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2:00PM Water Cooler 10/28/2024

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By Lambert Strether of Corrente.

Patient readers, this Water Cooler is a bit light because I must hustle along and finish a post on election day scheming. Also, since it’s only eight days ’til Election Day, I’m going to focus Water Cooler on Politics, and greatly shorten the Covid section; there’s just too much to cover. I’ll return to the usual form on after Election Day (unless “events” absolutely take over). –lambert

Bird Song of the Day

Readers liked the nightingales, so I will stick with them awhile before returning to the mimidae.

Common Nightingale. PN Ria Formosa–Lacém, Tavira, Faro, Portugal. This is a duet!

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In Case You Might Miss…

  1. Young men.
  2. Robert O. Paxton on Trumpism.
  3. Boeing looks to Wall Street for bailout

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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

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2024

Eight days to go!

Friday’s RCP Poll Averages:

Lambert here: Tiny margins, but all red. If I were running the Kamala campaign, I’d want to see some blue. Of course, we on the outside might as well be examining the entrails of birds when we try to predict what will happen to the subset of voters (undecided; irregular) in a subset of states (swing), and the irregulars, especially, who will determine the outcome of the election but might as well be quantum foam, but presumably the campaign professionals have better data, and have the situation as under control as it can be MR SUBLIMINAL Fooled ya. Kidding!.

“CBS News Harris-Trump poll has closer look inside gender gap as candidates draw even” [CBS]. “In all, it nets out to even — and to an even-tighter contest. It’s tied across the composite battleground states collectively, and Harris is down to just a +1 in national vote preference. (Harris had once been at +3 in the battlegrounds in September and it narrowed to +1 two weeks ago. Trump has incrementally erased a 4-point national edge Harris had after their debate.)”

“Are Young Men Really Going to Vote for Donald Trump?” [Daniel Cox, The Liberal Patriot]. “But many young men seem somewhat drawn to Trump. Far more than young women, young men appear to enjoy Trump’s schtick and his constant disregard for basic conventions of behavior. In several interviews we’ve done, we have heard many young men describe Trump as entertaining. His crass “locker-room” comments—such as talking about Arnold Palmer’s genitalia or referring to Gov. Tim Walz as “Tampon Tim”—reflect the way lots of young men think and talk. Most young men believe that Trump is not a conventional politician, and many see his willingness to say and do things that upset the political establishment as refreshing. Of course, this doesn’t mean young men endorse Trump’s policies or embrace his worldview, but he does have an advantage over Harris in who is looking out for men…. If Trump falls short, it will likely be due to the fact that young men tend to be less reliable voters, especially those without a college degree. The polls show this. • Handy chart:

So wait. Nobody knows anything?

Pragmatically, it avails Trump nothing to pick up non-whites at the margin if whites (mostly white women) go for Kamala en masse (although the numbers soon will soon tell us how big the margins were, and how big the mass was):

The real lesson here is that looking at fascism through an identity politics lens is foolish.

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Kamala (D): “Harris Seeks Suburban Swing to Offset Trump Gains” [Wall Street Journal]. “Vice President Kamala Harris’s strategy to win a contest where polling shows she has stalled counts on locking in more suburban voters like those here outside Milwaukee to offset pockets of weakness in the Democratic coalition. Former President Donald Trump has alienated a sizable share of college-educated suburban voters who help decide presidential elections, accelerating their drift from the Republican Party. Harris needs them to counteract softness in her support among Black and Hispanic men, with a new national Wall Street Journal poll showing Trump narrowly leading Harris, 47% to 45%. The country’s political fault line was once the cleave between Democratic cities and Republican suburbs. That division now increasingly runs through the suburbs themselves, with inner-ring enclaves like this one turning purple or blue and outer ones—and rural areas—remaining red. Democratic inroads among the strip malls and cul-de-sacs of suburbia have been fueled by an emphasis on abortion rights and Trump’s heated rhetoric and colorful behavior, strengthening the party’s standing with independents and women with high levels of education. In recent days, Harris has sharpened her attacks on Trump, including saying she thinks he is a fascist and pointing to past aides who say he shouldn’t return to the Oval Office. The former president’s campaign sees an advantage in the suburbs over concerns about immigration and crime, issues where polls show the former president is viewed as stronger, as well as hot-button cultural topics such as transgender athletes in youth sports. The GOP nominee’s inability to broaden his support beyond his conservative base is one of the biggest challenges he faces in reclaiming the presidency. It is a vulnerability highlighted by former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who racked up a sizable suburban vote share even after dropping her GOP primary challenge.”

Kamala (D): The Muslim vote in the Blue Wall:

Kamala (D): I guess this is the appeal to young men?

Kamala (D): “If You’re Being Fatalistic or Panicking, You Are Helping Donald Trump” [Michael Tomasky, The New Republic]. “She has gobs more money than he does; she’s raised nearly $1 billion (!) to his $388 million. She supposedly has a massive army of volunteers, and he supposedly does not. This is actually an incredible accomplishment for a campaign that had to enter the presidential race the way hers did.” • Cross out the “supposedly.” What this really means — given that the election is 50/50 — is that a Trump dollar goes twice as far as a Kamala dollar.

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Trump (R): I think this sums up the Madison Square Garden Rally, so I don’t need to do anything but knock down a few of the more egregious talking points:

Trump (R): “DNC projects message tying Trump to Hitler on Madison Square Garden during rally” [CBS]. “The Democratic National Committee is projecting digital messages on Madison Square Garden’s exterior during former President Donald Trump’s campaign rally on Sunday about recent reports that he once praised Adolf Hitler and his generals and that cast him as unhinged…. Sunday marks the first time the DNC is projecting counterprogramming onto a building while Trump will be inside it.” • If Trump were really Hitler, some brownshirts would have found the projector, smashed it, and beaten whoever was running it to a bloody pulp.

Trump (R): On the “racist” joke about Puerto Rican “garbage”:

Maybe having the Don RIckles of identity politics on the stage wasn’t the smartest decision, tactically…

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Trump (R): “Hillary Clinton: “Please, Open Your Eyes,” Trump Is A Fascist And A “Clear And Present Danger” To This Country” [RealClearPolitics]. “It’s people, who have really studied what fascism is and what fascist leadership looks like. People, like Professor Timothy Snyder. People, like former professor Paxton, who just recently came out and said that he had studied fascism during the war, particularly the Nazis, Vichy France, and he had been reluctant to use the term. But he had concluded, as so many people now are, that, sadly, here in America, the term fits.” • Note that Paxton’s position is far more nuanced (in a good way) than Clinton’s, and that he explicitly opposed Clinton’s infantile view that “leadership” is fascism’s distinguishing characteristic. And so–

Trump (R) “Is It Fascism? A Leading Historian Changes His Mind” [New York Times]. Readers, I missed the Newsweek article in 2021: I apologize. In fact, I abase myself. This is a good-faith article; it cites Richard Evans, too. “In a column that appeared online on Jan. 11, 2021, Paxton wrote that the invasion of the Capitol ‘removes my objection to the fascist label.’ Trump’s ‘open encouragement of civic violence to overturn an election crosses a red line,’ he went on. ‘The label now seems not just acceptable but necessary.’… This summer I asked Paxton if, nearly four years later, he stood by his pronouncement. Cautious but forthright, he told me that he doesn’t believe using the word is politically helpful in any way, but he confirmed the diagnosis. ‘It’s bubbling up from below in very worrisome ways, and that’s very much like the original fascisms,’ Paxton said. ‘It’s the real thing. It really is.'” And quoting:

He told me that what he saw on Jan. 6 has continued to affect him; it has been hard “to accept the other side as fellow citizens with legitimate grievances.” That is not to say, he clarified, that there aren’t legitimate grievances to be had, but that the politics of addressing them has changed. He believes that Trumpism has become something that is “not Trump’s doing, in a curious way,” Paxton said. “I mean it is, because of his rallies. But he hasn’t sent organizers out to create these things; they just germinated, as far as I can tell.”

Whatever Trumpism is, it’s coming “from below as a mass phenomenon, and the leaders are running to keep ahead of it,” Paxton said. That was how, he noted, Italian Fascism and Nazism began, when Mussolini and Hitler capitalized on mass discontentment after World War I to gain power. Focusing on leaders, Paxton has long held, is a distraction when trying to understand fascism. “What you ought to be studying is the milieu out of which they grew,” Paxton said.

A serious article about a serious man (Paxton is also a birdwatcher!). Worth reading in full. But Paxton is a lot less willing to push forward the thesis than others. For example:

But for those who use the label to describe Trump, it is useful precisely because it has offered a predictive framework. “It’s kind of a hypothesis,” John Ganz, the author of a new book on the radical right in the 1990s, told me. “What does it tell us about the next steps that Trump may take? I would say that as a theory of Trumpism, it’s one of the better ones.” No one expects Trumpism to look like Nazism, or to follow a specific timeline, but some anticipated that “using street paramilitary forces he might do some kind of extralegal attempt to seize power,” Ganz said. “Well, that’s what he did.”

Wrong. In no way can the January 6 rioters be characterized as “street paramilitary forces” (not even the spook-infested Proud Boys); at best, they can be said to have created a spectacle resembling same; it’s telling that it was TV that changed Paxton’s mind. See here and here. In any case, somebody should go back and ask Paxton if the entire political system — not just one party — is sliding toward fascism, which is my view (and why I keep characterizing the election as a Sophie’s Choice. I don’t see any more succinct and accurate way to characterize the Censorship Industrial Complex than Goebbelsian. And then, after Kamala being selected by a small group of insiders, there’s the genocide, and the openly eugenicst character of Biden’s Covid policy of mass infection without mitigation. So as I keep saying, the fascist table is a rich smorgasbord from which both parties eagerly and greedily partake.

Trump (R): “Golfing with Trump. Social capital, decline, inequality, and the rise of populism in the US ” [Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society]. 2021. “We posit an alternative: that the rise in votes for Trump has been the result of long-term economic and population decline in areas with strong social capital. This hypothesis is confirmed by the econometric analysis conducted for US counties. Long-term declines in employment and population—rather than in earnings, salaries, or wages—in places with relatively strong social capital propelled Donald Trump to the presidency and almost secured his re-election. By contrast, low social capital and high interpersonal inequality were not connected to a surge in support for Trump. These results are robust to the introduction of control variables and different inequality measures. The analysis also shows that the discontent at the base of the Trump margin is not just a consequence of the 2008 crisis but had been brewing for a long time. Places in the US that remained cohesive but witnessed an enduring decline are no longer bowling alone, they have golfed with Trump and will, in all likelihood, continue to golf with Trumpism or other forms of populism.” • Now to see if these counties are swing counties…

Trump (R): “Interview with Mark Halperin” [Max Raskin]. HALPERIN: ‘And Clinton was the best politician any of us had ever seen or ever would see. INTERVIEWER: Does he still hold that for you? HALPERIN: Oh, he’s unambiguously the best. INTERVIEWER: Who’s number two? HALPERIN: Trump. I say that sometimes publicly and Democrats get all upset, and I say, “The worse a person you think Trump is, the more ridiculous you think he is, the more you should realize my answer is correct, because only a great politician truly could overcome all the baggage that he carries…. INTERVIEWER: What is it that Trump or Clinton have? HALPERIN: A fingertip feel for understanding how to appeal to the electorate in the most winning way. It’s giving a speech and having this sensory understanding of what’s striking the chords and then honing it to eliminate the stuff that’s not working and make the message even more enticing.” • A/B testing.

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Trump (R): Summing up Rogan:

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AZ: “Why Latino Men in Arizona Are Holding Out on Harris” [Politico]. “Arizona boasts the largest Latino population of any swing state, and Hispanic voters are poised to account for roughly a quarter of the electorate, more than double their share a generation ago. Latino men in particular may prove to be especially important in this election, as the group that is most up for grabs and the most unpredictable in terms of turnout. Latina women have consistently chosen Democrats by wider margins than their male counterparts, and they’ve also turned out to vote at higher rates. And with 10 days to go before the election, it is becoming clear Latino men are also a particular vulnerability for Vice President Kamala Harris. Though Harris led former President Donald Trump by nearly 20 percentage points in a recent Suffolk University/USA Today poll of Latino likely voters in Arizona, Latino men under 50 leaned heavily in the other direction, supporting Trump by 51 percent to Harris’ 39 percent among 18- to 34-year-olds, and by 57 percent to 37 percent among 35- to 49-year-olds. ‘Looking at the data, it was all about inflation/economy and immigration,’ said David Paleologos, who led the survey. Paleologos sees that frustration with the Biden-era economy creating a vulnerability for Harris that is especially pronounced with Latinos in the state. ‘She’s 7 percent shy of where she needs to be,’ he said.”

NE: “Nebraska is in the national spotlight. An obscure education fight could tilt the election results” [Politico]. “But opinion polls suggest a majority of voters oppose Nebraska’s new state-funded program to subsidize private school tuition for qualifying students. Organizers hope their appeals to public education-supporting voters of all ideological stripes offer a blueprint for overturning similar laws across the country, after several Republican-held states like Florida and Arkansas have approved expansive school choice programs over the last two years. The referendum backers have run a strenuously nonpartisan campaign to rally voucher skeptics in Ogallala, Ord, Omaha and beyond. But some Nebraska Democrats are also hoping that the relatively obscure issue drives voter turnout in the state’s tightly contested 2nd Congressional District and secures its single Electoral College vote for their camp.”

WA: “Burning ballots pulled from inside smoking Vancouver ballot box; hundreds of ballots lost” [KATU]. “Our photographer captured grey smoke steadily billowing out of the Park and Ride ballot box at Fisher’s Landing Transit Center near Southeast 162nd Avenue just after 6 a.m. Multiple police units were in the area, and the ballot box was cordoned off by police tape as it continued to smoke. Around 6:30 a.m., KATU captured footage of first responders releasing a pile of actively burning ballots onto the ground, which continued to smolder and smoke heavily even after the flames were put out. The Clark County elections auditor told us that the last ballot pickup at that location was 8 a.m. Sunday. Hundreds of ballots were inside at the time of the burning, and KATU was told there were maybe only a few that could be saved. Voters who dropped off ballots at that location after 11 a.m. Saturday need to contact the Election Auditor’s Office IMMEDIATELY for a new ballot.” • “Park and Ride” = suburban, so a Democrat area? Readers?

Democrats en Déshabillé

“Medicare for All: Requiem for a Dream” [Benjamin Studebaker, Sublation]. Not that I hold a grievance: “Even the members of congress who have been endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America and by the Justice Democrats have at points indicated a willingness to use M4A as a device to win Obamacare reforms. Many of these people do not understand the importance of prioritizing M4A. During the 2020 campaign, many of these people claimed they wanted to “push Bernie left.” In practice, this meant forcing Sanders to decenter M4A and to instead center the interests and concerns of establishment non-governmental organizations (NGOs), like the Human Rights Campaign, Black Lives Matter, Planned Parenthood, the NAACP, the National Organization for Women, and the Southern Poverty Law Center. These are the organizations that standardly donate to the Democratic Party establishment. In focusing on the issues these organizations emphasized, the Democrats not only deemphasized healthcare, they also polarized the workers on racial, educational, sexual, and religious lines. The effect of this was to create sharp cultural antagonisms that made it much more difficult to effectively organize for anything. It also diminished the ability of the left to compete electorally in more socially conservative regions of the country. Many of these regions are poorer and badly in need of the benefits of M4A, but the Democratic Party establishment contemptuously casts these Americans into the ‘basket of deplorables.’ These are the people whose votes you must not seek to win, lest you secure the kind of legislative majority that might create an expectation that you follow through on M4A.” • “These people” are the people now yammering about fascism, having done their level best to create the conditions that make fascism possible.

Realignment and Legitimacy

“The Coming Great Conflict” [Ray Dalio, Time]. June 2024. The Abstract: “As you know, based on my study of history, I believe there are now and have always been five big, interrelated forces that drive how domestic and world orders change. They are the 1) the big debt/credit/money cycle, 2) the big internal order/disorder cycle 3) the big external order/disorder cycle, 4) acts of nature (i.e., droughts, floods, and pandemics), and 5) human innovation that leads to advances in technology. Today, I am focusing on why I believe we are approaching the point in the internal order-disorder cycle when you will have to choose between picking a side and fighting for it, keeping your head down, or fleeing.”

Syndemics

“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

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Covid 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 (wastewater); 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 (wastewater); BC, Vancouver (wastewater).

Hat tips to helpful readers: Alexis, 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, KF, KidDoc, LL, Michael King, KF, LaRuse, mrsyk, MT, MT_Wild, otisyves, Petal (6), RK (2), RL, RM, Rod, square coats (11), tennesseewaltzer, Tom B., Utah, Bob White (3).

Stay safe out there!

Airborne Transmission: H5N1

“Inactivation of influenza A viruses in the environment and modes of transmission: A critical review” [Journal of Infection] 2008.

Morbidity and Mortality

“Many pandemic deaths attributed to natural causes may have actually been due to Covid, study says” [Independent]. Many deaths that had previously been attributed to natural causes during the first months of the Covid pandemic may actually have been because of the virus. More than one million deaths during the first 30 months of the pandemic were reported from other natural causes, like disease and chronic conditions, according to the National Institute on Aging. Previous studies found that the excess deaths were higher than reported Covid deaths, but most investigated extra deaths from all causes. Now, researchers say the timing of these deaths suggests they could have been unrecognized fatalities or indirectly linked to pandemic-related disruptions in health care and in other fields. A study funded by the institute revealed there were approximately 1.2 million more natural-cause deaths than expected from March 2020 to August 2022 across 3,127 US counties. Of those deaths, nearly 163,000 did not have a Covid notation on their death certificates.”

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Stats Watch

There are no official statistics of interest today. –lambert

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Manufacturing: “Boeing Launches 90 Mln Concurrent Public Offerings, $5 Bln Depository Shares” [NASDAQ]. “The Boeing Co. (BA) on Monday announced the launch of concurrent separate underwritten public offerings of 90 million shares, par value $5 per share and $5 billion of depositary shares. Each represents a 1/20th interest in a share of newly issued series A mandatory convertible preferred stock, par value $1 per share of the company. The company intends to use the net proceeds from the offerings for general corporate purposes, which may include, among other things, repayment of debt, additions to working capital, and others. Boeing expects to grant underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 13.500 million shares and $750 million of depositary shares. The preferred stock is expected to have a liquidation preference of $1,000 per share. Unless earlier converted, each preferred share will automatically convert, for settlement on or about October 15, 2027, into a variable number of shares, the company said. Boeing intends to apply to list the depositary shares on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol ‘BA.PRA'” • Seems complicated. Readers?

Manufacturing: “Boeing describes the strike as an existential threat in stock prospectus” [Quartz]. “In Boeing’s form 424B5, the category of Securities and Exchange Commission filings under which a prospectus falls, the planemaker tees up its fiercest headache under a section headlined ‘Risks Related to Our Business and Operations.’ ‘Some of our and our suppliers’ workforces are represented by labor unions,” the company says. “Work stoppages by our employees are currently adversely affecting our business, financial condition, results of operations and/or cash flows. Future work stoppages by our or our suppliers’ employees could also adversely impact our business.’ … Unsaid in all that is that the contract voted down by IAM members last week was the third offer Boeing has put forward. The IAM is seeking a 40% wage increase and the restoration of their pension. Boeing’s first offer, the rejection of which kicked off the strike, was for a 25% wage increase. The second offer, deemed Boeing’s “best and final,” was for a 30% increase. That was also rejected. Then Boeing abandoned talks. Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su came to town and managed to pull another offer out of Boeing, this one for a 35% increase and a pension sweetener for the IAM members who still have one. That was also rejected. The IAM told its members Sunday that ‘Your Union has been in communication with the U.S. Department of Labor in an effort to spearhead getting back to the table.’ Though the latest contract vote was more in Boeing’s favor than previous tallies, the union said last week that an internal survey shows that members are still not impressed with what they’re hearing for the company’s negotiators. ‘While we can’t share the survey results publicly, which would give the company an unfair advantage, please know that wages and retirement security remain top priorities,’ it said.” • Worth reading in full for the tranlations from corporatese.

Manufacturing: “Boeing Sells Shares To Raise Capital Buying Time To Wait Out Strike” [Simple Flying]. “Boeing’s SEC filings about the two concurrent public offerings purposefully left out the amount of proceeds that it expected to earn from the sale.” And: “Kelly Ortberg, the president and chief executive officer (CEO) of Boeing, stated in his opening remarks before the company’s Q3 earnings call that one of the big rocks to stabilize was its balance sheet to best support retaining its investment-grade rating. ‘We have a plan, and we’re executing that plan. And I’m confident that we have a good path forward to manage the realities of our business and retain our investment grade rating.'” • The plan, apparently, is to bust the union, with Wall Street helping, as is its little way. Indeed–

Manufacturing: “Boeing’s Shareholders Are Complicit in Its Mess” [Bloomberg]. “There are many reasons Boeing Co. has fallen into such disrepair that it needs to sell shares for a potential $19 billion cash injection, and just as many lessons to draw. But one factor arguably underpins them all, and shareholders should be taking a long look in the mirror… [F]nancial engineering took center stage. Boeing engaged in a rolling share buyback program that ended up distributing around $40 billion to investors. Between 2013 and 2018, the company would go from having net cash of $6 billion to $5 billion of net debt. It had no financial cushion to deal with the operational and financial aftermath of the Max crisis, which worsened when a door plug blew out of an Alaska Airlines plane during a flight in January.”

Manufacturing: “At the heart of the Boeing strike, an emotional fight over a lost pension plan” [NPR]. • So, to NPR, a decent wage when you work, and not dying in a ditch when you can’t, is “emotional.” Oh-k-a-a-a-y

Manufacturing: “Boeing Is Selling a Boatload of Stock. It Won’t Matter Until It Ships More Planes” [Barron’s]. “The deal will reduce Boeing’s debt-less-cash to roughly $27 billion. That is less than three times Wall Street’s expected 2026 earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, or Ebitda. It’s a reasonable level for an industrial company…. That 2026 estimate, however, is based on shipping about 700 planes. Boeing production hasn’t approached that level since 2018 when it shipped 806. At the start of the year, Wall Street expected Boeing to deliver about 700 planes in 2024. That estimate is down to about 375 jets.”

Manufacturing: “Starliner Complications: Boeing Considers Selling Its Space Division” [Simply Flying]. “Boeing is weighing up its position in the space industry as the company faces problems on multiple fronts. Boeing’s Starliner program suffered a major blow this year after the vehicle experienced thruster control problems and helium leaks on its first crewed flight to the International Space Station (ISS) – while the spacecraft eventually made it back to Earth (without its crew), the debacle raised major questions about Boeing’s position in the space industry.” Ortberg: “We do have to get into a position where we’ve got a portfolio much more balanced with less risky programs and more profitable programs, and we’re going to be working that. But I don’t think a wholesale walkaway is in the cards.”

Tech: “The US Copyright Office frees the McFlurry” [Cory Doctorow, Pluralistic]. “Under DMCA 1201, giving someone a tool to “bypass an access control for a copyrighted work” is a felony punishable by a 5-year prison sentence and a $500k fine – for a first offense. This law can refer to access controls for traditional copyrighted works, like movies. Under DMCA 1201, if you help someone with photosensitive epilepsy add a plug-in to the Netflix player in their browser that blocks strobing pictures that can trigger seizures, you’re a felon… But software is a copyrighted work, and everything from printer cartridges to car-engine parts have software in them. If the manufacturer puts an “access control” on that software, they can send their customers (and competitors) to prison for passing around tools to help them fix their cars or use third-party ink…. As you might expect, this is quite a tempting proposition for any manufacturer hoping to enshittify their products, because they know you can’t legally disenshittify them. These access controls have metastasized into every kind of device imaginable…. This is all relevant this month because the US Copyright Office just released the latest batch of 1201 exemptions, and among them is the right to circumvent access controls “allowing for repair of retail-level food preparation equipment”: While this covers all kinds of food prep gear, the exemption request – filed by Public Knowledge and Ifixit – was inspired by the bizarre war over the tragically fragile McFlurry machine. These machines – which extrude soft-serve frozen desserts – are notoriously failure-prone, with 5-16% of them broken at any given time. Taylor, the giant kitchen tech company that makes the machines, charges franchisees a fortune to repair them, producing a steady stream of profits for the company.” • I believe Trump said — on Rogan? — that he would make McDonald’s ice cream machines work again. Could this possibly have been rattling around in his brain?

Tech: “The couple who took on Google and cost the tech giant £2bn” [BBC]. “It was June 2006 and the couple’s trailblazing price comparison website Foundem – one they had sacrificed well-paid jobs for and built from scratch – had just gone fully live. They didn’t know it at the time but that day, and those that followed, would mark the beginning of the end for their company. Foundem had been hit by a Google search penalty, prompted by one of the search engine’s automatic spam filters. It pushed the website way down the lists of search results for relevant queries like ‘price comparison’ and ‘comparison shopping’. It meant the couple’s website, which charged a fee when customers clicked on their product listings through to other websites, struggled to make any money. ‘We were monitoring our pages and how they were ranking, and then we saw them all plummet almost immediately,’ says Adam. While the launch day for Foundem didn’t go to plan, it would lead to the start of something else – a 15-year legal battle that culminated in a then record €2.4bn (£2bn) fine for Google, which was deemed to have abused its market dominance. Google spent seven years fighting that verdict, issued in June 2017, but in September this year Europe’s top court – the European Court of Justice – rejected its appeals.”

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Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 62 Greed (previous close: 58 Greed) [CNN]. One week ago: 70 (Greed). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Oct 28 at 3:09:38 PM ET.

Rapture Index: Closes unchanged [Rapture Ready]. Record High, October 10, 2016: 189. Current: 181. (Remember that bringing on the Rapture is good.) • Hard to believe the Rapture Index is going down. Do these people know something we don’t?

Zeitgeist Watch

The United States is a very large and very strange country:

News of the Wired

“No One Can Explain Why Planes Stay in the Air” [Scientific American]. 2020. • Bumblebees… but airplanes? The deck: “Do recent explanations solve the mysteries of aerodynamic lift?” I don’t know whether Betteridge’s Law applies to decks or not. I’m guessing yes.

“Choose our own systems of weights and measures”:

And as for the stars (can all this possibly be true? I apologize for the length, but this is the nerdiest thread I have seen in some time, so…):

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Contact information for plants: Readers, feel free to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, to (a) find out how to send me a check if you are allergic to PayPal and (b) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi, lichen, and coral are deemed to be honorary plants! If you want your handle to appear as a credit, please place it at the start of your mail in parentheses: (thus). Otherwise, I will anonymize by using your initials. See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. From PR:

PR writes: “Attaching a Joshua Tree at dawn in our neighborhood, in Tucson.”

* * *

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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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142 comments

  1. CanCyn

    Thanks for the SNL sketch. Nate Bargatze has become a favourite comedian of late. Lots of clips online and a couple of Netflix specials.

    1. aleph_0

      Had the pleasure of seeing him live after liking his Netflix specials. Really great show; his dad opened for him and did a really nice comedy magic act, too.

  2. Louis Fyne

    IMO, no way young men support Kamala by a majority. (something is wrong in their sampling methods)

    the hypothesis ain’t quantum physics…a big chunk of young men come from divorced households (see Great Recession), had overwhelmingly female teachers K to 12, had a lack of male family or community influences…

    Trump is the uncle that they (intuitively) wish they had. imo.

    1. Derek

      “Harris’s strategy to win more suburban voters like those here outside Milwaukee to offset pockets of weakness in the Democratic coalition.”

      Like Kenosha? Where BLM rioters burned down businesses and were handled by the young Kyle Rittenhouse?

      Of course young suburban men will prefer Kamala to Kyle :-)

      2. Bugs

        They’re out to turn Waukesha County blue for no reason other than they can’t understand why a nominally PMC enclave continues to vote Republican. It’s a real headscratcher. Dems love a good mystery. Like why people keep getting sick, and why those protesters have Palestine flags. And what’s up with people not all in for democracy in Ukraine? Jeez, so much mystery in the world. They’re working tirelessly on it.

  4. antidlc

    A mailer I received…

    Says “Available at Walgreens” , “Sponsored by Moderna”

    Has a QR code to schedule an appointment.

    Says the following:
    “Long COVID may impact a daily routine. Each COVID-19 infection increases the risk of developing Long COVID. Help get protected with an updated COVID-19 vaccine this fall.”

    Protected from what? Getting infected? Getting long COVID?

    2. Lee

      “Long COVID may impact a daily routine….” Possibly for the rest of your life they might add.

      FWIW:

      At the pandemic’s onset, approximately 10% of people who suffered COVID-19 infections went on to develop Long COVID. Now, the risk of getting Long COVID has dropped to about 3.5% among vaccinated people (primary series). While this is a considerable decline, over 1.3 million Americans are still becoming infected with SARS-CoV-2 every day. “You do the math—3 to 4% of those people is a huge number of potential Long COVID patients being added to the roster,” says Ziyad Al-Aly, MD, chief of Research and Development Service at Veterans Affairs St. Louis Health Care System and the study’s senior author. Yale Medicine

      3 to 4% of 1.3 million per day is indeed a huge number. For those so inclined it would be interesting to see what impact this state of affairs is having on such things as work force participation, health and disability claims, and worker productivity. I’d do it myself but my ME/CFS is playing up and I just don’t have the energy to do so.

      1. Jason Boxman

        Considerable:

        In 2023, 22.5 percent of people with a disability were employed–the highest recorded ratio
        since comparable data were first collected in 2008. This rate increased by 1.2 percentage
        points from the prior year, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Similarly,
        the employment-population ratio for those without a disability, at 65.8 percent, increased
        by 0.4 percentage point in 2023. The unemployment rate for people with a disability (7.2
        percent) was little changed in 2023, while the rate for those without a disability was
        unchanged over the year at 3.5 percent.

        https://www.bls.gov/news.release/disabl.nr0.htm

        Or this looks interesting:

        Industry-level data from the Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses (SOII)
        Rate of illness cases per 10,000 full-time workers (Size class 0)

        Year Annual
        2014 1.6
        2015 1.5
        2016 1.4
        2017 1.3
        2018 1.7
        2019 1.3
        2020 45.1
        2021 31.7
        2022 40.6

        From https://data.bls.gov/home.htm

        I’m not sure what data series to look at to find the specific disability statistics again. But number go up.

        Oh it’s because it’s the Fed, so I’m looking in the wrong place.

        https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNU01074597

        A remarkable jump, starting upwards from Jan 2021. Although it is now stagnant around 8.4 million people. So not taking off like a rocket ship anymore.

        2. Lee

          Thanks to you and CA for this rather unsettling info.

          I searched “u.s. disability rates climbing news”, and the top of the listed stories, from Center for American Progress, was good news: Disabled Workers Saw Record Employment Gains in 2023, But Gaps Remain

          New data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics show that in 2023, disabled people made record-breaking employment gains in a tight labor market; policymakers, however, must do more to close persistent gaps

          .

          Perhaps the gap they should address is the one where a conscience should reside.

          1. steppenwolf fetchit

            When the “labor market” does not have enough non-disabled people to go round, it is forced to turn to disabled people. Is the number of non-disabled people going down, as more non-disabled people are involuntarily recruited into the ranks of the disabled?

      2. seethen

        I see those statistics a lot. My issue is that they are coming from the VA study with data from March 2020 through January 2022. More current data is needed to get a better picture of the current state of long covid, including how boosters effect outcomes.

      3. Lambert Strether Post author

        > what impact this state of affairs is having on such things as work force participation,

        I think the UK is further advanced down this slope than we are; I constantly see posts on NHS and school absenteeism.

  5. IM Doc

    I am getting very concerned with all the fascist talk – I am not overly impressed with the historian above either.

    Here we are – with news breaking on two fronts – consortiumnews has been taken down and Tommy Robinson in the UK is getting months in solitary for publishing a documentary.

    These historians overlook that – to point out the cos-players of Jan 6. Who are the real fascists?

    If Harris wins, how long will it be before they are coming after sites like NC?

    This burst of populism is not fascism breaking out – it is a direct response to what these cretins have done for the past generation.

    1. Screwball

      I watched a recent interview with Harris and she said the mis/dis-information was a problem with social media companies. I can’t find it now, but it sounded like she was all in on the censorship thing. She was not the only one I have heard this from. Hillary was another, but there are more.

      If they win, Musk/Twitter is toast, and probably any other outlet who doesn’t tow the company line. Just my lone opinion, but we do have some history to go by.

      1. tegnost

        If harris wins I expect project 2025 to be rolled out with a few “sensible tweaks”, just as o care was…and tpp would have been had hillz won

        Didn’t I read somewhere that mussolini, the father of fascism, equated fascism with corporatism?
        Benito quoted somewhere… ‘Fascism is corporatism because it is a merger of state power and corporate power.”
        Sounds like the usa as a whole these days.
        Corporatism, where you have a boss and if you don’t do as you’re told you’re fired.
        see citizens united

      2. Acacia

        Musk operates Starlink, which is a yuge piece of Internet infrastructure, a.k.a., a surveillance network, with known links to the US military.

        I wonder if he has used it to gather any dirt on his enemies?

        “Nice Vineyard ‘ya got there… would be a shame if anything happened to it…”

          1. steppenwolf fetchit

            What if his self-interest has gone beyond the realm of the material and the power-domination over others? What if he now needs to be loved and worshipped by the masses?

            What if he needs to be the Great Hero of his own Sci Fi novel?

          2. Lambert Strether Post author

            > Musk is for Musk and no one else.

            From The Big Short:

            Vinny: How come you don’t hate this guy? He’s everything you taught us not to trust.

            Baum: I can’t hate him. He’s so transparent in his self-interest that I kind of respect him.

      3. Carolinian

        I caught a recent zoom type interview with Hillary and she looked terrible. The webcam of Dorian Gray? Of course those wide angle lenses can make everybody look bad but Hill’s history of mayhem may be catching up with her.

        And the wild fascist talk is how they’ve been justifying everything since 1945. Stalin of course was Hitler for awhile and then various third world leaders standing in our way…now Putin. If you are willing to say anything nice about Putin you are a Hitler lover if not Hitler himself.

        I’m not sure I even will vote given the invevitable Trump win in SC. Our politics have become a nasty business.

        1. tennesseewaltzer

          And so today’s main opinion piece at the LA Times has this title: “Chabria: Trump doubles down on hate, promising an America of pain and fear.” It seems the proofreader didn’t catch the error: Harris rather than Trump. I have access only to the headlines, not the text, so I don’t know how intense was the prose.

        2. steppenwolf fetchit

          Nothing or no-one local to vote for or against? No referrendum items or initiatives to vote about?

    3. Lambert Strether Post author

      > I am not overly impressed with the historian above either.

      You should be. Both Paxton (and Evans) are genuine scholars (unlike, say, Timothy Ash).

      That doesn’t mean one must agree with his conclusions; in fact, I do not.

      2. hauntologism

        Payne and Gregor > Paxton (but Paxton is worth reading, as is Roger Griffin)

        Irving > Evans (whose trilogy is great, particularly the first volume, but who never actually demonstrated the former’s supposed crime of “denialism” — controversial take, I know, but the truth of the matter has been lost in moralizing squid ink and hollywood lies).

        The trouble with the topic of fascism is the Terms of Debate and its relation to Magic Mustache Man and the Worst Thing Ever.

        Like TOS on social media platforms, no one is allowed to know where the ever-shifting boundaries of what constitutes denialism are located until they transgress them. This is by design, as it keeps people frightened of asking obvious questions or pointing out problems with the math (e.g. “The Cookie Question”).

        Since the post-cold war globalist moral dipensation has been built around a simple formula: Munich (compromise) = Auschwitz (ultimate evil) it is would be prudent to interrogate the historical evidence surrounding these claims concerning both. Given the current confusion as to what is actually happening on the ground in Ukraine and the Middle East, it seems silly to take on faith the claims of war propaganda cooked up in the 1940s and beyond.

        Hopefully, Elon will buy the Holocaust next and let people know what the rules concerning its deconstruction actually are.

        1. Swamp Yankee

          @Hauntologist. I am perhaps misunderstanding you; do you not think that “the historical evidence surrounding these claims concerning both [Munich and Auschwitz]” has been adequately interrogated?

          Could you explain what you mean by “Given the current confusion as to what is actually happening on the ground in Ukraine and the Middle East, it seems silly to take on faith the claims of war propaganda cooked up in the 1940s and beyond.”?

          Do you view the documentary record of Nazi aggression and war crimes brought before the Nuremberg Tribunals as “war propaganda cooked up in the 1940s”?

          Thanks.

          1. Lambert Strether Post author

            > Do you view the documentary record of Nazi aggression and war crimes brought before the Nuremberg Tribunals as “war propaganda cooked up in the 1940s”?

            Indeed.

            1. Swamp Yankee

              Thanks for seconding my question, Lambert (that’s what I take your “Indeed” to mean).

              And for asking re: David Irving below.

      3. David in Friday Harbor

        Two of the most formative books that I read in my late teens (‘74-‘77) were Shirer’s The Collapse of the Third Republic and Paxton’s Vichy France. Evans’ work about popular enthusiasm for fascism also quite important to my understanding of our current political dead-end. Paxton is incredibly impressive. Anyone who believes otherwise is demonstrating their ignorance.

        The point being made is that Trump himself is simply a carnival barker parroting back what he is hearing from the mob and pretending to lead in order to aggrandize himself. It is Trump-ism that Paxton now acknowledges as following the outlines of what emerged in Italy, Germany, and France as “fascism” in the messy aftermath of the 1914-18 conflict.

        What scares me is the emergence of Inverted Totalitarianism as described by Sheldon Wollin and its anointment of a candidate to oppose Trump — just as Paxton points out that Mussolini and Hitler were appointed by conservative and business interests. Just as scary is handing this totalitarian regime to someone trying to stay in front of a fascist base.

        Read the NYT interview to the end: “I think it’s going to be very dicey,” he said. “If Trump wins, it’s going to be awful. If he loses, it’s going to be awful too.”

      4. MFB

        OK, but comparing people with Timothy Garton Ash is really lowering the bar, isn’t it? It’s like saying “She’s a genuine journalist, unlike Dana Bash”

    4. Frequentflier

      😢😢😢😢😢 for poor tommy robinson. Check him out in wiki. Poor, poor, pitiful tom.

    5. Lee

      The Golfing with Trump, and Requiem for M4A articles linked above really hammered the nails home for me. Thank you, Lambert! If only there were a true left left to channel all that justified populist discontent but alas, the Dems murdered it with their steely knives. Let them now contend with that rougher slouching beast they birthed. Our politics are becoming downright gladiatorial with none I can root for and the best result will be for both sides pyrrhic.

      1. Jonathan Holland Becnel

        My thoughts exactly.

        Can’t wait til they can release him and stage more identity politics divide & conquer!

    7. hauntologism

      No respect for Starmer or the thugs he answers to, but solitary for T. Robinson is likely to keep him from being murdered by Muslims in prison. That he is going to prison at all is ridiculous, but we’re talking Air Strip One here.

      Not sure what sort of fascist produces a documentary called “Shalom” but I am reminded of J. Edgar Hoover’s old saw about the best opposition being the one you create and control yourself.

      Until I learn otherwise, I file Yaxley along with Ray Epps in the Likely Asset file.

    8. Louis Fyne

      the funny thing about the “bundle of sticks” talk is that it comes from people who would rather send someone else’s kids to be in harm’s way from a threat than their own—which they have been constantly doing by sending urban and hinterland kids into The Sandbox since 2001.

      Propaganda only goes so far when people see no skin in the game from “their leaders”—which is why the Trump shooting resonates so much for people.

    9. lyman alpha blob

      RE: The real fascists

      Let’s not forget that the person hurling this accusation once sicced the war dogs on Libya to the point its leader was extrajudicially murdered by her proxies in a manner most would consider barbaric, causing her to cackle “We came, we saw, he died.” I don;t rememner being asked if I agreed with this policy or Congress voting on it. We don’t have to speculate what Clinton might do – the evidence is plain. Yet nobody considers that in the least bit “fascist”.

    10. spud

      protectionism is the foundation of national self-determination and is fundamental.

      https://www.huffpost.com/entry/nationalism-is-rising-not_b_10281138

      “Recently, there have been a number of articles and statements asserting that fascism is rising in Europe, and that Donald Trump is an American example of fascism. This is a misrepresentation of a very real phenomenon.

      The nation-state is reasserting itself as the primary vehicle of political life. Multinational institutions like the European Union and multilateral trade treaties are being challenged because they are seen by some as not being in the national interest.

      The charge of a rise in fascism comes from a profound misunderstanding of fascism. It is also an attempt to discredit the resurgence of nationalism and to defend the multinational systems that have dominated the West since World War II.”

      “Fascism differs from nationalism in two profound ways. First, fascists did not consider self-determination a universal right. Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini and Francisco Franco, to mention three obvious fascists, only endorsed nationalism for Germany, Italy and Spain. The rights of other nations to a nation-state of their own was, at best, unclear to the fascists.

      In a very real sense, Hitler and Mussolini believed in multinationalism, albeit with other nations submitting to their will. Fascism was an assault on the right of nations to pursue their self-interest, and an elevation of the fascists’ right to pursue it based on an assertion of their nations’ inherent superiority and right to rule.”

      “Arguing that being part of the European Union is not in the British interest, that NATO has outlived its usefulness, that protectionist policies or anti-immigration policies are desirable is not fascist.

      These ideas have no connection to fascism whatsoever. They are far more closely linked to traditional liberal democracy. They represent the reassertion of the foundation of liberal democracy, which is the self-governing nation-state. It is the foundation of the United Nations, whose members are nation-states, and where the right to national self-determination is fundamental.”

      “What we are seeing is the rise of the nation-state against the will of multinational organizations and agreements. There are serious questions about membership in the EU, NATO and trade agreements, and equally about the right to control borders. Reasonable people can disagree, and it is the political process of each nation that retains the power to determine shifts in policy. There is no guarantee that the citizenry will be wise, but that cuts both ways and in every direction.”

      1. Acacia

        So, that HuffPo article was from 2016 — I guess the before times for many liberals —, and I find not one mention of “state capture”. Nope, the author appears confident that the nation state is operating fully on behalf of citizens, just like we were taught in primary school.

        Also, this observation amidst the laundry list of fascist characteristics:

        Therefore, free speech and opposition parties are banned and those who attempt to oppose the regime are treated as criminals.

        Seems like both are under attack in the US, especially by Democrat party cultists loyalists.

        1. spud

          and this was also in the article.

          “Liberal democracy does not dictate whether a nation should be a member in a multinational organization, adopt free trade policies or protectionism, or welcome or exclude immigrants. These are decisions to be made by the people – or more precisely, by the representatives they select. The choices may be wise, unwise or even unjust. However, the power to make these choices rests, in a liberal democracy, in the hands of the citizens.”

          what we are witnessing today all over the world, is a attempt to reassert our rights to self determination.

          it might, or might not be doable.

      2. Cassandra

        In a very real sense, Hitler and Mussolini believed in multinationalism, albeit with other nations submitting to their will. Fascism was an assault on the right of nations to pursue their self-interest, and an elevation of the fascists’ right to pursue it based on an assertion of their nations’ inherent superiority and right to rule.”

        This seems to be a good summary of the philosophy of American exceptionalism.

    11. gk

      > consortiumnews has been taken down

      It’s back (though it seems to depend on which computer you use). No new content, so far.

  6. Mark Gisleson

    Lambert: missing end tag on Paxton indent makes your comments look like part of the article and has indented everything that follows.

      1. spud

        towering statement.

        “These people” are the people now yammering about fascism, having done their level best to create the conditions that make fascism possible.

  7. hk

    Who was that comedian anyways? Would actual Puerto Ricans have been able to place him in context? (Thinking about Chris Rock and the N word in his routines..)

      1. CA

        Since 2004, Puerto Rico had lost 16% of population, * has experienced no per capita growth, has an employment-population ratio that is 39% as compared to 60% for the rest of the US, and has had a severe landfill problem that has been complained about and often written about.

        Investment in Puerto Rico as a portion of island income is 33% less than in the rest of the US, making infrastructure a worsening problem for islanders.

        * The younger population of Puerto Rico has been especially leaving. The age dependency ratio is increasingly alarmingly.

        https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1xe6d

        August 4, 2014

        Real per capita Gross Domestic Product for United States and Puerto Rico & Population for Puerto Rico, 2004-2023

        (Indexed to 2004)

        1. Pilar

          Yeah, no one is happy with PR politics and the island has been in a downward trajectory just like the US but no one appreciates their country (or US territory) characterized as garbage. Puerto Ricans in Miami I know are rethinking their votes.

          1. CA

            “Yeah, no one is happy with PR politics and the island has been in a downward trajectory just like the US but no one appreciates their country (or US territory) characterized as…”

            Thank you for the response. The “comic” characterization was awful, simply awful.

            However, there is a need to point to severe economic problems in Puerto Rico. These problems are not like those of the rest of the US, but are particularly severe as reflected in the loss of young population over the last 20 years.

            We can look back to the 1990s:

            https://www.nytimes.com/1993/05/10/business/puerto-rico-fighting-to-keep-its-tax-breaks-for-businesses.html

            May 10, 1993

            Puerto Rico Fighting to Keep Its Tax Breaks for Businesses
            By Larry Rohter

            https://www.nytimes.com/1996/09/21/business/as-a-tax-break-closes-some-see-dire-consequences.html

            September 21, 1996

            As a Tax Break Closes, Some See Dire Consequences
            By Doreen A. Hemlock

            1. Pilar

              Appreciate the stats. I used to live there. No one is happy with the choice of local candidates currently there and everyone is hoping for an Independent. Pretty stupid of the Trump campaign to host that comic at his rally. Puerto Rican voters are actually pretty Republican curious. If you come from a small island, you are sensitive to how you are represented. People have to understand that.

              1. CA

                Pilar:

                “I used to live there…”

                Respect and empathy are essential. You are completely correct, and appreciated.

  8. Louis Fyne

    Trump”s interview w/Rogan had >34 million youtube hits ( not counting Spotify).

    obviously 1 hit is not 1 person. yet it is funny that MSM is ignoring Rogan and favoring the MSG kerfuffle.

    IMO, better to stare a flood in the face than be blindsided because no one bothered to inform one

    2. Bsn

      34 million. Wow, and that doesn’t include Odysee, Rumble and perhaps other “outlets”. I avoid Utoob when possible and it is possible via Rumble and Odysee. Are there any others that people use off and on?

      1. Acacia

        Not exactly another outlet, but I use the FreeTube app which makes YT ads magically vanish.

        Dunno if macOS can be coaxed to open it for any YT URLs but that would be nifty.

        Back to the point: we saw the attempt to vilify and dismiss Trump’s “Bro whispering” (kind of a “Bernie Bro” 2.0 phenom), but these numbers of listeners suggest it is something that merits attention.

  9. cfraenkel

    Grrrr….. I remember when Scientific American actually published, you know, science.

    Here is the key quote from the article:

    What Anderson said, however, is that there is actually no agreement on what generates the aerodynamic force known as lift. “There is no simple one-liner answer to this,” he told the Times.

    That’s not what he said!!! So, if we can’t boil down quantum mechanics, or biochemistry to a one-liner, then they can’t be right either? How about we determine which is dumber, SA’s imagined audience, or their editorial staff?

    1. Mo's Bike Shop

      Right out of The Principles of the American Cargo Cult:

      Complicated explanations are suspect

      The world is simple, and there must be a simple explanation for everything.

      All interconnection is apparent

      Otherwise, complicated explanations would be necessary.

  10. MRLost

    The stellar description part regarding the apparent temperature of stars as O, B, A, F, G, K, and M were originally assigned in German. I have no idea to what German words these initials correspond. But at University, I was taught to remember them via the mnemonic Oh Be A Fine Girl Kiss Me. That I can remember such after these many, many long, long years clearly suggests this was a superior memory aid. Our dear Sol is a G star. Astronomers searching for evidence of life tend to be particularly interested in M type stars because – since they are smaller and hence cooler – they are very, very stable and would therefore permit life to evolve over a very, very long time.

    1. GC54

      The sequence is the depth/width of hydrogen absorption spectral lines alphabetically from A (strongest absorber) to about K, with numeric subdivisions from 0 to 9. The lines result from light photons in the lower/hotter stellar layers being absorbed by hydrogen gas (by far most common chemical species in star) whose atoms have their electron initially in its first excited state. The absorbed photon kicks the electron into its next higher energy state. The original sequence A->K was eventually scrambled to sequence from hottest (O0) to coldest (T8 so far), with those in the coolest classes really brown dwarfs. More info here.

  11. bobert

    A request: my partner has a sore throat and a bad cough. Is swabbing the throat and then the nose the best way to test still? Thanks in advance.

    2. Bsn

      I sure hope they get better soon. A few people I know have had “colds” for weeks. Here’s some basics from the FLCCC.
      A short list:
      Ivermectin: 0.4 to 0.6 mg/kg – one dose daily for at least 5 days or until symptoms resolve.
      Mouthwash: 3 times a day. Containing chlorhexidine, cetylpyridinium chloride (e.g., ScopeTM, ActTM, CrestTM) or 1% povidone-iodine.
      Nasal spray with 1% povidone-iodine: 2-3 times a day. Or, use a neti pot (that’s what we do). Snort it deep then blow it out – don’t drink it (a drop or two won’t kill ya) As a child, my mom would have us “snort” salt water via a straw – it helped. We do the Iodine first, then gargle mouthwash and the spitting cleans out any iodine.
      Quercetin (or a mixed flavonoid supplement): 250-500 mg twice a day. Due to a possible interaction between quercetin and ivermectin, these drugs should be staggered at different times of day.
      Honey: 1 g/kg one to two times a day.
      Curcumin (turmeric): 500 mg twice a day. Take with full fat milk and black pepper to enhance absorption.
      Zinc: 75-100 mg daily.
      Vitamin C: 500-1000 mg twice a day. Personally, I double that.
      Lastly, it’s slow to take effect, but 30,000 units of Vit D, every day.

      Good luck and take it easy.

    3. Jason Boxman

      Molecular tests were in a link here a few days ago. For a single use test, Walgreens has LUCIRA for example, although it is $40 a pop. With symptoms already presenting, a RAT might be effective enough. But getting a PCR is worthwhile, just in case at some future date you need to prove it was a SARS2 infection.

      Best wishes!

    4. ChrisRUEcon

      > Is swabbing the throat and then the nose the best way to test still?

      Yes. Even the RAT test’s accuracy improves when swabbing the throat in addition to the nose.

  12. Samuel Conner

    Re: the oddities of nomenclature re: stellar astronomy, IIRC (it is 4 decades ago that I leared this stuff), there are rational reasons for things that appear crazy when presented without historical context, as they are in that thread.

    It’s a teeny bit like how atomic orbitals (labelled, ever since, “s”, “p”, “d”, “f”) were classified by spectroscopic properties of elements that were measured before there was a quantum theory of the electronic structure of atoms. The letters stand for features in the spectra that are the consequence of the physics, but the letters don’t have a simple relationship to differing orbital angular momentum that was found (once there was a quantum theory of orbitals) to correlate with the labels.

    The issue is more convoluted in stellar astronomy nomenclature because the objects are more complicated. The story I recall about the magnitude system is that it was devised (thousands of years ago) to classify brightness as assessed by visual observation with unaided eye. This leads to the logarithmic scale. The range of numeric values assigned to brightest and faintest stars (1 to 6) seems to have been arbitrary, but one can imagine that there is a physiological account of that, too, in terms of the sensitivity of the eye to differences in brightness. The range of brightnesses of stars in the night sky visible to the unaided eye is several hundred; when stellar photometry became quantitative in the 1800s, this was regularized to “5 magnitudes is a factor of 100 in brightness”. I think the OBAFGKM classification is based on features in the spectra of stars; the letters stand for something. If there had been a way to accurately measure stellar mass, surface temperature, atmosphere composition, etc, back when the names were being assigned, it would have been possible to devise a classification scheme that looks more rationally connected to the physics of stars.

    It says something about the inertia of classification systems. In the early stages of any science, when the task is “description”, names are assigned to things before there is understanding of the physics that causes the phenomena that are named. Thereafter, the names tend to stick.

  13. Lambert Strether Post author

    I added orts and scraps, including much more on Kamala (because I got wrapped around the axle on Paxton, I had to skip her temporarily. I also added more material on Paxton, and on Clinton and Paxton, for those who read at 2:00PM on the dot).

  14. Acacia

    Re: a Trump dollar goes twice as far as a Kamala dollar

    Interesting that the Harris campaign appears to now have so much more money than Trump, as the Harris/Walz campaign spam polluting my inbox earlier this month (before I pulled the email plug on them) was bleating about how, ohmahgerd, Harris was being “outspent” by Trump.

    So they are “having trouble finding good help”? Or no matter how much ad money they blow, shaming and shrieking “fascist!!” is simply a non-starter?

    I wonder how many people are now paying attention to this, just to watch heads explode.

    1. Pat

      Not for nothing but last weekend there was a ten hour period where I had almost thirty emails from Harris/Walz and the DNC. I found out later while checking the spam filter for something else that there were almost a dozen more which ended up there.
      As I have never sent them a dime it was annoying overkill. There is a level of desperation there I have never seen before. I’m not sure if it is because it is the last gasp of the campaign OR if it is the last effort to milk as much money out of a failing campaign that may be the consultants last for a long time. (Because let’s face it, not even the PMC stalwarts and certainly not the big donors will forgive them if Harris loses with every advantage they gave her.)

      1. Big River Bandido

        I get emails, too, although I get more text messages. Lambert gets emails. Imagine how many people are just like us. Receiving tons of Democrat spam. Multiply that by millions of people. Are you convinced by these emails? Me neither.

        But the consultants just look at the numbers and they see success. We knocked on 3 million doors! Well, of COURSE they see success — they get the commi$$ion$.

        I think you and I would see eye-to-eye — and disagree with the consultants — on the actual value of what those billion ad dollars are “buying”.

        2. hk

          Someone noted (I can’t remember where I read it) that, because of the moronic incentives for the door knockers, they actually wound up annoying more people (and got them to vote for Trump) than they got people interested in voting for Clinton back in 2016. Somehow, I don’t think they are doing any better now.

  15. DJG, Reality Czar

    Will Kinney’s highly amusing list of how to talk astronomy.

    As someone who served as editor of four or so astronomy textbooks, I recall how much nomenclature and classification there was. There are just all kinds of things in the universe to describe. Also, as Samuel Conner mentions above, there are many classification systems that accumulated over time. Some go all the way back to the Greeks (who may have picked up some ideas from the Babylonians). We are still talking about how naked-eye astronomers catalogued what they saw…

    For a while, astronomy and chemistry were specialties of mine: The naming of things, often with double names, goes on forever…

    Lately, I have veered toward astrology, which has a simpler system of ordering and classifying the many things in the cosmos. Also, too, I have a groovy natal chart.

    1. Joe Well

      Lol that is very optimistic. We could always have an Avignon papal schism-style scenario, or a Year of the Four Emperors.

    2. Art Vandalay

      But the only guaranteed thing is that We the People will lose, no matter which of the sides does.

    3. Screwball

      I disagree. Both sides should lose.

      We can’t vote our way out of this. The creeping crud of pain and suffering by the masses will continue.

  17. Joe Well

    Burning ballots?

    This is the fundamental problem with paper ballots. Which is why we as a society need to step into the 21st century and adopt the Joewellco fully automated gamified paperless cloud voting app. So reliable that there have been 0% recounts after serving over 1 billion American voters just this year. I say this as an American, not as the founder and largest shareholder of Joewellco.

  18. ChrisRUEcon

    #AllThingsTrump #MSGMorass

    > Maybe having the Don Rickles of identity politics on the stage wasn’t the smartest decision, tactically…

    Concur. I said on Friday’s #2PMWaterCooler that Trump needs to not do anything that plays into what the Democrats are selling, which is fear and sanctimony. In the age of social media, that not-so-smart NY decision goes national, and straight into the homes of late-breaker Latino families in battleground states and beyond.

    1. ChrisRUEcon

      #PollWatching

      Wow. RCP Poll Average just broke back to Trump for the 1st time since August 4th (via realclearpolling.com). Ninety days is indeed a long time in electoral politics.

        2. chris

          This particular week is going to feel like a year. I’m so glad I voted early and the only thing I need to do next week is hide in bed.

          1. polar donkey

            If you look at the poly market chart of the campaign, Harris’ campaign started crashing in early October. I think people were shocked at the Biden/Harris response to hurricane Helene while money flowed to Ukraine. Americans had seen this happen before with East Palestine and Hawaii. I think the electorate decided then, it was done with anything Biden/Harris related.

  19. XXYY

    the invasion of the Capitol ‘removes my objection to the fascist label.’

    I have not made a special study of the capital riot, but I did watch the live streams inside and out while it was happening. By no means did it seem like an invasion, any more then a black lives matter riot looting a Target store was an invasion.

    An actual invasion force would have had a chain of command, an organized plan of attack, have brought in water and food, supplies and weaponry, set up a defensive perimeter, and issued some kind of communique to the outside world to get the population on their side. It would also have been a lot more violent and a lot of defenders would probably have been wounded or killed. Armed outside forces would have been needed to dislodge them, probably over a long period.

    What I saw during the capitol riot was a bunch of random unarmed people strolling around taking videos of themselves and each other, collecting souvenirs, and generally yucking it up. They then left non-violently after an hour or two. No one was hurt by the rioters (the only deaths were caused by the guards/cops). It’s pretty clear that none of the people involved thought they were committing some heinous crime, or I assume they would have covered their faces and not posted pictures of themselves on their own Facebook page and so on.

    I can understand why some people might have been upset seeing the nation’s capital in the momentary grip of rule breakers, but we have seen a lot of rule breakers over the last few years, and are still seeing them. I assume the reason the capital riot got blown up into this huge thing was that it was functional to do so for both sides: the Dems could portray the rioters as treasonous and a threat to the country, and the GOP could claim them as martyrs acting in the same heroic spirit as the founding fathers.

    1. Lambert Strether Post author

      > the invasion of the Capitol ‘removes my objection to the fascist label.’

      Yes, what Paxton means to say is that “the televised version, the spectacle of the “invasion” of the Capitol ‘removes my objection to the fascist label.’ (I also note that it did so because of the “open encouragement of civic violence.” That’s not the same as the original criteria, although of course he can change his mind.)

      I’m a little jaded about “violence” because many of the million+ Covid deaths fall under the heading of “social determinants of health,” and are we not allowed to label violence as violence if includes a layer of indirection?

      1. The Rev Kev

        Was thinking about this the other day. We have the word ‘massacre’ but by definition occurs in a very short time span of hours or days. I am not sure that there is a word like massacre which can describe a million+ Covid deaths over a four year time span. And it was not so much Covid doing the killing as purposeful societal neglect.

        2. Cassandra

          Rev Kev, I’ve been leaning towards “slaughter” with its connotations of impersonal mass killing for profit, with bonus points for implied thinning the herd.

    2. Anthony Noel

      Well the main reason I believe it was allowed to happen is never mentioned, and that was it was the “rationale” for massively increasing the budget and powers of the Capitol Police, in effect giving congress and the speaker direct control over a new police force that conveniently lies outside many of the constitutional restraints placed on other police forces and at least on paper (since they’re rarely enforced) the alphabet agencies.

      1. Lambert Strether Post author

        > conveniently lies outside many of the constitutional restraints placed on other police forces and at least on paper (since they’re rarely enforced) the alphabet agencies.

        I wonder if they do national intelligence (the DC Fusion Center certainly does). I wonder if any of ’em have trained in Israel, like the NYPD.

  20. sardonia

    Quite the irony that after being barely missed by a bullet, the fatal shot was delivered by a comedian that Trump invited onstage.

    1. IM Doc

      Interesting –

      At our location, my wife has been taking people back and forth to the polls all last week and now today. She has repeatedly commented to me about how many Latinos are in the very long lines – many of them decked out in MAGA type hats, etc.

      Today there were apparently even more.

      I guess they did not get the message that they should be so offended as to vote for the candidate who keeps reassuring us all that she will do nothing different.

      I asked our kid’s teacher today – as I dropped them off at school – a native Puerto Rican – about the joke. She just smiled – and said “Oh well, the island has been neglected for so long – and that goes way before Trump – at least he is talking about important stuff.” This is from the teacher who last year had to ask my wife and other parents in the classes to help with school lunches because the Biden Administration had seen fit to cut them off.

      Yes – it is bad – etc. But not being able to afford groceries is even worse. And unlike the bad joke that is going to get played for the next day or so, these people have been struggling to pay bills for years – and see another several years coming up unless big changes are made.

      1. sardonia

        Good anecdote. I’m hearing others that are not so kind – seems mostly like it’s the (what’s Lambert’s term?) “infrequent” voters – lo-info, but catch the gossip and pass it along, and when the videotaped lines in the gossip seem to hit the “narrative” pushed by the Dems (straight-up racist), they tend to land harder.

        If the margins really are razor-thin, I can see this turning off Latinos who kinda lean Trump, enough to get them to skip it or to switch their vote. Not just the “garbage” line, but the “they love babies, they don’t pull out, they come inside, just like they did to our country”. (um, Puerto Rico kinda IS part of our country, lame-ass).

        Depends on how the Harris campaign plays it up. Lotsa ad spends running the tape itself over and over on Univision, etc. could have quite the impact.

      2. CA

        Long the world’s largest radio telescope, in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, was literally allowed to collapse by the Department of Defense. Collapse came on December 1, 2020.

        1. Lambert Strether Post author

          > Long the world’s largest radio telescope, in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, was literally allowed to collapse

          I hated that they allowed that to happen. Ridiculous!

      3. Lambert Strether Post author

        The Democrats seem to get triggered by keywords — “Puerto Rico” + “garbage” — and not by complete sentences or paragraphs, let alone documents.

        Or maybe they assume everybody else does, so that’s what they do. Either way.

  22. Big River Bandido

    AZ: “Why Latino Men in Arizona Are Holding Out on Harris” [Politico].

    At least this article didn’t say “Latinx”. Unfortunately, there was no insight behind it, leading me to believe it was only written as a piece of “advocacy journalism” [an oxymoron if there ever was one]. I lost count of the times it used terms like “Latino”, “Latina”, and “Hispanic”, without ever a single mention of national origin. All Latinos are alike, to these people. This is just more of the junk “data science” and “algo-driven campaigning” that I and others railed at here a few days ago. It gets to the heart of why a Harris dollar amounts to so little.

    I could easily envision a situation where the Harris campaign imports paid canvassers from New York or Florida, to canvas their “fellow Hispanics” in the Midwest or West. What could possibly go wrong?

  23. Rolf

    Paxton’s view is interesting, in what he says about Trumpism not being Trump’s doing, but something separate, larger? Trump is a large enough vessel to accommodate the deepest disgust with standard political choices. This in turn makes me think how monumentally stupid the Democrats are not to have recognized how desperate people are for a real alternative. Instead they obtain the most lackluster candidate I can imagine. And that ad, apparently targeting young men. I mean, I can’t even.

    Lambert’s points, “somebody should go back and ask Paxton if the entire political system — not just one party — is sliding toward fascism”, are key observations IMO. And the Democrats are much farther along that trajectory than anyone, feeling as they do so utterly justified in employing any measure no matter how extreme.

    1. steppenwolf fetchit

      The New Forcey-FreeTrade Democrats are into CorpoFash/ BizFash.

      The Trump-Republicans are into CultureFash.

      If some carefully engineered ” Third Way Forward” movement arises to unite the ” Two Fashes”, then we will have the worst of everything.

    2. Lambert Strether Post author

      > Paxton’s view is interesting, in what he says about Trumpism not being Trump’s doing, but something separate, larger?

      Exactly. Please see the adjacent post on social capital.

    3. Of two hands and no minds

      Instead they obtain the most lackluster candidate I can imagine.

      If you are talking about Biden, I can see how you think that.

      If you are talking about Harris, I honestly don’t think that Biden gave the Democrats enough time to come up with another candidate. If I understood correctly, one of the benefits that Harris provided was that the campaign funds raised for Biden could be immediately transferred to Harris, whereas it wasn’t clear that this would be the case for other candidates. Of course, maybe that was just a BS argument.

      Either way, as much as I hate to defend either party over anything, in this case I think it’s one of those “You campaign with the candidate you’ve got, not the one you want” type of scenarios.

      I’m willing to be persuaded otherwise, though

  24. XXYY

    Studebaker: “These [poor M4A supporters] are the people whose votes you must not seek to win, lest you secure the kind of legislative majority that might create an expectation that you follow through on M4A.”

    This is a this is a novel and fascinating idea to me, that you might pick your voters in such a way that you can easily give your rich financial backers the policies they want, and not be forced into making a choice between your voters and your rich backers. So the goal is to win with the smallest possible number of voters, and then make sure those are the voters that want what you want politically.

    This does a lot to explain why a third of the people in the US are non voters, and why that situation is allowed to persist. Sanders was dangerous, by this line of reasoning, because he was activating people who don’t normally vote which is a big No-No. It would also explain why so many election races in the US are remarkably close to 50/50 outcomes, which you would think would be rare, but would happen if both candidates were following the above rule.

    1. Lambert Strether Post author

      > Sanders was dangerous, by this line of reasoning, because he was activating people who don’t normally vote

      At least in 2016. And now Trump is trying to do the same thing with irregular voters.

  25. The Rev Kev

    ‘Manufacturing: “At the heart of the Boeing strike, an emotional fight over a lost pension plan” [NPR]. • So, to NPR, a decent wage when you work, and not dying in a ditch when you can’t, is “emotional.” Oh-k-a-a-a-y’

    Maybe NPR would be happy if they brought back the Workhouses again. Basically punishment (by design) barracks for the unemployed, aged and infirm-

    https://www.workhouses.org.uk/

    But this time they could be corporatized for profit. What’s not to love?

    1. ChrisFromGA

      It’s funny how time changes things. Back in the 90’s, when I was more conservative, I often listened to Rush Limbaugh. He used to make fun of NPR for their “sob stories” usually involving a down-on-their-luck single mother, or maybe a middle-aged man who got laid off from some big corporation. NPR was back then always seeming to blame the eeeeevil Republicans for trickle-down economics, or things like nixing pension funds.

      Now NPR makes Rush Limbaugh sound like a bleeding-heart liberal.

  26. ChrisFromGA

    Netanyahu administers the “coup de grace” against Harris/Biden:

    TEL AVIV, Israel — Israel is awaiting the results of the U.S. presidential election next week before moving forward on a new Egyptian cease-fire proposal for Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza, according to an official briefed on the talks.

    https://www.npr.org/2024/10/28/nx-s1-5168008/israel-hamas-war-gaza-ceasefire-us-election

    We know who wears the pants in this relationship!

    (And Blinken can now stay home and watch NFL football games this weekend. Gazans can continue to die, die, die. )

  27. Stephanie

    Having been exposed to a number of How-to-Girl guides as a tween, I checked out “You! A Christian Girl’s Guide to Growing Up” on Kindle to compare and can confirm it contains chapters on both body odor and at-home manis & pedis, which is where the all the discussions of feet seem to be.

    What really hit me though, maybe because whoever tweeted the book cover seems to be leaning into how Christians/probable Trump voters are weird/probable pedos, was how much these little manuals for Christian girls were and are preaching not how to godly but to be, or at least present as, middle-class: Christian middle school girls are polite (if they are fortunate enough to have small feet they are nice to girls who have bigger feet); they are appropriate (they don’t wear 3” heels to to school); and above all they are clean: they brush their teeth and wash their hands and clean their fingernails and change their socks everyday.

    Reading about the socks reminded me of a discussion I once had with a woman at my parents’ church who described to me a “tough time” she had had growing up by saying: “We weren’t poor, we could afford underwear and things like that, but it was tough.” It also reminded me of a girl I knew at college who arrived freshman year with 100 pairs of underwear, her plan being to throw them away once she’d worn them and re-stock at Christmas. Which of them is weird, and which of them is middle-class?

    1. Lambert Strether Post author

      > chapters on both body odor and at-home manis & pedis, which is where the all the discussions of feet seem to be.

      It was the “Can you give toes names?” exercise that made me think “Wait a minute….”

  28. Ben Panga

    From TDS central, but intriguing nonetheless.

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/28/trump-mike-johnson-little-secret-election

    The Trump quote in question

    “You know, with me, we’ve got to get the congressmen elected. And we’ve got to get the senators elected. Because we can take the Senate pretty easily. And I think with our little secret, we’re going to do really well with the House, right? Our little secret is having a big impact. He and I have a secret. We’ll tell you what it is when the race is over.”

    Original video of speech here, quote above is at 53:08.

    It’s not clear from the video that it’s Mike Johnson he’s referring to. The previous person he’d gestured to was Matt Gaetz I believe.

    I can’t see justification for the Guardian article’s suggestion, but I still wonder what the ‘secret’ is.

    1. MaryLand

      Maybe Trump will resign shortly after being sworn in. He has cancelled some public appearances lately. Could be he is losing interest. That’s a pretty big secret between “He and I.”

      1. Lambert Strether Post author

        > Maybe Trump will resign shortly after being sworn in. He has cancelled some public appearances lately. Could be he is losing interest.

        If he didn’t lose interest after two assassination attempts, he’s certainly not going to lose interest now.

  29. MicaT

    Flying.
    Barn doors can fly with enough force.

    The major aircraft OEMS spend billions of dollars to improve the efficiency of wings by small % points.
    The issue isn’t does Bernoulli’s formula work, yes it does. If they dont understand exactly how that’s a different thing and they can work on that.

    The reason airfoils are how they are is efficiency. It’s the most efficient ( energy vs lift) and that’s the name of the game with planes.

  30. Jason Boxman

    Ugh. My Twitter is just all Musk all the time now. And this guy is a real whack job. Wow. At least the daily Amazon isn’t just Bezos writing random stuff all day long, however odious.

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