Elephants Are Legal Persons and Deserve To Be Free, Group Claims in Court Petition Newsweek (Furzy Mouse).
‘Go away, pig!’ A hog traps a woman in her truck for hours, and even food didn’t help Miami Herald
Elon Musk: The Architect of Tomorrow Rolling Stone. Musk: “Is there anybody you think I should date? It’s so hard for me to even meet people.”
Elon Musk calls investors who bet against Tesla’s stocks ‘jerks who want us to die’ Business Insider. If there were a “Five Stages of Grief for Founders,” I bet “Hating on Shorts” would be one of them.
Waymo, Uber squabble over ground rules as trade-secrets theft trial looms San Francisco Chronicle
Inside Artificial Intelligence’s First Church WIRED. Anthony Levandowski: “Part of it being smarter than us means it will decide how it evolves, but at least we can decide how we act around it. I would love for the machine to see us as its beloved elders that it respects and takes care of. We would want this intelligence to say, ‘Humans should still have rights, even though I’m in charge.'”
Google Docs down: Word processing tool breaks for users all across the world The Independent (YY). YY: “I don’t understand the functional merit of the cloud when local storage options get exponentially ever cheaper, physically smaller, and higher in capacity on a daily basis. The wonder of sharing and convenience goes out the window when the cloud becomes unreliable, let alone something you can trust. The same bandwidth and speed which allows for the cloud to be marketed also turns the functional advantages into mere hype to tie customers into client relationships.”
Boeing 757 Testing Shows Airplanes Vulnerable to Hacking, DHS Says Avionics (CL).
The Low Volatility Puzzle: Is This Time Different? Liberty Street Economics. Betteridge’s Law….
Brexit
May grapples with Brexit challenges at home and abroad FT
Brexit: Ministers see off EU Withdrawal Bill challenges BBC
Is Theresa May planning to go soft on Brexit? The New Statesman
The Guardian view on ‘the mutineers’: protecting parliament Guardian
Maple Brexit? EU eyes Canada model for UK trade Reuters
BREXMAS GIVEAWAY Theresa May to offer Brussels £20billion to kick start Brexit trade talks The Sun
When the mainstream Left gets lost down its Europhile hole Bill Mitchell. From October, still germane.
Syraqistan
Revealed – Saudis Plan To Give Up Palestine – For War On Iran Moon of Alabama
French foreign minister to meet Hariri as Lebanon crisis escalates France24
Saudi Aramco says state corruption purge should hearten investors FT
Zimbabwe: Military calculates next move after Mugabe loses iron grip on country after 37 years Independent
India
Three Years In, Modi Remains Very Popular Pew Research Center
China
ASEAN shuns mention of China’s new islands, arbitration loss WaPo
Arigato, Trump-san: Japan’s Wake-up Call Peter Tasker. “The end of American exceptionalism means the end of Japanese exceptionalism too.”
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico struggles to assess hurricane’s health effects Nature
Russia and Venezuela agree debt deal BBC
New Cold War
The Secret Correspondence Between Donald Trump Jr. and WikiLeaks Atlantic and We Knew Julian Assange Hated Clinton. We Didn’t Know He Was Secretly Advising Trump. The Intercept (GF) vs ‘The Atlantic’ Commits Malpractice, Selectively Edits To Smear WikiLeaks Medium. Lie down with dogs…
How to Instantly Prove (Or Disprove) Russian Hacking of U.S. Election Washington’s Blog. New perspectives on attribution.
Christopher Steele believes his dossier on Trump-Russia is 70-90% accurate Guardian
Trump Transition
GOP tax plan in trouble after Republican senator says he won’t back it WaPo. Ron Johnson.
Tension High at Senate Finance Committee Tax Markup Roll Call
How a New Inflation Measure Would Raise Taxes on the Middle Class WSJ. Chained CPI. For the politics of chained CPI and Social Security, see here.
Senate tax bill ditches stock option change after outcry from tech start-ups Los Angeles Times
The Republican tax plan’s five worst dangers Robert Rubin, WaPp
Under Trump, Banking Watchdog Trades Its Bite for a Tamer Stance NYT
The Supreme Court has made it much easier for politicians to get away with corruption Zephyr Teachout, Medium (GF).
Sex in Politics…Not!
Bill Clinton should have resigned Matt Yglesias, Vox
Lawmakers Introduce ‘Me Too’ Act To Combat Sexual Harassment on Capitol Hill HuffPo
Amid Roy Moore Scandal, the Last Thing Alabama Democrats Want Is Help NBC
Health Care
Exchange Enrollment Remains Strong But May Slow Due To Mandate Repeal Effort Timothy Jost, Heatlh Affairs. “The premium tax credit increases driven by higher premiums caused by the Trump administration’s termination of cost-sharing reduction payments to insurers are making bronze plans free and gold plans more affordable for many consumers. This is likely causing many shoppers to actually select a plan once they have visited HealthCare.gov to find their options.” I was skeptical of the Silver Switcharoo, but perhaps wrongly. I’d love to see breakdowns of the enrollment data, especially by income and jurisdiction. Also, these are figures for HealthCare.gov, not (say) Covered Califorinia.
Feds owe health insurers $12.3 billion in unpaid risk-corridor payments Modern Heath Care
Kept in the Dark About Doctors, but Having to Pick a Health Plan NYT
No Excuses, People: Get the New Shingles Vaccine NYT. “Medicare will cover Shingrix under Part D (like its predecessor), not under Part B like the flu vaccine. That complicates reimbursement for those seeking vaccination in doctors’ offices, so Medicare patients will probably find it simpler to head for a pharmacy. But not all Medicare recipients have Part D, and those that do could face co-payments.”
Feds Prepare For A New War On Kratom, An Herbal Drug Many Swear By HuffPo (CL). CL; “The ploy that it’s ‘not well understood’ is especially dishonest, and also part of a pattern. In the first place, it IS well understood; it’s been used for thousands of years. In the second, in this case as in others, the industry essentially refuses to research it, then invokes the lack of research as excuse to ban it – and in effect, to block research!”
UK Biobank Supercharges Medicine with Gene Data on 500,000 Brits MIT Technology Review. See, e.g., UK Biobank: Protocol for a large-scale prospective epidemiological resource (PDF).
Class Warfare
Labor Supply Constraints and Health Problems in Rural America Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta
Explaining the Global Rise of “Dominance” Leadership Scientific American
Two Murder Convictions for One Fatal Shot The New Yorker. “In dozens of criminal trials, prosecutors have put the same gun in the hands of more than one defendant.”
The gun numbers: just 3% of American adults own a collective 133m firearms Guardian. Couldn’t they collect model trains? Or stamps?
The world at 3 degrees: What it means for five cities Deutsche Welle
Res Obscura: What Did 17th Century Food Taste Like? Res Obscura (CL).
The origin story of the peace sign The Week (Furzy Mouse).
Antidote du jour (via):
Bonus antidote:
Guys I just found out that super chill cat was from a neighborhood in Istanbul and when she passed away in 2015 the residents missed her so much they made a statue of her sitting in the same spot and I am now dead my ghost is typing this pic.twitter.com/PJle1OJ5Yi
— August J. Pollak (@AugustJPollak) November 15, 2017
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
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Caitlin Johnstone’s facebook account is banned for 3 days for sharing an article about false flag operations.
https://twitter.com/caitoz/status/931114011172618242
The article she links to is here.
Facebook’s response: “A government would never attack its own citizens, would it?”
Does MKUltra count?
Honestly, I don’t really think Facebook has any business banning people for sharing conspiracy theories as long as they aren’t anti-Semitic or something. So someone posts an article about false flag attacks… Even if it is just a conspiracy theory, what harm does it do?
Also, many of these examples are not even nations like the US. And all these things were either admitted or revealed in declassified documents.
Shared to my FB account, along with the linked article on historically documented false flag events.
I understand hating on FB, but it’s become a powerful and very useful communications utility. Might as well hate on the telephone as a tool because the carriers are often bad actors.
Does the phone company censor your conversations, or suspend you for saying something they disagree with?
The phone company is legally a “common carrier” – it isn’t ALLOWED to do that. Time to make FB, Twitter, etc. common carriers, too.
But does the telephone (or the telephone company) cut off your service because of something you said while on the phone? You would be rightfully outraged if such a thing happened to you. Yet this is precisely what Facebook is doing.
Caitlin Johnstone’s article is well worth reading. There is a concerted effort to throttle any non-standard reportage and commentary – akin to the PropOrNot outrage we saw not too long ago – only now being done on a much larger scale. With private corporations (Facebook and Google most prominently) acting as the censors.
The problem with your analogy is:
1. You pay for your phone service
2. Phone companies are regulated
3. Phones are recognized to be essential services (for 9/11 if nothing else)
This is a free speech issue, not a commercial contract issue. I guarantee whatever Terms of Service you signed with Facebook allow them to cut off your account for all sorts of arbitrary reasons.
This is why we at NC have made a point of not being dependent on or even using platforms much. If they come to constitute a meaningful percentage of your traffic, they own you.
Re: concentrated gun ownership–
I live in a poor, racially mixed, inner-city neighborhood in a Rust Belt city. We hear gunfire two or three nights a week. Most of the time, the shots are coming from 1/2 mile away or more but we did have a gunfight right in front of the house 20 months ago that left scores of AK-47 and 9 mm shell casings (according to the cops who mapped and gathered them) on the street, in the driveway and under our cars.
Last Memorial Day, we spent the afternoon at the home of relatives of our daughter’s boyfriend. They live out in the all-white exurbs of the same metropolitan area. The entire time, it sounded like we were in Beirut or Sarajevo during those cities’ troubles. Automatic weapons fire was coming from more than one direction.
We are standing at the edge of Chaos Canyon.
Yikes! I’ve been hearing gun fire around my place too, recently…but only because it’s hunting season….
“In March, a Tehama County judge ordered Kevin Janson Neal to stay away from neighbors and turn in his firearms.
But that edict, part of a temporary restraining order sought by his neighbor, did not keep Neal away from his weapons. Residents said that in recent months they heard him shooting off guns at his home with impunity. Some complained to authorities, to no avail.”
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-gunman-shooting-order-20171115-story.html
~~~~~~~~
We had a similar episode here, a fellow bought a house near friends, and decided it was a good thing to shoot his guns @ all hours, and to be frank, gunshots are not an unusual thing here, as it’s pretty rural, but not @ 3 in the morning.
My friends were livid over this, and law enforcement seemed incapable of doing anything, whereas if the dude was playing heavy metal with the sound amped up to 11 @ 3 in the morning, it’d be a different story.
You sometimes wonder if guns have more rights than humans?
What if he was playing heavy metal and shooting off at the same time?
This is where we really need no-fear-of-death robot cops.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6YyIAYkkUI
Is it about robots shooting their guns off or robots playing music too loud?
I recently moved from living on a 45 foot sailboat to a little cottage in Pinellas County, FL. The boat was docked in St. Petersburg for 10 or so years, up until the move when I sold it. Every “celebratory night,” like July 4, Christmas, New Years, the gunners started shooting like a bunch of ecstatic ISIS idiots, up into the night sky. Quite a few casualties from “stray bullets” falling to earth “i know not where…” There were parts of St. Pete and neighboring Gulfport where the cops (a couple of whom belonged to the same sailing club we did) freely admitted they simply would not venture into to “enforce the laws against discharging weapons.”
The best part for this cynic was what came from the balconies of the Yuppie Towers that sprout from the graveyard of Old St. Pete (formerly known by snotty youngsters as “God’s Waiting Room”). Several Really Cool Dudes stuck AR and AK muzzles out over the parole-land below and loosed off full-clip bursts (20 and 30 rounds, depending) into the void. At half a mile, a descending 7.62 round fired at any kind of trajectory below about 60 degrees elevation can still kill or wound grievously, and that happened to a young girl in the little park at the entrance to our marina. (“Just wounded,” but badly). The AR .223/5/56 round has a lot of range, too. What a rush it must be, for the idiot gunners (the majority of the shooting came from “disadvantages areas” of the city, but then there are a lot more “disadvantaged” than “privileged Yuppies in 46-story high rise condos.”)
The world arms bazaar cranks out what, ten million rounds of small arms ammo a day? Good thing, keeps the nominal price (what I pay for a box of 100 rounds of .223 and 9 mm) affordable, over to Walmart — half the price of what they charge at the “middle class” gun store and range).
There’s a real good reason that the AK series of assault rifles is called by many “the real weapon of mass destruction…” http://theconsul.org/2013/11/ak-47-the-real-weapon-of-mass-destruction/
What makes any American market AK or AR or any semiautomatic firearm…rifle or handgun…a weapon of mass destruction, (“dangerous and unusual” to use Scalia’s terminology), is portable magazines: clips of varying capacities that can be removed and replaced in a matter of seconds allowing the shooter to continue firing essentially uninterrupted.
The Sutherland Springs shooter went through fifteen 30 round clips…450 rounds…in a matter of a few minutes.
Celebratory gunfire is common in Honolulu as well.
Too bad the gunners can’t be brought to use blank ammo for “celebrations.”
Res Obscura: What Did 17th Century Food Taste Like? Res Obscura (CL).
One example: I didn’t realize until recently that broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, kale, cabbage, and collard greens are all technically the same species, Brassica oleracea.
=====================================
I love broccoli, cauliflower can be made edible with lots of frying and spices, and I find kale inedible.
I imagine apples from 2 thousand years ago were pretty miserable things….
Cauliflower – steam first (to soften), then batter like a schnitzel, deep fry. Serve with chips.
Kale – shred and fry with chilies, garlic and some bacon, serve on mashed potatoes.
hey even brussel sprouts can be made edible if you fry them instead of boiling :)
My Mom served boiled Brussels sprouts, which I learned to love. Taste is a curious thing, generally a learned behaviour with foods.
In general, if you can catch it, you can eat it.
Roast brussel sprouts in lard. Yum!!!
Brussel sprouts, browned in a pan with butter, salt/spices is my go-to veggie for the working week. Has quite a bit of fiber to help with digestion.
This or steamed. The baby ones taste best.
…or sliced thinly and fried slowly with chopped bacon…
Turnips, too. Like a bulldog is to a Labrador Retriever.
I can never find turnip greens! Man I miss those things boiled to mush.
No accounting for taste, I suppose. I love all the brassica species. Steamed is good for broccoli, cauli, and brussels. Kale I add to stir-frys. My nephew is such a fan of the plant family that even when he was just a toddler he loved to go out in the garden and eat broccoli raw…even when it was already going to seed and super bitter.
I eat raw baby kale, along with baby chard, and baby spinach, among others, with my oatmeal, sprinkled with curry, black pepper, tumeric, powder garlic, powder onion, some salt, all the time.
When i’m @ a salad bar and they have those little corn abortions, I have to turn my head away in disgust.
Yes, baby kale. It’s flavor is much milder than that of mature kale. Fresno Dan, have you tried baby kale?
Vatch
November 16, 2017 at 10:57 am
I may give baby kale a try – but I already eat a LOT of salad. I do mostly eat the “petite” broccoli, so I imagine its the same idea. But I eat brussels sprouts too, so I feel I am gobbling up most members of the Brassica oleracea….but what if god is a giant broccoli???
And I have tried the “riced” cauliflower, and if some real rice is added, and spices and chili/garlic hot sauce, I find it indistinguishable from the real thing.
I also tried some of that Italian ?rigatoni? made out of zucchini. The zucchini noodles weren’t bad, but it came in a very bad soupy cheese sauce -just yuck.
As least for us people watching our carbs, it does seem like some of our options are increasing…
if god is a giant broccoli then only carnivores will get to heaven
God is everywhere and nowhere…because all is possible with God.
I make a lot of rice casseroles using that fresh cauliflower rice Whole Foods has started stocking – you fry it a little before using it and you can’t really taste the difference in the finished dish.
If zucchini noodles aren’t your thing, have you seen The Great Low Carb Bread Company? Their dried pasta and bagels (made with oat fiber and pea protein) scratch that itch nicely, and they ship.
Apples from a century ago were pretty miserable things from an eating standpoint quite often, as their main use from colonial times until prohibition was making hard cider. You’ve heard of Johnny Appleseed no doubt, and if you plant an apple tree by seed, if you do get any apples off the tree, they’ll more than likely taste horrible. But, they worked out fine for making hooch.
15 years of prohibition and the hard times of the great depression killed off so many productive old time orchards. In “The Great Depression-A Diary”, author Benjamin Roth in one of his entries, mentioned buying a bushel of apples for 50 cents, that’s about 125 apples.
I think Huelll Howser did a show on that and visited an apple-cider making farm.
I think I was 20 before I learned cider is supposed to be alcoholic. There was a water powered cider mill near us and every Fall we’d go buy several gallons, but it was really apple juice.
I think it was from the same show that they talked about after having harvested too many apples one time, so they came up with the ‘an Apple a day keeps the doctor away’ marketing slogan.
ha! sometimes seems like all our traditions are marketing slogans.
Of course people tastes in foods are unknown as well. As an example, the ancient Romans use to use Garum (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPX8dpKG48M) in most of their food which was a fermented fish sauce. I have seen this recipe recreated in docos and the people invited to taste it are revolted by the smell but the Romans could not get enough of this stuff.
Now you’ve got me hankering for a dormouse in a rich cream sauce.
Whoa, I’ll have to dig out my glirarium.
And the Chinese used to make tea as a medicinal drink, with various additions, like salt, ginger, other herbs.
Sushi was said to originate in Vietnam as fermented fish and fish sauce (from a book called the Story of Sushi, the History of Sushi or something like that).
Now, there was this kingdom, Funan, that existed in the Mekong Delta from the first to the sixth century AD. From Wikipedia:
That is, it was likely, or at least possible, that Romans were in Vietnam 2,000 years ago.
So, did the Romans get their fermented fish sauce from people of Funan, or did they get the recipe from the Romans?
Was it an independent invention/discovery?
Roman shipwrecks have been found in South America, probably as a result of ships headed for northwest Africa that strayed off course.
I didn’t know that. You have any links? That would be interesting. I believe the Carthaginian ships were in West Africa and Romans marched south of the Sahara.
I read it somewhere in a book, but can’t remember which one…
Nuoc mam — Vietnamese can’t get enough of it. http://cookingvietnamesefood.com/sauces/vietnamese-fish-sauce-%E2%80%9Cn%C6%B0%E1%BB%9Bc-m%E1%BA%AFm%E2%80%9D/
Natto. Japanese fermented soybeans. Yum. Stinky. French explorers first encountered sweet corn in western New York and the Lake Erie shore. The Indians buried the ears until they were good and spoiled. Then they dug them up and ate them. One explorer, Jogues I think, said the children especially gobbled them up with delight.
Look up huitlacoche. I’ve never had it but know a couple of people who love it.
I was looking for that but couldn’t find it here in LA. I ended up at a place serving the Mayan chaya drink (it must be cooked as the leaves are toxic).
Southeast Asian fish sauce apparently a close match:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fish_sauce
Jesus am I the only one who thinks cauliflower is just fine? I’m having the same discussion with one of my kids, who is patiently explaining to me how you can process it to “seem almost like rice” and I keep saying “why do I want to do that”?
Also, for the brussel sprout hater, I was one a long time ago. Now I grow my own and they are heavenly. But I understand if you’ve just had frozen ones,t those are just awful. The freshish grocery store ones are OK to me, but if you started from “awful” then I understand seeing them as “less awful but still awful”. Whereas now I see them as “not so great but OK”.
I tried to grow my own kale this year just to see if it would work like the brussel sprouts- because yeah that stuff is just terrible – but something amazingly actually ate it before I got to it. Um, darn.
Sorry mate but yeah, you’re the only one that thinks that cauliflower is just fine. The wife serves it but it is so bland, unless you can smother it in a rich sauce, that I try to leave it. Broccoli is pretty bad too.
Anybody here remember when President George Bush snr. said; ”I do not like broccoli,” back in 1990? Responding to queries about a broccoli ban he imposed aboard Air Force One he further declared; ”And I haven’t liked it since I was a little kid and my mother made me eat it. And I’m President of the United States, and I’m not going to eat any more broccoli!” Now that is a profile in courage!
Cauliflower in gratin and steamed broccoli dressed with olive oil are actually highly recommended.
I was surprised to discover I hate the taste of olive oil. Somehow had never tasted it until I was about 70.
Arrrgh. Ah well being out of step with the crowd is not unusual for me. My Dad used to always say when we children turned our noses up at something “more for me then” and we could never understand why he thought we cared.
My mother loved cauliflower and cooked it regularly. The smell of the stuff cooking used to drive me out of the house. Still does.
But once done and smothered in anything that overpowers the taste of it… then it’s not too bad.
Try baked cauliflower. Leave it in long enough for the cauliflower to get browned and a little crispy and then add a little Olive Oil and Parmesan. You might be pleasantly surprised.
Cauliflower can be made more palatable by mashing with potatoes (experiment with varieties – russet, red, white, gold) and selective seasonings. I avoided cauliflower since childhood but have come around reluctantly in my golden years, perhaps thinking of Thanksgiving.
Broccoli may be slightly more tasty by use of various sauces. One that our kids enjoyed was my “Secret Sauce“, made of mayo, lemon juice and dill. For extra fun, swap in orange juice, add a dash of turmeric or paprika. Now you know why I had to use quotes and italics! ;)
Deer love kale (chard too), we fence ours in.
Cauliflower is a little cabbagy but in the right dish with the right spices, very, very good.
We do papardelle with cauliflower and a mornay sauce casserole that is a nice late fall winter dish. Also Aloo Gobi, not hard, just need the right spices.
You are SO not alone!! I have always liked cauliflower: raw; steamed with or without butter and salt and pepper; riced or mashed. Recently, I can’t get enough of it coated with a mix of turmeric, cumin, salt, pepper and oil, roasted till dark-brown and crispy on the outside. YUM!!!
As for Brussels sprouts and broccoli, the trick is to not overcook them that they turn mushy and/or bitter.
I’ve tried, but I have no use for kale.
There are a number of different varieties of kale. It’s somewhat like apples, with different textures and sweet/bitterness. I don’t like the kale that’s sold in the grocery store, but there are a number of ones that I grow that are really nice.
One of the reasons I like kale is that it keeps much longer than lettuce and doesn’t wilt. It works much better than lettuce on sandwiches. Some of kales are pretty too, with different colors, curls, etc. that you can add to regular salad to make it look fancier and have a little more nutritional umpf. They’re really cold hardy too and some varieties will even make it through the winter (zone 5).
I’m not a member of the kale marketing board…I just wanted to encourage people to give kale a chance. Some varieties may be more appealing than others.
Have a kale lasagna cooking in the crockpot as I type.
No you’re not the only one. I find it highly surprising to hear that cauliflower is not liked here. Roasted with garlic and parmesan cheese it is delicious. Prepared in many Indian restaurant – fried or baked with sauces it is extremely delicious and great texture.
You can also pickle it and it is delectable and very healthy as a pickled vegetable.
I like them all, some more than others. Broccoli and cauliflower both come out really well in the microwave (cover and add a little water). I am a fan of Brussels sprouts but I think texture is important – if they get soft they become a lot less appetizing.
I like kale but it needs firm handling. I used to saute it but it ends up staying pretty chewy if you do that. Saute-steaming works better. It’s a bit more of a blank slate than some of the others so seasoning and/or combining with other ingredients is more important. It’s a great addition to winter soups and stews.
Mac and cheese and kale! For my one quick fast food meal of the week, white cheddar mac and cheese box. Boil macaroni, last 3 minutes throw in the kale, let it boil. then make mac and cheese as normal. The kale mixed with the cheese is awesome – I find myself almost preferring it to he pasta part.
My cat is a fan of all brassicas. He’ll stalk broccoli, and once nabbed some steamed kale off the cutting board and was off like a shot to consume it before I could take it away. Maybe the sulfur stink is the attraction? I have no idea.
Precisely during the period discussed in the article, just as new kinds of foodstuff were being adopted, the notion of digestion itself was changing.
During the Middle Ages, digestion was understood as fermentation. During the 17th century, this concept was progressively replaced by digestion as distillation.
This led to major changes in diets and recipes — first amongst the elite of course. While once main courses frequently comprised sweet ingredients (honey, or fruits, like in the recipe about rabbit fricassée), this was slowly shunned and recipes modified (e.g. to include more fat so as to sustain the “internal fire” necessary for distillation). The resulting diets were not necessarily healthier, but taking into account all those novel vegetables, fruits, and starchy foodstuffs from overseas, based on quite different modes of cooking.
Interesting.
Some foods don’t change much.
Take, tofu, for example. It was first made 2,000 years ago. I imagine in pretty much the same way, now as well as well when Benjamin Franklin tasted it in London.
Ah, yes, I described what happened in Europe.
Other cultures have quite different culinary histories — but were significantly influenced by the various foodstuffs imported from the New World as well (e.g. tomato and chili). The proportion of pre-18th century recipes in, say, Japanese, Persian or Indian cookbooks is possibly much higher than in European ones.
I think that people in many parts of the world ate very well 200 years ago. Game and seafood were plentiful and uncontaminated. The best place for food would undoubtedly have been China, SE Asia, and the Indian subcontinent.
2000 years ago, I imagine apples could have been good. At least they wouldn’t have been sprayed with carcinogens and have all the tartness bred out of them.
I had a cookbook loaned to me that was full of recipes from Roman times, I made one of the barley dishes from it, which was not very appetizing.
Yeah really I’m surprised by the negative comments about historic apples. Not that I know anything about that, but I will point out that Adam had an au natural hot babe to fool around with all day, every day and he still wanted to eat an apple despite horrible consequences. So how bad could they be?
2000 years ago apples would have been almost as sad and frankly inedible as natural bananas. Humans have been meddling with nature for a long time, the fact of which makes me roll my eyes at the ‘we should not play God!!!oneone’ hand-wringing of anti-GMO activists. Focus on the false promises of increased yields or the fact the whole industry amounts to a mass experiment without public consent instead.
Apples grow wild, making up whole forests, in parts of Central Asia. They exhibit tremendous diversity; you can eat apples there that don’t taste like apple at all (Michael Pollan). The apples we’re familiar with descend from the ones people liked well enough to carry with them on caravans – so, highly edible even then. According to Pollan, the biggest difference now is that they’ve been bred to be sweeter, as well as bigger. But my favorites now are quite tart.
With grafting, apples are clonally propagated and rejuvenated each time, so some varieties are quite old – hundreds of years. And some are known to come “true” from seed, so probably resemble early wild apples.
There’s a big difference between genetic splicing and breeding fruits the old-fashioned way.
I live in apple country (WA state), and participated in an apple taste test at a local supermarket a few days ago. They had three apples to taste, the control was a Honeycrisp, the other two were un-named apples which I’m pretty sure were GMO varieties, which have just been allowed to come to market. We were asked to grade the apples according to various criteria. The Honeycrisp smelled and tasted great. The other two apples weirdly had no smell at all — zero aroma. They had good texture but were also more bland, neither beat out the Honeycrisp, (which admittedly is a great variety)
.
But the jump hasn’t been from crossbreeding to genetic splicing. Before direct modification of DNA we were doing atomic gardening, which among many other things gave us the ruby red grapefruit.
What does that say about the intention of the Bible authors?
Why would they want the snake to tempt Adam with an inedible fruit? (Adam of the story would not know, the snake might know an apple was inedible, and for sure Bible authors knew it was inedible)?
it wasn’t an apple in the Bible
Thanks…just looked it up.
Some forbidden fruit.
On Kratom: There is a local “coffee shop” that sells Kratom. I go in to listen to the owner push the drug on people, explaining all the benefits and non of the risks. If the customer sits near me I tell them all about the probable pharmacological actions of kratom. It is an opioid agonist, meaning it acts on the same receptors as heroin and oxy. The look of concern of their face is priceless. There have been a few people come back in and tell the owner it made them sick as hell. That video proclaimed it is “not technically an opioid, it just binds to the same receptor”! Ha!
It “helps” the opioid epidemic because it IS an opioid. That is not helping, it is replacing. And they talk about it being a treatment for opioid withdrawal but what about the people I see drinking it that do not have an opioid addiction? If you do a little searching you will find a study on kratom leaf eaters in Thailand which talks about their addiction, withdrawl symptoms and psychiatric issues.
I do not think it should be schedule one, but I do think you should only be able to get it by a prescription. But then again, that’s the situation that led to the abuse of pain meds. One cannot get addicted to opioids without exposure to them.
What we have is a dysfunctional society that wants to drug itself instead of doing the hard work to get better. The emo-rapper “Lil Peep” died yesterday. He had depression and was an avid drug user, cause that is cooler than eating better and going to a therapist. That makes me sad because he was brilliantly creative.
I am a bit skeptical that the cause of the opioid epidemic is that people have suddenly become more weak willed than before. It seems much more likely to me that humans are basically the same as ever but their environment (in the broadest sense of that word) has changed in a way that produces this behavior.
Yes, I have a feeling that a large part of the change has come from the understanding of how glutamate, serotonin and dopamine can be controlled by what we experience and consume. Corporations have seized on this and exposed many more people to fluctuations in these important neurotransmitters. I feel this is akin to what can happen with kratom.
I was addicted to cigarettes. I can tell you first hand that will is not enough, so I agree, we have not become weaker willed, but rather, the burden we are carrying has gotten much heavier. And for those people genetically inclined (research the genetics of the D2 receptor), they are the canaries in the coal mine.
Not surprised about the cigarettes as the industry worked assiduously to improve the addictiveness. I think hand rolled, or even the earliest machine made, cigarettes were comparatively not as addictive, or injurious.
Thank you Lyon for this comment.
People love pointing out bad behavior without talking about the environment that elicits such behavior or wrongfully pointing to their favorite issue of concern as the cause.
We treat our pets with more consideration than we do our fellow humans.
I can only assume you were at the “coffee shop” to warn their customers of the dangers of that other opiod: coffee. Kratom is most closely related to coffee. Both function independently of the Beta-arrestin pathway which is what gives opioids their constipation and respiratory distress effects as well as the unregulated euphoria. In other words, you can’t die from a Kratom OD (you may feel nauseous) and you can’t really get “high”. Or at least not any higher than a double espresso gets you. This is another pharma backed push to make way for their new medications like Oliceridine and leave us without a natural alternative.
Agree ML, mitragyna speciosa (kratom) is a tropical evergreen tree in the coffee family native to Southeast Asia . I have not read everything with respect to kratom, but i have read several dozen articles from various sources. It was used for centuries for medicinal purposes. Early in the 20th century opium users, espeically in Thailand, found that using kratom relieved their withdrawal symptoms and allowed them to live addiction free. The loss of revenue from the opium trade prompted the Thai government (c. 1940s) to ban the possession of kratom, thus guaranteeing a new source of revenue from the kratom bootleggers. This is exactly analagous to what is happening now with the FDA.
I have used kratom for several months now and can attest it has no “high” , per se, associated with it. Rather there is just a general feeling of “wellness” that is hard to explain exactly. I do not use it daily and I only use it in the evening when I do. I have not used more than 2 tsp on any given day and often much less. I have not had any alcohol during the time I have taken kratom, which is why I started using it in the first place. I know of several other users who take it in larger doses throughout each day for extreme pain management and as an alternative to pharmaceuticals. It works well for them and they don’t need insurance to get it.
The price of good quality kratom is less than $10 per ounce and occasionally as low as $5 per ounce. I can only wonder how expensive it will become if it is a controlled substance.
Ha, same family, that is rich. Nice try with association.
The Rubiaceae family has 13,500 species, so of course it is in the same fourth largest grouping of plants as coffee.
Have you ever tried to get fucked up on kratom, because I guarantee you can if you try hard enough. The article says it’s not an opioid, and almost in the same sentence, it says it activates opiate receptors. It clearly is not an opiate, but to claim it’s not an opioid is misinformation. And there is plenty of that flying around about this stuff. I personally know some addicts who had opiate habits and used kratom to help with withdrawals, and then they just switched to the kratom, with all the same behavior patterns. I’m talking about the extracts, the potent stuff. It’s quite possible to spend 100’s or even 1000’s per month on it.
I’m not saying it has to be demonized, just that I’ve notice that kratom adherents are a little over zealous about how positive and awesome it is. And as you can see, this has also seeped into (alternate) main stream news. It is disingenuous and misleading to claim that coffee is an opioid if kratom is.
Never done the extracts but extracts of anything are a bad idea anyways. Better point: extracts of Kratom may eff you up but extracts of coffee (caffeine) will kill you. I actually find it less addicting than coffee. I can vary my Kratom intake (back pain, Lyme related arthritis) more than I can vary my coffee intake. Not saying it’s completely harmless but then again neither is coffee. Some kid just died from drinking too much. Still not a single “Kratom only” death (all involved other pharmaceuticals). Relatively speaking – safe.
Not one death?
http://www.11alive.com/article/news/health/my-son-is-proof-it-kills-dads-message-after-son-dies-on-kratom/85-492057651
Of course you can get high with Kratom, and it is highly addictive. Many who find themselves lost in the marketing being pushed ad naseum by Kratom advocates (aka as Kratom vendors) end up here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/quittingkratom/
One would be well advised to review the horror stories posted by Kratom addicts. The “its just like coffee” is a well-known bit of misinformation for folks who are dealing with this foul shite.
Thanks you tongorad, I gave up when I read “it’s related to the coffee plant so it is harmless” BS. That person probably sells it.
It would do you well to read the studies you post. They found binding properties of coffee were related to opioid receptor ANTAGONISM. while kratom opioids are AGONISTS.
So coffee has the opposite effect of kratom.
The agony of antagonism!
I believe the correct link for Bill Mitchell’s post “When the mainstream Left gets lost down its Europhile hole” is here.
“But, by any measure, that is not a mixed result for the peripheral nations. We are talking about a system that has generated rising poverty rates in advanced nations.
How can that be considered a mixed result?”
+100 points
The gun numbers: just 3% of American adults own a collective 133m firearms Guardian. Couldn’t they collect model trains? Or stamps?
Loved this quote:
“Why do you need more than one pair of shoes? The truth is, you don’t, but do you want more than one pair of shoes? If you’re going hiking, you don’t want to use that one pair of high heels,” Philip van Cleave, the president of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, a gun rights group, explained last year.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Perhaps an interesting way to compare owning a ‘collection’ of guns versus stamps would be this:
Almost every last US stamp issued in the past 80 years in perfect brand new mint never used condition, is worth the face value or even less (it’s called ‘discount postage’-and still usable, but you need almost 17x 1942 3 cent stamps plastered on a letter, to make it work) and as an investment, who would ever be interested in pursuing a collection like that?
Now, on the other hand, all guns have done the past 25 years is continually go up in value, and one thing about collectors, is in an up market, you can’t get enough.
Stamps were once like that in the 1970’s, but like a lot of collectibles-it’s a dying hobby, but then again so is gun collecting, all too often.
Perhaps collecting ancient (Warring States or Han dynasty) Chinese bronze swords, inlaid with gold or silver, is a better bet.
Chinese collectibles used to oh so what during Mao’s great leap backward, but they are in the most demand of anything in that realm presently, in the entire world.
And when you read the descriptions, it’s not unusual you find mistakes in dating or classifying by the auction house. Sometimes, they just simply don’t know what they have before them….a Huanghuali box was described as just a wooden box, and a kesi fabric was said to be just silk embroidery.
A hobby for experts.
Some of it is so gorgeous, though. Personally, I make do with what I can find at thrift stores and estate sales (the best bet).
Bill Clinton should have resigned Matt Yglesias, Vox
At the time I, like most Americans, was glad to see Clinton prevail and regarded the whole sordid matter as primarily the fault of congressional Republicans’ excessive scandal-mongering. Now, looking back after the election of Donald Trump, the revelations of massive sexual harassment scandals at Fox News, the stories about Harvey Weinstein and others in the entertainment industry, and the stories about Roy Moore’s pursuit of sexual relationships with teenagers, I think we got it wrong.
….
Clinton also mounted the defense that would see him through to victory — portraying the issue as fundamentally a private family matter rather than a topic of urgent public concern
….
What they should have argued was something simpler: A president who uses the power of the Oval Office to seduce a 20-something subordinate is morally bankrupt and contributing, in a meaningful way, to a serious social problem that disadvantages millions of women throughout their lives.
….
In her 2014 Vanity Fair article looking back on the scandal, Lewinsky wrote, “I will always remain firm on this point: it was a consensual relationship. Any ‘abuse’ came in the aftermath, when I was made a scapegoat in order to protect his powerful position.”
==========================================================
What I find …?interesting?….what if we were to take Ms. Lewinsky at her word, that the problem is ONLY the coverup? What if President Clinton had said, “Yeah, I’m doing a 20 year old and its great and none of your business – now leave me and Ms. Lewinsky alone. And Hillary is fine with it.” In a world of REAL truth telling, one can even imagine Lewinsky saying “presidential sex is the best sex cause I like powerful, older men”
But than that wouldn’t fit our bizarrely puritan yet hypersexualized culture, would it?
Is age a factor – any more than ….?10? years is suspect? Is financial differences a factor? 3X differences in income (net wealth?) suspect? Any woman at work 10 years younger must be chaperoned if in the present of a richer, older male? And vice versa for young males in the presence of older richer women?
I think Iglesias isn’t distinguishing between abuse, coercion, and sexual propriety. The highest church attendance occurs in the counties with the highest porn viewership….which goes to show that religious people are those who most enjoy God’s creation…
The hotels in Greenville, SC knew how to prepare for the Lutheran and Baptist conventions they hosted regularly. For the Lutherans, they expected the bars to be busy when things were not in session. For the Baptists, nearly as much liquor was consumed, but it was delivered to the rooms rather than served in public.
So the Baptists consumed more porn…
There is no correlation that the people in church are the ones using the porn so the argument carries no validity.
Well, there is data that red states consume more porn than blue states, and red states are also statistically more religious… Still, this is more correlation than causation.
While I think Clinton should have kept it in his pants, it does appear that his fling with Ms. Lewinski was consensual. I wasn’t particularly bothered by the difference in their age. I have married friends with similar age differences. Lewinsky was most definitely a consenting adult, and it appears, in her case, that there was no coercion or sexual harassment.
However, it’s one of those Human Resources tenets that someone in a supervisory capacity – as Clinton was – should never get involved with a subordinate, no matter how consensual it is. There’s just too many risks for it, which happened in this case. Ms. Lewinsky ended up being upset, which led her to be vulnerable to that lying creep, Lucienne Goldberg, who manipulated Lewinsky. And the rest is history. Frankly, Goldberg (and her disgusting progeny) deserves to be in some circle of hell for her manipulation of Lewinsky.
I agree that Lewinsky has ended up paying a much bigger price after the fact, but that’s another story.
Given all that, I’m not sure that Clinton should have resigned over the incident with Lewinsky. That whole thing was such a sh*t show and so ridiculously handled by the mendacious Republicans (who were doing the exact same thing, themselves… looking at you Newt Gingrich and John Ensign) that it, imo, destroys the arguments in favor of Clinton resigning.
I think what’s more at issue with Clinton are some of the earlier accusations of possible rape and/or sexual harassment by other women like Gennifer Flowers. It’s quite likely that Clinton should have paid a heavier price earlier on his career, which may have led to him not being eligible to run for POTUS.
There’s no such thing as consent in such a relationship. When one person can fire (or worse) the other, coercion is inherent.
Thank you for reminding me about the details of the Lewinsky story, which I had somewhat forgotten. We can’t really take Monica’s word that it was “consensual” as giving more than a partial and incomplete perspective on this matter. Knowing what we now know, the whole picture tells a different story.
It was a case, in fact, two people engaging in mutual seduction. She came supplied with metaphorical kneepads, as it were, in the form of instructions from her aunt (and mother, possibly), on how to seduce and win over a wealthy and powerful older lover. What she had not foreseen was Clinton’s readiness to cast her aside to be subjected to a prolonged ordeal of public humiliation, as was his wont with his countless other victims. This outcome is something for which Monica, as a seductress who was herself seduced, still naively and misguidedly blames others. But it is par for the course with sexual predation. Consensual or not, Clinton’s behavior was that of a brutish and dishonorable cad who would stop at nothing to remain in power. Viewed retrospectively, Yglesias is right, an honorable person would have resigned to protect the reputation and welfare of others besides himself, especially others in his employ, the children of his financial backers, of age or not. But Clinton was not such a person.
…we eat our Jung
I’m sorry to see Lewinsky continue to maintain that the relationship was “consensual,” a contention that clinton defenders continue to invoke to this day to excuse and mitigate the circumstances of clinton’s sorry, predatory behavior. The validity of “consent” in the presence of extreme disparities in power and control is the crux of this issue.
With specific respect to the article, I guess I appreciate Klein’s use of the royal “we,” as in “we should have done more” to force clinton out of office. Thanks, ezra, for finally noticing. But I reserve most of my personal vitriol and disgust for the women around clinton who defended him then and continue to defend him now because he was and, until recently is, in a position to use his power to benefit them.
As far as I’m concerned, the incredible hair-splitting required to walk both sides of this line threatens to trivialize this very serious and pervasive issue, and relegate it to the garbage can of opportunistic political smear tactics.
PS. “Breaking” on msnbs right now–Al Franken has now been caught up in this.
“Broken” for sometime, but I just found out about “Biden Sessions child”. Do your own search, whilst I disinfect.
Its especially stupid for Franken, because he did it to an unconscious woman while posing for a picture. It was supposed to be some kind of shitty, poor taste joke. Just so stupid.
At least he’s had the decency to publically apologize for it once it became revealed.
Well, sort of. His first statement was pretty equivocal. He didn’t come out with a credible apology until it became clear the first one wouldn’t fly
This news is only “breaking” about Al Franken because the media gave him a pass for years. He has a long history of rape and sexual assault jokes. It’s only in the past month or so that anyone objecting was not mocked and shouted down as a prude.
Lewinsky may have been an exception… correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t Bill Clinton accused of harassment by several women?
Uh, yeah. Lots. Lots and lots. The Atlantic recently ran an article on them (in the entertainment section, bizarrely):
https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/11/reckoning-with-bill-clintons-sex-crimes/545729/
lots more. The Atlantic did not even mention the Lolita express nor best bud Jeffrey Epstein.
…one more strike against RT:) https://www.rt.com/usa/343048-clinton-epstein-lolita-express/
Other cases alleged against bill are far more worrisome than Monica’s. That was obviously consensual, regardless of the difference in power.
Of course, subsequently throwing her under the bus was less than heroic.
But — those are ALLEGED and not proven, so shouldn’t be going around saying Clinton should have resigned.
Most alleged sexual harassment claims are unproveable, especially those suddenly remembered, with Gloria Alred’s help, from 20 years ago.
There is so much more to the sexual assault and harassment problem. Besides the humiliation and degradation of being assaulted by a powerful/popular/socially privileged person is the suffering from having to stay silent because you won’t be believed. Worse yet is actually reporting it, suffering the fallout, and then not being believed. There seems to be no winning. That has to change.
Acceptance by society of one free pass at each victim seems to be a given, a form of white privilege. That’s probably why perps place themselves where they’ll have a steady stream of fresh victims – beauty pageants, auditions, scouts, coaching, etc. – or have someone line up victims for them, such as a loyal assistant. Perps go through a multitude of victims in order to take advantage of their one free pass privilege which is why it’s the worst kept secret that everyone knows. “I promise I’ll never do it again” – to you. Next, please!
When I was in college studying for a nursing degree decades ago, one of our female professors who had served as a military nurse warned our all-female class about sexual harassment in the workplace, but then she stunned us by pausing, then making a point of saying that it wasn’t just by males. Of course the humiliation from being sexually assaulted by a person of the same sex and the difficulty of reporting that could be even more daunting. It may also be far more common than anyone would want to admit.
Agree with Lewinsky. She was doing what she wanted and enjoying it. None of our business, though yes Hillary’s. It was terrible though when Clinton tried to make her out as crazy. No gentleman would do that.
Yep, this latest stuff is scaring me because it seems like it’s not making the difference between consensual relationship, awkward passes that are not pressed once rejected, and horrible abuses of power like (Weinstein) trapping a woman you are hiring in a bathroom and demanding sexual favors or (Cosby) drugging women and having sex with them unconscious.
Somewhere in the middle is horrible objectionable behavior like butt-grabbing, incredibly unpleasant and unwelcome but if a one-time thing not on the scale of rape and battery, but really bad.
But we don’t want to morph into witchhunt territory, which definitely happened in the 80s with the satanic ritual abuse stuff. Scares me. Yet I’m glad women (and men) are realizing THEY don’t need to be the ones embarrassed if something like this happens to them, that they should embarrass the one who did it. But am still worried by the tenor of a lot of it. Don’t want to just morph into anti-sex.
“…drugging women and raping them …”. There, fixed it for ya.
You are 100% right, that would have been a more accurate way to put it.
We may very well be fortunate to have Bill Clinton the hypocrite.
He was attempting to privatize Social Security during this time and had this affair not consumed his time, it is likely that he would have pushed further.
http://thehill.com/homenews/media/360628-kimmel-trump-doesnt-even-drink-american-water
Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel mocked President Trump after the president stopped his speech Wednesday recapping his Asia trip to take a sip of water.
“He’s talking about … bringing jobs back to America. He’s drinking a bottle of water from Fiji. It’s Fiji water,” Kimmel said on his late-night show.
“He’s not even drinking American water during the speech about American [jobs]. I think that does a very good job of summing the man up right there.”
==========================================
After what Trump has done to the EPA, and discretion being the better part of valor, I’m no longer drinking “Merican water either….
I think Jimmy buried the lead (sic):
Reuters finds 3,810 U.S. areas with lead poisoning double Flint’s
American water ain’t so great.
I’m quite a fan of Mexican H20, Topo Chico mineral water.
It rules over also rans like San Pellegrino & Perrier~
Trouble in our Economics PhD mills:
Some papers use proprietary data — for instance, an investment bank’s trading records, shared under the condition of confidentiality. Readers have no way to replicate these studies without access to the data, which might never be granted to anyone besides the original researchers.
Data wants to be free!
Couldn’t be sure which link this was in response to, though it’s correct (IMO).
There is currently a major war going on in health economics over model transparency – some author groups are refusing to release their cost-effectiveness models to reviewers for fear that referees will “steal” them and use them for their own studies – an understandable concern given what I’ve encountered (but more frequently, it has to be said, *heard about* from friends in reviewing rather than encountering myself).
If the results of work cannot be reproduced, the work is not science. It is that simple. Call it “hand-waving” or “psychic divining”. Whatever. It is not science.
I don’t disagree. But neoliberalism has eliminated a lot of the traditional “noble norms” in reviewing (due to cut throat competition between groups) which has contributed to this “protectiveness” over one’s model. It’s a profoundly unsatisfactory state of affairs all round. Glad I’m out of it.
If property is theft, is intellectual property theft too?
When someone steals another’s data, is that someone stealing from a thief?
One can go further and dispute the concept of property, including intellectual property as a subset, itself. Here, everything belongs to all of us.
We have our own Moore is less character here in the CVBB…
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“The Tulare County Republican Central Committee is demanding the resignation of Assemblyman Devon Mathis, R-Visalia, who has been under fire since a blogger in Sacramento alleged he sexually assaulted a staff member during a night of heavy drinking.
A former female staffer has since gone public with allegations of excessive drinking by her former boss and a culture of bullying and sexist behavior by Mathis and others at the office.
It has also been reported that Mathis’ ex-wife alleged during their divorce that he was guilty of child abuse and neglect, allegations that Mathis denies.”
http://www.fresnobee.com/news/politics-government/politics-columns-blogs/political-notebook/article184885518.html
Profit is the only principle at work possibly.
re shingles vaccine:
Shingles is part of the herpes group of viruses, and is thus a virus that can “reactivate” since the body never completely destroys it (in this case, the chicken pox virus). Glandular fever (mono), and both “traditional” types of herpes (commonly characterised in terms of cold-sores and sexually transmitted sores though it’s not as simple as that) are the same. ALL these herpes viruses remain in your system, ready to reactivate if you’re run down etc. Any vaccines against any of them should be supported.
Be careful what you wish for:
Interesting, thanks… in which case I’d be interested to see comparisons of places that now routinely vaccinate against chicken pox against those that don’t.
I had a shingles vaccination about 10 years ago. I have heard that it should be repeated. Do you have information about that?
sorry i don’t – but one thing I *did* learn by chance is that the whooping cough vaccine only lasts about 30 years max. When first administered in the 1970s they assumed whooping cough would be eliminated for good. They never counted on not one but two spurious scare campaigns that mean it’s still endemic…. a friend who had been immunised as a child got it – it is truly scary to watch someone in a coughing fit. Shame on those (middle class largely) idiots who got taken in by the scares.
Grandparents should get re-immunised for whooping cough before hanging out with newborn grandchildren. Our daughter was quite insistent about this.
From the CDC:
On October 25, 2017, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) voted that Shingrix is:
– recommended for adults who previously received the current shingles vaccine (Zostavax®) to prevent shingles and related complications
The increased effectiveness is marked – 61% for Zostavax, 97% for Shingrix. Having had shingles, I’m gonna get the new vaccine in the spring (and, like you, I’ve had the Zostavax vaccine).
The old vaccine diminishes in potency over time, and the new vaccine is better (MUCH more effective). I’m going for the new one but may wait a bit to see how everyone else seems to do on side effects.
The Elon Musk article is a hoot.
Frontline reporting from the dreamworld only feature writers understand.
How could anyone doubt this lachrymose lovelorn is the man to lead us to a bright new future off world?
Whenever I read articles about Elon Musk, for some reason I am always reminded of Robert A. Heinlein’s character Delos David “D. D.” Harriman in the 1949 scifi story “The Man Who Sold the Moon”. The character D.D. Harriman was an entrepreneurial businessman who masterminded the first landing on the Moon as a private business venture whereas Elon Musk is an entrepreneurial businessman who wants to mastermind the first landing on Mars as a private business venture. Musk has said that he is influenced by Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series but I think that he is actually influenced by Robert A. Heinlein’s Future History series. Those who disagree are invited to read the book I mentioned to see the parallels. They are uncanny.
Musk reminds me of this fellow, as luck would have it, also from 1949.
“The Nation of Celestial Space (also known as Celestia) was a micronation created by Evergreen Park, Illinois, resident James Thomas Mangan. Celestia comprised the entirety of “outer space”, which Mangan laid claim to on behalf of humanity to ensure that no one country might establish a political hegemony there. As “Founder and First Representative”, he registered this acquisition with the Recorder of Deeds and Titles of Cook County on January 1, 1949.
Mangan was active for many years in pursuing his claims on behalf of Celestia; in 1949 he notified the United States, Soviet Union, United Kingdom and United Nations that Celestia had banned all further atmospheric nuclear tests. Later, as the space race got underway in earnest he sent angry letters of protest to the leaders of the Soviet Union and United States on the occasions that their early space flights encroached upon his “territory” – although he later waived these proscriptions to allow for satellite launches by the latter.
Despite these efforts, the Nation of Celestial Space is thought to have become defunct with the death of its founder. Its only surviving legacy is the series of stamps and silver and gold coins and passports issued in its name by Mangan from the late 1950s through to the mid-1960s.
Some of the coins minted by Celestia included a silver “1 Joule” of 4.15 grams (.925 silver) and a gold “1 Celeston” of 2.20 grams (.900 gold). Their scarcity ensures that they sell for many hundreds of dollars apiece on the rare occasions they come to market.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation_of_Celestial_Space
“(also known as Celestia)”
Well, now we know for a fact that Princesss Celestia from My Little Pony came from space. Puts the fact that she banished her evil sister to the moon for 1000 years into perspective.
Lunar or Earth years? ?
Earth years. All the ponies apparently celebrated Princess Luna’s banishment to the moon every year. Sort of a weird celebration but I guess its no more weird than the brits having a celebration for executing Guy Fawkes.
It’s coming back to me now.
November is a busy month. The end of the Russian Revolution, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and one or two others I’m forgetting.
> Whenever I read articles about Elon Musk, for some reason I am always reminded of Robert A. Heinlein’s character Delos David “D. D.” Harriman in the 1949 scifi story “The Man Who Sold the Moon”.
I am reminded of Eco’s description of the Peanuts’ character Lucy:
“… Charlie Brown is not inferior. Worse: he is absolutely normal. He is like everybody else. This is why he is always on the brink of suicide or at least of nervous breakdown: because he seeks salvation through the routine formulas suggested to him by the society in which he lives (the art of making friends, culture in four easy lessons, the pursuit of happiness, how to make out with girls—he has been ruined, obviously, by Dr. Kinsey, Dale Carnegie, Erich Fromm, and Lin Yutang).
But since he acts in all purity, without any guile, society is prompt to reject him through its representative, Lucy, treacherous, self-confident, an entrepreneur with assured profits, ready to peddle a security that is completely bogus but of unquestioned effect. (Her lessons in natural science to her brother Linus are a jumble of nonsense that turns Charlie Brown’s stomach. “I can’t stand it,” the unfortunate boy groans, but what weapons can arrest impeccable bad faith when one has the misfortune to be pure of heart?)”
I can’t stand it.
Eco’s essay on Krazy Kat and Peanuts from 1985 New York Review of Books
I had no idea Lin Yutang had a hand in Peanut’s being on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
All I know is his Famous Chinese Short Stories, including one about Ye Xian, which according to Wikipedia, ‘is one of the oldest known variants of Cinderella,[3] first published in the Tang dynasty compilation Miscellaneous Morsels from Youyang written around 850 by Duan Chengshi.[4’
A da Vinci just shattered the record price for art…
$450 million for a painting that could be digitally replicated for 45 cents~
I bought an early Qing dynasty work by an imperial court painter for $200. This was over the internet.
It turned out to be a digital copy.
I returned it and the auction house agreed to credit me on the next auction. It is going to be the last time for me, as far as paintings are concerned.
re Guardian BREXIT mutineers
Anna Soubry didn’t surprise me as being on the list. Whilst I am not going to disagree with the far more clued up people who have enunciated what the true, awful, effects of a hard BREXIT will be, I personally am more interested in the “people’s demand side”. Anna Soubry should, given the average swing in the last election, have lost her seat. She clung on by her fingertips. Why? Because she is a mouthy politician who really seems to pay attention to her constituents (see her Twitter feed). She saw the “quiet remainers” (in her constituency primarily old style “wet” Tories plus some Labour people who saw her as the best chance for reversing BREXIT) and went for them – kudos to her, even if I don’t support her party generally. Her comments about Theresa May on the BBC on election night were priceless and should go down in electoral history. She may not be someone I’d personally agree with, but she’s a gem nonetheless and encapsulates a lot of what us bolshy East Midlanders think – namely that it’s time to start paying attention to this kind of region and that when you don’t, people lash out, and not necessarily at the right target.
I think I have a strategy to rein Russia in, even destroy it (at least, get everyone to flee to avoid starvation). Get it to join the EU. Then force it to leave!
> How to Instantly Prove (Or Disprove) Russian Hacking of U.S. Election
Of course the NSA knows exactly what happened. They can’t tell us little people because it’s classified.
Truly god-awful “journalism” about the tax bill on NPR this morning.
Where is that neuralyzer when you need it?
Nice Polite Republicans seem to have evolved into No Policy Reporting.
(Oddly, the Marketplace Morning coverage that was sandwiched in was pretty reasonable.)
Continuing a conversation from yesterday about tax payments and the effect it has on the money supply.
Money in a Federal Government bank account does not exist on any private banks balance sheet, it only exists on the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet.
When you pay taxes you are removing money from the private banking sector and placing it inside the Federal Reserve, reducing the money supply.
It is no different than increasing a banks reserve requirements.
The money still exists on the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet, but it is no longer in circulation and available for private use.
All true. But since the US gov operates hand-to-mouth, its cash balance tends to fluctuate around $100 billion and therefore can be treated as roughly constant. Chart:
The big upward deviation during 2016 apparently was anticipatory cash hoarding, given uncertainty over a debt ceiling extension. Currently the Treasury’s account at the Fed is $177.8 billion, according to the H.4.1 report.
“Don’t Worry About the Government” — Talking Heads
Re:Explaining the Global Rise of “Dominance” Leadership, of course people who experience a lot of economic uncertainty would want a “dominant” leader. This should be a no-brainer but there are still people who try to argue that racism and sexism were the only factors relating to the rise of Trump. Certainly racism and sexism played a part but economic uncertainty explains how Trump won former Democratic voters in places like the Rust Belt.
Figures like Richard Rorty predicted the rise of right-populist leaders such as Trump. In Rorty’s case it was back in 1998.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/books/richard-rortys-1998-book-suggested-election-2016-was-coming.html
“Dominance” leadership is here to stay until there is a move away from neoliberalism toward a system that does a better job caring for the needs of the population as a whole and not just a small elite. What I fear is that no lessons will be learned and that we will end up with a more competent version of Trump in the future. Then we will be in big trouble.
What part of the word “consensual” doesn’t Matt Yglesias understand?
Just another powerful male refusing to hear what a young woman says.
Amen!! That’s exactly what he is!
To add to your comment: Considering how consistent Monica has been over the last 25+ years, always saying it was consensual, I don’t really see why there’s any reason to believe that it is not the case. If Monica is some kind of victim, why has she never, publically at least, claimed victimhood?
I don’t feel like Yglesias is doing her any favors by arguing her to be a victim on her behalf but without her consent.
As I remember, she claimed it was her idea – but a lot of other women didn’t. He’s notorious.
OTOH, he was abusing his position nonetheless, because he was her boss.
I’m definitely not discounting that Bill Clinton has a huge history of sexual harassment. But as far as I’m concerned, constantly bringing up Monica again and again like Yglesias does is disrespectful to all the women that Bill harassed that he could be speaking of instead.
I got an ironic laugh out of the WaPo piece about Cohn being surprised that CEOs didn’t raise their hands when he asked how many of them were going to make investments/ expand their business in the US with their enormous tax cuts.
I myself was surprised at how unabashedly honest they were in admitting they were not intending to do any such thing……
When the emperor has no clothes on, naked ambition is hard to find.
US crude oil setting sail for China in record numbers [The Hill]
I wonder how past boosters of globalization, who claimed that it would lead to
U.S. exports becoming ever more technologically advanced, would spin this.
In the unlikely event they were ever called to account for their sins.
File under Nigeria With Nukes.
One shipping route from North America to China is through the Sea of Japan, right next to, you guessed it, North Korea.
With Bloomberg Consumer Comfort up this morning, industrial materials prices flat, and the 4-week average of unemployment claims up (exerting a downward effect after inversion), Ed Yardeni’s weekly indicator slipped from 2.073 last week to 2.061 today. Chart:
Nevertheless, only five index readings this year were higher than the current level. Atlanta Fed’s GDP Now forecasts 3.2% growth in the 4th quarter. Lookin’ good …
The church to artificial intelligence-Another acute case of nerds gone bad
The need to worship is innately human.
If we don’t worship this, we end up worshiping that or something else.
“He looks like a god.”
“Her body is divine. I worship her.”
In any case, anything, any idea or object, is a possible target for humans to worship.
Some worship government.
Some worship robots.
Some worship billionaires.
Some worship born-with-a-sliver-IQ-spoon-in-the-brain geniuses.
“Some worship born-with-a-sliver-IQ-spoon-in-the-brain geniuses….”
Thinking an AI God is a great thing should call into question the metrics held dear for determining IQ.
There’s been a lot of discussion of this article, but I noticed something unrelated to food, so I didn’t want to comment in direct reply to the other comments. The article is illustrated by several Renaissance and Baroque paintings, and the first two are by a teenaged Diego Velázquez. A few weeks ago there was some discussion here about Abstract Expressionism. It is really striking just how inferior the paintings of the mature Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning are in comparison to the art of the 18 or 19 year old Velázquez.
Vatch: Much depends on glazing and the underlayers of painting. Picasso, who many ritually abhor, was classically trained, and he painted using the classical techniques. From what I’ve heard, some of the people more recent than de Kooning are technical dullards. Rumors of paint falling off paintings from the 1970s and 1980s and such. But more recently schools of art stopped teaching those darn patriarchal techniques of treating a canvas and painting by glazing.
Back to taste: The Velazquez painting also caught my eye because I have a book by Paula Wolfert on clay cookery. She comments on that painting and says that she fries eggs the same way, slowly in a clay skillet in olive oil.
So I was skeptical of some of the attempts in the article to claim that food tasted much different in the past. We don’t know. Many cooking techiques have changed little. Now, the decline in people’s discernment is notable, when you have people debating the absolute best way to serve tater tots. I’d rather go back to eggs fried in olive oil and removed with a wooden spoon.
I have a painting from the late 1950s by a relative who was trained in classical techniques in Rome and the paint has been falling off. Maybe there was something wrong with the paint.
If it’s an oil painting, it’s possible that the artist mistakenly put paint with high oil content in the lower layers of the painting. Pigments that absorb more oil tend to be more flexible, and if they’re on the bottom, if they move at all, they can crack the more rigid paint layers above them.
Also, for some reason people sometimes will roll an oil painting when storing it or transporting it. This is a dangerous practice that can cause cracks to start.
“Fat over lean” is the rule for oil painting.
Re rolling paintings: Well, yes and no. The Clifford Styll Museum (Denver, CO, well worth a trip) keeps a large number of their paintings rolled up in storage. The tubes they are rolled around, however are very large: 18-24 inches in diameter.
Re the abstract artists: Many (most?) of them were classically trained in technique, materials, and theory (I’m thinking of the ‘major’ names of the early 1950s), and moved from figurative works early in their careers to abstraction. To use one of my favorite examples: Joan Mitchell is one of the masters of color, and her use of it (proportion, weight, combination, technique) is as sophisticated as any of the ‘old masters’.
Some advice on rolling paintings:
https://www.thoughtco.com/rolling-up-a-finished-canvas-painting-2578843
IMHO, an oil painting should only be rolled as an absolute last resort, and the cautions in the article above should be observed strictly. I don’t see it in the article, but I’ve read that very old paintings are more brittle, and are easier to damage when rolled.
I think acrylic paintings are safer to roll, but caution should still be exercised.
I fully endorse your assesment of Willem de Kooning, but many of the abstract artists can paint and draw. Those works weren’t trend setting for obvious reasons. The novelty and need for photo realism had dropped off. Kooning couldn’t draw to save his life.
Yes. Take a look at the prolific sculptures and detail drawings by Picasso and you better understand that his Cubist art is not random. (Or pedestrian.)
I thought the Musk quote about looking for a date was a joke based on the tenor of these kinds of articles-which seem like over the top personal ads. Nope. He actually said that verbatim.
RE: Gun numbers from The Guardian
The same survey methodology that the Guardian relies on, in what is essentially a fund raising advert, tells us that with the increase in gun ownership has come an exponential increase in support for gun rights. Americans are split fairly evenly on support for gun control, (51%), versus gun rights, (47%), according to Pew Research.
If this is what The Guardian calls a “radically different approach to media coverage of gun violence in the US” I wonder what they might think a “creative solution” might be. And why such a creative solution comes with a $100,000 dollar price tag.
I would be an outlier. Much like Col. Wilkerson (Colin Powells chief of staff) I’ve become a collector by default, not be pursuit. I’ve been shedding firearms over the years and still own half a dozen. However, they rest cleanly and comfortably in a safe until the next target practice sessions or hunting season. I’m astonished how easy it is to exchange firearms in the US, even in a (somewhat) restricted state like Washington.
U.S. Treasury fund secretly pays for sexual harassment claims against lawmakers
http://act.tv/articles/special-us-treasury-fund-secretly-pays-for-sexual-harassment-claims-against-lawmakers
Why, oh why, am I not surprised? :-/
I had a little difficulty finding this particular law. “Sexual harassment” does not appear in the text of the law. “Office of Compliance” turned out to be the useful search term:
S.2 – Congressional Accountability Act of 1995
The government has money for a lot of things we could do without….and not enough money for things we really need.
And this is where we stop and reflect…without getting entangled in that quagmire of the government having unlimited amount of money to spend (just guess where it will spend that on…not necessarily on harassment claims).
“…believes…”???
I thought his “dossier” was supposed to be “evidence”
I bet the 10-30% is the stuff that made the headlines.
What is in the accurate 70-90%?
That Trump was in charge of Trump Organization? That would be accurate.
That Trump was involved with some beauty pageant? That would be accurate.
That he traveled all over the world, including Russia? That would be accurate.
The world view is similar to the one held by Hillary, when she defended Bill with the accusation about a vast right wing conspiracy plot against a virile president.
“Put aside the content of the charge. Look at their motive.”
I seem to remember a similar statement by Dick Fuld before Lehman Bros collapses in a blaze of fraud.
Well, she was right about that in my view — there was a vast right wing conspiracy, and we are seeing the fruits of it now.
Antidote, cat from Istanbul.
That reminds me of the faithful Akita, Hachiko and his statue as well.
1. Something that has been understood or been in use for thousands of years still needs research, if we want to use it in today’s world.
2. The key is get it researched. That’s where the battleground is. Until a way is found to do that, there is no way to fight that war. So, present research results to counter that war. Whether it is a ploy or not a ploy is secondary.
Elon Musk: The Architect of Tomorrow “Is there anybody you think I should date?”
match.com?
However, there is a problem. An over inflated ego is not very attractive, and negates the benefit of an overstuffed wallet.
Tot siens Menheer.
Beyond power, beyond wealth, is it still about biology?
If that were true the rich wouldn’t breed.
If only
Maybe Elon Musk should start a dating site exclusively for squillionaires, and maybe Millionaires too considering how few women squillionaires there are. He could charge a $100,000 dollar a year membership fee to keep the Proles out.
What about dating very attractive robots?
Surely that prospect is in our bright future, if not already available to billionaires .
“What is the matter? Science can’t do that? Are you guys not gods anymore?”
“Our latest model is a perfect 10, just like all our previous models.”
“Can I get a model that’s a 1? I’m really bored of 10s.”
In ancient China, as in Japan even today, a good courtesan or geisha must be able to play the guqin (or shamisan for the Japanese), recite poetry, knowledgeable in the way of tea, trained in the art of Beijing Opera (or Yuan opera or Noh music), etc.
Make sure to order the model with those extra features.
Isn’t Musk gay, or have I confused him with another squillionaire?
Very wealthy people do have a problem, in that so many of the people they meet are really gold-diggers – or at least that they have to worry about it.
You are probably thinking of Peter Thiel. Musk has been married twice, most recently to British actress Talulah Riley. I saw it on some science documentary…
Whoops. Upon checking my facts I find he has been married three time. Twice to Talulah Riley.
I mean, you could almost count it as one marriage with two separate parts.
Thanks. I was confused.
” and negates the benefit of an overstuffed wallet.”
I really, really doubt that. As Ann Landers said years ago, those who marry for money earn it – but there seem to be plenty of volunteers. If he’s after someone who ISN’T after his money, then he might have a problem.
It’s amazing that the Atlantic can say with a straight face that “wanting to publish Trump’s tax returns” equates with “conspiring with the Trump campaign.” Every reporter in the US was clamoring for those tax returns last year – the only thing setting WikiLeaks apart is that they attempted to come up with a persuasive reason for him to do so rather than just screaming about it.
My opinion’s not worth anything though, after all, I love all the brassicas.
A Sheriff Just Threatened Charges Over ‘Fuck Trump’ Sticker — and the Internet Is Destroying Him
Oh golly gee! What about all of these bumper stickers?
…probably a diesel vehicle, and it means “eat soot”. ;)
Good article from Current Affairs on how Generation Y is the victim of a terrible system.
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/11/why-millennials-are-the-way-they-are
It is a good rebuttal to the criticism that Generation Y is entitled or killing various industries.
>Christopher Steele believes his dossier on Trump-Russia is 70-90% accurate Guardian
Wasn’t this stupid thing instantly disproved by the fact that Junior had a meeting with a Russian lawyer promising dirt? One of the dossier’s claims was that Trump had had a direct line to the Kremlin for years. If he did, there would never be a need for meeting with random lawyers promising info; he would already have that and better info piped directly to him from his handlers.
“The end of American exceptionalism means the end of Japanese exceptionalism too.”
Oh please. Japanese narcissism predates American occupation. As I’m sure China and Korea can attest at length.
“Constitutional reform is just the first step in the long journey to normalization of Japan’s security posture and capability.”
What? Japan has had a hugely capable ‘security force’ for decades. Article 9 has been bent and twisted for most of its existence. All that’s changing now (and it started with Obama’s go ahead, not with Trump) is that the farce of Japan not having a military is being dumped entirely.
” YY: “I don’t understand the functional merit of the cloud when local storage options get exponentially ever cheaper, physically smaller, and higher in capacity on a daily basis.”
A friend lost an entire novel manuscript when her computer crashed and burned. Even pros couldn’t get it back. So now all their backup is on the Cloud.
For that, it makes sense. Note that no one is trying to steal a manuscript no one else even knows about – unlike, say, celebrity nudes. But it’s BACKUP. Not that different from a memory stick, but harder to lose.
Actual processing on someone else’s computer (because that’s what the Cloud is)? Isn’t that obviously asking for trouble? Not that I want to be unsympathetic, but I still don’t understand why anyone thought something called the Cloud might be secure or reliable.
…that’s what 16Gb thumb drives are for. Takes seconds and you keep it in your possession.
And thumb drives hold more than 16Gigs now.
Anyone with that much data should be able to afford 2…one as a backup of the other.
A thumb drive was the McGuffin in one of the modern Sherlock mysteries.
My friends went to the cloud before thumb drives were available. The big problem is that they’re tiny and easy to lose. As in, I don’t know where a couple of ours are.
Chances are that if you misplace your thumb drive, it will be at home (a location where you are acquainted with people who have access) or your job (a similar type of location).
All depends on the kind of data you handle. For example, in my industry to get insured we must keep a secondary off-site backup of the data we produce for clients; a smaller facility would find it cost-prohibitive both from an infrastructure perspective (London property market) and an IT manpower perspective.
My industry also requires the ability scale up rapidly to meet deadlines on playout, and holding over a lot of unused render capacity would be ruinous for the business. In this situation we need to spin up cloud instances and push render out onto it for X amount of time until delivery.
RE: Google Docs Down
The Cloud is simply a way to get more data on users and potentially monetize it.
Re: Trump Transition
All the GOP Tax Plan articles in the links are well worth reading.
Thanks.
From Res Obscura on early-modern flavors: ” till yr Chickin be tender then make a [illegible] and minced peaches and ye yolkes of 2 eggs”
This is not so outrageous as the author seems to think. It’s fairly common to cook chicken or pork with a fruit or other sweet sauce, though I’ve never seen peaches used this way, and egg yolks are widely used as a thickener, which is what the recipe says. The mace might be a good idea, too. Wish I knew what was illegible.
A further example is the Mexican Mole Negro (many regional variations), which contains sweet chocolate, banana, cinnamon, and often other sweet ingredients. Again, mostly for poultry. It’s heavenly. (Red mole is mostly chili, though again rather sweet.)
There is a recipe for making smothered chicken with peaches in the cookbook, Country Cooking, by Dori Sanders (1995), p. 121. I tried it, and it makes a fine dish. The whole book is a fine one. Many dishes use egg yolks whipped into cream as a thickener, the legendary Belgian dish of waterzooi being one example.
“No Excuses, People: Get the New Shingles Vaccine NYT. “Medicare will cover Shingrix under Part D (like its predecessor), not under Part B like the flu vaccine. That complicates reimbursement for those seeking vaccination in doctors’ offices, so Medicare patients will probably find it simpler to head for a pharmacy. But not all Medicare recipients have Part D, and those that do could face co-payments.”
Yah good one! Took my 82 yr old mother to get a simple flu shot. She has supplemental Medicare D coverage. Neither at cvs or rite aid would her insurance cover her. Had to pay 74$ out of pocket and submit all the paper work for a possible reimbursement.
Yeah, usa health care is #1 rah rah rah #1…. /S
Great Antidote today. I just lost my 18 year old cat with whom I lived with for the last 12 years. She had some very “cool cat” poses, too, but unfortunately I never took the time to get pics, something I regret now.
After living with many dogs for a long time and only a few cats for short times prior to this one, I feel I can safely say that cats have far more amazing personalities and they are more “self aware” than dogs. I’m sure this Istanbul cat knew exactly what the look portrayed and was very self-satisfied.
The antidote itself gave me some good ideas on what I need to do in remembrance of my own cool cat. Thanks.
Oh, I read this only now. My condolences.
Thank You. Even now I am surprised at how much it bothers me that she had to leave my house. She was a great companion and I still miss her company.