Rich People in Massachusetts live like Poor People in Florida

by philg

I woke up in my friend’s $2.5 million house in Brookline, Maskachusetts in which the warmest room was 60 degrees (April 11) and stepped out into the slightly-above-freezing overcast weather to see powerlines and a 32-year-old Volvo (note the cheap chain-link fence in the background, which would never be able to get HOA approval in Florida!).

My epiphany for the day: rich people in Massachusetts share many lifestyle aspects with poor people in Florida. A partial list:

  • live in dilapidated substandard old poorly-insulated housing
  • drive cars more than five years old
  • sit on old worn-out furniture
  • probably don’t have cleaners
  • can’t afford to get repairs made to their houses (high costs relative to income)
  • no HOA to answer to
  • suffer from climate-induced discomfort due to (a) unwillingness or inability to pay for heating to 72 in the winter, (b) an entire lack of AC or unwillingness or inability to pay for cooling down to 74 in the summer
  • regular power interruptions due to above-ground powerlines
  • walking distance to marijuana store (medical-only in Florida, typically in grungy neighborhoods)
  • shop in a CVS or Target where everyday items are locked up and security guards roam the store
  • likely to vote Democrat
  • wait on lines

Note that poor people in Massachusetts often, at least in some ways, live more like rich people in Florida:

  • enjoy modern well-insulated buildings (built or gut-rehabbed recently with taxpayer money)
  • heat and cool to comfortable temps all year (heat included in the free rent and A/C affordable due to compact apartment size and good insulation (also, a lot of stuff is affordable when one doesn’t pay rent))
  • reliable underground power
  • perfect condition plumbing, electricity, and HVAC (public housing is professionally maintained and there is no cost for services)

Here’s a CVS nestled among the $2-4 million houses:

Even the $2.89 Suave shampoo is too precious to be left in the open.

A mini-Target next to Boston University ($100,000/year):

The streetscape:

Within a few steps of my friend’s expensive house, a marijuana store and ads for marijuana delivery:

After the kids have learned about the importance of marijuana, they can do a longer walk to the TimeOut Market and learn that Spring is Queer and also one should wear a mask while ordering:

Wait on lines? Here are the self-described smartest people in the U.S. waiting 1.5-2 hours because they apparently can’t figure out how to brew coffee at home:

How about the “Vote Democrat” part? On a $3 million house around the corner:

And my last photos from Boston, an outdoor masker riding a bicycle, an airport masker of uncertainty gender ID, and the airport shop reminding 60-year-old married females (a group with an unfortunate tendency to vote Republican) that they can have great sex (“romance”) by suing their husbands and becoming divorced females (reliable voters for Democrats; see also Valentine’s Day Post #3 for the sexual adventures available to AARP members with the courage to sue):

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Should El Salvador sell tours at CECOT prison?

by philg

El Salvador is one of the world’s safest countries, according to one part of the U.S. government (State Department, which says it is safer than France or Sweden). The murder rate is less than 1/30th what Americans risk in what we’re told are our greatest cities. El Salvador is also one of the most dangerous countries on Earth, according to a different part. In fact, it is too dangerous for anyone to live in and that’s why any Salvadoran here in the U.S. is immune from deportation (“Temporary Protected Status” that is permanently extended).

I’m wondering if the El Salvador government should operate tours at its Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (CECOT). This should appeal equally to Democrats and Republicans. To Democrats, the tour can be marketed as “Visit the folks who formerly embodied all that is best about the United States” (extra $5,000 fee to drink margaritas with Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, the most precious and important human ever to reside in Maryland). For Republicans, it can be marketed as a Fantasy Law & Order experience with an extra $5,000 fee to attend a morning briefing with CECOT guards, do physical training, and then practice on the rifle and pistol ranges.

What else is there to do? TripAdvisor:

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Re-roofing a Spanish-style house in Florida: concrete, clay, Brava composite, or stamped metal

by philg

Happy Hurricane Prep Season to those who celebrate (actual hurricane season is June 1-November 30th, with a peak in mid-September; due to Climate Change, there has been no increase in frequency or intensity of hurricanes since 1851 (Nature Magazine)).

Professor ChatGPT says that the concrete barrel tile roof on our Spanish Colonial Revival house will last 50-75 years:

But then it adds a little something:

Underlayment – Typically lasts 20–30 years and needs replacement before tiles fail.

So the AI thinks the “roof” lasts 75 years even if starts leaking after 20 years because tiles aren’t waterproof and the underlayment is the actual water barrier. All that you need to do to replace the failed underlayment is remove all of the tiles from the house, remove the underlayment, install new underlayment, and then put tiles on top of the underlayment… exactly as you’d be doing in a complete re-roof project.

Our roof was designed to handle a minimum of 140 mph winds, according to the 2003 permit documents, but maybe that was just the code. The tiles are adhered to the underlayment with Polyset AH-160 foam in which the “160” means it can handle 160 mph (if nailed down, tile is good only to about 120 mph (scary comparison video)).

The documents weren’t specific regarding the underlayment used. I emailed the company that built our house and got an immediate response from the owner:

It’s hard to remember 22 years ago, however the typical tile roof construction during this time frame was a 15lb. felt tin tagged dry-in, layer with a 90lb asphalt hot mop layer then the tiles applied mechanically, with mortar or foam adhesive. I suspect you will need a new roof soon.

Our neighbors have been getting new roofs installed either due to leaks or for better insurance quotes or just because everyone in Florida strives to have a house that looks new inside and out. Here are some things that I’ve learned from talking to roofers…

The only thing good about concrete is that it is cheap and it won’t break if walked on; it’s very heavy and the color gets faded by the sun and it supports ugly mold growth. You’d think that it would last forever structurally, but it doesn’t because it absorbs a huge amount of water. Concrete seems to be a “builder-grade” solution.

Clay tile has a reputation for being fragile, but it lasts forever and retains its appearance much better than concrete because mold is less likely to grow and the color of the tile is the color of the material. However, the European-made tile is much more durable than the South American-made tile (cheaper and more prevalent) and can be walked on. If you want to support river-to-the-sea liberation of Palestine (and subsequent Hamas rule over all of what used to be Israel) you can buy Verea tile from Spain. If you want the highest quality most durable tile (“it’s what Trump uses on his building,” a roofer noted), you buy Ludowici tile from Italy. For our room, the Ludowici tile would cost $16,000…. to ship from Ohio. The tile itself would be over $100,000 and take 22 weeks to create. Compare to about $30,000 for Verea tile shipped to Miami and then trucked to our neighborhood and delivered via conveyor belt to the roof. How rich are people in Palm Beach? One roofer who quoted our project said that he had about $60,000 (pre-Biden price) of Ludowici tile on his own house. A customer in Palm Beach ordered it, waited, didn’t like the color when it arrived, and ordered some other color. The tile wasn’t returnable so the customer simply gave it to the roofer.

With Verea, the tile itself will likely be 25-30% of the cost of the entire project. The clay tile can be reused when it is time to re-roof due to underlayment age/failure, but if the tile has been glued down each tile needs to be dipped in solvent and the added labor is almost the same as just buying new tile. If nailed or screwed down, the roof can handle 120 mph wind. If glued, the roof can handle 160 mph wind. Palm Beach County requires that a roofer hire an independent engineer at the end of the project to do a “pull test” on random tiles and make sure that they have sufficient uplift strength. The practical life of a clay tile roof with the highest quality dual-layer underlayment (two different variations from Polyglass; add one more “anchor” layer for breathability if there is closed cell foam underneath the roof deck) is 30-35 years, but insurance companies may demand replacement at 25 years. The tiles can’t fail, but the underlayment does.

Brava has the world’s best roofing material web site, but their roofing materials (composite barrel tiles) aren’t popular. “I’ve installed exactly one,” said a roofer. “It was for a billionaire who had a 5-year-old $500,000 slate roof on a stable and chips were falling on his horses. He wanted a roofing material that couldn’t fall apart. I don’t like the look of them, but they are rated to 211 mph if you use their screws, which I did.” Brava tiles don’t yield any improvement in roof life compared to clay because it is the underlayment that fails. Brava claims to have some “cool roof” tiles that reflect solar heat, but I’m not sure that their specs are better than conventional clay:

Here are some numbers for a Verea red clay tile:

Looks like the natural clay has better reflectance and worse emittance. The biggest drawback, I think, of the Brava tiles is that they can burn. They claim that if the right fireproof underlayment is used the tiles won’t be set on fire by a fire inside the house, I think, but it is difficult to beat a concrete or clay tile for fire resistance!

What about the big hammer of a metal roof? It is tough to see how a metal roof panel with a screw every square foot into the decking is going anywhere. It turns out that the metal roofs stamped into the shape of tiles aren’t very wind-resistant. They can handle only 120-130 mph. The standing seam metal roofs can be fantastically wind-proof (just under 200 mph for steel; just over 200 mph for aluminum), but they won’t look like Spanish barrel tile. The metal roofs have a practical life of 35-50 years before something fails (e.g., fasteners, finish (warranty of 30-35 years and after that they can be refinished for about $20,000)), but the insurance company might demand replacement at 30 years.

So… it turns out that there haven’t been significant improvements since 2003. The adhesive foam that was state-of-the-art then is state-of-the-art now. Maybe this Polyglass peel-and-stick material will last a bit longer than the “hot mop” of asphalt.

One big change for Florida is that HOAs are now limited in their ability to refuse to approve roofs that serve as hurricane protection. FL 720.3035 was amended in 2024. The updated law: “The board or any architectural, construction improvement, or other such similar committee of an association must adopt hurricane protection specifications for each structure or other improvement on a parcel governed by the association. The specifications may include the color and style of hurricane protection products and any other factor deemed relevant by the board. … For purposes of this subsection, the term “hurricane protection” includes, but is not limited to, roof systems recognized by the Florida Building Code which meet ASCE 7-22 standards…”

The law is a little ambiguous in that it says an HOA can establish some aesthetic rules and also implies that homeowners have a right to a roof that meets ASCE 7-22 standards. In our neighborhood, an online “hazard tool” says that we need a 167 mph roof, which I think means that only a metal roof or Brava would work.. On the other hand, I didn’t want to get into a huge fight with the neighborhood Karens to be the first house with a visually jarring standing seam metal roof. Due to Trump-exacerbated climate change, Palm Beach County was most recently hit by a major hurricane in 1949. If another big one arrives, I have a feeling that we will be losing some tiles whereas a Key West-style standing seam metal roof would weather the storm.

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Loss of Rob Holland and David Paton, founder of Orbis

by philg

It’s World Pilot’s Day today, but I’m not celebrating. Rob Holland, whom the legendary Mike Goulian brought to my old home airport, died two days ago in an MXS-RH while preparing for an air show. Confusingly, Rob wasn’t doing any crazy-looking maneuvers just before the crash, but only returning for a normal landing. An aviation friend: “heard the engine broke off and took out Rob’s wing. The composite firewall breaking is a known issue with the MX airplane.” Here’s Rob with an air show spectator:

The first time that I went upside down in an airplane it was with Rob, instructing out of KBED in the Decathlon at the time. I saw him only at air shows after he escaped to tax-free New Hampshire, but I remember him as patient and unfazed by student incompetence. A great ambassador for aviation.

Also notable, though not a tragedy, David Paton, the 94-year-old founder of the Orbis flying eye hospital charity, has died. From the New York Times obituary:

David Paton, an idealistic and innovative ophthalmologist who converted a United Airlines jet into a flying hospital that took surgeons to developing countries to operate on patients and educate local doctors, died on April 3 at his home in Reno, Nev. He was 94.

The son of a prominent New York eye surgeon whose patients included the shah of Iran and the financier J. Pierpont Morgan’s horse, Dr. Paton (pronounced PAY-ton) was teaching at the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins University in the early 1970s when he became discouraged by increasing cases of preventable blindness in far-flung places.

(i.e., his life was consistent with the data presented in The Son Also Rises: economics history with everyday applications)

Before it decided to concentrate on Rainbow Flagism and Critical Race Theory, USAID pitched in to help spread ophthalmology knowledge to poor countries:

Dr. Paton decided to raise funds on his own. In 1973, he founded Project Orbis with a group of wealthy, well-connected society figures like the Texas oilman Leonard F. McCollum and Betsy Trippe Wainwright, the daughter of the Pan American World Airways founder Juan Trippe.

In 1980, Mr. Trippe helped persuade Edward Carlson, the chief executive of United Airlines, to donate a DC-8 jet. The United States Agency for International Development contributed $1.25 million to convert the plane into a hospital with an operating room, a recovery area and a classroom equipped with televisions, so local medical workers could watch surgeries.

(I’m not sure that $1.25 million would pay for new carpet and a coffee maker in a Gulfstream today.)

David Paton wasn’t a pilot, but he created one of the greatest demonstrations of the power and value of aviation.

Some photos of the Orbis MD-10 at Oshkosh (EAA AirVenture) in 2021 (note the COVID-era mask, one of the few at Oshkosh that year):

Separately, if you need some help with your eyes in order to keep flying safely, U.S. News says to pack a bathing suit and go to Miami (ranked #1). Alternatively, pack a gun and ammo and go to Philadelphia (#2) or Baltimore (#3):

Circling back to Rob Holland, I think that he was truly one of those people whose personality in life matched his eulogy personality. Despite being a fierce competitor and top achiever, he never exhibited a touch of “pilot ego.” I will miss him.

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A walk to the bookstore in Brookline, Massachusetts

by philg

Happy Independent Bookstore Day to those who celebrate. A follow-up to Why does every “independent” bookstore have the same political point of view?…

I posted the following images on Facebook with no words other than “A walk to the bookstore in Brookline, Massachusetts..” (neglected to include a third period for the ellipsis)

The results were far more dramatic than I had expected. Let’s look at only the comments on a single photo:

Don Hopkins, a software engineer old enough to have worked at Sun Microsystems, kicked off the thread:

(I don’t know anything about Lulu DeParis. I think that she lives in Maskachusetts, but this may not be her real name. And, in fact, I don’t know with any certainty that Lulu DeParis is a she, other than the inference from the name “LuLu”.)

The thread continued despite nobody having any idea why “LuLu” had reacted to the photo (maybe it was a mistake?).

The software expert says “obviously she wanted…”:

I unwisely offer an explanation of why pictures relating to Rainbow Flagism are interested (“Never complain, never explain”, said the pre-Islamic British, and how right they were!):

Don Hopkins then trots out a hero/heroine of transgenderism from the world of nerds. Seth Gordon, a Maskachusetts-based software engineer (his/her/zir/their profile says “Studied Women’s Studies Minor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)”), chimes in with the assumption that the residents of Maskachusetts are, indeed, as intelligent as they claim to be:

I point out that folks in MA set up COVID-tagged death rate as the measure of a group’s intelligence and, by that metric, the residents of MA are not intelligent. The reference to a transistor nerd, of any gender ID, gives me an opening to cite William Shockley:

Don Hopkins doesn’t seem to read the “Classically” part of my statement as referring to the dark past and also “a person” as applying to 100 percent of those who are gender-confused:

Don produces some pictures from the late 1970s when VLSI design rules were fat (3000 nm (“3 microns”) vs. 3 nm today) and electrical engineers were thin:

Mark Day, MIT PhD, pronouns on his LinkedIn profile, chimes in to note that I am “wildly prejudiced”. Don Hopkins pulls in David Levitt, last seen here in Did Albert Einstein ever say anything about empathy? and notes that I am “a hateful bully”:

What is the opposite of being a “hateful bully”? Going back to all of someone’s recent Facebook posts and asking “do you hate gay people as much as you hate trans people? Why or why not?”:

He posted the same question as a comment on this post, which is literally about the weather:

(My response: “I certainly hate whoever was responsible for the steady rain and high-30s temps that afflicted me during my April visit to Boston!”)

I’m sure that Don Hopkins’s opinions of me are substantially correct, but I do find it interesting that pictures, without comment, of the righteous lifestyle are so upsetting to the righteous. You’d think that they’d be proud of their Rainbow-/mask-enhanced streetscapes.

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End-stage American Judaism is Rainbow Flagism?

by philg

A year ago: Santiago de Compostela and End Stage Christianity (the holiest city in Europe covered in the sacred Rainbow Flag).

Tonight, an event to which I was invited by email:

Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County warmly invites you to the Inaugural Community-Wide Pride Shabbat, a joyous celebration of Jewish values.

Here’s the page header:

In order to dispel any rumors that children are the targets of Pride events, kids 10 and younger are encouraged to attend via a fee waiver.

Let’s circle back to “a joyous celebration of Jewish values”. Unless End-stage American Judaism is Rainbow Flagism, what is the “Jewish value” within the World of Pride?

See also “The Bible on Homosexual Behavior”, 2015, by a Catholic scholar, on Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13. And here’s Google AI on the intersection between Jewcraft and transgenderism:

In Orthodox Judaism, gender reassignment surgery is generally not permitted, as it is interpreted to be a violation of the laws against castration and alteration of the body. Leviticus 22:24, which prohibits offering sacrifices with “anything which is mauled, crushed, torn or cut,” is extended to cover human castration. Additionally, Leviticus 19:28 prohibits making “gashes in your flesh for the dead or incise any marks on yourselves,” which is interpreted as a prohibition against altering the body.

(Leviticus is generally understood by Jews to forbid tattoos, e.g., the noble Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia’s full set of not-in-any-way-linked-to-MS-13 hand and arm tattoos.)

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If Congress repealed the Refugee Act of 1980 would the fight over migrants between the Trump administration and the court system end?

by philg

The court system has been obstructing the Trump administration’s attempts to deport various classes of undocumented migrants who are here in the U.S. One might imagine that making a deportation decision would be a simple process. A migrant who lacks either a visa or a green card is ineligible for U.S. residence and, therefore, he/she/ze/they can be deported. Because, however, any migrant is entitled to make an asylum claim, e.g., as Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia did in 2019 (eight years after illegally entering the U.S.). At that point, some folks reasonably argue that “due process” requires U.S. government workers to determine whether the tale told by the asylum-seeker is true (see Federal government weighs in on a 15-year-old pupusa dispute (Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia)). It’s unclear why anyone thinks truth determination is possible. Only one side of the story is available, i.e., from the migrant who stands to gain four generations of a work-optional lifestyle (entitlement to public housing, Medicaid, SNAP/EBT, and Obamaphone). It’s an absurd farce in which the winners are those with the best acting skills, but it’s guaranteed to be an expensive farce with hundreds or thousands of hours invested by lawyers on all sides (government, migrant, judges) for each migrant whose status is determined. Other than high fees, the one thing all of these lawyers will have in common: none will have any clue about what actually happened on the other side of the world 5, 10, 15, or 20 years ago.

(Another farcical element is that nothing stops a Salvadoran from claiming that El Salvador, 20X safer than Baltimore or Washington, D.C., is too dangerous and that therefore he needs to live right here in the country where most of the most violent Salvadorans now reside.)

How did we get to the point that every migrant who strolls across the border can impose a $1 million cost in legal fees on the U.S. taxpayer? Professor of Constitutional Law Dr. ChatGPT, JD, PhD explains that we can thank the noblest of all U.S. Presidents, Jimmy Carter:

The premise of the asylum framework seems to be that Earth is generally too dangerous to be occupied by humans with the exception of the United States, which is the only safe place. World population in 1950 was about 2.5 billion people and 4.4 billion in 1980. Today, despite the fact that almost every country is officially deemed too dangerous to inhabit, the human population is somewhere between 8 and 10 billion (nobody knows).

Republicans have control of Congress right now. Instead of these constant fights with the courts regarding whether anyone can be deported, wouldn’t it make more sense for Trump to ask Congress to repeal the Refugee Act of 1980 and pass a new law that says “The United States does not offer temporary or permanent residence on the basis of an asylum claim and, in fact, does not offer asylum. It is a shame that various countries at various times have problems, but Americans hope that people who live in those countries will cooperate to work out their problems.” Asylum-seekers wouldn’t be disadvantaged by such a change because anyone who wants to seek asylum can do so in Canada, Mexico, the UK, Germany, etc.

Loosely related… (source)

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Racial equity in the world of IDs

by philg

The credentialed white elites of the Northeast used to say that Black people weren’t smart enough to get ID. Now, after remarkable progress toward racial equity, they’re saying that it is they themselves who aren’t smart enough. REAL-ID will supposedly be required soon for getting through TSA. Maskachusetts began issuing REAL-ID in March 2018 (source). Folks in MA agree that Floridians are stupid and that Florida doesn’t run its state government properly, which is perhaps why Florida wasn’t able to begin issuing REAL-ID until January 1, 2010 (i.e., more than 8 years prior to MA; source):

I can’t figure out why physical ID cards are required. Wouldn’t it make more sense to do retina scans and have your ID looked up based on that? I don’t see why this is different, from a privacy perspective, than forcing people to get a picture taken and a plastic card issue. Is it that, in theory, the government could scan our retinas from a distance and track everyone who walks around a city? Privacy-oriented folks could simply wear mirrored glasses.

Some data from “Real ID deadline is weeks away and most states aren’t fully compliant yet” (CBS):

As of last week, New Jersey had the lowest compliance rate in the nation — just 17% of its state-issued IDs are Real IDs. Pennsylvania reported 26%, while Washington and Maine tell CBS News they are at 27% compliance. New York reports 43% compliance, and California has reached nearly 55% compliance. [Maskachusetts was at 57%]

For comparison, the CBS article notes that Florida is “virtually 100% compliant” and Texas is at 98% (both scores achieved without either state taxing personal income).

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Should Donald Trump get an award for Earth Day?

by philg

Happy Earth Day to those who celebrate…

I’m wondering if Donald Trump should get the top award this year for environmentalism. Nothing accelerates climate change faster than moving a person from a low-carbon-output society (e.g., Haiti, 0.3 tons per person annually) to a high-carbon-output society (e.g., the U.S., 14 tons per person annually). Thus, by opening the U.S. border, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris did more to accelerate climate change than anyone in the modern era. Donald Trump, by contrast, has done more to prevent climate change than anyone (WSJ):

Similarly, although I am not personally a fan of Trump’s recent tariff efforts (even the immensely capable of Germans had trouble fighting on all fronts simultaneously; I think that perhaps Trump would have been more successful fighting one country at a time), it is unarguable that higher tariffs serve as a consumption tax and thus preserve the Earth’s resources, reduce CO2 output, etc. If doomsayers are correct and the U.S. is headed for recession/depression as a consequence of the tariffs, that’s even better for the environment.

So… here’s to Donald Trump, the World’s Greatest Environmentalist!

In other news, Bernie Sanders and AOC were apparently observing Earth Day from FL410 in a Canadian-made Challenger 604 private jet:

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Lunch with an aircraft mechanic in a rich Boston suburb

by philg

I invited an aircraft mechanic friend to meet me in Lincoln, Maskachusetts, a center of righteousness, for lunch. We sat at the bar so that he could watch the end of the F1 race in Bahrain. Towards the end of the experience, he said “I really like our waitress. If you brought her home and found out that she had a penis would you run away or just say, ‘Well, it’s 2025’?”

Loosely related, while walking around the Allston-Brighton area of Boston after dinners, I learned that even in a one-party state, people can disagree. Should there be a class war first or does the war against Israel take priority? Bostonians do seem to agree on the need to stock up on marijuana, and backup marijuana, before going to war:

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