2:00PM Water Cooler 6/8/2021

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121 comments

1. Pat June 8, 2021 at 2:04 pm

   Just a thought, did you try deleting the mouse from the acceptable devices?

   If searching for it is causing problems, that might help.
   1. R June 8, 2021 at 5:56 pm

      You don’t reset the PMC, you cancel it. :-)
2. cocomaan June 8, 2021 at 2:19 pm

   Street Watch LA: WHAT DO I DO IF MY UNHOUSED NEIGHBOR IS EXPERIENCING A MENTAL HEALTH CRISIS?

   This all seems like good advice, but I once called my county mental health service when I saw someone having a clear mental break in public (shouting at someone that wasn’t there, talking about how they’d stolen his money.)

   Mental health services, or whatever they were, told me to call the cops for a “wellness check.” I asked if I should call the emergency number or some other number. They said that they didn’t know and gave me a dispatch number.

   Lambert,

   I hate all these “we” stories:

   These used to bother me, but I now just insert the tacit “[Royal] We,” for the upper crust who actually gets the New Yorker. They just play to their audience.
   1. a different chris June 8, 2021 at 4:07 pm

      > just insert the tacit “[Royal] We,

      Yes you get it! Maybe eventually Lambert will. I don’t know where he thinks he is coming from, to wit:

      He spends a lot of time delineating the differences between the people that post this stuff, and the “essential people” — and then he gets put off when said Twits use “we”???

      To me it sounds like they do realize that they are part of a different world, and thus speaking to a different audience than said essentials. Whether they look down on said essentials (likely if unconsciously) or if they just look at them like they are Martians, it still is arguably an honest take.

      Shorter me: Replace “our lives” with “everybody’s lives”, now that would be insulting. “We all have been reduced to Hello Fresh on the veranda” with “Everybody has been reduced to Hello Fresh…” — do you see what I mean?

      I have heard that people talk funny in the Nor’ East. I guess we can just write Lambert’s weird takes off as that.
   2. Liebowitz June 8, 2021 at 4:52 pm

      “This is a question we get a lot! Step 1: Do not call the police.”

      Invite them into your house and let them camp on your living room floor, or in the garage, or backyard. Put your philosophy into practice and help welcome them not just to your community, but into your life. Learn from them and do everything you can to share with them.
      1. ambrit June 8, 2021 at 6:44 pm

         We actually did something like this with a young man back after the hurricane. It was an education in the limits of tolerance and patience. There are some people in this world who are, for all intents and purposes, broken. This young man was one such. He stole from us and literally did not understand why we were upset about it. Basically, the concept of “other people’s possessions” was not in his thinking skills set. Everything he encountered was “his.”
         One of the biggest Neoliberal confidence games carried out in the past fifty years was Reagan’s dismantling of the Federal and Federally supported State level mental health infrastructures. The young man mentioned above would have been an inmate of such an institution, and done well there. For this reason alone I sincerely hope that Ronald Reagan is frying away in Hell.
   3. Chris June 9, 2021 at 1:18 am

      I say “Someone is having a medical emergency.” For the sake that a paramedic is sent and the unhoused person can possibly receive some medical attention.
3. flora June 8, 2021 at 2:24 pm

   Beautiful water lilies. Was the photo taken from a canoe whilst paddling across the shallow part of a lake?
   1. lyman alpha blob June 8, 2021 at 2:57 pm

      That one was actually taken from the shore of a man-made pond in the city park that was built on top of an old landfill. But the closeup does make it seem a little more exotic ;) Very nice little pond though – there is a giant snapping turtle that I spotted in there last year. It’s been around for at least 15-20 years according to anecdotal evidence of other pond watchers, which explains the one-legged ducks you see from time to time.

      There is another water lily picture that may appear someday and that one I did take from a kayak in the shallows of a lake.
4. Arizona Slim June 8, 2021 at 2:27 pm

   How’s Yves doing? Any post-surgical reports yet?
   1. lambert strether June 8, 2021 at 3:12 pm

      Not yet!
5. Watt4Bob June 8, 2021 at 2:31 pm

   Joe Manchin, Biden’s man in the Senate.
6. Toshiro_Mifune June 8, 2021 at 2:32 pm

   I saw these memage go by and I felt a great weight settle on my shoulders. Why do Democrats keep doing what doesn’t work?

   1 – They aren’t as smart as they pretend to be…. but we knew that one.
   2 – They are nerds. Not the “I have a lvl 32 Half-Elf cleric and a rock collection” type but the insidious hall-monitor/sucking up to teacher/”Miss! Johnny got out of his seat when you stepped out of class” type. They can’t help themselves.
   1. Alfred June 8, 2021 at 3:27 pm

      If something worked for the people, things would change, that would open up a whole can of worms, so they got good at looking busy. When they have their lunch and dinner meetings with their lobbyist handlers though, you can bet they are working hard.
   2. Dr. John Carpenter June 8, 2021 at 4:06 pm

      3 – Memeing about Trump’s pants gives Dem voters something to bond over and Tweet about that isn’t the dawning realization they were sold a bill of goods.

      4 – Without Orange Man bad/stupid, what else do the Dems have?
      1. Geo June 8, 2021 at 5:42 pm

         That so many people were obsessing over a close-up of Trump’s crotch, analyzing it and theorizing about it, says a lot more about their “focus” regarding politics than anything else.
         1. jonboinAR June 8, 2021 at 8:57 pm

            My brother’s an obsessive-like never Trump-er. I don’t get it. I mean, I got nothing. We can’t talk about it because we’ll both get mad. He’s probably putting up memes about Trump’s pants or whatever the issue is this time.
            1. Geo June 9, 2021 at 1:51 am

               Got quite a few like that in my circles and feel your pain. It’s frustrating. Mention Cuomo, Fauci, Hunter, or anything else that detracts from TrumpBad and they look at you like a flat-earther.

               Too much partisan “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” thinking and not enough “it’s a big club and you aren’t in it” thinking.
   3. Edward June 8, 2021 at 4:54 pm

      “Why do Democrats keep doing what doesn’t work?”

      They can’t think outside their own point of view and imagine the mindset of the general public. They are like a salesperson who can’t think in terms of what the customer wants but only in terms of what they like.
   4. R June 8, 2021 at 6:03 pm

      British English has separate terms for PMC vices:
      – creep = teacher’s pet
      – swot = geek (or is it nerd?)

      Is there a difference between geek and nerd? The impression I have is they might both have a collection of D&D figures but the geek would be too shy to tell you when you asked and the nerd to maladjusted to stop. Which in British English would make a nerd closer to a spod.
      1. Sub-Boreal June 8, 2021 at 8:11 pm

         https://laughingsquid.com/nerd-venn-diagram-geek-dork-or-dweeb/

         (there are other variants)
         1. R June 9, 2021 at 6:43 am

            Thank you! Always good to see ones prejudices in Venn form. :-)
   5. Left in Wisconsin June 8, 2021 at 6:22 pm

      I saw these memage go by and I felt a great weight settle on my shoulders. Why do Democrats keep doing what doesn’t work?

      Of course it works. It’s working perfectly.
      1. albrt June 8, 2021 at 6:49 pm

         Right. Projection keeps the media from noticing that Joe Biden can’t put his own pants on (probably).
   6. calmly June 8, 2021 at 6:34 pm

      3 — It does work, but for a different goal.

      I know it’s been said before, but the people who trade in said memage are mostly just trying to signal belonging to the rest of their group. That’s why it’s so hard for them to let Trump slip out of the public eye: as a vehicle for displaying one’s bien pensant to the group, Trump memes have little training wheels; it’s quite difficult to fall off. If this theory is correct, then, the more socially insecure people actually feel, the more they feel compelled to meme, which is what I think we’re actually looking at here.
7. synoia June 8, 2021 at 2:39 pm

   In the statistics, it might be illuminating to have a Southern Hemisphere and Northern Hemisphere graph, normalized for the hemisphere’s population..

   Why? The Hemispheres have different seasons, and have different numbers of people.
8. Toshiro_Mifune June 8, 2021 at 2:49 pm

   One of Margaret Thatcher’s signature starter dishes was blended beef consommé, cream cheese and curry powder, left to set in ramekins and topped with a layer of jellied soup.

   I had to look up what a ramekin was. Per the wiki; “Ramekins are usually designed to resist high temperatures, as they are frequently used in ovens or, in the case of crème brûlée, exposed to the flame of a cooking torch.” Which instantly made me think of Lady Sybil Ramkin from Discworld.
   1. DJG, Reality Czar June 8, 2021 at 3:12 pm

      Mifune-san: I also spotted the culinary treasure:

      One of Margaret Thatcher’s signature starter dishes was blended beef consommé, cream cheese and curry powder, left to set in ramekins and topped with a layer of jellied soup.

      Surely, after eating austerity slime like that, it is no surprise that she privatized public goods and, eventually, forgot that there is such a thing as society.

      As I keep saying, luckily for the U S of A, there will always be an England.
      1. John A June 8, 2021 at 3:40 pm

         It does sound disgusting, but then again Thatcher’s first degree was in chemistry. She must have done plenty of experimenting in labs. Am surprised she used ramekins rather than petri dishes. But what is ‘blended’ beef consomme and how do you jelly soup? She first rose to fame when in charge of education, she abolished the daily milk ration for school kids, which earned her the moniker, Thatcher the milk snatcher. Maybe the cream cheese was actually the snatched milk that had curdled and she used curry powder to mask the taste.
         1. Toshiro_Mifune June 8, 2021 at 3:56 pm

            she abolished the daily milk ration for school kids
            wtf? What was the rationale for that? Other than she hated the poor
            1. hunkerdown June 8, 2021 at 5:49 pm

               How do public goods strengthen elite property relations?
            2. ambrit June 8, 2021 at 6:47 pm

               From what I have read, I get the feeling that Margaret Thatcher hated everyone, especially herself.
            3. HotFlash June 8, 2021 at 7:49 pm

               Times were tough in the UK when the Heath govt was re-elected, and Mrs. Thatcher was Minister of Education. So the Tories went a-cost-cutting and one of the programmes that got curtailed was the free milk program. It had been instituted after WWII, when Britain was still in the grip of rationing (paying back those war debts, you know), but the govt provided milk for free to pregnant women, presumably nursing mothers (can’t find info on that), and children right through grade school. School-age children apparently got it in schools. Maggie signed off on cutting the programme for students over the age of seven to save money, but apparently she did not originate the plan and even felt bad about it later. The British press dubbed the future Prime Minister “Thatcher, Thatcher, milk snatcher”
               1. The Rev Kev June 8, 2021 at 8:15 pm

                  I don’t think that she regretted it as much as the flak that she copped for doing so. That scheme only cost £4 million annually and probably helped the British milk industry to boot. I mean seriously – £4 million? For government, that is a rounding error. And all that milk helped a generation of people develop good bones and was an investment in their future health. But here is the tell. If she really regretted it, when she became Prime Minister, why did she not restore it? She could have said that it was a sign of the better times that he government had delivered so now was the time to bring it back. But she never did.
               2. aleph_0 June 8, 2021 at 8:21 pm

                  Thanks for the story; this story made the last piece of Stewart Lee’s fantastic Scooby Doo/Thatcher bit hit way harder.
            4. Tom Bradford June 8, 2021 at 8:30 pm

               wtf? What was the rationale for that? Other than she hated the poor

               I’m old enough to remember the 1/3 pint of milk in bottles (glass in those days) we received at school – I even served as a milk monitor at the time.

               I believe the original philosophy behind ‘school milk’ was that it was ‘laced’ with vitamin D to prevent rickets, which was a genuine problem for poor kids in the ’30s and ’40’s. However by Thatcher’s day few kids had rickets so you no longer needed preventative measures, plus of course someone’s (ie her) taxes had to pay for keeping the impoverished at least marginally healthy so it had to go.
               1. Count Zero June 10, 2021 at 6:05 am

                  The great thing about free school milk was that a lot of kids didn’t bother picking up their little bottle. At the end of morning break a few of us grubby urchins generally hung around the stacks of crates eyeing the surplus. We would then be given permission to help ourselves. I was frequently guzzling a pint or two of free milk. F(amily blog) Thatcher.
         2. R June 8, 2021 at 6:07 pm

            Consomme naturally jellifies when cold because of the beef gelatin in it. The blended should read “a blend of”, I.e. the beef and cream cheese and curry powder are homogenised.

            Even explained, it sounds revolting. I think the more telling vignette is that Mrs Thatcher was proud of her seminal work as a food chemist in inventing My Whippy, an ersatz ” ice crean” made from air and wood pulp (cellulose for texture, vanillin for flavour).
            1. Chris June 8, 2021 at 11:26 pm

               … Mrs Thatcher was proud of her seminal work as a food chemist in inventing My Whippy, an ersatz ” ice crean” made from air and wood pulp…

               Untrue, most likely:

               https://www.theguardian.com/politics/reality-check/2013/apr/17/margaret-thatcher-team-mr-whippy
               1. R June 9, 2021 at 6:46 am

                  It is true in spirit and that’s what counts. :-)
   2. CanCyn June 8, 2021 at 4:03 pm

      Ramekins I know, but jellied soup??!! That I had to look up. Found the following, which sounds not so bad https://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/jellied-consomm. My parents, of Scottish and English descent, used to let the juices from roast beef ‘gel’ naturally (not sure of the culinary chemistry that caused the gelling to happen but they didn’t add anything). They spread it on toast, it was tasty. The recipe in the link must make something similar.
      First impression remains though … The Wicked Witch’s signature appetizer sounds straight out of a Kraft recipe book. Like a savoury Jello 1-2-3 for those of you who remember that processed food diy layered dessert. I can’t only add that there is a reason for English cuisine’s poor reputation.
      1. CanCyn June 8, 2021 at 4:16 pm

         ‘Can only add’
      2. Utah June 8, 2021 at 4:29 pm

         The juices that gel are from the natural collagen inside meat. Collagen and pectin (the stuff that makes jelly set) are similar in their chemical shape. So think of it as animal pectin. Fun fact: jello, before it was a brand and just a type of cooking, was originally made from calves feet. They had to be a certain age to work best, but I no longer remember what that age is.
         1. jr June 8, 2021 at 5:02 pm

            You can make a similar gelatin from the bones. I take cooked, cleaned chicken bones and roast them until brown. You don’t have to cook em again but roasting is a dry heat so it’s going to have different flavoring effects than when the bones steam inside the meat.

            Then with the tip of a knife puncture a small hole on either end of each bone. This is so the water can flow through and push out the good stuff inside as the bones steep. A crock pot is best as it gently as it percolates the water through the bones. Never boil as it atomizes fat.

            Then you get chicken Jello. Richer than stock, add to soups, sauces, etc. I reserve the layer of fat on top for pan frying as well.
            1. CanCyn June 8, 2021 at 6:13 pm

               Thanks Utah, R and Jr! As Lambert French says, the NC commentariat is the best!
               1. CanCyn June 8, 2021 at 6:46 pm

                  Autocorrect is doing weird things today. I meant to say Lambert always says
         2. Chris June 8, 2021 at 11:33 pm

            …and please always to remember, within the remnants of the British Empire, the coloured stuff made from meat bones is “jelly”, and the solidified fruit stuff is ”jam” (unless the fruit is filtered out before the liquid sets, in which case it’s also “jelly”).
   3. Procopius June 9, 2021 at 10:39 am

      Well, Lady Sybil is a very formidable person in her own right, as shown in The Fifth Elephant. Thanks for pointing it out — I didn’t catch the connection, and it’s very apt. “Cooking torch,” indeed.
9. griffen June 8, 2021 at 2:49 pm

   Breaking news, Trump was a yuuge fan of the young rap duo. Indeed they made him desire to jump, jump.

   Trump’s an OG, dontcha know. His other music choice was Color Me Badd.
10. John June 8, 2021 at 2:58 pm

    Biden did say nothing would change so of course the filibuster stays.
    1. chuck roast June 8, 2021 at 4:39 pm

       I’m thinking that Ole’ Joe has no interest in changing things because he would have to be awake and alert to carry out such an agenda. Being a geezer, he is probably thinking about his next nap if he is not actually napping. These very focused activities can take up quite a bit of a 24 hour day…and we are not even talking about nine hours in the rack. Those of us who populate geezer world, and Ole’ Joe is certainly one of us, understand this powerful dynamic. Four years of this and all the Repubs have to do in 2024 is nominate a guy who is ostensibly awake and the White House will be theirs.
       1. NotTimothyGeithner June 8, 2021 at 5:23 pm

          The Biden is old argument ignores history and more importantly his Team Blue elite backers. They knew Biden has always been a front man for right wing policies who would browbeat leftier types into supporting bad ideas or at least not fighting. Someone had the Delaware Senators go out and vote with Manchin.
       2. Nikkikat June 8, 2021 at 5:34 pm

          Yes, Ol’ Joe is just a seat filler until the next Republican monster man gets elected.
11. Mikel June 8, 2021 at 3:04 pm

    “The Brazilianization of the World” [American Affairs].

    Favelas for everyone!

    Hope we look as good….
12. makesi June 8, 2021 at 3:07 pm

    In you’re in the Philly area go to Rolling Thunder Skating Center on a Saturday and check out the moves! Skating is a cheap and sober way to have fun. When I was growing up lots of kids–working class kids–had birthday parties at the rink. Roller Derby is a whole world too.
    1. Michael Fiorillo June 8, 2021 at 5:12 pm

       Yes, and the skate dancing near the Bandshell in Central Park has always had a broad make-up (or at least it did back in the day and last time I passed by)… but somehow I don’t think that’s what New York was picturing.
13. enoughisenough June 8, 2021 at 3:19 pm

    “academic fields are at a dead end”.

    If anything, the problem is expecting fast novelty in fields that REQUIRE slow learning and deep, slow research.

    The best methodologies are the ones that DON’T CUT CORNERS, and ensure the results are based on best practices, and the best practices are the established ones. Logical fallacies are still a thing, even if people find them tedious to avoid, avoid them we must.

    Expecting “novelty” is to betray the disciplines and essentially welcome sub-par work. It’s specious and wrong-headed.

    And using AI? This guy doesn’t know what he’s talking about. This is cart-before the horse nonsense.
    1. HotFlash June 8, 2021 at 4:03 pm

       Well, indeedy. But our institutions of higher learning are dealing with a glut of PhD candidates, whose theses are each supposed to be ‘an original contribution to the field’, and thereafter with PhD’s whose hiring, tenure, and grants are dependent on publication in journals, which have been ‘twigging’ into more and more specialized areas to provide places for publication of a lot of trivial writing which adds little to the sum of knowledge. My BFF’s two proposed thesis topics, both of which would have been original contributions, were turned down by her thesis advisors, one b/c the guy who actually knew about the subject was slated to be head of her dept and would be ‘too busy’, and the other guy knew nothing about tthe topic — ‘not a grammarian’. She ended up being assigned a topic which had been conclusively dealt with in a then-recent 16-page article. Nonetheless, she slogged through two years of tedious work which failed to come to the conclusion that her advisor wanted (and which had been conclusively disproved in the aforesaid 16 page article). Her thesis was sent back again and again for more work. The poor woman ended up with a nervous breakdown and her thesis unapproved.

       And that was 40 years ago, it’s only gotten worse.
       1. enoughisenough June 8, 2021 at 4:37 pm

          There are sooo many good questions to ask of the material, still. In my field, I think of dissertation-length research questions all the time.

          You don’t have to throw out methodology to be a creative scholar. The article we’re commenting about simply overstates its case.

          Your friends sound like they had conservative, bad dissertation advisors.

          Frankly, there are too many conservative topics these days because of the contraction of the academy. It’s not so much a “glut” it’s that positions are being cut, departments are being cut and Phds are facing an impossible situation, job-wise.

          They may be afraid to stick their necks out, with new, creative research, lest it get harder to find a job.

          Furthermore, scholars have less time to devote to research as they are given larger class loads and bigger administrative/committee duties, not to mention the jobs aren’t tenure-track, and many people have to re-apply for new jobs YEARLY, and the application process is a HUGE time suck.

          It’s the environment that’s not conducive to good research, not that the fields have somehow stagnated. The academy is being SABOTAGED, is what’s happening here. People don’t seem to realize the squeeze that going on.

          In fact, when googling for the below article, most search hits were advocacy pieces on *how to defund universities FURTHER*!! We are in a shockingly anti-intellectual age.

          https://www.pbs.org/newshour/education/most-americans-dont-realize-state-funding-for-higher-ed-fell-by-billions
          1. Acacia June 9, 2021 at 2:08 am

             Just to add a data point here, I believe that something like 76% of all university level instruction in the US is done by adjuncts on temp contracts, or grad students for whom the teaching is considered part of their training (and thus unions are waved off by university administrators and commitment to teaching is frowned upon by thesis committees, because it’s “not research”).

             In other words: there’s a lot of exploitation in higher education. Makes me think of the children of the elite in Ancient Rome being tutored by Greek slaves.
       2. Edward June 8, 2021 at 5:21 pm

          The treadmill quality of academia is described in this book:

          https://1lib.us/book/782576/2e8405
14. ambrit June 8, 2021 at 3:26 pm

    “fermenters” immediately made me think of Tleilaxu axolotl tanks.
    1. Jonathan Holland Becnel June 8, 2021 at 6:23 pm

       So Zhao’s secret is Women hooked up to all kinds of gadgets as they birth HA?

       Gross lol ? but kinda believable!
       1. ambrit June 8, 2021 at 6:55 pm

          Yep. Since there are so many “surplus” women in China, not to mention Uighirs, Karens, Tibetans, and others, it makes sense. Go with what you have the most of!
          Hope you’re enjoying the Great Northwest. Right now, the North American Deep South is enduring highs around 90F every day with humidity in the eighty and ninety percent range.
          It’s fricasseeing weather!
          Stay safe!
          1. Jonathan Holland Becnel June 8, 2021 at 8:35 pm

             I actually just left my job and the PNW to come back to the Deep South! Here in Metairie, I finished cutting my parents grass with their electric lawnmower and I am fn DRENCHED!!! Between the Heat and the Rich Food, all Becnel wants to do is take a NAP!
             Hope you’re doing well, MI amigeaux!
             1. ambrit June 9, 2021 at 2:54 am

                You always were a ‘rabble rouser!’ [Coming from me, that’s a compliment.] The PNW should have been a ‘natural’ for you.
                Some tidbits about the ‘culture shock’ of living in the PNW versus Da Olde Saut would be good to read. (I’m not ashamed to say that I know that that is an assignment, but, here we are!)
                Glad to see you home! {Isn’t it ‘funny’ about how “special” the New Orleans area is to those who grew up there? I’m an immigrant who married a local and even I’m infected with that bug.}
                All the best from the Half-horse town.
15. Eloined June 8, 2021 at 3:27 pm

    Thanks for raising the 2019 Atlantic profile of Bezos which hones in on his core ambition. For the leaders of SpaceX (Musk) and Blue Origin (Bezos), every dollar spent on the factory and warehouse workers of their earthbound businesses means, per their fractional ownership, at least several fewer cents available for manifestation of interplanetary destiny.

    I’m reminded of Paul Tillich and his conception of ‘ultimate concern.’
    1. Henry Moon Pie June 8, 2021 at 4:12 pm

       The Bezos/Musk mindset is a far cry from the following, which is one of seven things filmmaker Natasha Deganello Giraudie learned while making the film “One Word Sawalmem” with co-director Michael “Pom” Preston of the Winnemem Wintu tribe of Mt. Shasta:

       Our current environmental crisis is the result of misguided policy, economics, education, and commerce, but at its core, it is a spiritual crisis. As such, it requires us to recognize ourselves in nature and nature in ourselves. It means being in relationship with nature, which requires the acknowledgment of the natural world consisting of beings rather than things to be consumed. It means that in all our decisions, we consider the well-being of all humans and the more-than-human world for generations to come. It means rematriation, which Indigenous people around the world are urgently calling for: rendering the Earth sacred again. Spiritual awareness is the often unsung and dismissed form of intelligence, which is meant to complement our rational minds. Spiritual commitment requires humility to learn not only about our animal and plant and mineral neighbors on this Earth, but to learn from them as our elder teachers.
       1. Eloined June 8, 2021 at 10:13 pm

          A good read there, thanks. In a test of either temporal or environmental sustainability, I’d put my money on spiritual commitment over the personal “sacrifice”-making we’re implored to engage in for various complicated reasons.
    2. Pelham June 8, 2021 at 6:31 pm

       Bezos wouldn’t be a problem if we as a society started from the rational, clear premise that no one, no matter how talented and hard working, could ever really be worth $1 billion. Or maybe even $100 million, let alone 150 billion.

       Let us resolve to work for an upper limit on income and a cap on accumulated wealth. For every Bezos blocked from grasping for his second billion, a thousand other clever entrepreneurs with great ideas who would otherwise be stifled may be freed to emerge.
       1. Carla June 8, 2021 at 8:59 pm

          @Pelham — I’m with you 100 percent. Upper income limits are essential to rebalancing the economy and the country. Money is power, and a small group of conniving people have way too much of it. If we are to create any semblance of democracy, those few will have to be relieved of their excess.
       2. Procopius June 9, 2021 at 11:02 am

          Many years ago, back when a million dollars was real money, I read a story about some Japanese electronics firm. The founder, a brilliant engineer, had decided to retire. At a meeting of the board, the directors implored him to stay on. They believed, or at least said, that without his brilliant leadership the company would be doomed. They offered him a one million dollar bonus (well, I suppose its equivalent in yen). He just smiled at them, and said, “Nobody is worth a million dollars.” It is true, even if the story was apocryphal. Back in the nineteenth century there were some economists (and a lot of rabble-rousers) who were infuriated by “unearned income.” Back then it was land rent. Now it’s stock options and exploiting workers, who are the actual creators of wealth.
16. Tom_Doak June 8, 2021 at 3:33 pm

    I find it interesting that journalists are unionizing at many prominent platforms, but that so very few of them seem to write much about the importance of unions in other fields of work.

    I suppose their editors have something to do with that. And, of course, the owners! But it’s still poor form.
17. ambrit June 8, 2021 at 3:34 pm

    Re. “..what these students are really being prepared for.” Hah! You are right in one. “..these students” are being ‘groomed.’ Both individually and as a group.
18. Mikel June 8, 2021 at 3:37 pm

    Re: “April 2021 Consumer Credit Expanded” [Econintersect]

    Another reason to expect interest rates to rise. $$$$
19. a different chris June 8, 2021 at 4:20 pm

    . If Biden actually cared about his agenda he would have sat Manchin down early on and asked what he wanted in order to play ball. The fact that Manchin is is a loud opponent shows Biden hasn’t played politics well

    Nope, this is a young man’s take. Wander thru life enough and you will meet a few Joe Manchins Biden isn’t the problem (whether he cares about his agenda or not, and most indications are that he really, really does). Does Robinson think that, a guy who spent the last 6 jillion years in Washington didn’t push every possible button with Manchin if for no other reason than to score a win?

    The Joe Manchin type will never argue to your face. He won’t hash anything out with you because, one on one he is badly overmatched. Yes, even if the other side is Joe Biden. In actuality, he will come across as agreeing with you because he can hardly admit to himself what he really thinks when somebody is trying to change his mind.

    I suspect this: Biden did his best. He knows Manchin, knows he is hopeless but, like a weathervane occasionally points in the desired direction if subjected to enough (hot) air. The gamble did not pay off in this case.

    More importantly, these are adults. Blame Manchin for what Manchin does, not Joe Biden. That attitude, that inability to aim properly, gets you to exactly where the Left is at. Nowhere.
    1. Alfred June 8, 2021 at 5:45 pm

       now pull the other one
    2. phoenix June 8, 2021 at 5:57 pm

       Is this the lib equivalent of Trump playing 4D chess? Sometimes the easiest answer is the correct one. Biden isn’t some political genius and he sure as hell isn’t someone who actually cares about the agenda that got him elected. He’s a pathological liar who only cares about maintaining the status quo and winning the presidency. And he’s senile.
       1. Tom Bradford June 8, 2021 at 8:44 pm

          Sometimes the easiest answer is the correct one.

          I agree with a different Chris. The one thing Biden knows above all else is that his years (or perhaps just months?) of Presidency will be his epitaph. He has no need to cultivate interests to cash in on in his post-Presidential future because he doesn’t have one. In a real sense he has nothing to lose by pushing ‘his’ agenda, whatever he believes it to be.

          “Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.” – Samuel Johnson.
    3. hunkerdown June 8, 2021 at 6:00 pm

       You would have us run interference for the center-right by telling us not to watch the center-right party’s rotating heel game. How about blaming the entire Party for EVERY single thing ANY of them do for helping ANY anti-popular interests? Parties are imaginary friends. Imaginary friends do not have a right to exist and they do not have a right to “believe” things.
    4. FluffytheObeseCat June 8, 2021 at 10:33 pm

       “ More importantly, these are adults. Blame Manchin for what Manchin does, not Joe Biden. That attitude, that inability to aim properly, gets you to exactly where the Left is at. Nowhere.”

       You are right. All of Biden’s obvious flaws aside, Manchin is a major power center in the Senate, and we live in a democratic republic not a dictatorship. It’s funny how many Democrats are just as unwilling to acknowledge these basic organizational facts as their putative opposites. Of course, if they’d admit it, they’d need to focus on unseating Manchin, and that is a hard, perilous slog. West Virginia will likely barf up a Republican zealot if Manchin falls. He will one day though, and possibly soon. Our nation will then be blessed with some low wattage rendition of Hawley as the ‘honorable’ Senator from WV…… for next 3+ decades.
    5. Dr. John Carpenter June 9, 2021 at 9:11 am

       Three issues with your theory:
       1) “Does Robinson think that, a guy who spent the last 6 jillion years in Washington didn’t push every possible button with Manchin if for no other reason than to score a win?”: Is there any evidence of Biden doing this or even needing to do this in the past? All of his accomplishments are very much in line with what the powers that be wanted. Show me an instance of Joe pushing buttons to go against the grain. Also, the media has already crowned Biden the heir apparent to FDR, so what does he need a win for?

       2) “whether he cares about his agenda or not, and most indications are that he really, really does”: Yeah, going to need to see some recipients for that. Not only does this assumption fly in the face of almost 40 years in politics, it also contradicts his presidency so far. I mean, who had heard of a parliamentarian before 2021? Also, Joe Biden owes me $600.

       3) This also ignores the Rotating Villain strategy, which is a real thing and is pretty clearly going on here.
20. drumlin woodchuckles June 8, 2021 at 4:23 pm

    ” Nothing to prepare the public mind for ventilation issues, good job CDC. ”

    Well, if the CDC’s secret real Deep Agenda is to keep covid alive, then the CDC is actually doing a good job. If keeping covid alive is in reality part of the CDC’s Secret Deep Agenda.

    Would it be irresponsible to speculate on the CDC having a Secret Deep Agenda?
    It would be irresponsible not to speculate.
21. drumlin woodchuckles June 8, 2021 at 4:26 pm

    Chicken feet are a good source of hyaluronic acid. You can perhaps make your own hyaluronic acid-rich chicken foot paste and apply it to your skin, as well as to eat it in food.

    https://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/chicken-feet-benefits-uses/
    1. Acacia June 9, 2021 at 2:42 am

       I seem to recall that most chicken feet from processing plants in the US get shipped to… China. Perhaps Zhao Yan is in the loop, and “special fermenters” is hyperbole?
22. Glen June 8, 2021 at 4:48 pm

    Yes, but what did the dish start?

    I was immediately reminded of an old Monty Python bit that included the phrase “opened the sluice gates at both ends”.
    1. Carolinian June 8, 2021 at 7:51 pm

       Monty Python….BBC heyday.

       In The Crown we see Thatcher cooking for her cabinet members at No. 10. Apparently she was quite the homebody.
23. Alfred June 8, 2021 at 5:28 pm

    chicken foot broth will cure what ails you
24. fresno dan June 8, 2021 at 5:32 pm

    https://www.propublica.org/article/the-secret-irs-files-trove-of-never-before-seen-records-reveal-how-the-wealthiest-avoid-income-tax
    Taken together, it demolishes the cornerstone myth of the American tax system: that everyone pays their fair share and the richest Americans pay the most. The IRS records show that the wealthiest can — perfectly legally — pay income taxes that are only a tiny fraction of the hundreds of millions, if not billions, their fortunes grow each year.
    ….
    America’s billionaires avail themselves of tax-avoidance strategies beyond the reach of ordinary people. Their wealth derives from the skyrocketing value of their assets, like stock and property. Those gains are not defined by U.S. laws as taxable income unless and until the billionaires sell.

    To capture the financial reality of the richest Americans, ProPublica undertook an analysis that has never been done before. We compared how much in taxes the 25 richest Americans paid each year to how much Forbes estimated their wealth grew in that same time period.

    We’re going to call this their true tax rate.

    The results are stark. According to Forbes, those 25 people saw their worth rise a collective $401 billion from 2014 to 2018. They paid a total of $13.6 billion in federal income taxes in those five years, the IRS data shows. That’s a staggering sum, but it amounts to a true tax rate of only 3.4%.
    ================================================
    So…are taxes ONLY to facilitate coercion and control, and their only economic purpose is to maintain a separate and elite upper class?
    The American novelist Scott Fitzgerald is supposed to have said once to Ernest Hemingway, ‘You know, the rich are different from you and me. ‘ Hemingway replied, ‘Yes. They’ve got more money. and fresno dan’s corollary, they don’t pay taxes…
    1. Geo June 8, 2021 at 6:06 pm

       The section about how they use low interest loans to finance their lifestyles and avoid taxes was a big eye opener for me. Makes sense but had just never thought about that. When I think of a loan I think of “needing money” and barely being able to make payments, not of a way to attain money tax-free. Of course, my interest rates would be much higher and the only collateral I have is a 17 year old cat and my old collection of CDs and DVDs.

       Modern banking really is just a smoothly oiled wealth hijacking machine that siphons poor people’s meager funds through fees, penalties, and high interest into the pockets of the rich to spend on forth mansions and a yacht to put their other yachts on.
       1. fresno dan June 8, 2021 at 8:03 pm

          Geo
          June 8, 2021 at 6:06 pm
          I agree. But the thing that strikes me is how obscure and rare such articles are. We live in an ocean (actually several oceans) of unrelenting baloney on how the free market provides the best of all possible worlds. With the collapse of unions, there is simply not a group with the organization and funds to combat and expose the never ending propaganda that ANYTHING that constrains the wealthy is bad for everyone.
          1. Geo June 9, 2021 at 1:55 am

             So true. Props to ProPublica for this one. I’m sure it will get buried like their Panama Papers report did too but nice to see real reporting on real news going on.
    2. Tom Bradford June 8, 2021 at 8:55 pm

       Those gains are not defined by U.S. laws as taxable income unless and until the billionaires sell.

       In my neck of the woods such gains are not defined as income either, unless one trades in assets solely for the purpose of ‘earning’ an income. Capital appreciation in many jurisdictions is subject to a ‘Capital Gains Tax’ levied on the gain realised on sale.

       In my youth in the UK the top rate of income tax was 83% and Capital Gains Tax was 15%!
25. William Hunter Duncan June 8, 2021 at 5:34 pm

    “Regardless, questions were asked, laughs were had, and #TrumpPants trended on Twitter.” • I saw these memage go by and I felt a great weight settle on my shoulders. Why do Democrats keep doing what doesn’t work?”

    As Theodrose over at the Ghion Journal pointed out, in part blaming Trump, this story buried the Fauci email discussion. Reading NPR’s version of Fauci’s emails, I’m thinking it is quite the conspiracy to protect him – they were writing like they are Fauci’s press secretary. Methinks the average liberal Democrat probably thinks Fauci’s emails, if they think about them at all, were released by nasty Trump types or Russians. I know for certain the average liberal democrat still says the word Trump a lot more than Biden.
26. Riverboat Grambler June 8, 2021 at 5:43 pm

    Good lord, the replies to that Nathan Robinson thread… Voters handed the Dems control of Congress, but if they expect Biden to even _attempt_ to actually whip his party in line to pass popular campaign promises they are sneered at and told they are naive little children who don’t understand politics. This is their message for the mid-terms?
    1. NotTimothyGeithner June 8, 2021 at 5:46 pm

       Neera just joined the administration. But yes, this is what ignorant centrists have and always done. They are vile people.
       1. Procopius June 9, 2021 at 5:54 pm

          “They” deliberately chose to destroy the New Deal. Bill Clinton and the Democratic Leadership Council. See Al From’s book, The NEW Democrats and the Return to Power. The people who voted for them can only be called feckless (well, other things to call them are not appropriate for this blog).
    2. Geo June 8, 2021 at 5:58 pm

       ‘Please, sir, I want some more.’

       ‘What!’ said the master.

       ‘Please, sir,’ replied Oliver, ‘I want some more.’

       The master aimed a blow at Oliver’s head with the ladle; pinioned him in his arm; and shrieked aloud for the beadle.

       ‘Mr. Limbkins, I beg your pardon, sir! Oliver Twist has asked for more!’

       ‘For MORE!’ said Mr. Limbkins. ‘He asked for more, after he had eaten the supper allotted by the dietary?’

       ‘He did, sir,’ replied Bumble.

       ‘That boy will be hung,’ said the gentleman in the white waistcoat. ‘I know that boy will be hung.’
27. Geo June 8, 2021 at 5:50 pm

    “Somehow, I don’t think essential workers have suddenly taken up rollerskating.”

    Had a group of friends invite me to a roller rink a while back. Tagged along but staring at the mass of swirling people zipping about on a concrete floor with lil’ wheels clacking about beneath them all I could envision was all the ways my not-so-young-anymore body could end up broken on the ground and what kind of long term pains and debilitating costs an injury would bring about.

    I sat it out and watched from the sidelines. Roller skating for someone without high end health insurance is barely more enticing than a game of Russian Roulette.
    1. ambrit June 8, 2021 at 7:02 pm

       Full contact sports, which is what roller skating really is, are more accurately an exercise in [Insert name of favourate ethnicity to denigrate here.] Roulette. In that form of the game, one puts only one shell in the magazine of an automatic pistol and then plays the game.
       1. Wukchumni June 8, 2021 at 7:12 pm

          …are there electric roller skates yet?

          Saw my 16 year old nephew in action on his electric skateboard which looks like great fun until somebody gets hurt. It really zips along and he controls the speed & braking with a small handheld remote~
          1. michael99 June 8, 2021 at 11:08 pm

             In my neighborhood there is a guy who zips around on a board that has a single fat tire in the middle. Looks kind of precarious to me but he seems to have no problem staying in balance with feet on each side of the wheel. So it is a handheld remote – that answers that.
       2. Anthony Stegman June 8, 2021 at 7:23 pm

          Isn’t a revolver used for Russian Roulette?
          1. Tom Stone June 8, 2021 at 10:28 pm

             Russian Roulette is traditionally played with a single action revolver that allows the cylinder to freely spin when the hammer is at half cock.
             Load one round, set on half cock and spin the cylinder once or twice.
             Cock hammer, point at head, pull trigger.
          2. ambrit June 9, 2021 at 3:01 am

             The version of the joke I first learned was Polish Roulette, this from someone I knew who went to University in Poland for a year. (In Poland, I have it from reliable sources, the people tell Russian Jokes.)
             I later heard the joke told as another ethnic group Roulette. Then yet a third ‘out group’ was given pride of place in the genealogy of the always terminal passtime.
             The essence of the joke is that, with an automatic pistol, the first pull of the trigger is invariably the last.
28. ChiGal in Carolina June 8, 2021 at 5:56 pm

    >(I think the question to ask 1619 proponents is: “If slavery were not profitable, would it have persisted?” I think the only defensible answer is “no,” which also makes profit the driver, not racism.)

    But surely these aren’t either/or propositions? Thinking systemically, there is no one driver. Racism made it easier to perpetuate slavery, which was profitable.

    I guess I will have to look into 1619 which I really had no interest in doing. If she is saying that racism was the driver of slavery to the exclusion of class I’d like to know. But if she is saying slavery wouldn’t have been possible without racism that might be more true. Although this country was founded on the exploitation of poor white youth from England through indentured servitude. Distinction without a difference?

    My sister is on the faculty at UNC and is utterly disgusted that the legislature can f*ck with tenure at the behest of a wealthy donor.
    1. vlade June 9, 2021 at 4:52 am

       There’s a body of academic studies (for whatever they are worth), arguing, IMO quite well, that racism was created by the need to have an apology for slavery after white-slavery became more or less extinct. The extinction of white slavery (which happened by mid 18th century IIRC), was really driven by the Church, and racism provided an excuse of “lifting an inferior race” good deed (yeah, right).
29. 430MLK June 8, 2021 at 5:58 pm

    On Nikole Hannah Jones, tenure, and research material:
    This tenure termination hearing at the University of Kentucky, the school’s first in nearly 40 years according to yesterday’s article, was for “significant research misconduct in a number of scholarly papers.” Shi is in a hard-science field, but might make for some sort of comparison.

    “In what could be a first, UK’s Board of Trustees will vote on firing tenured faculty member”

    https://www.kentucky.com/news/local/education/article251956138.html
    1. flora June 8, 2021 at 6:44 pm

       an aside: Academics encountering free speech issues in the academy, who might once have called the A.C.L.U., have a new organization to call on for defending their rights – one that’s dedicated to free speech in academia and education. F.I.R.E isn’t conflicted about supporting the First Amendment wtr any other cultural issues.

       https://www.thefire.org/
       1. ChiGal in Carolina June 9, 2021 at 9:14 am

          > F.I.R.E isn’t conflicted about supporting the First Amendment wtr any other cultural issues.

          Not conflicted might be an understatement. Eager maybe? Didn’t want to give them my email to hear which cases they are actually fighting for but my guess is it’s the Bakkes of the world…
    2. allan June 8, 2021 at 6:59 pm

       Thank you for the link. Removing someone who was already long-since tenured
       (and in fact holds an endowed chair), and a big-time grant rainmaker,
       is almost certainly not based on politics. The story doesn’t give details, but it looks bad.

       BTW, at the same site, there was this story:

       
       This $1 billion company hailed for innovation is bringing its global HQ to Lexington

       A smart waste and recycling solutions company worth over $1 billion and hailed for its innovation is bringing its global headquarters to Lexington’s City Center.
       Rubicon Technologies, a software platform that provides solutions for waste and recycling to businesses and governments … which has been called “Uber for trash” — was previously headquartered in Atlanta …

       [CEO] Morris wrote in a 2019 letter that his goal is to end waste and that his company “made an early strategic decision to use every tool in our arsenal — customer centricity, small business empowerment, and the strength of digital platforms and data — to transform a stagnating industry whose business model was a threat to the health of our planet.” …

       As Rubicon developed over the past 13 years, the company made headlines as it reached a reported $500 million valuation and added star actor Leonardo DiCaprio to its board of directors. Uber’s founding chief technology officer currently serves on the board of directors.

       The Bezzle just doesn’t get much better.
30. freebird June 8, 2021 at 6:51 pm

    Re: the locked cursor. Sometimes one can bumble into a library or tech store or apple store and ask to briefly borrow a mouse long enough to reset some things.
31. fresno dan June 8, 2021 at 7:36 pm

    https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-military-whispers-past-the-afghan-war-graveyard/
    At a recent Pentagon press conference, General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, provided a succinct update on America’s longest ever war. “With respect to Afghanistan,” he told reporters, “our primary military objective at this point is a change of mission to conduct a safe, responsible, coordinated, and deliberate retrograde of U.S. forces from Afghanistan in good order.” The operation was unfolding “in a synchronized fashion, shoulder to shoulder with our allies.” Indeed, Milley reported, “we are now in the final phase of that strategic retrograde.”
    ========================================================
    Retrograde. I kinda possibly thought I perhaps knew what the word meant. RETROGRADE. Hmmmm…
    Finally, I decided that maybe I didn’t actually know what retrograde meant. So I googled it:
    The term retrograde comes from the Latin word retrogradus, which literally means “backward step.” As the name suggests, retrograde is when a planet appears to go backward in its orbit, as viewed from Earth. Astronomers refer to this as “apparent retrograde motion,” because it is an optical illusion.
    So I also tried Merriam Webster:
    Definition of retrograde (Entry 1 of 3)
    1a(1): having or being motion in a direction contrary to that of the general motion of similar bodies and especially east to west among the stars
    Saturn is retrograde for another week
    (2): having or being a direction of rotation or revolution that is clockwise as viewed from the north pole of the sky or a planet
    a retrograde orbit
    b: moving, occurring, or performed in a backward direction
    c: occurring or performed in a direction opposite to the normal or forward direction of conduction or flow: such as
    (1): occurring along nerve cell processes toward the cell body
    retrograde degeneration of nerve fibers
    — compare ANTEROGRADE sense 1a
    (2): occurring opposite to the normal direction or path of blood circulation
    retrograde blood flow in veins with incompetent valves
    — compare ANTEROGRADE sense 1b
    d: contrary to the normal order : INVERSE
    2: tending toward or resulting in a worse or previous state
    3archaic : CONTRADICTORY, OPPOSED
    4: characterized by retrogression
    5: affecting memories of a period prior to a precipitating event (such as brain injury or disease)
    retrograde amnesia
    — compare ANTEROGRADE sense 2
    6: RETRO
    retrograde fashion

    So….the US military is going ?West? instead of ?East? in Afghanistan? Or going from Mercury to Mars?
    1. The Rev Kev June 8, 2021 at 7:53 pm

       Back during the Korean war, the Chinese crossed the border at the Yalu River and pushed the UN forces back at the Battle of Chosin Reservoir. Actually, it was more of a route than a battle that led to a full scale retreat back down the peninsular. When asked, A Marine General said at the time“Retreat, Hell! We’re not retreating, we’re just advancing in a different direction.”

       A deliberate retrograde is just more of the same. But it does hide what this military tactic actually is-

       https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FPELc1wEvk (10 seconds)
       1. Tom Stone June 8, 2021 at 10:54 pm

          Rev, i read about the actions of Ray Davis during that retreat recently, leading men 14 miles at night across Korean mountains in the middle of a blizzard in order to outflank a blocking Chinese position
          Map and compass for navigation and the maps were not the best.
          If that night movement had failed the 1st Marine Division would almost certainly been wiped out.
          My late Uncle David served with the 1st Marines during the retreat from Choisin and once the USMC service records become available again I’m going to request his.
          1. The Rev Kev June 8, 2021 at 11:18 pm

             ‘Tom Stone
             June 8, 2021 at 10:54 pm’

             It was a bad time that. Since you can’t get ahold of his USMC records right now, you might want to check other sources of info such as memoirs of Marines that were there, unit histories, and perhaps he may have been mentioned in a newspaper article once or given his story in one (especially local papers and also after they returned)-

             https://www.newspapers.com/
    2. tegnost June 8, 2021 at 8:08 pm

       Astronomers refer to this as “apparent retrograde motion,” because it is an optical illusion.
       well that settles that, I guess, although I might prefer inverse contradictory anterograde
    3. HotFlash June 8, 2021 at 8:08 pm

       strategic retrograde — (noun, mil-speak) retreat.
32. Lee June 8, 2021 at 8:04 pm

    Just when you were beginning to think it might be safe to breathe someone else’s air:

    Fauci warns of COVID-19 Delta variant now spreading rapidly in U.K.: ‘We cannot let that happen in the United States’ Yahoo News

    Mentions the possibility of vaccine evasion, discussed in “Opinion: The coronavirus is mutating. Will our vaccines keep up?” WaPo
33. Robert Gray June 9, 2021 at 5:21 am

    Re: New York Magazine

    I had to go to the interweb to find out what FOMO means (and I can’t have been the only one?!?). Does that mean that I’m missing out?
    1. griffen June 9, 2021 at 8:27 am

       Only if you truly fear what you’ve missed on! I find the concept a little much but I’m nearing 50 in a short time!

       It’s like the incremental advancement from the YOLO crowd.

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