Simplenote: Better Late Than Never

A couple of weeks ago, I realized that I needed a better way to collect and organize notes and checklists. I am grateful to the guy who posted the following on a writers' forum: "I have a notes app on my phone for when I need it. I use simplenote on both computer and phone so it syncs."

I already had a notes app on my phone, and a way to sync it with my computers, but the notes app is somewhat cumbersome and Syncthing is both slow and has issues with conflicting files just often enough to be annoying.

Might a better notes app help? I thought. I'd heard of Simplenote -- It's been around forever -- but had always assumed it was part of the Apple ecosystem, and so had never looked at it. And this guy wasn't talking about his iPhone or his Mac, as so many of Apple's customers are prone to do.

So I looked into it and learned that it is compatible with everything I care about, as well as having a very good web interface, and it seemed to live up to its name. It's also free -- except possibly for iPhones, for which you may need to pay the princely sum of $2.00.

Among the reviews I found was one by Mac enthusiast John Gruber, who said "it might be my favorite third-party iPhone app, period. It's that good."

And so I installed it on my phone and gave it a try.

That Simplenote opens quickly and is both fairly intuitive to use and well-supported already made it better than what I was using for dealing with ephemera on the go, but the near-instantaneous, trouble-free propagation of changes fixed lots of issues, including a few I didn't fully realize I had.

Gruber gets into this in his review:

Another advantage for web-based syncing is that your data is always up to date everywhere, almost instantly. As with MobileMe, you don't need to manually initiate a sync with Simplenote. When you launch it, Simplenote checks with the server for changes. When you make changes on the iPhone, they're sent back to the server seconds later. The only way your data can get out of sync is if you make changes on the iPhone while there is no network available; in that case you simply need to relaunch Simplenote once network access is available. [bold added]

On top of this, it's also easy to import and export things, making it easy and useful to back up the notes regularly.

My biggest reservation about the app is that it is no longer in active development, although it is being maintained. My plan it to continue using it, while keeping an eye out for forks or other similar alternatives.

-- CAV

P.S. For its purpose of dealing with simple text notes, I'd call it finished software, because it is that good at dealing with small text files.

Veteran Defeats Loony Lefty in House Race

Yesterday, Tennessee held a special congressional election to fill the seat of recently-resigned Mark Green. Based on my quick read of pre- and post- election analyses in The New York Post and The Guardian, respectively, I take the result as a muted rebuke to the GOP.

Glenn Reynolds, writing for the Post, notes that, although the district had voted for Trump by 22 percentage points, it now leans Republican by about 10 percent after a 2020 redistricting increased its share of urban voters, who lean Democrat overall.

Despite the district's new, relatively competitive status, the conservative Reynolds dismissed the idea that the race should be the canary in the coal mine Democrat Mark Pulliam had called it:

[Democrat Aftyn] Behn is a former organizer for the George Soros-funded leftist "resistance" group Indivisible, and she has a propensity for saying, and doing, crazy things.

She has, for example, expressed contempt for Nashville, which she seeks to represent.

"I hate this city," Behn said in a recently resurfaced video.

"I hate the bachelorettes, I hate the pedal taverns, I hate country music," she railed. "I hate all the things that make Nashville apparently an 'It city' to the rest of the country."

You'd think "I hate country music" would be the kiss of death all by itself. (Here in Tennessee, our views on bachelorettes and pedal taverns are more mixed.)

But that's just the start of Behn's bizarre ranting.

She's publicly discussed her therapy sessions, and her "recurring dream" of "standing up in a cafeteria full of women ... and saying 'I don't want children. I want power!' And just screaming it at the top of my lungs."

Well, you can see why she won the Democratic primary.

She's said that women who have children are supporting the "patriarchy," and has encouraged "self-managed, at-home abortions" in states that ban the procedure.

And a 2019 video showed her screaming and sobbing while state troopers dragged her out of Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee's office after she dashed in without authorization. [bold added]

No wonder Reynolds says she'd make AOC look like a dignified stateswoman.

Let me add: She also makes Donald Trump look sane by comparison.

Her opponent, Matt Van Epps, defeated her by 9 percent, which was close to both what Democrats expected and the party affiliation gap in the redrawn district -- after big assists from his party, with "Trump campaign[ing] virtually on Van Epps's behalf in the closing days of the race," and "Republicans ... spending an unusually large amount of money in the district 'in a desperate last-minute attempt to avoid a Democratic overperformance'." according the Guardian.

Both parties will crow about the result, but I fail to see bragging rights for either. Rather, I remember the words of a Trump supporter whose business is being battered by Trump's tariffs, but who even now defends his vote:

Even after losing his business to Trump's policies, he stands by his vote: "Given the two people running, regardless of what they said on the campaign trail, I would've voted for President Trump again."

Reynolds attributes the closeness of the race to apathetic GOP voters, but even if we grant that Behn would get strong support from regular Democrat voters, might her nuttiness have muted discontent from Republican and independent voters?

When both parties are crazy and espouse anti-freedom, anti-prosperity policies, it can be hard even for non-partisans to read the tea leaves. That said, this was a race between a veteran (in the South no less) and a crazy person. If I were a Republcan, I wouldn't puff my chest out too much over this win.

-- CAV

ICE Goons Try to Thwart ID Verification

In an outrageous incident in Seattle ICE agents attempted to round up an Amerindian actress who was on an errand and dismissed her Tribal ID, which is a federally-recognized means of identification.

This isn't surprising, given that the same set of thugs have done worse, including unlawfully detaining other persons known to them to be American citizens.

The description of the incident as it occurred should anger you:

Elaine Miles was walking to a bus stop in Redmond to go to Target, she said, when four men wearing masks and vests with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement label stepped out of two black SUVs with no front plates and pressed her for her ID.

Miles, an Indigenous actor best known for her roles in Northern Exposure, Smoke Signals, Wyvern and The Last of Us, handed them her tribal ID from the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation in Oregon.

Federal government agencies recognize tribal ID as a valid form of identification, and Miles has used it to travel back and forth to Canada and Mexico without any issues.

Yet, Miles recalled one agent calling it "fake."

Later:

Miles said the men, whom she worried could have been bounty hunters, did not identify themselves when she asked for their names and badge numbers while they detained her at a bus stop by the shopping center.

When the men did not believe Miles' tribal ID, she pointed to a phone number for the Umatilla Tribal enrollment office on the back of the card.

"Call it," she said.

When they didn't, she took out her phone to call the office herself, but the agents tried unsuccessfully to take her phone, she said. That's when a fifth agent in the SUV whistled over, and the agents went back to their vehicles and left.

This in no way resembles the country I love.

Miles was clearly stopped on the basis of her appearance (as if Americans all look alike), presumed to be a criminal, and then harassed while attempting to clear her name. Could someone please explain to me what this mistreatment of an older woman is supposed to accomplish?

Even if we stretched ourselves to the limits to plead that this was due to incompetence, the number of other similar incidents is alarming.

If I were President and honestly believed I needed to deport "illegal" immigrants (I don't.), I would place a moratorium on the raids and random stops until the agents (who would not be masked) were trained in due process, how to identify American citizens, and other matters related to basic law enforcement.

That the current occupant of the White House doesn't seem to give a damn about this situation should bother everyone, especially American citizens.

-- CAV

MAGA Not 'Cracking Up,' But...

Since MSN is a left-wing outlet, one has to look past the euphoric headline Great MAGA Crack-Up Has Begun and the disgraceful reveling over how horrible Trump's Presidency has been.

Doing so allows one to see what an overwhelming shit-show is going on and at least glean the silver lining that ordinary Americans who might have voted for Trump or even supported him in a limited way aren't being fooled.

First: This is not the same thing as Trump's personality cult imploding. I'll believe that when (if ever) I see that or when Trump bites the dust, probably to their great surprise.

The piece ticks off the following abominations as "a few things that have happened in just the last week:"

• Trump's most recent attempt to hand Ukraine over to Russia, with a dollop of additional scandal;
• Trump flip-flopping (or, as MAGA might put it, "playing 4D chess") on Obamacare subsidies;
• Trump's attempt to recall a 61 year-old man to military service and court-martial him for the sin of stating a fact: Soldiers are required to disobey unlawful orders;
• Trump's lawfare campaigns against Letitia James and James Comey being dismissed;
• Trump's FBI director admitting that the Epstein files might never be released in full, with a dollop of additional scandal;
• Trump's lapdog in Homeland Security ignoring a court order to stop the illegal deportation flights to Central America; and
• Trump's favorite anti-vaxxer apparently still being a drug addict.

If you're not already disgusted, you may go to the piece for lurid details and links. The latter include something about Trump's National Intelligence Director that the author was probably too exhausted at that point to summarize.

It is good that most Americans see through Trump by now, and the piece notes that the utter incompetence of this Administration is emboldening its opponents. But that news is offset by the following peek into the soul of those who would rather profit from this situation than repair it:

It was gratifying to see Zohran Mamdani run circles around him, and Trump's passive demeanor that day was telling. Even the Beltway Democrats, or some of them anyway, are showing some game.

People may not hate incompetence. They may not hate corruption. And they may not hate extremism. But all three at once? It's getting to be too much for people, and it's a great way to close out the year. [bold added]

Trump is in power because of the degree to which Democrats embrace socialism. Biden ran as a centrist and governed from the left. While At least Trump is open about being corrupt is a position that disgusts me, it is understandable after what Joe and Hunter Biden did in light of the lousty alternatives.

Having someone like Mamdani running against someone like J.D. Vance will lead to more of the same, regardless of the result.

America is burning and the Democrats, seeing the fire, only want to be in charge of it.

This is no endorsement of the Republicans, who have shown themselves to be even worse, be it by abusing their power (MAGA Republicans), or by abetting those who have (most traditional Republicans).

In the meantime, MAGA might squabble a bit, but like "good" (read: battered) wives, they'll continue stand by their "man," no matter what he does to them.

-- CAV

Let's Celebrate Freedom and Prosperity!

This is my last post ahead of the weekend. Happy Thanksgiving!

***

Over at Capitalism Magazine, economist Richard Ebeling argues that Thanksgiving commemorates "the triumph of Capitalism over the failure of Collectivism." This he does by considering how life improved for the Plymouth Pilgrims after they abandoned their failed communistic experiment.

Ebeling summarizes how that experiment went in part as follows:

What resulted is recorded in the diary of Governor William Bradford, the head of the colony. The colonists collectively cleared and worked land, but they brought forth neither the bountiful harvest they hoped for, nor did it create a spirit of shared and cheerful brotherhood.

The less industrious members of the colony came late to their work in the fields, and were slow and easy in their labors. Knowing that they and their families were to receive an equal share of whatever the group produced, they saw little reason to be more diligent their efforts. The harder working among the colonists became resentful that their efforts would be redistributed to the more malingering members of the colony. Soon they, too, were coming late to work and were less energetic in the fields. [bold added]

Predictably, it took only a couple of years for this situation to decimate the population of Plymouth Colony.

Ebeling summarizes what the leaders decided to try instead, and the results:

[T]he elders of the colony decided to try something radically different: the introduction of private property rights and the right of the individual families to keep the fruits of their own labor.

...

The Plymouth Colony experienced a great bounty of food. Private ownership meant that there was now a close link between work and reward. Industry became the order of the day as the men and women in each family went to the fields on their separate private farms. When the harvest time came, not only did many families produce enough for their own needs, but they had surpluses that they could freely exchange with their neighbors for mutual benefit and improvement. [bold added]

Given how saturated our culture is with altruism and how popular socialism is among the young, Ebeling helpfully indicates that even the theocratic governor of Plymouth Colony had to concede that collectivism is contrary to human nature:

Was this realization that communism was incompatible with human nature and the prosperity of humanity to be despaired or be a cause for guilt? Not in Governor Bradford's eyes. It was simply a matter of accepting that altruism and collectivism were inconsistent with the nature of man, and that human institutions should reflect the reality of man's nature if he is to prosper.

It is Ebeling himself who adds here that altruism is also contrary to man's nature -- Bradford saw selfishness as "corruption" -- and his description makes it seem that the Pilgrims learned more than they did.

(But other thinkers, such as Ayn Rand, can help the interested reader see why it is bad to condemn human nature, and that conceding that point will undermine any defense of capitalism in the long run.)

Nevertheless Ebeling is right about this:

[W]hen we sit around our dining table with our family and friends, let us also remember that what we are really celebrating is the birth of free men and free enterprise in that New World of America.

Thanks to capitalism, we have the time to celebrate plenty, and easy means to understand why we are prosperous. From this informative historical essay to works like Ayn Rand's brilliant Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, there is reason to believe that we can continue to enjoy freedom and prosperity, or recover them if we ever lose them.

-- CAV

Trump and Intel: Golden Age or Lost Decades?

John Stossel's latest column does a good job of explaining why Donald Trump's partial nationalizations are socialistic and, therefore, a bad idea.

It's worth reading and passing along for that, but the following is especially timely, given the "post-liberal" GOP's love of industrial policy:

"Let the weak companies go away," says [economist Daniel] Mitchell. "Then resources, labor and capital can go to the young new companies that actually create wealth. Allow creative destruction to operate. Politicians, they look at the seen but ignore the unseen. The seen is, 'A company in my district is closing and factory jobs will be lost.' They're not paying attention to the new companies, the new entrepreneurship that makes us much richer in the long run."

The "unseen" is also the company that might have started, might have become even more valuable, if government hadn't thrown our money at the older, politically connected, declining businesses.

"Japan was one of the richest, most prosperous countries in the world," Mitchell points out. The media said, "We needed to copy Japan. 'They had this great industrial policy.' It turns out they suffered several lost decades, largely as a consequence of trying to prop up zombie companies." [bold added]

As with tariffs, so with industrial policy: It's economic hokum that economists understand well, and experience shows to be foolhardy.

Slapping an R after your name and claiming patriotic motives will not magically turn such snake oil into an effective remedy.

-- CAV

Trump and Future Democrats Won't Need ESG

This morning's news feed coughed up something I was just about ready to concede might be good for Trump to accomplish: Getting rid of ESG.

The New York Post reports:

Their lack of "skin in the game" also made it relatively easy for a certain class of social and political activists -- almost always leaning to the left -- to capture these funds' "shareholder engagement" offices.

That's why we've seen the Big Three passive funds pushing companies to take woke actions -- from climate pledges to race-based hiring policies -- regardless of what most shareholders actually want.

Whenever you've seen a company "go woke," it's a safe bet that it's done so with a passive index fund looking over its shoulder.

That's where the Trump administration's emerging idea comes in: Instead of letting three giant index fund families dominate shareholder votes, the Securities and Exchange Commission could require them to vote the same way they invest -- passively.

With all the usual caveats that come with the fact that the above is a regulatory tweak, and thus far, far from representing any kind of a fundamental shift towards freedom, this is not a bad idea, and could at least back off from these abuses -- temporarily, at least.

But, as I said back when Trump "banned" fund managers making political donations with money not their own:

Trump "banned" this?

How? By executive order? By installing his guys in an unaccountable bureaucracy?

I never recall Trump or anyone from his party explaining what was wrong, or why they had to resort to half-measures like this, or outlining a general strategy to make such changes permanent.

And what happens when then next criminal gang ascends to power? Oh, yeah. We're seeing that now.

It's bad enough that we've been here before, but, speaking of criminal gangs, it's worse this time.

Which government even "needs" ESG when it's effectively nationalizing companies via "golden share" "agreements?"

A golden share reduces the economic value of the company for other investors, even if the government only takes a "noneconomic" position. That is because the government is reducing the ability of equity shareholders to control the strategic and operational decision making of the company, which could generate costs and inefficiencies for the corporation. If golden shares were ubiquitous, then financing costs would increase and the attractiveness of the United States and US businesses as investment opportunities would decline.

Once again, we are paying the price for electing a scatterbrained sub-pragmatist. He attacks ESG -- the way his political opponents pushed their agenda -- while establishing a new way to push his own whims.

He has not in any permanent way done the former, while also laying the groundwork for much worse with his new stratagem, which he apparently sees in isolation from its fundamental similarity with the former and its future usefulness to his political opponents/spiritual brothers-in-arms.

All in all, Trump has dropped the frying pan of ESG into the fire of giving nationalization a foothold.

-- CAV