Who is the us in U.S.?

Way back when, a bunch of Puritans fled England to practice their religious beliefs.  They pushed back the people who were already here.  Later, they persecuted Quakers who publicly preached a different religious view.

Opportunists saw large areas of land to raise cotton and tobacco.  By hook or crook they laid claims to that land, pushing back the people who were already there.  To make matters worse, they bought people who were kidnapped from their homes and put on ships in chains.  They put these people to hard work, whipping them if they slacked off or showed any signs of independence.  They often quoted select passages from the Bible to justify the situation, completely ignoring “Do unto others…"

Later on, Irish escaped the famine brought on partly because the English took away some of the best farmland.  When they came to the U.S., they were often greeted with signs “No Irish need apply!”  Now people who have no Irish ancestry celebrate St. Patrick’s Day.

Swedes came in large numbers for better farmland than was available in Sweden.  Because their English was not perfect they were often called “dumb Swedes”.  This dumb whatever naming continued when immigrants from many other lands came to the U.S.

Russian Jews had their land expropriated by Tsarist thugs.  They fled to the U.S. and made many cultural and business contributions.  At the same time they were ostracized by “Christians” and kept out of many groups.

People of European descent kept pushing west taking land from Indians and Mexicans.  For a variety of reasons, successive governments in Mexico were often corrupt and did not create an economy that benefited all the people.  Many of these people sought jobs in the U.S., often in land that once was Mexico.  They are paid lower wages than those whose ancestors took the land would accept.

The U.S. waged several wars in the Mideast to ensure a supply of oil, often corrupting or overthrowing governments to do so.  Many people from these countries fled to the U.S. for a more stable life.  Also large corporations hired many of the highly educated of these people because they worked for less and the corporations didn’t have to pay the taxes to educate them.

On and on it goes.  “Why don’t you go back to where you came from?”  This is directed at people whose families have been here for generations as well as people who have helped enhance the bottom line of large corporations.  And how does one go back to where they came from if their ancestors came from many different places?

On top of all of this, the descendants of dissenters who left their homelands now want others to believe just as they do.

“When will we ever learn!”

Anti-abortion but pro-war?

How is it that those who are against abortion are allied with the party that wants to get involved with wars all over the world?  Doesn’t war kill pregnant women and their unborn children?

How many pregnant women in England were killed German rockets?  How many pregnant women were killed by the fire-bombing of Dresden?  How many pregnant women were killed in Leningrad and Stalingrad?  How many pregnant women were killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki?  How many pregnant women were killed in Viet Nam by either side?  How man pregnant women have been killed in Iraq, Syria, and many other places?

None of these war victims was given a choice.

Corporate slip-up

David McGrath wrote a local view, “A few ‘no thanks' are in order today".

I sent him a note of thanks, but when I sent it, I realized that the address was wrong.  The first four characters of his address were not included.  In the Olive Edition of the DNT the email address was split.  (Olive is software that displays the printed edition as is and then will open up single articles.  It has many of its own problems.)

I thought it might be that the opinion editor was being careless.  That would be ironic because he always seems to find something to change in almost all of my letters or commentaries.  So much so that I have given up sending anything to the DNT.

I looked at the DNT on my iPad this morning, but I am using my MacBook Air to write this blog entry.  The Olive Edition opens with an error on this computer, and nobody has fixed the problem yet.  So, I looked at the web edition, and surprise! The email address is correct at the bottom of the article.

That means that the opinion editor probably never saw the result once it left his computer to the automated process to be put in all the various formats.

And probably nobody double checks all of these errors because the owners won’t provide enough resources to check and correct all of these irritating errors.

Corporate fast response

This morning we woke up to a cold house.  My wife noticed that the alarm clock was not lit.  The light switches didn’t work.  I checked the breakers and only an unlabeled breaker was tripped.  I reset that but nothing happened.

The gas furnace was off because it needs electricity for ignition.

Well, it was cold cereal for breakfast.  While eating breakfast i went to the Minnesota Power website (mnpower.com) and found an outage map.

Bingo, right in the middle of our neighborhood was a head with a hardhat.  Clicking on the icon I found the outage was reported after 7:30 and was projected to be fixed by about 10:30.

Soon after I found this information, the furnace came on.  Power was restored within an hour of the outage being reported.

Since only 15 households were affected, I assume that nobody noticed until about 7:30, at least nobody reported it until then.

Thanks to those who work on holidays and after hours to make sure that our conveniences stay convenient.

The minor downside of this is that I could not find an email address to thank MNPower for this quick fix.  I could call but there was such a long list of choices that I gave up.

I hope someone at MNPower reads this and passes it on to the crew that responded so quickly.

“Tame” wild life

Have you noticed how some wild animals are not afraid of people, especially if the people appear to have food and they don't move?  Of course, we know that we are food for mosquitoes and flies, but some birds and rodents can be almost oblivious of people.

Many of us have seen mice and squirrels come right up to picnic tables with people sitting at the table.  As soon as anybody moves, the animal scurries away, but not far.  Gulls are a screeching nuisance around many popular areas from Canal Park to Thompson Hill; they are always on the look out for something dropped or even thrown to them.  Occasionally a gull may be so bold as to grab food right out of a person's hand.  I saw this happen around the food stands in a park in Sweden.  One second a person was holding a hot dog, the next second the person had only a bun!

Just recently I was only a large object in the way of a busy ground squirrel.  I was installing a pump on a well when I heard rustling in the grass by a clump of chokecherries.  I was on one side of a garden cart and the noise was on the other side.  Pretty soon, I noticed a ground squirrel scurrying around.  It went under the cart and then out my side to my feet.  It sniffed at my boots and climbed up to check my laces.  No food there!  It then checked between my sole and the upper of my boot.  No food there!  Then it looked up at my jeans.  Nah!  Not worth climbing.

The ground squirrel then went out on the scarred ground around the newly dug well and investigated various clumps.  When I moved it raced back to the safety of the grass.

Later in the day when I came out to pump some water, the ground squirrel was in the middle of the clearing.  It dove into a hole by one of the clumps left by the back hoe.  In a few minutes, it came back out and started exploring the barren ground.  It worked its way over to the chokecherries and climbed up one of them.  From its perch at about my eye level and about three arm-lengths away it studied me.

I don't remember if it tired of watching me or if I moved, but it climbed back down.  Quite soon after that, it ventured onto the wood chips around the well and started digging not four feet from me.  It would make two or three scratches in the chips and then look up.  Two or three scratches more
and look up again.  Very quickly it was down to the dirt and continued this pattern, back legs straddled, looking just like Disney's Chip 'n' Dale.  Every so often it would stop, turn around, and with its nose, push the chips and dirt further from the hole.  Deeper and deeper it went.  When it was
about a half-body length in, it met the tunnel it had been seeking and it disappeared.  I pushed some chips over the hole.

The next time I came back the chips were out of the hole as well as more dirt.  As I didn't want anybody to trip on the hole, I put a rock on it.  This may seem that I am mean to the ground squirrel, but I'm sure that if it was in the hole it had many other exits.  If it wasn't in the hole it will use other exits as well as dig as many new exits as it wants.

However, having met this little neighbor I decided not to cut down the chokecherry clump.  It will be interesting to watch the ground squirrel as the seasons progress.  Does it have a big cache of seeds buried and won't come out once the snow is deep?  Will it need to come out to get some additional food and leave tracks in and out of all its exits?  Or will it come to some handy perch to investigate and be amused by these large creatures who make so much noise as they move about?

This may have been published as “Gopher Story” in the Northland Reader, November 1999.  The Northland Reader was renamed Reader Weekly a few years later.

Trump has “no conflict of interest”

Well, well, the President and Vice-President are exempt from conflict of interest laws.  See  “Fact Checker: Trump’s claim that ‘the president can’t have a conflict of interest’”, Glenn Kessler and Michelle Ye Hee Lee, Washington Post, 2016-11-23.

“And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.”

Excerpt From: Edward Samuel Corwin. “The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation.” iBooks

The article pointed out that Congress has excepted the President and Vice-President from this clause "on the theory that the presidency has so much power that any possible executive action might pose a potential conflict.”

China to become leader of the free-breathing world

With Donald Trump’s appointments leaning to climate change deniers, it is interesting to note that China is being very aggressive about addressing climate change.

See “China emerges as global climate leader in wake of Trump’s triumph”, Isabel Hilton, The Guardian, 2016-11-22.

School bus speeding not unusual

See http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/22/us/chattanooga-school-bus-crash.html.

I drove buses for three years plus at Medicine Lake Lines/Ryder.  I made every effort to go at the speed limit as determined by conditions, including speed limit signs.  If I was in a convoy on a charter, often the other drivers were pulling away from me or complaining I was going go slow.

I don’t understand why drivers would want to speed.  After all, if they go slower they’ll get more hours!

Where have all the jobs gone? Part 2

Originally published in
Reader Weekly
June 10, 2004

Sorry, I can’t find “Where have all the jobs gone? Part 2” on this computer.  I’m at a coffee shop and will have to look for “Part 1” on an older computer.  It might be in an old email account.

I sympathize with Amy Hoff in her job hunting ("Where have all the jobs gone?" Reader Weekly, May 27, 2004).  I didn’t feel successful in my own search in 1999-2000, but then I didn’t put as much effort in as she has.  I do think we both may have been overly optimistic about opportunities.  A region the size of the Twin Ports will rarely have as many job opportunities as many of us would like.  It is almost impossible in a modern, complex economy.  Few employers want generalists who can learn on the job.  Either the job does require skills that require special training or the employer doesn’t want to pay for on-the-job training.  No employer is going to hire a liberal arts major to be a geologist, and some employers will not hire a person to work with left-handed widgets who has only worked with right-handed widgets.

She blames the job market as a reason “youth are leaving this area”.  I think many young people will leave this area regardless of the job market.

In 2004, about 3,500 students received degrees, diplomas, and certificates from area colleges(1).  There are about 86,000 people over 21 years old in the labor force in the Duluth Superior Metropolitan Statistical Area(2).  That means that area colleges are graduating enough students to replace every worker in 25 years.  If most people work for 40 years and if degreed students would not be interested in many of the available jobs, then many will have to go elsewhere to seek employment.  Besides many students came from elsewhere (why do we have a rental housing crunch) and don’t plan to stay in the area.

Even if there were jobs going begging, many people, raised here or not, would choose to move elsewhere.  There are certain jobs that will never be available here and people will move elsewhere to get them.  How many opera companies or oil exploration companies are there in the Twin Ports area?  Other people will move elsewhere because they want warmer climate or a longer ski season or …  And this is true for any area of the country.

I came from elsewhere to the Twin Cities, went yet elsewhere, came back to the Twin Cities, and then moved to Duluth.  I may or may not move to Brimson.  I have many friends and acquaintances that moved from elsewhere to the Twin Ports – from farm communities and from cities like New York and Chicago.

Other problems Amy Hoff cites are poor hiring practices, low wages, and high cost of living.  The indifference to prospective employees is not unique to Duluth.  Wages are definitely lower in Duluth but the cost of living is relative.  The cost of living is not as low as it has been in Duluth but it might not be as bad as elsewhere.  One 900 sq. ft house in south Minneapolis was recently listed for $200,000.

What can be done to improve the job situation in the Twin Ports area?  The simple answer is import more money.  Sound trite?  Let’s explore this a bit.

An area of 250,000 people or a million people or ten million people cannot be economically self-sufficient given today’s expectations.  Could the Twin Ports support an automobile plant if the only customers were local residents?  Autos have to be imported from elsewhere.  To import Rangers from St. Paul or Saturns             from Tennessee we have to export money. Since we can’t print money here we have to import it from somewhere else.  That means we either have to have goods and services to export or figure out how to import people who will spend their money here.  Once upon a time this was all covered with timber, taconite, and tourists.

The timber isn’t what it once was.  There may be plenty of aspen and spruce but the big pines are long gone.  Why is it that The Pinery on Lake County 2 with its 200+ years-old trees is an attraction?  Taconite is a replacement for the long-gone rich ore that made the Mesabi Range famous, and taconite has many competitors including scrap iron.  Tourists, bless them, are still abundant.  However, tourism doesn’t create high-value opportunities except for entrepreneurs.  The resulting jobs are retail; these are generally low-wage unless there are large commissions to be made.

One of the largest regional industries is health care, but that is almost a wash for importing money.  Most of the patients are regional and what money comes from outside the region is offset by insurance premiums and tax dollars going out.

Education is another large regional industry.  Students come to Duluth from all over the world but are there enough from outside the region to provide a significant “importation” of money?  Research done in the new UMD science building may provide some spin-off into an industry.  This bears considering, but can government officials do anything to influence this?

Manufacturing has been cited as a creator of good-paying jobs.  Cirrus is a good example of an expanding company both in itself and in the suppliers it supports.  But we have to remember that private airplanes are a unique product and most manufacturing is of commodities.  Commodities, be they agriculture or manufacture have many, many competitors.  Trying to attract a manufacturing company is a zero-sum game.  Duluth may attract a company from Wisconsin, but some other community will be working to attract companies from Duluth.  Communities just get into bidding wars subsidizing companies.  And companies enticed from elsewhere can go elsewhere just as quickly, especially if the managers have no stake in Duluth.

One good export industry is culture – literature, art, and music.  This area does have some successful writers, artists, and musicians.  Unfortunately, they are a small drop in the economic bucket and do not create a lot of additional jobs.  But here is a clue for other economic successes.  Why are these writers, artists, and musicians in Duluth?  Could it be that they like to live here?

It gets back to my old argument.  Why worry about attracting this business or subsidizing that business?  Create an infrastructure that supports any business – good transportation, good utilities, and consistent application of rules.  But more importantly, make Duluth a city that people from elsewhere want to move to.  If the range of people so attracted is broad enough, entrepreneurs will be part of that range.  They will figure out what businesses may be a good fit for this area and build them.  With roots established here, they will be likely to keep them here through good times and bad.

(1)    I added these up from graduating class figures in the Duluth News Tribune, May 8, 2004,

(2)    I derived this figure from U.S Census figures.  Go to http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/nav/jsf/pages/community_facts.xhtml and enter your community..  You’re on your own then.  You may also find some very depressing info about our area.

See also
http://magree.blogspot.com/2010/08/if-you-really-want-to-create-jobs.html
http://magree.blogspot.com/2010/07/have-good-paying-jobs-really-been.html
http://magree.blogspot.com/2010/05/did-jobs-ever-return.html
http://magree.blogspot.com/2010/03/jobs-times-they-are-changin.html
http://magree.blogspot.com/2009/11/dentistry-and-economy.html
http://magree.blogspot.com/2009/09/stop-creating-jobs-and-start-creating.html
http://magree.blogspot.com/2006/10/where-have-all-iron-range-jobs-gone.html

Misuse of "conservative" and "free market”

Letter to New York Times public editor

I wish writers would more carefully use the terms “conservative” and “free market”.

Those labeled with these terms, by self or others, are too often neither.

Are “conservatives” thoughtful and cautious about change, or are they rigid in whatever their views?  For example, “conservative” religious sects are more often throwing the first stone rather than feeding the poor.  Do “conservatives" really follow the Constitution as it currently exists, or are they “activists” interpreting it to suit their own views?  “Persons” are corporations?  “People” in the Second Amendment are now persons.  “Regulate Commerce” is totally ignored.

As to “free market”, it is too often meant to mean corporations should be free to do what they please without government interference.  Adam Smith must be spinning in his grave as those who live by profit (not to be trusted) buy so many politicians with money or a barrage of misleading statements.

A true free market

Has many buyers and sellers
Both buyers and sellers are free to enter or leave the market
Both buyers and sellers have all the information they need to make a decision
All costs are paid for in the transaction, that is, there are no externalities.

Too many “free marketers” want as few sellers as possible, do their best to lock buyers into the market, find out as much as possible about buyers but hide or provide false information to the buyers, and ignore all the externalities like pollution and bad diets.

See “The Invisible Adam Smith”, http://magree.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-invisible-adam-smith.html

Mining and Adam Smith

If you think mining is good for northern Minnesota or anywhere else, read
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/19/opinion/appalachias-sacrifice.html.

Also consider what Adam Smith wrote about those who live for profit.  And consider that a true free market has no externalities, like pollution that is not in the cost of a transaction.

More on the Electoral College

For a different view than I gave in “Why we have our electoral mess”, see J. Craig Scherf,  "Electoral College maintains one of Constitution’s checks and balances" Duluth News Tribune, 2106-11-15.

Times have changed since the Constitution was written.  Then the voters were male property owners.  Their interests were in protecting their property, whether it was real estate or slaves.  They felt that they could best protect their property by state laws, not federal laws.

But the interests of the states as property protectors has diminished in several ways.

Many of us are not fixed or even interested in our states as defenders of all of our interests.

Those of us who are property owners might change property for a variety of reasons.  We might want a bigger or smaller residence.  We might want to move from a rural area to a city or vice versa.  Or we might move out of state, something that seems to happening more frequently as people change jobs within a company or get a job in a different company.

I have lived in three states and three foreign countries.

I grew up in Cleveland OH and in surrounding areas.  I have not lived in Ohio for 53 years.  When the Cleveland Indians were in the World Series, I could care less!

I have lived in Minnesota for 42 years.  Do I know what the state song is?  What the state flag looks like?  I probably know more U.S. and world history than I do Minnesota history.

Our state lives get even more complicated.  How many people live in one state but work in another?  Duluth-Superior?  New York City with commuters from three states: New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut?  Philadelphia with Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware.  I myself commuted from an exurb west of Philadelphia, through Philadelphia, and on to Cherry Hill NJ.  Chicago also has commuters from three states: Illinois, Wisconsin, and Indiana.

And don’t forget that there are many reverse commuters who go from the central city to jobs outside the city, especially as more and more companies build facilities outside the central city.

Many of these commuters have no real property, they rent their living spaces.  So, where do their local loyalties lie: where they live or where they work.  They only get input into the laws that affect where they work is through federal law, not state laws.  The only way they have input into the affairs of the state in which they work is through personal contact with acquaintances who are residents of their work state or letters to the editor of the regional newspaper.

The electoral college could give our co-workers more or less clout in an election than we have.  The Delaware resident who works in Philadelphia had a greater weighted Electoral College vote than his or her colleagues who live in Pennsylvania!  It’s almost like saying that short people have more votes than tall people!

"Would we truly want large regional majorities from the two coasts to alone choose our president? The system of checks and balances left to us by the Founders is the surest guarantee of protecting minority rights that we have.” - J. Craig Scherf

But do we want small regional electoral majorities to take away the rights of the majority of the whole nation?

“Market” sends mixed “signals” about Trump’s “win"

The indexes for Friday, 11 November, showed the market going up, varying between 3.78% and 5.36%.

However, my portfolio of mostly mutual funds went down 2.44%.

Could it be that the short view is more optimistic than the long view?  That short term view is optimistic about the economy but that the long term view is pessimistic?

We’ll see next year.

Why we have our electoral mess

"As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy." Attributed to Abraham Lincoln, supposedly in 1858.  See http://quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lincoln/lincoln2/1:547?rgn=div1;view=fulltext.

The electoral college was one of the Constitutional stratagems slave owners used to protect themselves from the North taking away their slaves.  Another was counting slaves as three-fifths persons. This increased the number of representatives they got far beyond the number of actual voters.  Also basing the Senate on states rather than population, these less-populated states further increased their furtive power grab.

By increasing their relative state power in presidential elections, they hoped they could keep the end of slavery at bay.

They unleashed a long bloody war to protect this despicable practice. Unfortunately, they forgot the Constitutional provision that Congress could call out the militia to suppress insurrections.  (In our own time, Congress seemed to forget this provision in dealing with the Bundys.)

So, the Electoral College differs from democracy and the five victories because of the Electoral College in our country's history have differed from democracy.  Poor Abe must be spinning in his grave, especially when the descendants of the slave owners have taken over his party.  Poor Abe must be spinning in his grave, especially when the descendants of the slave owners have taken over his party.

See also "More on the Electoral College".

"The voters" decided for Clinton. The Electoral College decided for Trump

The above two lines are my comment to “Thoughts for the Horrified”, Paul Krugman, New York Times, 2016-11-11,
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/11/opinion/thoughts-for-the-horrified.html?comments#permid=20443404:20445015.

Consider that an extra 50,000 votes total in just three states would have given Clinton the election.

See "For Reeling Democrats, Now What?", Cathleen Decker, Los Angeles Times, 2016-11-10,
http://www.latimes.com/nation/ct-for-democrats-now-what-20161110-story.html

Were you one of these 50,000 non-voters?  Did you steal the election?  Did you help rig the election?

In the next election, remember that

The only way
You throw your vote away
Is to stay away

Also remember that if don’t vote, you will probably get the candidate you like the least.

However, there is hope for a run-around for the Electoral College.  According to the U.S. Constitution, each state gets to decide how to choose its electors.  In the beginning, it was the state legislatures.

Now there is a run-around to the Electoral College in that states will select their electors based on the national vote.  See “National Popular Vote Interstate Compact”, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact.

Trump was right, the election was rigged

But the rigging was not done by his opponents.

Let’s assume there are three states, East Coast, West Coast, and Flyover.  East Coast and West Coast each have a population of a million people.  Flyover has a population of two million.  Each of the three states has two Senators.  East Coast and West Coast each have one Representative in Congress; Flyover has two Representatives.

Therefore, East Coast and West Coast each have three electoral votes and Flyover has four electoral votes.  That is, East Coast and West Coast together have six electoral votes for a combined half of the nation’s population.  Flyover has four electoral votes for the other half of the population.

Now assume we have three candidates, Marsy, Dosy, and Lammsy.  Marsy and Dosy have large followings and Dosy has a couple of thousand.  The eligible voters in each state are 80% of the population, but turnout is only 50%.  That means that eight hundred thousand vote in East Coast and West Coast combined and eight hundred thousand vote in Flyover.

In East Coast and West Coast, Marsy got 49 percent of the vote, Dosy got 48, and Lammsy got three percent.  In Flyover Marsy got 40 percent, Dosy got 52 percent, and Lammsy got eight percent.  In numbers of votes, in the East Coast and West Coast, Marsy got 392,000 votes, Dosy got 384,000, and Lammsy got 24,000.  In Flyover, Marsy got 320 thousand, Dosy got 416 thousand, and Lammsy got 64 thousand.

Clearly, Dosy is the winner with 800 thousand votes against Marsy’s 712 thousand and Lammsy’s 90 thousand.  Wrong!  Marsy is the winner with six electoral votes as opposed to Dosy’s four electoral votes.

This “rigging” wasn’t done by anybody involved in this hypothetical election.  It was done in the Eighteenth Century with the approval of the Constitution.

Ironically, this “rigging” benefited the candidate who complained throughout his campaign that the election was “rigged”.

See also “The election was stolen, really!”

The election was stolen, really!

Who stole it?

All those eligible voters who didn't show up.  They are the one's who had no confidence in Donald Trump as president, but they couldn't bring themselves to vote for Hillary Clinton.  Many of these believed Trump's accusations against Clinton even though they disbelieved everything else Trump said.

Consider that an extra 50,000 votes total in just three states would have given Clinton the election.

See "For Reeling Democrats, Now What?", Cathleen Decker, Los Angeles Times, 2016-11-10,

http://www.latimes.com/nation/ct-for-democrats-now-what-20161110-story.html

Were you one of these 50,000 non-voters?  Did you steal the election?  Did you help rig the election?

The only way you throw your vote away is to stay away.

Be sure to vote in 2018 to bring about a better balance in Congress.

Election prediction and telephones

In 1948, the headlines were “Dewey Wins”.  However, the result was that Truman won.
See “Dewey Defeats Truman”, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dewey_Defeats_Truman.

See”A ‘Dewey Defeats Truman’ Lesson for the Digital Age”, Jim Gutenberg, New York Times, 2016-11-09, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/09/business/media/media-trump-clinton.html;
“Case Study 2: The 1948 Presidential Election”, https://www.math.upenn.edu/~deturck/m170/wk4/lecture/case2.html

However, what really counted was how polls were taken, often by telephone.  In 1948, many who leaned towards Truman did not have telephones and weren’t called.  See “Dewy Defeats Truman, Joe Walter, “The True Facts, 2019-05-31, http://www.thetruefacts.com/dewey-defeats-truman/

So, were the predictions off because too many people don’t answer their cell phones if they don’t recognize the number?  I know that I do.

Another thought, maybe many of Trump’s supporters who did answer their phones didn’t admit that they were Trump supporters.

Day-o! Day-o! Daylight comes and me want to go vote!

See http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/07/opinion/campaign-stops/harry-belafonte-what-do-we-have-to-lose-everything.html.

I’m sorry I didn’t post this earlier, but Harry Belafonte was spot on that if we don’t vote, we lose.

2016 turnout seems to be super…

… now if we can only continue that each and every election day.

My wife is a precinct judge, and based on her text reports on turnout, that precinct may have over 90% turnout.  I think her figures are for those who voted today.  Considering the number of early voters in Duluth and elsewhere, many areas of the country may have over 90% turnout.

Now if we could only get all eligible voters to turn out for each and every election, not just presidential elections.

If you are eligible to vote in the U.S. I hope you show up or showed up to vote today.  If you are reading this before the polls close and have not voted, I hope you make a point of voting before they close.

Gun rights vs. property rights, a conundrum for "conservatives"

'Tis hunting season in Minnesota.  Right now it is deer season and we can hear gunshots now and then.  I hope they were all on federal land to the south of us.

Technically, we are supposed to post "No Hunting" signs all around our property, but it is a real pain to post signs around 80 acres (half-mile along the road and a quarter-mile deep).  Besides, there always seem to be some jerks that will go right by a "No hunting/no trespassing sign.

Given that in St. Louis County, one can access the Online Land Explorer to find out ownership of every parcel of land, and so there is no excuse for trespassing.  In some other counties one can buy land maps.  Given all the other costs of hunting, I would think the maps are small change.

Now the conundrum, if a gun owner in a residential area is entitled to shoot and kill a "trespasser", should not a rural resident be entitled to shoot a trespassing hunter?

Case in point, several years ago a bird hunter shot down our driveway with a red pickup clearly visible in the driveway.  Would I have been entitled to shoot and kill that hunter in self-defense?

This particular hunter had a "right" to have a shot gun, but I have a right to my property without worrying about an irresponsible gun owner.

I have many friends who are responsible hunters, but shouldn't there be some restrictions on irresponsible people even owning guns.

Hunting with the wrong license

My wife left our cabin early today to visit a friend.  Before she had gone ten miles a buck jumped out in front of her in a well-shaded place.  Her car hit it in the hindquarters.  Once she came to a stop she looked for the deer for some time but never found it.

Did it survive?  If not, will a hunter find it before the wolves or carrion eaters such as crows and eagles?

The damage to her car seems minimal, only a cracked headlight, one we just had replaced.

I told her to call our insurance company as soon as possible.  Also when the adjuster comes to make sure he checks for frame damage.  When I hit a bear in 2014, the adjuster only looked at body damage.  A few years later a mechanic found significant mechanical damage.

Quotes of the Day, misdirected politics

 “It’s just more about getting the other people than worrying about the American people.” Christine Etima, quoted in "Immersed in the election, but unable to vote", Duluth News Tribune, 2016-11-05

"But not making a choice — sitting out the election — is to turn our fate over to others."  Ann McFeatters, Duluth News Tribune, 2016-11-06

Rain or shine: VOTE! If you don't, you could give the election away!!

Rain or cool weather means lower Democratic turnout.  Does this mean those without cars don’t show if the weather is not good.

"These findings significantly illuminate the theory in regards to voter turnout. In
particular, these results show that the primary exogenous mechanism through which
turnout affects elections is the composition effect. In other words, when turnout is
increased, newly mobilized voters are disproportionately Democratic.  Furthermore, these results illuminate a question that has been claimed to be unanswerable: If one could increase voter turnout, would it help Democrats? We find that the answer to this question is, resoundingly, yes.”

"The Joke Isn’t on the Democrats?  The Partisan Effects of Voter Turnout"
Alexander Kendall, Political Science, Stanford University
http://web.stanford.edu/class/polisci353/2004spring/reading/kendall_final.pdf

Revolution if Clinton Wins?

“Some Donald Trump Voters Warn of Revolution if Hillary Clinton Wins”
Ashley Parker and Nick Carasaniti, New York Times, 2016-10-27
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/28/us/politics/donald-trump-voters.html

Those threatening "revolution" if Donald Trump loses the Presidential Election don't really know the U.S. Constitution.

As to the elections being "rigged" consider

"Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections...of its own Members..."

- U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 5

This means that the outgoing House and Senate get to judge the elections to keep themselves in office or to judge the fairness of the election of their replacements.  If the Clinton "landslide" many are predicting comes true, wouldn't many members of Congress be out of office?  Do you really think there are so many Republican members of Congress who believe the elections are "rigged" that they would nullify the election of their successors?  Given the number of congressional Republicans disavowing Trump, I seriously doubt they would nullify the election of their replacements.

As to having a "revolution" consider

"The Congress shall have the power "To provide for calling forth the Militia to ...  suppress Insurrections..."

U.S Constitution, Article I, Section 8

Whatever the result of the election, would not most members of Congress, Republican or Democrat, be repulsed by an insurrection in support of a defeated Presidential candidate?

Election rigged in Trump's favor?

If Timothy Egan's sister's preacher said that Trump's election is part of God's plan, then I would say the election is rigged in Trump's favor.

Posted to Timothy Egan's "Final Plea to Trump's America
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/28/opinion/campaign-stops/a-final-plea-to-trumps-america.html