If your opinion-poll numbers are tanking, start a war you can win.
In the abstract and in principle, Venezuela should be an easy win. With these morons in charge, a whole lot of people (US troops as well as Venezuelans) are going to get killed. But victory is about as likely as the Russians in Afghanistan.
"A short, victorious war" is a fantasy of incompetents everywhere. I can think of only one case where it actually happened**. (And that time the war wasn't a domestic political operation.) Mostly it proves to be neither short nor victorious.
** Gulf I, taking Kuwait back from Saddam. But generals competent enough to pull something like that off? Not likely to be put in charge by Trump or Hegseth. More likely to get sacked for insufficient toadying.
Regarding today's seizure of a loaded oil tanker, reportedly in transit from Venezuela to Cuba... As I understand how these things are done, ownership of the oil transferred FOB some oil terminal in Venezuela. The owner is almost certainly not the company that owns the tanker. Trump has said regarding the oil, "Well, we keep it, I guess." Part of me wishes that there's some back room paper shuffling going on and tomorrow China issues a statement asking, "Did we just hear you say that you're keeping a million barrels of our oil?"
A bigger part of me fears irrationality, and a back channel message being sent that says, "Nice AI bubble you've blown there. Be a shame if anything happened to TSMC's ability to deliver chips to American companies."
Open thread, so: I'm sick at heart about what seems to be happening with regard to Trump and Ukraine. None of it is even that unexpected, but I guess I was still hoping beyond hope that, to quote Grace Paley, there would be Enormous Changes at the Last Minute. I suppose it could still happen, but you'd be a fool to put any money at all on it.
I do realise that many or most of you have concerns that are a great deal closer to home, and with that in mind I am posting a gift link to a podcast and its transcript from the Atlantic, with David Frum interviewing Michael Waldman, the president of the Brennan Center at NYU. The main part is about the threats to the coming elections (2026 and 2028), and what can be done to thwart them:
The most recurring dream is of me looking for a toilet but only finding ones that for one reason or other can’t be used (clogged, full of water, built in a way one cannot sit upon them, extremly dirty etc.).
I've had similar dreams, intermingled with the military stuff. Such as trying to find restrooms and functional toilets in a barrack.
I get regularly woken up by the inner censor who will not allow any sex to happen (at least not involving me).
The most recurring dream is of me looking for a toilet but only finding ones that for one reason or other can't be used (clogged, full of water, built in a way one cannot sit upon them, extremly dirty etc.). The problem is usually very detailed and in high resolution. What I do not understand is that the locations are usually completely unknown to me but have a degree of detail that to me would seem to require great familiarity with the source the dream screenwriter used to create the images.
The (written) exam dream is also quite familiar but it is usually so that I know the stuff but once I have finished most of it, all the paper gets confused and I can't find the correct pages to finish and to hand in, resulting in a panic.
Someone is also constantly meddling with the public transport system. I get stranded at an unknown (and often confusedly constructed*) station (often rural or semi-rural) and can't find my way to the correct one since for some reason the whole net and the timetables have changed. Occasionally on the underground lines but more often on a railroad above ground. Well, at least some effort is usually put into scenic landscapes and the weather tends to be pleasant.
Sometimes I wake up from the weird ones because, in the dream, I get to the point of “I’d like to speak with the screenwriter, please.”
This happens to me, too. You become aware of how ridiculous the circumstances are and your conscious mind steps in to cut the nonsense. Or so it seems.
It happens to me when I'm lucid dreaming and start doing whatever I want. It's like I'm trying to hang on, but it doesn't last too long once the veil has been lifted.
This discussion has me realize that my panic based dreams have come in distinct phases/periods. The first was when I was a kid and I dreamed I would swim in air, but would be hopelessly slower than other people. It was just like pushing off from the bottom of a pool and doing a dog stroke in air. I'd love to go back and see if I could do that with lucid dreaming, i
The second era, corresponding to hs and uni, was the relatively common one of being in some place with no clothes and everyone else was dressed. Of course, I now realize that no one else noticed and I couldn't tell anyone. Would have been nice to have figured that out then
The last stage, though it hasn't happened recently, I would have sleep paralysis, which would happen when I was totally knackered. I had the impression that someone was in the room and I couldn't move and I couldn't say anything. It wasn't someone like an ax murderer, it was just someone I knew, but it would really be stressful to have them in the room and I couldn't acknowledge them, so I would force myself awake, and in waking up, I felt like I pulled every muscle in my body. Not fun. I had a theory that I was dropping into REM sleep to quickly (I could feel my eyes doing REM even though I just laid my head on the pillow)
I still get very tired, but I feel like my slight ability to lucid dream is actually related to that, because I'm lying in bed and I don't try to move, but I can see everything in the room. On the other hand, it might be because I don't really care if someone comes in the room and I can't talk to them, because I've reached an age where I don't give a shit...
I used to act out shouting “no, no, no” so that my wife had to wake me up. In the dream I would usually be in a situation of powerlesness.
My vampire dreams -- see above -- were infrequent. My wife would wake me up when things got to the huffing and puffing and occasionally whimpering stage. "Vampires again?" she would ask.
I’ve always known that most people can remember at least some of their dreams. But I’ve never done that.
I can remember the last dream immediately upon awakening, but have to review it a couple of times to get it into somewhat more permanent storage. I did that this morning. The dream setting was a hilly suburban neighborhood. The guy down the street was a sword smith who produced "good" magical swords. The guy across the street made "bad" magical swords. The wife of the guy across the street was a serial killer using one of the bad swords. They were framing the guy who made good swords for the killings. When I figured out what was going on, the good smith gave me a sword so I could take on the bad smith. Swashbuckling across streets and yards ensued. One of the backyards was filled with rabbits, we literally had to wade through them. Each rabbit had been dyed a bright color: red, blue, green, yellow.
Sometimes I wake up from the weird ones because, in the dream, I get to the point of "I'd like to speak with the screenwriter, please."
I've always known that most people can remember at least some of their dreams. But I've never done that. The closest I've come is the handful of times I've awakened full of adrenaline, apparently over something I dreamed. But with no clue what it might have been.
or a time after my father died I regularly had dreams where I would see him at a distance, sometimes across a large room full of people or on the street driving by. As I would get closer to him, his appearance would change and I’d realize it wasn’t him."
I have dreams like this only about cats. In the dream I see one of my long ago deceased cats and I am overwhelmed with guilt, thinking that I just forgot about the cat and have been ignoring it. Then I get into a fuss about whether or not it's my cat or just one that looks like my cat. I never raised a cat from a kitten. All of my cats were old when I got them and died within five or six years, so I have a lot of dead cats to remember--but I do remember all of them.
I have dreams where I am lost in a conference hotel and wandering through all manner of industrial, dystopian tunnels trying to find my way back to the lobby. And like many of you, I still have student dreams (damn you, grad school trauma), or very similar retail work dreams, where I have failed to check a schedule and am trying hard not to fail or be fired for having ghosted something important.
Never any teaching anxiety dreams, though. I save all of my teaching anxiety for my waking hours. Thank the botanical gods for CBD.
I still have the occasional "forgot to go to class the whole semester and can't find my final-exam location" dream.
Every once in a while I have a dream where some law was changed and I have to go back to high school for a class or two for my graduation to remain valid. The dreams start off without anything seeming silly, but as the dream goes on, I begin to realize how stupid of a situation it is and the dream kind of trails off.
I don't remember ever having a nightmare. But I've had anxiety dreams. First, about school, then the military, and work. In recent years, I've had very few of any of them.
I was looking at results, which is what counts for managers. And while Brown was clumsy, at least he didn't cause any major disasters like the other ones.
for me anyway, pot makes it more likely i'll act out a dream. it's a reason i limit my partaking.
>The other teaching dream involves being in the building on the first day, but I don’t know what subjects I will be teaching or where my room is and I have no teaching materials.
hilarious. i and my wife both have recurring dreams about being in school on exam day when we realize we are signed up for a class that we have never attended. and then we frantically search the campus trying to find the classroom where the exam will be held.
I could easily draw you up a list of prime ministers in my living memory, i.e. Thatcher onwards, that proves how each one of them was incompetent, with the exception of Gordon Brown maybe...
That's unexpected. I'd say that from Thatcher to Cameron inclusive, Brown was clearly the worst prime minister in terms of managerial competence.
What lj said. I could easily draw you up a list of prime ministers in my living memory, i.e. Thatcher onwards, that proves how each one of them was incompetent, with the exception of Gordon Brown maybe, but he was not very successful either.
So that leaves us with the fear of actual policy change. Policies that a majority of people supported.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “How are you sleeping?”
If your opinion-poll numbers are tanking, start a war you can win.
In the abstract and in principle, Venezuela should be an easy win. With these morons in charge, a whole lot of people (US troops as well as Venezuelans) are going to get killed. But victory is about as likely as the Russians in Afghanistan.
"A short, victorious war" is a fantasy of incompetents everywhere. I can think of only one case where it actually happened**. (And that time the war wasn't a domestic political operation.) Mostly it proves to be neither short nor victorious.
** Gulf I, taking Kuwait back from Saddam. But generals competent enough to pull something like that off? Not likely to be put in charge by Trump or Hegseth. More likely to get sacked for insufficient toadying.
"
...having oil not under US control...
Regarding today's seizure of a loaded oil tanker, reportedly in transit from Venezuela to Cuba... As I understand how these things are done, ownership of the oil transferred FOB some oil terminal in Venezuela. The owner is almost certainly not the company that owns the tanker. Trump has said regarding the oil, "Well, we keep it, I guess." Part of me wishes that there's some back room paper shuffling going on and tomorrow China issues a statement asking, "Did we just hear you say that you're keeping a million barrels of our oil?"
A bigger part of me fears irrationality, and a back channel message being sent that says, "Nice AI bubble you've blown there. Be a shame if anything happened to TSMC's ability to deliver chips to American companies."
"
Just murdering people didn't provide enough ROI?
On “Open Thread”
Open thread, so: I'm sick at heart about what seems to be happening with regard to Trump and Ukraine. None of it is even that unexpected, but I guess I was still hoping beyond hope that, to quote Grace Paley, there would be Enormous Changes at the Last Minute. I suppose it could still happen, but you'd be a fool to put any money at all on it.
I do realise that many or most of you have concerns that are a great deal closer to home, and with that in mind I am posting a gift link to a podcast and its transcript from the Atlantic, with David Frum interviewing Michael Waldman, the president of the Brennan Center at NYU. The main part is about the threats to the coming elections (2026 and 2028), and what can be done to thwart them:
https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/2025/12/david-frum-show-michael-waldman-2026-elections/685219/?gift=cx0iluuWx4Cg7JjlT8ugCUa60y1nrf54jxaP3FioTT8&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share
On “How are you sleeping?”
If your opinion-poll numbers are tanking, start a war you can win.
"
the Ledeen doctrine
"
"
speaking of nightmares...
i haven't been keeping up with my Republican mythology, so can someone explain: why are 'we' trying to start a war with Venezuela?
"
The most recurring dream is of me looking for a toilet but only finding ones that for one reason or other can’t be used (clogged, full of water, built in a way one cannot sit upon them, extremly dirty etc.).
I've had similar dreams, intermingled with the military stuff. Such as trying to find restrooms and functional toilets in a barrack.
"
I get regularly woken up by the inner censor who will not allow any sex to happen (at least not involving me).
The most recurring dream is of me looking for a toilet but only finding ones that for one reason or other can't be used (clogged, full of water, built in a way one cannot sit upon them, extremly dirty etc.). The problem is usually very detailed and in high resolution. What I do not understand is that the locations are usually completely unknown to me but have a degree of detail that to me would seem to require great familiarity with the source the dream screenwriter used to create the images.
The (written) exam dream is also quite familiar but it is usually so that I know the stuff but once I have finished most of it, all the paper gets confused and I can't find the correct pages to finish and to hand in, resulting in a panic.
Someone is also constantly meddling with the public transport system. I get stranded at an unknown (and often confusedly constructed*) station (often rural or semi-rural) and can't find my way to the correct one since for some reason the whole net and the timetables have changed. Occasionally on the underground lines but more often on a railroad above ground. Well, at least some effort is usually put into scenic landscapes and the weather tends to be pleasant.
*which has some basis in reality around here
"
Sometimes I wake up from the weird ones because, in the dream, I get to the point of “I’d like to speak with the screenwriter, please.”
This happens to me, too. You become aware of how ridiculous the circumstances are and your conscious mind steps in to cut the nonsense. Or so it seems.
It happens to me when I'm lucid dreaming and start doing whatever I want. It's like I'm trying to hang on, but it doesn't last too long once the veil has been lifted.
"
This discussion has me realize that my panic based dreams have come in distinct phases/periods. The first was when I was a kid and I dreamed I would swim in air, but would be hopelessly slower than other people. It was just like pushing off from the bottom of a pool and doing a dog stroke in air. I'd love to go back and see if I could do that with lucid dreaming, i
The second era, corresponding to hs and uni, was the relatively common one of being in some place with no clothes and everyone else was dressed. Of course, I now realize that no one else noticed and I couldn't tell anyone. Would have been nice to have figured that out then
The last stage, though it hasn't happened recently, I would have sleep paralysis, which would happen when I was totally knackered. I had the impression that someone was in the room and I couldn't move and I couldn't say anything. It wasn't someone like an ax murderer, it was just someone I knew, but it would really be stressful to have them in the room and I couldn't acknowledge them, so I would force myself awake, and in waking up, I felt like I pulled every muscle in my body. Not fun. I had a theory that I was dropping into REM sleep to quickly (I could feel my eyes doing REM even though I just laid my head on the pillow)
I still get very tired, but I feel like my slight ability to lucid dream is actually related to that, because I'm lying in bed and I don't try to move, but I can see everything in the room. On the other hand, it might be because I don't really care if someone comes in the room and I can't talk to them, because I've reached an age where I don't give a shit...
"
I used to act out shouting “no, no, no” so that my wife had to wake me up. In the dream I would usually be in a situation of powerlesness.
My vampire dreams -- see above -- were infrequent. My wife would wake me up when things got to the huffing and puffing and occasionally whimpering stage. "Vampires again?" she would ask.
"
I’ve always known that most people can remember at least some of their dreams. But I’ve never done that.
I can remember the last dream immediately upon awakening, but have to review it a couple of times to get it into somewhat more permanent storage. I did that this morning. The dream setting was a hilly suburban neighborhood. The guy down the street was a sword smith who produced "good" magical swords. The guy across the street made "bad" magical swords. The wife of the guy across the street was a serial killer using one of the bad swords. They were framing the guy who made good swords for the killings. When I figured out what was going on, the good smith gave me a sword so I could take on the bad smith. Swashbuckling across streets and yards ensued. One of the backyards was filled with rabbits, we literally had to wade through them. Each rabbit had been dyed a bright color: red, blue, green, yellow.
Sometimes I wake up from the weird ones because, in the dream, I get to the point of "I'd like to speak with the screenwriter, please."
"
I've always known that most people can remember at least some of their dreams. But I've never done that. The closest I've come is the handful of times I've awakened full of adrenaline, apparently over something I dreamed. But with no clue what it might have been.
"
Lol, same here.
"
I used to act out shouting "no, no, no" so that my wife had to wake me up. In the dream I would usually be in a situation of powerlesness.
Then, when my daughter was younger, I had these dreams where she suddenly was gone and I couldn't find her anymore. Scary stuff.
I'm glad things are calmer now.
"
or a time after my father died I regularly had dreams where I would see him at a distance, sometimes across a large room full of people or on the street driving by. As I would get closer to him, his appearance would change and I’d realize it wasn’t him."
I have dreams like this only about cats. In the dream I see one of my long ago deceased cats and I am overwhelmed with guilt, thinking that I just forgot about the cat and have been ignoring it. Then I get into a fuss about whether or not it's my cat or just one that looks like my cat. I never raised a cat from a kitten. All of my cats were old when I got them and died within five or six years, so I have a lot of dead cats to remember--but I do remember all of them.
"
I have dreams where I am lost in a conference hotel and wandering through all manner of industrial, dystopian tunnels trying to find my way back to the lobby. And like many of you, I still have student dreams (damn you, grad school trauma), or very similar retail work dreams, where I have failed to check a schedule and am trying hard not to fail or be fired for having ghosted something important.
Never any teaching anxiety dreams, though. I save all of my teaching anxiety for my waking hours. Thank the botanical gods for CBD.
"
I still have the occasional "forgot to go to class the whole semester and can't find my final-exam location" dream.
Every once in a while I have a dream where some law was changed and I have to go back to high school for a class or two for my graduation to remain valid. The dreams start off without anything seeming silly, but as the dream goes on, I begin to realize how stupid of a situation it is and the dream kind of trails off.
"
I don't remember ever having a nightmare. But I've had anxiety dreams. First, about school, then the military, and work. In recent years, I've had very few of any of them.
On “It’s Your Party, you can cry if…”
I was looking at results, which is what counts for managers. And while Brown was clumsy, at least he didn't cause any major disasters like the other ones.
On “How are you sleeping?”
>5 mg of indica MJ at bedtime.
for me anyway, pot makes it more likely i'll act out a dream. it's a reason i limit my partaking.
>The other teaching dream involves being in the building on the first day, but I don’t know what subjects I will be teaching or where my room is and I have no teaching materials.
hilarious. i and my wife both have recurring dreams about being in school on exam day when we realize we are signed up for a class that we have never attended. and then we frantically search the campus trying to find the classroom where the exam will be held.
On “It’s Your Party, you can cry if…”
I could easily draw you up a list of prime ministers in my living memory, i.e. Thatcher onwards, that proves how each one of them was incompetent, with the exception of Gordon Brown maybe...
That's unexpected. I'd say that from Thatcher to Cameron inclusive, Brown was clearly the worst prime minister in terms of managerial competence.
"
What lj said. I could easily draw you up a list of prime ministers in my living memory, i.e. Thatcher onwards, that proves how each one of them was incompetent, with the exception of Gordon Brown maybe, but he was not very successful either.
So that leaves us with the fear of actual policy change. Policies that a majority of people supported.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.