New secret details emerge about aborted Amazon-NYC deal

Companies often try to gouge tax breaks and other incentives from local governments by creating a bidding war among them, by promising to build a large new facilities that would create many high-paying jobs, even though the company has likely already decided on the best site even before the process starts. These promises by the company are rarely realized in practice and the net result is that the companies get the tax breaks they were promised while not upholding their end of the bargain, creating fewer jobs and lower paying ones at that. The latest glaring example of this is Foxconn in Wisconsin, a company that richly deserves the ‘con’ in its name.
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Behold how the Democratic political machine works

There is no question that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has excited the base of the Democratic party, especially the younger generation. She, along with Bernie Sanders and others, are working hard to expand the base of voters by attracting the many people who have been disillusioned with the party and with politics in general because their interests and needs were ignored.

This of course is upsetting to the party establishment that seeks to maintain their control because these new voters are less likely to go along with the tired old policies. The party establishment, as represented by people like Joe Biden, still cling to the myth that they can attract back white working class voters who have defected to Donald Trump. Biden keeps talking about building bridges with the Republican party (he even talks of possibly having a Republican vice president!) despite the fact that they treat him with utter scorn.

These people hate AOC because she threatens the establishment but she is also very popular with her constituents. So what to do? They think they see an importunity because it is predicted that after the next census, the state of New York will lose one congressional seat. This means that the boundaries will have to be drawn. So party leaders are salivating at the prospect of redrawing her seat so that she will be running in a district that is less favorable to her.

AOC is a savvy politicians and knows this and is already taking steps to counter this move. But it is very revealing that a priority of party leaders is to seek to get rid of a person who has so excited the party base. It shows their true colors.

Emojis and me

In the age of email and text messages, some of the nuances that used to be conveyed by the spoken word and visible cues in face-to-face interactions can be lost, and thus there is greater chance of being misunderstood, especially with humor or sarcasm. Emojis seem to promise to fill that niche and have become increasingly popular.

I don’t use emojis, trusting in my ability to use just words to convey my meaning clearly. I also do not use texting abbreviations (‘LOL’ ‘Thx’, ‘TTYL”, and the like), preferring to spell it out. This tends to make my emails and text messages longer than those of others.
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Evidence for killing Suleimani was ‘razor thin’

It is customary for underlings who do the hard work of analysis of any situation to condense them into a series of options to present to the boss. In the case of the US president and his advisors, they tend to give him a wide range of options that include extreme measures that are included for completeness but are not really seen as desirable. The problem with Trump is that his ignorance and reckless impulsivity make that kind of advice-giving dangerous. He will seize on any option that catches his fancy and that he thinks will make him look good in the moment, irrespective of the long-term damage.
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The Intelligent Design-Young Earth Creationist tension

At the height of the battles over the efforts of intelligent design creationists (IDC) to have their ideas taught as an alternative to evolution in the science curriculum in public schools, I wrote an article that was published in the June 2002 issue of Physics Today under the title Philosophy Is Essential to the Intelligent Design Debate in which I argued that important ideas about the nature of science that had been made by philosophers of science were not being adequately used by the defenders of science who were trying to keep religious ideas like IDC out of the school science curriculum.
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The fallout from the killing of Qassem Suleimani

The killing of the Iranian general Qassem Suleimani in an airstrike ordered by Donald Trump is one of those things that make any sane observer wonder what the hell Trump was thinking and what the hell those around him were doing in allowing him to do it.

The strike came at a time when Iraq was already on the brink of an all-out proxy war, and hours after a two-day siege of the US embassy in Baghdad by a mob of PMF militants and their supporters. The Pentagon accused Suleimani of having masterminded the mob attack.

That siege followed US airstrikes on camps run by a PMF-affiliated militia particularly closely aligned with Tehran, which in turn was a reprisal for that militia’s killing of a US contractor in an attack on an Iraqi army base on Friday.

This action is only going to inflame anti-US feelings of both Iraqis and Iranians. The Iraqi government is already under some pressure to ask the US to withdraw its troops and this will likely increase the volume of such calls.
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Searching for the real Buddha

Of the major religions, Buddhism carries with it the least amount of supernatural baggage (though not entirely devoid of it) and is perceived as a religion that values contemplation and introspection. (Of course, I am referring to Buddhism in its more philosophical form, not the actual practice in places like Sri Lanka and Myanmar where it has become commandeered by chauvinists who think nothing of using murderous violence against those who are not Buddhists to the extent of going on ethnic cleansing rampages.) As a result, it has gained popularity among those who find it hard to accept the idea of gods and like to think of themselves as ‘spiritual but not religious’, and Buddhism-inspired practices like meditation and mindfulness have gained a lot of traction in the West.
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Oh, hell, this is really, really bad

The US has killed a high profile Iranian military leader in a missile strike near the Baghdad airport.

The White House said Donald Trump ordered an air strike that killed powerful Iranian general Qassem Suleimani in Baghdad in the early hours of Friday, in a dramatic escalation of an already bloody struggle between Washington and Tehran for influence across the region.

Suleimani, who ran Iranian military operations in Iraq and Syria, was targeted while being driven from Baghdad airport by local allies from the Popular Mobilisation Units (PMU). The deputy head of the PMU, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandes, a close Suleimani associate, was also killed in the attack.
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Iran confirmed Suleimani’s death, saying the US would be responsible for the consequences.

“The US’ act of international terrorism, targeting & assassinating General Soleimani—THE most effective force fighting Daesh (ISIS), Al Nusrah, Al Qaeda et al—is extremely dangerous & a foolish escalation,” the Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, said on Twitter. “The US bears responsibility for all consequences of its rogue adventurism.”

This is a major, major provocation by Trump. I cannot tell what this will lead to but it is not going to be good.

Stephen Colbert visits Jacinda Ardern

New Zealand’s prime minister managed to quickly get a ban on assault rifles in her country after the horrific Christchurch shooting. Colbert accepts her invitation to visit the country to talk about this and other things and she picked him up at the airport, driving her own car. What impressed me is how the New Zealand prime minister drives a modest car herself without a massive security entourage, lives in a normal sized home, and acts like a normal person. That is as it should be with heads of states unlike the ridiculous circus surrounding the US head of state.

At the beginning in the car, Colbert was really annoying, finding her cell phone in the car and pulling the jerk move of repeatedly trying to get her to give the passcode to her phone, which she refused. He kept making guesses until, predictably, her phone got blocked. It was behavior that was more in keeping with Colbert’s former Comedy Central character than in his present role. The interview got better after that.