Recent Comments

1. 13 minutes ago on Prickly City

   Any foray into Afghanistan?

   ~

   Afghanistan is a notoriously difficult country to govern.

   Empire after empire, nation after nation have failed to pacify what is today the modern territory of Afghanistan, giving the region the nickname “Graveyard of Empires, ” even if sometimes those empires won some initial battles and made inroads into the region.

   If the United States and its allies decide to leave Afghanistan, they would only the latest in a long series of nations to do so.

   As the British learned in their 1839-1842 war in Afghanistan, it is often easier to do business with a local ruler with popular support than to support a leader backed by foreign powers; the costs of propping up such a leader eventually add up.

   The closest most historical empires have come to controlling Afghanistan was by adopting a light-handed approach, as the Mughals did.

   They managed to loosely control the area by paying off various tribes, or granting them autonomy.

   Attempts at anything resembling centralized control, even by native Afghan governments, have largely failed.

   Afghanistan is particularly hard to conquer primarily due to the intersection of three factors.

   First, because Afghanistan is located on the main land route between Iran, Central Asia, and India, it has been invaded many times and settled by a plethora of tribes, many mutually hostile to each other and outsiders.

   Second, because of the frequency of invasion and the prevalence of tribalism in the area, its lawlessness lead to a situation where almost every village or house was built like a fortress, or qalat.

   Third, the physical terrain of Afghanistan makes conquest and rule extremely difficult, exacerbating its tribal tendencies.

   Afghanistan is dominated by some of the highest and more jagged mountains in the world. These include the Hindu Kush, which ✁

   ~

   Why Is Afghanistan the ‘Graveyard of Empires’?

   A brief history of the empires that were broken in the Hindu Kush.

   The Diplomat

2. 3 days ago on Prickly City

   Before the pandemic, inflation hovered around 2 percent as measured by the overall Consumer Price Index and by a “core” measure that strips out food and fuel prices to get a clearer sense of the underlying trend.

   It dropped sharply at the pandemic’s start in early 2020 as people stayed home and stopped spending money, then rebounded starting in March 2021.

   Some of that initial pop was due to a “base effect.” Fresh inflation data were being measured against pandemic-depressed numbers from the year before, which made the new figures look elevated.

   But by the end of summer 2021, it was clear that something more fundamental was happening with prices.

   Demand for goods was unusually high: Families had more money than usual after months at home and repeated stimulus checks, and they were spending it on cars, couches and deck furniture.

   At the same time, the pandemic had shut down many factories, limiting how much supply the world’s companies could churn out. Shipping costs surged, goods shortages mounted, and the prices of physical purchases from appliances to cars jumped.

   By late 2021, a second trend was also getting started. Services costs, which include nonphysical purchases like tutoring and tax preparation, had begun to climb quickly.

   As with goods prices, that tied back to the strong demand. Because households were in good spending shape, landlords, child care providers and restaurants could charge more without losing customers.

   Across the economy, firms seized the moment to pad their bottom lines; profit margins soared in late 2021 before moderating late last year.

   Businesses were also covering their growing costs. Wages had started to climb more quickly than usual, which meant that corporate labor bills were swelling.

   Fed officials had expected goods shortages to fade, but the combination of faster inflation for services and accelerating wage growth captured their attention.

   ~

   NYT – Inflation Is Still High. What’s Driving It Has Changed.

3. 5 days ago on Doonesbury

   While I bow to your obvious expertise… ㋡

   In the Financial Sectors, sure. But to the general public?

4. 5 days ago on Doonesbury

   Amazon started in 1995. 1998 copyright on the comic…

   With the punchline “Pork Bellies”, I was thinking the Eddie Murphy / Dan Aykroyd movie – Trading Places. (1983)

5. 6 days ago on The Flying McCoys

   I’m still trying to ‘evangelize’ what I consider the best way to cook bacon…

   ‘Stir-fry’

   Basically, when frying bacon, don’t just lay it flat and flip it once.

   Put a bunch of it in the stove-top pan. (I used to cut the pack in half and put half of it in at a time.)

   While frying, keep moving it around constantly.

   It comes out evenly brown and very tender. (and IMHO, much tastier.)

6. 6 days ago on Off the Mark

   According to A-Z Animals, sloths have 5 different predators…

   Harpy eagles, Ocelots, Jaguars, Margays, and Spectacled owls.

7. 6 days ago on Reality Check

   Sounds like an ancient description of meteors.

8. 6 days ago on Prickly City

   Well… Let’s look at what the Constitution actually says, shall we?

   .

   Article 1 – The Legislative Branch

   Section 8 – Powers of Congress

   To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

   To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

   & the Second Amendment

   “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

   ~

   If the self-described R/W ‘Textualists’ actually read all of the Constitution, they’d see that only Congress can create a militia, and there’s nothing in the constitution about overthrowing the government if you don’t like the one you have.

   Not seeing the “Self-defense” part, either.

9. 8 days ago on Sherman's Lagoon

   Yes, yes they are…

   ~

   The Bandit Maximum Distance Golf balls fly too far. These clubs are known for extreme performance and distance.

   The ball flight cuts through the air because of a dimple pattern that is quite good at resisting wind and rougher air.

   ~

   My Golf Heaven

   Best Illegal Golf Balls In 2023 – Hit It Far And Straight!

10. 8 days ago on Prickly City

    We said that conservative claims betrayed an unawareness or willful elision of federal budgeting and debt incurring as astounding as their assaults on the 14th Amendment. How so, you might ask?

    In 1974, Congress took charge of the federal budgeting process in a way it had not done before. The precipitant was “The Imperial Presidency” of Richard M. Nixon, who had developed a worrying penchant for regularly impounding — that is, refusing to spend — funds that Congress had appropriated for specifically authorized federal programs.

    In effect, Nixon had been flouting both Congress’s Article I “power of the purse,” of which some commentators make pointlessly heavy weather, and the Constitution’s own Article II “take care” clause, pursuant to which the president must “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.”

    Congress’s response was the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974, pursuant to which Congress, with the president’s signature, legislates in detail: federal expenditures, federal taxes, and hence, federal debt issuance to cover gaps between expenditures and taxes.

    This, of course, means that debt obligations are fully congressionally legislated — as precisely and as fully as federal taxes and spending themselves are congressionally legislated. The federal budget, in other words, is its own ”debt ceiling” — and indeed floor.

    There is, thus, simply no role, since 1974, for the old Liberty Bond Act of 1917 — the source of the ersatz debt ceiling that Republicans now routinely wield like a weapon — to play any longer. It is a children’s toy, not a real gun, and it’s high time the Senate and all reasonable Republicans in the House called the bluff.

    ✁

    We say it because this isn’t about “Biden versus Congress,” or even about “Biden versus the MAGA faction of the House Republican Caucus,” at all. It’s about that minority faction versus … Congress itself.

    ~

    The Hill

    Biden can, and should, ignore the GOP’s debt suicide attempt