Francis W. Porretto
Mount Sinai, NY USA
Author's posts
Oct 10 2022
What, Again?
PayPal must be run by people with really short memories. The threat to fine PayPal users for saying things PayPal dislikes is still in force, except that the “misinformation” clause has been dropped. It won’t work. PayPal is going down. After all, these days just about anything anyone says can be castigated as …
Oct 09 2022
The “Oopsie! We Didn’t Mean It” Edition
The PayPal version of a Kinsley gaffe, about which I posted Friday, has angered users widely. Apparently, the backlash has been voluminous – too great for PayPal’s managers to withstand and keep their annual bonuses. So they’re trying to walk it back: A red-faced PayPal walked back a shocking new policy announcement that …
Oct 08 2022
Progressions
Time was, anyone with a high school diploma could be relied upon to know at least a little about mathematical progressions: arithmetic (additive), geometric (multiplicative), and others. If you had a little awareness of limits, you might even be able to work out how an open-form progression can be reduced to a closed-form expression. …
Oct 07 2022
URGENT NOTICE 2022-10-07
Thanks to Kenny “Wirecutter” Lane, I have just become aware of utterly unacceptable changes to PayPal’s Acceptable Use terms: You may not use the PayPal service for activities that: 1. violate any law, statute, ordinance or regulation. 2. relate to transactions involving (a) narcotics, steroids, certain controlled substances or other products that present a …
Oct 07 2022
TEOTWAWKI Stuff
I don’t write a great deal on this subject, but lately I’ve been getting the sense that the time has come to confront some harsh realities and some ugly possibilities. If you’re not in the mood for the subject this fine Friday morning, I promise that I’ll understand…but I am. *** The following …
Oct 06 2022
Brokers And Their Biases
Our economy knows many middlemen: persons and organizations that stand between the original producer of a good and the ultimate purchaser. These past few years, certain categories of middlemen have come under pressure, owing to the rise of the World Wide Web as a retailing tool. Consider how difficult it is for conventional travel …
Oct 06 2022
Conversations
They say laughter is the best medicine. I try not to argue with They; it tends to rebound unpleasantly. At the very least, laughter is an analgesic of sorts. It provides temporary relief from the ever-strengthening feeling that…well, that the only thing left to do is unpack the sniper rifle and the emergency stash …
Oct 04 2022
Targets
When the lead is flying, the number-one priority is not to be a target. But sometimes there’s no way to avoid it. I have a difficult topic to address today for two reasons. The first is the terror inherent in the subject: a potential nuclear war. The second is that the indicators suggest …
Oct 03 2022
Hatred Of Children
If you think for a living – I do – you’re constantly on the lookout for unities: themes that make comprehensive logical sense of what’s happening around you. You desperately want to find such themes, because without them, there’s little chance of making sense of the balls of chaos we call society and politics. …
Oct 02 2022
Learned Soullessness
I scratched around for quite a while, looking for a title for this piece. The above is the best I’ve got, and not very good at that, so please bear with me. This is “Respect Life” weekend at my parish. We have the annual drive for funding for the local crisis pregnancy center, …
Oct 01 2022
Day Off
There’s a lot going on here, and not enough of me to keep up with all of it and produce an essay. See you tomorrow.
Sep 30 2022
“In What Way Are We Wrong?”
Stephen Kruiser: The Republican party will never be able to accomplish anything significant until it purges what I like to call its “Romney Wing.” There is progress being made in that regard, but the wing’s namesake will eventually have to go. Fran Porretto: What makes you think Republican legislators sincerely want to accomplish …
Sep 30 2022
A Kinsley Gaffe From The Vegetable-in-Chief
Whoever is writing Biden’s speeches is letting the truth show through the propaganda, and no mistake: Well, folks, you know — and I mean this sincerely; you’re going to think this is a little out of whack what I’m going to talk about — but, you know, democracy is at stake. Literally, there’s …
Sep 28 2022
A Heroine For Our Time
I can’t get enough of this incredibly courageous and forthright woman: Europe has waited far too long for her like.
Sep 28 2022
On The Sun Rising Tomorrow
The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command. His heart sank as he thought of the enormous power arrayed against him, the ease with which any Party intellectual would overthrow him in debate, the subtle arguments which he would not be able …
Sep 27 2022
Some Understand…
And some refuse to: Nothing grows without roots. Giorgia Meloni understands. Donald Trump does, too. Do you?
Sep 27 2022
Who Is For Life?
Some are; some aren’t. The pro-abortion crowd wants to turn as many as possible from the former to the latter. The current trend in the opposite direction has them somewhat mystified. Today, The Catholic Thing headlines a column on a painful subject: “Medically futile pregnancies” is the euphemism for children destined to …
Sep 27 2022
When The Newsies Are The News
Sometimes what the “journalists” are doing is just as important as what they’ve been “reporting.” Now might be such a time. The tweet referenced below embeds a clip everyone ought to view: two solid minutes of American media doing their damnedest to paint Giorgia Meloni, the probable next prime minister of Italy, as …
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