Thoughts on Abdul El-Sayed

Abdul El-Sayed won the Michigan Democratic Primary for Senator last Tuesday.

He is a far left so-called Progressive, and certainly has some impressive academic credentials.

He attended the University of Michigan, where he majored in biology and political science. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa with Highest Distinction in 2007 with a bachelor's degree and delivered that year's commencement speech. El-Sayed received a full-tuition scholarship to the University of Michigan Medical School, where he completed two years of medical school, and considered becoming a neurosurgeon. There he led a student medical mission to Peru and founded a student organization that raised money and coordinated community service for a local free clinic.

He then received a Rhodes Scholarship to attend Oriel College, Oxford, where he completed a D.Phil. in public health in 2011. In 2014, he completed a Doctor of Medicine (M.D.) degree at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. El-Sayed did not pursue a medical license, and instead went into public health epidemiology work.

I wonder why he decided against getting a medical license?

In 2014, El-Sayed joined the faculty at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health as an assistant professor in the epidemiology department. In August 2015, Mayor Mike Duggan appointed El-Sayed Health Officer and Executive Director of the Detroit Health Department.

El-Sayed is the author of over 100 scholarly articles, abstracts, and book chapters on public health policy, social epidemiology, and health disparities.

Like I said, impressive academic credentials. Then again, Osama Bin Laden had academic credentials as well including a stint at Oxford.

I don't like Muslims. I don't trust Muslims. Fighting them for so many years might have something to do with that so my immediate reaction to this guy is, no thanks.

There used to be these two buildings in Manhattan. Islam is both a political movement and a religion. The two can't be separated. El-Sayed supports the same people that the Muslims that flew planes into those buildings supported. We buried people after 911. We were supposed to "Never Forget." Looks like too many people in Michigan forgot.

Basically he won by promising people lots of free stuff.

He's going to pay for the free stuff by taxing billionaires. There are two reasons why this strategy never works.

First, really rich people are really, really good at keeping their money. They can afford to hire the best tax and financial advisors on the planet. Getting at their money is a lot harder than it sounds.

Second, there aren't enough billionaires around to pay for the things he's promising. The income tax started out at 1% on $0 to $20,000 ($640,000 today) after a $3,000 exemption for single taxpayers and a $4,000 exemption for married couples. The exemptions were enough to exclude 98% of workers.

Now look at the income tax today.

The same thing is going to happen with proposed wealth taxes. They won't be able to accumulate enough revenue from taxing only billionaires and the tax will move down first to the Upper Class, then to the Upper Middle Class and finally to the Middle Class.

They'll be coming after your saving accounts, your 401k accounts and the equity in your home before you know it. The crazy logic these so-called Progressives have is, if you earned the money, then you don't deserve it, but if you didn't earn it, then you deserve it. Besides, the only people who would vote for them are the ones getting the free stuff that someone else is paying for. 

The Fallacy of Democracy begins when 51% of the electorate figures out that they can vote goodies for themselves that the other 49% will pay for.

He also wants an arms embargo on Israel, because of course he does, he's a Muslim, and he wants to abolish ICE. We might want to rein in ICE, and get rid of the untrained recruits that Trump hired, by abolishing it is insanity.

So for the first time in my life, I'm supporting a MAGA Republican, Mike Rogers, to beat this guy in the general election.

Emily Wilson on Nolan's Odyssey

Emily Wilson, the translator upon whose work Nolan supposedly based his movie on, didn't seem to appreciate the author's work in a review she wrote for the London Review of Books.

In her review, Wilson said the movie lacked "psychological, emotional, political and ethical depth" and had "nothing convincing to say."

Ouch!

She went on to say, "I had hoped that Nolan's affinity with these Homeric themes might push him to new creative heights, and enable him to conjure more believable characters. But 'The Odyssey' features his usual combination of grandiosity and superficiality."

Double ouch!

She continued, "The film's vision is too confused, its characters too underdeveloped, to deliver what it half-promises in terms of big ideas – although it is very good at conveying big bangs and big giants."

Oh, my word!

Then she went after the script "The writing is abysmal. None of the characters has a convincing motivation for their actions or words. There are no sex scenes, and all the food looks horrible."

Double ouch with a cherry on top. Although I have to wonder why she's so concerned about the film not having any sex scenes?

Hamas Willing to Disarm?

 There's a rumor floating around the internet that Hamas has offered to disarm if Israel will stop their strikes and withdraw from Gaza.

I don't know how true this is, but, for the moment, let's assume it's true.

In any other circumstance, this might be considered victory. But can anyone really believe what Hamas says?

I would want Hezbollah and Iran included in any "peace" agreement and the stationing of UN Observers in Gaza to insure compliance.

But this could be a major step in the right direction. Let's keep our fingers crossed.

Trump Approval Rating

People keep either applauding, or bemoaning depending upon their politics, the apparent beating in the polls that Trump has been taking. I'm not that impressed.

Yet, 70% of Republicans apparently still approve of him despite a horrible economy, a ridiculous war in Iran and the constant slew of demonstrably false claims that he spews on a regular basis.

In a recent YouGov survey, when asked "Which event in U.S. history are Americans most proud of?" 20% of Republicans answered "The Election of Donald Trump in 2016." 

When asked "Which parts of U.S. history are Americans most ashamed of?" 27% said the "Election of Joe Biden in 2020." Only 20% said "Slavery." 

When asked "Who is the greatest American in U.S. history?" The highest percentage response among Republicans was Donald Trump at 24%. Second was George Washington at 19%, and third was Abraham Lincoln at 18%. 

These people have the IQ of a gnat, so I believe the 70% number.

Most of these Trump supporters haven't been more than 100 miles away from where they were born. Yet they will pontificate about how terrible places like California and New York are despite never having been there. Then they're outraged and shocked when CNBC lists 10 Red States as the 10 worst states to live in.

Market Crash, July, 29th, 2026

The market took a beating today. The Dow dropped 1,153 points, the Nasdaq 433 points and the S&P 500 by 112 points.

The funny thing is I went on the deck a little before 3 PM and things looked like therer were improving. The Nasdaq and S&P 500 were actually positive and the Dow was down about 500 points which was a big improvement from the 800 points that it was down earlier.

When I came back inside, everything had fallen off a cliff. 

I assume that was a reaction to the fed holding rates steady? If it was, then it seems sort of strange considering that the probability of that happening was in the 70% range. Why panic over something that was expected to happen?

Medical Issues, July 29th, 2026

I saw my Thoracic Surgeon yesterday and he says that there was improvement, but wants to do it again in three months.

Well, at least he seems to think that I'll survive another three months. I suppose that's something.

Medical Issues July 26, 2026

It's been a long time since I whined about my health so I figure I deserve to whine a little.

I was sick at the end of December. I mean really sick. I was hacking, easily lost my breath, running a high fever and generally feeling downright miserable. It was SO bad that I made an appointment with another doctor in my pulmonologist's office.

He took a swab and told me to get an X-Ray which I dutifully did the next day. He also gave me an antibiotic just in case.

The X-Ray was negative but the swab showed that that I had a type of flu. He told me to let it run its course.

Well, let me tell you, that course seemed to take forever. The fever went away but the hacking and shortness of breath remained. I also had this problem of food getting stuck while eating. I had this before and the Gastroenterologist did a dilation, but this was different, so I made a gastro appointment.

My Gastro guy had me schedule an esophagram. This will become important later.

In the meantime my appointment with my regular pulmonologist got push out to the second week of June which pushed it out beyond my next CT Scan and thoracic surgeon appointment which were in late April.

Things didn't go well with the CT Scan. There was an enlarged lymph node, from 8 mm too 1.1 cm, a lesion and a thickening of the lung lining. The radiologist wasn't sure but didn't think is was anything malignant. The thoracic surgeon said he thought it was all related to my flu episode.

I made the point that three months had passed since the worst of the flu and, while I wasn't feeling perfect, things had definitely improved. He hit me with the "when you get older" explanation.

I'm going to get a little sign made that says "When You Get Older," and hold it up whenever a doctor goes into that kind of explanation.

Anyway, he said to do it again is three months just to be sure. I had that CT Scan last week and the report was encouraging, but not perfect. The radiologist wants it done again in three months. I see the thoracic surgeon on Wednesday.

In the meantime, I went for the esophagram. You have to drink this foul tasting stuff but I had barely started when the radiologist started yelling for me to stop. Apparently I was aspirating the liquid into my lungs and, rather than let me drown (only kidding), he stopped the test. 

There was enough to show that I had a pocket where food was getting caught and food, rather than staying in my esophagus, was sometimes getting into my lungs. Isn't that just dandy?

The gastro guy sent me to an ENT who suggested I see a doctor that specializes in swallowing. I didn't even know there was such a thing. The problem is the swallowing guy isn't available until the end of August. He works out of Mt. Sinai and is usually in New Jersey twice a week, but not during the summer and I'm not crazy enough to go into Manhattan.

The last piece to this mosaic of chaos is I finally got to see my pulmonologist and she hit me with a triple. I got a steroid, which I think did wonders, an antibiotic just in case, which I don't think did anything, and a prescription for a nebulizer and associated medicine.

I was supposed to do the nebulizer twice a day for 30 days. But she gave me enough refills for about six months and the medicine costs $0. It really loosens up phlegm. I wonder if you can get addicted to this because when I stopped doing it in the evening I woke up the next morning choking pretty badly.

So I went back to doing it twice a day. I'll see what the thoracic surgeon says but I suspect that he'll tell me to check with the pulmonologist. Unfortunately she's out on leave and won't be available until October.

Oh yeah, one more thing. I saw the eye doctor a couple of weeks ago and she gave me prescriptions for reading glasses and glasses for night driving. I went to Warby Paker, and the night driving glasses are supposed to come tomorrow, but I haven't heard anything about the reading glasses yet and those are the ones I'm most interested in.

Bernie and the Minimum Wage

Bernie Sanders is again pushing for an increase in the federal minimum wage, which is still only $7.25. He put up a post comparing the minimum wage to the net worth of Musk, Bezos, and Zuckerberg.

I don't see what the net worth of the three richest dudes has to do with the Minimum Wage question. First of all, let's remember that 30 states already have a minimum wage greater than the federal minimum wage. Let's also remember that different states have different costs of living. Hawaii has a minimum wage of $16. I'm not sure it would make sense to make that the minimum wage for Mississippi. Perhaps we should just leave this up to the states. I'm getting a little tired of trying to drag Red States into the modern world.

Besides, the potential problem with raising the minimum wage significantly is that it could cause both Demand-Pull Inflation and Cost-Push Inflation. The first occurs when consumer demand exceeds available supply and the second when production costs increase leading companies to increase prices.

Not only could this inflation wipe out the benefits of the higher minimum wage, it will crucify seniors on a fixed pension, and hurt anyone whose wages didn't increase, leading to demands for higher wages, leading to more inflation and so on and so forth. Welcome to the "Wage-Price Spiral."

Obviously this will damper out sooner or later, sooner is good, but later could lead us into a spiral like we had in the 1970s.

Bernie, your BA is in Political Science; please talk to someone with at least one degree in Economics.

World Cup Quarter Finals to the Final

Quarter-Finals

July 9th

France-2 Morocco-0

July 10th

Spain-2 Belgium-1

July 11th

Norway-1 England-2 (AET)

Argentina-3 vs Switzerland-1 (AET)

I was really rooting for Morocco but France leads 2-0 in the 73rd minute.

Well, Spain beat Belgium 2-1 but at least someone scored a goal against Spain. That France vs Spain semi-final is going to be one hell of an interesting match.

Alas, farewell Norway as England advances.

Argentina gets past the Swiss with two late goals in ET.

Semi-Finals

July 14th

France-0 Spain-2

July 15th

England-1 Argentina-2

Spain takes a 1-0 lead over France on a penalty kick. Honestly, given the rarity of goals in this sport, I found that penalty a little iffy but, what do I know? The more I think about it, the more that penalty bothers me. The Spanish player basically ran into the line of the French player's kick. Yes, the ball hit the Spanish player first, and yes, he did get kicked. But, given that goals are as rare as hen's teeth at this level, it strikes me as a chicken-shit way to get a goal. Spain has scored again, so it's now 2-0 in the 60th minute. Whoa, an offside saved a 3rd goal so it's still 2-0. That's how it ends, Spain-2, France-0.

Boy, no scoring but lots of fouls in the first 25 minutes of the England vs Argentina game. England up 1-0 in the 56th minute. Goal for Argentina in the 86th minute. It's now 1-1. In the 92nd minute it's Argentina 2-1. It will be Spain vs Argentina. Mamacity, what a game.

Third Place Play-off

July 18th

France-4 England-6

I didn't see any of this match because I was off doing stuff but, given the score, it sounds like it was one big "I don't give a shit" fest.

***Final***

July 19th

Spain-1 Argentina-0 (AET)

Geez, they should give these guys boxing gloves. I've seen NFL football games that were more polite. Spain dominated the 1st half but it's still 0-0, so we shall see. It's a great day in the Meadowlands for a match.

Hey, the halftime show was pretty good, simple but pleasant. I could have done without Justin Bieber though. Yeesh, what a downer song. You guys think they have enough state troopers there?

The Argentine keeper is earning his keep today with seven saves so far at 78 minutes. Make that eight saves at 80 minutes. Now it's nine at 92 minutes and we have a red card (2nd yellow card) against Argentina's Enzo Fernandez. Free kick for Spain, save number ten, and we go to extra time.

Spanish goal, but, a foul is going to erase it. That's the end of the first half of extra time.

Goal Spain at 106. It will take a miracle for Argentina to pull this one out. Well, it's over Spain-1, Argentina-0. This was a great tournament.

Is Voter ID Racist?

Trump and Republicans keep pushing for requiring a government issued voter ID in order to vote. This could be, for example, a driver's license or a passport.

Brain dead Democrats keep saying voter ID is racist.

No, voter ID is not racist. But I have three problems with voter ID.

The first problem with voter ID is that it is a solution looking for a problem. There is no evidence that voter ID would solve any existing issue. There is an old engineering maxim that says "if it ain't broke, then don't fix it." Voting ain't broke, so there's no reason to fix it. 

The second problem with voter ID is that proponents are claiming that it is needed or at least would be neutral. Epistemology places the burden of proof on those making the claim. Yet proponents of voter ID never provide any evidence supporting their claim. It's "easy" to obtain an ID is not a sufficient reason. Even if a voter ID requirement excludes ONE person that is eligible to vote, then it does more harm that good and proponents can't demonstrate that it won't exclude anyone. 

But what about people voting that shouldn't you ask? Well, like I said, there is no evidence that this is a real issue and no evidence that, even if it were, that voter ID would solve it. Besides, I'd rather allow 1,000 ineligible voters to vote than deny one eligible voter their right.

The third problem is once you add a voter ID requirement, what is there to prevent narrowing the list of documents that are acceptable? There is a small, but real, potential problem of a slippery slope here. A driver's license doesn't REALLY prove that you're a citizen so let's restrict it to a passport or military ID. Yeah, I don't like this possibility.

Besides...we all know that Republicans wouldn't be pushing this if they didn't think it was going to suppress Democrat votes. Do you people think we all stupid?

Non-citizens Registered to Vote

Trump claimed that DHS found 278,000 non-citizens registered to vote. I looked at the DHS data and that's not what it says.

What the report says is:

"In the short time that the enhanced SAVE system has been available to states, 10 have states processed their full voter lists. As of June 22, 2026, a total of 25 different states processed more than 68 million registration records through the SAVE system. DHS has enabled those states to identify over 400,000 deceased registrants and over 28,000 non-citizens who illegally registered to vote."

It doesn't say HOW they identified the non-citizens or if there is any evidence that any pf these people have actually ever voted. As for the 400,000 deceased registrants. Deceased voters are supposed to be removed from the rolls within a day or two but we clearly have cases where this doesn't happen. But, again, there is no evidence that any votes were cast by theses deceased voters.

Now let's look at the numbers. They checked 68 million records and found 400,000 deceased and 28,000 non-citizens. That's 0.5% deceased and 0.04% non-citizens with ZERO evidence that any votes have been cast under these names.

By the way, all of these problem registrations came from red states and over 25% of the deceased voters, 111,573, were on the rolls in Texas.

Color me unimpressed.

If the rest of Trump's evidence is as "impressive" as this, then it's a joke.

Trump's Speech July 16th, 2026

 As expected the speech focused on election security and Trump thumping his chest. He made a lot of claims and promised the release of classified documents backing up his claims.

OK, I will check out the documents, but I find it more than a little suspicious that this information is being released only four months before the Midterms.

According to Trump China has hacked into voter roles. I'm not sure what that means. He also claimed that DHS has discovered 278,000 non-citizens registered to vote in federal elections. I wonder if this is like the million ineligible people on Social Security that Musk "discovered."

He also essentially accused the US intelligence agencies of hiding the information of voter fraud and election manipulation.

I suspect the motive here is to set up disputing midterm results because states "didn't do enough" to correct the vulnerabilities that he's claiming.

Color me skeptical but, he claims he has evidence, so we shall see what we shall see.

He also claimed to have eliminated taxes on Social Security but, I guarantee you, that I, and everyone else, is still paying taxes on Social Security.

Trump to Speak and the Trump Coin

Donald Trump is scheduled to speak tonight at 9 PM EDT. The rumor is that he's going to focus on "election integrity" which could mean almost anything.

I really hate listening to this idiot but I don't have anything better to do tonight so perhaps I'll tune in. 

Oh, one more thing, the US Mint is apparently going to start mining $1 Trump Coins in honor of the US 250th Anniversary.

Federal law prohibits U.S. currency from featuring living people, but the Treasury said it worked around that restriction by classifying the coins as collectibles that commemorate America’s 250th birthday. 

So, we're not talking about a coin that will be in circulation. Honestly, I want me a couple of these but they're not available yet on the US Mint website.