Saturday, September 30, 2023
So Much Excitement
Republicans got nothing in exchange for averting the shutdown, but now they are going to try expel Jamaal Bowman (D-Idiot) for pulling a fire alarm.
Shutdown Saga
There was a time when I would have felt obligated to foĺlow the play-by-play but I am not really sure what is gained by that.
Little Things
One thing which angered me during the Obama administration was their failure to do the little things that were well within their executive power (or the types of things they could slip into legislation without much controversy). They could always argue that big bad Max Baucus or the Republicans were preventing them from doing the big stuff, but where was the little stuff?
People would understandably ask what little stuff I was talking about. I had a few answers back then, but the list is certainly very very long.
People would understandably ask what little stuff I was talking about. I had a few answers back then, but the list is certainly very very long.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Millions of additional students in schools serving low-income communities will be eligible to receive breakfast and lunch at no cost under a rule change announced Tuesday by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Backlash
This guy, a "vet," gets kicked out of university due to being a creeper. He runs around saying how unfair it was. He becomes a cause for Betsy DeVos, and a justification for rolling back Title IX and of course mainstream outlets like ABC just run with his tale of woe without any skepticism.
You'll never guess what happens next (not quite, anyway).
On the afternoon of July 20, someone using a waterfront trail in Alameda spotted a large garbage bag wrapped in duct tape that smelled as if it was full of dead fish from the bay. When responding officers looked inside, they found the dismembered remains of a young woman whose head, hands and feet had been removed.
Investigators would extract a pair of DNA profiles from the duct tape on the bag. One belonged to Rachel Elizabeth Imani Buckner, a young mother and spoken-word poet who had just graduated from a San Francisco law school. The other, police now say, belonged to her killer — her boyfriend and onetime law school classmate Joseph Carl Roberts, suspected of using an electric saw to try to obscure his victim’s identity.
Friday, September 29, 2023
New York Flooding
I'm not going to claim to have a sense of how bad it is overall based on a random sample of (looking bad!) photos, but I will point out that water doesn't have to be all that high to effectively total a car, or at least start the process by which its lifespan is severely diminished.
I've seen pictures of a lot of cars that are likely there!
I've seen pictures of a lot of cars that are likely there!
The Story As Presented
Serwer
If you’re clever, you can manipulate the press into telling the story you want by making it seem fun and exciting, even if the story is incorrect or misleading. Given how easily the Trump campaign got the political press to take the bait here, there’s little question we’re in for a long campaign season in which it does it over and over again.Don't even have to be particularly clever, just clever enough to know which reporters will type up whatever you send them.
There’s another saying in journalism that’s supposed to be ironic: “Too good to check.” That’s when you hear something that sounds like a great story and you don’t check whether it’s true, because you want it to be true. You are not supposed to do this. But some narratives, it seems, are just too good to abandon.
Watch Out, Elmo
Deep state is coming for him.
Elon Musk’s electric vehicle company Tesla allowed racial harassment of its Black employees to run rampant at its Fremont, Calif., plant and retaliated against some workers who complained, the federal agency charged with enforcing civil rights laws alleged in a lawsuit Thursday.
LOL Fuck You Libs
Not surprised to see Peter Baker publishing what he knows is false just to stick his tongue out at the perfectly correct critics he knows exist.
These are corrupt, awful people. The paper of record!
Time For Many More Puff Pieces about SBF
I caugh a bit of some random low budget quickie documentary the other night on some random channel. Not worth naming, but while it didn't whitewash him entirely, there was so much focus on HOW IS HE DEALING WITH THIS etc.
Just a very obvious of example of high status people offering grace to people they empathize with which they would never offer to people not like them (such as, for example, black people). The obvious examples should serve to enlighten people about how the less obvious examples are pervasive in the coverage of everything, but I only say that because I want journalists to be LEFT-WING ADVOCATES.
Just a very obvious of example of high status people offering grace to people they empathize with which they would never offer to people not like them (such as, for example, black people). The obvious examples should serve to enlighten people about how the less obvious examples are pervasive in the coverage of everything, but I only say that because I want journalists to be LEFT-WING ADVOCATES.
6 weeks of trial. I'm sure we'll have plenty of sympathetic coverage.
I Don't See How Donnie Two Scoops Wriggles Out Of ALL THIS
Definitely a year ago I didn't expect there to be an ALL THIS, so we have made some progress. Still it is seems almost unfathomable that he WON'T wriggle out of all of it.
I'm not making predictions here, just commenting on the rarity of elite accountability.
I'm not making predictions here, just commenting on the rarity of elite accountability.
Thursday, September 28, 2023
Swifties Gonna Go After You Next, Elmo
Uh-oh.
On Wednesday, MediaMatters.org reported that Twitter, now known as X, placed NFL ads on the accounts of multiple white nationalists. On Thursday, the NFL responded.
“NFL unequivocally denounces any form of hate speech and has absolutely no association with these individuals or any group that promotes racism,” chief NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy told PFT via email. “As soon as this was brought to our attention, we immediately expressed our concerns to X to understand and rectify the issue.”
Just Not Bothering
That rich people find ways (legal, pseudolegal, not legal) to fiddle their taxes is not new, but that many of them are just "lol not gonna bother" is quite amazing.
Nearly 1,000 tax filers who earn more than $1 million per year have still not filed federal tax returns for at least one year from 2017 to 2020, according to IRS data provided to Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.).
What’s more, the 2,000 people who represent the highest-income non-filers in one or more of those years owe a total of more than $900 million in federal taxes, the data shows.
Bastards
Just an iconic tree/view in Northern England, right in the middle of Hadrian's Wall. Due to the position and orientation of the ridge, and the varying position of the sun in the sky, both throughout the day and throughout the seasons that far north, it was endlessly photographable with varying light combinations.
Police are investigating the deliberate felling of one of the UK's most iconic trees, which appears to have been cut down in an act of vandalism.Quick taste of photos.
The large tree at Sycamore Gap, next to Hadrian's Wall in Northumberland, was apparently cut down overnight.
Still At It
New York Times reporter just trolling at this point. They are never wrong, fuck you.
A local paper:
There's a story about Trump trying to convince reporters that he's "meeting union workers" while addressing a small crowd of handpicked people who aren't union workers, but the paper of record is committed to presenting the story as written, not as it is..@realDonaldTrump greets union members at Drake Enterprises in Clinton Township Michigan. pic.twitter.com/5ggIOQ3nOc
— Doug Mills (@dougmillsnyt) September 28, 2023
A local paper:
About 400 to 500 Trump supporters were inside a Drake Enterprises facility for the speech. Drake Enterprises employs about 150 people, and the UAW doesn't represent its workforce. It wasn't clear how many auto workers were in the crowd for the speech, which was targeted at them.
One individual in the crowd who held a sign that said "union members for Trump," acknowledged that she wasn't a union member when approached by a Detroit News reporter after the event. Another person with a sign that read "auto workers for Trump" said he wasn't an auto worker when asked for an interview. Both people didn't provide their names.
Wednesday, September 27, 2023
Beavis and Butthead Do Homelessness
Funny.
Mr. Kise said in court that the ruling could oust the sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, from their New York homes, which he said are owned through the types of limited liability companies that Justice Engoron dissolved.
Easiest Marks In The World
Nobody - especially the smartest boys in the room - wants to admit they've been conned by a con man, which is one reason we're getting all of these pieces finding it so garsh darn hard to figure out if SBF was genuine and true and just made some booboos.
Maybe he really did just want to be a trillionaire so he could do so much good in the world! As if believing you're uniquely able to "do good" isn't the sign of a messianic lunatic instead of something to applaud.
We already know that SBF's public donations were to Democrats (often bad ones in primaries) and his partner Salame handled most of the Republican ones. But, then, also...
The big cons require trusted influentials to help sell the con, either because they're in on it or because they are conned themselves. Our smartest boys in the room are always ready to sell the next big shitpile, though you can decide whether they themselves are cons or marks.
This, from start to finish, is about the stupidest thing ever written and I used to read Gateway Pundit. Stupidest thing ever written on a site funded by, at one point, SBF!
Maybe he really did just want to be a trillionaire so he could do so much good in the world! As if believing you're uniquely able to "do good" isn't the sign of a messianic lunatic instead of something to applaud.
We already know that SBF's public donations were to Democrats (often bad ones in primaries) and his partner Salame handled most of the Republican ones. But, then, also...
S.B.F. had been priming the pump for weeks. In August 2022, according to my reporting, he quietly made a $10 million donation to McConnell’s dark-money group, One Nation, in what appears to be the largest single financial donation to a Republican group from an FTX executive. That donation, which was never reported, helps to explain Bankman-Fried’s claim, shortly after FTX declared bankruptcy, that he was actually one of the biggest Republican donors in the country that year. (One Nation wouldn’t address the specifics of this reporting.)And Yglesias:
The big cons require trusted influentials to help sell the con, either because they're in on it or because they are conned themselves. Our smartest boys in the room are always ready to sell the next big shitpile, though you can decide whether they themselves are cons or marks.
This, from start to finish, is about the stupidest thing ever written and I used to read Gateway Pundit. Stupidest thing ever written on a site funded by, at one point, SBF!
REAL ID
Was looking for something and randomly came across the fact that the federal government's REAL ID driver's license program has been delayed (as a requirement for flying, etc.) until 2025. This thing just keeps going and going.
I ended up getting one which required getting a replacement Social Security card because mine had withered away. As Social Security offices are federal offices, will you need a REAL ID to get the SS card you need to get your REAL ID?
Can we get Social Security cards that aren't made of 2-ply toilet paper?
I ended up getting one which required getting a replacement Social Security card because mine had withered away. As Social Security offices are federal offices, will you need a REAL ID to get the SS card you need to get your REAL ID?
Can we get Social Security cards that aren't made of 2-ply toilet paper?
They Have Dinner Parties!!!
I keep repeating myself on this (and most things), but I really didn't appreciate until fairly recently just how much upper class Americans are becoming more like upper class Brits. Other people aren't simply less smart and less successful, they're actually moral degenerates, at least compared to the fine graduates of Yale University. No matter how scummy those people are, the great unwashed must be much much worse.
At a time when social media gives you the unfiltered thoughts and self-narration of many of these people, proving daily that they are, well, not generally of superior stock, we have much evidence of how ridiculous this is.
Anyway, the dinner party thing sums it up pretty well to me. They invite people over for dinner, and do it in a more sophisticated way than you do! Because they talk about, you know, stuff!!!
At a time when social media gives you the unfiltered thoughts and self-narration of many of these people, proving daily that they are, well, not generally of superior stock, we have much evidence of how ridiculous this is.
Anyway, the dinner party thing sums it up pretty well to me. They invite people over for dinner, and do it in a more sophisticated way than you do! Because they talk about, you know, stuff!!!
And if a writer is actually impressed by this, what the fuck does that say about that person's life and interests? Wow, dinner parties! Where they talk!!!
Just amazing.
Just amazing.
Nobody Like Us Could Be Bad
Another day, another puff piece about a bunch of likely criminals. Behind the New Yorker paywall, but a sample.
It just goes on and on and on like this. This really is just the magazine of elites making sure we understand that no one like them could POSSIBLY BE A BAD PERSON. Certainly not SCUM LIKE YOU!!!
But Bankman-Fried stood out from other young billionaires for his commitment to the effective-altruism movement, some of whose adherents believe in trying to earn as much as possible in order to maximize what they can give away. By the time of his arrest, he had become a major contributor to public-health and other causes, and one of the biggest personal donors in American electoral politics.They had dinner parties! They talking about smart things!
...
For years, Bankman and Fried have hosted lively Sunday-night dinner parties at their home, during which discussions range from the global crisis of democracy to movies and campus gossip.
I asked whether she had ever felt compelled to ask her son if he’d done any of the things he’d been charged with. She replied no—she didn’t need to ask. Her son was incapable of dishonesty or stealing, she said. “Sam will never speak an untruth,” she went on. “It’s just not in him.”He's the best little boy! (That Sam is a regular liar is well-documented at this point).
Fried is a leading scholar of legal ethics. Her best-known book, “The Progressive Assault on Laissez Faire,” is a study of capitalism and the coercive aspects of free markets. “She’s a brilliant critic,” Debra Satz, the dean of Stanford’s School of Humanities and Sciences, said, “and the book really picks apart these debates about freedom and equality.” This year, her intellectual rigor has been applied to her son’s media strategy, which she considered integral to his defense—so integral that she and her husband hired a high-powered P.R. consultant, Risa Heller, to assist them. The couple embarked on a campaign to spread their perspective: that the press, unfairly assuming that their son is guilty, has failed to examine weaknesses in the government’s case and the role of FTX’s lawyers in the company’s downfall.I guess we know how this New Yorker article was placed!
Robert Gordon, a Stanford Law School colleague, described Fried as one of the most “ethically fastidious” people he knows. “She seems so sure,” he said of her faith in her son, “and the way that she thinks through ethical problems is just so careful. This, of course, is the big mystery at the heart of all this.”She thinks about ethics! There's no one more ethical!!!
It just goes on and on and on like this. This really is just the magazine of elites making sure we understand that no one like them could POSSIBLY BE A BAD PERSON. Certainly not SCUM LIKE YOU!!!
Lol, the writer of the piece:
Before becoming a journalist, she worked as an analyst at two hedge funds in New York City.
No solidarity like upper class solidarity!
Tuesday, September 26, 2023
Summary Judgment
Maggie Haberman's going to have to have a couple extra sessions with the neuralyzer.
Fake Legitimacy For Another Week
Waiting for the big moment to do the "6-3, WE ARE IN CHARGE" ruling.
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Tuesday handed a defeat to Alabama Republicans for the second time in three months, rejecting their latest attempt to use a congressional map that includes only one majority-Black district.
The Story In Their Head
Not in the case described below, but usually its usually prompted by pitches from PR people and people in power, which is why the spin of the powerful gets put on top and maybe, just maybe, the dissenting (but correct) view of some nobody gets in paragraph 18.
Journalists are so used to working with people whose job it is to talk to them that many of them think nothing of wasting hours of your time, and then ignoring everything you told them.
Can at least sympathize slightly with the demands of broadcast, especially pre-Zoom, but no excuses for this in print journalism. Just fiction writers who need quotes from real people for their stories.
TRUMP the POPULIST friend of the WHITE WORKING CLASS is going to support the striking worker! Type, send, out for drinks.
The New York Times (he works there) is still at it:
Can't Dislodge The Story In Their Head
Someone I know had a recent experience with a journalist and it was a familiar experience. The story is basically pre-written in their head and nothing this person could say to the journalist could dislodge the narrative they had already settled on.
This person was the expert on the subject of the story, in some sense *who the story was actually about*, but nothing can overcome the journalist who has decided on a "story" after 45 minutes of work.
So the story wasn't accurate. More than that, if the journalist understood anything, the "real" story was much more interesting! And also easily told quickly. It wasn't complicated!
Back when journalists would occasionally contact me for stories, this was almost always my experience. They ask you things, you tell them, and if it contradicts what they've already decided on, ignore you or even argue!
Just maddening.
Anyway, Trump is supporting striking workers even though he isn't and nothing will get them to stop saying that.
For years Republicans wanted to help the poor by removing all help. Similar.
This person was the expert on the subject of the story, in some sense *who the story was actually about*, but nothing can overcome the journalist who has decided on a "story" after 45 minutes of work.
So the story wasn't accurate. More than that, if the journalist understood anything, the "real" story was much more interesting! And also easily told quickly. It wasn't complicated!
Back when journalists would occasionally contact me for stories, this was almost always my experience. They ask you things, you tell them, and if it contradicts what they've already decided on, ignore you or even argue!
Just maddening.
Anyway, Trump is supporting striking workers even though he isn't and nothing will get them to stop saying that.
For years Republicans wanted to help the poor by removing all help. Similar.
Journalism
For a couple of weeks we've had reports about how BOTH Trump and Biden were supporting union workers, and then both were going to visit with strikers. This was published 4 hours ago!
What else do we know?
Both sides are supporting striking workers!
Labor reporters like Alex have been yelling about this for days but of course The Real Reporters won't fucking listen.
WASHINGTON, Sept 26 (Reuters) - Joe Biden and Donald Trump will speak to striking auto workers in rare back-to-back events in Michigan this week, highlighting how important unions are to the 2024 presidential election, even though they represent a tiny fraction of U.S. workers.Are they both speaking to striking auto workers? Let's continue reading:
Republican rival Donald Trump, the front-runner to be his party's 2024 presidential candidate, will address hundreds of workers at a gathering at an auto supplier in a Detroit suburb on Wednesday.Hmm suddenly the word "striking" is missing. What's going on here?
Former President Donald Trump is scheduled to visit a Macomb County automotive supplier of engine and transmission parts Wednesday, the day after President Joe Biden is set to visit a United Auto Workers picket line in Wayne County.The supplier is Drake Enterprises.
The UAW does not represent workers at the supplier, according to a person familiar with the matter.
What else do we know?
So Trump is going to speak to non-union non-striking workers, at the invitation of their management, with support from the organization pushing Right To Work (anti-union) laws.lmao perfect pic.twitter.com/l9EgiPLN3L
— Alex Press (@alexnpress) September 26, 2023
Both sides are supporting striking workers!
Of course that fucking newspaper was on it, too
Labor reporters like Alex have been yelling about this for days but of course The Real Reporters won't fucking listen.
Monday, September 25, 2023
WE WILL NEVER STOP FIGHTING FOR YOUUUUUUU
Brian's writing about the general age issue here, but there is a persistent broader disconnect between the desperate rhetoric of, for example, fundraising emails, and the (lack of) urgency with which many electeds approach the issues.
It leaves grass-roots supporters to see all their hard work — and democracy itself — jeopardized by the same officials who tell them they must volunteer and organize and donate and vote as if their lives depend on it. And for millions of younger voters, it becomes increasingly hard to believe that any of it matters: If defeating Republicans is a matter of existential urgency for the country, why is the Democratic Party so blasé about elevating leaders who are oblivious to the views of the young people who stand to inherit it?
There Are Standards Other Than "Actual Criminal Conviction"
Lately, we've seen a lot of defenses of powerful people which assert that they deserve "due process," that "we" can't pass judgment on anyone until a jury has. Of course this is not how anything works. I don't have the power to put someone in jail - that's the State - but I can certainly decide if you're a corrupt asshole and react accordingly.
I don't know if the people making these arguments are that stupid or are pretending to be. The eternal mystery.
Anyway, it is possible that the DOJ has manufactured a work of complete fiction about Senator Menendez, but public consequences are not actually limited to what happens when a jury decides his actions are actually illegal. We all know this because people are encouraged to resign from public office regularly due to their likely legal but shameful actions.
That the Supreme Court thinks bribery (especially going into their pockets) is blessed by the constitution does not mean we all have to agree, even if it prevents the State from putting someone away.
I don't know if the people making these arguments are that stupid or are pretending to be. The eternal mystery.
Anyway, it is possible that the DOJ has manufactured a work of complete fiction about Senator Menendez, but public consequences are not actually limited to what happens when a jury decides his actions are actually illegal. We all know this because people are encouraged to resign from public office regularly due to their likely legal but shameful actions.
That the Supreme Court thinks bribery (especially going into their pockets) is blessed by the constitution does not mean we all have to agree, even if it prevents the State from putting someone away.
OH YOU WANT US TO BE LEFT-WING ADVOCATES, DO YOU???
I've seen (and made) the same basic criticisms of journalism-as-practiced, with some variations to fit the times and details of the moment, for over two decades now, and that is almost always the response from journalists.
*I* am bored and tired of it, increasingly resorting to just pointing and saying, "this is more shit, obviously." I don't believe most of them are that stupid, which makes them dishonest, which makes them not worth engaging with at all.
You know - the basic stuff about how objectivity is a conceit, that choices of what and how to cover things are choices which reflect inevitable biases, that such biases are heavily shaped by the socioeconomic background of the journalist themselves, that pretending not to have opinions is not the same as not having them, that their concept of the political center is not supported by the very polls they rely on to justify other things.
That the response in the title is to statements like, "perhaps it's important to have more people of color on staff," betrays a lot, too.
That the response in the title is to statements like, "perhaps it's important to have more people of color on staff," betrays a lot, too.
Then conservatives scream LEFT-WING BIAS and the same journalists rush to apologize and promise to do better by threatening the lives of more trans people.
*I* am bored and tired of it, increasingly resorting to just pointing and saying, "this is more shit, obviously." I don't believe most of them are that stupid, which makes them dishonest, which makes them not worth engaging with at all.
Mash Note
In that fucking newspaper, Jeremy Peters writes a mash note to Dana Perino which contains not a single word of mild criticism from anyone.
This is the kind of objective journalism that liberals, who demand LEFT-WING ADVOCACY JOURNALISM, criticize because they don't understand how sacred neutrality is.
Sources quoted/cited for the story:
This is the kind of objective journalism that liberals, who demand LEFT-WING ADVOCACY JOURNALISM, criticize because they don't understand how sacred neutrality is.
Sources quoted/cited for the story:
Perino herself.
"Current and former colleagues"
"Tony Fratto, a former Bush administration official who worked with Ms. Perino in the White House and remains a friend."
"Tony Fratto, a former Bush administration official who worked with Ms. Perino in the White House and remains a friend."
"Friends and former colleagues"
Ed Gillespie
Greg Gutfeld
Condoleeza Rice
old quote from George Bush
"I was panicked a bit because I really don't know about . . . the Cuban Missile Crisis," said Perino, who at 35 was born about a decade after the 1962 U.S.-Soviet nuclear showdown. "It had to do with Cuba and missiles, I'm pretty sure."
So she consulted her best source. "I came home and I asked my husband," she recalled. "I said, 'Wasn't that like the Bay of Pigs thing?' And he said, 'Oh, Dana.' "
Perino is my age.
Strike
Ain't over until it's signed, but sounds promising.
They do not, in fact, know what they're doing.
The major film and television studios and striking writers reached a tentative agreement on Sunday after days of marathon negotiating sessions, the Writers Guild of America said Sunday evening, paving a path forward to end the historic work stoppage that has frozen production and paralyzed much of Hollywood.I've seen some chatter about how this was just some diabolical plan by the studios to save a bit of money by doing nothing, and I would like to suggest that the ridiculous failsons in charge of everything should generally not be given this much credit.
They do not, in fact, know what they're doing.
Sunday, September 24, 2023
Shuffling
I'm sure there's an explanation - perhaps one I could google if google still worked that way - but why is it that slow walking, as one does, say, in a grocery store or walking through a museum, is so much more tiring than actually taking a stroll?
I run a reasonable amount, walk a lot, and hike regularly, but just shuffling through a shopping mall makes me absolutely exhausted in a way those other activities don't.
I run a reasonable amount, walk a lot, and hike regularly, but just shuffling through a shopping mall makes me absolutely exhausted in a way those other activities don't.
They Don't Mean Any Of It
We had decade of "trying to achieve liberal goals through conservative means." You know, like Jack Kemp and Newt Gingrich were going to end urban poverty, but The Conservative Way (tax cuts). Liberals got suckered (or agreed with) that, and now I fear we're having a round of liberals getting sucked into attempting to convince conservatives that THEIR goals can be achieved by liberal means. Like this well-meaning Alyssa Rosenberg piece:
Liberals don’t like talking up marriage. Here’s how they can start.First - you never have to start these pieces with "conservatives have a point, liberals are bad about this." Conservatives don't have a point! They don't care about marriage or perceived benefits of marriage! They don't care about anything even tangential to what liberals care about! When conservatives say, "marriage is good," the words don't mean what you think they mean!
They care about forcing people into the conservative patriarchal "success sequence" and then throwing them to the wolves for their own failures if they don't! Don't live by conservative rules? On to the ice floe for you! And that includes getting divorced!
Generally, the problem people face is precarity and there are policy ways of reducing precarity that don't involve trying to nudge them into cohabitation arrangements. We shouldn't encourage people to get married, we should make life fucking easier so they can choose long term partners if they wish.
There's no benefit to be gained from starting from the conservative obsession du jour. Ever.
Other People Are Doing It Wrong
The early blogosphere days were dominated by a lot of glibertarians, and at the time I realized suburban Dad law professor glibertarian philosophy was, basically, "everyone should be free to be just like me, and people just like me (but not otherwise) should be completely free." Bunch of boring old dudes who thought they were big rebels because they liked bourbon.
As I've aged and seen my peers evolve in various ways, I've realized a pretty good signal for whether people are fundamentally conservative (independent of how they vote or whether they have some good policy views) is how much they get annoyed by other people simply being different.
I don't think "people all get more conservative as they get older" is true, but people who, at age 30, had early signs of being old fogies tend to become moreso.
They tend to blame people for their failures and greatly resent the successes of anybody not like them.
As I've aged and seen my peers evolve in various ways, I've realized a pretty good signal for whether people are fundamentally conservative (independent of how they vote or whether they have some good policy views) is how much they get annoyed by other people simply being different.
I don't think "people all get more conservative as they get older" is true, but people who, at age 30, had early signs of being old fogies tend to become moreso.
They tend to blame people for their failures and greatly resent the successes of anybody not like them.
WOLVERINES!
Saturday, September 23, 2023
Two Weeks Of Wine
Wonder if they'll see any of it.
Rudy Giuliani has failed to pay more than $132,000 in sanctions he faces for failing to respond to parts of a lawsuit from two Georgia election workers, according to a court filing.
In addition, US District Judge Beryl Howell on Friday ordered the former New York mayor to pay an additional $104,000 to Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, a mother and daughter he defamed, for additional legal fees they’ve incurred because of his failure to respond to parts of their lawsuit.
Official Disapproval
For decades The Discourse sold the notion that making abortion illegal somehow wouldn't involve actually putting anyone in prison. Certainly not the mothers, and probably not the doctors. Maybe bad guys doing unsanitary abortions which we were also assured wouldn't happen.
It never made any sense, but "nothing actually has consequences unless it has consequences for me" is a standard centrist dipshit thing. A cult of solipsists.
It never made any sense, but "nothing actually has consequences unless it has consequences for me" is a standard centrist dipshit thing. A cult of solipsists.
On Friday, a Nebraska judge sentenced Jessica Burgess to two years in prison after she bought abortion pills for her teen daughter and helped bury the fetal remains in early 2022, according to reporters from Norfolk Daily News and Courthouse News. The sentencing went forward without a court-ordered psychological evaluation that the judge canceled for lack of funding last week. Burgess had faced up to five years in prison after she accepted a plea deal. With good behavior, she could be released in a year.
True, Elon Musk Is A Serious Problem
Honestly just shocked that Victor Davis Hanson is still with us.
Every now and then one of these freaks we use to mock in the old blog days reappears.
Apparently he's only 70! Thought he was 70 twenty years ago!
Every now and then one of these freaks we use to mock in the old blog days reappears.
Apparently he's only 70! Thought he was 70 twenty years ago!
Go Dark Brandon
How dare he take sides, even symbolically, ask a bunch of people who get paid high 6 figures to regularly meet with White House staff to communicate and implement their corporate desires.
Tuesday, I’ll go to Michigan to join the picket line and stand in solidarity with the men and women of UAW as they fight for a fair share of the value they helped create.
— President Biden (@POTUS) September 22, 2023
It’s time for a win-win agreement that keeps American auto manufacturing thriving with well-paid UAW jobs.
Friday, September 22, 2023
Cascade
Don't know precisely what led to this, but you can see the difficulty of trying to use remote operation to unshit the bed here.
No matter where you go, there they are.
About 20 Cruise-operated Chevrolet Bolts were seen stuck up and down San Gabriel Street late Saturday night. Some had shifted into the oncoming side of the two-lane street, even forcing a pair of Cruise cars to face one another in some sort of autonomous stand-off, blocking traffic even further.Taxis go where people want to go, and in those places there are people.
The actual cause of the jam remains unknown, though it's not uncommon for Cruise vehicles to become stuck and require human intervention—also known as a Vehicle Recovery Event. The individual who posted the photos and videos said they observed the Cruise workers trying to operate the cars via remote control to remediate the situation. A spokesperson hinted that the problem may have been related to pedestrian traffic, though the footage circulating social media does not show an abundance of people nearby during the gridlock.
No matter where you go, there they are.
Off Message
Brian Beutler has a new home. I subscribed. Brian's one of the good ones (I say that about approximately 5 people these days). He used to work at Crooked Media (the Pod Save America Obama Bros) and now he doesn't and his site is called Off Message.
I think Brian and I have fairly similar views about what's important and about what people like "us" (indepedent dumbasses on the internet with an audience) can and can't hope to accomplish, or at least what value we can occasionally provide.
I think Brian and I have fairly similar views about what's important and about what people like "us" (indepedent dumbasses on the internet with an audience) can and can't hope to accomplish, or at least what value we can occasionally provide.
Sounds Bad
The "Dick Durbin is very concerned" jokes have replaced the "Susan Collins is very concerned" ones.
On Jan. 25, 2018, dozens of private jets descended on Palm Springs International Airport. Some of the richest people in the country were arriving for the annual winter donor summit of the Koch network, the political organization founded by libertarian billionaires Charles and David Koch. A long weekend of strategizing, relaxation in the California sun and high-dollar fundraising lay ahead.Durbin problem is concerned, but the best he can muster is politely asking John Roberts to ask Thomas to pinky swear he will be more forthcoming in his financial disclosures.
Just after 6 p.m., a Gulfstream G200 jet touched down on the tarmac. One of the Koch network’s most powerful allies was on board: Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
Brain Spike
None of this makes any sense and he's going to kill people, and then, as with the monkeys, claim they were going to die anyway.
Musk provides a good illustration of how our regulatory/legal institutions are not up to the task.
You can argue that "everyone" know he's a bullshitter now, but I remember when Phony Stark first announced Neuralink and *a lot* of people with physical disabilities were incredibly excited because some are understandably quite desperate for any help.
Our journalistic institutions are not up to the task, either.
Sounds Bad
Likely is!
Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey has been charged in a federal corruption indictment, the authorities said on Friday.Apparently gold bars are involved!
All My Apes Gone
It's maddening that everyone plays along with whatever scam Silicon Valley is pushing this week, and there was nothing more obviously ridiculous than NFTs.
A TEAM OF researchers have crunched the numbers to explain why you don’t see people hawking ugly cartoon apes on the internet as much anymore: NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, once vaunted as a revolution in crypto and digital art, are largely worthless.A funny one to teach in 20 years.
Thursday, September 21, 2023
What If We Make Computers Bad At The Things They're Supposed To Be Good At
For no recognizable gain.
I put the upgraded Bard through its paces on Tuesday, hoping to discover a powerful A.I. assistant with new and improved abilities.The calculator gives you the wrong answer 20% of the time, but you get to talk to Clippy.
What I found was a bit of a mess. In my testing, Bard succeeded at some simpler tasks, such as summarizing an email. But it also told me about emails that weren’t in my inbox, gave me bad travel advice and fell flat on harder analytical tasks.
Republicans Can't Govern
Not entirely sure why the press corps has suddenly realized that Republicans in Congress are the problem (they will say It Is Different Now but not really so much), but baby steps.
Not an expert on this stuff, but others have suggested that if Democrats know how to count votes on the floor they could likely chuck McCarthy out themselves. They should!
For laughs at least.
What’s going on is that, in addition to threatening to block rule votes to sabotage legislation deemed insufficiently conservative, these few hard-right Republicans are also issuing threats to use even more obscure procedural motions to toss McCarthy out of his job.McCarthy could cut all kinds of deals with Democrats - including ones to keep him in power - but he likely won't.
The most rational option for the speaker would normally be to negotiate with Democrats, who want to keep the government open and are ideologically disposed to like having a functioning Congress.
Not an expert on this stuff, but others have suggested that if Democrats know how to count votes on the floor they could likely chuck McCarthy out themselves. They should!
For laughs at least.
Test Time
I was set to roll my eyes about ANOTHER MEDIA PIECE OBSESSING ABOUT COLLEGE ADMISSIONS, but this is actually a good piece about the SATs changing to reduce time pressure on students.
My test time story is about one of my grad student qualifying exams. The prof expected it to take 2 hours but it was untimed. He messed up one of the questions and it had several cases to solve instead of just a couple and it took us all about 7 hours.
Historically, the SAT gave students “too much to cover and not enough time to do it,” the College Board’s chief executive officer, David Coleman, told me. But developing a digital version gave them the opportunity to experiment. And the results were so impressive they decided to stick with them. Starting next year, the test is shorter overall, and most importantly, “on average, 97 percent of students complete all questions in a section with up to seven minutes to spare on each section,” Mr. Coleman said. “It’s time we stop confusing quick with smart.”As a minor aside, this amused me:
On math tests, one of the few skills in which boys consistently outperform girls is mental rotation — turning 3-D shapes in their minds.Not that I've taken such a test in a billion years, but all through my younger years I'd perform well on aptitude tests except the 3-D rotation ones which I'd totally bomb.
My test time story is about one of my grad student qualifying exams. The prof expected it to take 2 hours but it was untimed. He messed up one of the questions and it had several cases to solve instead of just a couple and it took us all about 7 hours.
Good For Dark Brandon
If you aren't going to deport hundreds of thousands of people (and you aren't, practically), let them work.
The Biden administration said late Wednesday that it would allow hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans already in the United States to live and work legally in the country for 18 months.I mean, do it for everybody, but better than nothing!
The decision followed intense advocacy by top New York Democrats, including Gov. Kathy Hochul, Mayor Eric Adams and party leaders in Congress. It will affect about 472,000 Venezuelans who arrived in the country before July 31, temporarily protecting them from removal and waiving a monthslong waiting period for them to seek employment authorization.
Not Surprised
A bet on Wood flipping would have been a good bet.
FORMER MAGA ATTORNEY Lin Wood is a witness for the state in Georgia’s election interference RICO case against the former president and 18 others. Wood, who retired from practicing law earlier this year to avoid disbarment, worked as a member of Trump’s legal team in the aftermath of the 2020 election and heavily promoted claims that the election had been rigged against the former president.
Wednesday, September 20, 2023
Mock Them
Not everyone can do it well, of course, but generally "make fun of these losers" is smart politics and more electeds (and surrogates) should embrace it.
Sen. John Fetterman: "If those jagoffs in the House stop trying to shut our government down, and fully support Ukraine, then I will save democracy by wearing a suit on the Senate floor next week."
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) September 20, 2023
Resistance Porn
Just something to titillate us.
As the criminal cases against him have piled up, the former president and 2024 GOP frontrunner has wondered aloud in recent months about what life would be like if he’s convicted, and if appeals fail. While Trump publicly professes confidence, privately, three sources familiar with his comments say, he’s been asking lawyers and other people close to him what a prison sentence would look like for a former American president.
Would he be sent to a “club fed” style prison — a place that’s relatively comfortable, as far these things go — or a “bad” prison? Would he serve out a sentence in a plush home confinement? Would government officials try to strip him of his lifetime Secret Service protections? What would they make him wear, if his enemies actually did ever get him in a cell — an unprecedented set of consequences for a former leader of the free world.
Refusing Overtime
Industries/companies that don't hire enough workerss (common, for various reasons) leave themselves open to non-strike worker actions which.
Labor Notes reports on autoworkers’ strategy of “Eight and Skate,” which means working their shifts and then refusing voluntary overtime, which is routinely offered by the Big Three. Working your shift and then leaving work (in other words, doing exactly what it is you were hired to do) shouldn’t really be debilitating to the employer. In this case, it is.
Comply
A telling little phrase. For little feudal lords like Manchin, other people being allowed to do something he doesn't like is something HE has to comply with.
Manchin tells me he spoke to Fetterman today about the Senate dress code change
— Ursula Perano (@UrsulaPerano) September 19, 2023
“I said ‘John, I think it’s wrong & there's no way I can comply with that’…Wanted to tell him directly that I totally oppose it & I will do everything I can to try to hold the decorum of the Senate”
Whose Fault
For a credit where credit is due entry, I've noticed that Sahil has been a lot more out in front blaming the House Republicans instead of some vague invocation of "Congress" or lack of bipartisanship.
WASHINGTON — Republican divisions paralyzed the House again on Tuesday as a small band of conservative rebels blocked a motion to merely begin debate on a military funding bill and GOP leaders abandoned a separate vote to avert a shutdown at the end of the month.
... The House GOP chaos is worse than it may appear. The bills Republicans are fighting over have no chance of becoming law — and if they passed the chamber they’d merely represent an opening bid to negotiate with the Democratic-led Senate and President Joe Biden, who oppose the spending cuts and conservative policies that House Republicans are pursuing.
Rudy!
I obsess a bit about Rudy's fall mostly because he's one of numerous corrupt, racist, horrible people that the people in charge of the Politics Narrative told us was a truly wonderful person.
Was thinking of another one and Mike Huckabee was the first person who came to mind. Huckabee didn't have 9/11 hero status, but he was a good Christian man with an aw shucks persona so that made him a Good Person, even though he was the wingiest of wingnuts with a truly horrible known record.
Just awful awful people beloved by our political journalists, who would know better if they cared enough to read the reporting of their better, less well-paid colleagues.
Was thinking of another one and Mike Huckabee was the first person who came to mind. Huckabee didn't have 9/11 hero status, but he was a good Christian man with an aw shucks persona so that made him a Good Person, even though he was the wingiest of wingnuts with a truly horrible known record.
Just awful awful people beloved by our political journalists, who would know better if they cared enough to read the reporting of their better, less well-paid colleagues.
Also, Give Us Billions So We Can Invent The Torment Nexus
The entirety of math (or philosophy) is not going to be in this post, but one issue with the whole Effective Altruism/Longtermism cult view is that they explicitly say it is morally incorrect to discount the future, that we should value future life as much as we do today.Sci-Fi Author: In my book I invented the Torment Nexus as a cautionary tale
— Alex Blechman (@AlexBlechman) November 8, 2021
Tech Company: At long last, we have created the Torment Nexus from classic sci-fi novel Don't Create The Torment Nexus
(They're also obsessed with the welfare of shrimp, but that's for the suckers, like the kidney donations.)
If you know a bit of math, you know this is conceptually gibberish.
You can't actually solve (generally, again NotAllMath) a dynamic optimization problem such as "maximize the infinite horizon expected utility function subject to constraints" without a discount factor.
If you know a bit of math, you know this is conceptually gibberish.
You can't actually solve (generally, again NotAllMath) a dynamic optimization problem such as "maximize the infinite horizon expected utility function subject to constraints" without a discount factor.
Oh this is not about Math, Atrios, you say, but sometimes shoehorning concepts into math has value. Putting it simply, adding an infinite count of numbers gives you the same answer no matter what those numbers are. You need the discount factor so that eventually those numbers are effectively 0 and the sum converges.
But, putting it in non-math terms, if you don't discount the future, then "civilization continues to exist, reasonably well, with about 8 billion humans in perpetuity" is equivalent to "Elon Musk and 30 tech bros construct an underground bunker with 1000 women for breeding purposes, put themselves into stasis, nuke the planet, then revive and replenish the world with their seed in 50 million years."
But, putting it in non-math terms, if you don't discount the future, then "civilization continues to exist, reasonably well, with about 8 billion humans in perpetuity" is equivalent to "Elon Musk and 30 tech bros construct an underground bunker with 1000 women for breeding purposes, put themselves into stasis, nuke the planet, then revive and replenish the world with their seed in 50 million years."
Of course this is entirely nonsense unless you also imagine yourself to be Hari Seldon, which of course they all do.
Anyway this is a doomsday eugenics cult, "we must destroy the inferiors of the world to save it," and narcissistic rich guys will, as they age, increasingly want to destroy the world as that is preferable to it not existing without them.
Anyway this is a doomsday eugenics cult, "we must destroy the inferiors of the world to save it," and narcissistic rich guys will, as they age, increasingly want to destroy the world as that is preferable to it not existing without them.
Tuesday, September 19, 2023
So Different From This Hell I'm Living
I left my obsession with the New Jersey megamall behind because it wasn't really fair to keep kicking it after Covid hit, but I suppose some time has passed now and lol it's still a disaster.
American Dream, the megamall in New Jersey’s Meadowlands, has seen its losses increase fourfold in one year, according to a draft securities filing.
The 3.5-million-square-foot shopping and entertainment complex, home to an indoor ski slope, amusement park and water park, lost about $245 million in 2022 as expenses almost doubled to $428 million, according to the three-page document posted Monday to the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board’s EMMA website. Financial expenses, which typically include debt service payments,
Nobody Who Teaches At Stanford Could Be Bad
It is ridiculous, of course, but that is the general view of the people with the microphones. The press coverage of Bankman and Fried until this moment (until the FTX Trustees filed this suit) certainly had the embedded presumption that they weren't complicit.
That people with fancy degrees and other pedigrees aren't just smarter, but in all ways better, drives a lot of how news and politics are covered.
That people with fancy degrees and other pedigrees aren't just smarter, but in all ways better, drives a lot of how news and politics are covered.
But They Were The Best People
Part of the PR for SBF was, basically, his parents were accomplished people in academia so he couldn't possibly be bad.
Bankrupt crypto exchange FTX is looking to claw back luxury property and “millions of dollars in fraudulently transferred and misappropriated funds” from the parents of Sam Bankman-Fried, the exchange’s disgraced ex-CEO and founder.There's some pretty damning stuff: Bankman playing a huge rule in FTX/Almaeda despite earlier obfuscations, and Fried trying to get around (legally or not) disclosure requirements for campaign contributions.
In a Monday court filing, lawyers representing the bankruptcy estate of the failed exchange alleged that Allan Joseph Bankman and his wife, Barbara Fried, “exploited their access and influence within the FTX enterprise to enrich themselves, directly and indirectly, by millions of dollars.”
Starter Homes/Downsizing Homes
California's property tax structure (longtime owners pay almost nothing), combined with lack of new housing for many years in the most desirable places, has likely exacerbated the effects of similar trends most places. Basically, millennials (a very large generation) hit their "starter home" ages during a period when no new starter homes were built, and all of the incentives push against older Californians downsizing after their kids move out (including the lack of appropriate smaller dwellings).
Between 2009 and 2014, a very large cohort of millennials was in their 20s, a prime time for renting your first apartment, Myers’ research shows. In the years since, those millennials have increasingly entered their 30s, when many people in California buy a home for the first time.One doesn't have to be an extreme YIMBY to see that in Los Angeles itself there are plenty of places where housing infill is perfectly appropriate.
The nation’s economy further amplified the millennial effect, Myers said.
The Great Recession not only hammered housing construction but also delayed many millennials from striking out on their own. When job prospects improved, those people jumped into the rental market, and later the for-sale market, at the same time as younger millennials who could afford to follow a more traditional timeline.
The Immigrant Scourge
Regular reminder that Ingraham adopted 3 foreign-born children through international adoptions.
Seems Like A Big Deal
That they think it's true and that they went very public in this way (and that it is likely true!).
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada said on Monday that “agents of the government of India” had carried out the assassination of a Sikh community leader in British Columbia in June, an explosive allegation that is likely to further sour relations between the two nations.No deep thoughts otherwise as it is above my pay grade.
Monday, September 18, 2023
How Things Change
The Kids won't remember, but back in the day, "we" (the political press) pretended that unmarried conservatives were all virgins and certainly no out of wedlock heavy petting happened. The Boebert "scandal" would have been scandalous simply for that reason.
That the political press long participated in a scam on behalf of the Family Values party reminds us nothing much has changed there, at least.
That the political press long participated in a scam on behalf of the Family Values party reminds us nothing much has changed there, at least.
Your Liberal Media
Above my pay grade, but the man seems to have a point here.
What isn't above my pay grade is knowing that if this had been Beavis or Butthead Trump, it would have taken about 5 minutes for conservative media to turn the entire thing into a story about abuses that Hunter is claiming, with the rest of the media dutifully following along.
Hunter Biden sued the Internal Revenue Service on Monday, saying that investigators for the agency violated his privacy rights by disclosing details to Congress and the public about his taxes and the investigation into his conduct.
What isn't above my pay grade is knowing that if this had been Beavis or Butthead Trump, it would have taken about 5 minutes for conservative media to turn the entire thing into a story about abuses that Hunter is claiming, with the rest of the media dutifully following along.
Decades And Decades Of Books
This will be a bit meandering because I don't think I have a clear point, but in response to my niece asking for some books for her 21st birthday (she seems to read just about anything), I have been contemplating decades of books being released in my lifetime.
I'm old enough that those "new" books I read when I was 21 are not very new at all now. Quite old in fact! Giving her a book released in 1993 is equivalent to giving me a book (then) written in 1963.
Agatha Christie was still publishing. Kurt Vonnegut released Cat's Cradle. Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves.
And then I started to think about books and authors that were a Big Deal but probably she's never even heard of. Or maybe! How would I know?
Anyway, no real point here, and these are hardly novel observations, just contemplating how culture appears and fades and how the The Kids Today can't be aware of most of it. I imagine some of those great books were more timely than timeless, likely not landing particularly well today. 1993? Trainspotting. The Shipping News. The Night Manager.
I'm old enough that those "new" books I read when I was 21 are not very new at all now. Quite old in fact! Giving her a book released in 1993 is equivalent to giving me a book (then) written in 1963.
Agatha Christie was still publishing. Kurt Vonnegut released Cat's Cradle. Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves.
And then I started to think about books and authors that were a Big Deal but probably she's never even heard of. Or maybe! How would I know?
Anyway, no real point here, and these are hardly novel observations, just contemplating how culture appears and fades and how the The Kids Today can't be aware of most of it. I imagine some of those great books were more timely than timeless, likely not landing particularly well today. 1993? Trainspotting. The Shipping News. The Night Manager.
Anyway, the request was books not "old books," but so many new-to-me-then books are, now, "old books"
If You're A Star They Let You Do It
You can't really "cancel" a billionaire, but prominent people should not be standing on stage with him (literally or metaphorically).
I used to think anti-Semitism was the one bigotry respectable elites wouldn't tolerate, though now I understand most of them never cared about that, either.
"AI"
Calling those programs "AI" is only slightly less stupid than thinking a link to an ape .jpg is worth millions.
I think it's losing - by giving it too much credibility - to get into arguments about why it isn't in any sense "artificial intelligence." But it isn't! Everyone knows it isn't!
The computer from Star Trek: The Original Series was really fucking cool, but I don't remember anyone calling it "artificial intelligence." Had to get to Commander Data for that!
I think it's losing - by giving it too much credibility - to get into arguments about why it isn't in any sense "artificial intelligence." But it isn't! Everyone knows it isn't!
The computer from Star Trek: The Original Series was really fucking cool, but I don't remember anyone calling it "artificial intelligence." Had to get to Commander Data for that!
Peter Baker For The Defense
He's the one you call to represent and defend the worst of journalism, while swatting away critics by lighting piles of straw on fire.
I did actually read the transcript (the things I do for you) and evidence of "being challenged" is pretty thin! Take the abortion section:
PETER BAKER:Neat trick there, replacing "letting Trump spew what he wants" with "challenged by a tough, independent interview."
Well, this is a huge challenge for American journalism, of course, right? It cannot be that a person can run for president of the United States, be a front-runner of his party, and possibly win without ever being challenged by a tough, independent interview. And that's, I think, an important part of our system. Now, it's obviously a challenge for us because he is just going to spout out one thing after another, and fact-checking him in real time is a real hard thing. But what we've done here is edit it and make sure people understand he’s – what's real and what's not.
I did actually read the transcript (the things I do for you) and evidence of "being challenged" is pretty thin! Take the abortion section:
FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:So you have Roe v. Wade, for 52 years, people including Democrats wanted it to go back to states so the states could make the right. Roe v. Wade – I did something that nobody thought was possible, and Roe v. Wade was terminated, was put back to the states. Now, people, pro-lifers, have the right to negotiate for the first time. They had no rights at all, because the radical people on this are really the Democrats that say, after five months, six months, seven months, eight months, nine months, and even after birth you're allowed to terminate the baby –KRISTEN WELKER:Mr. President, Democrats aren't saying that. I just have to, Democrats are not saying that. Does it bother you though that women say their lives are being put at risk? Do you feel you bear any responsibility, because as you say, you are responsible for having Roe v. Wade overturned.FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:What's going to happen, this is an issue that's been going on for a long time. And it's a very polarizing issue. Because of what's been done, and because of the fact we brought it back to the states, we're going to have people come together on this issue. They're going to determine the time, because nobody wants to see five, six, seven, eight, nine months. Nobody wants to see abortions when you have a baby in the womb. I said, with Hillary Clinton when we had the debate, I made a statement, "Rip the baby out of the womb in the ninth month, you're allowed to do that, and you shouldn't be allowed to do that."KRISTEN WELKER:Again, no one is arguing for that –FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:Again, listen, look –KRISTEN WELKER:That's not a part of anyone's argument, Mr. President.FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:Look, the Democrats are able to kill the baby after birth.KRISTEN WELKER:Let me talk to you –FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:Nobody wants that.KRISTEN WELKER:Democrats don't want that either.FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:So we're going to come together –KRISTEN WELKER:But let’s – I want to – I want to know what you want. I want to know what you're going to do if you’re –FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:We are going to come together –KRISTEN WELKER:Would you sign federal legislation that would ban abortion at 15 weeks?FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:No, no. Let me just tell you what I'd do. I'm going to come together with all groups, and we're going to have something that's acceptable. Right now, to my way of thinking, the Democrats are the radicals, because after four and five and six months. But you have to say this, after birth. You have New York State and other places that passed legislation where you're allowed to kill the baby after birth.
Four times he says Democrats support (and there are laws to the effect) that you can "kill the baby after birth."
Amusingly (especially if you read the rest), he sounds like decades of centrist dipshists talking about their Grand Compromise on abortion.
We’re going to agree – no – we're going to agree to a number of weeks or months or however you want to define it. And both sides are going to come together and both sides – both sides, and this is a big statement, both sides will come together. And for the first time in 52 years, you'll have an issue that we can put behind us.
Putting boring lady parts issues behind us, the dream of the centrist dipshit!
Sunday, September 17, 2023
Sure Why Not
Meese is 91.
JUST IN: Former Attorney General Ed Meese submits court declaration calling prosecution of Trump and ex-DOJ official Jeff Clark 'a major affront to
— Josh Gerstein (@joshgerstein) September 17, 2023
federal supremacy never before seen in the history of our country.' Doc: https://t.co/y4X1CimxTW
Journalism
I didn’t watch but as described... leaving aside the specifics of Trump, what is the point of letting any politician do this? And if it is only Trump, why?
This is a joke, right?
— Will Bunch (@Will_Bunch) September 17, 2023
You pre-recorded an interview with multiple lies, then -- instead of not airing them or at least fact-checking in a real time -- ran that interview for millions on national TV, followed by a online fact check to be read by 1/100th of that? https://t.co/BcYRY3LyCM
Full Employment For Friends And Family
This isn’t in response to anything in particular, but one thing I failed to understand when I was younger was just how much a long political career is a a way to set up your extended network for life.
This is especially true if you manage to hitch yourself to the right presidential candidate (this doesn't require being elected, and is even an opportunity for journalists), but also true for every single member of Congress.
It isn't quite corruption, necessarily, but it is hardly the purity of the noble calling of public service. It is also helpful to see choices and alliances as less about ideology (sometimes) than strategic positioning.
Scaling
Never
occurs to our very stable genius that this is a problem for everyone, and therefore the concept.
The scoop comes from Walter Isaacson's new biography of the tech magnate, simply titled "Elon Musk." Per its chapter on the launch of the driver assistance tech, Musk would learn firsthand that a curve on Interstate 405 caused Autopilot, thrown off by the road's faded lane lines, to steer into and "almost hit" oncoming traffic.Whenever this happened, Musk would "furiously" storm into the Tesla office and proceed to chew out his engineers."Do something to program this right," he repeatedly demanded, as quoted in the biography.
Paid to have all the lanes repainted. Amazing stuff.
Clearly, nothing was getting through to Musk. It was only his chief of staff Sam Teller that was able to appease his CEO's complaints. He came up with a simple solution: getting the lane lines repainted on that pesky curve — which of course, didn't actually address the underlying problem.
Saturday, September 16, 2023
Guns Kill People
Just endless stories like this.
A Washington man was fatally shot while trying to help deer cross the road, authorities said.I just don't go through life being pissed pants scared like this.
Daniel Spaeth, 37, was attempting to slow traffic near his home to help the animals when he was shot on Sept. 7, according to the Snohomish County Sheriff's Office.
...
The next day, the sedan was spotted by an off-duty deputy. The driver of the car, 22-year-old Dylan Picard, was pulled over.
...
Picard reached for his gun because he was scared, and as the man approached his opened passenger-side window, he said he fired one shot to scare the man and woman. He said he did not know if the shot hit anyone, the documents state.
Beetlejuice*3
Can't believe they let children into a production in which a member of Congress gives a handy in the audience. Ban it!
Friday, September 15, 2023
Sliding Into His DMs
JUST IN:
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) September 15, 2023
Special Counsel Jack Smith obtained 32 direct messages from Trump's Twitter account, newly unsealed court filing reveals. pic.twitter.com/Tf4GEYgRNq
Better Than Usual
Hearing this much support for strike action from a president makes me wonder if it's even legal?
President Biden aggressively sided with the United Auto Workers on Friday, repeatedly noting in brief remarks that auto companies have not shared their record profits fairly with workers. “Record corporate profits, which they have, should be shared by record contracts for the U.A.W.,” the president said at the White House.Not actually wondering that, but it is a welcome change.
Doomsday Prosperity Gospel For Atheists
Really they want people to worry about AI so they can feel even more important when they activate skynet.
LONDON — Back in the spring, Britain was sounding pretty relaxed about the rise of AI. Then something changed.This is a cult in which you donate a kidney and then they invite you to the orgies, run by the people who were selling you Ape JPGs for $2 million 18 months ago. I am not quite kidding about this.
The country's artificial intelligence white paper — unveiled in March — dealt with the “existential risks” of the fledgling tech in just four words: high impact, low probability.
Less than six months later, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak seems newly troubled by runaway AI. He has announced an international AI Safety Summit, referred to “existential risk” in speeches, and set up an AI safety taskforce with big global aspirations.
Helping to drive this shift in focus is a chorus of AI Cassandras associated with a controversial ideology popular in Silicon Valley.
Freak Show
For awhile I moved past "adultery is newsworthy because these people are gross hypocrites" because they'd backed off some of that stuff, and I'd rather private lives be private. But then they went back to being increasingly homophobic and misogynistic and fuck these people.
A rising Republican star tipped by many to be Donald Trump's running mate should he win the presidential nomination has been involved in a clandestine affair for years, multiple sources tell DailyMail.com.
Married South Dakota governor Kristi Noem, 51 – who stresses her belief in 'family values' – and Trump advisor Corey Lewandowski, who is also married, began carrying on in 2019, if not before.
Culinary Crimes
I think the real story here (not damning, just what is happening) is Romney hadn't really fed himself (cooked, etc.) in decades so this was the limits of his imagination when stuck in DC.
Romney's a weirdo and not a good guy, but despite his awkwardness and general level of evil he is still more recognizably human than most of the Senate.
Human doesn't mean good.
Thursday, September 14, 2023
Brand Safety
There's a case to be made that Twitter at the end (pre-Musk) went a bit overboard with moderation. Moderation isn't complicated and doesn't scale, so it's never right to nitcpick based on anecdotes, but even sweet little me got banned once for an obvious joke.
But, obviously, things have shifted quite a bit since then!
As everyone who studies this tries to explain, the moderation is less for the users and more for the advertisers as they don't want to be associated with Nazis.
But, obviously, things have shifted quite a bit since then!
As everyone who studies this tries to explain, the moderation is less for the users and more for the advertisers as they don't want to be associated with Nazis.
Journalism
The degree to which journalists are just stenographers to every rich guy peddling nonsense...
In magazine profiles and TV interviews, Bankman-Fried professed austerity. He wore beat-up sneakers, lived with roommates and drove a Toyota Corolla—with all of the savings going to charitable causes, he said. “You pretty quickly run out of really effective ways to make yourself happier by spending money,” he told a Bloomberg reporter in early 2022. “I don’t want a yacht.”Trump, Musk, ...
In reality, Bankman-Fried and his inner circle spent with such abandon that the office could feel, as the person who worked on the Super Bowl ad describes it, like the Emerald City in The Wizard of Oz. The company bought hundreds of millions of dollars of luxury real estate, including a $30 million penthouse apartment in the fanciest resort in the Bahamas, where Bankman-Fried and his cohorts lived. They chartered private jets for themselves and, because Amazon.com doesn’t consistently service the island, for their online packages. And—as bankruptcy filings would make clear—they even bought a 52-foot yacht. It was purchased by Alameda for Sam Trabucco, the company’s co-CEO at the time, who named it Soak My Deck.
What Could Go Wrong
I remember reading, decades ago, an SF book or two about how, basically, lunatic environmentalists demanded some crazy geoengineering solution to global warming which ended up plunging the Earth into a new ice age. Lots of SF writers were pretty right wing and if the hippies wanted it then it must be wrong.
So it's a bit funny that as we move into the acceptance stage of global warming, geoengineering is increasingly the Sensible Big Brain Boy solution.
So it's a bit funny that as we move into the acceptance stage of global warming, geoengineering is increasingly the Sensible Big Brain Boy solution.
As crazy as it might sound, geoengineering the oceans by adding iron — in effect, fertilizing them — may offer the best, most effective and most affordable way not just to slow the march of global warming but to reverse its course by directly drawing carbon out of the atmosphere. The U.S. government needs to start testing it now, before the climate system spins off into an even more disastrous state.
Elder Care
There's the general prestige and being the main character every day, but also it's certianly the case that Senate staffers (illegally) do much work for their bosses that they should not be doing. You can't possibly hire elder care staffers who are going to be that attentive to your needs.
That's the kind of thing that happens slowly and then all at once, but leaving the Senate would mean, for some of these people, essentially losing their necessary appendages.
That's the kind of thing that happens slowly and then all at once, but leaving the Senate would mean, for some of these people, essentially losing their necessary appendages.
Are We All Unpaid Dem Operatives Or Not
Biden's pretty old. In an ideal world Biden would not running for president again. In an ideal world Biden would not be president, even though he's been a lot better than the last two Dems.
That's not the same thing as saying "Biden should drop out," just that a reordering of of the universe would be preferred (much as many reorderings of the universe was be preferred).
But Biden isn't going to drop out. Even if I thought he should drop out, nothing I write in my little blog would make that happen. If I had a column in one of our premier prestige periodicals, nothing I would write there would make him drop out, either.
I could write numerous articles about how he SHOULD drop out because he's old and faltering or whatever, but what would that achieve? It would communicate to large numbers of people that I, an important person with an important outlet, think a priority right now, in year of our Gritty 2023, was to warn the country about the old man who needs to drop out. Probably something to that?
A certain set of centrist dipshits have moved on from the Lab Leak and hating trans people (briefly) to write about Biden needs to drop out. Hey, go crazy, guys, but centrist dipshits *also* love to lecture The Left about how everything twitter user CastroChavez69 tweets is going to hurt the electoral chances of Democrats.
Generally, centrist dipshists love to prove how reasonable and savvy they are by echoing right wing talking points (also because they agree with them) and, I suspect, to the extent The Discourse matters, that's often a lot more damaging than what some lefty shitposters write in obscure journals of opinion.
It's a bit like how "defund the police" was the most damaging thing in the history of electoral politics, which is why James Carville had to go on TV and angrily express that point 417 days in a row. Who, actually, is doing the damage here?
That's not the same thing as saying "Biden should drop out," just that a reordering of of the universe would be preferred (much as many reorderings of the universe was be preferred).
But Biden isn't going to drop out. Even if I thought he should drop out, nothing I write in my little blog would make that happen. If I had a column in one of our premier prestige periodicals, nothing I would write there would make him drop out, either.
I could write numerous articles about how he SHOULD drop out because he's old and faltering or whatever, but what would that achieve? It would communicate to large numbers of people that I, an important person with an important outlet, think a priority right now, in year of our Gritty 2023, was to warn the country about the old man who needs to drop out. Probably something to that?
A certain set of centrist dipshits have moved on from the Lab Leak and hating trans people (briefly) to write about Biden needs to drop out. Hey, go crazy, guys, but centrist dipshits *also* love to lecture The Left about how everything twitter user CastroChavez69 tweets is going to hurt the electoral chances of Democrats.
Generally, centrist dipshists love to prove how reasonable and savvy they are by echoing right wing talking points (also because they agree with them) and, I suspect, to the extent The Discourse matters, that's often a lot more damaging than what some lefty shitposters write in obscure journals of opinion.
It's a bit like how "defund the police" was the most damaging thing in the history of electoral politics, which is why James Carville had to go on TV and angrily express that point 417 days in a row. Who, actually, is doing the damage here?
Wednesday, September 13, 2023
Freak Show Entry
I try not to focus too much on this stuff, but, christ, learn how to behave.
U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert was escorted out of a Sunday night performance of the “Beetlejuice” musical in downtown Denver, accused by venue officials of vaping, singing, recording and “causing a disturbance” during the performance.Excellent timing with the beat sweetener, Politico.
In an incident report shared with The Denver Post on Tuesday afternoon, officials with Denver Arts & Venues wrote that two patrons were asked to leave the city-owned Buell Theatre during the performance of the touring Broadway show. They previously were issued a warning during the intermission regarding behavior that prompted three complaints from other theatergoers, the report says.
Lauren Boebert: Rabble-rouser in D.C., public servant back home https://t.co/Kyf585a7WO
— POLITICO (@politico) September 13, 2023
If Alabama
If the Supremos make clear that some of their rulings are optional, then states and the executive branch should embrace it.
For the Alabama appeal, the Supreme Court will probably need to respond quickly. The state has represented that it must finalize its congressional districts by early October. If the court blesses Alabama’s conduct and allows the state’s defiance to stand — either after briefing and oral argument or by issuing a stay on the “shadow docket” and allowing the state’s discriminatory map to remain in place, as it did in an earlier stage of this very litigation — it will be announcing to the world that its opinions need not be heeded. If that happens, defiance by other political actors, both left and right, can be expected, and will be justified.Though I expect Democrats will continue to behave like good little boys and girls and expect to be rewarded (in heaven, perhaps).
"Fully Autonomous"
Running a point to point shuttle autonomously is probably not a problem. Running an autonomous bus on a completely separated right of way is probably not a problem (and, hell, if that's how you convince electeds who hate public transit but love gadgets to build such things, fine). But running a bus on most normal city streets? Just another example of taking neato technology and trying to apply it to the hardest problems.
I ride buses most days, but nobody asks me to make these decisions.
A fully autonomous bus is now in regular service in Scotland. It still has employees, two in fact.Most people who make these decisions never actually do things like "ride a bus." If they did they'd know how hard it is to be a fucking bus driver.
I ride buses most days, but nobody asks me to make these decisions.
"Advising"
I don't think MBS really heeds Tony Blair's "advice." Advising in this context generally means being paid for PR, or being paid, essentially, to look the other way. Every influential think tank in DC is swimming in money from horrible state actors and horrible rich entities, and while they might not all actively advocate for their interests, it does make sure they don't act against them.
Tom was promising that one too!:
But even Tom backed off, presumably because he isn't actually on the payroll.
But Blair’s post-Downing Street activities have always drawn criticism. He confirmed that he was — and still is — providing advice to the Saudi government, in spite of the brutal murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.
He is unapologetic. “What’s going on in Saudi at the moment is incredibly important,” he said. “None of that takes away from the terrible crime of Khashoggi, of course not, but if you look what’s happening there, it’s a social revolution.Specifically, Blair is being paid to say things like, "if you look what’s happening there, it’s a social revolution."
Tuesday, September 12, 2023
Medical Bills
Even a senator...
Katherine Feinstein, the senator's daughter from a previous marriage who has power of attorney for her 90-year-old mother in legal matters, has argued her mother is owed millions in disbursements from Blum's estate and needs the money now to cover medical bills.
The Majesty Of AssLaw
To some degree - frayed a bit, lately - "we" are expected to believe from reporting on major legal cases that a) the judges are calling balls and strikes and b) the ruling can be predicted with near certainty based on which judge gets the case.
Point And Laugh
I appreciate Parker doing the work here, but after years of this "we" shouldn't have to constantly be refuting the Nates and the Matts and the Joshes and the Jons. They never admit error and then if the case against them is overwhelming just move on to the next bit of nonsense. And then, a few weeks later, they just return back to the old nonsense again!!!
Silver is self-evidently a buffoon, and yelling SHUT UP, NERD makes it clear there's no reason to take him seriously.
He doesnt take any of his critics seriously! Or hear them.
Silver is self-evidently a buffoon, and yelling SHUT UP, NERD makes it clear there's no reason to take him seriously.
He doesnt take any of his critics seriously! Or hear them.
Sure Why Not
I'm sure our sober, fair, objective, public interest-minded political journalists will clearly explain that this is a Seinfeld Impeachment.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., plans to endorse an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden in an effort to seek bank records and other documents from the president and his son Hunter Biden, two Republican sources familiar with the speaker's intentions told NBC News.
Pregnancy Deaths
The fatality rate of pregnancy/childbirth is absolutely immense in the US.
The general fuckedupedness of our health care system doesn't help, either.
"Abortion is health care" is one of those concepts that was dismissed by Sensible Centrists for years because they are dumb and never listen. "Leaving it to the states" means death.
Yet more than 100 years after that landmark report, written by Dr. Grace Meigs, Americans are still dying of pregnancy and childbirth-related causes at rates far above many parts of the world. Even as maternal mortality declined globally by a third from 2000 to 2015, deaths rose in the United States. The racial disparity persists as well. Even when Black women have higher incomes, they are more likely to die from pregnancy and childbirth than white women are.It really isn't an issue that can even be hoped to be addressed in many states after Dobbs (the piece mentions, but downplays it). The state laws make providing appropriate medical care for women impossible, and the exodus of doctors and OB/GYN practices and the shuttering of maternity wards will continue.
The general fuckedupedness of our health care system doesn't help, either.
"Abortion is health care" is one of those concepts that was dismissed by Sensible Centrists for years because they are dumb and never listen. "Leaving it to the states" means death.
Along For The Ride
Related to this, it's quite obvious that political journalists* have an overpowering career interest in promoting the candidates that they cover
Team DeSantis wants Ron to win the primary, and then win the election, because then they get to be the celebrity journalists embedded in the presidency. Everyone wants Repbulicans to win because Republian administrations are more fun, filled with psychos who spend half their day leaking nonsense to those journalists.
There are the book contracts, too, though I am still waiting for someone to ask newspaper editors how they let their reporters hold back "scoops" for the books. One answer is that sources are more likely to agree to reveal something if it's not going to come out for 18 months, but obviously there's a bit of a problem of the journalists are more than happy with that arrangement, too.
*I try to distinguish "political journalists" from "journalists" because, you know, #notalljournalists. One change over 20 years has been how all news has been subsumed into political news. It doesn't really matter what your investigative journalist does on page A23 if Maggie Haberman doesn't talk about it on A1 (and on cable news and...). No golden era 20 years ago, of course, but the way in which everything falls under politics is different now (it was a slow evolution).
Team DeSantis wants Ron to win the primary, and then win the election, because then they get to be the celebrity journalists embedded in the presidency. Everyone wants Repbulicans to win because Republian administrations are more fun, filled with psychos who spend half their day leaking nonsense to those journalists.
There are the book contracts, too, though I am still waiting for someone to ask newspaper editors how they let their reporters hold back "scoops" for the books. One answer is that sources are more likely to agree to reveal something if it's not going to come out for 18 months, but obviously there's a bit of a problem of the journalists are more than happy with that arrangement, too.
*I try to distinguish "political journalists" from "journalists" because, you know, #notalljournalists. One change over 20 years has been how all news has been subsumed into political news. It doesn't really matter what your investigative journalist does on page A23 if Maggie Haberman doesn't talk about it on A1 (and on cable news and...). No golden era 20 years ago, of course, but the way in which everything falls under politics is different now (it was a slow evolution).
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