Up From Facebook

The big lie about immigration, promoted by the GOP and its right-wing propaganda outlets, is that under Biden the US has had “open borders.” LOL! Nowhere close. And the US hasn’t had open borders at least since the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 that prohibited all immigration of Chinese laborers for ten years. The law remained in force until the passage of the Magnuson Act in 1943 So is immigration good or bad for America? In his new book, “The truth about immigration: Why successful societies welcome newcomers,” Zeke Hernandez argues that immigrants bring huge investment: “They are either magnets of investment from their home country or because immigrants disproportionately start businesses in the US. J. Daniel Kim, assistant professor of management at the Wharton School found that immigrants are 80% more likely to start firms than native-born individuals. This pattern does not affect the size of the business. Also, firms founded by immigrants create jobs at a higher rate than ones fo...

The Governor of Utah apologized for his participation in the illegal use of a Trump photo-op at a grave site Arlington National Cemetery for campaign purposes. Trump? Not so much. "Trump claimed that he didn’t know “anything about” the use of the images on his campaign social media. “We have a lot of people, we have TikTok people,” he said. “You know, we’re leading the internet.” "Pressed on it again, Trump suggested the parents of the deceased service members he had accompanied may have been responsible for distributing the videos and photos. “I don’t know what the rules and regulations are. I don’t know who did it,” Trump said. “It could have been them — it could have been the parents.” "This is not true. Informed his campaign published videos from the visit on TikTok, he said, “I really don’t know anything about it.”" Weird. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-arlington-cemetery-blame-gold-star-families-1235092314/

Wood is a form of natural carbon sequestration. Yesterday, I posted about how wood is making a comeback as a building material. I’ve since found this article announcing that the world’s largest building built (partly) of wood has been greenlit.   “Western Australia is set to become home to the world’s tallest timber building, a “revolutionary” 50-storey hybrid design reaching a height of 191.2 metres. Timber will make up 42% of South Perth’s C6 building, including the tower’s beams, floor panels, studs, joinery and linings.” How green is it? “The building’s developers claim that the 7,400 cubic metres of timber consumed by C6 could be regrown in just 59 minutes from one sustainably farmed forestry region.” To which my brother, a retired mechanical engineer replied: “ Why restrict the comparison to one unnamed region...compare it to the global forests...get it down to seconds?”  When I was in Boy Scouts, we used to build multi-story structures from wooden logs and rope. Wood is...

Don't take my word for it. Here's Josh Marshall over at TPM: "Officials purporting to defend their person on the ground by offering some “push back” on the Trump campaign attack, but doing so anonymously while trying to keep it from “escalating.” Escalating into what? You’ve already been run over, so that leaves the only obvious conclusion: The Army itself is trying to avoid being the target of MAGA attacks. This is untenable acquiescence to bullying. "Is that really going to be the end of the story? No consequences, no new measures to enjoin Trump from doing the same thing again at Arlington or another military cemetery, no price to pay for his thuggery. It’s a familiar pattern. "The erosion of any kind of strong, unified, national, countervailing force to Trump’s public bullying and nastiness only enables and emboldens the thuggery that is central to his appeal and that he has already notoriously used on Jan. 6 to try to retain power." Shame.   https://tal...

I attended 7 th  grade in a building that was built of brick and wood. In 8 th  grade, I was moved to the new junior high, a formed concrete building in the modern fortress architecture style. Now, it seems, what was old is new again. Wood is making a comeback, with a focus on a green building strategy called “embodied” carbon reduction. The goal is to lower the amount of greenhouse gas emissions in the construction processes.   “Buildings account for more than one-third of the world’s carbon emissions each year. This year, the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center held its first statewide embodied carbon reduction challenge, awarding Payette a grand prize in June for its design of the UMass research building. The competition spotlighted a variety of renovation and construction projects — from office space to conference centers to affordable housing — that aim to lower building emissions long before the last thermostat is installed and the lights first switch on.   ...

  JD Vance says teachers who do not have biological children “disorient and really disturb” him. Vance is a Roman Catholic. I wonder if he realizes that nuns, who do not have biological children, teach in parochial schools. He's disoriented and really disturbed, but I don't think that's the reason. He's just weird. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=597wsN4gV2Q

Here’s the Penn Wharton Budget Model breakdown for how much each candidate's economic proposals will affect the national debt: “We estimate that the Trump Campaign tax and spending proposals would increase primary deficits by $5.8 trillion over the next 10 years on a conventional basis and by $4.1 trillion on a dynamic basis that includes economic feedback effects. Households across all income groups benefit on a conventional basis.” “We estimate that the Harris Campaign tax and spending proposals would increase primary deficits by $1.2 trillion over the next 10 years on a conventional basis and by $2.0 trillion on a dynamic basis that includes a reduction in economic activity. Lower and middle-income households generally benefit from increased transfers and credits on a conventional basis, while higher-income households are worse off.” So if you think the national debt matters, it will grow faster under the Trump plan. If you think federal taxes should be progressive, the Harris p...