By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
Bird Song of the Day
American Goldfinch, Walden Ponds Wildlife Habitat–Walden & Sawhill Ponds all together, Boulder, Colorado, United States
In Case You Might Miss…
(1) Helpers, reconceptualized?
(2) Beoing in deep doo doo again, this time for the 787.
(3) Civilization, the game. All the versions reviewed and discussed!d
Look for the Helpers
I really like this conceptualization of helper, which is why it’s here, even though we’re looking at both plants and honorary plants. From MM:
A broader view:
MM writes:
Here is a helper. I hope the photos are good enough. The above ground part of this tree was cut off in the 50s. You can see how much the larger stump in the background that was created at the same time has rotted. This tree, however, was a central node in the web of mushrooms that swap nutrients and minerals throughout the forest. Fungi gave this tree enough energy to scar over and let the roots continue to bring up water and minerals and be a bridge between mushrooms
Commensal bacteria might be another example.
I think this gives an example of a helper; what do readers think?
my man pic.twitter.com/pBw3gg0ayF
— derek guy (@dieworkwear) April 9, 2024
My email address is down by the plant; please send examples of “Helpers” there. In our increasingly desperate and fragile neoliberal society, everyday normal incidents and stories of “the communism of everyday life” are what I am looking for (and not, say, the Red Cross in Hawaii, or even the UNWRA in Gaza).
Politics
“So many of the social reactions that strike us as psychological are in fact a rational management of symbolic capital.” –Pierre Bourdieu, Classification Struggles
2024
Less than a year to go!
Here is Friday’s RCP poll. Trump is still up in all the Swing States (more here), but still leading with one exception: PA. I’ve highlighted it again, (1) because BIden is now up there, and (2) it’s an outlier, has been for weeks. Why isn’t Trump doing well there? (I’ll work out a better way to do this, but for now: Blue dot = move toward Biden; red dot = move toward Trump. No statistical signficance to any of it, and state polls are bad anyhow!)
* * * Trump (R): “Most voters in new poll see Trump hush money charges as serious” [The Hill]. “Most voters in a new survey said they see former President Trump’s charges in the hush money case as at least ‘somewhat serious.’ A Reuters/Ipsos poll, released Wednesday, found that roughly 64 percent of registered voters said the charges in the New York case are “somewhat serious.” Another 34 percent of respondents said the case ‘lacks seriousness,’ and the rest were either unsure or did not respond. The case is set to go to trial Monday and marks the first criminal trial of any former U.S. president. While it’s been considered less severe than his other legal battles, any conviction could be a hit to the former president’s reelection bid, the pollsters noted. When broken down by party, around 40 percent of Republican respondents said the hush money charges were serious. Two-thirds of independent voters said the same, per the poll. Trump is facing 34 counts of falsifying business records related to hush money payment by his former attorney Michael Cohen to adult film actress Stormy Daniels — seen as a cover up for an alleged affair before the 2016 election. The former president has pleaded not guilty in the case.” • If I understand Bragg’s theory of the case — and I admit I haven’t had time to study the briefs — the issue is not “hush money,” which for some goofy reason is how the press is framing it. Frankly, I don’t care if a billionaire leaves an fat envelope on the dresser. If indeed Trump managed to turn The National Enquirer into a “catch and kill” entity, that bought the silence of anyone who had, shall we say, a colorable narrative about Trump’s vivd life, and that entity was paid out of campaign money (hence all the business records foo-fra), that could actually be something not unserious. (What if Bezos not only owned The Washington Shopper, but was running for President, and used campaign funds to kill stories about him? Now, Bezos probably wouldn’t do something that crude. But subtley is not one of Trump’s strong points. It’s not the crime, it’s the crudity, one might say.)
Trump (R): “Ex-Trump CFO Allen Weisselberg sentenced to 5 months for perjury in Trump civil fraud trial” [NBC]. “Allen Weisselberg, the former chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, was sentenced Wednesday to five months in jail after pleading guilty to two counts of perjury last month in his testimony during former President Donald Trump’s civil fraud trial. The sentencing matched Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s recommendation.” • This seems to be the Engoron trial, however, not the Bragg trial.
* * * Trump (R): “What Worries Me Most About a Trump Presidency” [Caroline Fredrickson, New York Times]. “What we should fear most is Mr. Trump transforming our government into a modern-day Tammany Hall, installing a kleptocratic leadership that will be difficult if not impossible to dislodge.” And: “In a kleptocracy, corruption is a feature, not a bug, where politicians apply the law inconsistently, favoring friends and punishing enemies. By controlling government assets and handing them out to friends and family — and dangling possibilities in front of would-be supporters — as well as using politically motivated prosecutions, kleptocrats cement their control of government and disempower opponents. We need only recall Russia’s erstwhile effort to create a democracy: It quickly drained away into the pockets of Vladimir Putin and his oligarchs, leading to the hopelessness and acquiescence of Russian citizens once they realized they could no longer change their situation through democratic means.” • Aw come on, Caroline: Larry Summers totally helped! See “Tainted Transactions: Harvard, the Chubais Clan and Russia’s Ruin” by the great Janine Wedel.
Trump (R): “Trump, RFK Jr. and the Disillusioned Black Voter” [Wall Street Journal]. “A Morning Consult survey this week showed that the share of the black vote with a favorable view of Mr. Kennedy had climbed to 51% from 38% in polling conducted before and after he chose Nicole Shanahan as his running mate last month. According to Mr. Brownstein, the working-class blacks and Hispanics who are abandoning Democrats don’t otherwise resemble the typical MAGA voter. They aren’t especially enamored of Mr. Trump, and most aren’t ideologically aligned with the former president. Instead, the rift has been opened by a deep disaffection with the state of the economy as it relates to their everyday lives. For college-educated voters, inflation is more of an annoyance. For the working class, it’s a much bigger deal. We won’t know if this shift in minority voting patterns is a temporary phenomenon or indicative of a lasting political realignment until Mr. Trump leaves the stage. But if black voters in particular no longer believe that racial identity should determine which political party they support, this is progress.
In our two-party system, better political representation derives from playing Democrats against Republicans, not offering undying loyalty to one side. And heaven knows black voters could use better political representation. Perhaps the black working class will show the way.”
Trump (R): “Democrats nervous Trump wooing centrists from Biden” [The Hill]. “Democrats are growing increasingly nervous that former President Trump will woo centrist voters away from President. They say Trump, after quickly securing victory in the GOP primary, is now taking steps that could help him win the support from the broad middle of the country. The best example is the former president’s decision to not back a 15-week ban on abortion and instead say the issue should be up to the states — clearly the move of a candidate with his mind trained on the middle of the electorate. ‘If the election were held today, Trump would win and that means he’s winning moderates over as we speak,’ one Democratic strategist acknowledged. The strategist, who has worked on presidential campaigns, pointed to recent polls that showed the former president ahead in key states, including Michigan, Pennsylvania and Nevada. Trump’s public stance this week on abortion was a clear signal of his desire to shift to a more centrist position on an issue that has repeatedly helped win elections for Democrats since three Trump-appointed judges helped form a majority that overturned the Roe v. Wade decision. In moving away from proposals for a federal ban on abortions at 15 or 16 weeks, Trump angered some anti-abortion activists.” • Trump’s Sister Souljah moment.
Trump (R): “Arizona bombshell tests Trump’s abortion gamble” [Axios]. “One day after former President Trump declared that abortion should be left to the states, the Arizona Supreme Court revived an 1864 law that effectively bans all abortions, with exceptions only to save the mother’s life. The swing-state ruling delivered a massive political gift to Democrats, who could not have asked for better timing to highlight the consequences of Trump’s abortion position.” • Maybe. But there is literally nothing the Democrats can, at this point, do (explain whinge and raise money). If the Democrats had codified Roe when they had their chances, plural, “leaving to the states” wouldn’t be an issue. If the Democrats had fought anti-Roe nominations tooth and nail, instead of waving them through if their credentials looked good, and then registering aghastitude and/or ginning up scandals when those same judges were nominated to the Supreme Court, ditto. They didn’t, and here we are. There is absolutely no prospect of Democrats getting a better deal than “leaving it up to the states,” it’s their own fault, and deep down they know it.
* * * Biden (D): “Klain on Biden: He is focused too much on bridges” [Politico]. “‘I think the president is out there too much talking about bridges,’ Klain said, according to audio exclusively obtained by POLITICO. ‘He does two or three events a week where he’s cutting a ribbon on a bridge. And here’s a bridge. Like I tell you, if you go into the grocery store, you go to the grocery store and, you know, eggs and milk are expensive, the fact that there’s a fucking bridge is not [inaudible].’ Speaking at an event hosted by the publication ‘Democracy: A Journal of Ideas,’ [lol] the longtime Biden adviser went on to say that while the infrastructure being built under the Biden administration was ‘a positive thing,’ the president was thinking too narrowly in focusing so heavily on it. ‘He’s not a congressman. He’s not running for Congress,’ said Klain. ‘I think it’s kind of a fool’s errand. I think that [it] also doesn’t get covered that much because, look, it’s a fucking bridge. Like it’s a bridge, and how interesting is the bridge? It’s a little interesting but it’s not a lot interesting.'” • It’s “interesting” if you’re a local business that got the contract for the bridge and hired locals to build it (making assumptions there, I grant). More “interesting” is that the Biden campaign is supposed to be disciplined and not fighting about strategy in the press, so what’s up with that [glass bowl] Klain, anyhow?
Biden (D): “Biden is building a behemoth of a campaign. Trump at this point seems to be playing catch-up” [NBC]. “Flush with $71 million cash at the end of February — more than twice that of Trump’s campaign — Biden parlayed his fundraising advantage into a hiring spree that now boasts 300 paid staffers across nine states and 100 offices in parts of the country that will decide the 2024 election, according to details provided by the campaign. Trump’s advisers would not disclose staffing levels, but his ground game still seems to be at a nascent stage. His campaign hired state directors in Pennsylvania and Michigan last week, people familiar with the recruitment process said. Combined, the Trump campaign and Republican National Committee have fewer than five staff members in each of the battleground states, said two Republicans familiar with the committee and the Trump campaign’s organizational structures in 2020 and 2024. At this point in 2020 — when Trump was running as the incumbent — the Trump Victory organization already had state directors, regional directors and field organizers on the ground in battleground states, testing field operations and activating volunteers, the two people said.” And they lost…. More: “‘This is like comparing a Maserati to a Honda — 2020 had staff and the bodies in place to turn out the vote,’ one said. ‘This current iteration is starting from ground zero, and we’re seven months out from the election. It makes no sense and puts them at a huge disadvantage to Biden, who is staffing up in droves.'” • Trump’s campaign isn’t being run by fools, so let’s wait and see. Seven months is a long time in politics, after all.
Biden (D): “Biden’s strategy to reach tuned-out voters: Content over crowds” [NBC]. “President Joe Biden’s recent battleground state campaign tour didn’t draw major crowds. But critically for the Biden campaign, it did produce a lot of content. Biden paired a rally in the Philadelphia suburbs with a more intimate, at-home sit-down with a small-business owner at his home, generating social media posts and days of local media stories. A visit to a Milwaukee campaign office offered him a chance to connect with a young boy who’d written to him about dealing with a stutter, an unscripted interaction that made its way to TikTok. Backstage before a health care event, Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris recorded a light video discussing their March Madness picks. And Biden didn’t even hold a rally during his swing through Michigan — but he did have a private chat (and issued a playful golf challenge on an indoor putting green) with a local pastor and his son.” • Plus, if Biden slips a cog, the situation is more containable.
Our Famously Free Press
“I’ve Been at NPR for 25 Years. Here’s How We Lost America’s Trust” [The Free Press]. “For decades, since its founding in 1970, a wide swath of America tuned in to NPR for reliable journalism and gorgeous audio pieces with birds singing in the Amazon [from Robert J. Lurstema of “Morning Pro Musica,” who was the inspiration for Bird Song of the Day]. Millions came to us for conversations that exposed us to voices around the country and the world radically different from our own—engaging precisely because they were unguarded and unpredictable. No image generated more pride within NPR than the farmer listening to Morning Edition from his or her tractor at sunrise. Back in 2011, although NPR’s audience tilted a bit to the left, it still bore a resemblance to America at large. Twenty-six percent of listeners described themselves as conservative, 23 percent as middle of the road, and 37 percent as liberal. By 2023, the picture was completely different: only 11 percent described themselves as very or somewhat conservative, 21 percent as middle of the road, and 67 percent of listeners said they were very or somewhat liberal. We weren’t just losing conservatives; we were also losing moderates and traditional liberals. An open-minded spirit no longer exists within NPR, and now, predictably, we don’t have an audience that reflects America.” • Commentary:
Car Talk's regular guy jocularity for
people who would never work on a
car but they listen to it ironically for
fake solidarity with the workers.
Funny when Garrison Keillor got cancelled
for flirting in the office.— Thomas (@Thomasdiscerns) April 9, 2024
Spook Country
“Former CIA chief: Trump ‘was not qualified at the time and he is not qualified today'” [The Hill]. Torture advocate and “kill list” impresario John Brennan: “I think he didn’t believe what we were telling him.” • Brennan doesn’t get it. That’s what qualifies Trump. Along with any sensible person, I might add.
Democrats en Déshabillé
“What We Owe the People of East Palestine” [Pete Buttgieg, Time]. Let me pick out a bright spot: “My Department has pushed forward on safety measures, including last week’s major announcement that our Federal Railroad Administration finalized a long-sought rule to establish minimum safety requirements for the size of train crews. Most Americans would be surprised to learn that before this rule, there was nothing to prevent a railroad from unilaterally reducing the crew size aboard a train to just one person—even on a two-mile-long train—without even notifying our Department. Fixing this has long been a railroad safety priority, and despite industry opposition, it is finally a reality.” • Railroad workers in the readership: What do you think of the rule?
Realignment and Legitimacy
“Against Regulatory Gaslighting” [The Regulatory Review]. This is very good. “When they demand that regulators employ business strategies in their practice, advocates of regulatory managerialism fail to recognize the inherent differences between business and government, argues [law professor Jodi L. Short]. Due to these differences, business strategies lose important functionalities when applied in the regulatory domain. For instance, outsourcing is a common strategy used in business to lower labor costs, save time, and help workers concentrate on more important business activities. But Short contends that outsourcing government functions to private entities does not work effectively. She warns that, compared to private actors, the government faces heightened scrutiny over its actions, and any failure by third parties could have substantial reputational repercussions for the public agencies that retain them. To mitigate this risk, regulators would need to monitor and assess the outsourced services, which then eliminates any potential efficiencies, contends Short. She argues that regulatory managerialism ignores these ‘substantial and potentially catastrophic costs’ that make outsourcing untenable in the regulatory context. Furthermore, Short explains that regulatory agencies face unique legal, political, and social constraints that restrain their ability to implement managerial strategies. For instance, business managers can define and target a specific customer segment they want to serve. This flexibility allows businesses to ignore hard-to-serve customers and to focus on addressing the specific needs of their most profitable customers, claims Short. Regulators, however, operate under statutes, which govern who they must serve and the services they must provide. Regulators are often required to formulate policies for a large and diverse population and, therefore, business strategies centered on satisfying ‘customers’ are inapplicable to them, Short argues. In addition, businesses operate in an environment where failure is perceived as natural and even beneficial to innovation and entrepreneurship. Short explains that this environment affords firms and their workers the freedom to experiment and employ novel strategies. In the regulatory context, failure is viewed very differently, contends Short. She claims that regulators and the public regard government failure as ‘shameful, to be avoided if at all possible, and potentially disqualifying of the entire government enterprise.’ For example, FAA at Boeing. And: “Under these constraints, regulators are limited in how they can apply business tools—inhibiting their effectiveness and leading to inevitable failures, according to Short.” • Wait. You’re telling me government should not be run like a business?! (Short’s original article.)
Pandemics
“I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD.” –William Lloyd Garrison
Covid Resources, United States (National): Transmission (CDC); Wastewater (CDC, Biobot; includes many counties; Wastewater Scan, includes drilldown by zip); Variants (CDC; Walgreens); “Iowa COVID-19 Tracker” (in IA, but national data). “Infection Control, Emergency Management, Safety, and General Thoughts” (especially on hospitalization by city).
Lambert here: Readers, thanks for the collective effort. To update any entry, do feel free to contact me at the address given with the plants. Please put “COVID” in the subject line. Thank you!
Resources, United States (Local): AK (dashboard); AL (dashboard); AR (dashboard); AZ (dashboard); CA (dashboard; Marin, dashboard; Stanford, wastewater; Oakland, wastewater); CO (dashboard; wastewater); CT (dashboard); DE (dashboard); FL (wastewater); GA (wastewater); HI (dashboard); IA (wastewater reports); ID (dashboard, Boise; dashboard, wastewater, Central Idaho; wastewater, Coeur d’Alene; dashboard, Spokane County); IL (wastewater); IN (dashboard); KS (dashboard; wastewater, Lawrence); KY (dashboard, Louisville); LA (dashboard); MA (wastewater); MD (dashboard); ME (dashboard); MI (wastewater; wastewater); MN (dashboard); MO (wastewater); MS (dashboard); MT (dashboard); NC (dashboard); ND (dashboard; wastewater); NE (dashboard); NH (wastewater); NJ (dashboard); NM (dashboard); NV (dashboard; wastewater, Southern NV); NY (dashboard); OH (dashboard); OK (dashboard); OR (dashboard); PA (dashboard); RI (dashboard); SC (dashboard); SD (dashboard); TN (dashboard); TX (dashboard); UT (wastewater); VA (dashboard); VT (dashboard); WA (dashboard; dashboard); WI (wastewater); WV (wastewater); WY (wastewater).
Resources, Canada (National): Wastewater (Government of Canada).
Resources, Canada (Provincial): ON (wastewater); QC (les eaux usées); BC (wastewater); BC, Vancouver (wastewater).
Hat tips to helpful readers: Alexis, anon (2), Art_DogCT, B24S, CanCyn, ChiGal, Chuck L, Festoonic, FM, FreeMarketApologist (4), Gumbo, hop2it, JB, JEHR, JF, JL Joe, John, JM (10), JustAnotherVolunteer, JW, KatieBird, LL, Michael King, KF, LaRuse, mrsyk, MT, MT_Wild, otisyves, Petal (6), RK (2), RL, RM, Rod, square coats (11), tennesseewaltzer, Tom B., Utah, Bob White (3).
Stay safe out there!
Transmission: H5N1
Finally, a positive contribution:
⚠️ Effective immediately, all dairy milking operations will be relocated inside elementary schools.
As we learned during COVID, there is no viral spread in schools.
That is all, and thank you.
— Jonathan Mesiano-Crookston's translucent form (@jmcrookston) April 10, 2024
TABLE 1: Daily Covid Charts
| Cases | |
| National[1] Biobot April 8: | Regional[2] Biobot April 8: |
 |
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| Variants[3] CDC March 30 | Emergency Room Visits[4] CDC March 23 |
 |
 |
| Hospitalization | |
| ★ New York[5] New York State, data April 9: | National [6] CDC March 23: |
 |
 |
| Positivity | |
| National[7] Walgreens April 1: | Ohio[8] Cleveland Clinic March 30: |
 |
 |
| Travelers Data | |
| Positivity[9] CDC March 18: | Variants[10] CDC March 18: |
 |
 |
| Deaths[11] | |
| Weekly deaths New York Times March 16: | Percent of deaths due to Covid-19 New York Times March 16: |
 |
|
LEGEND
1) ★ for charts new today; all others are not updated.
2) For a full-size/full-resolution image, Command-click (MacOS) or right-click (Windows) on the chart thumbnail and “open image in new tab.”
NOTES
[1] (Biobot) Our curve has now flattened out at a level far above valleys under Trump. Not a great victory. Note also the area “under the curve,” besides looking at peaks. That area is larger under Biden than under Trump, and it seems to be rising steadily if unevenly.
[2] (Biobot) No backward revisons….
[3] (CDC Variants) As of May 11, genomic surveillance data will be reported biweekly, based on the availability of positive test specimens.” “Biweeekly: 1. occurring every two weeks. 2. occurring twice a week; semiweekly.” Looks like CDC has chosen sense #1. In essence, they’re telling us variants are nothing to worry about. Time will tell.
[4] (ER) CDC seems to have killed this off, since the link is broken, I think in favor of this thing. I will try to confirm. UPDATE Yes, leave it to CDC to kill a page, and then announce it was archived a day later. And heaven forfend CDC should explain where to go to get equivalent data, if any. I liked the ER data, because it seemed really hard to game. And speaking of Emergency Departments:
Who is going to the emergency department most with covid, its kids, blue line ages 0-1, orange 2-4, and red 5-11, so make sure we all realize, covid puts kids in the emergency departments, when we choose not to make schools covid-threat-safe-zones, chart care of Louisiana DOH pic.twitter.com/iROnhCARP1
— Justin Lee (@DailyJLee) April 10, 2024
[5] (Hospitalization: NY) Looks like a very gradual leveling off to a non-zero baseline, to me. I suppose to a tame epidemiologist it looks like “endemicity,” but to me it looks like another tranche of lethality.
[6] (Hospitalization: CDC) Still down. “Maps, charts, and data provided by CDC, updates weekly for the previous MMWR week (Sunday-Saturday) on Thursdays (Deaths, Emergency Department Visits, Test Positivity) and weekly the following Mondays (Hospitalizations) by 8 pm ET†”.
[7] (Walgreens) Leveling out.
[8] (Cleveland) Flattening.
[9] (Travelers: Posivitity) Now up, albeit in the rear view mirror.
[10] (Travelers: Variants) JN.1 dominates utterly.
[11] Looks like the Times isn’t reporting death data any more? Maybe I need to go back to The Economist:
The pandemic’s true death toll is 4x the officially reported number. 28.2 million dead. The magnitude of this human tragedy is difficult to comprehend. So much of this carnage was preventable but for the laissez faire attitude of our leaders. https://t.co/asiTYR8YvT
— Dr. Dick Zoutman (@DickZoutman) February 1, 2024
Stats Watch
Inflation: “United States Consumer Price Index (CPI) [Trading Economics]. “The consumer price index in the United States rose by 3.5% year-over-year to 312.332 points in March 2024, following a 3.2% increase in February and slightly exceeding the market consensus of a 3.4% advance.”
Retail: “L’Olly Pops Support Healthy Brain Function, Calm and Focus” [TrendHunter]. “Vitamin and supplement brand Olly offers targeted wellness solutions for everything from beauty to gut health and its cognitive health product portfolio recently expanded to include Brainy Chews and L’Olly Pops. Olly created these new products to “put the ‘fun’ back in cognitive function with nootropic ingredients that support energy, relaxation and mood, focus, and attention,” all the while sharing enjoyable flavors and formats.” • If in fact the damage to cognitive function is both as great and as officially denied as I think it is, one would expect products like this to pop up.
Manufacturing: “Boeing Crisis of Confidence Deepens With 787 Now Under Scrutiny” [Bloomberg]. “Boeing Co. faces a deepening crisis of confidence after an engineer at the US planemaker alleged the company took manufacturing shortcuts on its 787 Dreamliner aircraft in order to ease production bottlenecks of its most advanced airliner. Factory workers wrongly measured and filled gaps that can occur when airframe segments of the 787 are joined together, according to Sam Salehpour, a longtime Boeing employee who made his concerns public on Tuesday. That assembly process could create ‘significant fatigue’ in the composite material of the barrel sections and impair the structural integrity of more than 1,000 of the widebody jets in service, he said.” • This Bloombergy story is actually bad, in that we get the mush-mouthed “wrongly measured and filled gaps” instead of the word “shim.” (I put “shim” in the same bucket as “hack” or “kludge,” but I’m not sure that’s true; see the Gates story below.) Reuters gets it right. More on those “gaps”–
Manfacturing: “Boeing hit with whistleblower allegations, adding to safety concerns” [Reuters]. “Boeing halted deliveries of the 787 widebody jet for more than a year until August 2022 as the FAA investigated quality problems and manufacturing flaws. In 2021, Boeing said some 787 airplanes had shims that were not the proper size and some aircraft had areas that did not meet skin-flatness specifications. A shim is a thin piece of material used to fill tiny gaps in a manufactured product.
In a statement, Boeing said it was fully confident in the 787 Dreamliner, adding that the claims ‘are inaccurate and do not represent the comprehensive work Boeing has done to ensure the quality and long-term safety of the aircraft.’ Salehpour observed shortcuts used by Boeing to reduce bottlenecks during the 787 assembly process that placed ‘excessive stress on major airplane joints, and embedded drilling debris between key joints on more than 1,000 planes,’ his lawyers said. He told reporters in a call later on Tuesday that he saw problems with misalignment in the production of the 777 widebody jet which were remedied by using force. ‘I literally saw people jumping on the pieces of the airplane to get them to align, he said.'” • Oh. I imagine the issue this way: The pencil-necked MBAs who ran Boeing after defenestrating the engineers thought that assembling the 787 would be something like assembling a “shake the box” model airplane. It doesn’t matter where the parts are made; just glue it all together. In fact, it does matter, and just because everything fits together in the CAD program doesn’t mean everything fits together in the material world. Hence shims, jumping on pieces, etc. Or, heck, it’s plastic. File it down or heat it up and bend it! Whatever!
Manufacturing: “New Boeing whistleblower alleges serious structural flaws on 787 and 777 jets” [Dominic Gates, Seattle Times]. “The Boeing engineer, Sam Salehpour, alleged that almost 1,000 787s and about 400 777s currently flying are at risk of premature fatigue damage and structural failure.” Gates gets the lead right. More: “The alleged flaws in the 787 Dreamliners relate to the tiny gaps at the joins of the fuselage sections that Boeing initially found in 2020. The discovery led Boeing to largely halt deliveries for almost two years at a projected cost of $6.3 billion as it worked to correct the flaws. In August 2022, the FAA approved the fix Boeing had developed [the “shims”] and allowed 787 deliveries to resume.” And: “‘I repeatedly produced reports for my supervisors and management based on Boeing’s own data demonstrating that the gaps in the 787 were not being properly measured,’ Salehpour said. As a result, he said, the small filler pieces of material used to fill gaps — known as shims — were in many cases not inserted. As the carbon composite fuselage skin, metal fasteners and joint fittings expand and contract with temperature changes during a flight, such unfilled gaps would theoretically allow the joined sections to move slightly relative to one another. Over time, this can cause excessive wear and cause premature failure of the structure, Salehpour said. ‘It can cause a catastrophic failure.’ Shimming, or inserting these small, precisely sized pieces to fill gaps greater than five-thousandths of an inch, is a widely accepted practice in manufacturing airplanes to prevent such structural stresses. One of Salehpour’s lawyers, Lisa Banks, added that ‘shimming is a time-consuming process however. And, of course, time is money.’ Salehpour further alleged that during drilling of fastener holes at the fuselage section joins, Boeing assumed that because of the force used to pull the sections together, there was no gap for debris from the drilling to fall into. With that assumption, there is no need to separate the parts after the drilling to clean out debris, smooth off the edges of the holes and then reassemble the sections. ‘This expedites the assembly process and significantly reduces cost,’ the letter from Salehpour’s lawyers told the FAA. But Salehpour claims the assumption that any gaps were less than five-thousandths of an inch — and would be free of debris — was wrong, based on inaccurate measurements that failed to account for the fact that the gaps are larger around holes drilled farther from the edge of the join.” • “The Shims” would be a great name for a Seattle grunge band. Seattle readers?
Manufacturing: “Pontifications: Boeing ‘transparency’–not so much” [Leeham News and Analysis]. The URL: “pontifications-boeing-transparency-my-ass.” More: “Despite Boeing’s claim that transparency has been pursued since the adoption of the ACSAA, the “Speak Up” program hasn’t succeeded, according to the Expert Panel and the FAA. Employees still fear for their jobs and retaliation. Boeing still has an aggressive program designed to track down employee leaks.” • With detail on how Boeing handles FAA investigations…
Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 54 Neutral (previous close: 61 Greed) [CNN]. One week ago: 63 (Greed). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Apr 10 at 2:00:01 PM ET.
The Gallery
I wonder if an AI could fake this more or less easily than, say, a Rembrandt (the Rembrandt world being already full of fakes, sadly):
Dos Cabezas, 1982 https://t.co/5OPWX8UP19 pic.twitter.com/U1HFuJE1Rq
— Jean-Michel Basquiat (@artistbasquiat) April 10, 2024
Games
This looks like a great thread on the game Civilization — all the releases!
For the entire thread, here is the ThreadReader version. This is, I think, the “psychology of the ruling class” partL
When looked at in totality, you can see the fingerprints of the change in culture of the designers. The men that created Civ I were unapologetically part of the Faustian Western tradition. Civ 6 was created by men who completely disconnected from that tradition. pic.twitter.com/amNaOz9BZ8
— The Black Horse (@TheBlackHorse65) April 9, 2024
To me, “the Faustian Western tradition” is a bit cryptic. Maybe there are parts of the thread I missed. (I will say that it looks to me like Mearsheimer would have approved of Civilization I; the others, not so much.) Readers? Civilization players?
Zeitgeist Watch
“The Drunken Anti-Semite by the TV Set” [Splice]. There’s really a lot of good writing out there. If only we had a way to find it! “I’m autistic [no, this isn’t idpol or woke!] and I feel like most people take advantage of it, and the closer we’re supposed to be the more they do so. But not the handyman. Logistically his opportunities were reduced, since my autism hits the worst when it comes to looking people in the face. Most often he and I would be sitting side by side and facing the TV set, his favorite position in life. I didn’t feel pinned by the immobilization that somebody’s eyes can bring on me. But I’ll give him more credit than that. He knew I’m clumsy and he also knew that I’m alone, that talking to people is hard for me. Just twice he was snotty about these subjects, one time apiece. I compiled the same record regarding him. I made a crack about his lack of teeth and one about his lack of education. Each time he told me it hurt, so I dropped it. (His height and speech patterns were fair game; he didn’t mind those.) The handyman was often rude and selfish. But I could yell at him about it.” • No spoilers… Read all the way to the end.
“Priest jailed after man collapsed from too many erectile drugs at cleric’s sex party” [The Telegraph]. Byline: “Our Foreign Staff. I should hope so!
“Texas authorities arrest mother, daughter for allegedly running illegal butt injection operation” [FOX]. “The two women planned to inject a brown liquid, which was unlabeled, into the butt, or posterior [thanks for the clarification], of a customer who ended up being an undercover officer during the sting, court records showed.” • I missed when ginormous, Venus of Willendorf-proportioned butts became a thing (again). When? Why? The Kardashians?
Class Warfare
“The rich are getting second passports, citing risk of instability” [CNBC]. “Wealthy U.S. families are increasingly applying for second citizenships and national residences as a way to hedge their financial risk, according to a leading law firm. The wealthy are building these ‘passport portfolios’ — collections of second, and even third or fourth, citizenships — in case they need to flee their home country. According to [Henley & Partners, a law firm that specializes in high-net-worth citizenships], the top destinations for supplemental passports among Americans are Portugal, Malta, Greece and Italy. Portugal’s ‘Golden Visa’ program is especially popular since it provides a path to residency and citizenship — with visa-free travel in Europe — in exchange for an investment of 500,000 euros (roughly $541,000) in a fund or private equity. Malta offers a Golden Visa for 300,000 euros invested in real estate, which Volek said has become ‘especially popular with Americans.'”
News of the Wired
I am not feeling wired today.
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Am I reading and interpreting the Car Talk tweet wrong? Everyone I knew that listened to CT back in the day did work on their cars or at least wanted to be better educated about how they worked and what went wrong with them so they were better prepared to deal with the problems when they arose. Tommy passed away 10 years ago in 2014 (and hence the show ended). He had been suffering from dementia. NPR ran re-runs for a while after that but not for very long. A lot has changed since 2014. In real life, Raymond & Tommy were about as normal as people could be.
I was never going to learn to fix my own car but those guys made me more comfortable talking about it with a mechanic. Plus, they were just fun to listen to, unlike just about anything currently airing on NPR.
The size of the audience suggests a lot of listeners simply enjoyed the expertise and style on display.
anyone else remember “Sym’s” clothing stores?
Their tagline was “an educated consumer is our best customer”
*that* was CarTalk, even if you never change your own oil.
flaming kool-aid, i hate the overuse of “ironically” today
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rNJddycHvYo&pp=F
I remember the Syms tagline! Went there once or twice when visiting my folks in the St. Louis area. Imagine that – wanting educated customers!
Agree completely with your comment re: “ironically”
When I listened to Car Talk, it was because I found it entertaining and educational.
Also, the Magliozzi brothers weren’t working class – they both graduated from MIT (undergrad), Tom had an MBA from Northeastern, and Ray had a PhD from BU (per Wikipedia). So IMO that Tweet is just a waste of electrons.
I did fix my own car and actually got stuff from those guys when they had a joint in Cambridge (or was it Somerville, I don’t remember). And sometimes I thought I could outguess them but never did, because it was a show, lol. This guy totally misunderstood what NPR, especially in the 80s, was about. Now it’s they/them 24/7/365. And that is not Left.
I used to listen to Car Talk and have worked on cars since 1980. I just replaced the motor in my 18 year old Subaru. I did it in my garage with a Harbor Freight shop crane. Cost me $4K and I’m confident the car will last me until I’m dead. I also used to listen to other NPR programming regularly. That was up until the second Clinton term. I used to be “PMC” and I’m now a proud member of the “ULC” (Upper-Lower Class). To be honest, I will occasionally listen to my local NPR station for classical music while dislocating my shoulders under beater cars.
RotBoJB,
Congrats. It is satisfying to maintain older machines way past their (planned) obsolescence dates. A good way of thumbing your nose at the Beast.
IMO Hillary would consider you a member of “Deplorables”; you work with your hands. Welcome to our club.
Retired Carpenter
P.S: Did you buy a crate engine, a rebuilt one or one from the local salvage (junk) yard?
Bravo to you and Retired Carpenter. Work with your hands – what a concept – and not with a phone or computer.
I was an auto mechanic back in the 70s when you could actually fix and maintain your own car. At least part of it. The auto companies worked very hard over the years to make sure we could no longer do that. They even ran the small shop on the corner out of business.
I’m old enough to remember when you bought gas they would pump it, wash the window, check your oil, and look under the hood. Cars were built different back then. If you maintained them they would last for a long time.
The last appliance I bought the delivery guys confirmed I didn’t buy the warranty. Nope. They laughed and said it doesn’t matter we will replace it by then anyway. Product life cycle becomes shorter by design.
Progress…
I had a used 1977 Subaru wagon and I swear it just wouldn’t die. I finally bought a GMC Sonoma pickup with a cassette deck in 1997 but that Subaru was still running,
Really miss CT, and was a regular listener back in the day. I’ve been working on cars even before I was an engineer, and continue to turn a wrench to do the easy stuff today. But as I get older, it’s getting hard to crawl under and work on stuff.
I remember admonishing one of our managers that was out doing interviews and hiring new engineers, ask them if they turn a wrench working on cars or anything else, if they don’t, don’t hire them! The best engineers I worked with always seemed to have started out as welders, or mechanics, or were raised on a farm just working on everything. They had practical hands on experience working on things prior to college, and that seemed to make a difference. Somehow Click and Clack had that same quality, smart, very smart, but practical.
re: commentary to the NPR article.
“Car Talk’s regular guy jocularity for
people who would never work on a
car but they listen to it ironically for
fake solidarity with the workers”
I still listen to Car Talk reruns on their online broadcast ‘cartalk(dot)com’. For me, it wasn’t and isn’t about fake solidarity with the workers. I drive old cars. Those guys had and have in the reruns news I can use. “Oh, so that’s why my car is doing that. Maybe I can fix it.” If I can’t fix it I at least know how to talk to a mechanic about the problem. / ;)
Half way expected that to be a multi-part tweet explaining why the pawnshop guys were better. Made me think we’re about to get a lot of one-off criticisms of NPR, the purpose of which would be to rile up folks into defending NPR. “Yes I’m annoyed but you’re wrong about Car Talk” is the kind of PR strategy often used when phony baloney jobs* are at stake.
*h/t Blazing Saddles
The difference being that Pawn Stars is of highly questionable authenticity, every item ‘that comes in the door’ is a set-up.
I know a fellow in Orange County that deals in American Revolutionary era items, and on the show it’s all his stuff, and the numbskulls will say something to the customer, such as ‘can we call in an expert?’ and a few minutes later there he is, giving expert commentary on his own goods in Las Vegas.
What they did with Pawn Stars is complete the Antique Roadshow premise, with an ending where the fellows ‘buy’ said item, which tends to never happen in a pawn shop, as you do so much better making a loan (usually you loan around 1/2 of true wholesale value) on something and garnering about 35% interest, with the hope the customer doesn’t get their stuff out of hock, and you end with it on the cheap.
Both brothers went to MIT.
Free Press article on NPR decline was very good thank you. Nice distillation for when I talk to my NYTimes-impared father.
Yes, it is a very good and sad article because I can say similarly about the rest of the news media including the few conservative ones. The more these outlets advocate for a certain viewpoint, which invariably drifts into propaganda that ignores the views as well the living reality of a growing part of society while refusing to either admit to that or own up to mistakes, the less trust people give them; this eventually locks the people in the organization into an ever smaller set of viewpoints that they are unable to see being in because there is no one that they will accept or trust enough to listen to.
Listening to others is a necessary skill that must be practiced regularly, which it is a difficult and painful chore, by most people including me. It is a necessary skill for any and all new organizations, which NPR is failing in, to do.
I can think of no better endorsement for Trump (whom I have never voted for and whom I have no present intention of voting for) than the disapproval of the torturers, perjurers and entrapment artists of the CIA, NSA and FBI.
The Professional and Managerial Caste does not see the torturers, perjurers and entrapment artists of the CIA, NSA and FBI as such, but as the heroes keeping “our democracy safe,” and therefore trust the artists’ words as good reason for hating Donald Trump, and because we do not trust, they add us to their hatred.
Well, I for one, welcome their hatred because what they want is convenient for their continued welfare, but not the welfare of most Americans.
>The rich are getting second passports, citing risk of instability”
“Well we’ve wrecked this country, our work here is done. Time to move on to the next one…”, overheard on the 18th green.
You can see right now what will happen. These same people will complain that how the locals are doing things is not the way that they do things back in the states and then try to use their money to change things there to make it like the states – the same ones that they fled because they did not like how they do things there. I have heard the same complaint about Californians that fled to other States from there.
Q: What’s a native Floridian’s favorite sight?
A: A Canadian headed north with a New Yorker under each arm.
“We don’t pay full price, eh?”
And now there’s an influx of Californicators and Yookrainians..,
In the days of the Alyeska Pipeline, the Q and A went as follows:
What is a B-52?
A Texan heading south with an Okie under each arm.
Tying into the NPR story, that era still had the Bob Edwards and Red Barber stories about baseball. When they went, so did I.
Loathsom Newsom faces new recall
Had it with this taxing clown. Now wants to tax the last ten years of California resident’s high incomes, even after they’ve left the state. Capital gains are treated as regular income in California. 13.3% tax rate on top of 15% federal. 6 cent a mile tax on cars, fixed utility tax, even if no power gas used, a tax on personal savings, investments and 401-K.
Download and print recall petitions here.
https://rescuecalifornia.org/
https://news.yahoo.com/insurers-reap-hidden-fees-slashing-145540530.html
Insurers Reap Hidden Fees by Slashing Payments. You May Get the Bill.
According to the article, Multiplan’s founder sold it to private equity in 2006.
https://wol.com/health-insurers-lucrative-alliance-that-drives-up-patient-bills-5-takeaways/
Health Insurers’ Lucrative Alliance That Drives Up Patient Bills: 5 Takeaways
Multiplan’s annual revenues: 1 billion dollars.
Short 3 minute video that describes how this works:
https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/100000009396768/our-reporter-on-a-hidden-health-insurance-alliance.html
A little-known data firm helps health insurers earn more when less of an out-of-network claim gets paid. Patients can be on the hook for the difference.
From 2020:
https://today.westlaw.com/Document/I08546352244a11ebbea4f0dc9fb69570/View/FullText.html
UnitedHealth conspiring to deny emergency services payments, lawsuit says
https://www.aha.org/news/headline/2024-04-09-following-nyt-investigation-aha-urges-dol-investigate-actions-multiplan-and-commercial-insurers
Following NYT investigation, AHA urges DOL to investigate actions of MultiPlan and commercial insurers
Note to Lambert: I would email these links to you instead of posting them, but my email is currently screwed up.l
Thanks for all these links. The middle part of this utube from an ‘I Allegedly Dan’ episode talks about health insurance companies stiffing hospitals and medical groups on payments. (First part of the episode is about homeowner’s insurance.) ~15 minutes. (it’s a honkin’ good episode, pun intended.)
My Insurance Just Got Canceled
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6nzwuDO3Xg
You can find random stuff on Kagi’s small web; I clicked around and got this: The Victoria Pacific Railway
It’s mostly blogs at random.
Since the Paris Hilton phone hack, Americans have no excuse for not knowing that tabloids cut deals with celebrities.
Not sure what the Enquire would gain by a catch and kill for Trump, though. Pretty one-sided.
> Not sure what the Enquire would gain
Possibly money?
Access to the White House?
If “Creepy” Joe gets in, and subsequently croaks, well, the headlines write themselves.
“Kamala’s Secret Jamaican Voodoo Charms That Keep America Safe!”
“Harris to Staff: No More Small Aircraft!”
“Wall Street Promises President Harris: This time it’ll be different! Honest!”
“What’s No Longer in the White House Medicine Cabinet.”
“Harris to Combine President and Vice President Into One Office!”
Etc.
Kamala’s speeches sound like Barbara Bush reading Dr Seuss on acid.
Paging Wuk&Co …
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/apr/09/silver-coin-boom-in-medieval-england-due-to-melted-down-byzantine-treasures-study-reveals
Seems it always boils down to what the token is used for and not special powers … it affords it owner/s …
Amends … full study ….
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/byzantine-plate-and-frankish-mines-the-provenance-of-silver-in-northwest-european-coinage-during-the-long-eighth-century-c-660820/EE2DE1D7955D055FA4225257755BF340
That’s interesting news but no biggie, pm’s got recycled continuously throughout history, and it was common to have the emperor’s mug on coins, which would have been the equivalent of a PR campaign, and you didn’t want that king’s coins from 147 years ago circulating in your shire, you wanted the present ruler on them.
English and other coins of the dark age era tended to have awful designs, oh how the mighty fell in artistry, which is a common theme when things were a bit desperate throughout the history of money.
It’s possible that some of those ugly coins were repurposed from ancient Greek coins of the highest artistry, minted well over a 1,000 years before.
A taste of what the Greeks were capable of:
https://collections.mfa.org/objects/874
an aside: beautiful bas-relief on that Greek coin. How were those Greek coins made? Were they cast in a mold or were they struck (stamped) with a die?
They were die struck utilizing a hammer, very few coins were ever cast in a mold, except counterfeits.
Thank you.
Yes the Egyptians recycled ornamental gold/silver used in Pharaohs burial via unofficial tomb robbers as well.
My point was the supply factor in coinage spurred economic activity rather than bringing economic demise. Seems historically that social capital networks proceed all events, thus becoming economic outcomes, good or bad, and that in turn is reflected in others views about currency – good or bad.
Hence any and all attempts to fiddle with currency as a tool to manage social capitals destructive tenancies is and always has been doomed. Yet some still cling to the notion and steal oxygen from introspection via it, must never never talk about what actually drives economic outcomes – tis always the tools fualt and never the minds behind its application.
Oh trust me, I want this cockamamie fiat money scheme to continue through the rest of my life, i’m used to the game.
See mate … all sovereign money is fiat so …
Don’t understand the reference to yourself in the context of this discussion. Were talking macroeconomics/political theory and its – HISTORY – in regards to one aspect of it. Monetarism ignores and edits everything that does not side with its ideological view points mate, monoliths.
I really don’t understand the need for ego or ideology in any of it, too much baggage.
Yet at the end of the day ego/ideology is what got us here in just the last 200 years so making it all out to do with fiat is a bit wobbly methinks. Just look at the CPI print, CHIPS and endless gimmes for Capital, sanctions on nations that provide resources and value added product, increased GDP for military as a means to cajole nations, due to path dependency/legacy dramas in leverage in contractual negotiations [lol] – see Hudson …
But some will tell me its all about the form of currency – ???? – and its magical attributes …
I’m not a huge Civ player, only really putting time into the spin-off Alpha Centauri, and a bit into Civ 5. But I don’t think that the argument they’re making holds up particularly well. A counter-argument that that I think holds as much weight is: the vision of Civ always included the cultural and diplomacy aspects that they seem to disparage, but due to technological constraints they had to be added piecemeal as they became workable. This may be wrong on the history of the design though, as I know nothing about it.
Best I can make of what they’re trying to say in regards to the ruling class view is one of extra-nationality and focus on resource (of all types I’d suppose, natural and human) exploitation, over brazen conquest.
Overall it’s kind of neat to see a synopsis of the series, but I can’t help but feel there isn’t much being said.
Big civ player here (alpha centauri was my gateway) and I agree in full.
I’ve probably played every version of Civ, and I agree.
Civ also has followed a pattern where major overhauls tend to come at odd numbers, where they also cut some features to make it easier to sell to new players, and then the even number deepens the complexity by adding more features.
In order to get the analysis in the thread to work, he has ignored that space victory and points victory was there already in civ 1. The palace in civ 1 is also ignored. The palace didn’t play any role in conquering the world but was just a nice model. Civ has always been open for both building high (developing your own cities and areas) and playing wide (quick expansion), and has had functions and victory conditions for both.
I think he conflates a commercial game developing in a direction he doesn’t think is as fun, with the decline of the US empire.
Regarding the Civilization series, I still think Civilization V was still pretty good. It had it’s problems, sure, but it was overall still a good game. Maybe a step down from IV, but still good. Civilization VI, on the other hand, was bad. It was the first in the series I didn’t even want to play, and was mostly just straight up boring.
I tend to agree that no longer allowing players to stack military units was a bad idea. It was meant mostly to stop micromanagement bloat late in the game, at least that’s how I understood it, but it added a lot of other things which made micromanagement just as much of a chore in the late game. At least it was sort of break even. The few times I played a game all the way through in Civilization VI I just dreaded the end game. Way too much going on and almost all of it was tedious. I remember regretting pre-ordering Civilization VI. It was one of the reasons I almost never pre-order games anymore.
I added orts and scraps, and then forgot to say that I did. Fifty lashes with a wet noodle for Lambert.
On shims:
These guys rebuild tanks: https://www.youtube.com/@ausarmour
I find the workshop wednesday videos very very interesting. Shims were used extensively to keep things lined up, I learned about that, because if the track isn’t in a straight line with the wheels it will come off and you don’t want that to happen.
Not saying boeing is doing it right by any means, I’ll never fly em again probably. Just all the shim talk reminded me of those videos so I hope you enjoy.
Watched a coupla of their videos before and they are pretty good but that is a lot of tanks that they have.
U.S. airlines need to maintain maintenance and repair shops in the U.S. under F.A.A. control, post Buttgieg. Now United, Alaska and Southwest jets are looked after by Chinese, Guatemalan and Salvadorean ‘mechanics.’ We will not ever fly on a non European built and maintained plane.
https://www.thecentralamericangroup.com/largest-aircraft-maintenance-center-in-latin-america/
Aeroman is an MRO Holding company that is based in San Salvador, El Salvador. Established in 1983, it is the operator of the largest aircraft maintenance center in Latin America.
Aeroman is an industry leader in providing airframe heavy maintenance, modification, and paint for some of the world’s top aircraft owners and operators. In addition to Aeroman, MRO Holdings operates two other aircraft maintenance centers. They are Flightstar Aircraft Services in Florida, USA, and TechOps, which is located in the city of Querétaro, Mexico.
Former Army helicopter mechanic: in the then-ubiquitous Bell-built IH-1 Hueys there are shims everywhere. For alignment of engine, transmission, drive shafts, main and tail rotor blades, control components. I imagine [old] Boeing CH-47 Chinooks are much the same. But these airframes were built of metal, with tolerances understood and accounted for by the engineers who designed them and the (non-Covid-impaired) people who built and maintained them.
I can imagine the frustrated and time-and-motion-pressured line workers in Boeing’s and subcontractors plants jumping and clamping and force fitting the later-model 7-series airframes together. “Git ‘er done, hey? This little bit won’t matter… and there’s no tech inspector any more, so who will ever know?
Echoes of days gone by: My second car was a 1968 MGB roadster, British Racing Green, leather seats, Lucas electrics and all. I joked that I got a “Wednesday car,” since most everything worked and fit. British labor was claimed to be not so fastidious, cars built on Monday into Tuesday suffered from hung-over workers, and by Thursday they were ramping up the pint consumption ahead of the weekend.
My car had an annoying hard-to-locate clunk when cornering. I pinpointed it to the inside of the drivers door. Removed the inner door panel one day, to find an empty bottle of Guinness and a crumpled page of the Guardian, apparently used to wrap fish and chips.
I understand that Boeing’s new planes include debris and tools and stuff that might, er, “impact airworthiness.” IIBING.
Civ’s always had a loose grasp on verisimilitude. You play as one leader in charge of a civilization that generally has one or two unique qualities to differentiate it from the others, and proceed to expand outwards until you meet your neighbors in a way not unlike how dissimilar bacteria compete for space in a petri dish. Certain infamous leaders, namely Hitler, are not included (historically because it would be banned for sale in Germany, contemporaneously for slightly loftier ideological reasons). As time went on, as that thread alludes to, the understanding and interpretation of history has been challenged, and certain famous leaders are no longer famous, or leaders. At the same time, women who served in the same role have been pulled front and center, most notably in Civ 6 — even if they were judged less than kindly by historians. (The usual example is a leader of Sweden in Civ 6, Kristina.) Again, accuracy is a bit of a “bonus” in Civ: the leader you pick leads the country for the entire game, from stone age to space age. There’s a bit of historical irony if you’re playing as the US and fighting with native American civilizations at the same tech level, for instance.
Civilization is not the only game series to grapple with its legacy of historical simulation. Competitors, such as Europa Universalis, also have had to deal with complaints about how they have to weigh certain aspects of the simulation against each other; i.e. for a long time, non-European civilizations had technological development penalties to ensure no dramatic deviations from actual history occurred.
I hear that there are a lot of Game of RISK! boards in the closets and desk drawers in Langley, Foggy Bottom and the Pentagram.
Frederickson conflates kleptocracy with Tammany-style cleintelism. They aren’t the same thing, and the Tammany bosses made a distinction between “honest graft and “dishonest graft.” An example from Tammany boss George Washington Plunkitt —
As the Roman Emperor once said, ‘It is the duty of a good shepherd to shear his sheep, not to skin them.’ Here one groups seeks to steal everything not nailed down until they end up in jail. A smarter one is the Tammany group that will steal, but in return give solid benefits to people so that they keep on getting voted back in. One New York ward heeler talked about getting jobs for just landed immigrants, finding accommodation for people whose apartment building just burned down, help for women delivering babies, etc.
Tammany, whatever else they did, gave concrete material benefits to regular people.
It’s rather quaint how Fredrickson so earnestly believes we’re not already living under “a kleptocratic leadership that will be difficult if not impossible to dislodge.” And under a leadership that views “corruption is a feature, not a bug” — Hello, K street lobbyists! —, and how ordinary it is that “politicians apply the law inconsistently, favoring friends and punishing enemies.”
And the spooks? They set a new standard for “difficult if not impossible to dislodge.”
Is D’Olly Pops giving us a song and dance routine?
One of my favourite stagings of theirs is a brisk and lively rendition of that old chestnut, “I Am the Very Model of a Modern Health Establishment.” (From “The Pirates of Canary Wharf.”)
And no, contrary to popular belief, they are not the originators of the song “Savoy Trifle.”
I am the very model of a very wealthy rentier
I’ve instruments financ-i-al like stocks and bonds and debentures…. / ;)
Forsooth, there is a crying out for modern versions of Gilbert and Sullivan light operas. There is so much worthy, or unworthy, of skewering, that it is, in the parlance of our esteemed Military Industrial Compradores, a “Target Rich Environment.”
From your keyboard to the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company’s librettists. / ;)
Both Barnett and Salehpour worked on the 787 at the Boeing South Carolina plant. In both their cases, Boeing HR blew off their complaints about retaliation. Interesting that Salehpour was threatened with violence by a superior in writing. The public silence in the Barnett case might be because there are a lot of people that investigators have to question.
I was so focused on the manufacturing I missed the threat of violence (and trust Dominic Gates to get that). Here’s the quote:
When that hits the courts, it will be ‘Game, set and match.’
I guess he can’t spend any time alone between now and then…
… not in South Carolina, for sure.
Some managers and HR people are going to lose their jobs, at the very least.
You can imagine what the depositions will be like, as the attorneys show them safety documents they don’t remember, but that –what do you know about that? — have their signature on them. And the lawyer has them read and explain it line by line.
“So you’ve never seen this complaint addressed to you by Mr. Salehpour that he’d been threatened with violence by Mr.X, or the note by Mr.X, threatening him?”
“I do not recall.”
“And this document with your signature, advising HR not to investigate the threat or discipline Mr. X — did you write it?”
“I do not recall.”
Gonna be some great transcripts!
It is clear that at least one Boeing manager had a motive to commit violence against a worker. My guess is that there was a discreet group of managers that might have such a motive.
“What we should fear most is Mr. Trump transforming our government into a modern-day Tammany Hall, installing a kleptocratic leadership that will be difficult if not impossible to dislodge.”
The cognitive dissonance in that sentence is rich. I’m sure the New York Times-reading crowd shares the writer’s fear of a political organization that actually delivers concrete material benefits to average citizens, like the original Tammany did.
https://x.com/kobeissiletter/status/1778044736030253396?s=46
Pivot from the band “Sonics “to the Shims. A story of neoliberalism in the PNW and the country at large. No longer in Seattle, but spent 35 years there. The last 6 right next to Boeing field.
One of the things I hate most about politics these days is how the adtech industry convinced politicians that spam texting the world is good for their campaign. I get that these text messages help gather money from complete idiots that click links in spam texts, but do these politicians understand how bad it is for their brand? The texts are all the same exact format, several screens long with a weird url to give money. A check of who registered all these URLs points to oneswitchboard.com, which appears to be a company run by some ex facebook adtech freak. When I look at all of the texts in my spam and block section on my phone, almost every single one is from this company. Even Katie Porter appears to be using them. It’s so sad how even real progressives have to give money to these sick adtech people who only understand how to spam people. My new policy is to give money to the opponents of anyone who oneswitchboard.com psycho spam texts my in their name.
Civilization! Nearly failed linear algebra in college thanks to CIV 3.
I believe the Faustian Western Tradition is the desire to become like God, to grasp infinity. Infinite life, infinite growth at any cost. Anyhoo,
The AI is the main limiting factor, and the reason civ 1/2/3 are so “primitive” from a strategic standpoint. However…endgame stagnation present in all these games is interesting philosophically because of how boring the game inevitably becomes when you have snowballed to the point that victory is inevitable.
Civ 4 attempts to avoid the boredom of endgame by adding necessary “decline” mechanics that can derail large empires. This is in my opinion the apex of the series.
Civ 5 shifted to a hex based map without an AI that understood how to reason about a hex based map rendering the game trivially easy.
Civ 6 was civ 5 with the same abysmal ai and a few new levers to pull. Forgettable.
Yeah, “Faustian” is a Spengler-ism and the archetype he uses to distinguish the Modern West from other civilizational spheres, even the Classical Mediterranean (“Apollonian” in his terms). Camus makes a similar distinction in The Rebel, but he just calls them “Gothic” and “Mediterranean”.
Like VTDigger said, the theory goes that, for example, Apollonian culture understands things in terms of concrete, interacting bodies with very solid limits and boundaries, and it’s also deeply sensitive about the idea of balance. Faustian culture OTOH has an intense drive to reach push past all limits and try reaching the absolute (even though it knows deep down, like Faust, that it will fail).
Not really sure that explains the game Civilization; I think he’s overselling his point a lot and projecting a specific reading of Spengler onto it. IIRC even the very first Civ game would ruin or desertify tiles if you over-polluted, and you could definitely over-expand if you didn’t make balanced decisions. The best strategy was typically just to build everything everywhere as much as opponents would allow, then build more things to clean up the messes that left. But I don’t think that was intentional, just a typical limit on complexity for an early video game written by a smaller team.
I’ve never really been a gamer, but of the time I’ve spent playing video games, Civilization is probably the #1 time sink. I always played it as more of a structured sandbox with easier opponents though, with occasional wars mixed in (but they always made me nervous, lol). Later Civ games are definitely more polished, with more big-picture mechanics like culture and religion (which I personally enjoyed), plus they streamlined away a lot of the tedium.
The earlier ones let you do cleverer things though: resettling cities, engineering specific trade-routes, throwing random details into diplomatic deals, etc. There was definitely something charming about the early ones too, especially the artistic touches, despite the limitations. Like picture a lower-budget film or a Yahoo Geocities page that’s pretty well-done with heart vs. a contemporary website on Squarespace.
Agreed re: Civ 4 being the apex, especially with expansions and mods (of which there are many, and which are often still updated). It offered the most complexity without the corresponding loss of cohesion that plagued later instalments. Civ 5 and 6 were each a mess of ideas and mechanics with no clear focus that I could see; they also seemed to aim for a more board game-like experience. I’ve heard that Civ 5 AI improved eventually. Civ 6 AI seemed even worse, though. Relatives I played Civ 6 with argued that it may have been like that by design, to promote a multiplayer focus that would require more people to buy it to play with friends and family.
Re: New train staffing rule: tl;dr: Mandates 2 crew member trains for certain quantities and types of hazardous material. There is petition process to permit 1-person crews (which every single railroad is busy filling out the paperwork on, I’m sure). Also permits smaller RR companies to have 1-person crews. And now there’s the ability for the public to comment on the petitions (assuming they’re assiduous readers of the Federal Register docket).
This may not be a popular opinion, but I’ll go here. I grew up in a small railroad town and spent many hours in a railroad tower, which was one of many that were along the miles and miles of tracks. Many of those are gone now. Technology. GPS. Control centers that know where every train is, how fast it is going, the speed, and probably even the engines oil pressures.
Here’s the unpopular part; trains may be the least dangerous means of transit to be remote controlled. It takes a long time to stop them – even if you push on the brake harder – this isn’t like driving a car. With today’s technology the number of workers on that train will not make them any safer.
Large factories have small tug trains full of parts feeding assembly lines that make millions of product each year with no driver. They navigate a labyrinth of aisles, roads, and people. They are not on rails. They also go very slow.
Not that I’m against people on trains, but telling us two person trains solves a problem is nothing more than lip service. Where are the studies on what they learned from the past derailments?
Dominic Gates Seattle Times articles are explicit about the fall of Boeing due to extracting corporate wealth to transfer to stockholders and managers. $68 billion since 2010 rather than investing in future all-new airplanes. America’s top exporter is too big to fail.
The Washington Post has an article on young and athletic with POTS (when a patient’s heart rate goes berserk, jumping way above normal when changing position from lying down to standing) that rose after COVID. But the media company is institutionally incapable of indicating that the exposure of the young and healthy to coronavirus was intentional with the privatization of public health and slashing non-pharmaceutical interventions. Instead government spent billions to enrich pharmaceutical companies with an under-tested gene therapy that was relabeled as a vaccine and which is ineffective at preventing transmission and has side effects.
The light rail Purple Line in Maryland’s DC Suburbs, a Private-Public Partnership, has been delayed until 2027 and is $4 billion over budget. Maryland now has to replace the Key Bridge destroyed by a global trade container ship without the staff and expertise to design and oversee the contracts to construct the replacement bridge within budget.
Western media moguls complete ignore the obvious. The rise in uncommitted votes in the Democratic primaries is simply due to the Uni-Party being incapable of running the USA in the best interests of Americans ever since the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq which enriched war profiteers and tried to control Persian Gulf petroleum but failed. Middle East oil will be embargoed to the West by an Israel – Iran regional war that is imminent if a Gaza ceasefire is not agreed to soon.
And a Gaza ceasefire will not be agreed to soon because neither principal really wants it.
Biden is a very prideful man. He thought he was The Israel Whisperer. He may still think so. He thought he would be the Great Historic President who would bring the Good Ship Two-State Solution in for a perfect three-point landing. He may still think so.
Biden campaign: “A visit to a Milwaukee campaign office offered him a chance to connect with a young boy who’d written to him about dealing with a stutter, an unscripted interaction that made its way to TikTok.”
Also during that visit, several hundred people marched to the campaign office to register our disgust at his support for genocide. Police blocked off two streets on every side of the marching body. Interestingly, at the rally, a representative of Voces de la Frontera, an immigrant rights group with a large base, spoke, declaring their support for the successful campaign to organize “Uninstructed” voters in the partisan primary. My current thoughts on the presidential election: at least Trump isn’t that awful right-winger Biden. I’m appalled that there are people in my city volunteering for a Biden campaign.
re: “I wonder if an AI could fake this more or less easily than, say, a Rembrandt (the Rembrandt world being already full of fakes, sadly)”
The Rembrandt AI attempt fakes from 4-5 years ago were obviously hideous. The latest Rembrandt AI fakes are very nice illustrations of an imagined Rembrandt-like painting, but fail on the higher level. The AI images are mathematically, geometrically calculated images. It shows. (I won’t say why I say this because I have no desire to beta test-correct something with which I disagree.) I’ll say it’s noticeable to people accustomed to looking at the “real thing”, as they say. / ;)
Adding, to the credit of the AI visual imagery output gang creating these images, they’ve announce these fake Rembrandt images as AI fakes. So, that’s fine. Good. They are making no attempt to deceive the public with their output imagery.
Interesting that the people working on this tech are still trying to sort out the issues of early Renaissance art, e.g., verisimilitude, lighting, perspective, etc. — issues that haven’t concerned actual human artists for over a century now.
The invention of photography is the best thing that ever happened to painting.
WTF?
For those of us of a certain age, Civilization was originally a board game — Avalon Hill circa 1981.
Here is a . . . frankly bizarre little video I have found on the TikTokCringe subreddit. It is by a lady who purports to be an Evangelical Christian who exhorts her audience to write in the name Jesus Christ on the President line of the November election ballot.
Is she for real? Is this a clever Trump-vote subversion gambit ( ” ratf*ck”) by a Democratic operative? Is this a work of political satire performance?
Here is the link.
https://www.reddit.com/r/TikTokCringe/comments/1c0kwmc/tell_your_friends_jesus_2024/
Here is a Joe Rogan podcast video called . . . ” Joe and Coleman debate the definition of genocide”. It refers to the ongoing events in Gaza. I don’t know who Coleman is or what his background is or has been.
Since Joe Rogan has been referred to in the past on this blog as an important measure of what a significant number of Republicanservative-leaning young and youngish men are watching and might be thinking or at least thinking about, it may be worth watching just to consider whether it needs to be ‘dealt with’ at some level. Or not.
( Some people have been dealing with it in the comments thread, which also exists to be maybe read and considered).
Anyway, here is the link.
https://www.reddit.com/r/JoeRogan/comments/1c0os1o/joe_and_coleman_debate_the_definition_of_genocide/
. . . and now this . . . “Breaking: Israel kill Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh’s family ” Maybe Joe Rogan will have Coleman back for another podcast in a while and discuss how this fits in with Coleman’s thesis.
https://www.reddit.com/r/InternationalNews/comments/1c0q1vu/breaking_israel_kill_hamas_leader_ismail_haniyehs/
Here’s a bored bear amusing itself, for some reason titled ” Kung Fu Panda (Incognito)”.
https://www.reddit.com/r/BeAmazed/comments/1c0mlce/kung_fu_panda_incognito/
Sometimes it seems like we are back to the early Victorian era, only with out the elaborate skirts and like, so the exaggerated curves has to come from surgery etc.