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2:00PM Water Cooler 12/15/2024

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By Lambert Strether of Corrente.

Bird Song of the Day

Red-throated Loon, Drizzle Lake, Haida Gwaii, Skeena-Queen Charlotte, British Columbia, Canada. “Wail duet, Plesiosaur duet. Breeding pair in territory.” Sounds like Pink Floyd! “Drizzle Lake” is good, too. So Canadian!

* * *

Politics

“So many of the social reactions that strike us as psychological are in fact a rational management of symbolic capital.” –Pierre Bourdieu, Classification Struggles

Biden Administration

“White House ‘Nutcracker’ holiday video draws mixed reviews” [The Hill]. • Here it is:

I dunno. If I were in Biden’s West Wing, I don’t think “tap dancing” would be phrase I’d want associated with the administration just now. (OTOH, maybe “tap-dancing” is Dr. Biden’s subtle way of indicating her existential position going into 2024.*) That said, not an expert in tap, but context-free, I’d say the video is pretty good! NOTE * Also, kudos for the correct use of the Oxford comma.

2024

Less than a year to go!

* * *

“The mystery of the missing binder: How a collection of raw Russian intelligence disappeared under Trump” [CNN]. The binder is a MacGuffin (“In crook stories it is almost always the necklace, and in spy stories it is most always the papers.” — Alfred Hitchcock). Here are the first two paragraphs: “A binder containing highly classified information related to Russian election interference went missing at the end of Donald Trump’s presidency, raising alarms among intelligence officials that some of the most closely guarded national security secrets from the US and its allies could be exposed, sources familiar with the matter told CNN. Its disappearance, which has not been previously reported, was so concerning that intelligence officials briefed Senate Intelligence Committee leaders last year about the missing materials and the government’s efforts to retrieve them, the sources said.” Please forgive my skepticism MR SUBLIMINAL BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!!! You’re too much, Lambert! regarding the sourcing. Are we really to believe that after three years (1,060 days) of hysterical and motivated assaults on Trump, orchestrated by these same spook or spook-adjacent figures, along with four — Is it four? I lose track — ongoing criminal investigations, one of which already involves classified documents, that this viral matter never came up — until it looked like Trump might beat the calendar on some of the cases, or win his Supreme Court case on immunity? Anyhoo, the piece is worth a read, because it’s one of those expensive well-crafted mobile-friendly pieces, with little animations — CNN really splashed out, kudos — but I’d take it with a truckload of salts. After all, if the story was really good, wouldn’t the spooks have planted it with Ignatius?

“Why Trump Is Winning” [RealClearPolitics]. “Former President Donald Trump is the overwhelming favorite to win the Republican presidential nomination: The latest Des Moines Register/NBC News poll shows Trump at 51% in Iowa, up 8% since October, with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in a distant second at 19% and Nikki Haley at 16%. According to analyst Steve Kornacki, there is an enthusiasm gap in favor of Trump: 70% of Trump supporters say their minds are made up. He is currently at 72% favorability with Iowa caucusgoers. In the general, Trump is also up. And he’s not up by a small margin. He is up significantly. Donald Trump, if the election were held today, would become president of the United States. According to a Wall Street Journal poll over the weekend, Trump leads President Joe Biden 47% to 43% in the national polls; if third-party and independent candidates enter the mix, that lead jumps to six points, 37% to 31%. What’s more, according to the latest CNN poll, Trump leads Biden by 10 points in Michigan; he leads by five in Georgia. There are two reasons for this. First, Joe Biden is terribly, terribly unpopular…. This brings us to the second reason Trump is leading Biden in the polls right now: he’s not in the news. That’s also the reason he’s up in Iowa head and shoulders above the rest of the candidates. Because he’s not in the news, he’s beating Biden — that takes the electability argument away from DeSantis and Haley. And because he’s not in the news, everyone has been able to look away from Trump’s crazy, which has always been his Achilles heel. Ironically, one of the best things ever to happen to Trump politically was his social media ban: it has made him nearly invisible. So, here’s the question: Will things stay this way?” • If you view this election as stable, the answer is yes. If volatile, no.

* * *

“Trump is overperforming, but there’s a way back for Biden” [Stanley Greenberg, Financial Times]. Interesting to see Greenberg in the FT. “The reason Donald Trump is currently overperforming as an anti-system, anti-immigrant candidate is that Joe Biden hasn’t realised yet the rules of the next US presidential election.  The 2024 race is being shaped by three exceptional factors. First, the inflation produced by the economy restarting after the pandemic, supply chain problems, rising energy prices following the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the high cost of food. Second, heightened anger at profiteering by big companies and increasingly visible monopolies. And third, surging levels of migration caused by wars, political unrest and extreme weather…. So, Trump will overperform as long as almost 60 per cent of voters choose him and the Republicans over Biden and the Democrats on ‘your wages and salary keeping up with the cost of living’, handling ‘crime’ and the ‘border’. And those are three of the top four issues facing the country. When voters hear the Inflation Reduction Act is here ‘to save you money’, that message is welcomed by 52 per cent of voters — seven points above Biden’s vote. The Biden administration is also well placed to talk about profiteering and what it has done to shift power from Wall Street and big corporations. Its appointments to regulatory agencies have made it clear workers have a right to organise, have brought a fresh antitrust lawsuit against Amazon and have issued new guidelines for mergers. And messaging on the economy that begins with the contention that ‘economic power is concentrated in the hands of big banks’ and insists Biden has ‘an agenda to shift power away from corporate giants and corporate executives’ is welcomed by 53 per cent of voters.” • Biden doing something that would help workers and cause screams of pain from CEOs or better, banksters, would be a good start. I don’t think Biden has it in him.

“Hunter Biden bursts into public view: Here’s how the president’s son will play a central role in 2024” [USA Today]. “At the White House, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the president knew about his son’s plan to speak out, and ‘the president was certainly familiar with what his son was going to say.'” • “Speak out,” good Lord. So I take it that also means Biden was aware of that Hunter — Dear Hunter! — planned to defy a House subpoena, an act for which Republicans (Bannon; Navarro) were tried and convicted?

* * *

“The Real Reason Ron DeSantis’s Campaign Is Rotting” [Frank Bruni, New York Times]. Soi disant restaurant critic Bruni in fine form: “”while DeSantis’s downward trajectory recalls the sad arcs of Rudy Giuliani in the 2008 presidential race and Scott Walker eight years later, a big part of the explanation is peculiar to him. It’s a deficit of joy. His joylessness is why it’s so unpleasant to watch him, whether he’s at a lectern or a state fair, dressed up or dressed down, demonizing schoolteachers or migrants or Mickey Mouse…. But even before his campaign’s stench of death, he often bore the expression of someone catching a whiff of something foul. And a sour puss is not the sweetest bait. It’s not the smartest presidential audition.” • I’m almost rooting for DeSantis, now. And I’ve taken a dislike to the fellow.

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“Swing-State, Working-Class Blues” [Ruy Teixeira, The Liberal Patriot]. “A run of national polls have had Biden losing to Trump but, even worse, so have a number of swing-state polls. The latest are of Michigan and Georgia by CNN. In the former, Biden is behind by 10 points; in the latter, he is trailing by 5 points. Peering into the crosstabs, it is clear that Biden’s woes in these states have a lot to do with declining support among working-class voters. Let’s review some of the relevant data, starting with Michigan.” Hurrah! Teixeira said “working class,” not “white working class”! More: “Michigan: Compared to Biden’s successful effort in 2020, the fall off in working-class support suggested here is precipitous…. Georgia: In 2020, Biden lost Georgia working-class voters by just 6 points, so his current 14-point deficit is an 8-point swing against him…. National: Biden’s working-class approval rating on handling the economy is just 26 percent. Among the college-educated, in contrast, it’s a more respectable 43 percent.” Concluding: Biden’s path to victory in 2024 of course goes through the key swing states everybody talks about. But people should realize that the path to victory in those swing states goes through the working-class voters in those states, voters among whom he has been losing critical support. He and his campaign will either fix this problem or they will lose.” • Watching Teixeira morph into Thomas Frank is like a horror movie. But there is a certain thrill to it….

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IA: “Top evangelical leader says he doesn’t believe poll showing strong Trump support in Iowa” [The Hill]. “Bob Vander Plaats, an influential Iowa evangelical leader, said he doesn’t believe recent polling that shows evangelical voters still support former President Trump. ‘I don’t believe them, and there’s a reason I don’t believe them – because it does not match up at all to what I’m hearing on the ground,’ Vander Plaats told The Washington Post on Thursday. He said he is a big fan of Ann Selzer, an Iowa political pollster, but said she has gotten it wrong in the past. Vander Plaats’s interview came more than a month after he endorsed Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.), who continues to trail the former president in both state and national polls. According to Decision Desk HQ, which has recently partnered with The Hill, the latest polling shows DeSantis earning 17 percent support among Iowa voters, while Trump is in the lead with 54 percent.”

MI: “Trump Pulls Ahead in Michigan as Union, Women Voters Sour on Biden” [Bloomberg]. “Trump led Biden 46% to 42% in the poll conducted Nov. 27-Dec. 5, after they were tied in the same survey done in October and early November. Trump’s lead is just within the poll’s margin of error of 4 percentage points. The former president now leads in the monthly tracking poll of all seven swing states that will decide the 2024 presidential election…. Early polls aren’t a good indicator of the results a year from now, and the Democratic party has just started targeted messaging to help Biden in the state, Michigan Democratic Party Chair Lavora Barnes said in an interview. She expects the erosion of labor support to stop once the UAW rallies its members. ‘When the UAW turns its focus on this election, when labor unions all turn their focus on this election, they’ll remember that this is the president who has stood with them, and stood by them year after year, and will continue to,’ Barnes said in an interview. ‘And they will come to the Democrats. I’m sure of that.'” • No railroad workers in Michigan, then? (This is also before some Muslim voters organized themselves to say they’d had it with Biden on Gaza.)

Republican Funhouse

Democrats en Déshabillé

Patient readers, it seems that people are actually reading the back-dated post! But I have not updated it, and there are many updates. So I will have to do that. –lambert

I have moved my standing remarks on the Democrat Party (“the Democrat Party is a rotting corpse that can’t bury itself”) to a separate, back-dated post, to which I will periodically add material, summarizing the addition here in a “live” Water Cooler. (Hopefully, some Bourdieu.) It turns out that defining the Democrat Party is, in fact, a hard problem. I do think the paragraph that follows is on point all the way back to 2016, if not before:

The Democrat Party is the political expression of the class power of PMC, their base (lucidly explained by Thomas Frank in Listen, Liberal!). It follows that the Democrat Party is as “unreformable” as the PMC is unreformable; if the Democrat Party did not exist, the PMC would have to invent it. If the Democrat Party fails to govern, that’s because the PMC lacks the capability to govern. (“PMC” modulo “class expatriates,” of course.) Second, all the working parts of the Party reinforce each other. Leave aside characterizing the relationships between elements of the Party (ka-ching, but not entirely) those elements comprise a network — a Flex Net? An iron octagon? — of funders, vendors, apparatchiks, electeds, NGOs, and miscellaneous mercenaries, with assets in the press and the intelligence community.

Note, of course, that the class power of the PMC both expresses and is limited by other classes; oligarchs and American gentry (see ‘industrial model’ of Ferguson, Jorgensen, and Jie) and the working class spring to mind. Suck up, kick down.

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“Michelle Wu’s segregated Christmas party exposes the left’s regressive views on race” [New York Post]. “On Thursday, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu defended her decision to host an ‘Electeds of Color Holiday Party,’ excluding the city council’s seven white members. The race-based soirée came to light because an aide accidentally sent an invitation to every member, then awkwardly had to do some fast dis-inviting. The mayor bizarrely explained: ‘It is my intention that we can, again, be a city that lives our values and create space for all kinds of communities to come together.'” • This was an official function; the invitation was sent by Wu’s director of City Council relations. I think that electeds in an official capacity need to at least pretend they can get along, especially in a city like Boston, which has a horrid racial history (and to be clear, not putting a Red Line stop at Roxbury was “dis-invitation” on the grand scale, performed by people who (presumably) identify as White. Nevertheless, fake it, can’t you?).

Our Famously Free Press

#COVID19

“I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD.” –William Lloyd Garrison

Resources, United States (National): Transmission (CDC); Wastewater (CDC, Biobot; includes many counties; Wastewater Scan, includes drilldown by zip); Variants (CDC; Walgreens); “Iowa COVID-19 Tracker” (in IA, but national data). “Infection Control, Emergency Management, Safety, and General Thoughts” (especially on hospitalization by city).

Lambert here: Readers, thanks for the collective effort. To update any entry, do feel free to contact me at the address given with the plants. Please put “COVID” in the subject line. Thank you!

Resources, United States (Local): AK (dashboard); AL (dashboard); AR (dashboard); AZ (dashboard); CA (dashboard; Marin, dashboard; Stanford, wastewater; Oakland, wastewater); CO (dashboard; wastewater); CT (dashboard); DE (dashboard); FL (wastewater); GA (wastewater); HI (dashboard); IA (wastewater reports); ID (dashboard, Boise; dashboard, wastewater, Central Idaho; wastewater, Coeur d’Alene; dashboard, Spokane County); IL (wastewater); IN (dashboard); KS (dashboard; wastewater, Lawrence); KY (dashboard, Louisville); LA (dashboard); MA (wastewater); MD (dashboard); ME (dashboard); MI (wastewater; wastewater); MN (dashboard); MO (wastewater); MS (dashboard); MT (dashboard); NC (dashboard); ND (dashboard; wastewater); NE (dashboard); NH (wastewater); NJ (dashboard); NM (dashboard); NV (dashboard; wastewater, Southern NV); NY (dashboard); OH (dashboard); OK (dashboard); OR (dashboard); PA (dashboard); RI (dashboard); SC (dashboard); SD (dashboard); TN (dashboard); TX (dashboard); UT (wastewater); VA (dashboard); VT (dashboard); WA (dashboard; dashboard); WI (wastewater); WV (wastewater); WY (wastewater).

Resources, Canada (National): Wastewater (Government of Canada).

Resources, Canada (Provincial): ON (wastewater); QC (les eaux usées); BC, Vancouver (wastewater).

Hat tips to helpful readers: anon (2), Art_DogCT, B24S, CanCyn, ChiGal, Chuck L, Festoonic, FM, FreeMarketApologist (4), Gumbo, hop2it, JB, JEHR, JF, JL Joe, John, JM (10), JustAnotherVolunteer, JW, KatieBird, LL, Michael King, KF, LaRuse, mrsyk, MT, MT_Wild, otisyves, Petal (6), RK (2), RL, RM, Rod, square coats (11), tennesseewaltzer, Utah, Bob White (3).

Stay safe out there!

* * *

Maskstravaganza

How it should be:

How it should not be (GM) (1):

How it should not be (GM) (2):

Treatment

“Long-term outcomes following hospital admission for COVID-19 versus seasonal influenza: a cohort study” [The Lancet]. From the Abstract: “We aimed to do a comparative evaluation of both acute and long-term risks and burdens of a comprehensive set of health outcomes following hospital admission for COVID-19 or seasonal influenza…. For this cohort study we used the health-care databases of the US Department of Veterans Affairs to analyse data from 81 280 participants admitted to hospital for COVID-19 between March 1, 2020, and June 30, 2022, and 10 985 participants admitted to hospital for seasonal influenza between Oct 1, 2015, and Feb 28, 2019…. Although rates of death and adverse health outcomes following hospital admission for either seasonal influenza or COVID-19 are high, this comparative analysis shows that hospital admission for COVID-19 was associated with higher long-term risks of death and adverse health outcomes in nearly every organ system (except for the pulmonary system) and significant cumulative excess [disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs)] than hospital admission for seasonal influenza.” • Unsurprisingly, Covid is not “just the flu.” And on the same Lancet study–

“COVID-19 v. Flu: A ‘much more serious threat,’ new study into long-term risks concludes” [Fortune]. “Almost from the start of SARS-CoV-2’s rampage around the globe, researchers and epidemiologists warned that it appeared to behave differently than known viruses, particularly seasonal flu. That included not only COVID-19’s general contagiousness compared to flu viruses, but also its ability to cause clotting problems in the veins and arteries, result in loss of smell and/or taste, and even lead to a rare multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children. That message was taken more or less seriously, depending on geography and, often, politics. But as a new study makes clear, the warnings have proved darkly prophetic…. The result: COVID-19 poses a much higher risk, both in the short run and long term, than flu. But the flu remains “a formidable foe,” [senior author Ziyad Al-Aly] says. ‘Going into this winter season where cases of COVID and flu are rising, people should make sure they are vaccinated for both, and for RSV if they qualify, and take precautions to lower their risk.’ … ‘We trivialize COVID infections at our peril,’ says Al-Aly. ‘The objective evidence is clear, whether it is a first infection or reinfection, COVID is still a serious threat to human health.'”

“Something Awful”

Lambert here: I’m getting the feeling that the “Something Awful” might be a sawtooth pattern — variant after variant — that averages out to a permanently high plateau. Lots of exceptionally nasty sequelae, most likely deriving from immune dysregulation (says this layperson). To which we might add brain damage, including personality changes therefrom.

* * *

Elite Maleficence

It would sure be a shame if LaGarde infected the entire conference:

* * *

Case Data

NOT UPDATED From BioBot wastewater data, December 11:

Lambert here: At last Biden’s beaten every one of Trump’s previous spikes, so a round of applause for The Big Guy. The slight plateauing in the national numbers doesn’t make sense to me because I can’t see an organic reason for it (unless the spread from Thanksgiving is somehow being damped out, which seems implausible). I’m guessing backward revision will make the plateau go away. Only 14 superspreading days until Christmas!

Regional data:

Hard to see why the regional split (and it sure would be nice to have more granular data). Weather forcing Northerners indoors? Seems facile. There’s snow in the Rockies (green color, West), for example.

Variants

NOT UPDATED From CDC, December 9:

Lambert here: JN.1, shown on the NowCast for the first time, coming up fast on the outside, while BA.2.86 fades.

From CDC, November25:

Lambert here: I sure hope the volunteers doing Pangolin, on which this chart depends, don’t all move on the green fields and pastures new (or have their access to facilities cut by administrators of ill intent).

CDC: “As of May 11, genomic surveillance data will be reported biweekly, based on the availability of positive test specimens.” “Biweeekly: 1. occurring every two weeks. 2. occurring twice a week; semiweekly.” Looks like CDC has chosen sense #1. In essence, they’re telling us variants are nothing to worry about. Time will tell.

Covid Emergency Room Visits

From CDC NCIRD Surveillance, December 9:

Lambert here: Here also we see something of a pause, like the wastewater. Only a week’s lag, so this may be our best current nationwide, current indicator.

NOTE “Charts and data provided by CDC, updates Wednesday by 8am. For the past year, using a rolling 52-week period.” So not the entire pandemic, FFS (the implicit message here being that Covid is “just like the flu,” which is why the seasonal “rolling 52-week period” is appropriate for bothMR SUBLIMINAL I hate these people so much. Notice also that this chart shows, at least for its time period, that Covid is not seasonal, even though CDC is trying to get us to believe that it is, presumably so they can piggyback on the existing institutional apparatus for injections. And of course, we’re not even getting into the quality of the wastewater sites that we have as a proxy for Covid infection overall.

Hospitalization

Bellwether New York City, data as of December 15:

Up yet again. Drawing the grey line to show that the level can’t be categorized as negligible over the life of the pandemic. New York state as a whole looks more like a spike. (I hate this metric because the lag makes it deceptive, although the hospital-centric public health establishment loves it, hospitalization and deaths being the only metrics that matter [snort]).

Here’s a different CDC visualization on hospitalization, nationwide, not by state, but with a date, at least. December 9:

Moving ahead briskly!

Lambert here: “Maps, charts, and data provided by CDC, updates weekly for the previous MMWR week (Sunday-Saturday) on Thursdays (Deaths, Emergency Department Visits, Test Positivity) and weekly the following Mondays (Hospitalizations) by 8 pm ET†”. So where the heck is the update, CDC?

Positivity

NOT UPDATED From Walgreens, December 11:

0.5%. Up. (It would be interesting to survey this population generally; these are people who, despite a tsunami of official propaganda and enormous peer pressure, went and got tested anyhow.)

NOT UPDATED From Cleveland Clinic, December 2:

Lambert here: Increase (with backward revision; guess they thought it was over). I know this is just Ohio, but the Cleveland Clinic is good*, and we’re starved for data, so…. NOTE * Even if hospital infection control is trying to kill patients by eliminating universal masking with N95s.

From CDC, traveler’s data, November 20:

=

Turning upward.

Down, albeit in the rear view mirror. And here are the variants for travelers, November 20:

BA.2.86 blasting upward. This would be a great early warning system, if the warning were in fact early instead of weeks late, good job, CDC.

Deaths

NOT UPDATED Here is the New York Times, based on CDC data, December 2:

That the absolute numbers of deaths are down, but the percentage of deaths is up, is interesting.

Stats Watch

Manufacturing: “United States NY Empire State Manufacturing Index” [Trading Economics]. “The NY Empire State Manufacturing Index sank to -14.5 in December 2023, the lowest reading in four months, signalling that business activity in NY declined.”

Manufacturing: “United States Industrial Production MoM” [Trading Economics]. “Industrial production in the US rose by 0.2% from the previous month in November of 2023, trimming the upwardly revised 0.9% decline from the previous month, and slightly below market expectations of a 0.3% increase.”

Capacity: “United States Capacity Utilization” [Trading Economics]. “Capacity utilization in the US edged up to 78.8% in November of 2023 from a downwardly revised 78.7% in October, and below forecasts of 79.1%.”

* * *

Tech: “Amazon drone delivery executive who oversaw safety, FAA relations departs the company” [CNBC]. “Sean Cassidy, Prime Air’s director of safety, flight operations and regulatory affairs, announced his departure from the company last week in an internal note to employees, a copy of which was viewed by CNBC. Amazon hired Cassidy, a former Alaska Airlines pilot and vice president of the world’s largest pilots union, in 2015 to oversee strategic partnerships in the drone program…. In August 2020, Amazon received Part 135 certification from the FAA, allowing it to use drones to deliver packages, but with some restrictions. Last year, Amazon announced it would begin testing drone deliveries in two small markets in California and Texas. But just as the program appeared to be set to expand, Prime Air in January was by [sic] affected layoffs as part of broader job cuts at Amazon. It has also been beset with regulatory setbacks and has struggled to meet delivery goals. In August, the unit lost two executives key to its operations, CNBC previously reported. David Carbon, Amazon’s drone delivery head and a former Boeing executive, previously set an internal target to make 10,000 deliveries in 2023 between its two test sites. Amazon said in October that its drones have ‘safely delivered hundreds of household items’ in College Station, Texas, since December 2022, and it’s beginning medication delivery by drone in the area. The announcement didn’t say how many deliveries have been made in Lockeford, California, the company’s other test site.” • “Hundreds”!

Tech: “Threads is officially starting to test ActivityPub integration” [The Verge]. “Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted on Threads that the platform is beginning to test making Threads posts available on Mastodon and other ActivityPub-supporting services. Zuckerberg wrote that making Threads work with the interoperable standard ‘will give people more choice over how they interact and it will help content reach more people.’ Joining the fediverse — the decentralized world of social media that includes Mastodon, Pixelfed, and other services that all interoperate through ActivityPub — has been on the Threads team’s to-do list since the very beginning. Instagram head Adam Mosseri told The Verge in July that he believed decentralizing the platform was key to making it relevant to a new generation of creators.” • Not that standards aren’t good, they are, but followers always want them.

Tech: From Mastodon:

* * *

Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 71 Greed (previous close: 69 Greed) [CNN]. One week ago: 66 (Greed). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Dec 14 at 1:43:30 PM ET.

The Conservatory

“The weird world of celebrity training: how Taylor Swift, Beyoncé and Madonna get in shape for their shows” [Guardian]. “ing a pop star used to mean having a nice face and a good voice, and learning a few dance routines. That no longer cuts it at the top, as Taylor Swift reminded us last week, when she revealed how she had prepared for her Eras tour. ‘Every day I would run on the treadmill, singing the entire set list out loud,’ she told Time magazine. ‘Fast for fast songs, and a jog or a fast walk for slow songs. Then I had three months of dance training, because I wanted to get it in my bones.’ If you have seen Eras live, or watched it at the cinema, you will know why she had to put in the work. Part pop extravaganza, part endurance feat, it involves almost three hours of costume changes, vigorous dancing and sprints from one end of the stage to the other – all while belting out songs. As the colour rises in Swift’s face and the sweat gathers at her hairline, you start to feel tired yourself. Swift is not unique. Beyoncé’s film Renaissance also documents the physical labour required for a tour, while 65-year-old Madonna’s current Celebration tour, which is due to conclude next April after 78 shows, makes clear how long that commitment can last. ‘We treat them as athletes: what stress is going to be put on the body?’ says Dan Roberts. A personal trainer based in London, he is one of a handful of fitness professionals engaged in what he calls the ‘weird world of celebrity training’. Most often, it involves getting actors in shape for superhero roles (or shirtless scenes); some of his clients are on Broadway, on stage for two hours a night for six months at a time. But he also works with royalty and famous musicians. Nondisclosure agreements mean he can’t name names – but he can speak generally.” • Same for K-Pop. OTOH, Keith Richards is still going strong at 79, after a lifetime of excess, so….

Zeitgeist Watch

“Satanic display inside Iowa State Capitol destroyed, man charged: officials” [FOX]. “Iowa Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds condemned the display’s presence, but said it should be countered with more speech. ‘Like many Iowans, I find the Satanic Temple’s display in the Capitol absolutely objectionable,’ Reynolds said. “In a free society, the best response to objectionable speech is more speech, and I encourage all those of faith to join me today in praying over the Capitol and recognizing the Nativity scene that will be on display ― the true reason for the season.” • And speaking of Satan’s spawn–

Book Nook

“Cheney’s book tops NYT print and e-book bestseller lists” [The Hill]. “The New York Times book bestseller lists for the week ending Dec. 9 lists Cheney’s new book, “Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning,” in the top spot for all hardcover nonfiction books and for combined nonfiction e-books and hardcover books. Her book was published Dec. 5.” I love the idea of liberal Democrats rushing out to hand Dick Cheney’s daughter their money. And: “There are rumors that Cheney might run for president in 2024 on a third-party ticket, but she has not yet made an announcement. The former lawmaker says she will not do anything that would risk putting Trump back in the White House.” And: “‘The framers explicitly warned us that the checks and balances are only as effective as the people responsible for carrying them out,’ Cheney wrote in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal published Wednesday.” • Wrong, wrong, wrong. The checks and balances are designed to work regardless “the people carrying them out.” Cheney’s a constitutionally illiterate fool. Federalist 51:

But the great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department, consists in giving to those who administer each department, the necessary constitutional means, and personal motives, to resist encroachments of the others. The provision for defence must in this, as in all other cases, be made commensurate to the danger of attack. Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place.

News of the Wired

Wowsers:

Who did this?

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Timotheus: “Gingko transitioning from green to yellow.”

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About Lambert Strether

Readers, I have had a correspondent characterize my views as realistic cynical. Let me briefly explain them. I believe in universal programs that provide concrete material benefits, especially to the working class. Medicare for All is the prime example, but tuition-free college and a Post Office Bank also fall under this heading. So do a Jobs Guarantee and a Debt Jubilee. Clearly, neither liberal Democrats nor conservative Republicans can deliver on such programs, because the two are different flavors of neoliberalism (“Because markets”). I don’t much care about the “ism” that delivers the benefits, although whichever one does have to put common humanity first, as opposed to markets. Could be a second FDR saving capitalism, democratic socialism leashing and collaring it, or communism razing it. I don’t much care, as long as the benefits are delivered. To me, the key issue — and this is why Medicare for All is always first with me — is the tens of thousands of excess “deaths from despair,” as described by the Case-Deaton study, and other recent studies. That enormous body count makes Medicare for All, at the very least, a moral and strategic imperative. And that level of suffering and organic damage makes the concerns of identity politics — even the worthy fight to help the refugees Bush, Obama, and Clinton’s wars created — bright shiny objects by comparison. Hence my frustration with the news flow — currently in my view the swirling intersection of two, separate Shock Doctrine campaigns, one by the Administration, and the other by out-of-power liberals and their allies in the State and in the press — a news flow that constantly forces me to focus on matters that I regard as of secondary importance to the excess deaths. What kind of political economy is it that halts or even reverses the increases in life expectancy that civilized societies have achieved? I am also very hopeful that the continuing destruction of both party establishments will open the space for voices supporting programs similar to those I have listed; let’s call such voices “the left.” Volatility creates opportunity, especially if the Democrat establishment, which puts markets first and opposes all such programs, isn’t allowed to get back into the saddle. Eyes on the prize! I love the tactical level, and secretly love even the horse race, since I’ve been blogging about it daily for fourteen years, but everything I write has this perspective at the back of it.

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82 comments

    1. The Rev Kev

      Do not be surprised if over time that list grows to 335 million people. You can guess who they are.

  2. Tom Stone

    If 38% of those who catch Covid 3 times have long Covid, how many ties can a schoolchild expect to catch Covid betore they turn 18?
    It seems extremely likely that the lives of those aged 1 to the early 20’s will have significantly diminished and shorter lives.
    A US life expectancy in the mid 40’s within a decade would be no surprise to me.
    And it could be a whole lot worse if a truly deadly variant emerges in the next few years, with tens of millions of Human hosts at any given time such a development seems inevitable.

    1. ambrit

      Does the observed cognitive ‘decline’ effect the young? If so, watch the emergence of a functional underclass.

    2. ambrit

      Does the observed cognitive ‘decline’ effect the young? If so, watch the emergence of a functional underclass.

      2. notabanker

        Not sure about the young, but it certainly is observable in the Executive Management and Marketing teams at Blackstone.

  3. nippersdad

    Re: Blackstone ad(?).

    Nothing says forward looking better than a couple CEO’s dressed for a night out at an early Seventies discoteque. Kudos to their PR department.

    1. flora

      That ad has got to be an inside joke for its aging investors, imo. The Rolling Stones Blackstone is not. / ;)

      1. Wukchumni

        Blackstone is renowned for their sleight of and when it comes to accumulating assets, why not have a magical act video instead?

    2. griffen

      Per this morning on CNBC, the inspiration came from following the lead of Taylor Swift. And yeah what played briefly on television appeared quite a horrid idea come to life. One anchor quipped it may also help distinguish Blackstone from Blackrock, Blackrock of course being a slightly different Wall Street machine.

      1. ambrit

        I thought, Blackstone, Blackrock, Black Adder….all equally honourable, upright pillars of the Establishment.

        1. Old Sarum

          Note that Blackadder didn’t fire Baldrick. Somehow I have come to equate that which the CIA seems to embody (rightly or wrongly) with Baldrick – unsackable with cunning plans* to boot.

          Pip-pip!

          *The prime example is perhaps the replacement of Iran’s Mossadegh in the early 1950’s. [a scenario which still seems be running after seventy years]

    3. digi_owl

      I feel this is more and more a thing. Just look at all the hoopla about ABBA “touring” again via de-aged digital “avatars” using a more advanced take on Pepper’s ghost (and now KISS getting in on that game as well).

      It is like we are stuck in a “time loop” repeating the 60s-90s over and over and over, because that was peak pax americana or something.

      1. nippersdad

        I agree, it is weird. Walking through the grocery store, whereas one used to hear Muzak type stuff one now hears Joni Mitchell playing in the background. I asked my Wife how many of the people one sees in there were alive to hear her in her prime, and it is about two percent of the shoppers. Shoppers like us.

        Not that I don’t love Joni Mitchell so much as that I would have found it strange if at their age it would have been someone like Kay Starr or Buddy Clark. They are actually asking on Joe Rogan’s show if Madonna is wearing Depends on stage. It is just very strange, Nice for me, those are the last songs I can remember the lyrics to, but the kids must be wondering what is up.

    5. The Rev Kev

      Timing is seriously off though. This ad is the sort of thing that might have been suggested near the end of an office Christmas party. At that stage that they are drunk enough to think it a good idea but not too drunk that it quickly gets forgotten.

  4. FlyoverBoy

    That Blackstone abomination looks exactly like every employee holiday party internally produced rah-rah video I’ve ever seen. Hence all the department heads getting an ego-salving cameo. I’m 100% confident we, and everyone in the world except the employees themselves, were never meant to see that.

    1. Sutter Cane

      I guess it’s nice to know that even if you are making an obscene amount of money on wall street you can still be forced to participate in humiliating team building activities for work

      1. JTMcPhee

        Wrong verb: not “making” money, redolent of the older lie, “We make money the old-fashioned way — we EARN it.” But “stealing” money, “looting” money, “converting” money (in the legal-tort and every other sense,) those I could go with.

  5. Wukchumni

    MIchelle tried, was halfway crucified
    And was on the other side of no tomorrow
    Electeds of color walked in, and discrimination began again
    Just when I’d spent time sitting on my laurel

    All night long
    They would sing that stupid song
    And every exclusionary word they sang, I knew was true

    Are you with me, Mayor Wu?
    Are you really just a shadow
    Of the woman that I once knew?
    Are you crazy? Are you high
    Or just afraid of an ordinary white guy?
    Have you done all you can do?
    Are you with me, Mayor?

    Don’t seem right
    I’ve been strung out here all night
    I’ve been waiting for the taste
    You said you’d bring to me

    Massachusetts Bay
    Where the Brahmins still hold sway
    I went searching for the invite you accidentally sent to me

    Michell lies
    You can see it in her eyes
    But imagine my surprise when I saw you

    Are you with me, Mayor Wu?
    Are you really just a shadow
    Of the woman that I once knew?
    She is lovely, yes, she’s sly
    And you’re afraid of an ordinary non-colored guy
    Has she finally got to you?
    Can you hear me, Mayor?

    Are you with me, Mayor?
    Can you hear me, Mayor?
    Are you with me, Mayor?
    Can you hear me, Mayor?
    Are you with me, Mayor?
    Can you hear me, Mayor?
    Are you with me, Mayor?
    Can you hear me, Mayor?

    Doctor Wu, by Steely Dan

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w58E2S315a4

    1. LauraPalmerEldritch

      You are an absolute master of this genre, and should have guaranteed regular space in this blog at least weekly; more often if you have the stomach.

  6. Dr. John Carpenter

    I’d argue Trump’s “crazy” is a strength, not an Achille’s heel. What they call crazy is exactly why people are enthusiastic to vote for him.

    And to the following article about Biden’s way back, not gonna happen. With the administration doubling down on “the economy is great!” and more dough for the war machine, all they have is gaslighting the public into believing they don’t see what they see.

    1. Screwball

      I’m sure some are enthusiastic to vote for him, but many others are just voting against Biden and the democrats, IMO, and I can certainly understand why. But that’s just me. I get a kick out of the PMC comments about anyone who would vote for Trump – because they are stupid. Trump voters are one of their favorite targets when punching down to make themselves feel superior, and it’s always about how dump and stupid they are.

      I couldn’t agree more with your second paragraph. If one follows the D party on Twitter, it is a relentless bombardment of “look how great we are, what we’ve accomplished, how great everything is, and how bad the other people are.”

      They got nothing.

      1. Amfortas the Hippie

        yeah. i keep a whole folder of bookmarks to Team Blue Pmc twitter.
        rarely venture there, unless im already in a bad mood.
        but it is pretty enlightening…like a few of yall said about the NYT this am, it’s good to keep an occasional eye on what those frickin people are thinking about.

        and, what i find in that part of twitter almost exactly comports with what i find over at mom’s.
        so she remains a pretty good proxy(i dont engage with any of them on geopolitics or economics…especially mom…just not worth it)

      2. Felix_47

        After reading Bennet’s piece in the Economist which confirmed what I thought all along it looks like Joe might lose his biggest fan…..The New York Times……or if Sulzberger chooses to ignore the issue the Times will become irrelevant and NC and You Tube and independent media will dominate credible news.

  7. J.

    Biden should be nervous in Georgia, because the same organizers that supported him in the last election are really unhappy about the Cop City referendum.

    https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2023/12/exclusive-cop-city-voter-suppression-marc-elias-atlanta-city-council-memo-referendum-signature-matching/

    even worse:

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/dec/10/cop-city-atlanta-vote-referendum

    The organizers who are on Twitter are not too enthusiastic about turning out for Biden again.

    1. nippersdad

      I haven’t lived in Atlanta for years, but I used to work there. Being a white, middle aged and clearly middle class drone, if the Red Dog squad felt it fit to pull me over and surround me with semi-automatic weapons on three separate occasions, I have no doubt that many others have had the same experience as well. Buckhead may like this but no one else will, and that was their fatal mistake.

      Too many people have been run through those Fulton and Dekalb county prisons, too many have been held at gunpoint by the cops and too many are aware of how they are perceived by having replaced officer friendly with a hardened corps of assault troops. That just ain’t gonna fly.

      The good news is that the referendum will drive voters to the polls. The bad news for Democrats in office there is that it is going to drive voters to the polls, and perhaps that is what Elias sees. Barring an intervention that makes the party look good, that is just a no win situation for the Democratic party in Atlanta.

    1. flora

      Good tap dancing. On the other hand, I never associate faintly lurid adult stage productions with Christmas. But that’s just me. / ;)

      1. DJG, Reality Czar

        Music sounded like AI-generated jazz. I was reminded that American musicals tend toward LCD.

        I wonder how Peter Ilyich T. snuck in there. Isn’t he undermining Western civilization or something? I’m so confused.

      2. Pat

        I am pretty sure the maintenance staff of the White House didn’t consider it a holiday present. Tap dancing does a number on flooring.

    2. bassmule

      Posted by Sarah Fields on X:
      Dorrance Dance, the New York City based tap dance company that performed the atrocious version of The Nutcracker Suite in the White House, has a full page on their site dedicated to teaching white people to “check their privilege”. They also state to “be mindful of who/what is financially supporting the candidates you vote for” while linking site visitors to BLM and SURJ, an organization dedicated to “organizing white people for racial justice.”

      The Biden Administration is intent on driving a wedge between the American people. It is quite literally all they can think about. Perhaps if these topics were not the number one priority and distraction for Dorrance Dance, their performance could have been less embarrassing and more artful.

      1. flora

        That’s pretty funny. I thought enduring the critics’ remarks was all part of working in the arts. Is “check your privilege” the new response to critics? oh-kay… I can guess how visual art critic Clement Greenberg would have responded to such an admonition from a painter.
        / ;)

          1. ambrit

            And Miyazaki’s latest, “The Boy and the Heron” is number one in the latest box office receipts in America.
            I have been a long time fan of Kaiju films, and want to see the latest Gojira film, but am afraid to spend any time, even masked, in a theatre.
            Oh well, there’s always blu-ray on a big home screen.

    3. The Rev Kev

      Joe Biden: ‘Hey Jill. We need to come up with a Christmas video from the White House. One that shows our traditional values and talks about peace and familes. Something that will make people feel warm and cozy.’

      Jill Biden: ‘Already on it. I know just the people and they are based in New York.’

      Joe Biden: ‘Avant-garde tap dancing? You came up with avant-garde tap dancing? Who are you?’

    4. Eclair

      My spouse has been watching a film festival featuring old Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers musicals. Now, that’s tap dancing!
      On second thought, can we accuse Fred and Ginger of cultural appropriation? Wasn’t tap dancing a Black thing? Or was it a fusion of Black and White (or Black Irish?) Here’s what the Library of Congress has to say.

      1. Old Sarum

        As someone from the English Midlands I object to American cultural-appropriation of the the english language. As I understand it Spanish is making big inroads so perhaps it is time to put and end to this situation and go all out for Latin. At least with Latin there will be nobody left alive to complain about cultural-appropriation (apart from Boris Johnson).

        [Now where are my British trad-jazz revival LPs?]

        Pip-pip!

  9. Gail

    “rising energy prices following the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the high cost of food. Second, heightened anger at profiteering by big companies and increasingly visible monopolies. And third, surging levels of migration caused by wars, political unrest and extreme weather,…”

    Oh bullshit! All those are caused by Joe Biden’s stated and acted upon policies…

    Stopping oil drilling, banning Russian oil off the American market, Sanctioning our ability to buy Russian fertilizer and foodstuffs. Surging levels of migration are caused by HIS open door policies. Were the border sealed, we’d have millions more housing units, jobs, more energy, lower taxes and less crime.

    Stanley Greenberg must believe people are stupid to think these things “just happen.” Everything that affects us economically is the result of political decisions.

    1. nippersdad

      Only a lot of that…

      https://news.yahoo.com/biden-granted-more-oil-and-gas-drilling-permits-than-trump-in-his-first-2-years-in-office-190528616.html

      …did….

      https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/how-russian-oil-is-reaching-the-u-s-market-through-a-loophole-in-the-embargo

      …not…

      https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/01/05/biden-expands-trump-era-border-restrictions-once-again

      …happen.

      https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/21/how-wall-street-bought-single-family-homes-and-put-them-up-for-rent.html

      But you are right that everything that affects us economically is a result of political decisions, just not that it was all Biden’s fault. Those decisions are bi-partisan as they were engendered by the same donor class, and nothing essentially changed when he was elected.

      1. Hawkins

        Yes, but when? After a staggering two years of disruption as he’s about to become Trump’s toilet paper?

        “biden-expands-trump-era-border-restrictions”

        After two years of The Bidenvenido and 3.8 million slipping in?

        “A jaw-dropping 3.8 million people have entered the United States through its borders since President Joe Biden took office in 2021 — nearly half of whom slipped into the country illegally and were never caught. Over the last three years, 2,345,600 people have been granted Notices to Appear (NTAs) before an immigration court, according to figures compiled by Syracuse University’s TRAC immigration database.”

        https://nypost.com/2023/09/21/shocking-3-8-million-migrants-have-entered-us-since-biden-took-office/

        Wall street buying homes, yes, and? Do you think the million 3.8 million that poured in over the last two years are living on the street?

        Here’s the latest DNCanard, “inflation is dropping.” The rate that prices is going up has slowed, but they are still climbing and most prices will never go down.

        Merry Christmas

    2. digi_owl

      But also far less profits for the corpos to do buybacks with, meaning far less for the congress critters to stuff in their offshore accounts.

    3. The Rev Kev

      Old Joe is also trying to ban Russian uranium so you can expect power prices to climb in those parts of the US that get their energy from nuclear reactors.

  10. Carolinian

    Madonna still does shows? Her biography is still sitting on the shelf at the library. Nobody wants to check it out. As Cyd Charisse says to Fred Astaire in The Band Wagon: “why you’re practically a historical character.”

    And do any of those drones drop the package on the roof like the pizza box in Breaking Bad? Sounds like Jeff just won’t let the drone thing go.

  11. tegnost

    Teixeira morph

    My guess is trying to build working class cred now so later he can sheepdog those gullible sops into voting for the uber/amazon/airbnb team again.

  12. IM Doc

    About Frank Bruni and his lament of DeSantis being “without joy”.

    I seem to recall Bruni’s NYT crowd lamenting the “over-exuberance” of Howard Dean about 20 years ago.

    These people, when their asses are finally handed to them, will have earned every bit of it.

  13. DJG, Reality Czar

    Dancing? Madonna training? Taylor Swift on a treadmill? NDAs?

    Here’s how Talking Heads and Tom Tom Club did it. “Life during Wartime.” Evergreen, unfortunately.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVHNwBbkSj4

    And I’ll throw in Blondie performing “Atomic,” because it contains the immortal lyric:

    Your hair is beautiful tonight.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_WLw_0DFQQ

    Because only Debbie Harry, a goddess, could get away with a line like that. (Meanwhile, Madonna was singing “Isla Bonita,” eh.)

  14. scott s.

    “A binder containing highly classified information related to Russian election interference went missing at the end of Donald Trump’s presidency, raising alarms among intelligence officials that some of the most closely guarded national security secrets from the US and its allies could be exposed, sources familiar with the matter told CNN. Its disappearance, which has not been previously reported, was so concerning that intelligence officials briefed Senate Intelligence Committee leaders last year about the missing materials and the government’s efforts to retrieve them, the sources said.”

    Of course. The “binder” was the entire reason for the ML raid. The “binder” is claimed to have details on how the IC, including the Senate Intel Committee, orchestrated the whole Russia-collusion narrative.

  15. Fred

    “the Democrat Party is a rotting corpse that can’t bury itself” Cash and Carrion!

    It’s biggest star is at it again! Gavin Newsom, the protector of PG&E, with his five appointed Public Utilities Commission rooks has just squeezed another $8.1 Billion out of beleagured and exhausted Californians. This on top of at least four other ratehikes in the last few years. Meanwhile the CEO of the convicted of manslaughter corporate criminal makes $51.1million.

    https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/12/14/pge-gets-ok-to-keep-open-diablo-canyon-nuclear-plant-bills-will-jump/

    The power plant was built backwards after a blueprint mix up, it sits atop a complex of earthquake faults and a Nuclear Regulatory Commision inspector says it should have been shut down a decade ago.

    An old article. Little did they know it would still be running now. Let them eat yellowcake.

    “In my professional opinion, relicensure of Diablo Canyon was doomed to fail due to its overall equipment degradation, seismic, embrittlement, and aging management issues. It would not be a prudent management decision for PG&E to expend the huge legal, engineering, and capital costs required to attempt to extend licensure at Diablo Canyon. From an engineering management point of view and in consideration of the high costs of continued operation to its ratepayers, PG&E should shut down both Diablo Canyon Unit 1and Unit 2 in 2019.”

    https://www.fairewinds.org/demystify/diablo-canyon-deferred-maintenance

  16. hemeantwell

    Re the missing binder, I don’t get what the concept of a MacGuffin adds to our understanding. As defined in the link, it is something of value that people are pursuing, like the Maltese Falcon, which was supposedly encrusted with jewels. You’d think that in a capitalist social order the idea of something being important because it has exchange value, i.e. a commodity, instead of a use value, or sentimental value, would have become unsurprising. It might make sense to turn the idea on its head and say that a MacGuffin is a concept that adds nothing to our understanding but which many people nonetheless give value.

  17. digi_owl

    Yeah, the first thing that came to mind when reading about Meta getting involved with Fediverse was the XMPP fiasco.

    Both Google and Facebook supported XMPP federation early on, but after some years, likely deciding they had the bulk of the users on their own clients, they blamed each other for breaking federation and thus would sunset it. Since then Facebook messenger seems to have become massive, while Google keep releasing and sunsetting internally incompatible platforms at irregular intervals (likely someone’s “hobby” project getting them a managerial position and then it rots on the vine).

    Frankly the major mistake was 4G/LTE didn’t have provisions for voice and messaging baked it. Instead it was supposed to be just a dumb IP carrier and allow higher layers to come and go. All that has resulted in is regulatory capture by the biggest players setting up walled gardens.

    Kinda the same thing that played out when WHATWG was formed because W3C was barking up the XML/XTHML tree and being slow to accept additions to the HTML standard. End result is that Chrome is now the de facto standard doc of the web.

  18. Feral Finster

    “The weird world of celebrity training: how Taylor Swift, Beyoncé and Madonna get in shape for their shows” [Guardian].

    I figured that most pop singers were lip synching. Shows what I know.

    1. Big River Bandido

      They *are* lip syncing, the article just doesn’t go there. Stadium-sized “concerts” use all canned vocals because it’s not possible for anyone to hold steady pitch while dancing. Broadway “chorus lines” have a full (on-mic, offstage) chorus. If they didn’t do this even my grandmother would have recognized how bad the singing is on stage.

      The performers still have to sing while they dance in order for the lip-syncing to appear credible. But the sound never goes to the house.

      2. Pat

        I beg to differ with this. I worked on most of the major Broadway musicals from 1980 to 2000 and several from 2010 to 2018. Of those one, exactly one, had a backstage chorus of four people. And two had prerecorded supplemental click tracks with the choruses for major numbers that had big scenery changes. But then chorus numbers do not have every one dancing full out for the entire three minutes of the song. And the leads were always LIVE.
        The one big exception to this I know of is not Broadway, but Radio City. There is a supplemental click track for everything in the Christmas Spectacular including the Rockettes tapping. They are tapping, but what the audience hears is prerecorded.

      3. ForFawkesSakes

        This is not accurate. It’s not uncommon to have a few singers on a mic backstage shoring up the vocals while the big eleven o’clock number is happening, but generally musical theatre performers have incredible endurance and considerably stronger diaphragms than your usual man on the street.

  19. Feral Finster

    “The mystery of the missing binder: How a collection of raw Russian intelligence disappeared under Trump” [CNN].

    TL:DR – hey,, lets get the Russiagate Bank back together!

  20. digi_owl

    Speaking of shirtless scenes, years back i read about how the costume that Frakes wore as commander Riker was padded in various places.

    And as i understand it, to really make things “bulge” one have to cut all intake of water etc to burn of any remaining skin fat right before recording. Making that kind of figure basically impossible to maintain beyond maybe a day.

  21. Wukchumni

    When I did physical forex back in the 80’s & 90’s, I was pretty hypervigilant for counterfeit money and it was rare, frankly.

    The reason you hardly ever came across it, was to make good quality fakes, one needed about $100k worth of offset printing equipment, along with an artisan to make the plates, and seeing as making them was so difficult, typically the forgers would only have one or 2 plates that all had the same serial #, which made it difficult to pass bad money en masse.

    Today I bought a few things from the hardware store here in Tiny Town and saw something new, that on the cash register in the store, it had a counterfeit detector where you simply inserted the banknote into it and it fed it in and gave you the skinny on what’s what, impressive.

    The cashier told me that they caught 4x $20 bills and 3x $100’s in the past week, a few of the notes coming from other merchants in town that took them in as payment in their business, and were caught unawares when they tried to spend them at the hardware store.

    The paper is the trickiest part, but everything you need to be larcenous is probably right there, on your computer.

  22. The Rev Kev

    “Michelle Wu’s segregated Christmas party exposes the left’s regressive views on race”

    ‘It is my intention that we can, again, be a city that lives our values and create space for all kinds of communities to come together.’

    Because nothing spells racial equality more than outcasting people based on the colour of their skin and segregating them. If those city council’s seven white members went on to hold their own party, would Michelle Wu then go on to claim that this was proof that this was wanted to do all along because that’s is what honky always does?

    1. Another Scott

      Don’t worry, the local PMC news sources, who declined to cover the story for a few days are already calling people who criticize Wu over this racist. For example

      https://www.universalhub.com/2023/wow-boston-hasnt-had-mayor-who-hates-white-people

      Meanwhile, the public transportation system is falling apart, the schools are amongst the worst in the state despite being one of the wealthiest districts, and no one can afford housing. Maybe if the city council focused on solving problems that affected people’s lives, we’d be in a better place.

  23. Carolinian

    An NC relevant BBC In Our Time podcast on The Theory of the Leisure Class

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001sdrt

    This is very very good and covers some of things Michael Hudson has talked about including Veblen’s more behavioral ideas about economics. It says he was a big influence on the New Deal.

  24. Jason Boxman

    Lead Levels in Children’s Applesauce May Be Traced to Cinnamon Additive

    The continued collapse.

    That the levels of lead in children’s blood tends to be the first line of detection for lead in food is “effectively using kids as canaries,” said Tom Neltner, senior director of safer chemicals at the Environmental Defense Fund, an advocacy group. He said that the F.D.A. has not set enforceable limits for lead in food, much less in spices.

    We know from reports that FDA food is garbage. They don’t do anything. It’s maliciously incompetent. They should all be in jail. Full stop. As bad as CDC.

    This country is run by thieves and murderers with nice clothes.

  25. The Rev Kev

    In the totally not suspicious department –

    ‘DiedSuddenly
    @DiedSuddenly_
    Dec 14
    Journalist who advocated that the unvaccinated be put in concentration camps dies suddenly at the young age of 33:

    “Ian Vandaelle has died after being hospitalized and “declared neurologically dead,” his family revealed.

    Vandaelle was a business journalist who worked as a reporter and editor at the Financial Post.

    He was also previously a producer at BNN Bloomberg for over a decade.

    Vandaelle advocated for vaccine passports and mandates and called for the firing of anyone who refused the injections.

    He also suggested that unvaccinated people should be arrested and taken away to concentration camps.”

    https://nitter.net/DiedSuddenly_/status/1735161110540464534#m

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