2:00PM Water Cooler 1/3/2025

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88 comments

1. lyman alpha blob January 3, 2025 at 2:21 pm

   Psst – the link to “The Fall of Rome” links back to an image of the tweet. Here’s a working link – https://poets.org/poem/fall-rome

   And thanks for bringing it up – I hadn’t read that one before. I learned a new word (cerebrotonic – it sounds like a drink to make dudes smarter!), and I don’t know what those reindeer are there for either. Maybe to show that life goes on even as empires turn to dust?

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   1. DJG, Reality Czar January 3, 2025 at 2:57 pm

      Lyman alpha blob:
      Cerebrotonic bros seem like fairly normal reserved bros to me: The kind of bros who don’t want to be called bro.

      The first stanzas are about neglect.

      These lines may be where U.S. culture is right now, as a matter of fact: “All the literati keep / An imaginary friend.” The friend is called Theory.

      Then Auden pivots, somewhat maladroitly, to an indifferent nature. “Unendowed with wealth or pity,” birds, always prophetic, monitor the flu, the disease, the Waiting for the Barbarians, as Kavafis would have it.

      To complete indifference: Herds of animals migrating, as a great empire falls, galloping over moss, decisively, their own destination in mind, without regard for human effort. And quickly.

      After that?

      Heck. Pass the bougatsa, parakaló!

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   2. Adam Eran January 3, 2025 at 3:01 pm

      Don’t y’all think reindeer manage to survive on an otherwise barren landscape?

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      1. Lambert Strether Post authorJanuary 3, 2025 at 3:34 pm

         > otherwise barren

         Except for the moss. Why the moss? Why a duck?

         I do like the poem, though. Is the reindeer/moss climax something Yeats could have pulled off, but Auden could not?

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         1. Lee January 3, 2025 at 3:50 pm

            I don’t know about the moss but the Barren-ground caribou lives mainly on lichen, which can be confused with moss, both occupying similar niches. And if I may hazard a wild guess: perhaps it is an appeal to simplicity and restraint in fulfillment of appetite.

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         2. mrsyk January 3, 2025 at 3:54 pm

            Maybe illusions of a life cast in a golden light meeting reality?
            A first read for me. Thank you L.a.b.

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         3. Michaelmas January 3, 2025 at 6:08 pm

            Lambert: Is the reindeer/moss climax something Yeats could have pulled off, but Auden could not?

            @ Lambert –

            The reindeer have been displaced by an environmental disaster in the Germanic North — the loss of the lichen/moss upon which they feed –and are fleeing south in search of new pastures.

            But the reindeer are in turn the main protein source for the Germanic tribes, so they will be followed southwards by the barbarians — into the very heart of the Empire.

            ~ ~

            To be clear, the theory that the movement of the Germanic tribes southwards was impelled to a greater or lesser extent by environmental crisis is almost certainly correct. See forex —

            https://www.britannica.com/topic/history-of-Europe/Barbarian-migrations-and-invasions
            

            …during the Iron Age the Germanic peoples were at first cut off from the Mediterranean by the Celts and Illyrians. Their culture declined, and an increasing population, together with worsening climatic conditions, drove them to seek new lands farther south. … Driven by rising floodwaters, at the end of the 2nd century bce, migratory hordes of Cimbri, Teutoni, and Ambrones from Jutland broke through the Celtic-Illyrian zone and reached the edge of the Roman sphere of influence, appearing first in Carinthia (113 bce), then in southern France, and finally in upper Italy. With the violent attacks of the Cimbri, the Germans stepped onto the stage of history ….

            The ‘Reindeer’ angle was a flavor of the theory around in the latter half of the 1940s when Auden wrote the poem. It may be correct, too.

            Either way, the poem’s ending makes all the sense in the world and not merely as a Yeats-style ‘the falcon cannot hear the falconer’ turn of rhetoric.

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   3. Matthew January 3, 2025 at 7:18 pm

      The Nobel-prize poet Joseph Brodsky, made us memorize that poem (and a lot of others) when I argued my way into his graduate seminar on poetry during my freshman year at Michigan. My hunch is that the lines about the reindeer are echoes of lines in several poems by Hardy, who Auden loved, in which momentous human events take place while nature goes on about her beautiful business (see ‘A Drizzling Easter Morning,’ for example).

      Also see Auden’s own ‘Musee de Beaux Arts’:

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      1. Matthew January 3, 2025 at 7:22 pm

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         1. Matthew January 3, 2025 at 7:24 pm

            Attempt to post both poems with first reply didn’t take; attempt to edit disappeared both of them. Place shruggy thing here! Here’s the Hardy:

            And he is risen? Well, be it so. . . .
            And still the pensive lands complain,
            And dead men wait as long ago,
            As if, much doubting, they would know
            What they are ransomed from, before
            They pass again their sheltering door.
            I stand amid them in the rain,
            While blusters vex the yew and vane;
            And on the road the weary wain
            Plods forward, laden heavily;
            And toilers with their aches are fain
            For endless rest—though risen is he.

            And here’s the Auden:

            About suffering they were never wrong,
            The Old Masters: how well they understood
            Its human position; how it takes place
            While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along

            How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
            For the miraculous birth, there always must be
            Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
            On a pond at the edge of the wood:
            They never forgot
            That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
            Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
            Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer’s horse
            Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.

            In Brueghel’s Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
            Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
            Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
            But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
            As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
            Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
            Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
            Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

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2. Jeanne January 3, 2025 at 2:27 pm

   Lambert, Lambert. I will miss your updates.

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   1. GF January 3, 2025 at 5:10 pm

      Yes, so will my wife and I.

      Here’s an update about H-1B visas and congress:
      https://www.leefang.com/p/bernie-sanders-plans-to-force-vote

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      1. steppenwolf fetchit January 3, 2025 at 6:34 pm

         I would have preferred an effort to ban the visas and abolish the program. But these Sanders ammendments will be a good start, especially because if they are passed they will be seen over time to raise no incomes and curtail no abuses. And that will bring us a step closer to a Ban and Abolition policy.

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3. raspberry jam January 3, 2025 at 2:44 pm

   Re: Why Teen Vogue has a unionization beat.

   From the Teen Vogue Wikipedia entry:

   On May 10, 2021, Condé Nast announced that Versha Sharma, a managing editor at NowThis, would become Teen Vogue’s next editor-in-chief. Sharma was expected to begin on May 24, 2021.[26] Based on her experience at NowThis, Sharma introduced more video content to appeal to young audiences. She also stated her support for improving worker conditions and unionization of the magazine’s staff.[18]

   The citation for the bolded line goes to this fascinating piece in Columbia Journalism Review: Ok, Seriously: Teen Vogue maintains a socialist bent while trying to commodify its brand for advertisers in the fashion and beauty industry. How long will that work?

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   1. steppenwolf fetchit January 3, 2025 at 6:36 pm

      It will work as long as enough people keep buying the magazine that adplacers keep paying to place ads.

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4. ambrit January 3, 2025 at 2:47 pm

   Why only Teen Vogue?
   The young are traditionally our “Vanguard.” Too old to take orders unthinkingly anymore and too young to doubt their own intuitions.
   The counter proposition of the “Wise Elder” will be proposed. To which contention I observe that:
   First, those who lived that long essentially outlived their contemporaries and are thus the exemplars of their ‘generation’ through sheer survival. That survival is not proof of excellence.
   Second, that older members of society often harbour selfish and exclusionary desires. Being “wise” in that ethos does not automatically mean being pro-social. “Get off of my lawn,” suggests that a lot of questionable assumptions underlays the demand.
   Third, this upcoming generation is being faced with a fall in living standards compared to that of those who went before. Collective action is a natural and historically effective means of improving the class as a whole’s standards of living. “If it was good enough for Great Grand Dad, then it might be good enough for us. What do we have to lose?”
   Fourth, Teen Vogue has been trying to navigate the transition from mass market print media to the “moderne” electronics heavy media. Churn has been a noteworthy process in the editorial suite at the magazine. Sometimes, “churn” can be good, allowing ‘edgier’ and more experimental actors to emerge and be noticed.
   That’s my (pre-publication) story and I’m sticking to it.
   Stay safe.

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5. flora January 3, 2025 at 2:48 pm

   Turn out its not just the Pharma companies making money on keeping people on prescription drugs but it’s also the insurance companies. Who knew? Matt Stoller did a take down of Pharma Benefit Manager (PMB) middlemen. This Tucker Carlson (I know) episode expands on Stoller’s writing. Turns out the PBMs are owned by insurance companies and act as a hidden profit center for insurance companies. Tucker’s guest is hard to listen to — too fast, monotone, talking his own book, etc — at least to my ears. But, boy!, the information about PMBs is pretty shocking and matches Stoller’s explanation. / my 2 cents. utube, 1 hr, ~30+ minutes. (too many ads, heh)

   Brigham Buhler: UnitedHealthcare CEO Assassination, & the Mass Monetization of Chronic Illness

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

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   1. flora January 3, 2025 at 3:19 pm

      TL;DR Chronic illness is good for business.

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      1. jsn January 3, 2025 at 4:39 pm

         “Death dealing devices,

         Sold at high prices,

         Designed with you in mind to buy,

         As they kill you slow,

         And some of y’all don’t even know,

         Y’all paying the Machine to die.”

         Last Poets, Mean Machine

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   2. Jen January 4, 2025 at 7:48 am

      Two minute executive summary on the vertical integration between health insurance, pharmacy benefit managers and pharmacies from Dr. Glaucomflecken:

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_khH6pZnHCM

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6. Philip Ebersole January 3, 2025 at 3:06 pm

   What Prof. Symon has lost confidence in is not his belief that murder is objectively wrong, but his belief that students will reject the premise that murder is objectively wrong.

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   1. Lee January 3, 2025 at 3:52 pm

      Or that the students will expand the definition of justifiable homicide.

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   2. skippy January 3, 2025 at 10:36 pm

      Behavioral studies of mammals for yonks clearly show short extreme or long term high levels of stress completely overwhelm any past notion of ethic/moral environmental conditioning – flowery rhetoric aside by those not tainted by the aforementioned.

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      1. Offtrail January 4, 2025 at 6:44 pm

         There was never yet philosopher that could endure the toothache.

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7. Glen January 3, 2025 at 3:17 pm

   Re: Boeing is making yet another promise to do better. Can the prodigal child finally return?

   Deming is right, you cannot inspect quality into the part, but Boeing is way beyond having to address “over inspection” as an issue. They need to make sure they don’t send out airplanes with major mistakes like door plugs that blow out.

   Deming would have shut the whole place down when this is happening in the factories:

   Boeing whistleblower claims ‘thousands’ of broken parts, including crucial steering tools, ended up on airplanes
   https://www.yahoo.com/news/boeing-whistleblower-claims-thousands-broken-022700454.html

   These parts are supposed to be tagged as bad and secured/segregated to ensure that these cannot be installed. If the FAA was hard core (and it would only take another accident with a new MAX), the production certificate could get yanked (which would be an milestone event so I don’t expect it to happen), but remember it was Trump that made the call to ground the MAX’s in America after the accidents so strange things could happen.

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   1. JBird4049 January 3, 2025 at 5:53 pm

      >>>Boeing whistleblower claims ‘thousands’ of broken parts, including crucial steering tools, ended up on airplanes

      This is why I believe that Boeing is headed for destruction or a government takeover. Airline crashes are not acceptable if they keep happening.

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   2. The Rev Kev January 3, 2025 at 7:07 pm

      If we are going to be realistic, would there be a place for a modern day Deming in industrial manufacturing. Boeing would never let such a person be anywhere near their facilities and it may be that American industry would black ball such a person. Now that I think about it, maybe the Chinese would listen to what he had to say in the same way that the Japanese did after WW2. Before that war, Japanese products were notoriously junk and that reputation bedeviled them for decades. But when Deming came in he told them that if they just concentrated on quality, that the world would bet a path to their doors in five years. And he was right as the Japanese became renowned for quality. But I do not think that Boeing wants to listen to that message yet as they have to listen to their institutional shareholders first.

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8. Jason Boxman January 3, 2025 at 3:24 pm

   The Amazon counterfeit product scandal is way worse than I thought. It’s massive. I wouldn’t hold the stock until it gets sorted out.

   100% of the Dilbert calendars on Amazon are fake. I don’t sell the calendar on Amazon. And Amazon has an (intentionally) broken system for reporting the fakes. The fakes come faster than the reporting system.

   I’m hearing incredible stories of Amazon abusing American small business owners by essentially being accomplices in stealing their work and giving it to China. The system is so robust that ANY successful American product China can copy gets knocked off.

   More on that story today.

   https://x.com/scottadamssays/status/1875153196542480582?s=46

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9. Ben Panga January 3, 2025 at 3:32 pm

   > The Trump tweet

   Whitney Webb highlights the CIA bit:

   “The CIA must get involved, NOW, before it is too late”

   A call to have the CIA involved in domestic policing from the guy who is supposedly being constantly targeted by the CIA, all because of an alleged “terror” threat based on groups created (and arguably still managed) by the CIA (Al Qaeda and ISIS)….. Checks out.

   2025 is shaping up to be the year of make Palantir (a CIA front company) great again.

   BP: war on terror comes home

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   1. Lambert Strether Post authorJanuary 3, 2025 at 3:36 pm

      > Whitney Webb

      Well, I’m glad I’m not alone in noticing that line. I think.

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      1. Ben Panga January 3, 2025 at 3:56 pm

         When my tinfoil hat is particularly snug, I ponder that the Mangione, NJ drones, and terrorism stories ALL increase the power of (and perceived need for) the domestic surveillance cabal.

         And, the time between Nov 5th and Jan 20th seems ideal for “pulling shit”

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         1. Jonathan Holland Becnel January 3, 2025 at 10:04 pm

            The Working Class is Uniting

            So we gotta fucking terrorize them into madness

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10. Ben Panga January 3, 2025 at 3:50 pm

    Cybertruck dude email….

    Shawn Ryan (who I wouldn’t normally link) appears to have a guy on his show who received an email from the Cybertruck guy dated Dec 31st.

    The email is an accusations of a cover-up involving “drones” and “gravitic propulsion”. I don’t know what to make of it.

    Email is up on screen at 15:30ish

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

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    1. Ben Panga January 3, 2025 at 4:19 pm

       I used some software to transcribe the Cybertruckdude’s alleged email
       [May contain errors. There are a couple of redacted names that don’t show up]

       To: Cc:

       In case I do not make it to my decision point or on to the Mexico border I am sending this now. Please do not release this until 1JAN and keep my identity private until then.

       First off I am not under duress or hostile influence or control. My first car was a 2006 Black Ford Mustang V6 for verification.

       What we have been seeing with “drones” is the operational use of gravitic propulsion systems powered aircraft by most recently China in the east coast, but throughout history, the US. Only we and China have this capability. Our OPCEN location for this activity in the box is below.

       China has been launching them from the Atlantic from submarines for years, but this activity recently has picked up. As of now, it is just a show of force and they are using it similar to how they used the balloon for sigint and ist, which are also part of the integrated comms system. There are dozens of those balloons in the air at any given time.

       The so what is because of the speed and stealth of these unmanned AC, they are the most dangerous threat to national security that has ever existed. They basically have an unlimited payload capacity and can park it over the WH if they wanted. It’s checkmate.

       USG needs to give the history of this, how we are employing it and weaponizing it, how China is employing them and what the way forward is. China is poised to attack anywhere in the east coast

       I’ve been followed for over a week now from likely homeland or FBI, and they are looking to move on me and are unlikely going to let me cross into Mexico, but won’t because they know I am armed and I have a massive VBIED. I’ve been trying to maintain a very visible profile and have kept my phone and they are definitely digitally tracking me.

       I have knowledge of this program and also war crimes that were covered up during airstrikes in Nimruz province Afghanistan in 2019 by the admin, DoD, DEA and CIA. I conducted targeting for these strikes of over 125 buildings (65 were struck because of CIVCAS) that killed hundreds of civilians in a single day. USFORA continued strikes after spotting civilians on initial ISR, it was supposed to take 6 minutes and scramble all aircraft in CENTCOM. The UN basically called these war crimes, but the administration made them disappear. I was part of that cover-up with USFORA and Agent of the DEA. So I don’t know if my abduction attempt is related to either. I worked with GEN Millers IO staff on this as well as the response to Bala Murghab. AOB-S Commander at the time can validate this.

       You need to elevate this to the media so we avoid a world war because this is a mutually assured destruction situation.

       For vetting my Linkedin is Matt Berg or Matthew Livelsberger, an active duty 18Z out of 1-10 my profile is public. I have an active TSSCI with UAP USAP access.

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       1. alrhundi January 3, 2025 at 5:43 pm

          If he was planning on escaping to Mexico it makes sense he would have his passport on him. Sounds like Musk cars have quite the surveillance ability. There’s some really big claims in here.

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          1. Matthew January 3, 2025 at 8:43 pm

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11. Lambert Strether Post authorJanuary 3, 2025 at 4:21 pm

    A thread on the Cybertruck dude, Livelsburger:

    More details have emerged on Matthew Livelsberger. And together, this whole story stinks.

    He was divorced from his first wife (brown hair in previous article) sometime after 2016. At some point thereafter, he remarried this woman. And had a child with her. pic.twitter.com/IHZKF2EGNU

    — Joe Quinn (@SeosQuinn) January 3, 2025

    Funny how his passport _{MR SUBLIMINAL Dang, that reminds me of something….} miraculously survived the flames.

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    1. Ben Panga January 3, 2025 at 4:38 pm

       Curiouser and curiouser .

       From that thread: “Police say he shot himself 17 seconds before the truck exploded”.

       How could they be so specific? I’d love there to be video. I guess it could also be some in-Tesla recording which would seem sketchier.

       —

       Deep state on Deep state f*ckery theory: dumping a body outside Trumpland in an exploding Tesla could be quite a statement to Trump and the Trump adjacent.

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       1. JBird4049 January 3, 2025 at 6:24 pm

          Walter Kirn on America This Week said that the handgun was .50 caliber, which is just insane. A handgun of that caliber is just huge and very difficult to use. It would probably be great for obliterating a person’s entire face head.

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12. hauntologism January 3, 2025 at 4:35 pm

    Fort Bragg? I thought it was “Fort Liberty”.

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    1. doug January 4, 2025 at 9:24 am

       It was Ft. Bragg when those two were there, so it is correct.

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13. Glen January 3, 2025 at 4:37 pm

    Looks like has Biden has blocked the US Steel acquisition by Nippon Steel:

    Order Regarding the Proposed Acquisition of United States Steel Corporation by Nippon Steel Corporation
    https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2025/01/03/order-regarding-the-proposed-acquisition-of-united-states-steel-corporation-by-nippon-steel-corporation/

    Maybe if Nippon Steel was smart enough to to open an American based company named Wally Mart Steel or Amazonian Steel it would have been OK. After all, they’ve been doing pretty much the same thing to other American businesses for decades.

    Or is it only allowed for American billionaires to wreck America? These finer points of being a billionaire country wrecker allude me.

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14. aragorn January 3, 2025 at 4:38 pm

    RE:This argument seems reasonable to me:
    Her theory hinges on the idea that the backpack was the only possible vessels for the assailant’s weapons upon his fleeing to PA; however he could have discarded the backpack and continued to transport the weapons on his person via under clothing holster or similar means. Additionally, the backpack was found containing only monopoly money, meaning that if he did discard the weapons they probably weren’t in it in the first place.

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    1. Lambert Strether Post authorJanuary 4, 2025 at 7:21 am

       > the backpack was found containing only monopoly money

       So they say.

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15. Roger Blakely January 3, 2025 at 4:40 pm

    Los Angeles County SARS-CoV-2 wastewater numbers

    http://publichealth.lacounty.gov/media/Coronavirus/data/index.htm

    11/30/24 14%
    12/7/24 13%
    12/14/24 18%
    12/21/24 19%

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16. albrt January 3, 2025 at 4:43 pm

    Re: Maybe Tesla’s stupid touch screen is dangerous

    There was a time when auto manufacturers employed “human factors” engineers and were very careful about changing control panels and adding things that would distract drivers. As a lawyer I am actually pretty shocked that there have not been more design defect cases based on touch screens, because expecting a driver to use a touchscreen while driving is obviously dangerous, and I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be hard to find a retired human factors engineer to say so.

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    1. Norton January 3, 2025 at 8:31 pm

       I sat in a cyber truck recently and think that the gigantic touchscreen is a legal attractive nuisance disaster waiting to happen. No Tesla products for me.

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    2. Zelja January 4, 2025 at 8:42 am

       Every safety rule and regulation is written in blood. Not enough people were sacrificed to the gods of touchscreens.

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17. GlassHammer January 3, 2025 at 5:40 pm

    “awarded $176 million to Moderna, a major maker of coronavirus vaccines, to develop a similar vaccine using mRNA technology against H5N1.”

    What exactly are we doing to protect livestock beyond culling and limited isolation?

    It’s really not that hard to lose so much livestock that the number of food deserts multiples or God forbid a man made famine comes about.

    The lack of urgency is…. jaw dropping.

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    1. steppenwolf fetchit January 3, 2025 at 6:44 pm

       To me the lack of urgency is . . . suspicion raising.

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       1. GlassHammer January 3, 2025 at 7:09 pm

          I really don’t know what to make of it.

          If that disease culls the majority of a farms hens or cattle the farmer might lose the farm all together.

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          1. Milton January 3, 2025 at 7:59 pm

             lose the farm all together.

             and that’s where private equity comes in.
             All according to plan…

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       2. steppenwolf fetchit January 4, 2025 at 6:36 pm

          To me, the suspicion that the lack of urgency raises . . . is the suspicion that the “secret agenda-setters” directing the non-urgent response have the secret agenda of trying to buy this flu enough time to be able to mutate on its own into a megadeath human-to-human Spanish Flu 2.0 which will advance the Jackpot Plan by millions of casualties.

          If my suspicion is correct, then midwifing the arrival of Spanish Flu 2.0 is the point of the lack of urgency, and any mass-farm-collapse food-shortages would just be the gravy on the cake.

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    2. petal January 3, 2025 at 8:54 pm

       Being forced by my employer to take yet another experimental vaccine in order to keep my job and my apartment terrifies me and keeps me up at night. It damaged my body the first time around. I can’t go through this again.
       Why does the government keep pushing the mRNA vaccines? You’d think nothing else exists or there is no other option. I don’t trust Moderna or Pfizer or any of these companies.

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       1. The Rev Kev January 3, 2025 at 9:09 pm

          If you’re lucky, when Trump comes in he will put a stop to mandatory vaccinations because that is what his base is demanding.

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       2. SES January 3, 2025 at 11:27 pm

          Is Novavax an option?

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       3. Jen January 4, 2025 at 7:58 am

          Novavax has one in the works. They’ll probably have it ready to go and then we’ll have to wait 6 months for Pfizer to bring theirs to market before it’s approved.

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          1. Leftcoastindie January 4, 2025 at 12:53 pm

             I took the Novavax vaccine a few weeks ago. Didn’t even get a sore arm. It’s out there but you will have to look for it. I got it at CVS and my wife asked for it at her pharmacy Savon and they don’t have it.

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18. Cat Burglar January 3, 2025 at 5:44 pm

    The Xavier Symons article reads as if he is applying for the United Healthcare Chair in Moral Philosophy.

    One notes that, as a philosopher, he is constantly off his turf. He criticized Elizabeth Warren’s statement on the Thompson shooting, but only quotes her social-political judgement that if people are pushed hard enough, they take matters into their own hands, but vilifies her as morally defending Mangione. What he is really doing is condemning her for not condemning Thompson’s killer. I guess, like economists do, he is trying to set up his own academic specialty as the true controller of all things.

    His disquisition on inequality in the US detours into lame hypotheticals on self-worth and name-checking Fukuyama — and that’s when it hit me: he resorted to speculation because he’s never experienced the US private insurance system. It all theory to him, because he lives in a country with national healthcare (and a 30-day paid vacation to boot). He does not cite even a single US news story about claims delays and denial causing deaths. Not only does he not stay in his disciplinary lane, he is also ignorant of the real moral world of the US insurance system.

    While it was truly a revelation to find out Saint Basil of Cappdocia is the patron saint of hospital administrators, at the end of the article you feel like it was a good thing you didn’t waste any time studying moral philosophy when you were in school.

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    1. JBird4049 January 3, 2025 at 6:16 pm

       >>>While it was truly a revelation to find out Saint Basil of Cappdocia is the patron saint of hospital administrators, at the end of the article you feel like it was a good thing you didn’t waste any time studying moral philosophy when you were in school.

       As with anything, it is how you use what you have learned that matters although I suspect that the moral philosophy being taught in some schools is akin to modern economics instead of the older political economy. Often people are either taught or just decide to use their skills to manipulate rather than study and clarify as it pays better. I think that being actively stupid is what we have gotten from neoliberalism because this what the system wants.

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       1. Cat Burglar January 3, 2025 at 10:04 pm

          You’re right — but most of the ethics I encountered in school just considered single acts by individuals, and ended there. That kind of discourse had some value, but wasn’t adequate to evaluate something like napalming a village of farmers’ huts or a war. Only history and political economy can draw up a balance sheet on such huge scale events that involve organized social action over time by individuals and institutions., so I studied that.

          Symons wants to address the political, but without seeming to, and that makes his perspective appear disingenuous, as when he champions human dignity in the case of the Mangione and Thompson, but not in the thousands and thousands of cases all around them produced by organizations of the type Thompson was paid to run. Symons is smart enough to know what he is doing, and because he is deliberately writing publicly the way he does — and ex cathedra, as it were — he should be called out for it and made fun of for it.

          If he does get the United Healthcare Chair in Moral Philosophy appointment he deserves, and it is in the US, he will want to spend part of his government-mandated 30-day paid vacation looking into the health plan they’re offering him.

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19. Jason Boxman January 3, 2025 at 6:06 pm

    So on MAGA, either they were a) outmaneuvered or b) all bark, no bite, after all, just like The Left.

    Either way, Musk and Big Tech wins again on H1-Bs. Congrats all around!

    I notice the H1-B debate has aged away from the Twitter lately, as well, with nothing really in my timeline. Maybe the relevant influencers properly fell in line, I dunno. I don’t follow the MAGA space.

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20. GramSci January 3, 2025 at 6:13 pm

    Re: Dante’s Missing Circles

    Fear and Treachery are neoliberal virtues, thereby forgiven in Margaret Sullivan’s confessional.

    Reply ↓
    1. gk January 4, 2025 at 12:49 am

       But isn’t usury also a neoliberal virtue?

       Reply ↓
21. Jason Boxman January 3, 2025 at 6:31 pm

    Per RAND, department of agriculture already has authority to test everything. Lol. So we’re doing nothing. Surprise. What a joke of a country. The liberal Democrat legacy is mass death and no public health.

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22. The Rev Kev January 3, 2025 at 6:48 pm

    “FBI shares new details of suspect in D.C. pipe bombs plant on Jan. 6 eve”

    They might have nabbed that person but then all spare resources went to tracking down Russiagate and Trump’s connection with Putin. That’s what they mean when they said that ‘resources were later diverted’. Of course by now the trail of that pipe bomber is so cold that you could ice skate on it.

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23. Escapee January 3, 2025 at 7:03 pm

    Due to Lambert, my imminent multi-flight passage to Thailand for a 2-month stint includes: 1) avoiding Boeing anything and taking Airbus (warts and all) instead, 2) wearing an elastomeric Breathe mask on every flight, and 3) scheduling a trip to a Thai pharmacy to buy Covitrap on Day One.

    What a mensch.

    Reply ↓
    1. Keith Newman January 4, 2025 at 1:02 am

       @Escapee
       FYI Watsons pharmacy in Bangkok sells Covitrap.

       Reply ↓
       1. Escapee January 4, 2025 at 4:25 am

          Many thanks for the assist! Have you tried it? If so, thoughts?

          Reply ↓
    2. Lambert Strether Post authorJanuary 4, 2025 at 7:16 am

       > Due to Lambert

       “My work here is done.” Adding, I’d get some Betadine nose spray and consider an Air Tamer, a nifty little device. Might as well prepare now for the next airborne pandemic and I don’t like little tidbits of news about bird flu emanating from mainland China. Enjoy your flight!

       Reply ↓
       1. GramSci January 4, 2025 at 10:26 am

          Adding my one percent, due to Lambert: You can make your own “Betadine” nose spray. For a life supply of nose spray, buy a 4oz bottle of 10% povidone iodine for < $10 from any pharmacy. Add 1ml povidone per 10 ml saline solution. Voilá. (OTC Betadine is 0.7%.). Use before and/or after exposure to aerosol viruses.

          (In the U.S. you can buy soft plastic squeeze spray bottles of saline very cheap–you might even find some with added carrageenan. In Italy, Spain, and the UK my daughter has only been able to find pump spray bottles making the process only slightly more complicated.)

          In the past three weeks, after having been involuntarily transferred to Florida, I've been visited by eight family members with up to five different respiratory ailments, one of which has tested positive for Covid. Unlike my fully-vaxxed wife, children, and grandchildren, I have remained free of any* upper respiratory infection for going on 5 years, now.

          N of 1, but as John Lennon says, I'm not the only one.

          * I do not have natural immunity to Covid or flu. I have a long history of pneuomias, flus, and bronchial infections. I did catch Covid once when I neglected to use povidone when on a large family retreat, but I credit prompt reapplication of the spray with minimizing sequelae.

          Reply ↓
          1. Yves Smith January 4, 2025 at 10:50 am

             I’ve been recommending a 10% solution of 10% povidone iodine for years.

             Reply ↓
24. AG January 3, 2025 at 10:31 pm

    …so Alex Christoforou is confirming my guess for the German elections: CDU/SPD/GREENS
    TC 28:00
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uf7y6vCCoc0

    It’s actually quite shameful we let it come this far: that nothing matters any more and that it is the GREENS of all people!!!!

    And still – hardly any of my friends and colleagues who I would share views on so many other issues would agree with me on this one: peoples´ right to goddam vote for whoever they wish to, i.e. AfD too.

    They simply shut down. They reject it. Deny it.
    What is happening?

    So at some point I rather turn to elephants and their language.
    I used to turn to soccer for that reason. But by now even soccer analysts start to babble about politics they have zero clue of. Mixing things which are not to be mixed.

    Reply ↓
    1. rowlf January 4, 2025 at 12:39 am

       I suggest looking for Thai elephant soccer. Initially the elephants thought popping a soccer ball was good fun. These problems were soon solved.

       Elephants playing football – Surin Elephant Festival – Thailand

       Elephants kicking a ball, very exciting, showing the clever elephants, Surin Province Elephant Show 2023

       Does carrying the ball with a trunk count as a foul?

       Reply ↓
       1. Ben Panga January 4, 2025 at 1:59 am

          Unfortunately the elephants that play football (or paint etc) in Thailand have been mistreated and beaten to “train” them. There are a few good centers, but these just care for the elephants. Anywhere with “tricks” or “a show” will be bad.

          Reply ↓
          1. AG January 4, 2025 at 5:37 am

             …they made them paint too?
             May be they put em into a space shuttle…
             Space Dumbo…

             Reply ↓
       2. AG January 4, 2025 at 4:39 am

          Wow.
          thanks
          this is crazy
          sent it to my people who usually like to say I am too serious and talking way too much about nukes, Gaza and Ukraine.
          Nooooo. way.

          Reply ↓
25. Glen January 4, 2025 at 12:32 am

    So if Trump really leans into China tariffs or a trade war or even if the economy goes bumpity-bump – consider your bigger purchases wisely. Here’s some anecdotal data on potential supply chain issues with cars (NEWER CARS):

    Broke Supply Chain: I Can’t Fix Cars When I Can’t Get Parts?!?
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsZLCEg7UOU

    Reply ↓
26. Acacia January 4, 2025 at 2:46 am

    Twixler is telling me that JD Vance started laughing as VP Kamala Harris was swearing in new Senators. Lol

    Reply ↓
    1. Lambert Strether Post authorJanuary 4, 2025 at 7:15 am

       > JD Vance started laughing

       Because Kamala butchered the pledge of allegiance.

       Reply ↓
27. skippy January 4, 2025 at 4:42 am

    Mar Hicks
    liked your reply
    I am – my own – tuna sandwich … yet I did not add the mercury/toxins to it. Some with short term incentives did that.

    Reply ↓
28. AG January 4, 2025 at 4:44 am

    Is there a Marine in this country NOT tattooed?

    Reply ↓
    1. scott s. January 4, 2025 at 2:18 pm

       Pretty much no, though they have more size/placement restrictions than army.

       Reply ↓
29. AG January 4, 2025 at 5:04 am

    The Rise of the French Fry Cartel
    https://jacobin.com/2025/01/french-fry-price-fixing-antitrust
    After decades of consolidation, just four firms now control at least 97 percent of the $68 billion frozen potato market. A new spate of antitrust lawsuits accuses them of brazen price-fixing.

    Reply ↓
30. Martin Oline January 4, 2025 at 5:39 am

    Thanks for the live version of Graham Parker’s Don’t Ask Me Questions. It has clearer lyrics than the studio version (the “but I can’t liberate” part was unclear there). I have always liked his music.
    I got to see him and the band up in Portland, Oregon in 1979 I think it was. Here is a video from Atlanta, Georgia of Nobody Hurts You (Harder Than Yourself) in the same tour.

    Reply ↓
    1. Lambert Strether Post authorJanuary 4, 2025 at 7:11 am

       I encountered Parker through reggae (not the other way round). The band, the Rumor, sayeth Wikipedia, was extremely well-regarded; musicians of the first rank though not sadly “rock stars.”

       And “A crimson autograph is what we leave behind,” which I had not recalled when I mentally reached for the song, seems highly a propos, for Luigi, and for the Vegas and NOLA protagonists (who are not boys, as so many school shooters, but men, which should give us all pause; by “men” I am referring to maturity, not gender).

       Reply ↓
       1. Martin Oline January 4, 2025 at 3:00 pm

          I think it is Brinsley Schwartz in the white jacket playing the flying V guitar in the clip I linked to. He had a band called Brinsley Schwartz in the early ’70’s which also had Nick Lowe as a member. I heard an interview with him that years after Parker and The Rumour parted ways Graham and he happily reconnected for recording for a number of years.

          Reply ↓
31. AG January 4, 2025 at 6:02 am

    anyone who already read Scott Horton´s latest book?
    “Provoked: How Washington Started the New Cold War with Russia and the Catastrophe in Ukraine”

    Reply ↓