Milestone!

This is post 1800, which I had planned to do before my birthday, and I have!  To be sure, maybe a few were superfluous, but... well, there is really no reason that I should not post every day, is there now?  This is what passes for achievement at my age, I guess.  That said, I am somewhat much less depressed about my birthday than usual... too busy?  Worried about other things?  Of course, I am not actually 46 yet, so... when it comes, I will feel the worse, I am sure.

One of my coworkers and I had an interesting conversation today... she mentioned that she was taking some time off and her and the family were going to the Creation Museum and the Ark.  I told her that I had been to the Museum and wanted to see the Ark (I didn't tell her what my actual science views are, thank God).  She said she was surprised by this, as I had made some snarky comments about President Trump... I don't know; I would like to think I had been there long enough to be known as a maker of snarky comments.  Heck, a few hours before I told her -- a bunch of my coworkers were selling raffle tickets -- that I didn't have $10 on me because I was practicing to be married (she, and the female coworkers, were more than pleased by this, at least).  Anyways, I was vastly amused by this, but told her that we would all be better off if we could make fun of each other again... and that was that.  I hope.

More to the point... how shall I say this?   One, I think the prosecution of Trump is political; if his name was Donald Smith, would he prosecuted?  Probably not; some sort of civil penalty (a strongly worded note, ha) and a public flogging but not much more.  Truthfully, the same could be said of Hunter Biden.  And, no one is above the law, but... no one is beneath the law; there is something troubling to only charge and prosecute one person for a crime possibly (or actually) committed by many.  There is something to be said for saying "this crime is so heinous that we will punish from now on," but, well, look to the Houston Astros to see the wisdom of that policy.

I watched a charming documentary tonight... "Finding the Money," a look at Modern Monetary Theory (MMT).  It's actually quite interesting; it was made in 2023, and it certainly seemed as if the first 2/3 of it was to explain MMT without explaining its deficiencies...and then they realized that the MMT they had advocated had caused ruinous inflation and was impairing the Biden re-election, so they had to pivot, namely that we don't necessarily have to have crazy to have MMT, we just made poor choices, and that inflation can be managed.  (In some ways they are not wrong, but...)  Of course, they then had to pivot to what we could be spending on -- healthcare for all, green economy, full employment -- and one has to just adjust our spending on that.  No one, of course, seems to think that maybe they could get it wrong...

The Nonprofit Industrial Complex and the Corruption of the American City - American Affairs Journal
This also amused me -- one because this is the sort of stuff MMT spending goes to, and the other in that if we know all these things, you would think some GOPer would at the forefront of calls to investigate and prosecute these things.  I mean, for all of the talk of the Donald and his ilk about persecuting their enemies... are not these people our enemies?