Why Are Cats Such a Medical Black Box? New York Times
Climate/Environment
Giant storm pummels Southern California as flooding, mudslides hit areas charred by fires USA Today
State Farm exec fired after secret recording appears to show him discussing rate hikes ABC7
In Altadena and Pacific Palisades, burned lots are hitting the market Los Angeles Times
Pandemics
The Body Snatching Years ¡Do Not Panic!
***
Bird flu-infected San Bernardino County dairy cows may have concerning new mutation Los Angeles Times
Maryland reports new case of bird flu from backyard flock in Anne Arundel County CBS News
***
Why health experts fear the West Texas measles outbreak may be much larger than reported STAT
United States: Where U.S. Measles Outbreaks Are Spreading UNMC Global Center for Health Security
China?
China’s ‘two sessions’: What did we learn about the Chinese economy? Chatham House
China wants the private sector to drive growth again, but trust can’t be rebuilt overnight Channel News Asia
***
Chinese nationals banned from US student visas under new House GOP proposal Fox News
Fascinating research by @MacroPoloChina: https://t.co/OSUvGP6Jbg
They’ve looked at top-tier AI talent around the world and found that an astounding half of them (almost: 47%) were Chinese in 2022! The 2nd topmost nationality were Americans, at 18%.
However, this top talent… pic.twitter.com/bf3Cn4RrPw
— Arnaud Bertrand (@RnaudBertrand) March 7, 2024
Duterte in ICC custody after arriving in Netherlands: court DW
Former Philippine President Duterte arrested for crimes against humanity WSWS. “Washington’s accelerating preparations for war with China are fuelling the conflict in the Philippine elite…During his term as president, Duterte attempted to orient Philippine foreign policy away from Washington, announcing an end to a number of joint military exercises with the United States and refusing to pursue sovereignty claims against China over disputed waters in the South China Sea. Over the past three years, Marcos, the son of the country’s former dictator, has reintegrated the Philippines in Washington’s war drive. He has opened military bases for US forces, allowed the Pentagon to supervise confrontations with China in the South China Sea with drones, and authorized the US deployment of an intermediate range Typhon class missile launcher system to the country with the capacity to target nearly all of China.”
The Lucky Country
Ruling elite demands massive increase to Australian military spending for war WSWS
O Canada
Canada announces reciprocal tariffs on $21B of US products Anadolu Agency
U.S. pauses Columbia River Treaty talks as trade tensions grow, B.C. minister says CBC
Syraqistan
Trump says no Palestinians will be expelled from Gaza as he presses takeover plan Anadolu Agency
Israel kills three Palestinians every 24 hours in Gaza, using snipers, drones, and starvation as genocidal tools Euro-Med Monitor
Spartacus in Palestine Elia Ayoub, Hauntologies
***
US steered Syrian Kurds toward Damascus deal, sources say Reuters
Erdoğan welcomes Syrian deal with Kurdish forces Duvar
***
‘We Know What Jew Lists Mean’: Canadian Database of IDF Soldiers Sparks Alarm in Jewish Community Haaretz
European Disunion
On the manifold fractal screwups of Chancellor hopeful Friedrich Merz eugyppius: a plague chronicle
Europe isn’t planning for peace Thomas Fazi, Unherd. “It will pay the price for this tug-of-war.”
New Not-So-Cold War
What the US/Ukraine “Ceasefire” Diktat to Russia Means The Real Politick with Mark Sleboda
A Conversation with Foreign Minister Lavrov Larry Johnson, Sonar21
Oh shit…
In case anyone is curious, Putin never makes a single move just for show. Only to send a message of what’s to come. And this does not look like a man preparing to accept a 30 day ceasefire. https://t.co/0iPmtMhJs3
— Duopoly Destroyer (@realnikohouse) March 12, 2025
Ukraine war briefing: Putin visits Kursk as Trump threatens consequences if ceasefire not agreed The Guardian
Brief Summary from the Front for March 12, 2025 Marat Khairullin Substack
***
US arms flow to Ukraine again as the Kremlin mulls ceasefire proposal AP. Ukraine out of ATACMS.
Poland president urges US to move nuclear warheads to Polish territory Reuters
Volkswagen open to building military equipment for German army The Telegraph
VW’s Osnabrueck plant would be ‘very suitable’ for defence production, Rheinmetall CEO says Reuters
Chartbook 360: “War economies”? Disentangling the polycrisis from the shadows of the past. Adam Tooze, Chartbook
Review: When the USSR and America Joined in the Search for ET Undark
Imperial Collapse Watch
Against Nihilism NEFARIOUS RUSSIANS
Biden Post Mortem
Amos Hochstein Named Managing Partner at TWG Global City Biz
Biden National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan To Join Harvard Kennedy School Faculty in April The Crimson. Fittingly, on April Fools’ Day.
Democrats en Déshabillé
Dem Senator Elissa Slotkin (MI) says that by electing Trump, America is acting like petulant and “angry” “teenager” without a “fully form[ed] brain”:
“What do you do when you have a teenager threatening themselves and others, you just try to get them through this period alive.… pic.twitter.com/7EN0xLkt7A— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) March 11, 2025
Biggest Federal Employee Unions Says Shutdown is Preferable to Elon/Trump CR Talking Points Memo
Trump 2.0 / DOGE
Trump administration pulls intel job offer for critic of Israel Politico. Daniel Davis.
Judge orders DOGE and Elon Musk to turn over documents, answer written questions Politico
Social Security Backtracks on DOGE Phone Service Cuts After Media Report Newsweek
***
DIGITIZING THE FISC Rohan Grey. On the constitutional implications of Trump’s BFS-DOGE takeover. Summary thread:
🚨New Paper🚨 (hi law reviews!)
‘Digitizing the Fisc’ is the first article to address the current separation of fiscal powers crisis, exemplified by Trump’s takeover of the Treasury’s payments IT systems, through a multidimensional legal, political economic, & technological lens pic.twitter.com/oeNtLV6XLs
— Rohan Grey (@rohangrey) March 11, 2025
***
Trump, standing next to Elon Musk, says violence against Tesla is domestic terrorism USA Today
Musk Plans to Give Trump Groups $100 Million After Tesla Ad at the White House Gizmodo
If Trump Blows it on Speech, the World is Screwed Matt Taibbi, Racket News
Groves of Academe
Just as predicted, the US government’s abduction of Mahmoud Khalil has galvanized & re-invigorated the student protest movement against Israels’ genocide of the Palestinian people:
UC Berkeley students walk out: https://t.co/ySmaoxLWfB
Stanford students walk out:… https://t.co/wkv0p08Txu
— Zachary Foster (@_ZachFoster) March 12, 2025
Yale Suspends Palestine Activist After AI Article Linked Her to Terrorism Gizmodo
Police State Watch
The Abduction of Mahmoud Khalil Unpopular Front
Interview: FIRE Counsel Tyler Coward on Deportations, Title VI, Mahmoud Khalil Matt Taibbi, Racket News
On CNN, Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman says Mahmoud Khalil is “paid by a terrorist organization,” saying “I have evidence.” When asked by who, Blakeman replies: “Well, I didn’t ask my intelligence division exactly who paid for him.” pic.twitter.com/xUBLE7mGeM
— Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) March 11, 2025
PROFESSOR AT CENTER OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY DEPORTATION SCANDAL IS FORMER ISRAELI SPY MintPress News
Tommy Tuberville: “When it comes to protesters, we gotta make sure we treat all of them the same: send them to jail.” pic.twitter.com/Na55pK3QsM
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 12, 2025
National Security As An Architecture of Bullsh*t Un-Diplomatic
Urban Planning
Architecture and urban planning have historically been used for population control and counterinsurgency. For decades, Israel has routinely destroyed the dense and meandering fabric of Palestinian refugee camps and neighbourhoods, which provided the local population with an… pic.twitter.com/5cUtarXEwJ
— Forensic Architecture (@ForensicArchi) March 10, 2025
Our Famously Free Press
Miami Beach mayor moves to end O Cinema lease after screening of Israeli-Palestinian film Miami Herald
Guillotine Watch
Fink says he expects people to be working longer careers in the future (as long as they don’t have work-related injuries and disabilities). Says research shows that people who retire early can suffer b/c they become isolated/lack purpose.
— Richard Morrison (@RichardMorrison) March 12, 2025
Supply Chain
Blackrock Becomes a Power Player in Global Shipping — With Help from Trump WSJ
Shortage Economy
Fowl Play: How Chicken Genetics Barons Created the Egg Crisis BIG by Matt Stoller
Thank God For Weed Gummies Defector
Antidote du jour (via):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
“Volkswagen open to building military equipment for German army”
I suppose after totally losing the Russian market, military sales of vehicles will help VW keep going. Nothing new in any case. Back in WW2, VW produced military vehicles for the Wehrmacht including the lightweight transporter Kübelwagen and amphibious four-wheel-drive vehicle Schwimmwagen. One VW plant even made parts for the V-1 flying bomb so I suppose a present day one can be re-purposed to making parts for newer cruise missiles-
https://www.rt.com/business/614098-volkswagen-open-military-production/
But if car plants are being re-purposed to military equipment, then where are Germans going to get their new cars from? Ursula won’t let it be from China after all.
Won’t be getting their new cars from Tesla, that’s for sure ;-)
Since VW owns so many other car making companies that were formerly “state icons” I’m sure VW can multitask and have Germans buy SEAT cars etc whilst those currently very annoyed German VW workers voting AfD in droves can produce military stuff.
Two birds with one stone! Make those pesky AfD supporters realise their jobs depend on VW largesse and fund/get support for a stupid war!
PS & following on from my comment and walking/bussing more often than driving, I definitely get a better sense of the general view round here.
My particular section of this suburb was one of the “Labour Islands” that enabled Labour to take back the seat last year after the disastrous Tory experiment. I noticed several long-standing commenters (and I’ve been here myself on the site in one form or another for 10-15 years) yesterday note lots of metaphorical red flags regarding what’s going on around them. I’m seeing them too round here. It’s like a powder keg. I don’t say this lightly and if mods wanna ban it, so be it.
However, raising that flag on a main road is ASKING for trouble. People round here are severely p!ssed off. I myself was door-knocking yesterday at properties behind our house since it wasn’t clear which house was using a clearly professional tree-surgeon to sort out their garden issues and we need services of one – we’d already had to have low level work done by order of the council to stop road issues – the 15cm potholes are a bigger issue IMNSHO but they don’t seem so keen to deal with those. I really don’t think people round here are sympathetic to Starmer or his little minion (our local Labour MP who lives a few streets away). Things have a “calm before the storm” feeling to them.
Seeing as Adolf & Co. appropriated the original design for the VW from the Czechs, let them drive Škodas! er wait, VW owns them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tatra_V570#/media/File:V570a.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tatra_V570
Hey now! Don’t hide your light under a turret. Skoda was also known for other mobile “workhorses” of that time.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panzer_38(t)
Also,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hetzer
Why not this?
A design by Mr. Porsche himself, alas never built:
pet name “Mouse”
weight 188t
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panzer_VIII_Maus
Never built, but Rooskies still got one. :)
I remember the Volkswagen (pronounced “Folks Vagen”, meaning people’s wagon) “The Thing”, pretty much identical to the WW2 vehicle. I had zero idea of that when I first saw them decades ago, I’d buy one now if I found one. I don’t need or want all the modern “conveniences” that make cars expensive to repair. I’m a retro-grouch and admit it. Simple cars are easier for a mechanically inclined owner to repair. I want a door handle, not a button, to open a car door. Modern cars are NOT intuitive for older people, to get in and out of.
Speaking of Classic VW’s, I own one. I would do the mechanical work to maintain it, but the HOA doesn’t allow it; so off to the shop ($185/hr.) it goes. It’s in California so it needs to pass bi-annual smog exams; fortunately keeping it tuned-up is something that I can do at home on the sly. One thing about a Classic Car to be aware of: low compression engines are nowhere near as fuel efficient as a modern ICE or EV: 8-10 MPG around town is the norm–gas here is ~$5/gal. YMMV.
Is that even possible? Especially for modern car plants? I am very skeptical that the same methods/tools/workers used to make an aluminium framed VW beetle can transfer to building composite armour clad ECW bristling Leopard main battle tank. Is there some historical precedent for this kind of industrial war commandeering of car factories?
They will make pickup trucks, and enter market dominated by Toyota. :)
In Altadena and Pacific Palisades, burned lots are hitting the market Los Angeles Times
~~~~~~~~~~
Not so sure i’d be interested in Schrödinger’s Lot, sure it sells for a discount from what the lot would be worth if there was stucco surrounding a wood framed house on it-or what some might call a closed box, but you’re buying a blank canvas surrounded by thousands of other not so clean slates.
Be a bit embarrassing if you purchased one of those blocks on a cliff-side at Pacific Palisades as it would give you great views of the Pacific once you built a house there – only to find that through a massive mudslide that your block was now down at the bottom of that hillside.
Lido Isle mentioned below is a man-made island in Newport Beach and on it rests homes with an average value of $7-8 million, and guess what bicentennial is upon us?
The creation of the Balboa Peninsula by major flooding~
In LA/OC it boiled down to getting as close to the coast as possible, in terms of Location Location Location!
You might have been in Norco only because that’s where your parents lived, and a dragging yourself up by your equity bootstraps tale of owe might include homes in Fullerton, Costa Mesa and then a small place in Newport Beach, followed by an even smaller place on Lido Isle, game so over.
I am reminded of a YT video from only yesterday about the vanishing East Coast of the UK. Due to sea level rise and the “rebound effect” following retreat of the glaciers (which is making the west of the British Isles rise whilst the east fall) the UK has to deal with towns literally falling in to the sea.
Which it isn’t doing. Duh. Of course it isn’t. We need (as part of a new written constitution) a second chamber that is “somewhat” (note quotes) like the Senate in USA. A chamber that protects the regions, takes a societal view, etc. Perhaps put into a constitution an automatic rule that “if you don’t ensure some Gini-coeffient level of regional equity within 5 years then funding from London is automatically cut and redistributed to worst off regions”. That’d concentrate minds.
I’m increasingly in favour of automatic rules based on hard statistical criteria. Take elected morons and judges out of the equation entirely because if there’s one thing we can take from the USA, (and arguably from the UK): These people aren’t qualified to do the job.
In my town up the coast from Palisades, 1200sf. houses near ocean on small lots get torn down after a sale of 1.2 to 2$M. The Coastal Commission rules require that the foundation and one wall remain. So, after hiring architects skilled at making lemonade out of these “lemons”, a two-story house with exquisite styling is built at a cost of $2-$4M + architect fees. The new owners rarely live in these new homes full-time.
I can imagine the transformation Altadena will see. I know what it looked like there in the 70’s—that era is now gone.
Gotta build with concrete, not wood!
Lessons from the burn zone … (vi L.A. Times)
Re: Larry Fink and longevity. Having dealt with this issue for 40 years of medical practice, I can say he’s not wrong. The key question to ask is what type of job?. Epidemiological data shows that work stress is a function of “locus of control” and those whose jobs curtail their autonomy have higher mortality.
I would add that some sense of meaning or purpose to the work is also a key ingredient for longevity enhancement. We would often encourage our patients to start writing the next book or painting to keep them going, and it did — often into their nineties.
Of course this underscores the need to explore the utopian terrain at the intersection of longevity science, technological development (ie AI and robotics), the prospects for abundance, and the persistence of bullshit jobs……
Assuming we still have a planet…..
Yeah
I’d say this is completely backwards: people in jobs who are isolated and PARTICULARLY if they feel they lack purpose, will retire early if they can. I think the pandemic caused a significant proportion of people to realise just how miserable their job really was and thus why they won’t return.
I worked for many years for the guy who literally wrote the rheumatology textbook used in UK medicine for decades. He taught me all about a phenomenon I saw in my research: among married MF couples. if the woman dies first, the guy usually will follow in short order. Whilst that seems to undercut my point, it actually (and my boss firmly believed this after, you know, talking to patients), showed that too many men relied on their career for validation; their social networks were based on/maintained by their female partner and if she goes, kaboom.
These guys relied on empty jobs and tenuous networks. When their only fallback died, they did too.
Aye
Tam was definitely the society facing part of our dyad.
ive never been gregarious…dont like crowds, etc.
since she died…and since the boys ran off into their lives…i can go for days without seeing another human.
.and, soon after her passing, her oncologist called me…sympathies, etc.
but then she got all serious…told me to go get a physical, pronto…and cited the very things you did…husbands often follow their wives into the grave.
(turns out that. aside from my skeleton, im remarkably healthy)
I, along with a huge community here, are deeply grateful you fought through and continue to give us your pearls of wisdom.
I have a comment in moderation that backs up via arguably the world’s top rheumatologist how men can go downhill. I am so glad you bucked the trend.
Keep us sane Amfortas!
damn, dude…talk about ‘assigning homework’,lol
(/s)
it’ll be 3 years this june
and it hasnt been easy.
this now finally passing winter has actually been the hardest…due mostly to various, mostly unrelated, co-founders.
her plum trees are finally in bloom, though.
so the bees are happy, and are leaving me alone(accidentally got a flowery shampoo(cheapest) in january, and they’ve been hounding me…what with the lack of actual flowers)
ive taken, this winter, to bringing her little jelly jar of ashes(in her coozie, with the drunk bear on a bike) out here to the wilderness bar, with me…when i am to hang out for any length of time.
cant decide if this is pathological or not.
like that viking jarl, speaking to his wife’s skull.
Amfortas, living close to the land requires physical activity, interaction with animals, and awareness of the seasons. These are all activities that extend the life of the mind and body—something city dwellers would aspire to acquire. Best to you.
yup. had my first physical in 3 years a week or more ago…all my numbers are awesome, in spite of all the lard and fancy european cheese.
but my doc was shocked that i had dropped around 30# in that time…i reminded him that, last time, i’d been on the road to san antone for 4 years, dealing with her cancer…and thus eating at micky dee’s and whataburger, etc.
now…i eat homegrown…and indulge in a once a month fried chicken or mexican food…and do a lot of physical work…
and the derned golf cart(Falcon) has been down for six months, so i hafta hoof it to do my thing.
all this is a balancing thing…i eat, and then i work, then i eat.
six meals a day, hobbit style.
i developed a potbelly during her cancer adventure…that has totally gone away…without me even thinking about losing weight(i was as surprised as he was) and im rockin the grampawbod,lol.
at almost 56, im as wirey and lean as i was at 24.
tryin to figger a way to sell this lifestyle to potential farmchicks…and all that^^ plays big into it.
Keep at it! Believe me (77), lifting and hoofing and eating well can lead to a wonderful long life. Tonight is the “Blood Moon” full eclipse. Be sure to look for it on the horizon. It’s a much better look than the TeeVee. Best, again.
Being married has a positive effect on male longevity in general, partlybecause their wives remind them to go get that lump looked at. Sadly it has a much less beneficial effect on women – housework hours for example go UP because she takes in his laundry etc and he doesn’t help around the house nearly as much as he ought. On average, of course.
I don’t know about that. My mother, who was widowed several years ago, has said on multiple locations, how stressful it is to to have to learn how everything works.
She said she used to think my dad just sat around all the time, but now she’s realized that there was a reason that the furnace was always working, the mold was under control, the garage didn’t have families of mice, the list goes on.
In my experience, the people who died soon after retirement were already unhealthy, and had they been able to retire earlier it might have actually improved their health had they used that newfound time to develop healthier lifestyle habits. Some kept working because they genuinely enjoyed their work (or at least told themselves so), but also hadn’t cultivated many outside interests and relied on working for their identity. However, most would have retired decades ago had they been able to afford it. And this being the US, many have kept working for the health insurance because retiring before becoming eligible for Medicare would have sentenced them to penury.
The project my “top boss” (who wrote the book on rheumatology) wanted to do but which came to naught in 2009 when our unit was closed down and I moved to Oz was to try to understand the patients who went into critical failure following joint replacement.
These were patients who according to all physical and mental questionnaires were perfectly suited to having new hip or knee. Yet within 6 months post-op they died with no explanation. My boss loved the quality of life questionnaire I co-developed because he thought one of the dimensions captured the essence of “being valued and having hope about the future” and which might provide insights into why this 5% of patients should NOT get joint replacement but get some strongly interventional mental health stuff first.
Sadly the project died when the tail-end of the Labour govt pulled the plug. Your statement about people being already unhealthy needs a reference to pass muster: my boss was Professor Paul Dieppe. Look him up. He also went through hell as a human shield in Iraq BTW. He is pretty famous.
If I do nothing more than sit staring out the window while drinking a cup of coffee I feel my time is spent with more meaning and purpose than anything I was tasked to do before I retired. I have a large quibble with the notion that autonomy alone is so significant to long life. Those with relative autonomy are often members of the management who give the orders and enjoy the power. I saw what work managers do and it was nothing I could enjoy. I do not recall being gifted autonomy in my work other than in those cases where my tasks were so unimportant that no one cared whether I delivered a product. I worked on u.s. government programs where my most important job was having a clearance, a degree, and some very particular past experience that qualified me to work on program ‘X’. This assured that the firm I worked for received a nice cash flow from the government and I got a cut of roughly half the incoming lucre.
Having a job could be excellent if it didn’t take up 40 hours a week and didn’t require you to drive through snow and ice in the dark as part of the commute. But anything less than 40 hours is unthinkable, and as Sergey Brin said, the sweet spot is 60 hours a week with presumably no overtime pay for you. So all the flexibility has to be on the worker’s side as far as Fink and Brin are concerned. And, let’s face it, a lot of the stress of retirement is Congress always looking for some excuse to scale back or outright kill Social Security and Medicare.
The labor movement really blew it in the ’60s and ’70s by not pushing for a 30 hour work week. That was supposed to be one outcome of automation: fewer hours needed for work and more available to “leisure” or creative pursuits. That could have been the outcome if social policy was not dictated by the rich.
I am not a big fan of Fink – and anything that is said like this I have to take with the realization that there is some part of this that is likely beneficial to the oligarchy.
However, as a physician, I can concur. So many retirees just are lost. They are bored to tears. They often do nothing any more meaningful than watch Judge Judy all day.
This is never good and does not end well.
However, there are many of them who actually begin hobbies they have always wanted to do. They build things, grow things, paint things, etc. They are very fulfilled and do much better than the other cohort.
Then there are the others who continue to work. Many attempt to work full time and full stress. There is simply no way a 65 year old can handle the stress that a 30 year old can – so this often ends in tears.
It must be said when I was a younger physician, the internists, pediatricians, and family practice doctors very often worked into the 80s. The medical staff in those days was filled with 80 year olds. And I think it was very good for them. They seemed to love every minute. They usually only worked a couple of days a week and their wisdom was immensely helpful and appreciated. I believe that drove a lot of them to continue as well. That was, however, in a different era where being a physician was indeed actually very rewarding. Those days are long gone. I had often aspired to do that as well. However, instead of the 80s as it was in my youth, the retirement age for physicians at this point seems to be around 55-62.
I love that idea of a gradual phasing out of work, especially for highly trained people with a lot of valuable experience and wisdom. Daniel Schmachtenberger was talking recently about hunter-gatherer tribes where the middle age cohort went to hunt and gather while the oldsters took care of the kiddies while imparting their wisdom to the tykes. Sounds like a great division of labor to this 71 year-old with grandkids.
Maybe turn the Judge Judy watchers on to NC. That’ll keep ’em occupied. ;)
Great idea. Good luck with that in computer tech fields. I was out of consideration for jobs I qualified for at 50. I once had an interviewing manager say that he wouldn’t hire me because it “felt weird” to hire someone older than he was.
So I do the equivalent of Buddhist sand painting: working on my on projects which I greatly enjoy and keeps me constantly learning. I’m a better engineer and coder than ever, but the idea of hiring a 71 year old would be about as likely as hiring a corpse. In their minds, it’s pretty much the same. (Not that I particularly want to be part of the corporate world again). Especially ironic given the shortage of capable, qualified people in my field – just part of the general decay of our society I suppose.
– Rick, Life Senior Member, Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, former senior engineer/member technical staff. BSEE, ECE MEng.
I think that despite the general decay there are more resources available especially of people, but the people ostensibly managing things are too busy trying to do as little as possible because it takes thought, often original, to do so.
I am also a 71 year old coder, and let’s face it. We are about as common as 97 year old alpinists.
My father was lucky enough to be able to retire that way – first 4 days of work, then 3, etc. until he could phase work out entirely. It took a couple of years and allowed him to hand off long term projects or see them through, and get used to a slower pace of life. He also ramped up his hobbies during the same time.
Continued employment in a job where you have expertise that’s highly valued and you feel like you’re fulfilling some responsibility to the rest of humanity–yes, that could be very desirable, even at an advanced age. Working as a devalued, insecure drone in an underpaid and zero prestige job to implement stupid decisions of overpaid higher ups–no, that would be one your health would benefit by getting away from at a much earlier age–if you had some minimal financial security, that is. And, unfortunately, many more jobs are of the second sort in this country, and the people working at them can never quite get that minimal financial security before “austerity” and/or “inflation” take it away again. In many cases like that, your job demands so much time and energy that your only social contacts get whittled down to work-related ones, which means even getting free from the bad job ends up depriving you of some psychological positives (along with the steady wage). I don’t know if we really are afflicted by the “Protestant work ethic”, but there is something irrational, in an almost religious sense, in how we valorize the idea of work when so much of it is disrespected and poorly compensated in practice.
aye.
except for the opportunity to meet people(esp womyn), i dont miss working, at all,lol.
i mean, i could surely do with another coupla hundred dollars per month…but the disrespect by bosses and frelling customers(this was foodservice), i can do without.
i am self directed in just about everything i do, these days…save for the 2 times per day must do critter chores(which effectively ties me to the place, even if i had the means to go out on the town)…and the necessitudes surrounding my skeleton.
other than those 2 constraints(well, and lack of money,lol) i do pretty much what i want, how i want, and when i want.
i probably would not have survived after Tam’s death otherwise.
find me a nudist, beerdrinking farm gal, and i’m all set.
I dunno if this helps but I’m a gay guy who having had his world implode when COVID hit and doesn’t meet any eligible guys I get where you’re coming from.
Every day is a trial, what with caring responsibilities, not overdoing things so I suffer a long covid relapse etc…..
I look back to my nudist days on a Sydney beach with envy! I’m wrapped up in British weird weather 24/7 these days.
misplaced my reply, Terry:
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2025/03/russian-negotiator-reiterates-russian-nyet-on-ceasefire-even-before-us-emissary-steve-witkoff-arrives-in-moscow.html#comment-4188807
My grandfather finally did retire-retire in his late 90s, after his vision failed. He was a chemist by trade, and an avid gardener– well-known in some circles for his rose varitals and orchids.
While he did retire in his 60s to pension and Social Security, he kept taking on projects and contracts that interested him. His wife was a consummate homemaker, but also worked as an organist for several churches– let there be no doubt that she ran the roost, with an iron-hand at that.
My grandmother was mostly a vegetarian, albeit not a strict one– just didn’t like to eat meat. My grandfather therefore rarely ate meat, rarely drank and then only beer or wine– never to excess. He lived to 100, and she followed a few years later at 99.
My father retired at 67… and did nothing, nothing but eat much, drink much, watch a lot of TV, go to Vegas and on cruses for more over-indulgence. Now at 83, he’s been bedridden for over a year in nursing care, and he will never go home again.
I am ashamed of my father, and for many reasons: long ago I swore I would never be or allow myself to become like that man.
Re: banning Chinese nationals from getting student visas,
I think I get the administration’s “logic”, if Chinese nationals come to American universities, many of them will take their training back to China and help Chiva develop.
But this is quite a dim approach, I say this as an academic, and a STEM faculty, for the following reasons:
1) A lot (most? all?) of Chinese nationals pay the full international tuition. They subsidize American students. They also subsidize the rental markets around universities which keeps one of Trump’s bases (landlords) happy.
2) At both the undergraduate and graduate level, many of the best students are Chinese nationals due to their culture of academic excellence. Far in excess of their numbers. They raise intellectual standards in the classroom, and scientific productivity in the laboratory.
3) It’s no longer the case that American universities are overwhelmingly the best in the world. Tsinghua, Beijing Normal, Nanjing, etc etc are rapidly catching up to and surpassing their American peers. I doubt many Chinese students get a better education by going to MIT or Washington. But, they do get international cultural exposure.
Though it won’t happen, I think that one thing that would help the USA would be if a billionaire set up a Rhodes -like scholarship program to send young American elites to Chinese universities for a few years. Give them exposure.
I agree with your intentions. Trouble is I’ve seen how things play out in the real world. Two anecdotes:
My BFF (Brit who from mid 1990s immersed himself in Japanese stuff, is now very very senior at Tokyo Uni, Japanese wife, has a son) set up a course intended to link 3 or 4 UK universities with Japanese ones to promote cultural understanding via “new media” etc has revealed to me that the course is in severe trouble. The UK is losing first-world status and Japan is running out of young people.
When I worked for 6 years (2009 onwards) in Sydney I never taught undergrads. However, colleagues did. One was horrified and asked me (perhaps because he thought I was less likely to “judge him” whether he was being too harsh) about the submitted essays for exams. The ones from the (large number of) Chinese students were atrocious. He frankly stated that “there is NO WAY these students could’ve passed the English student requirement required by Aussie law”. I looked and couldn’t disagree. Plus I saw what we now know to be AI and auto-copying. This guy was gutted. German and worked hard to get fluency in English and then see all of this?
Then I started to see things in MY field: blatantly fraudulent Chinese papers for review. Don’t get me wrong……I think there is a LOT of good Chinese research going on and we the “the west” should not ignore the fact we’re being overtaken. Just be sure who are the real innovators and who are imposters.
In my circles Australia had the reputation of admitting any student who could write a check. Close to me UC Irvine, locally known as University of China in Irvine, maintained standards while appearing to give preference to foreign students paying full price. The complaints I’ve heard here are about students with very high test scores, grades, etc. being forced to go to school in Arizona because they couldn’t get into a UC. Removing admissions quotas did not work out the way they’d expected.
Didn’t llke to say this but yeah, having attended top level meetings in place of my boss who hated them, I have to say that seems totally true from what I could see.
Graduates of my Uni were automatically discounted by me because in most cases I would consider them illiterate and innumerate. Unfortunately those descriptors now apply to my local GPs back here in UK. Do I sound angry? Yeah it’s because I am.
The UC student population data does not ascribe nationality in the survey. The survey is self-reported. So there is no telling when a student who ascribes to “Asian” is from China or SoCal or San Francisco. The “Asian” undergrad students at UCIrvine comprise 36% of student body. At UCBerkeley it is 37%.
Asians (Chinese, in particular) seem to be culturally attracted to the academic rigor of Science and are noted for their advanced skill in high school. In any case, a college education is available to any California student, from the community college level on up. The CC system is a great place to get up to speed and enter the very competitive UC system.
Several years ago I was told by a professor that if I had applied to graduate school (now)15-20 years ago I’d have gotten in with no problem, but that unfortunately I’d “been washed out by the tidal wave of chinese and indians” and that there was no hope for me. This professor had seen what had happened since this all had started. So I’m all for this legislation. Past time to take care of our own. If their universities are so great, then they have no need to come here. I’ve seen too many negative things and very few positive things from these folks over the years. Fraud(admissions like Terry says above, and data), cheating, fudging data, the works. Plenty of stories.
Thanks. One of my now most definitely FORMER friends working at University of Nottingham (look up its China links) told me stuff.
I can’t, for the benefit of one (USA) person who expressed a “WTF?” comment to my reticence recently, say what I’d like to say. Except to say it’s not pretty.
I can hold two views in mind at the same time: namely that China as a country is vastly outperforming “western” countries but that there is also gross corruption that is horrifying and which I can’t detail here courtesy of our Beloved Leader Starmer.
«Past time to take care of our own.»
Why not? Harvard and Yale are taking care of their own.
This is more in line with my experience teaching high school level math in Thailand for a few years. The Chinese girls were OK, but the male students were generally uninterested and undisciplined. I usually found it best to let them sleep in class. Of course I wasn’t a very good teacher. I will say they did well on the exams.
I agree that banning Chinese nationals from getting student visas is not a wise policy decision for the reasons you indicated. However, each of the reasons you provided also serve as a stunning critique of the present state of the u.s. educational system, the Neoliberalization of the u.s. system of higher education, and the status of science and engineering in the u.s. Reviewing each of the reasons in your comment:
1) I believe it is incorrect to suggest that Chinese nationals studying in the u.s. subsidize American students. I believe foreign nationals, including the Chinese, pay full international tuition, and almost exclusively study STEM specializations. What are the costs per head for English literature or other non-STEM students versus the costs per head for students of science and engineering? I believe the labs and research programs that are an integral part of training STEM students are much more expensive than the costs associated with studies in the Humanities. If all the costs are added up I believe the u.s. government is subsidizing the training of Chinese scientists and engineers.
2) That Chinese nationals raise the intellectual standards in the classroom and the productivity in labs seems like a deadly critique of the u.s. educational system, and I believe provides an indirect critique of the way jobs in science and engineering in the u.s. have been degraded by Neoliberalism. The u.s. public school system has been transformed into a Taylorist nightmare of testing. Colleges and universities in the u.s. have become so expensive relative to the job world that many students must choose their ‘calling’ based on its future remuneration and the likelihood of finding employment. Even before the Trump-Musk gutting of u.s. research the prospects for employment with a STEM degree offers little to entice the best and brightest u.s. students into STEM. The rewards to long years of poverty and long hours of study required for training in STEM is typically rewarded with long years of poverty and long hours of study on problems someone else selects, and long hours writing proposals to continue tenuous flows of funding. I am mystified that any one would be so dedicated to science that the rewards of a post doc researcher or an associate professorship with its small hope of gaining ten-year would entice anyone to study STEM in the u.s. My impression of current STEM jobs outside academia is that they are as evanescent as the other jobs in this age of 3-month efficiencies and job exporting.
3) The universities in the u.s. like much of the rest of the u.s. educational system have declined through the decades of Neoliberal policy. If only administrators contributed to the quality of education in proportion to their presence and costs it would Make American Higher Education Great Again, MAHEGA.
May I refer you to my first hand experience above? China, as a country, can and does produce amazing students and academics. If Australia and certain British Unis just set up schemes to accept, for want of a better word, the trash, in order to gain $$$$ and prestige then we deserve all we’re getting.
I’ll re-iterate – I would NEVER hire a Chinese National to work for me during my 6 years in Australia. They were uniformly illiterate and innumerate. The Hong Kong people under me were another story – brilliant, could anticipate problems, etc.
I have my own experience from having worked at multiple top-100 universities in the USA.
Chinese-national students are for the most part very good, many of them are exceptional, and the stated cheating problems come off as a racist myth. I have seen Chinese-national students do well on closed book, handwritten exams in human handwriting (so no AI), and on original and independent scientific research.
I’m comfortable assuming that any undergraduate paying full tuition at a lot of American universities, say $50,000-$80,000/year, is subsidizing the system as a whole.
The rest of your points though are indeed harder to deal with.
>Climate – NC H.B. 362 Clean Skies Geoengineering Ban
Another state submits legislation prohibiting “atmospheric modification”
The General Assembly of North Carolina enacts:
7 SECTION 1. G.S. 143-213 is amended by adding a new subdivision to read:
8 “(5b) The term “atmospheric modification” means stratospheric aerosol injection
9 (SAI), cloud seeding, electromagnetic radio frequency or microwave radiation
10 emissions, or other atmospheric polluting activity affecting temperature,
11 weather, intensity of sunlight, the environment, agriculture, wildlife, human
12 health and safety, aviation, state security, or the economy of the State. The
13 term does not include the application of pesticides via aircraft under a license
14 issued by the Pesticide Board pursuant to Article 52 of this Chapter.”
https://www3.ncleg.gov/Sessions/2025/Bills/House/PDF/H362v0.pdf
I’m getting deja vu: https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2025/03/a-generational-loss-of-talent-scientist-warns-funding-cuts-in-science-tech-and-health-undermine-u-s-leadership.html#comment-4185831
Thanks for this. My curiosity was piqued, so I checked for information about who was behind these bills and came up with this very revealing article from an outfit with which I was not familiar called Pluribus News.
According to them, it’s MAGA Republicans and Chem-Trailers behind the bills. Just a bunch of conspiracy nuts, says Pluribus News and their most quoted expert, Joshua Horton, who is identified in the article as “a senior program fellow at the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at Harvard’s Kennedy School.”
Pluribus News neglected to mention that Horton is also “Program Manager” at “The Harvard Solar Geoengineering Research Program (SGRP).” That is quite interesting since Harvard announced a year ago that it was ending its solar geoengineering efforts:
So what I take from the Pluribus News piece is that the same forces who are pushing hopes of successful geoengineering as a way of continuing Business As Usual are continuing their effort. As someone who accepts that we are heating up the planet, and that the precautionary principle points us toward many things we might do before the Hail Mary of solar geogengineering, I’m happy to align with these MAGA legislators to stop our crazy elites from experimenting with the planet even more recklessly.
Curious news source, that Pluribus News. I rather like the concept, federating news from US state legislatures, but if I were the author of the story, sole owner, and publisher of Pluribus News, I’m not sure I’d end my CV with
«In 2012, Comedy Central named Reid “The Greatest Political Mind of Our Time.”»
https://pluribusnews.com/about-pluribus-news/
They’re not at all transparent about funding sources, but the CVs of their writers and editors suggests to me that the money involved is not insignificant.
Looking at Reid’s X feed, the articles are mostly standard D-party stuff, but the geoengineering piece suggests broader interests.
Double Antidote?
Large study shows drinking alcohol is good for your cholesterol levels
I love booze….but IMO, it’s pretty clear that overall booze is net negative, and that any positive alcohol-related effects can be achieved via other means.
The countries with longest life expectancies generally have punatitive alcohol taxes (the Scandis) or the populace (on aggregate) just doesn’t drink to any extreme (East Asia).
ymmv. that said, Happy St Patrick’s Day. Slainte
Maybe, if you do not have heart disease in your family. When it comes to diet and health, genetics plays a large role.
In Scandinavia, the taxes did not eliminate alcohol use, but lowered consumption. But then that means only the rich benefit from alcohol as a medicine. Most deaths from alcohol are from heavier drinkers (AUD), and moderate drinkers have better health outcomes. Two shots of vodka a day is the sweet spot for me.
Yeah alcohol usage has a HUGE number of confounding variables that contribute to the ever changing messaging about whether “a bit is good or bad for you”.
Let’s be clear. It impairs your liver. However, lots of other things we do/take also do that. Alcohol in moderate amounts can also mitigate certain things (thus resulting in thinner blood and fewer blood clots etc). However, this is VERY much a difficult issue in terms of getting that “perfect maximum effect” so I absolutely do not condone it. People like KLG on here are the ones who can give a more informed view.
Alcohol impairs brain function. Not just in short term but in memory etc over long-term. This isn’t controversial. However, if you’re “coming from a high baseline” (like certain people I know) then a deterioration takes them down from “fanstastic” to merely “OK”.
Postscript: the TYPE of alcohol matters too. I’m on an antidepressant which prohibits me from taking alcoholic drinks that are “darker” (hypertensive crisis). I can drink, in moderation, “colourless” ones. The whole issue of digestion of different types of booze is frankly above my paygrade. I just stick to rules I’ve been told or researched.
Those Scandinavian Pietists never give up.
A former German Lutheran and beer drinker ;)
Teleb was writing on this subject recently with his usual tact. He seems to think that most population based alcohol studies are ‘detecting’ non existent negative impacts.
Every time someone harps on about the dangers of alcohol I usually ask them why there are no non or low- alcohol consuming countries (e.g Middle east, north Africa), Indonesia) high on the list of countries by life expectancy. If anything, the top 10 is dominated by heavy drinking nations like Japan, South Korea, Australia, Spain and Italy.
Clearly, excess alcohol consumption is dangerous, and so too probably is mid-range consumption (i.e around the usual recommended limits of 20 or so units a week). But there are so many confounding factors I doubt very much if moderate drinking has significant health impacts.
Yep. BTW British GPs have been told there is a new “rule from on high”: patients are being told to drink no more than 10-14 units per week.
The relevant NHS webpage
https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/alcohol-advice/calculating-alcohol-units/
says
> 14 units is equivalent to 6 pints of average-strength beer …
Right. One pint a day Mon – Sat, with Sunday off for _____ [insert deity of choice]??? Just whom are they trying to kid here?
Yep. My comment above was a bit lacking in real world examples compared to yours but that’s the message I wanted to convey :-)
Perhaps the IRL issue in these “dark times” is the addictiveness and tendency for so many people to fall in to such a “disease of despair” as it has been called on here.
the Islamic countries have insane per capita sugar intakes. Hardcore East Asian drinking is a media-driven myth when you look at the actual data.
Spain is the interesting outlier. ..but given all counfounding variables, it is arguable that Spain could top the longevity league tables if they eased up on the alcohol
Spain is interesting. There is now a wealth of anthropological evidence that middle age Europeans didn’t sleep 8 hours. They’d typically sleep a few hours, chat etc, then go back to sleep. Overall number of hours was less than required in our “modern” model.
They also were often “drunk to the gills”. when there was no work for them to do. But the alcohol was low percentage beer and mead.
Spain has been suffering because it is trying to “match the EU model – read German model – of work”. 9-5. No more siestas. But when your non-work-life involves eating late and not sleeping for long overnight then something must give.
It is not only Islamic countries. Christian sects that oppose alcohol are similar. The Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) had quite the chocolate empire going with Cadbury, Rowntree’s, and Fry’s.
https://www.quaker.org.uk/blog/quakers-and-chocolate
Japan and Italy are not heavy drinking countries. Japan comes in at 71st and Italy at 79th for alcohol consumption. 40% of Italians are non-drinkers and 35% of Japanese. Spain comes in at 39th, South Korea at 38th and Australia at 9th is the only one that can be considered a heavy-drinking country. What they all have in common is good healthcare systems and first world lifestyles and education.
Moderate alcohol use still comes with substantial risks. Even light alcohol consumption increases breast cancer risks by up to 15%. Drinking 8.5 units of alcohol per week (about 4 pints) has a 1 in 100 risk of dying from alcohol use.
I am not surprised about Japan: haven’t Japanese that genetic quirk that makes them react quite rapidly and strongly (i.e. getting sick) to alcohol intake?
As Terry Flynn pointed out, these studies based have so many cofounders it’s next to impossible to know what’s causing what. The study said most of the drinkers were obese fish eaters and did indeed point out that because of Japanese genetics may not be applicable to other populations. many Asians do indeed have the gene you referred to. My Hong Kong friend could only drink 1 beer before turning bright red and getting drunk when I knew him as a young man but he seemed to build up a tolerance over time.
Thanks for shout out. Two ethnically Han Hong Kong employees under me were careful about booze. I knew the issue so never pressed it when we did the Aussie boozy night out (sometimes a Karaoke thing to kinda span the west-east divide).
Yet over a 5 year period saw them drink more, without issues, which surprised me. I did idly wonder if the Asian “bad-alcohol” gene could be overcome…….I only have anecdotes……
Yeah the tolerance thing was interesting and I saw it too but in the interests of balance I feel I must point out my (boring to regular viewers) mean/variance issue.
High variance – in this case binge drinking – can be VERY different to low level (small mean, low variance) drinking. Your liver can take a lot of abuse….until suddenly it can’t. Cue 4 days of hell as you die. Kidneys can experience short-term failure as a “warning sign” and you might be OK afterwards.
I wonder what the “drinking culture” is in these countries? It really really makes a difference.
I am feeling contemplative on March 13th. It’s a day of anniversaries – for me, the pandemic hit full force on March 13, 2020. That was the day both kiddos were sent home from school, and my boss sent us all home as well, to work from home and never to see an edifice wreck again except to turn in some equipment.
Happy Pandemic Fifth Anniversary, or “pan-niversary.”
March 13th was also the date of the 1993 “Storm of the Century” that hit the entire E. Coast. I was living in Maryland at the time and we only got 3 inches of slush that turned into ice. But parts of Pennsylvania and Virginia got 2-3 feet, a squall line spawned tornadoes in Florida, the Atlanta ‘burbs got 8″ of snow, and the cold front blasted all the way south of Cuba, bringing frost to the mountains.
Wow, 5 years ago… Tempus Fugit
We were quite hep to Kung Flu goings on from January on-here on NC, and I was mostly prepared for something wicked this way comes, there’d been a group of LA skiers in Italy that got sick and a few died and that freaked me out, and maybe a few days before March 13th I decided that I needed to fill my chest freezer and bought $400 worth of frozen food at the supermarket, and was the 22nd person in a very long line of shopping carts that wound down an entire aisle, one of 4 conga lines of sorts heading to the checkouts.
People were freaked…
And who can forget the great toilet paper shortage? Fights breaking out in aisles over the last 6-pack of Charmin.
“hey honey, how was your day?”
“Just fine, sweet cakes. I used my patented Ali left jab to fend off a little old lady and grab the last roll. But she got me with an upper cut as I tried to make my escape …”
Juana and I were in Spain, visiting our expat daughter, when we were forewarned by NC. I moved our return flight up two weeks.
On the street at 5 AM on March 15 there was no one but Spanish soldiers everywhere. We got the last flight to Oslo.
In Oslo, we were in the bag check line for our Ft. Lauderdale flight home, when the flight was canceled and the Norwegian Army appeared. Without a ticket out of Norway, they were herding us to a quarantine hotel, and would not let us out of the bag room, even to go to the ticket counter.
Fortunately, one of the Norwegian soldiers let us use his phone with a SIM card that worked, and online I was able to book two last seats to Gatwick, and a hotel room where we could get eight hour’s sleep.
When we got to Gatwick, the hotel was ‘closed’. Norwegian Air found us another, and we got three hours of sleep. The next day, we arrived to an eerily empty Ft Lauderdale airport.
We are blessed that this is the closest we have come to being refugees.
Correct me if I am wrong but I seem to remember that at the time, that a bunch of your friends were planning a skiing trip and you were debating whether to go or not as you knew it it be a bad idea.
Yeah, it was our March trip to Mammoth with the Dartful Codgers and I was struggling with going or not going and finally opted out a few days before-and everybody else was going-and then the ski resort closed for good the day before the usual 4 day skein on skid row, and everybody was told to pack their bags and get gone.
> The Body Snatching Years ¡Do Not Panic!
>> And from the beginning of the pandemic the after was forced on us.
> Against Nihilism NEFARIOUS RUSSIANS
>> I guess this turn to cynicism coincided with the collapse of the Bernie movement and Covid
5 years. Almost like a WWIII. Dr. David Martin has the receipts.
Yeah this was the day. Went back to my calendar and checked. We were in Delhi, planning on going to Jodhpur for 4 days when it became very clear from the news that it was not a good idea to stay away from home any longer. I think the trigger for me was Trump banning flights. Before that it looked like it might be somewhat under control. I told the lady at the front desk that I was nervous about staying any longer and that inimitable Indian fashion, she said, “you’re right, sir. It is a very bad situation.” The absolutely wonderful people at our hotel bundled us off to the airport immediately and helped me get through what was quickly becoming madness at the ticket counters to get on the next flight out. I think a week later, India went into lockdowns.
That was the beginning of where we are now. I want to finish that trip someday. Jodhpur is a lovely city.
It’s thanks to NC that I took the crisis seriously.
If not for NC I would have been blissfully unaware, at least of the extreme threat that SARS2 poses. I would have casually accepted the proffered public health wisdom that washing your hands is sufficient. I came around quickly to masking by late March/April based on strong evidence presented here that SARS2 is primarily spread via airborne transmission, a fact that is somehow (liability, capitalism, paradigm inertia) still ignored by hospital infection control and public health.
Sigh.
I won’t easily forget how the MSM lied to us, ‘oh, it’s just another virus, we’ll all be fine.’ Also Fauci telling us not to wear masks in February 2020.
The day they canceled March Madness was when I realized that shit just got real. When sportsball gets 86-d, you know that something baaaad is coming. Too much money at stake unless its apocalypse time.
oh man. i remember. we had just finished up my school musical and everyone was talking about who might have covid at the performance. then there was an announcement that we should all take our books home because we might not be coming back. my family was hyper prepared and immediately started foraging for food. then we realized we didn’t need to a few days later.
i was pissed because i had just turned 16 that week and was supposed to get my first job and drivers license. but i couldn’t attend driving lessons and nobody was working. had to wait an extra year. rip.
Five years ago. Wow. It was the night of March 12th here – after tracking the progression of the new virus for months here, at a show, a friend mentioned she was excited to go to Vegas for a Ween show. An hour later, she’s telling me it was canceled. That’s when I knew.
Then the masking lies from Fauci – and the homemade masks. I had no more business so I researched the best cotton fabric, ended up getting some beautiful Indonesian batik and made dual-layer black/batik reversible masks. It was difficult to get elastic for headloops. Made about 75, gave bags of them to the nearby grocery store. Remember “essential workers”? Crikey. But I’m proud of those masks. I wish I could test them for actual efficacy. I bet the batik fabric (recommended by a university trial found here at NC :)) is actually pretty decent. They’re still great dust masks. I wonder how many are still out there kicking around in folk’s drawers.
Contrary to a lot of folks I loved the summer of 2020. There was no work to possibly do so it was the first time in my then 35 years that I didn’t feel the need to hustle and could ride bikes and just exist in the Portland summer. And it felt like the world of oblivious Americans had finally caught up to feeling of impending doom that had been bothering me for years. Well, here it was. Here’s the disaster, such as it was, and here’s how bad our supposed leaders are at protecting us from it. There’s no pretending now.
Also, Amfortas, don’t you think about leaving this planet yet. At least leave us with a good book before you do! There’s so much in that noggin of yours.
i dont intend to go anywheres anytime soon,lol.
too interested in watching imperial decline.
and my boys, of course.
youngest in college at Texas Tech…eldest working like a dog and living with my future daughterinlaw…i expect grandbabies in the near to mid term.
(got a lil practice, since his dog, my granddog, has been livin with me since he ran off with her,lol)
NHK’s morning drama おむすび (Omusubi) this week is also revisiting the start of the pandemic:
(google translation)
Rather than “looking back at the correct answer from a modern perspective,” the drama realistically portrayed the chaos of the time: How did the morning drama “Omusubi” portray the COVID-19 pandemic?
https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/e21599c34647b3c9fa75ecd1f50782fcc68f211c
I do remember the 1993 storm. We lived in Syracuse. You can imagine what that meant.
Yeah, I remember Covid too.
I was in New York City for the Big East Tournament when that 1993 storm hit — that was something.
“Ukraine war briefing: Putin visits Kursk as Trump threatens consequences if ceasefire not agreed”
Well it looks like Trump now owns the Ukraine war. It is no longer Biden’s war – which he could have walked away from – but it has now become Trump’s war. He has jumped with both feet into the Ukrainian rasputitsa and may not be able to get out. That article, by the way, had the following headline-
‘The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said Washington wanted Moscow’s agreement with no strings attached.’
No strings attached? That is not how diplomacy works – or any negotiation for that matter. But then it got worse, Much worse. I heard Rubio talking in a video a little while ago and he said this-
“What is the point of spending all this time to get a ceasefire hopefully and then a negotiated end to the war only to see it respark up again in about six years, four years three years?” Rubio said. “We’re not interested in that. They certainly aren’t either.”
I thought great, they get it. A final settlement. But then he said the following-
“I think the question is really more about a deterrence. Can Ukraine create a sufficient deterrent against future aggression, against future attack, against future invasion? Because every country in the world has a right to defend themselves and no-one can dispute that. So that will most certainly have to be part of the conversation. But again, there isn’t a peace to secure until you have a peace. But there’s no way to have an enduring peace without the deterrence piece being a part of it.”
Thud! He is talking about building up a new massive Ukrainian military after this war which would be their fourth I think. But a major reason that Russia went to war was the NATO trained & equipped Ukrainian military that had been built up to attack Russia with. This new one would constantly threaten the new Russian Oblasts including Crimea and would leave the Russians back at square one. Where would the Ukrainians get the manpower for this new army? I am sure that the US and the EU would force all military-age Ukrainian men and women back to the Ukraine to ‘rebuild’ but who would quickly find themselves in this new monster army. And the US military and NATO would be on the ground training them and equipping them so there are your boots on the ground waiting to be a trip wire for the next planned war. Trump – you are such an idiot.
The strategy parallels Joe Biden and Antony Blinken’s “dead cat” Gaza diplomacy.
Create a plan so odious that you know the other side won’t accept it. Then drop the dead cat on your opponents door step, rancid and reeking. When they won’t take the “deal”, yell “look – they killed muh cat!”
Have listened to Duran guys debating which of the Euro “peace/ceasefire plans” Trump’s is closest to. Point being they noted this could be seen as Euro Critters out-smarting the famously “smart” Trump and bring him back into their agenda. Not a good look for the famously crafty deal maker President.
One this is for sure: The West is once again The Collective West and united against Russia on Ukraine. For now.
Which means Trump will likely be blamed when Ukraine loses in a way even The West calls it a lose.
It seems you can pick and choose what Trump’s policy is on any issue depending on what day he said it. He may not even remember what he said the day before.
And of course the first time around there was zero message discipline as underlings–i.e. Nikki Haley–would announce their own positions on controversies.
At any rate reports this morning say that Putin himself has already rejected the cease fire.
I think that you are right-
‘Russia is not interested in temporary solutions to the Ukraine conflict and instead wants to achieve a lasting peaceful settlement that takes Moscow’s interests and concerns into account, President Vladimir Putin’s foreign policy aide Yury Ushakov has said.
Meanwhile, US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff has arrived in Moscow and is preparing to hold talks with the Russian side, presumably to inform of the results of the Jeddah talks and the details of the Ukraine ceasefire proposal.’
https://www.rt.com/russia/614149-russia-ukraine-no-temporary-truce/
If I was Putin, I would counter-offer his idea from last year. That the Ukraine abandon all territory belonging to the four new Oblasts and when they have moved out – with their safety guaranteed – then there will be a ceasefire. I thought of a big spanner to Trump’s plans earlier today. I am sure I read that it was in the Russian Constitution that it is forbidden to negotiate Russian territories away. As those four Oblasts are under partial occupation, then Russia cannot accept a position where they will settle for a freeze as that would be equivalent to negotiating them away. Just to make it fun, Zelensky has just made a statement that he will get all that territory back again, including Crimea. It’s going to be a fun meeting between Witkoff and the Russians.
Agree that Putin’s best bet here (not that I am any sort of diplomat) would be to present a counter. Legally, that makes the original offer from party A (Trump) null and void. It’s as if it never happened – it’s a dead letter.
That “puts the ball back in Trump’s court” to use a phrase we’ve heard a lot, lately.
Of course, Trump may chose to portray the counter as a refusal to a “take it or leave it” deal, and try to play the dead-cat blame game.
And he spoke from the Russian HQ in Kursk theatre, wearing military camouflage instead of the usual suit, and with a large operational map on the table in front of him. Those optics are not accidental
Until we see Trump walking around ala Winston in a camo siren suit, all bets are off.
ZH reports the Russian answer is nyet.
7 or so point response.
One referred to Minsk, aka US not agreements trustworthy
Another said one agreement not mini stops
Well, if that’s true, and despite the ZH pedigree, I don’t doubt it, then Trump is cooked.
He’s got two choices, well, maybe three:
1. Abandon Project Ukraine, throw it into Europe’s lap.
2. Fight on, Biden 2.0, might as well bring back Blinken and fire Rubio, and roll Mike Johnson into a darkened room, coercing him into passing more aid packages with Dem votes;
3. Take Putin’s nyet as a counter, but this will require months of delicate diplomacy, while barking Chihuahuas and war whores nip at his heels from the right.
Sadly I see 2 as likely choice.
Trump could bring a husband of newNH Congress woman named Jake back too
I think LBJ 1965.
60 years since LBJ 180 to quagmire, domino too.
I see Biden more as a brain-dead version of LBJ, with Trump playing the role of Nixon … promising to get out in ’72, but it was a long time from the summer of love until the last helicopter took off from a roof in Saigon.
It is very difficult for a US politician to “book a defeat” even when the defeat was set up in a prior administration.
Businessmen, sometimes, will “take the hit” and write off a losing venture.
But in the MIC and propaganda driven US, the USA always has morality on its side, and when foreign citizens die, it was for their own good.
If the Ukrainian war effort was diminishing the value of our gilded elites’ stock portfolios and/or killing their sons/grandsons in the fighting, the USA would move toward cutting its losses.
I remember the Vietnam War times well, and the media and politicians, except for a few (McGovern, Gravel, McCarthy), did not stray from the party line.
And popular music took a stance against the war.
Now we don’t have politicians that will speak out, and we are led into wars by Chickenhawks such as Trump, Biden, Obama, Bush Jr and Cheney.
And this time “empowered” women have joined in: such as HRC, Samantha Power, the late Madeline Albright, Victoria Nuland and Ann-Marie Slaughter,
Power and Slaughter have justified military interventions (Libya) as humanitarian operations by the “Responsibility 2 Protect” doctrine.
I am not optimistic that Trump will admit the Ukrainian defeat until it is obvious to the entire world, with the USA population last to know,
I think you’re overlooking another possibility. Declare war against Russia (or don’t bother, Congress won’t care) and attack with all our air forces. Infantry invasion would take too long to build up, but Trump might end up doing that, too. Of course we’d lose catastrophically, but a large part of the neocons don’t believe that. I wonder if anyone would try to convince Trump it’s a terrible idea?
I wonder if the camo garb for Putin was just there for…camouflage? Instead of to send some kind of message? He was entering a war zone where presumably enemy drones could pop by, so why make it easy for them to spot him? But having it be some kind of semiotic signal probably does make for a cooler narrative.
I like today’s antidote. Is that Rick Wakeman’s cat?
Must be named Anne Boleyn.
It’s the ghost in the machine. / ;)
What is it about black cats in that they will appear out of nowhere and the least likely places?
‘They’re creepy and they’re kooky
Mysterious and spooky
They’re all together ooky
The black cats we all know’
Blackie (no points for originality there…) looks like the fellow traveler and is quite the mysterian. He practically demanded to be let loose this morning into the pouring rain and lingering darkness. I really never know where he goes.
bob the cat is the same way.
vanishes into the night…or day…and yowls at a door when he wants to come in and lay about and/or pester me(he’s like 15, now…and thus, an old man.)
(and that aint nuthin,lol…i got one of my original goose, Dick(Cheney…we ate lil george after he bit my ass one too many times), who is…as his name suggests, at least 25 years old.
(they can live past 40).
i can only tell he’s who he is due to a mark on his neck feathers that he apparently hatched with.
the rest of them are pretty much interchangeable…save for the black satangeese(recessive gene, boy’s terminology).
cant even tell males from females, save during mating/nesting.
(and i run up with a can of spray paint…to hissing hostile madness…)
only way to tell if its a male is to capture one and stick a fanger up their…vent…and feel for the corkscrew shaped johnson.
If anyone is wondering what has that cat gotten itself into, it’s modular analog synthesizer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moog_synthesizer
Certainly not pedigree: just a plain ol’ mooggie…
Lol!
It’s a black Moogie!
(Aw, I see now the scroll has jumped to the comment insertion point that this joke has been made. But it’s a good one!)
That was a very good story about Spartacus and the Palestinians but I would like to point out one inaccuracy. IIRC there was a black actor in the movie. He was the gladiator who actually started the rebellion when he jumped out of the pit into the royal viewing box and ran a spear through the Roman governor of the province.
Also, there was another Spartacus rebellion which happened when the US government ordered the major publishing companies not to publish Howard Fasts’s book. Fast and his Communist friends published it themselves. They set the type and arranged for the printing and found bookstores to sell the book. It is probably the most important first edition ever published in US history. Kirk Douglas bought the book in one of those heroic bookstores and saw its potential as a movie.
Woody Strode and the Roman governor got what was coming to him.
Speaking of Spartacus, I can’t help but mention John Simkin’s blog.
https://spartacus-educational.com
Politico: Rahm Emanuel is gearing up to inflict a presidential run on the U.S. voter.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
[I wonder how many “ha”s I can get in the comment before the Esteemed Founder of the Site gives me a conk on the head.]
Having lived through years of Rahm, including the Dubious Age of his mayorship of Chicago, I can’t see how he has a way forward.
Then there’s this: ‘ “In seventh grade, if I had known I could’ve said the word ‘they’ and gotten in the girls’ bathroom, I would’ve done it,” he said. “We literally are a superpower, we’re facing off against China with 1.4 billion people and two-thirds of our children can’t read eighth grade level.” ‘
Typicaly Rahm. Kick down (bathrooms). Go belligerent (China). And lie about it: I lived in the Edgewater neighborhood near the Trumbull Elementary School when Rahm shut down fifty-one public schools. In an amazing coinkydink, fifty where in minority neighborhoods, mainly black. Trumbull was sacrificed as the “white school,” that supposedly didn’t have enough students enrolled.
Can’t read? Someone can’t read. And it may not be the typical U.S. adult.
I don’t see a way forward for him, either. I can think of few people in the Democratic party with such a long resume’ that could be cynically exploited by Republicans on the campaign trail. Vance going to the Rust Belt and talking ad infinitum about Emanuel’s part in pushing NAFTA, alone, would doom his campaign.
Who could forget his support for cat food commissions and calling those who wanted single payer “retarded” during the Obama administration? He would have no chance, whatsoever.
I’ll bet there are many ways the economic policies of R.E. can be tied to Project 2025. Not too much daylight between them.
I had friends teaching in the Chicago public schools during the Rahm era; he’s a vicious, nasty piece of work, but I could see many #McResistance libs supporting him, since the media would present him as a “fighter,” as they’re doing in the attempt to resurrect Andrew Cuomo in NY.
Professor at Center of Columbia Human-Rights Abuse Is a Spook. Mintpress News.
Click through just for the glorious photo up top of two creeps laughing at you.
I am detecting a pattern here in the rubble of U.S. feminism.
‘Click through just for the glorious photo up top of two creeps laughing at you.’
There went breakfast.
“Ruling elite demands massive increase to Australian military spending for war”
Would you believe that our present PM said that he was willing to send Aussie troops to the Ukraine? WTF? Because of the size of our continent, our military needs long-range fighter-bombers and a force of submarines to protect our coastlines. So what have we been buying? Short range F-35 fighters with only one engine of dubious reliability. I see that the Canadians are buying helicopters to be used to rescue their F-35 pilots if they go down because of that single engine. And those submarines? We just sent a boatload of cash to Washington to help pay for those subs. And now some people there are saying that maybe we won’t even get them but we will be allowed to paint a kangaroo on the side of a coupla US Navy subs and pretend we control them – unless there is some spat and they sail away leaving our 25,760 kilometers (16,010 miles) long coastline with no protection. Surprised to see Robert Gottliebsen still writing articles as quoted here. They guy was supposed to have retired ten or twenty years ago. His idea of ‘dragooning young people accused of crimes into the army’ shows his age.
On the Breech (or how I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb)
I saw some chatter in French on X about Australia’s submarine problem. Although irked by the failed deal between France and Australia, the sense I got is they’d be willing to sell you some Suffren SSN at a premium, while prioritizing French security needs.
Against Nihilism. Evgenia at Nefarious Russians.
Excellent diagnosis. Wonderfully written. Insightful.
There’s this: “But the surprising thing is that a lot of people buy this act. They really think that being cynical and nihilistic and being on the side of powerful corporations is some sort of transgressive act. That’s how warped the culture is here.”
I am seeing nihilism seeping into US culture, just as Evgenia points out. In Italy, the philosopher Donatella di Cesare has named it necropolitica, the politics of death. I suppose it is why I am following Antonio Gramsci as well as Giacomo Matteotti closely — they had hard lives and went down fighting rather than give in to a tendency to worship what destroys us.
Looks more like bending the knee to me. What in the world would you be transgressing? Keep in mind that corporations have several varieties of “Will no one rid me of that troublesome priest?” and ‘kissing the ring’ is somehow good?
I recognize what Evgenia is referring to as “nihilism” here. We definitely suffer from this affliction in the US, and have for a long time. A few things bother me about her position, though. First, I’m not sure who these “leftists” are who have suddenly become “nihilistic” right-wingers. I’m sure there are some, but, for example, is she talking about people like Matt Taibbi or Glen Greenwald, who are often smeared in this way by liberals because they challenged the Russiagate narrative and criticized censorship and excessive “wokism” by the liberal Establishment? I don’t see them as “nihilists”. Even less would this apply to critics of “wokism” on the left like Aaron Mate or Max Blumenthal. So who is the target? If it is just shallow liberals from her own artistic/academic community then I am sympathetic but see that as a very minor aspect of a much larger set of social and cultural problems in the US.
The reason I ask the question in this way relates to my second problem. As soon as Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Evgenia and, more strikingly, her husband Yasha Levine, went from very relevant critics of Western capitalism in all its dimensions to prime examples of the worst Putin degangement. Some of Levine’s early comments on the war could have been written by Anne Applebaum, which as a long-time fan of Levine shocked me. Reading Evgenia’s comments here gives us a pretty good idea of her view of Putin. It’s a view similar to other liberals in exile like Masha Gessen (and interestingly, similar to Taibbi’s view). There is some truth to this picture, of course, and given her background I understand it. But the resulting Putin demonization after the war started, ignoring crucial historical or geopolitical context, simply added to the “leftist” cover for the US/NATO project. I don’t think this was the type of liberal naivete, or left-to-right “nihilistic” shift, she was referring to here. But for me it was much more damaging than the “nihilists” she seems to be describing.
i forget the guys name, but its Exterminism.
and we’ve been headed thataway at the upper levels for a long time.
“Why health experts fear the West Texas measles outbreak may be much larger than reported”
If a measles outbreak sweeps across America this year for the first time in I don’t know how many decades, what will RFK jr say about that? Not his fault as people were free to decide to take the measles vaccine or not? People should have consulted their doctor to assess their risks, not his department? So all those deaths were entirely on them, not him?
In our version of Back to the Future, Marty McFly is sent back in time to bring back highly contagious-once thought eradicated maladies, watch out for that ring around the Cholera. Marty!
Thanks for this — it seemed very very odd that Duterte is being held to account for this crimes against humanity, and I assumed it had some link to displeasing the United States.
A paragraph further down in the WSWS article made me laugh, as it captured perfectly the hypocrisy of Democrat foreign policy and also the relative “honesty” of Trump:
“The Obama administration provided millions in funds earmarked for Duterte’s war on drugs in 2016, after the body count was already in the hundreds, and as Duterte publicly spoke of killing a hundred thousand. The Obama White House only discovered its concern for human rights when Duterte oriented Philippine foreign policy to China. The Trump administration in 2017 enthusiastically endorsed Duterte’s policies. Trump told Duterte in a phone call that he hoped Duterte could teach the US how to use his methods for dealing with the immigrants on the southern border. Joe Biden invited Duterte to a “Summit for Democracy” with a letter that read we “recognize and appreciate your partnership in working to build democratic and human rights-respecting societies that allow all citizens to thrive.”
I chuckled once more at the very next paragraph, which included the Trotskyist signature often found at the end of WSWS pieces:
“Political culpability for Duterte’s rise to power rests with the Stalinist Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and the various national democratic organizations, such as Bayan, that follow its political line…”
That’s so lit, meanwhile the Democrat Party was calling Trump a dangerous dictator, the party having supported Duterte who had actual death squads.
Even at the time, I was pointing out maybe liberal Democrats ought to look to the Philippines, but I didn’t realize Obama in fact was a supporter, specifically of this approach to the “war on drugs”.
Wowzers.
Trots gonna Trot, always…
True. But I give the WSWS full marks for their diligent COVID coverage.
Actually I think their coverage of a lot of issues is good as far as factual reporting goes. But often, even in very good articles, there will be a paragraph stuck in there with rhetoric that sounds like it came from some intra-Marxist campus debate from the 1960s. God bless ’em, most of the time.
lol. ive noticed that , too, Pjay…thats the bossman of the organisation inserting himself.
i generally overlook those insertions.
True enough, and the Philippine CP (which is Maoist, not Stalinist) did play footsie with Duterte, who studied under its former leader Jose Maria Sidon. There were some moves toward reconciliation with the New People’s Army, the CPP’s armed wing, but Duterte harshly turned on them.
The WSWS overstates things quite a bit, to make themselves seem relevant by comparison.
“Poland president urges US to move nuclear warheads to Polish territory”
Ummm, has he really thought this through? If there were US nukes in Poland and general war broke out, the Russians would have to hit the sites where those nukes were stored with nukes themselves to be sure that they were eliminated for good. And what that would mean is that Poland would then possess some of the biggest car parking spaces in the world – that just happen to glow in the dark.
If the U.S. can’t put them in Kiev….
German pilots flying USAF fighters with nukes…..?
https://youtu.be/ubUXNSWGth0?si=AK9qvMdwvNcVHRuU
Got your domestic terror plot right here, first they came for the youtubers! Now any service or body shop installing a tow hitch can be charged! Maybe Kash can have a special task force to offer cash and hotel trips fishing vacations with 11,500 lbs boat and trailers to make a headline thwarting the extremists. They can expand this to the marketing all over paint schemes and especially the hot pink ones, or the social media posters who left outside in rain or took it to carwash or caught in gulf of america act of god hurricane floods without a superyacht Ark in ultra dry dock to save the Cyber-truck not a duck though they rhyme. Soon, the owners of the burning lithium battery plant in CA will be calling the FBI tip line to report the lettuce farmers for being pro-bricked EV’s terrorists protesting their lost crops and toxic soil farms downwind.
https://youtu.be/ubUXNSWGth0?si=AK9qvMdwvNcVHRuU
SHOULD YOU TOW WITH A CYBERTRUCK?! (catastrophic failure test) JerryRig Everything March 11, 2025 posted forgot to give details for that link.
That’s a really dumb stunt video. Conflating towing capacity with tongue weight is completely bogus. That the one ton frame withstood a four ton load is expected as four to one safety ratio is pretty standard engineering. But it is actually impressive because that load was imposed at the rear bumper not over the axle.
aye.
ive massive experience with trailers…can back a 20 footer into a hogs ass, as it were.
its all about load distribution.
thats why goosenecks are superior to bumperpulls..distribites much of the weight from the front of trailer onto both(or more) axles of teh truck.
i regularly overwork my 2000 dodge pickup…esp when hauling manure/mulch/etc in a gooseneck dumping trailer.
cant do that with a bumperpull.
front tires would come off the road,lol.
(learned this the old fashioned way)
of course, after years of such activity, my shocks are shot, and i likely need a whole front and back end suspension re-do…but still,lol.
give me steel frames and heavy duty suspension any day over those ugly tesla things.
“In the United States, 1 in 3 households has a pet cat.”
This article reminds me how with science, that it is nowhere complete as it could be with just basic things. Like here. At veterinary school they have a textbook called ‘Anatomy of the Dog.’ But none for cats with only PowerPoints and supplements that sometimes give disastrous advice in treating cats. And I have mentioned how the Food Pyramid is so wonky, that there is no real standard diet to be recommended. And just a few months ago I learned that for way too long that cash test dummies only had a male model as no-one thought of building a female model crash test dummy that would have given different results. I am willing to bet that you could write a book on the sort of stuff that you would have figured been researched long ago but nobody ever got around to it.
Yeah, like drug research using male mice because female mice are inconvenient. That blew my mind.
An ironic bit of background as Trump’s tariff war against Canada escalates: The Trump family fortune sprung from this Canadian hotel-brothel
re: 5th year anniversary.
Canadian BC ER doc and family physician vindicated. Rumble, ~2hr, 29+ minutes.
Dr. Charles Hoffe | Vindicated
https://rumble.com/v6qh8my-dr.-charles-hoffe-vindicated.html
Scott Ritter has a more optimistic view of the current situation.
His take (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pk-78DFyb8A&t=4015s) ‘The ball was in Russia’s court.’ And as expected, they passed on Ukraine’s proposal and ‘sent the ball back in America’s/Ukraine’s court with conditions. So the US can either negotiate with Russia, come up with another proposal and send the ball back to Russia’s end of the court, or refuse to continue to negotiate. And after ‘negotiations’ … beat Ukraine into concessions or not. The Ritter podcast is lengthy… interesting but low density.
Ritter’s take: Trump has been ‘wised up’ on the situation and is going to make the decision on this. As far as the settlement … the 2022 busted deal will be the basis of any deal now, which includes no NATO and a neutral rump Ukraine. It’s just a matter of beating Ukraine into signing off.
Trump has been President for 2 months…its early to write him off imo.
Other good news… MSM admits Kursk has fallen, and Ukraine out of ATKUM. It will be interesting if the US will reduce US cruise missile attacks on Russia.
Doug McGregor said the US needs to cut aid an pull the US deep state assets out of Ukraine.
Results will depend on US money/resources and the battlefield. If they cut the first and Ukraine struggles on the battlefield then I dont see how this can continue.
new PFAS groundwater map.
https://geonarrative.usgs.gov/pfasinusgroundwater/
article: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-14494779/forever-chemicals-pfas-autism-interactive-map.html
Hard to keep up with this anymore: Trump axes program designed to save America from natural disasters https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/trump-axes-program-designed-to-save-america-from-natural-disasters/ar-AA1ANsVu?ocid=spartan-dhp-feeds
“A senior official with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) told The Hill: ‘The bottom line is we are no longer paying for non-employee travel. We are only authorizing travel for mission critical programs, this isn’t one.'” fp
What We’ve Learned About School Closures for the Next Pandemic (NY Times via archive.ph)
While we continue to maim kids in this Pandemic.
Child long-COVID rates beg to differ.
So do ongoing attendance levels based on continuous sickness.
False. Demonstrably.
FAFO. We’ll see how things go if we do get H5N1, which hopefully never happens. I’m not optimistic.
As the professional Managerial Class continues to turn into the precarious Management Class there will be an urgent need for scapegoats.
The Homeless are a good place to start since they are dirty, diseased drug addicts who start wildfires and most importantly are without any power or influence.
There’s no more enjoyable way of demonstrating your virtue than abusing the helpless!
Those “Domestic Terrorists” who call what’s happening in Gaza and Lebanon genocide seem like a popular choice amongst the powerful as well.
Smotrich, Netanyahu and Gallant have clearly explained that Genocide only refers to Human Beings and that what the Zionists are doing is removing the subhuman vermin that have been squatting on land that belongs solely to the Jewish People for thousands of years.
This is simply doing God’ Swill.
It says so in a REALLY OLD BOOK and that settles the matter.
Me and the Dow Jones
We got a thing goin’ on
We both know that it’s wrong
But it’s much too strong
To let it go now
I see the blood moon a-rising
I see trouble on the way
I see selloffs and lightnin’ of portfolios
I see bad times today
We gotta be extra careful
That we don’t build our hopes up too high
‘Cause market’s got its own obligations
And so, and so do I
I hear hurricanes a-blowing
I know the end is coming soon
I fear rivers over flowing with sell orders
I hear the voice of rage and ruin
Me and Dow, Dow Jones
Dow Jones, Dow Jones, Dow Jones
We got a thing goin’ on
We both know that it’s wrong
But it’s much too strong
To let it go now
Hope you got your things together
Hope you are quite prepared for high techs to die
Looks like we’re in for nasty weather
One 1 & 0 is taken for a 1 & 0
Me and Dow, Dow. Jones
Dow Jones, Dow Jones, Dow Jones
We got a thing goin’ on (thing)
We gotta be extra careful (goin’ on)
We can’t afford to build our hopes up too high
Me and Mrs. Jones by Billy Paul, runs into Bad Moon Rising by CCR
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYOQDnWFXYI
Black Friday, tomorrow?
e.t. tu, Brutus.
Smart money already sold. The “retail investor” is buying the way down. The smart money will buy when there’s blood in the streets and sell when happy days are here again. We are at a correction but no where near a crash. Is a crash coming? Trump will undoubtedly blame the Dems for a recession as he continues to drive us to it.
To put it in some perspective, the market was overextended and ripe for a pull back. Trump uncertainty was the catalyst. The Covid sell off was a panic and much deeper. But we haven’t seen the bottom yet and margin calls have not spiked
DUMB MONEY – Official Trailer (2023)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmr8YmwnZ3w
unfortunately when AOC actually shows up in the movie and they are NOT making fun of her you know they fuck up the nice set-up as they messed up the trailer
Trump, standing next to Elon Musk, says violence against Tesla is domestic terrorism USA Today
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Would a Tesla stock short seller also qualify as a domestic terrorist?
7 weeks in and only a few hundred more to go, I keep telling myself.
Does it count as terrorism if a car sets itself on fire (with or without people inside)?
It depends on whether the charred corpses had also attended pro Palestinian rallies on campuses or in cities, and in that case you can throw the book at them, in absentia.
Book ’em, Book of Daniel!
More bezzle news: Trump family talking to Binance to get a piece.
re: review of ezra klein and that other guys book:
maybe, just maybe, it will become cool to question the orthodoxy(“=unconsciousness”, per Orwell)
as the laurels burn under the octo and nonagenarians that currently rule.
i prefer the democrat pols who are at least out on the road, in a truck, meeting the people where theyre at…to the coiffed olds, with millions in their portfolio, who lecture us from on high.
we’re making the world safe for giant reptiles…
and for dragonflies the size of chickens
will some evolved cockroach civilisation advance enough to develop archaeology?
what the hell will they think about us?
a western koan, as it were.
Democrats are fighting back by doing nothing
This is the party of budget sequestration, so no surprise. They disagree only with how this is being carried out by Trump not the overall project.
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/03/13/us/trump-tariff-government-news