By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
Bird Song of the Day
Northern Mockingbird, 350 South Madison Avenue, Pasadena, Los Angeles, California, United States.
In Case You Might Miss…
- Trump vs. “the Deep State.”
- Boeing, post-strike.
- Mushroom farms and ventilation.
- Weeds becoming resistant to herbicides.
Politics
“So many of the social reactions that strike us as psychological are in fact a rational management of symbolic capital.” –Pierre Bourdieu, Classification Struggles
Biden Administration
“We did it, Joe”:
Biden oversaw the single biggest removal of social benefits in American history, which resulted in the single biggest increase in poverty in American history. He called this "Bidenomics."
Then Kamala said she'd do nothing differently while campaigning in a $62,000 gold necklace. pic.twitter.com/uhEzzH5SGG
— Holding Dems Accountable (From the Left!) (@PushBidenLeft) November 8, 2024
Trump Transition:
“Energy in the executive:”
Donald Trump’s plan to dismantle the Deep State.
1. “Immediately reissue my 2020 executive order, restoring the President's authority to remove rogue bureaucrats.”
2. “Clean out all of the corrupt actors in our national security and intelligence apparatus.”
3. “Totally reform… pic.twitter.com/Xhg297uWCe
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) November 8, 2024
I ran this in Links this morning, but want to make a few additional comments:
#10 “Push a constitutional amendment to oppose term limits on members of Congress.” I think “oppose” is a typo for “proimpose.” In any case, term limits are a terrible idea, because they mean that the Legislative Branch can end up with no institutional memory. When we were fighting the landfill in Maine, we discovered that the only people who could interpret the relevant legislation were the bent lawyers from Portland who wrote it, at the behest of the landfill operator.
#5 “Launch a major crackdown on government leakers who collude with the fake news to deliberately we false narratives and to subvert our government and our democracy.” I wonder what Snowden or Assange would think about that. Or Ellsberg. I see the qualifiers “deliberately” and “false” but they don’t give me confidence. (In fact, if Trump supported whistleblowers, in general, whether for government or industry, he would be giving RFK a lot of help in his dealings with Big Pharma and Big Ag,
#6 – #9… Might as well give it a shot (though CDC seems to have made its very own cesspit in Atlanta, so I’m not sure how much good #8 would do.
#2 “Clean out all of the corrupt actors in our national security and intelligence apparatus.” This would be wonderful to see (though does it applly to torturers?). When I wrote “Project 2025: 920 Pages of Irritable Mental Gestures, or a Blueprint for Fascism?“, I had a litmus test to see if Project 2025 recommendations for CIA, ODNI, and CISA would be taken seriously: Firings. Perhaps they will.
Amazing, in a good way, to see an elected (albeit not inaugurated) President propose such things. I wonder who put it together? (I really, really don’t like the doomy soundtrack to the video, though.)
2024 Post Mortem
“A Red-District Conqueror Wants Fellow Democrats to Look in the Mirror” [New York Times]. “I’ve had one interaction with Harris, at her Naval Observatory Christmas party.
I’m not super comfortable at that kind of thing. I’d had a couple of beers, and I noticed that almost all of the garlands were plastic. My district grows a hell of a lot of Christmas trees. I was strong-armed into taking a picture. I said, “Madam Vice President, we grow those where I live.” She just walked away from me. There was kind of an eye roll, maybe. My thinking was, it does matter to people where I live. It’s the respect, the cultural regard for farmers. I didn’t feel like she understood what I was trying to say.” • Harris was an objectively terrible candidate.
“‘They don’t understand my life’: what the Democrats misread about America” [Financial Times]. “‘The Democratic brand is pretty bad,’ said Matt Bennett, co-founder of Third Way, a centrist Democratic think-tank. ‘The country has shifted pretty far to the right, and we were not aware of how deep the problem ran. The voters that we lost . . . looked at Democrats and said: ‘They don’t understand my life. I don’t want them representing me.'” Centrist dipshits like Third Way built the Democrat brand ffs. Stop with the “Who me?” already. But they’re still at it: “‘The only way to defeat rightwing populism is through the centre,’ Bennett said. Shrum agreed that having ‘a moderately liberal, centre-left Democratic party is the only way forward if progressives actually want to win.'” • [bangs head on desk].
“The Shattering of the Democratic Coalition” [Ruy Teixeira, The Liberal Patriot]. “Yet Democrats cannot decisively beat their opponents as this election has shown once again. The party is uncompetitive among white working-class voters and among voters in exurban, small town, and rural America. This puts them at a massive structural disadvantage given an American electoral system that gives disproportionate weight to these voters, especially in Senate and presidential elections. To add to the problem, Democrats are now hemorrhaging nonwhite working-class voters across the country. The facts must be faced. The Democratic coalition today is not fit for purpose.” Meme: Never was (though to be fair, if the purpose was gutting the genuine left, they did great). More: “Among all working-class voters, Trump dramatically widened his advantage, tripling his margin from 4 points in 2020 to 12 points in this election. That included moving from 25 to 29 points among white working-class voters and radically compressing his deficit among nonwhite working-class voters from 48 points in 2020 to 33 points this election. Compare that margin to what Obama had in 2012: according to Catalist, he carried the nonwhite working class by 67 points in that election. That indicates that Democrats have had their margin among this core constituency more than cut in half over the last 12 years. Ouch. So much for the ‘rising American electorate.’ And it’s time to face the fact that the GOP has become the party of America’s working class. Democrats hate to admit that and mutter that they represent the “interests” of the working class. But the numerical pattern is now too powerful to be denied. Instead of denying the obvious—or, worse, blaming the dumb workers for not knowing their own interests—Democrats would be well-advised to accept this new reality and seek to change it. Unless they’re content to be primarily the party of America’s well-off. Harris lost voters under $50,000 in household income as well as voters from $50,000 to $100,000 in income. But she did carry voters with over $100,000 in household by 8 points, one place where Harris did improve over Biden in 2020. This is not, as they say, your father’s Democratic Party. Not even close.”
* * * “If only we had our own Joe Rogan!”
Undersold part of the bro exit from the Dem party is the way that his male supporters were aggressively smeared as toxic sexist Bernie bros. https://t.co/mQb5ZDP1Sq
— Krystal Ball (@krystalball) November 7, 2024
“Why Democrats won’t build their own Joe Rogan” [Taylor Lorenz, User Mag]. “While the right has spent years fostering a symbiotic relationship with alternative media, the left has failed replicate anything like it. There are simply no progressive content creators with Rogan’s cultural impact and online following, and a quick look at the podcast charts or trending channels on YouTube shows the disparity between conservative vs progressive creators’ reach online. Without a network of culturally relevant influential content creators boosting and translating their messaging, the Democratic Party is rapidly losing credibility among younger, predominantly male audiences who have become ardent supporters of influencers that promote a distinctly conservative worldview.” They used to have one, back in the day: It was called the blogosphere. More: “Leftist channels do not receive widespread financial backing from billionaires or large institutional donors, primarily because leftist content creators support policies that are completely at odds with what billionaires want. Left leaning influencers argue for things like higher taxes on the rich, regulations on corporations, and policies that curb the power of elites. Wealthy mega donors aren’t going to start pouring money into a media ecosystem that directly contradicts their own financial interests. And so, progressive creators are left to rely on meager crowdfunding efforts to make a living. ”
“How Trump Won the First “Influencer Election”” [Taylor Lorenz, Hollywood Reporter]. “For the past two decades, the media landscape has been transforming. By nearly every metric, legacy media is in decline: average monthly unique visitors to websites for the country’s top 50 newspapers declined 20 percent to under 9 million in the fourth quarter of 2022, according to Comscore data, and the amount of time people are spending consuming legacy media content is getting shorter. The content creator industry, meanwhile, is ascendent. The influencer economy is set to surpass half a trillion dollars by 2027, according to a recent Goldman Sachs report, and 30 percent of consumers trust content creators more than they did six months ago, according to a 2023 report by Sprout Social, an analytics firm.” And: “But while both campaigns worked overtime to court influencers, their strategies were divergent. The Harris campaign prioritized shortform clips, investing in quick videos and viral remixes on TikTok and Instagram. The Trump campaign went deep and long, investing heavily in longform YouTube podcasts and building partnerships with livestreamers. Ultimately, the latter proved wildly more successful. ” • Long form videos. Now that’s interesting.
* * * “Iowa pollster makes bombshell claim about controversial poll that showed Kamala winning deep red state after Trump’s triumphant victory” [Daily Mail]. “‘Without fear or favor, we used the same method as the final poll this year to show a healthy Trump lead in both 2020 and 2016. Those turned out to capture the mood of the electorate reasonably well, though both took fire from Iowans who doubted the findings could be true.’ She continued an attempt to defend her methodology, which came as a complete shock to voters the weekend prior to the election. ‘The poll findings we produced for The Des Moines Register and Mediacom did not match what the Iowa electorate ultimately decided in the voting booth today,’ she said. ‘I’ll be reviewing data from multiple sources with hopes of learning why that happened, and I welcome what that process might teach me.’ Selzer’s poll for the Register and Mediacom days before the election predicted Harris would win by +3 percentage points. But Donald Trump went on to trounce the vice president by over +13 points in the Hawkeye State….. However, the state has not always been reliably red, and swung for Barack Obama in both the 2008 and 2012 elections by +9 percent and +6 percent, respectively. Selzer – who was mercilessly mocked after Iowa went to Trump – had accurately predicted each of these outcomes going back to 2008, giving her a Nostradamus-like reputation that drew eyeballs to her incorrect Harris poll last week.”
* * * “Trump and Harris Make Nice After Brutal Campaign Battle” [RealClearPolitics]. • So was all that “Fascist!” and “Hitler!” stuff complete bullshit?
* * *
Campaign Finance
“How Elon Musk helped will Trump back to the White House” [Washington Examiner]. “Musk’s influence in 2024 shows two things, Ludwig said. One, money is not everything, considering Harris enjoyed far more of it this cycle thanks to ultra-wealthy backers on the Left. But two, wealthy Republicans such as Musk are in a position not only to support candidates financially, but also work in strategic and creative ways to motivate voters.” Hmm. More: “For now, Musk has landed a valuable spot in Trump’s inner circle. The two have discussed creating a government efficiency board that seeks to reduce federal spending with Musk at the helm. It’s a prospect that, according to some left-leaning watchdogs, could lead to conflicts of interest since Musk’s companies also receive large federal contracts.” • I’m gonna have to invent a new word for “left”; it’s irretrievably polluted, since everybody thinks it means liberal, which it doesn’t.
Republican Funhouse
“The Most Feared and Least Known Political Operative in America” [Politico]. From April. “[Susie] Wiles is not just one of Trump’s senior advisers. She’s his most important adviser. She’s his de facto campaign manager. She has been in essence his chief of staff for the last more than three years. She’s one of the reasons Trump is the GOP’s presumptive nominee and Ron DeSantis is not. She’s one of the reasons Trump’s current operation has been getting credit for being more professional than its fractious, seat-of-the-pants antecedents. And she’s a leading reason Trump has every chance to get elected again — even after his loss of 2020, the insurrection of 2021, his party’s defeats in the midterms of 2022, the criminal indictments of 2023 and the trial (or trials) of 2024. The former president is potentially a future president. And that’s because of him. But it’s also because of her. Trump, of course, is Trump — he can be irritable, he can be impulsive — and this campaign is facing unprecedented stressors and snags. It’s a long six-plus months till Election Day. For now, though, nobody around him is so influential, and nobody around him has been so influential for so long. ‘There is nobody, I think, that has the wealth of information that she does. Nobody in our orbit. Nobody,’ top Trump pollster Tony Fabrizio told me. ‘She touches everything.’ ‘Certainly,’ said former Florida Republican Rep. Carlos Curbelo, ‘she’s one of the most consequential people in American politics right now.’ ‘And nobody,’ said veteran Florida lobbyist Ronnie Book, ‘even knows who she is.'” • I had thought Republicans hate women….
* * * “I Study Guys Like Trump. There’s a Reason They Keep Winning” [New York Times]. “Yet now Mr. Trump has decisively won back the presidency. I would never claim to have all the answers about what went wrong, but I do worry that Democrats walked into the trap of defending the very institutions — the “establishment” — that most Americans distrust. As a party interested in competent technocracy, we lost touch with the anger people feel at government. As a party that prizes data, we seized on indicators of growth and job creation as proof that the economy was booming, even though people felt crushed by rising costs. As a party motivated by social justice, we let revulsion at white Christian nationalism bait us into identity politics on their terms — whether it was debates about transgender athletes, the busing of migrants to cities, or shaming racist MAGA personalities who can’t be shamed. As a party committed to American leadership of a “rules-based international order,” we defended a national security enterprise that has failed repeatedly in the 21st century, and made ourselves hypocrites through unconditional military support for Israel’s bombardment of civilians in Gaza.” And: ” Many voters have come to associate democracy with globalization, corruption, financial capitalism, migration, forever wars and elites (like me) who talk about it as an end in itself rather than a means to redressing inequality, reining in capitalist systems that are rigged, responding to global conflict and fostering a sense of shared national identity.” • As I’ve been saying, Democrats say “our democracy” for a reason. And if you look at how candidates are chosen, the Republican Party is far more democratic and the Democrat Party.
Why can’t we have a Democrat candidate who can express these ideas so clearly:
A fundamental problem in the Democratic Party is that it now has vanishingly few politicians who can articulate this kind of point as cogently as the Republican VP candidate did here. pic.twitter.com/V0NBrW581Z
— David Sirota (@davidsirota) November 8, 2024
(Perhaps all those long-form YouTubes have prepared the conservative voter for a cogent and connected series of arguments, instead of “brat summer” or whatever.
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
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: Covid
Mushroom cultivation requires a lot of lab based work – you're working in (supposedly) sterile conditions, eg when doing agar work. Laminar flow hoods are required when doing this, otherwise contaminants will kill your efforts (mould will outcompete the mycelium, basically)…
— Matt Tutt (@MattTutt1) November 8, 2024
Michael Pollan, in The Botany of Desire, urges that plants adapt us to their requirements for seed spread and growth by evolving tastes, nutriition, scents, and bright colors. Here we have mushrooms inducing us to breathe clean air, much to our benefit!
Anecdotal but interesting:
A year ago we installed Far UVC in the dining area of a nursing home.
Since then outbreaks have decreased by 85% and overall resident and staff well being has increased.
This nursing home chose to use all possible tools to ensure their occupants stay safe from viruses.… pic.twitter.com/pn5ZsuK2cG
— BioAbundance (@BioAbundancellc) November 7, 2024
Of course, I mistrust any firm with the word “abundance” in its name, especially [checks profile] a Californian one….
Transmission: Covid
“A Flexible Framework for Local-Level Estimation of the Effective Reproductive Number in Geographic Regions with Sparse Data” (preprint) [medRxiv]. From the Abstract: “Our research focuses on local level estimation of the effective reproductive number, which describes the transmissibility of an infectious disease and represents the average number of individuals one infectious person infects at a given time. The ability to accurately estimate the infectious disease reproductive number in geographically granular regions is critical for disaster planning and resource allocation. However, not all regions have sufficient infectious disease outcome data for estimation.” • Can’t make head or tail of the rest, but it might be useful to any epidemiologists in the readership.
Transmission: H5N1
“Serologic Evidence of Recent Infection with Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza A(H5) Virus Among Dairy Workers — Michigan and Colorado, June–August 2024” [Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, CDC]. “Health officials conducted surveys and serologic testing to identify recent HPAI A(H5) infections among dairy workers in two states. Serologic testing indicated that 7% of participating dairy workers had evidence of recent infection with HPAI A(H5) virus.” • Do the math:
Lambert here: There are many starred items today, besides yesterday, because a lot of CDC data is released on Friday. Also, New York hospitalization started up again, which is nice.
| Wastewater | |
| This week[1]★ CDC October 28 | Last Week[2] CDC (until next week): |
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| Variants [3] CDC October 26 | ★ Emergency Room Visits[4] CDC November 2 |
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| Hospitalization | |
| ★ New York[5] New York State, data November 7: | ★ National [6] CDC November 6: |
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| Positivity | |
| National[7] Walgreens November 4: | Ohio[8] Cleveland Clinic November 2: |
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| Travelers Data | |
| ★ Positivity[9] CDC October 21: | ★ Variants[10] CDC October 21: |
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| Deaths | |
| ★ Weekly Deaths vs. % Positivity [11] CDC November 2: | ★ Weekly Deaths vs. ED Visits [12] CDC November 2: |
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LEGEND
1) ★ for charts new today; all others are not updated.
2) For a full-size/full-resolution image, Command-click (MacOS) or right-click (Windows) on the chart thumbnail and “open image in new tab.”
NOTES
[1] (CDC) Good news!
[2] (CDC) Last week’s wastewater map.
[3] (CDC Variants) KP.* still popular. XEC has entered the chat.
[4] (ED) Down.
[5] (Hospitalization: NY) Steadily down.
[6] (Hospitalization: CDC). Actually improved.
[7] (Walgreens) Down.
[8] (Cleveland) Down.
[9] (Travelers: Positivity) Down.
[10] (Travelers: Variants). Now XEC.
[11] Deaths low, positivity down.
[12] Deaths low, ED down.
Stats Watch
There are no official statistics of note today.
Manufacturing: “Quebec media outlet is reporting possible data falsification at plant where defective Vineyard Wind turbine blades were manufactured” [Bud’s Offshore Energy]. “See the translated excerpts below from a Radio Gaspesie report. This is a massive scandal if true. ‘Yesterday, the vice-president of global operations at GE Vernova reportedly addressed all employees at the Gaspé plant to provide an update on the situation. The investigation, led by GE Vernova’s lawyers, reportedly revealed that employees were asked by senior company executives to falsify quality control data. Data associated with a well-made blade was then associated with poorly made blades. Our sources indicate that this is a widespread practice in the industry. The senior management of the Gaspé plant also allegedly implemented a points system that encouraged employees to skip verification steps, thus prioritizing production quantity over quality. Our sources say the points system allegedly involved tight management oversight that bordered on intimidation of employees. The oversized 107m blades that were produced in Gaspé for the construction of marine parks are said to be affected. The integrity of the entire production of the longest blades in America is currently being called into question.” • Yikes!
Manufacturing: “Boeing to refund lost pay to employees furloughed during Machinists strike” [Seattle Times]. “In a goodwill gesture to Boeing employees who were furloughed during the Machinists’ strike, new CEO Kelly Ortberg on Thursday afternoon sent out a message saying the company will return the pay they lost… A longtime nonunion employee on the quality staff, who asked not to be named to protect his job, said the furloughs had seemed ‘an odd way of taking care of the people not on strike’ and that they destroyed productivity that month as affected employees like him scrambled to figure out the impact and what to do. ‘Obviously your time is not spent focusing on work, but on OK, how am I going to handle this? How do I pay my bills? How do I apply for unemployment?’ he said. The staffer said Thursday he’s ‘really happy’ at the course reversal. ‘There’s still a lot of mistrust,’ he said. ‘There’s still this sense of, ‘Wow, can I trust the company?” And yet, he continued, “this is a step in the right direction.'”
Manufacturing: “Boeing Is Exploring Possible $6 Billion Sale for Jeppesen Unit” [Bloomberg]. ” Boeing Co. is exploring a sale of its Jeppesen navigation unit as the planemaker draws up a list of assets it could shed to help lighten its $58 billion debt load, according to people familiar with the matter…. Suitors are already circling Jeppesen, which could attract sizable interest from private equity firms as well as other companies, said the people.”
Manufacturing: “Boeing 737 Production Grinds Forward” [Airline Geeks]. “With the approval of a new contract, Reuters reported that Boeing will now take weeks to continue producing 737s in the single digits per month range for some time, citing two unnamed sources briefed on the matter. The company was aiming to produce 38 of its best-selling jets per month prior to the strikes, down from 42 a month before January’s Alaska 1282 incident.”
Manufacturing: “United Boeing 777 APU Catches Fire at San Francisco Airport” [Aviation A2Z]. “According to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Aviation Safety Information Analysis and Sharing report, United aircraft during pushback from terminal 2, gate 6 experienced a fire in the APU. For those who are not aware of APU, it is actually a small jet engine located in the tail or empennage section of an aircraft. It is used to start main engines and also act as backup in case of engine failure.” • Oh dear. I have mentally classified the 777 as the last good Boeing airplane, and the only safe one.
Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 61 Greed (previous close: 59 Greed) [CNN]. One week ago: 44 (Neutral). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Nov 8 at 1:51:07 PM ET
Permaculture
“The Weeds Are Winning” [MIT Technology Review]. “According to Ian Heap, a weed scientist who runs the International Herbicide-Resistant Weed Database, there have been well over 500 unique cases of [herbicide-resistance] in 273 weed species and counting. Weeds have evolved resistance to 168 different herbicides and 21 of the 31 known “modes of action,” which means the specific biochemical target or pathway a chemical is designed to disrupt. Some modes of action are shared by many herbicides.” Darwin Awards for the industry! More: “Fundamentally, the solution is to ‘not focus solely on herbicides for weed management,’ says Micheal Owen, a weed scientist and emeritus professor at Iowa State University. And that presents a “major, major issue for the farmer” and the current state of American farms, he adds. Farms have ballooned in size over the last couple of decades, as a result of rural flight, labor costs, and the advent of chemicals and genetically modified crops that allowed farmers to quickly apply herbicides over massive areas to control weeds capitalism. This has led to a kind of sinister simplification in terms of crop diversity, weed control practices, and the like. And the weeds have adjusted.” • Edit mine.
Book Nook
“Neal Stephenson Jumps From Speculative Fancy to Strange History” [Literary Hub]. • Hmm. “Interwar leftism”? Another damn book to read.
“Mitochondria Are Alive” [Asimov Press]. “The cells within our body are the remnants of an ancient alliance…. Margulis argued that one-and-a-half billion years ago, a primitive eukaryotic cell engulfed an oxygen-utilizing bacterium. But rather than digesting this bacterium — or conversely, the bacterium destroying its newfound host — the two cells gradually entered into an endosymbiotic relationship; the host provided nutrients and protection to the bacterium, and the bacterium supplied energy to the host. Margulis argued that this endosymbiosis event was a seminal ‘innovation engine’ for biological systems, ultimately leading to the modern mitochondrion and chloroplast…. Most biologists today, however, also believe that mitochondria have ‘devolved’ into little more than membrane-bound organelles, similar to inanimate components like the endoplasmic reticulum or Golgi apparatus. But a swelling tide of scientific evidence about mitochondrial functions and dynamics suggests otherwise — mitochondria are not just organelles, but their own life forms…, Defining mitochondria as ‘nonliving’ isn’t just a classification mistake, nor a question of word choice. Rather, it is a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature and role of mitochondria. It inherently undermines our understanding of biological systems and deeply influences the tools we build to study them.”
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In other news…
Hallelujah. Got a pre-auth from the insurance company without any trouble and the insurance company paid $1100 for a procedure without an appeal.
(not for me–for a family member on Obamacare.)
I am so tired of fighting the insurance company and billing departments.
I had Obamacare for many years–it was high deductible and not too bad in terms of expense (I was quite poor).
It was useful for preventative care, I’ll give it that. But otherwise the biggest bonus I got from it was getting the “negotiated rate” when I had to pay out of pocket, which was pretty much all the time since the deductible was so high.
The negotiated rate was eye-poppingly low compared to the non-negotiated. A true scandal! The system specifically punishes people without insurance with an ultra-high price, I’m talking a difference of many, many hundreds and even thousands of dollars. Demonic!
I had Obamacare for many years–it was high deductible and not too bad in terms of expense (I was quite poor).
It was useful for preventative care, I’ll give it that. But otherwise the biggest bonus I got from it was getting the “negotiated rate” when I had to pay out of pocket, which was pretty much all the time since the deductible was so high…
[ Important information for people to have: negotiate. ]
Always some good news. Usually on a Friday afternoon late, the news dump veers towards the bad instead. Btw, that little bit of “Hallelujah” did get me thinking for a hot minute…
I’d wonder just how frequently the original has been covered. The version from Jeff Buckley is pretty darn good, my humble thoughts…
https://youtu.be/MYrXK5ek_PQ?si=2RKxoAzFVvS9PEy4
Gavin Newsom is such a performative charlatan. Newsom’s pet decriminalization project was defeated in every single county by well over 2/3rds. He’s calling on lawmakers to provide additional money to California Attorney General Rob Bonta to sue the Trump administration before he’s even sworn in.
Bonta is also preparing, getting ready for D.O.J. indictments?
He and his wife are involved with the Oakland criminal gangs and the just recalled mayor of Oakland. Note also, the mayor of San Francisco has been booted.
https://thevoicesf.org/politicos-face-the-summer-heat/
Power shut has been shut off deliberately or accidentally for weeks at a time in California. Newsom’s demanding that gas powered cars be banned? This clown is the supposed face of “the resistance” to Trump and Preening to run in 2028?
If they had managed to dump Biden over a year ago, you may very well have had Newsom as the Democrat Presidential nominee. It could easily have happened. Of course then it would have been him doing debates with Trump. Something to think about.
Newsom is the one politician I can think of whose hair is even uglier than Trump’s. It’s bad enough to make me ignore any policy attractions he might have. Though he is mostly bad at policy, too.
I think “oppose” is a typo for “impose.”
“Push a constitutional amendment to oppose term limits on members of Congress.” I think “oppose” is a typo for “propose.”
> I think “oppose” is a typo for “impose.”
Yes, better.
Something that I saw this morning looks like a good response to the tweet about Trump going after the security state:
https://www.rawstory.com/iran-assassination-attempt-on-trump/?utm_source=Iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Nov.8.2024_5.25pm
The neocons don’t look like they are going gently into the night. Project Ukraine may have failed utterly, but there is still the chance that Project Iran may survive its’ infancy. Nothing like a good false flag to get the American people on board.
Or maybe my tinfoil hat is just on too tight.
> Or maybe my tinfoil hat is just on too tight.
Couldn’t be the FBI seeking to make itself indispensable, of course.
FBI-backed/Iranian-backed assassination plot? At what point does the FBI get labeled a terrorist organization?
Late and never old Halloween joke:
What’s white and doesn’t knock?
J. Edgar BOO!
Interestingly, the Trump tape with the 10 proposals is from 2023. I saw it then.
Some of the things mentioned really piqued the interest of this life long Dem. It is also when I knew that the Dems were probably going to throw everything at him but the kitchen sink – and they did not disappoint.
Now that we’ve arrived to this intersection, it’ll be somewhat curious if the fevered dreams by the collectively various authors of the fearsome Project 2025 will have their wishes met. In some ways that document reminded me of the anecdotally humorous scene with Mel Brooks in his portrayal of the Israelites leader, Moses. Pardon my simple brain, I seek humor instead of say, staring into the abyss of a looming, widespread darkness.
“Behold, the Lord God has spoken. I give you these 15 Command… oh wait! 10, 10 Commandments!..”
> Trump tape
Eesh, good catch; I do try to keep track of conservative aligned accounts, but I didn’t see it.
So now we have to find out if he still believes it!
Ugh. I dared to hope. Maybe indeed.
@Lambert — I am curious. Why would we ever think that Trump–or any other politician for that matter–believes anything they put forward?
Fear and Greed index…seems possibly low. The animal spirits are wrecking, er wreaking havoc as the broad S&P 500 hitting near to or at 6,000.
Jackpot in full swing, partake of the balloon, er bubble maybe rising to the upside. Those trees, do they really keep going higher and higher still…\sarc
The casino is open for business, and the drinks are free.
I’ve increasingly come to realize that the market moves off sentiment, period. Emotions, that raw stuff we want to deny is in there. Trump’s win probably is good for another round at the bar, but closing time approaches, I think. There I go with that stupid rationality.
All we need is a pin. What it might be is the gazillion dollar question.
There is this thing called reversion (regression if one prefers) to the mean…
Not for bond investors. So it must be a weighted average. :-)
Point well made. Well it’s a result of the outcome distribution of new ( but not totally new or even original ) plans and thoughts on managing from the incoming administration…
I mean the Federal Reserve can ease their targeted rate by 0.25%, but the 10 year UST yields seem fairly obstinate in the light of their easing…
https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/US10Y
Thanks for the link to the revoew of Stephenson’s new novel. I found a reference in it to a Jim Dodge book I hadn’t read called Stone Junction. I enjoyed Dodge’s first book greatly and am somewhat disappointed that this book is more expensive than his first book Fup. Off to the library I guess. Perhaps they will have both of them.
Fup is one of the funniest books ever written. And it can easily be read in a single sitting. Not Fade Away and Stone Junction are worth reading but they the don’t reach the sublimity of Fup.
Dodge taught creative writing at my alma mater; his readings were always a hoot, particularly his flash fiction which, as far as I know, has never been collected and published.
Thanks for the insight. Dodge’s books at my library are all electronic and I haven’t gone electric yet. My mother also enjoyed Fup tremendously.
Term limits for Representatives and Senators would restrict people running for House and Senate to either megamillionaires who can afford to run for such a seat as a plaything or fortune-seekers who will be supported by donor-investors to spend their limited terms strictly and only auditioning for after-office rewards and sinecures. Strictly and only.
I don’t know if this is factually true, but that seems to match the consequences I noticed after term limits were imposed in CA, with the addition of one trick ponies who are creatures of the party-affiliated ideological groups who sell only the party/ideology labels without knowing a thing about their supposed constituents.
I think there’s a “citizen legislator” concept running around. But as you point out, that can never happen unless all candidates are funded equally.
What was that method David Graeber propounded, random lottery of eligible members of the populace, called? I guess it does little to preserve organizational knowledge, but does eliminate the wealthy elite being the only people who could afford to take it on problem. Of course the selected victims must be compensated to eliminate financial penalties too.
Sortition.
Maybe this goes without saying bcz it is common practice already but Lambert mentions ” institutional memory.”
Without it, LOBBYISTS write the Bills!
I suspect the conceptual benefits of term limits might be substantially realized by reform of the rules by which the house & senate operate. As an obvious “for instance,” perhaps stints in “leadership” could be severely limited without precluding the basic election of a member over and over.
I added orts and scraps. The barrage of blame cannons is much to heavy for me to log it all, but I tried to pick some of the better ones.
But one more:
Karma.
>>>Biden oversaw the single biggest removal of social benefits in American history, which resulted in the single biggest increase in poverty in American history.
Corporate profits it a record high under Biden, both nominally and as a % of GDP. Went vertical after Covid. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CP
And this all while Biden was practicing defacto MMT —with FY2022 to 24 federal deficit >5% of GDP, an unheard number during relatively full employment and >2.5% GDP growth.
Biden oversaw one of the biggest wealth transfers in post-WW2 history—right behind the post-08 bailouts/zero interest rate policy. all in 3.5 years!
One of my favorite factoids about Democrat/#McResistance idiocy was fifteen million people losing Medicaid eligibility ine same the day the D’s led off their Lawfare campaign with Stormy Daniels (!).
It takes a lot of training to pull that off.
MMT is just how money works as a system.
What Trump was doing with the social benefits was creating demand for things that ordinary people needed. Sure he used it to give rich people what they wanted too.
Biden reverted to post Carter form with MMT only for the rich, austerity for everyone else. Kamala reaped the dividend. It probably would have been better for the Democat party if Joe had retained brain function and his place on the ticket: the margin would have been double the Harris hit and no one would listen to anything DNC types have to say now.
Which is exactly why Joe had to be replaced post haste.
> In any case, term limits are a terrible idea, because they mean that the Legislative Branch can end up with no institutional memory.
What would one do, in the interest of institutional memory, if the Legislature were chosen by sortition (an idea which I think has received favorable comment at NC)? Presumably the selected candidates would not be compelled to serve longer than they wanted to.
Of course such legislation would/could be used to get rid of a lot of the geriatric deadwood in politics like Nancy Pelosi who it seems will only leave the Capital feet first. There is already term limits for the Presidency so there is a precedent though I would be happy to see an age limit imposed too. You can guess why.
“See, I always carry my toe-tag with me, all filled out…”
Isn’t it simpler just to write it on your arm with Magic Marker? Or tattoo it?
With term limits how do you keep those disposed to grifting from lining their pockets as quickly as possible before they leave to some high paying gig? Perhaps removing the seniority aspect of committee chairmanships will remove the incentive to linger on forever. Perhaps an of age limit (70?) where term limits kick in at that point. It’s a tough one.
I think that they removed seniority with committee chairmanships and now give them by how much money you bring into the party. So of course they are even more corrupt as big donors financially back their favourite candidates.
I think some countries like Japan have some sort of caveat that after some political officials leave office, they are forbidden to work in certain employment sectors or work at all, and must live on the stipend that they are given by the government after leaving office.
I am not familiar with the details of how this works in countries that have something like this in place or what it is called, but perhaps we should have something similar?
Well, Japan has tried to quell that but in practice they just stop reporting about it for a while and then when it flares up everyone is terribly embarrassed…
> I think that they removed seniority with committee chairmanships and now give them by how much money you bring into the party.
The two tend to correlate, since with age comes social capital (all other things being equal). After a moment’s research, it appears that committee chair selection is done by the party conferences in the Senate and by the leadership in the House, with seniority as such carrying more weight in the Senate.
Pay them tax-free and lavishly initially and on an exponentially declining basis. So everybody wants a first term on $400k and nobody wants a fifth term on $25k except political monks and zealots. Pay to be defined as total remuneration from all sources.
> In any case, term limits are a terrible idea, because they mean that the Legislative Branch can end up with no institutional memory.
Is the institutional memory of a corrupt institution a good thing?? Some memory would continue to reside in the bureaucracy, which is possibly a better thing. I’ve vacillated on thís issue, but no matter whether 12 or 18 years, it should be the same for Senators and Congresslings; the Senators need no further perqs.
> Is the institutional memory of a corrupt institution a good thing??
Using my example, even if the Maine State legislature is corrupt, better the memory of the legislature than the memory of bent lawyers in Portland.
How things are going in the blue hive this week…….I am reporting facts, upsetting as they may be. I am struggling with my own fatigue and the complete lack in my brain of anything to do for these people.
4 Suicide attempts – 2 now in a psych hospital – the other 2 more stable
2 people became so worked up – that they actually worked themselves up into a NQWMI – non Q wave MI – heart attacks
I have had just many people with palpitations, sobbing, severe anxiety, etc.
So far, thankfully, we have had no deaths.
2 things I never saw coming and I am truly trying to understand – if anyone can add some insight please do – this is serious cult stuff – and I am really having a hard time combatting it – see below
3 20something women arrived for their appts – heads completely shaved – and I mean Kojak style – all 3 stated their goal was to make themselves completely unwanted by any male – and it appeared to me all 3 had instant regret and THAT regret was more upsetting to them than their disdain for Trump or the Trump voters or whatever – There were another few who reported to me they were going to do this. Never in my wildest dreams did I think we would be replacing the pussy hat with the Manson Family vibe – but here we are. It is pure cult behavior. I was also reminded of the Dutch who during the final defeat of the Nazis took the Nazi sympathizing women and shaved them bald in public. These girls did it to themselves. Social media is going to be the death of us all.
Another 6 young women have told me they will not date, have sex, bear children or anything to do with men until Trump and Vance are gone. Not just Trump voting men – any men. I just looked at all of them and said – “Your years from 25-29 should be full of fun, dating, seeing who you are going to settle down with, dream about kids, etc – you should not let Donald Trump or Kamala Harris steal that from you. I do not want you to be a single 50 year old down the road with lots of regrets.” I was then told by a few of them that is real easy for me to say – you have a dick. I guess we have replaced new wave feminism with the next version which is going to be reverting back to Puritan or Taliban time. It is also culture suicide. Did anyone see this coming?
The main demographic group struggling with the severe depression and anxiety are indeed the single 50 and up women. Many of them this week, unlike any of their past behavior ever, have been nothing but hate and vitriol with me. It is like an entire lifetime of man issues and man hatred is coming out. and hard. I have literally felt in my own soul that maybe I should offer them my belt and bend over the table – and let them let me have it. It is that intense. And it is inconsolable. Nothing I say seems to help in any way.
Something is broken. I have been pondering in my mind all week what exactly is going on – this is far more than abortion. It is classic cult behavior when the fraud is exposed. And I am going to be reading about cult deprogramming this weekend to see if there is any strategy I can use to help.
I am tired. This has been the week from hell. We have had numerous hospital and clinic employees – all females 20s – 30s – who are so distraught that they cannot come to work or are asked to leave because they are sobbing all the time.
Only the days/weeks after 9-11 can rival this in my decades of being a physician. I have never seen anything like this after an election. And so far this week, there is little if any sign of improvement.
Thanks, IM Doc. This is easily the most important post-election post that I’ve seen. I’m seeing the same thing around me in Los Angeles.
Really? Suicide attempts and women shaving their heads?
Your America is very different from the American I’m seeing–and I moved six months ago from a very conservative town to the bluest county (70+ percent for Kamala) in a swing state. Maybe it’s because you’re a doctor and so you’re seeing lunatics.
No one’s freaking out in my social circle. They’re all talking about how they saw it coming. The reaction is overwhelming resignation. I’m not saying there are no complaints, but most I’m hearing are complaining about the democrats (as in: wow, they botched the election so bad).
I think the explosion of anger online is the usual shysters who’re clowning/clout chasing for views. So far in the real world I’ve encountered no one like that. My partner, after finishing work yesterday–where they’d be much more likely than me to encounter lunatics like the cases you’ve described–reported the same.
I don’t know if it is practical where you work but what about emotional support animals working with the staff in the waiting rooms. Might be worth a shot. But your comment made me wonder how many excess suicides will be recorded for this month. I never read anything like this back in ’16.
An outbreak of PTSD? Where the original trauma came long before this campaign and election?
I’m just thinking of a lot of the the KH campaign themes focusing on women this year.
Or perhaps it’s a consequence of the modern-day university education…
When you’re trained to react to even the slightest microagression (μAgr?), where even an innocently-meant but poorly-phrased comment can trigger an intense emotional response, how much worse must it be when life throws something genuinely unpleasant at you? A majority of the nation voted for Donald Trump, and he’ll be around for another four years?!? Oh, no!!
I’m personally not at all surprised that there are young people out there having meltdowns. Universities have been excessively coddling students for years now, and it’s left many of them poorly prepared for dealing with the difficulties and disappointments that inevitably occur in real life.
After Roe was axed a woman on Dating App told me she can’t talk to me. I might get her pregnant or something. And I’m like 200 miles away. Not even a phone call just you’re a man, goodbye. Unhinged.
All I said was hi, are your pandemic safe?
The hatred from the blue maga cultists is equivalent to the hatred of maga cultists. It is a lot easier (and simpler) to hate on men or those who voted for Trump, than to figure out why Trump won and how to beat garden variety demogogues like Trump (represent voters and THEIR economic needs, instead of representing donors at the expense of voters).
That childhood poverty doubled under Biden, prices went up, the average worker makes less than 50 years ago, and our tax dollars are funding genocide are all hard to ignore, but you see it constantly in Democrats. Democrats who ignore this are not much better than Trump, who is only pretending to address these problems by blaming regulations, immigrants, gubbmint, etc.
Until the Democrats learn this lesson, division and hatred will rule them as much as it works on Trump’s supporters.
IM Doc, thanks.
The false vitriol against Trump was/is criminal.
Seems to me the media blitz was all negative on Trump and nowhere do I recall any reason to vote for Harris.
I spent too much time the past two days viewing clips of the vitriol played out by bereft, sorely disappointed democrat voters, mostly young women.
Including last night consoling my weeping “dearly beloved” (70 something)……. The painful juices are flowing! Human beings deserved better!
Aside: the unjustified depravity of the lament “my daughters and granddaughters won’t have abortion….!
This Lysistratan movement is originally a Korean phenomenon known as 4 B’s apparently, for the initial letter of the sexual aspect withheld (company, congress, childbearing and I forget the 4th). It was in the Guardian, quel surpris, today.
Wow. What a family blogging mind blog for these people to then have to hear President Biden say the election was fine and we need to treat Trump and Trump voters nicely.
That was so confusing (not really) listening to Biden the other day. He talks about working together, no divisiveness, etc., when a week or so earlier he helped nuke Harris’s run with his Trump supporters are garbage words…
And it’s starting already in MSM, the Trump is going to this, may do that, might do this, do that. The fear mongering is cranking up and we have how many days before he is sworn in?
12 years of going nuts over the guy. I’m not saying there weren’t, and are not legitimate reason to be pissed at the guy but they are going over the edge. I can’t imagine getting your life wrapped up in it for so long. Of course if that’s your profession but jeepers. Just sad.
Thanks for this IM Doc. If I were close enough I would give you a hug and tell you to stay strong and thank you for what you do. Incredible people like you are going to help get us through this. This country is in a bad place, and we need all the help we can get.
This is all so sad. Stay safe and be strong to all.
I’m leaving two, ~1 minute utube, WWII army clips here about the power of propaganda. Hard to watch. Japanese civilians, mostly women and children, jumped to their deaths rather than surrender to US forces. They had been propagandized to fear surrender more than death. They’d been told the Americans were monsters. Horrible.
The US MSM and social media have a lot to answer for in this election year.
WWII Corp. Groenke describes witnessing the suicide cliffs of Saipan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgxMcoF6-Ng
Vet Recalls Horrific Aftermath Of Suicide Cliff Where Japanese Civilians Jumped To Their Death
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l06Ov-Bup-E
Doc – Sorry to hear about your tough week. Not my area of expertise but here are a couple of thoughts.
One option for those grieving is to continually cycle through the 5 stages of grief over and over and over again. https://www.healthline.com/health/stages-of-grief .
One way to release fear based emotional programming and counter the brain’s negativity bias is by practicing forgiveness meditations. A good book on this subject is Buddha’s Brain by Rick Hanson.
It looks to me as if this anti-man acting out is occurring on a symbolic level.
I think that “men” are a symbol for the economy — one that has been mismanaged by men, to be sure. Somehow that fact is taken as a substitute for the economy’s own bad polarizing greedy dynamics.
I must say, Michael Hudson and IM Doc, neither of you has had to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term, have an abortion, or try to make that decision. Not sure neither of you has ever been raped by a man, but I’m just guessing “no.” I have the greatest respect for each of you as human beings but this is one area where your experience is either weak or nonexistent. And it’s central to the lives of more than half the population.
> this is one area where your experience is either weak or nonexistent. And it’s central to the lives of more than half the population.
This is the “bear question” (from TikTok) and I have to say, I think the women who answer “the bear” are right.
(Although if I met a man alone in the woods, I’d think twice too, but not as hard or with as much bad experience.)
re: bears & vaccines
Walter Kirn claims the issue is only the Grizzly not the classic brown one. Former will attack you whatever you do, whatever day of the week, and whoever you voted for.
And kill you.
Unless you are vaccinated.
It took me a while to get this but I think its the bear because women don’t feel safe around strange men.
It is very hard to think of myself as a threat and I hate looking at people as groups, not individuals. But these women who answer the way they do deserve our respect.
The key word here being “strange” because it seems the idea in the choice of the bear is apparently that all men are a threat and this becomes clear in the forest context (i.e., no society, no accountability).
I can agree with this idea, but also find it difficult to look at individuals as groups, and must confess I am somewhat perplexed by how a “yeah, you wouldn’t understand it” judgment that lumps all men into a single group is supposed to be a critique of sexism.
If you look at the male/female sexual assault statistics and domestic violence statistics, and if you realize these statistics are based on under reported incidents, (sort of like VAERS), you might understand. I agree that 99% of men are wonderful, terrific, kindly protectors of women and children. That other 1% can do a hell’a lot of damage. And there’s no way for women to tell if a strange man is in the 99% or the 1%. Therefore, intelligence argues for caution. / my 2 cents.
With all due respect, you assumed IM Doc’s patients were subject to a restrictions on abortion. He’s in a state where abortions are legal till viability of the fetus, which is on the lenient end of what was allowed under Roe (states did have some say after the first trimester). Most of his out of state patients are from CA, which has pretty much the same provisions. Trump has actually more than once signaled a personal preference for abortion rights (in 2016 before he was nominated and recently when he said he would vote for the Fl ballot initiative to rescind its very restrictive abortion law; conservative pressure forced him to reverse himself: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy547v72nd4o).
So these reactions are not rational given the circumstances of these women. The big tightening took place in some states after Roe fell. There would be a lot of press and lead time if conservatives in Congress tried pressing their advantage and getting new Federal laws passed. There would be reason to get hysterical if that were to happen, but it is not on the radar now.
Many many years ago I visited someone under psychiatric treatment in hospital for over 1 year. He was what we called a political refugee. However for the intricacies of the law he was neither deported nor eligible for citizenship. So he had lived in limbo in regularly changing refugee camps for 10+ years. Year after year after year he would receive permits for residency of 3 months. It was a form of torture since he couldn´t plan anything. Eventually he tried to kill himself because that seemed to be the only reasonable thing to do. But even in that – as he said himself – he would fail. After a few attempts he gave up trying to commit suicide. I asked him how he had made it this far without losing his mind, since he seemed perfectly normal to me under the insane circumstances. As a simple explanation he showed me his copy of Michail Bulgakov´s “The Master and Margarita” which by then he had read about 30 times. (The German “Chess Story” by Stefan Zweig comes to mind.)
p.s. Did I mention the patient had originally come from Ukraine…
This phenomenon is not new but I only recently discovered that. I bought Jonathan Lethem’s 2018 book The Feral Detective at a thrift store a year ago and eagerly started it. I was distressed to find the main female character has the same problem, a fear of congress with a Trump voter!!! I found both of her parents were psychiatrists and she was from New York. I thought that might be the cause of her problem – she was just nuts. It appears this may be more common malady among young women than I suspected at that time. I could not finish the book with only 40 pages to go. I always liked his work before but will be more cautious from now on, even for a couple of bucks.
In the US entertainment world Trump obviously did trigger a psychosis. Any topic to be adopted is framed under the POV of making it Trump-ish.
So what Putin might be for the spook genre, Trump is as the backdrop of any political domestic analysis. Be it present, period piece or sci-fi even.
If you look into the amazon-series “THE BOYS” you will find the raw elements of all that already in place.
Since literature is always more mature than film it doesn´t surprise me that Lethem as you describe did this by 2018 (i.e. much earlier since he had to write it first.)
Adult drama the way Lethem did 6 years ago will hit the circuit during the current new Trump term in TV, streaming and movie theatres.
(I see no reason for the Dems to change anything. This divide will stay.)
And I would not be at all surprised if some indie director is just now wrapping up her production of a Trump-ish adaptation of some Greek tragedy (or comedy.)
I’ll venture a guess. For many women, Trump won for a simple, obvious reason: misogyny. The election was about electing a woman; a woman was not elected; ergo, hatred of women explains this terrible, otherwise inexplicable outcome. The extreme responses reflect this. Nothing else mattered remotely as much to these women. Because contrary views rarely make their way into groupthink bubbles of social networks and media, the election has come as a huge shock. They find it impossible to imagine that for other people, other concerns outweighed theirs. The insulation from contrary perspectives and disproportionate response when reality intrudes is what leads to behavior that seems cultish.
Could be wrong. Consider it a working hypothesis, a heuristic.
Your view of their view makes sense (but we can quibble about Kamala not being elected since she was elevated to being the Dem nominee). But IM Doc is in a state where abortion is legal until the fetus is viable, as in about 20 weeks.
Many of his patients are part-timers who live in CA. California similarly has an unrestricted right to an abortion up to viability.
IM Doc did not say if any of his patients lived the rest of the year in states which had imposed strict abortion curbs, but I doubt it.
So the fears of these women are irrational. All or nearly all of them are not at risk of being denied abortion access.
Trump spoke out against Florida’s restrictive abortion law (six weeks!) and said he would vote for a ballot initiative that would overturn it. Conservative outcry forced him to reverse himself (https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy547v72nd4o). But his initial remarks, like his pro-abortion stance before he won the nomination in 2016, likely represents his personal views. So unless there is a big push by the evangelicals in Congress for a Federal law, I think he’ll be happy to leave this to the states.
Roe v. Wade had not provided an unrestricted right to abortion:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/roe_v_wade_(1973)
>I’ll venture a guess. For many women, Trump won for a simple, obvious reason: misogyny. The election was about electing a woman; a woman was not elected; ergo, hatred of women explains this terrible, otherwise inexplicable outcome.
Which is so interesting because, the first winning presidential campaign manager, a woman, Trump 2016.
Now a woman, Susie Wiles, is his announced Chief of Staff after managing Trumps campaign. Boy, he sure does hate women.
I wonder what Mark Cuban thinks of that…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7v5Tx3driY He did apologize but what a dumbass to say that.
You are very patient with stupid people; it is commendable. I know that you will say that they are not stupid; they are brainwashed. But I’m afraid that they are actually morons.
When I was in high school in the 1970s I took an aptitude test; it was not meant to determine one’s intellectual abilities, but rather how well one’s temperament matched that of people already in various professions. The idea was to take the answers given by people already in various jobs, and see which one’s own answers best matched.
I was in a very crabby mood and filled out the blanks that matched not liking old people and little kids and feeling that people in general were idiots. I got back the test results; they informed me that I would fit in well as a doctor because I gave the same answers that doctors most often gave. I’ve kept that in mind since when interacting with doctors.
Thank you, IM Doc, for this astonishing report. I’m deeply impressed by your strength in the face of this, and sincerely hope your office quiets down sooner than later.
You mentioned “propaganda” in another recent post, and that is the only way I can understand this phenomenon. It begins to explain how people are being drawn into “the Blue Cult” (or “Blue MAGA”, or however we should describe it). How it actually “works” is another question.
It’s not only that politics has become increasingly partisan, and the MSM has largely enabled this by often abandoning the mission of journalism, in effect normalizing propaganda (e.g., “it’s okay when we do it,” is a symptom of this), but we know that political parties have used marketing techniques (the Harris campaign being the nearest example), not merely to court voters but to pull them into something much deeper, by drawing on literally decades of research by psychoanalysts, psychiatrists, and even intelligence agencies, all with the goal of reaching, moulding, and “interpellating” followers.
Idk if you’ve seen Adam Curtis’ four-part The Century of the Self, but it explores the history of this in some depth, i.e., the intersection of politics, marketing, and various forms of psychotherapy. Curtis interviews an impressive group of people, and I would be very curious to hear the impressions of a practicing MD on the content of this short series (it can be streamed from thoughtmaybe dot com).
If this cult behavior is the effect of an ongoing propaganda campaign, then it would seem that either the existing techniques have been significantly amplified by media and social media, or perhaps we are seeing the effects of new propaganda techniques that haven’t yet been fully understood. There is no question that our lives are increasingly mediated, so it’s safe to assume the former, but I can’t help but wonder about the latter, too.
“I just looked at all of them and said – “Your years from 25-29 should be full of fun, dating, seeing who you are going to settle down with, dream about kids”
That is very reasonable given that the choices you made have suited you, and no doubt you are right that they would suit many people. But there truly are a lot of people who are not made happier by having kids. In the past, they mostly had kids anyway, and it wasn’t so good. I am so extremely relieved that I didn’t have kids; it would have been AWFUL!!! The misery-laden 50+ single women who don’t have kids whom you see, might be a lot more miserable if they had had kids. It is just hard to guess what is best for another person.
> heads completely shaved
That’s the 4B thing. If we end up importing South Korean gender politics, which — readers will correct me — is really polarized and unpleasant and bad* and more importantly, now operates on a truly mass basis — I fear for the Republic.
On the bright side, falling birth rates are good for the planet, at least given our current rate and manner of consumption.
NOTE * I remember reading about a young South Korean man who was descending into some bro rathole who said (paraphrasing) “All I want is someone to smile at me when I come home from work” (and neither economically nor socially was that possible for him). I don’t think that’s so wrong, although the terms of engagement may need negotiation (to descend, myself, to a transactional view; perhaps “careful thought” would be better) I would like both lives hypothetically involved to end in comedy (marriage) as opposed to tragedy (death).
> Another 6 young women have told me they will not date, have sex, bear children or anything to do with men until Trump and Vance are gone. Not just Trump voting men – any men.
Lysistratic Non-Action (Gene Sharp Method #57). Here, with examples (!!!), is a terrific source (I did something similar many years ago at Corrente, but this is a permanent site presumably with funding.
The examples are:
I’m not seeing anything that scales here, nor anything from the “First World” except for Kansas (insert joke here).
I suppose one obvious approach, which solve, if that is the word I want, the sex part, at least, would be for liberatarian factions to advocate legalizing prostitution (though IIRC, American incels, at least, insist vociferously that they don’t want that). This would have the interesting side effect of fracturing Trump’s “coalition” (hate that word, it implies permanence) because the Christianists would hate it (despite John 8:3-11).
What is the agenda for American 4B now?
> The main demographic group struggling with the severe depression and anxiety are indeed the single 50 and up women. Many of them this week, unlike any of their past behavior ever, have been nothing but hate and vitriol with me. It is like an entire lifetime of man issues and man hatred is coming out. and hard. I have literally felt in my own soul that maybe I should offer them my belt and bend over the table – and let them let me have it. It is that intense. And it is inconsolable. Nothing I say seems to help in any way.
Leaving justice issues aside, identity doesn’t translate to hegemonic class power. No surprise here, except for those who thought for 40 years it would, and expected it to in 2016.
ah, Doc, look here: Young men the victims as a change:
Why #MeToo Generation Young Men Swung to Trump
Young men struggle with addiction, loneliness and suicide at skyrocketing rates, only to be dehumanized as oppressors by the dominant liberal culture.
by Lee Fang
https://www.leefang.com/p/why-metoo-generation-young-men-swung
I am always initally skeptical when I read a text spinning it in a way MeToo were the cause for these issues. (I think he is in part ideologically framing, although I have absolutely no personal experience with this world that is so “derailed” due to MeToo.)
But the figures seem to be there: suicides tripled, depressions exploded, isolation in the extreme.
(On the other: How was it with women in the past 100 years?)
“(…)
The days when most young voters, whether male or female, would reliably vote Democrat are over. Among the axiomatic election patterns smashed by Donald Trump, young men have swung to the Republicans by nearly 30%.
Cue the scorn. The Left-leaning press has derided the shift as merely the rise of “toxic masculinity” and the hatred of women’s rights. The New York Times described something even more sinister, calling it creeping “hegemonic masculinity.”
(…)
Surveys show that the number of young men who say they lack a single close friend has soared fivefold since 1990.
As college approached, the women touted as the victims of society did not seem to be doing so poorly. The gap between college enrolment, which had been building for decades, exploded — 3.1 million more American women entered higher education than men by 2021. It’s not even just a yawning education disparity gap. In many American cities, young women are galloping ahead of men in terms of income.
The young male suicide rate has tripled since 2000, according to a new study published this week. In some communities, the magnetic pull of nihilistic violence and gang crime has a particular allure.
(…)”
“I’m gonna have to invent a new word for “left”; it’s irretrievably polluted, since everybody thinks it means liberal, which it doesn’t.”
I am comfortable with socialist.
Of course I am comfortable telling people I am far to the left of those so called “commies” back in the day.
I have always been disappointed by the misuse of the “progressive” label. It is a milk toast meaningless description in our modern political scene.
All those old labels have been bastardized beyond recognition in the last 5-10 years, to the point that they now range from obscure to totally irrelevant. The only meaningful discourse to be had these days is in terms of specific and unambiguous policies and actions.
> I am comfortable with socialist.
I am picturing conservatives and liberals allying against the weakest apex of our political triad, socialists (and communists), and purging the Marxists where found (never mind that both conservatives have the stupidest possible conception of their enemies, imagining that Pelosi is a Marxist, for example.
Adding, the nice thing about left and right is that they directly lead to a matrix. Perhaps what used to be “left” needs to be “up.”
I just say I’m aligned with the old fashioned New Dealers.
In the past, social democrat would work, except Social Democratic parties in Europe have been coopted by neoconservatives and neoliberals, and embraced austerity.
re: trump vs deep state
it’s pretty irksome to me that trump claims to be ‘rooting out corruption’ and the guys hes tapping to lead his transition team worked for like, cerberus capital and blackrock. maybe they’ll prove me wrong. but i’ve been looking into all the people listed as being on his transition team, and they don’t seem too different from the standard except way more conservative socially. i never expected anything to change, but still…
In his interview with Joe Rogan, Trump did admit that he chose some “bad people” during his first term.
We’ll see. I’m not especially hopeful either.
The only person he named was John Bolton.
I have always had a soft spot for Rogan and began irregularly listening to his podcast over ten years ago. He was always a liberal guy from the northeast. In 2016 and in 2020 he categorically rejected all suggestions that he might want to interview Donald Trump. His first political guest I heard was Bernie Sanders and they got along fine.
Some of his interviews are really great. His show with Alex Jones and Tim Dillon might be the one to start with. He fact checked Alex Jones around 20 times and Alex was correct or almost correct or correct enough that his point was mostly a good one around 19 out of the 20. Rogan has always been friends with Alex Jones but they argue almost constantly when they are on camera at the same time.
His politics shows are usually not good and he knows it. The Trump interview is unlistenable. I took about ten runs at it and finally gave up and closed the tab about 30 minutes in. Sometimes I could only make one minute of progress into it. I did read the entire transcript. Boo. That the interview happened is a bigger story than anything in it.
Mostly he covers professional fighting and comedy. His fight shows are almost always excellent.
> Mostly he covers professional fighting and comedy. His fight shows are almost always excellent.
That’s interesting because it suggests that the kayfabe model of politics is incorrect. If it were correct, Rogan would be able to transfer his tropes and habits of thought directly, but he cannot. Hmm.
RE: COVID Los Angeles County wastewater
My prediction was wrong. I thought that we would see a rise in SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater since XEC arrived in Los Angeles County during the first week of October. Spread comes from social mixing. Halloween and Halloween house parties will do that. I thought that we would see a bump in SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater before Halloween.
What the numbers indicate to me, however, is that it will still be an XEC Christmas because the majority of the people in LA County have yet to get hit with XEC. That surprises me because I saw many people around me get sick from XEC during the second week of October.
SARS-CoV-2 wastewater concentration as a percentage of the Winter 2023-2024 peak concentration value
10/16/2024 17%
10/23/2024 13%
10/30/2024 11%
11/06/2024 6%
> XEC Christmas
“Just like the ones I used to know” [hums].
Thank you for keeping us apprised to this data. I really appreciate it.
“Quebec media outlet is reporting possible data falsification at plant where defective Vineyard Wind turbine blades were manufactured”
Does that mean that they are going to have to check the integrity of every long blade in use right now? How do you even do that when they are actually running in use out at sea? If it wasn’t such an awkward word, I would say that this was the result of the ‘boeingization’ of modern industry.
The worst thing from the article:
employees were asked by senior company executives to falsify quality control data. Data associated with a well-made blade was then associated with poorly made blades. Our sources indicate that this is a widespread practice in the industry.
The number of industrial sectors where quality control is deliberately falsified on a grand scale is getting uncomfortably high, and the spread worryingly wide. And this is not new: in Japan, such large, well-established firms as Daihatsu, Toyota, Toray, Nissan, Subaru, Mitsubishi, Kobe Steel have been found to falsify quality control certificates. In the USA, a number of labs have been found to falsify test results, and industrial firms are also altering quality control certificates to ensure production runs are deemed OK.
Decay and graft, everywhere.
What supported such behavior was the increasing reliance on the supplier’s test results and the phasing out of customer’s own testing labs, to verify the supplier’s claims on their materials. Field audits of the supplier’s facilities were to substitute for overchecking material before assembly.
I spent 10 years (1987-1997) in a test lab for a large automotive supplier. We had a saying; if it doesn’t pass the test – change the test.
Influencers.
Taylor Lorenz comes across like some old fogey. Yep, the Democrats have to go out and get themselves some of them inflooencers, whatever an inflooencer is.
And to quote from the Usermag posting: “The closest thing to a “progressive Joe Rogan” in mainstream liberal media is probably the podcast Pod Save America.”
Pod Save America is so Beto O’Rourke. And, oh, whatever happened to young(ish) Robert?
Lorenz finally admits at the bottom of the “won’t build Joe Rogan” article why: The Democrats don’t want to support media that won’t regurgitate the party line.
Among the “influencers” I watch (and I don’t spend much time in this world), Sabby Sabs, ShoeOnHead (the wonderfully satiric June Lapine), and Joshua Citarella are all genuine leftists. And none of them had much use for Kamala Harris and for DNC verities.
ShoeOnHead’s latest video: 1.5 million views in eight days:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSw04BwQy4M
Not bad numbers, but the money won’t be forthcoming.
And as Krystal Ball points out in the twiXt above, Joe Rogan was the Democrats’ Joe Rogan. But they chased him away because they couldn’t control him.
The Democrats’ idea of an influencer is Pete Buttigieg.
As I was posting about yesterday, the same attitude governs the Democrat primaries. The people running the party are loathe to let its voters choose a candidate.
Rogan sounds like he plans to keep influencing. He had comedian/political junkie Dave Smith on yesterday and they discussed their anti-war politics and mutual worry that Trump was still too neocon adjacent, with Pompeo as a possible cabinet member being one example. Right at the end of the show they threw out the idea of having a podcast with the two of them and Trump if I understood things correctly, presumably to convince the Donald to ditch the warmongers. According to Taibbi’s piece today, the last Rogan/Trump interview was at 46 million views and counting.
One takeaway from this past election was that people don’t fit the stereotypes media fogures like to give them – abortion issues winning in multiple states and outperforming Harris in vote % being a great example. Wouldn’t that be something if the Rogan “bros” played a big role in ridding the US of these wretched neocons?
Pete Buttigieg. lol. It’s funny ’cause it’s true. / ;)
“The Democrats’ idea of an influencer is Pete Buttigieg.”
Will his podcast be in Norwegian only?
Ya, fer sure. / ;)
Boeing:
Boeing doesn’t make engines.
Boeing doesn’t maintain engines
The old joke: BOEING = Bits Of Engines In Numerous Gardens.
Re: “United Boeing 777 APU Catches Fire at San Francisco Airport”
Lambert, as MicaT points out Boeing doesn’t do engines, but that’s a 28 year old airplane. (28 years in big aviation airplane years is like being over fifty in human years, it’s old! Unless it was parked in the desert for a bunch of years.) I doubt if it even has the original APU installed anymore at this point. It’s been through several heavy D checks where much of the airplane is ripped apart and put back together:
The A, C & D Of Passenger Plane Maintenance https://simpleflying.com/a-c-d-plane-maintenance/
Quite frankly, within about five to ten years of leaving the factory – it’s all down to how good the maintenance is on these airplanes. What I do have to wonder is that it’s another United airplane. What did they do – move their heavy maintenance out of the country? (Oh yes, airlines get heavy maintenance done on the cheap in other countries, but I didn’t think United was doing this.)
Thanks for that.
While commercial airplanes have very specific maintenance schedules based on known and anticipated failure rates things do just break before those schedules.
I keep track of airplanes and it’s really common that there are issues. Airbus, Boeing, etc all have issues. That’s why there are 3 and 4x redundant systems for the important systems.
I get people are obsessed with Boeing and they have had some epic stupid problems caused by bean counters. Can they turn it around? I’m hopeful.
And they better get their shit together or China will.
Aircraft design and maintenance is highly regulated. Much, much more than most people realize. The Federal Aviation Regulations (FAR) covering most of the design of an airplane like the B777 are here:
CFR Title 14 Chapter I Subchapter C Part 25 https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/chapter-I/subchapter-C/part-25?toc=1
The Boeing 777 is a very safe airplane. In addition to the regular maintenance which was developed and implemented in accordance with the FAA regulations, there are Airworthiness Directives (AD) to address specific problems which occur outside of normal maintenance.
I went out and did a quick check at the FAA website and there are currently 184 ADs and one Emergency AD for the 777-200 series. You can find them here:
FAA Dynamic Regulatory System: https://drs.faa.gov/browse/ADFRAWD/doctypeDetails?Status=Current&Make=The%20Boeing%20Company&Model=777-200%20Series&Product%20Type=Aircraft
This is not an unusual amount of ADs for an aircraft type currently in service.
I provide all this information just as an example of all the work that goes into designing, operating and maintaining these aircraft. It doesn’t take much in the way of ignoring these by a profit hungry CEO to undo what these regulations try to protect – the flying public. And if you think deregulation will make flying cheaper without also making it much more dangerous, well, I’ve got a bridge to sell you too.
(Oh yes, airlines get heavy maintenance done on the cheap in other countries, but I didn’t think United was doing this.)
Heavy maintenance in other countries is not cheap if you want the aircraft to be reliable after check. In the past there was a pitch that it was cheaper to outsource to companies in other countries but the output was crap, so to maintain reliability the airlines have to have onsight oversight to get a quality product. So no more savings but cost offsetting. For a large US airline it is no longer practical to have all heavy maintenance in the US due to limits to available maintenance facilities for the size of the fleets.
re: David Sirota: “Why can’t we have a Democrat candidate who can express these ideas so clearly”
That a Dem has to even bring this up – Vance there seriously expresses High School Freshman stuff – I am at a loss of words.
Q: “How much is 2+2?”
Rep answer: “4 or 5. Depending on how much you pay me.”
Dem answer: “Let me get my lawyer first.”
Taibbi and Kirn. ATW. no paywall.
America This Week, Friday, November 8th, 2024 Livestream: Election Week Postmortem, 10 am ET
In place of the usual show, a live election review of indeterminate length. Details below:
https://www.racket.news/p/america-this-week-friday-november
sigh…not again
Since recently I believe it was Racket quoting T.S. Eliot
it´s now my turn for being so loyal a listener:
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
T. S. ELIOT,
“The Hollow Men”
(Although that´s taken from Leo Szilard´s biography)
Any suggestion where Taibbi´s 2016 post-election interview with Bernie could be looked up?
Rolling Stone magazine.
Bernie Sanders: Where We Go From Here
Onetime insurgent candidate is now in position to reshape Democratic Party and take on Trump
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/bernie-sanders-where-we-go-from-here-192706/
Great! Very kind, thanks.
“(…) Instead, Sanders laid out the dilemma facing the Democratic Party. The Democrats must find their way back to a connection with ordinary people, and this will require a complete change in the way they do business. He’s convinced that the huge expenditure of time and mental effort the Democrats put in to raise more than $1 billion for the Clinton campaign in the past year ended up having enormous invisible costs. “Our future is not raising money from wealthy people, but mobilizing millions of working people and young people and people of color,” he says.(…)”
Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone Magazine, Nov. 30th 2016
wow…what a gigantic “Fuck you Bernie” by that midget fancy-named Karine Jeanne-Pierre (Parisien Tony Blinken made that name up for her so she would fit the cultured administration better?!)
see TC: 6:40 from flora´s above link:
Biden administration “… created thousands of jobs where you literally could get a six-figure salary a year and not have a college education” – hear hear Karine… don´t make me draw that Marie-Antoinette analogy…
around min. 50 they talk about Thomas Frank and his “What´s the Matter with Kansas” and I remembered Scheerpost…
2 more recent items with Frank:
Conversations with Robert Scheer:
“Thomas Frank: Don’t Believe Anything You Were Told About Populism “
Nov. 20, 2020
https://scheerpost.com/2020/11/20/thomas-frank-dont-believe-anything-you-were-told-about-populism/
“Thomas Frank: How the Democratic Party Became a Vehicle of Aristocracy” (which features a nice image with FDR that tells you all you need to know about the DNC today.)
Dec. 4th 2020
https://scheerpost.com/2020/12/04/thomas-frank-how-the-democratic-party-became-a-vehicle-of-aristocracy/
And this conversation as an add-on which was among the search results but I haven´t read it, but being a Katie Halper fan:
“Katie Halper: Trump ‘Broke Liberals’ Brains’”
https://scheerpost.com/2022/07/30/katie-halper-trump-broke-liberals-brains/
Thanks for the links.
“United Boeing 777 APU Catches Fire at San Francisco Airport”
After this, the passengers were disembarked from the aircraft and after fixing the issue passengers reembarked on 777.
As long as the fire is in the tailpipe/exhaust there is little risk to the airframe, since the fire is in the hot section of the APU and will go out after the fuel is cut off from the APU and the oil system is no longer pressurized. A fire outside the APU in the APU compartment is a big deal and will cause structural damage. The pilots most of the time will get a fire warning indication and will cut fuel and activate a fire extinguisher system for a compartment fire.
Since the airplane flew afterwards it is likely the APU was inspected for damage in the exhaust area and placed on maintenance deferral per FAA approved Minimum Equipment List guidelines. The airline will have ten days to replace the APU but will likely do it faster to maintain ETOPS routing capability.
Also since the airplane is flown on ETOPS routes, the APU is tested every month during flight to see if it starts when cold soaked. The APU is used every flight on the ground but if it is not available ground electric carts and air carts are used to get the engines started.
Another consequence, perhaps worse but certainly bad, is that term limits guarantee that a job in the legislature is going to be a short-term gig rather than a career. That is, people who want to be career legislators or politicians are going to see no future in it, and the only people who will run for political office are those who see it as a stepping stone to something else. This insures a “just passing through” mentality among the legislators, which is deeply corrosive and which will take the issue of poor quality legislators from bad to worse.
The problem that term limits are supposed to solve, i. e. bad legislators who stay in office forever, is solved by voting them out of office, not by term limits.
Hi Lambert, the epidemiology paper is at a high level the use of Bayesian statistics and interpolation to construct a complete map of the reproduction number when there are significant blank areas.
If you are the CDC, cough, well, an organisation trying to predict, monitor and control spread, you need a geographic understanding of the reproduction number (how many infections result from a case). This number is important in understanding how human behaviour and /or viral “behaviour” are changing.
The technique appears to be a straightforward interpolation of the available data to cover absent areas by using some standard mathematically tractable functions to model the distribution of infections/cases in the blank areas (the integrated Laplacian bit) and layering on top a Bayesian approach (I.e. having priors about what the outcome will be). I didn’t read the technical detail about how the magic happens, the take home message is Bayesians rule the world!
Fixing it for them:
… and Hitler with Stalin, which would make…
Ribbentrop–Molotov Pact 2.0…
>Michael Pollan, in The Botany of Desire, urges that plants adapt us to their requirements for seed spread and growth by evolving tastes, nutriition, scents, and bright colors. Here we have mushrooms inducing us to breathe clean air, much to our benefit!
A laminar flow hood does not induce you to breathe clean air. It does the opposite, and it in fact blows dirty air from the environment towards you in order to protect the sterile(ish) environment in the hood
re: that plants adapt us to their requirements
as twisted association: see Sci-Fi movie “Annihilation” (2018), by Alex Garland.
Pollan basically would answer the meta-level question to that movie´s intent – Garland hides it behind an alien life form which starts to inhabit Earth and spread (on a very local scale however.)
But via this narrative trick Garland avoids the obvious political messaging.
Something he failed to do in his latest film, the title of which told you all you need to know and even more, “Civil War”.
Alex Garland has been disappointing me since Dredd (2012).
I love that movie.
He’s a freaking lib filmmaker that needs to lean into his inner Paul Schrader!
very well put
Apparently not for 144+ million USians…
I get letters:
Fascinating!
“It’s OK to be sad, now give me money.”
More subtly, Kamala seems to feel she has an important role in regulating her supporters’ emotions; and given the “schooling behavior of the PMC,” it’s not clear she’s wrong.
More importantly, I suppose Kamala is now the party leader, because who else? Presumably, rapidly changing this situation would be a sign of party health, depending on who her replacement is.
Thomas Frank, apparently the Jerry Lewis of the pundit class according to the PMC, on Radio France (French pronunciation of “Kansas” pretty terrific).
Not to put work on anyone’s desk, but the simultaneous translation has a backing track of Frank in English, and the French translation overlaid on it. So we can’t really hear what Frank has to say. Do we have anybody clever with recording software who could strip out the backing track and get it to me somehow? Thank you!
(how on Earth did you find that interview)