By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
Bird Song of the Day
Northern Mockingbird, 34 Peregrine Crossing, Chatham, Georgia, United States.
In Case You Might Miss…
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
Trump Transition
“Freewheeling Transparency: Trump Holds First Post-Election News Conference” [RealClearPolitics]. “Donald Trump couldn’t help himself. ‘We will take a few questions,’ the president-elect told reporters assembled at Mar-a-Lago for an announcement about a $100 billion investment from the Japanese technology company SoftBank. He answered nearly two dozen questions in an hour. What was billed as a press statement became a sweeping press conference, his first since winning the election, signaling the return of Trump’s brand of free-wheeling transparency. His staff had summoned reporters to talk up the new investment, but Trump happily fielded questions on everything from the border wall (the sale of unused material was ‘almost a criminal act’) to the alleged link between autism and vaccines (‘there is something wrong and we are going to find out about it’). Five weeks before Inauguration Day, all three of the major cable networks took Trump live. And the president-elect made news off-the-cuff. Trump said of the drones sighted on the East Coast, ‘The government knows what is happening,’ contradicting claims from the Biden administration and condemning them for not commenting on their origin. He added that drones had been spotted over his Bedminster estate in New Jersey, and ‘I decided to cancel my trip.'” • Wisely. The contrast between the 2016 and 2024 transitions couldn’t be greater.
* * * “Elizabeth Warren asks Trump to set conflict-of-interest rules for Musk” [WaPo]. “The letter sent by email from the Democrat’s Senate office to Trump’s transition team notes that regular members of the Trump Vance 2025 Transition Team operate under an ethics policy that requires them to ‘avoid both actual and apparent conflicts of interest.’ Those rules, which have been published by the General Services Administration, include prohibition from transition team members working ‘on particular matters involving specific parties that affect’ their interests. Musk, who is worth $474 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaire Index, spent more than $250 million to help elect Trump president and has since embraced the label ‘first buddy’ to describe his role. He has been a frequent presence at Trump’s side, advising on government formation and taking a lead role in a new effort to cut federal spending. It is not clear what ethics rules, if any, Musk, has agreed to follow in his role as a Trump adviser. ‘Putting Mr. Musk in a position to influence billions of dollars of government contracts and regulatory enforcement without a stringent conflict of interest agreement in place is an invitation for corruption on a scale not seen in our lifetimes,’ Warren wrote. ‘As your Transition Team Ethics Plan makes clear, the role of government is not to line the pockets of the wealthiest Americans; a strong, enforceable ethics plan for the world’s richest man is a necessary first step for delivering on that promise.'” • Well, I’m glad she’s in there punching. And “First Buddy”? Dear Lord. But surely a billionaire in government is confliced by definition?
“Trump’s for-profit presidency” [VOX]. “”Victory” cologne and perfume. ‘Crypto President’ watches. Limited-edition ‘American Eagle’ guitars. T-branded golf shoes and ‘Fight Fight Fight’ high-top sneakers. These are just a sample of the many products licensed to bear President-elect Donald Trump’s brand, including some that he has promoted on his social media site Truth Social just weeks before his inauguration. If he continues to hawk his merchandise after returning to the White House, that could raise ethical concerns.” • “Don, I keep tellin ya. Set up a Foundation!”
* * * “Trump passes over RFK Jr.’s daughter-in-law for CIA’s No. 2 job” [WaPo]. “President-elect Donald Trump has told close aides he is no longer considering Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s daughter-in-law to serve as deputy director at the CIA, after a campaign by Republican lawmakers who feared she would seek to impose major changes at America’s top spy agency [Yeah, who wants that?], according to people familiar with the matter…. Cotton, a staunch supporter of subversive espionage operations abroad who in the past has advocated the overthrow of Iran’s government, is one of the most hawkish voices on foreign policy in Congress and is expected to chair the Senate Intelligence Committee next year.” • Hmm….
On Kennedy at HHS:
I wish Trump + RFK had stuck to MAHA (“Make America Healthy Again”), which was a great and even encouraging idea. This looks like throwing red meat the base.
* * * “Judge rejects Trump’s bid to toss hush money conviction because of Supreme Court immunity ruling” [Associated Press]. The worthless Bragg case lives on: “A judge Monday refused to throw out President-elect Donald Trump’s hush money conviction because of the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling on presidential immunity. But the overall future of the historic case remains unclear. Manhattan Judge Juan M. Merchan’s decision blocks one potential off-ramp from the case ahead of the former and future president’s return to office next month. His lawyers have raised other arguments for dismissal, however. It’s unclear when — or whether — a sentencing date might be set. Prosecutors have said there should be some accommodation for his upcoming presidency, but they insist the conviction should stand.” • You’ve gotta give credit to the New York Bar — Bragg, Merchan, and of course the firm of Paul, Weiss — for being deeply committed to the bit.
2024 Post Mortem
“The Electoral College votes to confirm results for the 2024 presidential election today. Here’s what to know” [CBS]. “At state capitols across the U.S. Tuesday, the presidential electors will be gathering to cast their electoral votes, formalizing President-elect Donald Trump’s victory over Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 election.
“Thirteen 2020 fake electors will cast real Electoral College votes for Trump on Tuesday” [CNN]. “Thirteen Republicans who participated in the 2020 fake electors plot, including some who are facing criminal charges, will cast real Electoral College votes Tuesday for President-elect Donald Trump, as electors in the states finalize his victory. These Republican activists hail from Pennsylvania, Michigan and Nevada – critical battleground states that Trump carried this year, after losing them all in 2020. Four years ago, they signed fake certificates falsely claiming Trump won. They were picked again by Republicans to be electors this year, and will sign the authentic certificates.” • I don’t accept the “fake” framing. Some of the “contingent” electors signed in good faith, persauded by the far more culpable Republican lawyers.
Democrats en déshabillé
“AOC loses key vote in House Oversight race to Gerry Connolly” [Axios]. “House Democrats’ Steering and Policy Committee voted to recommend Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) as ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, several sources familiar with the vote told Axios. It’s a huge blow to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-N.Y.) hopes of leading the high-profile panel, though the full Democratic caucus still has to vote to approve steering’s pick. It is rare for the caucus to buck the suggestion of steering – which is closely aligned with Democratic leadership – but it has happened before. Connolly defeated Ocasio-Cortez 34 to 27 on Monday, according to multiple lawmakers present. Ocasio-Cortez said after the vote that she will continue to contest the role when it goes to a vote of the full caucus. The battle between Ocasio-Cortez, 35, and Connolly, 74, came as several committee ranking members have fallen to challenges from relatively younger colleagues.” • The full caucus does still need to vote, but as of now, it looks like all that sucking up didn’t buy AOC a thing. Which is a shame, since she’s a great natural talent. Let that be a lesson to you all! (I don’t care about her age: The Democrat leadership needs to be dismantled with a jackhammer, and I don’t much care how it’s done. Just imagine, Pelosi orchestrating the whole thing from a hospital bed in Paris. Commentary:
* * * “Senate Democrats push plan to abolish Electoral College” [The Hill]. • This is their focus? Really? Don’t ever change, Democrats!
Realignment and Legitimacy
“Americans Pass Judgment on Their Courts” [Gallup]. • Handy chart:
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
Ventilation priorities for the next airborne syndemic:
Schools, for example, are v effective propagators of outbreaks:
– Large numbers of contacts
– Indoor air quality often poor
– Long duration of exposure
– Universal attendance
– Children don't live alone: they live in households with other age groups -> community spread.2/
— Amanda Kvalsvig (@AmandaKvalsvig) December 13, 2024
Lambert here: Walgreen’s positivity hasn’t gone up, but it hasn’t gone down, either.
| Wastewater | |
| This week[1] CDC December 9 | Last week[2] CDC (until next week): |
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| Variants [3] CDC December 7 | Emergency Room Visits[4] CDC December 7 |
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| Hospitalization | |
| ★New York[5] New York State, data December 16: | National [6] CDC December 12: |
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| Positivity | |
| ★ National[7] Walgreens December 16: | Ohio[8] Cleveland Clinic December 7: |
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| Travelers Data | |
| Positivity[9] CDC November 25: | Variants[10] CDC November 25: |
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| Deaths | |
| Weekly Deaths vs. % Positivity [11] CDC November 20: | Weekly Deaths vs. ED Visits [12] CDC November 20: |
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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) Seeing a little more red, but nothing new major international hubs. Interestingly, Calculated Risk is watching wastewater too.
[2] (CDC) Last week’s wastewater map.
[3] (CDC Variants) XEC takes over. That WHO label, “Ommicron,” has done a great job normalizing successive waves of infection.
[4] (ED) A little uptick.
[5] (Hospitalization: NY) Leveled out.
[6] (Hospitalization: CDC). Leveling out.
[7] (Walgreens) Leveling out.
[8] (Cleveland) Up!
[9] (Travelers: Positivity) Leveling out.
[10] (Travelers: Variants). Positivity is new, but variants have not yet been released.
[11] Deaths low, positivity leveling out.
[12] Deaths low, ED leveling out.
Stats Watch
Retail Sales: “United States Retail Sales YoY” [Trading Economics]. “Retail Sales in the United States increased 3.8% year-on-year in November 2024, the biggest annual rise since December last year, and following an upwardly revised 2.9% gain in October.”
Manufacturing: “United States Industrial Production MoM” [Industrial Production]. “Industrial production in the United States fell by 0.1% from the previous month in November of 2024 to extend the 0.4% contraction in October, and contrasting with market expectations of a 0.2% rise. The result was consistent with other surveys that pointed to softness in US manufacturing, unveiling the sector’s struggle ahead of potential tariffs by President-elect Trump next year.”
Capacity: “United States Capacity Utilization” [Trading Economics]. “Capacity utilization in the US fell to 76.8% in November 2024, the lowest reading since April 2021, from a downwardly revised 77% in October and below forecasts of 77.3%. The rate is now 2.9 percentage points below its long-run average.”
Manufacturing: “One Boeing factory has been safe from layoffs and is about to start hiring” [Quartz]. “Although Boeing (BA) has been slow to restart production of the planes built by its unionized workforce and has been laying many of them off amid a year of struggles, the company announced it would be making a big investment in a non-unionized plant. The planemaker said last week that it would be sinking $1 billion in the South Carolina plant where it builds 787 Dreamliners and creating 500 jobs there.”
Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 52 Neutral (previous close: 56 Greed) [CNN]. One week ago: 47 (Neutral). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Dec 17 at 1:39:53 PM ET.
Mystery Drones
“Drone detectors in New Jersey have found ‘little or no evidence’ of wrongdoing, governor says” [Associated Press]. “Murphy told reporters in Trenton that there were 12 sightings of suspected drones in the state on Saturday and one on Sunday. He declined to go into detail about the detection equipment, but said it was powerful enough to disable the drones, although he added that is not legal on U.S. soil… Federal officials, including Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, have repeatedly said there are no signs that any drone operators have shown bad intent, nor is there evidence of foreign involvement.” • So, that’s alright then.
“Drones latest: FBI addresses mystery lights over East Coast as public warned not to shoot them down” [Independent]. “‘Having closely examined the technical data and tips from concerned citizens, we assess that the sightings to date include a combination of lawful commercial drones, hobbyist drones, and law enforcement drones, as well as manned fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, and stars mistakenly reported as drones,’ the federal agencies said.” But not planets? More: ‘We have not identified anything anomalous and do not assess the activity to date to present a national security or public safety risk over the civilian airspace in New Jersey or other states in the northeast.’ The FBI office in Newark has meanwhile moved to caution the public against trying to shoot down the unmanned devices, warning they could injure themselves.”
“Don’t panic – those mystery drones over New Jersey might not be so mysterious after all” [Techradar]. A new theory: “There was a larger drone test conducted either by the local or federal government or a company that wanted to see how well a delivery fleet operated at night. Since 2021, the FAA has authorized some drone night flights, though the drones still have to remain at elevations under 400 feet. That may account for why these drones have been so visible. They’re larger and cannot break the rules by flying in air space reserved for airplanes.” Those would be the SUV-sized drones (see NC here). And: “After that initial flight (and maybe a few subsequent ones), undiscerning eyes started to think that any light in the sky that they could not identify was also a drone. Drones of the size most people claim they’re seeing, by the way, are not easy to fly, and night flights would require even more expertise.”
“Military expert says ‘government knows the source’ of drones amid mystery sightings” [Hindustan Times]. Additional theorizing: “[Col. William] Dunn, an attack helicopter pilot who spent 33 years in the Marine Corps, said that he believes the ‘drones originate from inside the US’ because ‘it’s very difficult to fly an airplane the size of a vehicle into the United States without being detected.’ He went on to say that ‘a large drone has got to be refueled,’ suggesting that the drones that were recently spotted in New Jersey must have been refuelled somewhere within the country.” • These are, again, the SUV-sized drones (and not the bright lights in the sky, which are planes, or planets).
“Mystery as radioactive shipment goes missing in New Jersey amid drone invasion” [Daily Mail]. “A piece of medical equipment used for cancer scans was shipped from the Nazha Cancer Center in Newfield on December 2 for disposal, but the ‘shipping container arrived at its destination damaged and empty.’ The device, known as a ‘pin source,’ contained a small amount of Germanium-68 (Ge-68) that is used to calibrate a medical scanner’s accuracy. If handled without proper gear, it can cause radiation poisoning.” • If you buy the search for radioactivity theory, the timeline is wrong: The big (HPGe), SUV-sized drones first appeared in November 18. In any case, the dosage from the medical equipment is small, disproportionate to the effort.
Annals of Religion
“Survivors seek a reckoning as FBI investigates child sex abuse in little-known Christian sect” [Associated Press]. I’m filing this here because of the headline, but in fact it’s the institutional structure of the sect that interests me: ” Nearly every detail about the religious group Lisa Webb’s family belonged to was hidden from the outside world. Its followers met in homes rather than churches. Its leadership structure was hard to discern, its finances opaque. [The group known as the ‘Two by Twos’] didn’t even have an official name…. [T]he sect has largely avoided legal repercussions, protected by its decentralized structure, hidden finances and state laws that limit the timeline for criminal charges…. The sect, also known to its members as ‘The Way’ or ‘The Truth,’ was founded in Ireland in 1897 by William Irvine, who railed against the existence of churches. The only way to spread Christianity, he argued, was to do as Jesus instructed in the Book of Matthew: to send apostles out to live among those they sought to convert… [T]he sect’s aversion to property leaves it without apparent assets that might be used to pay settlements, legal experts say…. The sect grew as volunteer preachers — known as workers — went “two by two” to live in the family homes of followers for days or weeks at a time. Sect historians say there were up to a few million members just a few decades ago, but current estimates put the figure at 75,000 to 85,000 worldwide…. Workers are supposed to shun worldly possessions, relying on followers for food, shelter and transportation.”
“New Crisis Hotline for CEOs?” [Ken Klipperstein]. Differrent from the political parties? “New York state is considering creating a special hotline exclusively for CEOs to report perceived threats, CNN reported this morning. Nice little reminder of just how responsive government can be when it comes to corporate executives…. The lack of any concrete threat hasn’t stopped officials from preparing for one. Last Thursday, New York Governor Kathy Hochul told MSNBC’s Morning Joe about her plans to hold a “proactive” meeting on Tuesday with 175 corporate representatives as well as Homeland Security and counterterrorism officials to discuss how to share intelligence with corporate security, according to Kathy Wylde, CEO of the Partnership for New York City…. ‘Demonization of corporate executives is not new,’ Wylde told Politico last week. ‘It was part of the rhetoric in the financial crisis of 2008-09.'” • Remember in the S&L crisis, when corporate executives actually went to jail? That was before Obama, of course.
“Shock poll: 41 percent of young voters find killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO acceptable” [The Hill]. “The survey from Emerson College Polling found 68 percent of all respondents found the actions of the person who shot and killed Thompson unacceptable. But a startling 24 percent of those aged 18-29 found it ‘somewhat acceptable,’ and 17 percent of that group found it completely acceptable.” • Hoo boy.
“MIT study explains why laws are written in an incomprehensible style” [MIT News]. “Legal documents frequently have long definitions inserted in the middle of sentences — a feature known as ‘center-embedding.’ Linguists have previously found that this kind of structure can make text much more difficult to understand. ‘Legalese somehow has developed this tendency to put structures inside other structures, in a way which is not typical of human languages,’ [Edward Gibson, an MIT professor of brain and cognitive sciences] says. Just as magic spells are written with a distinctive style that sets them apart from everyday language, the convoluted style of legal language appears to signal a special kind of authority, the researchers say. ‘In English culture, if you want to write something that’s a magic spell, people know that the way to do that is you put a lot of old-fashioned rhymes in there. We think maybe center-embedding is signaling legalese in the same way,’ Gibson says.”
“90-hour-a-week Wall Street bankers snorting lines of Adderall at their desks” [The Telegraph]. • Our capital allocation is going great.
“Absinthe: From Green Fairy to Moral Panic” [History Today]. “Underlying absinthe’s dramatic fall from grace was a change in consumers. Once the expensive drink of the French bourgeoisie and artists, absinthe became more affordable in the second half of the 19th century, whereupon workers, women and those in the French colonies, from North Africa to Indochina, began drinking it. Consequently, absinthe came to be blamed for working-class criminality in general and, more specifically, for the acts of the revolutionary Communards after the siege of Paris in 1871. The author Maxime du Camp, for example, described these Communards in his 1881 book Convulsions of Paris, as ‘knights of debauchery and apostles of absinthe’.”
“U2’s Larry Mullen Jr: my dyscalculia makes ‘counting like climbing Everest'” [The Times]. “Larry Mullen Jr, the U2 drummer, has revealed that he cannot count or add numbers because he suffers from dyscalculia — a learning disability that affects numeracy…. ‘When people watch me play sometimes, they say, ‘you look pained’. I am pained because I’m trying to count the bars,’ Mullen said. ‘I had to find ways of doing this — and counting bars is like climbing Everest.’… About 6 per cent of the UK’s population suffers from dyscalculia, according to the Dyscalculia Network.” • 6%? Really?
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70 comments
Comments are closed.
Hello Everyone. We can do dis :-)
Hell yeah we can!
I can actually believe it. When I was still in school and tutoring people in mathematics, I wound up looking into it a bit. The figure I’ve heard tossed around (either globally or just in the US) is about 5% of the population.
I mainly brought it up with students as encouragement though, pretty much if anybody ever said they were “bad at math”. My elevator speech was that about 5% of the population has dyscalculia. But that means unless you’ve seen a specialist for it or struggle with super-basic number sense, 95% odds are you’ve just had some bad experiences and possibly a bad teacher.
Since reading “The Art Instinct”, “Catching Fire”, “Dancing in the Streets” and following recent developments in “developmental psychology” and neurology, I’d arrived at the thesis that math is one of Stephen Jay Gould’s “spandrels”.
The gene that created our capacity for language was for an open-ended “symbolic reasoning” capability. We sorted out math first through logic, language.
It would then make sense there’s some more significant percentage with Dyscalculia than with irreparable language disabilities. Pure speculation.
That makes sense to me, and meshes with a couple other things I can think of, specifically about the place-based decimal system.
Not only is that clearly more a symbolic process, but I’ve made a personal observation. People I know that seem to struggle with arithmetic can count fine. It’s when you have to combine numbers in an operation, or work with different digits / orders, that things go awry. Mixing up digits in particular really doesn’t look that different from dyslexia though.
LOL!
“Just as magic spells are written with a distinctive style that sets them apart from everyday language, the convoluted style of legal language appears to signal a special kind of authority, the researchers say”
They had to give up Latin so something was clearly needed to puzzle the herd. Good job.
RE: But not planets?
I can’t remember if I saw the report here at NC or someone from my astronomy group sent it, but I did see an astronomer identifying some of the recently sighted “drones” as the planet Venus, which is very bright in the early evening sky right now.
It threw me for a bit of a loop the other night too, when I was trying to eyeball the planets and I hadn’t realized Venus was out that night. But there’s an easy way to ID Venus! The whippersnappers among the commentariat may be able to do it with the naked eye, but most will probably need binoculars. Just take a look and if it looks like a miniature crescent moon, it’s Venus. If it’s round, it’s another planet. Or possibly the alien mothership.
Jupiter and Mars are visible later in the evening, as well as a number of bright stars. But the only night-flying drone I’ve seen had red and green lights like a plane. It hovered for a while and I could hear the motor noise, which was the same as a hobby drone only louder. This was several months ago here on Oahu, well before the current wave of sightings elsewhere.
“I’m filing this here because of the headline, but in fact it’s the institutional structure of the sect that interests me:”
Is the link missing? Very interested, as I have fellow travelers in the ‘house church’ movement and I worry over how they will address issues like those cited. “Workers are supposed to shun worldly possessions, relying on followers for food, shelter and transportation.” is modeled after an understanding (one of, um, several) of Jesus’ teaching and practice, echoed in early Christian writings, e.g. the Didache.
I think this is the intended link:
https://apnews.com/article/christian-sect-child-sex-abuse-scandal-a94073c27168a7998c1a225f72672a3d
I agree that this is interesting; unfortunately the way they filtered out “pursuit of lucre” as a motive for entering ministry does not seem to have worked to deter people with other kinds of bad motivations.
Thanks, fixed!
I’ve not heard of a church organized this way since the early days of the Christian church. A sort of guerilla church based on small cells. Decentralized with no bank accounts that can be swiped by any authorities or leadership that can be arrested to cripple an organization. It’s an interesting concept.
Taibbi’s latest, public excerpt.
Ketanji Brown Jackson Goes Broadway
Why choose tragic love, when self-aggrandizement is still an option? The Supreme Court Justice acts out the answer in a cheery agitprop romp
https://www.racket.news/p/ketanji-brown-jackson-goes-broadway
The attorneys in my orbit are embarrassed by this.
I guess that there is not enough work on the Supreme Court bench to keep them busy. Maybe soon we will see them in guest spots in films as well.
Maybe she was trying to learn what is a woman by participating in a Broadway stage performance. / ;)
Will she be in “Hamilton” soon?
Don’t worry Lambert. The Dems have no intention of ever changing!
Re: Crisis hotline for CEOs.
“Remember in the S&L crisis, when corporate executives actually went to jail? That was before Obama, of course.”
My exact thought. / ;)
Do they do crisis hotlines for young school kids worrying about school shootings as well? Maybe those CEOs should just embrace the suck.
Give em bulletproof North Face vests and hold active shooter drills in Davos.
S&L Crisis: Not only was that before Obama but Clinton put a full stop to executive prosecutions. Just ask William K. Black, who was there as a prosecutor.
I have added orts and scraps.
On the drones, all the official pronouncements are quite vague on the SUV-sized drones, oddly.
I’ll admit to being irked that Trump isn’t offering Victory Gin, with or without clove bitters.
Trump doesn’t drink.
re: adderall
i am in a discord server with some friends where they all abuse adderall like crazy. people will post things like ‘Ok chat vote. take adderall now, take adderall tn, take adderall tomorrow, or all three’ and everyone will vote for all three. i know multiple people who buy adderall off people prescribed it for ADHD. it is lowkey an epidemic. plus, it’s pretty easy to get diagnosed with ADHD, so it’s pretty easy to get a prescription.
I prefer taking Addinsell…
Warsaw Concerto
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eg0QEpXYmUw
Ah, but have you tried taking it in this formulation yet? (From Copenhagen, I understand. . . .)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NJaHqT2m1OE
RE: Jerome Adams on RFK
I don’t exactly know what Adams is referring to when he says Kennedy says that “no vaccine is safe and effective”, but I believe he is doing what a lot of Trump critics do and taking things out of context in order to give the worst possible interpretation. What I’ve heard Kennedy say is that no vaccine is 100% safe and effective because even the best vaccines have side effects in some small percentage of people because not everyone’s biology is the same. That’s not wrong.
I certainly don’t agree with Kennedy on everything, but I also don’t think he’s as bad as some try to make him out. From the interviews I’ve seen in the last couple years or so, as an environmental lawyer he quite often appears to be talking his book – he believes the things that make him money, like a lot of people do. Pretty American in that regard, just ask Upton Sinclair.
We’ll see if he gets approved and what he does. But it sure seems like a lot of people are trying to catch Trump and his appointees in a lot of ‘gotchas’ right now, just repeating smears that have gone on for years. Gabbard is getting a lot of this too.
Agree with you on the “Gotcha” angle. I believe it was a few days ago that a Boston Globe article headline basically said RFK was anti-Polio vaccine. My understanding was that it was only referencing the safety of one particular polio vaccine maker, that happened to be an oral dose, out of many available by other manufacturers that was the issue. If you just looked at the headline it read like he was against all Polio vaccines not just that particular one which may have problems.
That vaccines cause autism thing is just nonsense at this point. As far as I know, he has not yet refuted his position on this. And this is like flat-earthism long after we’ve launched satellites into orbit. It is beyond the pale at this point. Even the original study was retracted, ages and ages ago. Like back when the dinosaurs still roamed the Earth.
RFK is exactly as bad as he is made out to be.
There is no standard of proof that is good enough for him.
Lambert, the CA Covid wastewater dashboard has moved to:
https://skylab.cdph.ca.gov/calwws/
On the site you have linked, you can click to get this link, but you may want to go directly to it. It seems like all the data on the previous site is still available, although it took me a little bit to get used to the new interface.
Thank you!
Klipperstein on AOC losing to a man with mere months to live:
https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/dying-congressman-to-head-oversight?utm_source=post-banner&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=posts-open-in-app&triedRedirect=true
It’s not that we have a gerontocracy that disturbs me as much as that our leadership insists on keeping the disabled and the dying in place. Bernie Sanders is a good example of an older individual who is still an effective politician and there are many older people who are like him. But Thurmond, McConnell, Feinstein and Biden, not so much. Literally dying of old age while in office.
It makes sense to talk of the collective Feinstein. The team around her had policies to enact and money to collect from lobbyists. The fact she was barely alive was irrelevant, since it was never about here, she was just a mascot for a particular collective. Uncle Ben’s Rice. Dianne Feinstein’s policies. If they could, they’d just wheel in a life-size doll instead.
The “old” fossils want to get their chosen “young” fossils groomed and ready to take all these positions. It isn’t the age, its the fossilness. A fresh young fossil is still a fossil, and AOC ” wasn’t the drones they were looking for.”
Yeah. No wrinkles, no saggy jowls, no bald spots, , no stiff walking, no grey hair, no 50 years of experience in the Senate or the House. Doesn’t make for a deep bench.
“The Grift must go On”
While tempted to call AOC a has-been, truth is she’s a never-was.
I’ve never understood Lambert’s contention that she’s a natural talent.
I believe an award for excrescence in Journalism is needed, let’s call it the “Judith Miller Award” and I nominate Clarissa Ward of CNN as being worthy of being the first recipient.
Lambert has enough on his plate, would Caitlin Johnstone be a good choice to run it or would Tucker Carlson be more likely to have the resources ( And cast iron stomach) to handle such a project?
So does Pelosi, it seems. AOC certainly hasn’t been using hers for great things. Having a natural talent does not automatically qualify one for heady positions that directly effect the lives of Americans.
RE: ”Victory” cologne and perfume. ‘Crypto President’ watches. Limited-edition ‘American Eagle’ guitars. T-branded golf shoes and ‘Fight Fight Fight’ high-top sneakers. “Don, I keep tellin ya. Set up a Foundation!”
What’s it take to get a NakedCapitalism Tote Bag around here?
Here is a funny video called: ” Porch pirate saved homeowner a trip to properly dispose of TV” Here is the link.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Unexpected/comments/1hgn95j/porch_pirate_saved_homeowner_a_trip_to_properly/
If enough people did this enough times in places where porch piracy is a problem, would the porch piracy itself go down?
aannnndddd . . . it looks like Biden is trying to get some revenge on his fellow Officeholders . . .
https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/1hgegci/biden_calls_for_ban_on_congressional_stock_trading/
Even if his brain is tapioca, no one fu(k$ with a Biden. And from my own personal experience, people sundowning can get very mean and nasty.
Nah, his circle just realized they were going out as nakedly corrupt and want something to gripe about during media appearances to avoid discussions about the kids for cash pardon.
NY Times oped not paywalled they must be losing their shxt.
THE
PRESIDENT’S
ARSENAL
Oddly or not it’s Biden that’s gotten us into a potential nuclear confrontation.
They did this sort of crap four years ago when they were saying that the nuclear football should be taken off Trump as he was so reckless. But as you pointed out, it’s Biden that is the reckless one and has been pushing Russia to the brink again and again.
Ohhh… I’m afraid. Very afraid.
The way Biden seems intent on burning down the house before he leaves, I’m far more worried about the next 4 weeks vs next 4 years.
Latest Moon is really just a link up to this article, which is interesting.
https://ronpaulinstitute.org/would-a-trump-putin-agreement-bring-peace-to-ukraine-or-just-set-the-stage-for-more-war/
The thesis is that Putin really wants a deal and might even give Trump his frozen conflict based on US promises which mean nothing. The article’s setup is this quote from Churchill
“I have not become the King’s First Minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire.” – Winston Churchill, 1942
Of course in time Britain did have to give up its empire except–some say–us of course.
And that last is the problem. Did the monster once killed just shape shift into DC like in some fifties sci fi movie? How do we ever break free of our government of world meddlers?
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2024/12/russia-agree-to-be-provoked-or-fall-for-lucys-football.html#more
One guy in a comment there summed it up-
‘He who chooses to accept humiliation instead of fighting his attackers, first gets humiliated, and then gets attacked anyway.’
To give Trump a frozen conflict is a Russian defeat as the Ukraine would be built up militarily again and would be as good as in NATO. And with all those NATO, errr, I beg your pardon, with all those European troops stationed in the Ukraine, it would be only a matter of time until tactical “defensive” nukes are secretly deployed there.
Which is what nobody from the antiwar movement seems to understand.
Sure they want the killing to end the danger of WWIII decrease.
I do too.
But I am not sure they think further.
Admittedly Michael von Schulenburg and some others have put out a new peace concept again. And there is Jeffrey Sachs´s proposal. But they will certainly be not in the position to in fact control NATO movements once its safe for them to ship weapons again. So that none of those concepts will retain any significance in the real world.
On that note: I haven´t seen a single comment in German media and not American as far as I can tell that pointed out Dnepro was most likely a secret missile building plant for conventional and nonconventional use.
Except Sachs none of these well-meaning people will ever give up the illusion the Americans are somehow the good guys. It´s inside their psyche very very deep.
The fact that their American “friends” wish to destroy Russia whatever the costs to Europe is beyond their imagination.
Really frustrating.
Could Tino Chrupalla called for Germany to pull out of NATO focus a few minds?
As far as we know AfDs NATO position is one of their assets (same BSW). But even with a theoretical 30% in Febr. election (and the Western part of the country is way below that) – they will be cut out. US will never leave NATO (that´s absurd). Nor will Germany.
It´s a phantom discussion. Unless we have a “Bastille moment” which is pure fiction.
p.s. Too many Germans follow the anti-RU fear-mongering.
Remember the German proverb: “Die Russen Kommen.”
In the US this was mostly pun or a comedy title. Not here.
p.s. I disagree with MoA the Russians feel a serious need to end the war.
They are in this on a very long-term understanding.
Just the fact that the Russian state and administrative bodies – despite German and French initial resistance against NATO expansion 2008 – carried on with their revolution of military affairs and building of vast diplomatic networks all over the world should be proof enough that they have the most serious plan among all parties. And for sure the Chinese know the value of that Russian plan for their own security. So it is a de facto alliance on strategic terms.
That happens if you claim overextending the opponent (on their home turf?!) while in fact doing that to your own resources.
The Paul Robinson (?) piece on how wars end, linked here at NC a couple of days ago (with props from Martyanov, IIRC,) at bottom seemed to say that the proposal for a new security architecture for Europe (including Russia) which the RF offered in December of ’21 is what it will take to end the Ukraine conflict for good. That level of ambition is likely beyond the imagination of Trump and his camp followers, but President Putin is an impressively serious man, a man who can lead a nation. I think he occupies the moral and intellectual high ground here. The US is in a state of disorder and cascading collapse. When will there be a better time to secure Russia’s future security and global influence?
I still live with the hope the Trump admin. got it by now.
My experience says no.
Wrinkle: Whatever the result of any serious negotiations it will have zero effect on the earth-shattering repercussions of the new NATO induced rearmament of Europe on its economies and thus society itself as we will be forced into a very very cold neoliberal box without an escape hatch where in the name of national security (Covid argumentation 2.0) every dime will be taken away from social services, from education, from culture, from elementary R&D i.e. not short-term success, from healthcare, from public transport – from everything that makes humanly sense. And by 2054 they will have wasted the riches gathered since 1945.
And the worst part, 50% of the people will be so blinded that they are all in for this.
This is my most basic devastating insight since 2022 started and has in fact shattered my counter-factual “leftist” hope from before.
Turley
Preemptive pardons for all the leading Dems seems ridiculous and impossible and therefore is inevitable?
Aieeeee…
https://jonathanturley.org/2024/12/17/the-danger-of-white-knight-pardons-biden-could-fundamentally-change-presidential-power/
“Center-embedding” or as we call them, in-line definitions, are a peculiar love of US legal drafting. They are very much not good form in the UK.
Standards have slipped a bit but you can get an idea of how we do things from reading UK statutes. I’ll try to find some choice ones and link to them but the general principle is that because they are aimed at the whole population, they need to written as simply but unambiguously as possible. There’s a professional sub-goal of writing them as sparely as possible. Primary legislation is usually pretty good. Secondary legislation, regulations made by the government pursuant to an existing statute, are a mixed bag, because there is a large volume of niche legislation which gets minimal Parliamentary scrutiny. The people responsible for upholding the standards are the Parliamentary Bar, the barristers (and presumably some solicitors) who specialise in writing the legislation.
All this gets thrown out of the window when laws are updated however because the updates are usually a chain of acts saying “subsection (2) is replaced with subsections 2AA to 2AZ” below. Fortunately the online database of legislation merges all these into a set of time-line-indexed instances of the Act. Previously you had to buy commercial consolidated version or hope a consolidating act was passed.
When it comes to private law, the style is usually to have all of the defined terms up front in clause 1, a definitions clause, and if some later clause will itself create an entity that is subsequently referred to, this should be swept up into the definitions, e.g “‘Thingummyjig’ means a whatsit as defined pursuant to Clause 5′. In the US, that would typically remain buried in the body of the document like a landmine.
Ocasionally a UK contract will contain something like this but usually only the most minor passing temporary variable that’s required for some complex piece of legal logic within a clause. It is considered bad form to bury material matters in the body rather than define them up-front. Of course, separating them from where they are later used is its own form of obfuscation but at least in the UK you know to check the definitions for devilment and then read the doc….
UK contracts are also more readable simply because we employ modern fonts and use plenty of white space. US documents look Dickensian.
Civil law legal documents are hilariously short to UK eyes because everything is defined in a civil code somewhere and so the agreements are very short and usually rather woolly because everything is left to the judge and the Code if it goes wrong.
So far, the civil code legal system I have liked best has been the French (low drama, practical, elegant) and the least has been the Norwegian, which functions in English and is pleasantly informal but it seems to be impossible to conclusively settle or dismiss a court case!
Germany is immensely long-winded and everything seems to require a notary to read you the document in person in German. Spain is terrifyingly rigid in formality but then in practice nothing means what it seems. The Netherlands seems to be a free-for-all where nothing is ever certain – any corporate law question of “can we do this” seems to have the answer “yes, maybe” and all the lawyers go home at 5pm.
In what may be a watershed moment, conor gets NC linked at ZH
At the least a rarity similar to the sighting of a black leopard
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/why-are-black-leopards-so-rare-180973820/
I thought(?) ZH used to rip off NC content all the time (I guess they’re still at it), and that’s why any links to that site in comments get immediately sh*tcanned.
re: possible Oreshnik physics via Martyanov:
https://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2024/12/dmitry-orlov-came-up-with-hypothesis.html
” Dmitry Orlov Came Up With A Hypothesis…
… about the nature of Oreshnik. He makes only one debatable assumption about the mass of MIRV–it is most likely not 1.5 ton but less, but since the last time I did anything electrodynamics related was about 30 years ago, LOL, I still think that it is very interesting to see this POV:
Around a century ago it was noticed that when a fast-flying lead bullet or shell hits steel armor, it releases an amount of heat many times greater than the kinetic energy of the projectile (which is half the mass times its velocity squared, E_k=1/2 mv^2) — enough heat to burn a hole right through a steel plate. The reason for this anomaly is the same: electron inertia.
The binding energy in the crystal lattice of metals is approximately twice as large as that released during the explosive oxidation of TNT. At first glance, the explosion should not be much larger than that produced by a conventional explosive — about twice as large. The difference is that the time it takes to release this energy is hundreds of times shorter than during the chemical oxidation reaction in TNT and the energy from it is much more concentrated. Because of this, the destructive power of a Coulomb explosion can be 1000 times greater than that of a conventional explosive. Of course, this is not a nuclear explosion: no atomic nuclei are in any way damaged during this experiment. But it is comparable in its effects, which are much greater than what can be achieved using TNT.
For a bit of perspective, consider that 1 kg of uranium-235 can in theory (if every single atom of it undergoes nuclear fission) result in an explosion equivalent to 20 million kg of TNT. In reality, uranium is never enriched to 100% U-235 (anything above 90% is considered weapons-grade) and only a few percent of the U-235 have time to participate in a nuclear chain reaction before the whole contraption blows up. More realistically, a 1 kg nuclear charge is equivalent to about a million kg of TNT (or 1 kiloton). Meanwhile, 1 kg of metal in a Coulomb explosion will release energy equivalent to about a thousand kg of TNT (or 1 tonne). Nevertheless, these are still huge numbers.
And now we can address the question of what Oreshnik most likely is. Here is what has been publicly announced about it:
Warhead temperature: 4000ºC
Speed: Mach 10 (2.5–3 km/s)
Mass of warhead: ~1.5 tonnes
Perusing Dmitry Mendeleev’s Periodic Table of Elements we find just one candidate for warhead metal: tungsten. It melts at 3422ºC and boils at 5555ºC. Taking the mass of the warhead (which, we assume for the sake of simplicity, consists entirely of a single shaped piece of tungsten) at 1,500 kg, it produces the equivalent of 1,500,000 kg of TNT or 1,5 kilotons — a respectable amount for a small tactical nuke.
Which strongly suggest everything under, going down many levels, at the Mfg plant were totally destroyed. 6 X 6 staggered impacts …. ouch.
p.s. fun fact: In WWII German and British covert operations tried to control Portuguese tungsten production. Interestingly the country managed to remain a player to both parties.
While Germans had a geographic advantage the British had control over Lisbon´s telephone/telegraph network listening into the main communication.
The Meta Burn-ssssss ….
Elon Musk’s estranged daughter calls out his ‘entirely fake’ claims about her childhood
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/07/25/tech/elon-musk-daughter-vivian-jenna-wilson-criticizes-posts/index.html
And its a Two’fer … for a Jordan Peterson ref.
“He described his shift in ideology in an interview with right-wing Canadian podcaster Jordan Peterson on Monday, in which he claimed he was “tricked” into signing medical documents for Wilson’s transition,”
Keeps happening
Arizona Local News Anchor Ana Orsini Dies At 28
Re: “Mystery Drones”
The 2025 National Defence Authorisation Act (HR 5009) will pass the Senate today (Wednesday). Written long before this drone flap, it contains conveniently relevant language on “counter-UAS” stuff. My reading is they will lead to the military deploying murder-bots to protect US military assets in the homeland among other things. See the following two sections.
“SEC. 925. COUNTER UNMANNED AERIAL SYSTEMS TASK
FORCE”
“SEC. 1090. RESPONDING TO UNMANNED AIRCRAFT SYSTEMS INCURSIONS”
Just searching for “UAS” in the text is also useful.
—-
Separately, Schumer will also offer legislation this week to deal with drones via militarizing civilian spaces.
“Amid these drone sightings:
This week, I will move for the Senate to pass legislation giving local officials the tools and authorities necessary to act quickly and in lockstep with government agencies.” (Via Schumer’s Twitter)
—