I had never thought about the fact that many young people don’t vote because they have no idea how to use a post office or send mail as they’ve never had to do it.

When I was at the post office to register, this poor girl, clearly also a college student like me, didn’t know what “postmarked” meant and had no idea how to send an important document by mail. Most people my age have zero need to go to the post office and may have never stepped into one before.

I know how to use a post office but even I rarely send mail. Someone who’s 20? They’ve had the internet and online bill payment their entire life. Why would they need to know any of that? To them, it sounds like sending a telegram sounds to us. When they must do this for voter registrations and absentee balloting it must seem an anachronistic, impossible task.

If that makes you laugh, send any telegrams lately? If not, how would you do it? It wasn’t at all hard but it sure seems that way when you have no clue at all how to even start. Your grandparents would’ve had no problem with this task at all.

Such a fun song and reminds me so much of where and when I grew up.

I am still angry at Katie M. for writing such a great bit of poetry:

I met a man twice my age
Half joking, he said ‘I should warn you.
You’re a fish on the line, and the lines pulling in, and there’s a frying pan coming to warm you’.
And while I smiled, it occurred to me
I’m just gristle and blood
And I’ve spent half my life with the sun in my eyes
Chasing rainbows through the mud

OK, I am not mad at her. Who could be mad at Kate? I just wish I’d written it. I like her brain. I like it a lot.

My guess on what happened to the Lion Air Flight JT610 is that the IRS malfunctioned and the pilot attempted to turn around, did not have adequate attitude information, thought he was climbing but was descending, and crashed into the ocean at 400mph.

This is the only thing that makes sense given the data I’ve seen. It was overcast in Jakarta when this crash occurred, which matches with my above theory.

On a plane like the 737 Max the GPS only provides position information, not attitude. If you lose IRS and are in clouds and are a bad pilot, you are screwed.

Austerity gave us Bolsonaro. Dilma foolishly listened IMF et al and cut spending and subsidies. Cost push inflation caused the central bank to push rates to the nose bleed levels. The result was a downturn in Brazil from 2015-17 worse than great depression. Way to go economists!

— Mike Fellman (@MikeFellman) October 29, 2018

Austerity also gave us Brexit. No, it wasn’t racism. That’s just the convenient excuse and another symptom.