to shop around. CFPB data also show fees cause people to pay more overall because businesses can charge more than what the market will let them get away with in the sticker price.
. . . So widespread is the tactic that President Biden is making a fee crackdown one of his administrative priorities. His administration estimates that Americans pay more than a collective $90 billion in what the president has dubbed “junk fees” each year, including those for credit cards, food delivery, bank overdrafts and event tickets.
Noelle Weaver and Bradley Walker say they now base their hotel and rental-car selections upon whichever companies will give them one flat, upfront price.
“I just want to know what it’s going to cost instead of feeling the bitterness of getting upcharged at every turn,” says Walker, a 51-year-old creative director for an ad agency.
Their approach follows a series of off-putting experiences, including a New Orleans hotel they say was more focused on “getting every dollar they can” than on ensuring they would want to return. What they thought would be a $719, four-night stay became nearly $1,000 after their receipt shows they paid an additional $235 in taxes and fees. The hotel also charged $50 for early check-in. They declined to pay to use the gym.
“They wanted us to pay an upcharge for all the things that are actually free to the hotel,” says Walker, who lives in Greenwood Lake, N.Y.
What bothers me are rental car fees, hotel add-ons, and especially when you’re buying some quick take-out food, like a coffee or a baguette, and they ask you how much you want to tip. I’m not a tipper in that situation; call me cheap.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, a lovely reflection photo with Editor Hili ensuring that all is well with Listy:
From Masih; more nonsense about hijabs. How can a principal ATTACK a student for not wearing a hijab?
an Iranian schoolgirl being physically attacked by the principal for not wearing hijab. In response, students unite, remove their hijabs, disable cameras, and chant against discriminatory rules.
This is only one bit of what our protesters were demanding!
‼️This is the contract that was on the table that @UChicago offered students. Students had only 4 edits they wanted & @UChicago refused to negotiate in good faith. They wanted specific language and accountability measures to protect and uplift Palestinian (Gazan) students and… pic.twitter.com/ZgGsgFpyVY
— Chicago Progressive Staffers (@312Staffers) May 7, 2024
The letter mentioned below is here; it’s sad and moving.
Hundreds of Jewish students at @Columbia just published one of the most incredible student letters I have ever read.
It's not only magnificently written, but it also clearly articulates their experiences on campus for the past six months.
H L Mencken got the order right (last line, jives with Jon Haidt writings) :
The idea of literal truth crept into religion relatively late: it is the invention of lawyers, priests and cheese-mongers. The idea of mystery long preceded it, and at the heart of that idea of mystery was an idea of beauty–that is, an idea that this or that view of the celestial and infernal process presented a satisfying picture of form, rhythm and organization. Once this view was adopted as satisfying, its professional interpreters and their dupes sought to reinforce it by declaring it true. The same flow of reasoning is familiar on lower planes. The average man does not get pleasure out of an idea because he thinks it is true; he thinks it is true because he gets pleasure out of it.
Just an apology to President Alivisatos regarding my final totally negative comments yesterday on his handling of the encampment and on his opinion piece: while I still fully disagree with his process in handing the miscreants who were allowed to establish and nurture a beach head in the quad, I DO recognize the most critical importance of the end-result in that President Alivisatos did not compromise institutional neutrality as a non-negotiable characteristic of the university.
In looking at the draft negotiating document above, it simply, explicitly includes a new class of scholar at risk: those impacted by conflict in Gaza. Does that include IDF soldiers fighting in Gaza and Israelis who live within rocket range of Palestinian rocket and mortar brigades? Seems like it should from the wording.
The trouble with the various Trump prosecutions, as this non-lawyer sees it, is that they have been cobbled together (by the White House and various prosecutors) based on necessity, not sound law or evidence. Take the Bragg prosecution for hush money. Even if the payments to Daniels do fall under the category of campaign finance, Bragg has charged Trump with a felony for a law that defines the violation as a misdemeanor. And in the classified documents case, the prosecution has admitted that it tampered with the evidence and had previously misrepresented this to the court. At the same time the Left has stirred up the faithful with the idea that they will get Trump come hell or high water. Like the Kyle Rittenhouse case, if Trump is found innocent (or the charges are dismissed), there will be a howl that the system doesn’t work because the Press has pretended these are open-and-shut-cases, rather than fairly reported on them.
And now Biden has cut-off aid to Israel that was approved by Congress. It’s a law. Trump’s first impeachment included the charge that he cut delayed aid to Ukraine.
+1
What makes you think the White House was involved in his prosecutions?
He’s Teflon, I tell you!
Ken Kukec played his part his part in defending the Teflon Don. At least he tried 🙂
Regarding extra fees: I know that hotels sometimes charge a ‘destination fee’. I recently called a few hotels and asked them how much it would take to stay there and they told me the cost, all extras included. That helped.
$235 in taxes and fees – taxes are always passed on to the consumer. This is the infuriating thing when we say things like “raise taxes on big business”; big business (and any other size business) passes those taxes on to the consumer in the form of higher prices so that they can maintain an expected operating profit.
In terms of things that are “free to the hotel”; yes, some things may be, but most are not. Put it in terms of your house: what is free in your home that you never pay for? Gyms require equipment maintenance and regular cleaning. Early check in may require extra staff or rearranging of the current rooming plan. You don’t get charged directly for the little bottles of shampoo, buy they aren’t free, and you are paying for them in your bill.
These may either be built into the room price, or as ala carte pricing. When you check into a hotel with free internet service, you can bet that part of your room rate includes the pro-rated cost of the hotels broadband service and the upkeep of it. Hotels show all those charges to be transparent to customers, but if they do not, it doesn’t mean that you’re not paying them.
I also do not tip housekeeping staff, unless there is some service over and above or a special request.
“…so that they can maintain an expected operating profit.”
But, what is reasonable to expect? $50 billion? Every entity is
supposed to pay an appropriate rate of taxes. This means a progressive
arrangement where the wealthy and profitable businesses pay more.
I think the problem is the wealthy and businesses are not currently paying
an appropriate amount.
Lots to unpack there.
Progressive taxation is applied to individuals, not corporations. If corporate taxes were progressive, it would be too hard to figure out the appropriate taxation of dividends in the hands of the individual receiving them, since the fair rate, to avoid double taxation, would depend on the rate the corporation had paid on its pre-dividend profit, and on the individual’s own marginal rate.
Besides, a moment’s reflection will show that if a very large firm made an anemic rate of return one year, its profit would likely still be much larger than a mom-and-pop corner store that cleaned up selling snacks, cigarettes, and lottery tickets. It would be perverse to tax the large firm that performed poorly more just because its profit was larger in absolute dollars than the successful small business.
There is little rationale for taxing corporations on their profits. Rather, dividends, salaries, bonuses, and capital gains should be taxed when they are received by individuals. Which they are anyway. If a corporation reinvests all its profit in the business, it should not have to pay income tax on it.
Finally, what the “The rich should pay their share” crowd misses is that they look only at income before taxes are paid. So no matter how much of his income the guy who makes $10 million pays in taxes,—in Canada it would be about $5 million, and they say that’s still not enough— the envious will always look at his $10 million nominal salary and want still more of it. Now, if you want to argue that no one should be able to earn $10 million, that is another argument entirely, which is not about taxation at all. No one will put himself out to earn $10 million if you are going to take $9 million of it away from him.
I am curious about your views about the legal liability of corporations, as compared to that of partnerships, sole proprietorships and individual flesh-and-blood human beings.
My views don’t count. The law says what it says. Perhaps I don’t understand the question.
After a moment’s reflection, I think you’re wrnog.
NatGeos push for “creative social stunts” instead of writers? Presumably they had people in mind for the jobs, but as everyone seemed to love the BostonDynamics robodog dancing while wearing a shaggy dog costume, NatGeo could easily dispense with those humans too. Don’t think outside the box, think inside the AI.
Jerry, you are mistaken. Jesus did ascend. The two state solution is plausible and Friedman is a damn genius. It pains me that you don’t see “the truth”.
On a more serious and concerning note:
Quote:
“This is the point: the radical Left sees Israel as the small oppressor and America as the great oppressor. The protestors are not Islamists, but, rather, see Islamism as a useful accelerant in their campaign to “set the empire ablaze.” – CR
I agree with the analysis by Rufo, the radical left does not see Islamism as incongruent with the rest of “woke” – despite the obvious contradictions. It (Islamism) fits in with “death to empire”. It aligns with the “oppressed-hierarchy” and is a powerful tool that can be (and is being) employed in dismantling “colonialism”. Expect to see more of Allah. Ascending or otherwise.
Have a good trip to Amsterdam. ❤️
To presume to congenially inquire, were Friedman to post his (two-state, among other) views on this website, as opposed to in his column or elsewhere, would he be no less entitled than anyone else posting here to be covered (and obligated) by “Da Roolz”? (I reasonably trust that mine is not a verboten question. For sure, in the spirit of epistemic humility and all that, I don’t think so highly of myself that I think it impossible that I myself am occasionally a “moron.”)
If the site were mine, I would certainly accommodate Friedman. The site is not mine. Talk to Jerry.
I still think Jesus has wings and Allah is everywhere. And Friedman is a genius. Unqualified genius.
Unless Jesus got up to faster than the speed of light, he’s still in the midst of his ascent, having traveled at most only about 2% of the way across the Milky Way galaxy. Must be pretty bored by now.
If he’s only done 2% of the trip, could we call him back? If he comes back, we could settle the religion question right away and Jerry can make changes to his talk.
If he’s travelling at the speed of light, he won’t be experiencing the passage of time.
But his wound edges would approximate from Lorentzian contraction, making them heal faster and with less scarring.
I agree that tip culture is getting ridiculous. However, in defense of the tip asks, the shops or whatever often standardized software that automatically asks for tips.
I volunteer at a cancer charity shop. The payment software is designed for restaurants and bars and automatically asks customers for a tip. We explain to patrons that we are all volunteers and don’t get or want tips. We say that any tip would be a donation to the charity.
There are plenty of software options available. The nonprofit/charity you work at could easily contact the company it purchased said software from for a return/exchange. There’s an incredibly expensive “health food store” downtown that began using such software asking for tips. So many customers complained (myself included), that the store switched out their software. For the most part, such choices (of software asking for tips) is quite intentional. That’s on top of ridiculously artificially inflated minimum wages imposed by our city council. There was a day when we (I) worked my way up and didn’t expect to earn a “living wage” (whatever THAT means these days) doing menial work and we didn’t complain. It served as an incentive for improvement. Nobody wants to pay their dues anymore. Get over it. (My rage is not directed at you, David)
Attenborough could narrate anything and make it awesome.
We are not “f**ked” by climate change and thankfully, I think, people are waking up to this fact.
Is anthropic climate change happening? Yes. Is it by any means a catastrophe? No. Indeed what would be a catastrophe is a knee jerk rejection of fossil fuels, which would lead to many, many more human deaths. Fossil Future by Alex Epstein, described by Forbes as “excellent and compelling”, makes this very clear.
What we need is, as Konstantin Kisin calls it, “climate pragmatism”.
Indeed even the article shared on WEIT yesterday lamenting the decline of SciAm has climate catastrophism as one of its major pillars of discontent with the magazine.
The climate is changing in B.C., Canada where I have lived most of my life. We used to get some snow and lots of rain every winter.
Now we get little or no snow and much less rain. The province is looking at another drought year, I just read earlier today. Forest fires are much worse.
H L Mencken got the order right (last line, jives with Jon Haidt writings) :
The idea of literal truth crept into religion relatively late: it is the invention of lawyers, priests and cheese-mongers. The idea of mystery long preceded it, and at the heart of that idea of mystery was an idea of beauty–that is, an idea that this or that view of the celestial and infernal process presented a satisfying picture of form, rhythm and organization. Once this view was adopted as satisfying, its professional interpreters and their dupes sought to reinforce it by declaring it true. The same flow of reasoning is familiar on lower planes. The average man does not get pleasure out of an idea because he thinks it is true; he thinks it is true because he gets pleasure out of it.
Just an apology to President Alivisatos regarding my final totally negative comments yesterday on his handling of the encampment and on his opinion piece: while I still fully disagree with his process in handing the miscreants who were allowed to establish and nurture a beach head in the quad, I DO recognize the most critical importance of the end-result in that President Alivisatos did not compromise institutional neutrality as a non-negotiable characteristic of the university.
In looking at the draft negotiating document above, it simply, explicitly includes a new class of scholar at risk: those impacted by conflict in Gaza. Does that include IDF soldiers fighting in Gaza and Israelis who live within rocket range of Palestinian rocket and mortar brigades? Seems like it should from the wording.
The trouble with the various Trump prosecutions, as this non-lawyer sees it, is that they have been cobbled together (by the White House and various prosecutors) based on necessity, not sound law or evidence. Take the Bragg prosecution for hush money. Even if the payments to Daniels do fall under the category of campaign finance, Bragg has charged Trump with a felony for a law that defines the violation as a misdemeanor. And in the classified documents case, the prosecution has admitted that it tampered with the evidence and had previously misrepresented this to the court. At the same time the Left has stirred up the faithful with the idea that they will get Trump come hell or high water. Like the Kyle Rittenhouse case, if Trump is found innocent (or the charges are dismissed), there will be a howl that the system doesn’t work because the Press has pretended these are open-and-shut-cases, rather than fairly reported on them.
And now Biden has cut-off aid to Israel that was approved by Congress. It’s a law. Trump’s first impeachment included the charge that he cut delayed aid to Ukraine.
+1
What makes you think the White House was involved in his prosecutions?
Ken Kukec played his part his part in defending the Teflon Don. At least he tried 🙂
Regarding extra fees: I know that hotels sometimes charge a ‘destination fee’. I recently called a few hotels and asked them how much it would take to stay there and they told me the cost, all extras included. That helped.
$235 in taxes and fees – taxes are always passed on to the consumer. This is the infuriating thing when we say things like “raise taxes on big business”; big business (and any other size business) passes those taxes on to the consumer in the form of higher prices so that they can maintain an expected operating profit.
In terms of things that are “free to the hotel”; yes, some things may be, but most are not. Put it in terms of your house: what is free in your home that you never pay for? Gyms require equipment maintenance and regular cleaning. Early check in may require extra staff or rearranging of the current rooming plan. You don’t get charged directly for the little bottles of shampoo, buy they aren’t free, and you are paying for them in your bill.
These may either be built into the room price, or as ala carte pricing. When you check into a hotel with free internet service, you can bet that part of your room rate includes the pro-rated cost of the hotels broadband service and the upkeep of it. Hotels show all those charges to be transparent to customers, but if they do not, it doesn’t mean that you’re not paying them.
I also do not tip housekeeping staff, unless there is some service over and above or a special request.
“…so that they can maintain an expected operating profit.”
But, what is reasonable to expect? $50 billion? Every entity is
supposed to pay an appropriate rate of taxes. This means a progressive
arrangement where the wealthy and profitable businesses pay more.
I think the problem is the wealthy and businesses are not currently paying
an appropriate amount.
Lots to unpack there.
Progressive taxation is applied to individuals, not corporations. If corporate taxes were progressive, it would be too hard to figure out the appropriate taxation of dividends in the hands of the individual receiving them, since the fair rate, to avoid double taxation, would depend on the rate the corporation had paid on its pre-dividend profit, and on the individual’s own marginal rate.
Besides, a moment’s reflection will show that if a very large firm made an anemic rate of return one year, its profit would likely still be much larger than a mom-and-pop corner store that cleaned up selling snacks, cigarettes, and lottery tickets. It would be perverse to tax the large firm that performed poorly more just because its profit was larger in absolute dollars than the successful small business.
There is little rationale for taxing corporations on their profits. Rather, dividends, salaries, bonuses, and capital gains should be taxed when they are received by individuals. Which they are anyway. If a corporation reinvests all its profit in the business, it should not have to pay income tax on it.
Finally, what the “The rich should pay their share” crowd misses is that they look only at income before taxes are paid. So no matter how much of his income the guy who makes $10 million pays in taxes,—in Canada it would be about $5 million, and they say that’s still not enough— the envious will always look at his $10 million nominal salary and want still more of it. Now, if you want to argue that no one should be able to earn $10 million, that is another argument entirely, which is not about taxation at all. No one will put himself out to earn $10 million if you are going to take $9 million of it away from him.
I am curious about your views about the legal liability of corporations, as compared to that of partnerships, sole proprietorships and individual flesh-and-blood human beings.
My views don’t count. The law says what it says. Perhaps I don’t understand the question.
After a moment’s reflection, I think you’re wrnog.
NatGeos push for “creative social stunts” instead of writers? Presumably they had people in mind for the jobs, but as everyone seemed to love the BostonDynamics robodog dancing while wearing a shaggy dog costume, NatGeo could easily dispense with those humans too. Don’t think outside the box, think inside the AI.
Jerry, you are mistaken. Jesus did ascend. The two state solution is plausible and Friedman is a damn genius. It pains me that you don’t see “the truth”.
On a more serious and concerning note:
Quote:
“This is the point: the radical Left sees Israel as the small oppressor and America as the great oppressor. The protestors are not Islamists, but, rather, see Islamism as a useful accelerant in their campaign to “set the empire ablaze.” – CR
I agree with the analysis by Rufo, the radical left does not see Islamism as incongruent with the rest of “woke” – despite the obvious contradictions. It (Islamism) fits in with “death to empire”. It aligns with the “oppressed-hierarchy” and is a powerful tool that can be (and is being) employed in dismantling “colonialism”. Expect to see more of Allah. Ascending or otherwise.
Have a good trip to Amsterdam. ❤️
To presume to congenially inquire, were Friedman to post his (two-state, among other) views on this website, as opposed to in his column or elsewhere, would he be no less entitled than anyone else posting here to be covered (and obligated) by “Da Roolz”? (I reasonably trust that mine is not a verboten question. For sure, in the spirit of epistemic humility and all that, I don’t think so highly of myself that I think it impossible that I myself am occasionally a “moron.”)
If the site were mine, I would certainly accommodate Friedman. The site is not mine. Talk to Jerry.
I still think Jesus has wings and Allah is everywhere. And Friedman is a genius. Unqualified genius.
Unless Jesus got up to faster than the speed of light, he’s still in the midst of his ascent, having traveled at most only about 2% of the way across the Milky Way galaxy. Must be pretty bored by now.
If he’s only done 2% of the trip, could we call him back? If he comes back, we could settle the religion question right away and Jerry can make changes to his talk.
If he’s travelling at the speed of light, he won’t be experiencing the passage of time.
But his wound edges would approximate from Lorentzian contraction, making them heal faster and with less scarring.
I agree that tip culture is getting ridiculous. However, in defense of the tip asks, the shops or whatever often standardized software that automatically asks for tips.
I volunteer at a cancer charity shop. The payment software is designed for restaurants and bars and automatically asks customers for a tip. We explain to patrons that we are all volunteers and don’t get or want tips. We say that any tip would be a donation to the charity.
There are plenty of software options available. The nonprofit/charity you work at could easily contact the company it purchased said software from for a return/exchange. There’s an incredibly expensive “health food store” downtown that began using such software asking for tips. So many customers complained (myself included), that the store switched out their software. For the most part, such choices (of software asking for tips) is quite intentional. That’s on top of ridiculously artificially inflated minimum wages imposed by our city council. There was a day when we (I) worked my way up and didn’t expect to earn a “living wage” (whatever THAT means these days) doing menial work and we didn’t complain. It served as an incentive for improvement. Nobody wants to pay their dues anymore. Get over it. (My rage is not directed at you, David)
Attenborough could narrate anything and make it awesome.
twitter.com/historyinmemes/status/1788604845030510834
We are not “f**ked” by climate change and thankfully, I think, people are waking up to this fact.
Is anthropic climate change happening? Yes. Is it by any means a catastrophe? No. Indeed what would be a catastrophe is a knee jerk rejection of fossil fuels, which would lead to many, many more human deaths. Fossil Future by Alex Epstein, described by Forbes as “excellent and compelling”, makes this very clear.
What we need is, as Konstantin Kisin calls it, “climate pragmatism”.
Indeed even the article shared on WEIT yesterday lamenting the decline of SciAm has climate catastrophism as one of its major pillars of discontent with the magazine.
The climate is changing in B.C., Canada where I have lived most of my life. We used to get some snow and lots of rain every winter.
Now we get little or no snow and much less rain. The province is looking at another drought year, I just read earlier today. Forest fires are much worse.
I’m 72 and am thinking back to my teens and 20s.