A Large Regular

How did 30,00 Haitians get to Texas?

Didn't expect the 2016 Brazil Olympics to be part of the equation.  

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- UFC champ Jorge Masvidal tells it like it is on Cuba.

- FBI agent in Governor Whitmer case arrested following domestic incident. The whole FBI kidnapping case here is smelling fishy. 

- We are all investors now. People are living much longer than in the past and at a certain age most people learn to spend less that they make. 

- How China's hacking entered a reckless new phase. Don't trust China - China is asshole!

- Noah Smith expands on Haiti vs Dominican Republic and why the divergence.

I've long been fascinated by the differences between Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

One of the most remarkable economic divergences in the world.

In 1950, Haiti was as rich as the Dominican Republic.

In 2018, Haiti was POORER than it was in 1950, while the D.R.'s GDP had increased by a factor of TEN.

These countries are two halves of the SAME ISLAND. - Noah Smith

Geography-wise Haiti and the D.R. are the combined size of Vermont and New Hampshire. Imagine if they spoke French and were so much poorer in Vermont while in New Hampshire they spoke Spanish and were doing much better financially than their neighbor to the west. That's Haiti and the D.R. in a nutshell.

Perhaps the fundamental cause for the differing financial fortunes is the fact that they play baseball in the D.R. and in Haiti they play soccer. One is a sport of individual achievement (just look at the stars like David Ortiz or Pedro Martinez) while the other is a sport of faking injury whenever anyone so much as touches you. 

Perhaps all this woke crap and cancel culture in the US is due to the fact that we've started having our children play soccer. We should fundamentally return to baseball and tackle football for the good of the nation before it's too late. Just saying.  

Let me say from the jump that the phrase "shithole countries" the way President Trump used it is racist. Yup - to argue against that is to be in denial. It is also true that a place like Haiti is a shithole country. Both things can be true at the same time.

Let's try this hypothetical thought experiment and see how outraged you'd be:

Wife: Honey how do you feel about a trip to Haiti?
Husband: I don't want to spend my vacation in that shithole country.
Wife: How about Norway?
Husband: Ooh - that sounds good.

Are you outraged at the husband for being a racist? Or did you think "Yeah - I'd much rather vacation in Norway than in Haiti." If you were outraged - my advice to you is to get a grip because Haiti is a shithole complete with a State Department warning against visiting.

If Trump had singled out Venezuela instead would the racist overtones have been lessened? Because Venezuela has become not just a shithole under Leftist rule but an utter shitshow. My guess is if he did single out Venezuela that Bernie Sanders and the Socialists would all be up in arms. Sean Penn might even have come out of hiding to Tweet mean things.

Are you upset because the use of the word "shithole" is un-Presidential? Were you equally outraged when Barack Obama used the word "shitshow" to describe Libya? If not then you are a hypocrite. Are you in the "think of the children" brigade? Well then I'm guessing Bill Clinton saying oral sex doesn't count as sex and the news of the day being about nothing but Presidential blowjobs made you a Republican for life. No? Then you are just a hypocrite.

Again I am not a Trump supporter and I did not vote for the man. I'm just not going to fake outrage at every little thing. 

Haiti and Cuba

A strange thought struck me this morning - what if the earthquake that hit Haiti had hit Cuba instead? Would we have been as concerned? Would we have blamed the death and devastation on Cuba's failed mode of government? Would we have kept our pocketbooks closed? Would our government even allow aid to a country with whom we have banned any sort of trade? Would Guantanamo Bay have become the hub for all relief efforts?

I think the last sentence is true. Our military is leading the relief efforts in Haiti and I think the same would have been true for Cuba too.

Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous thoughts and observations.

Super Bowl line came out at Colts -4 with the Over/under at 56. Many people expect that the line on the Colts will increase to -5 or -6. I expect the line on the coin flip to remain unchanged... Seven Golden Rules to help you make a profit from sports betting... Strange Fact #1: The letter "M" comes from a pre-Canaanite hieroglyph pronounced "mem" meaning water and shaped like waves... Just saying but if Jay Feeley hit all his FG attempts then the Jets cover the spread last night and many of the Jets fans feel a little better about things today... This is so mean... Sure the Colts and Saints get to go to the Super Bowl but the Jets and the Vikings get to donate thousand and thousand of division championship T-shirts and hats to Haiti... Cross the Sean Penn character from the movie Mystic River with Mel Gibson from the movie Payback and then make Gibson a cop = Edge of Darkness... Strange Fact 2: Johnny Carson died on January 23rd and Conan O'Brien's last show ended on January 23rd... Haiti to Donate $1 Million to the NHL... Strange Fact 3: They Might Be Giants created the theme music to Jon Stewart's The Daily Show... Today would have been the 136th birthday of one of my favorite authors, W. Somerset Maugham. The Razor's Edgeremains one of my favorite all-time books... Happy 92nd birthday to Tigers great Ernie Harwell. I really hope he also sees his 93rd birthday...