A somewhat different case of Plus ça change...:
One of the favorite obsessions of the MAGA-verse, for the past decade, has been the Epstein Files. Trump used it to smear his opponents. And to demonstrate how he was in sync with the common folks against the Elites. He regularly demanded that they be made public.
But then, Trump's Attorney General, after saying shortly after taking office that she had the file on her desk, announced that there was nothing there that warranted publication. And Trump posted various suggestions that it was old news and people should just move on.
No surprise: while a few cultists followed directions, a substantial majority are having none of it. They want to see those files. They are demanding to see them. (And, incidently, demanding that the AG be fired for not publishing them.)
A lot of us have wondered what would hit the MAGAts hard enough to wake them up. Which, we innocently assumed, was what would get them to abandon Trump. Lots of discussion of economic pain, loved ones dying for lack of medical care, other real stuff. Somehow nobody (that I saw) suggested that one of the conspiracy theories would turn around and bite him.
My guess is that, if they'd just published them, no matter how damning the contents the true believers would have come up with a conspiracy theory to explain it all away. SStereotypically,it's not the crime, it's the cover-up.
Last week, the DNC launched a new account on X that posts messages each day reminding its followers that Trump has “not released the Epstein files.” The account has also reposted Trump-focused, Epstein-related criticism from key social media influencers. It also includes a header image of comments billionaire Elon Musk made after a spat with the White House — and without offering any evidence — in which Musk charged that Trump “is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public.” (Trump has described having had a warm social relationship with Epstein, but he long ago distanced himself from Epstein. There has never been any evidence connecting Trump to Epstein’s criminal behavior.)
This makes me a little queasy, but maybe it's the sort of thing Democrats need to do right now.
Just 10% of users produce roughly 97% of political tweets.
(...)
A mere 0.1% of users share 80% of fake news. Twelve accounts – known as the “disinformation dozen” – created most of the vaccine misinformation on Facebook during the pandemic.
(...)
The problem isn’t just the individual extremists, of course – it’s the platform design and algorithms that amplify their content.
IN response to Russell up thread. The books I read about Neanderthals attributed the care art to homo sapiens but scientific knowledge is always evolving! It is easier for me to believe that they did have religious art than to believe that their one and only ceremony was the apparent shrine built out of stalagmites.
Yes, I remember now that there were a few burials that indicated some ceremony.
There are also burials that indicated people eating other people, but that also can be done for ceremonial reasons.
I have a t-shirt from Live 8, bought from a dude on the street, now usually worn while mowing my lawn. I only attended on the periphery in Philadelphia. It was a hot day.
Being in the middle of however-many-thousands of people wasn't appealing. But it was still a lot of fun hanging out in nearby establishments and cooling off in the AC. That whole part of town was jumping.
One thing that made me apoplectic was watching coverage from London of the Pink Floyd reunion in a slacker bar, when MTV decided to break in midsong during Comfortably Numb so some 20-year-old nitwit could yammer on about nothing.
I wanted to throw my glass at the TV, but it wasn't the bar's fault.
I've just finished watching the CNN/BBC three part documentary about the 40th anniversary of Live Aid, whose two concerts (London and Philadelphia) took place 40 years ago today and were watched by something like 1.5/2 billion people. The first part (all of which was very familiar to me) was mainly about how it all began, and the single Band Aid brought out, which also led to We Are The World. The second part was about the Live Aid concerts, and how they were organised and what happened, which again I knew a lot about (and had watched the whole thing).
The third part was about Live8, which led to the cancellation by the G8 of African debt payments, and vastly increased international aid budgets. I knew comparatively little about it, and it was completely fascinating, particularly politically, seeing the interviews with George W Bush, Blair, Condoleeza Rice et al, as well as hearing some of the criticisms. For anyone not interested enough in watching the first two parts, I nevertheless strongly recommend the third. Here is a guest link to a piece in today's NYT about the anniversary, and the documentary: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/13/arts/music/live-aid-bob-geldof-anniversary.html?unlocked_article_code=1.WE8.c0_h.2CwG2nKJUmpQ&smid=url-share
Further to russell's comments about Ringo, he (and others) might like this, by T Bone Burnett: "Ringo was the fire, totally the fire underneath that band. I think of what McCartney said, that the first song they played with Ringo, they all just looked at each other. Because he was the soul of rock ‘n’ roll, man. That cat, his energy was so beautiful and so exciting and wild — just his whole, his spirit is the thing he had. He played with Sister Rosetta Tharp, you know? He played with all of this ecstatic music that would come through Liverpool. And he is an ecstatic musician. The Beatles were all ecstatic musicians, you know, but Ringo was the fire under it.
"To me, he has as good a claim as anybody to the greatest rock ‘n’ roll drummer of all times, with his tones, the way he hit the drums, the type of beats he played, the way he would construct drum parts where nothing would be playing straight through . . . Ringo was an extraordinary musician."
Most western metro areas are constrained by "they're not making any more attractive land" for a long time. Boulder, CO began fencing itself in with permanent open space purchases back in the 1940s, I believe. Lots of empty land east of Denver, but (a) the climate degrades quickly as you go that way and (b) there are no meaningful water rights that come with the land. Many of the neighborhoods burned in the LA fires had been built right up to the foothills by the 1950s and 1960s.
There are a lot of pictures around of those neighborhoods with isolated houses still standing. Invariably, those houses are on lots where someone scraped off the old house and build new to contemporary codes. We know (and require) so much more in the way of fire resistance and energy efficiency than we used to.
We see similar pictures every time a hurricane goes through a piece of the Gulf Coast that hasn't been hit directly for 25-30 years. Everything flattened except where the old house was scraped off and replaced.
That's because you don't have Amazon Prime. Being #2, you aren't prime, which means you have to try harder.**
** For those outside the US, back in the day (and, for all I know, today) Hertz was the biggest car rental company. Avis, the next largest, advertised "We're #2, We try harder."
Used to work for a homebuilder in the Denver Metro. They were all about how much more a square foot of home was worth than a square foot of property. They'd buy a parcel of land and then figure out just how many homes they could tile onto it that were in the center of the bell curve for size and trendy features. They would pare down the lot sizes until they had the maximum number of (unnecessarily large) houses they could fit into the space.
FWIW, that's also the way of it in Southern California. The development philosophy is the same, but the climate and the demographics make for differences in home design.
But both places are run by the same real estate mafia.
And that's just the regional aspect.
My friend the anthropologist says that the suburbs of any two metro areas from Denver west are more alike than they are like anywhere else in the country. One way could be demonstrated once the Census Bureau made it possible to measure density based on "built area" rather than county area. Suburbs in the major metro areas in the West are just about twice as dense, on average, as suburbs in the rest of the country.
I'm sure I've mentioned it before, but when we were moving from New Jersey to the west Denver suburbs, my first observation was, "they really cram the houses close together here".
I can't wait for the ocean to swallow Mar-A-Lago like a bad case of reflux.
Personally, I'd like to see the site become a sewage treatment plant. (A real one, not a metaphor.) Give the cult a focus for pilgrimages.
But your alternative does have merit. Not to mention a high probability.
Meanwhile, in "stuff that pisses off nous": https://www.propublica.org/article/newtok-alaska-climate-relocation Federal auditors have warned for years that climate relocation projects need a lead agency to coordinate assistance and reduce the burden on local communities. The Biden administration tried to address those concerns by creating an interagency task force led by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Interior Department. The task force’s report in December also called for more coordination and guidance across the federal government as well as long-term funding for relocations.
But the Trump administration has removed the group’s report from FEMA’s website and, as part of its withdrawal of climate funding, frozen millions in federal aid that was supposed to pay for housing construction in Mertarvik this summer. The administration did not respond to a request for comment.
These fucking people...
I can't wait for the ocean to swallow Mar-A-Lago like a bad case of reflux.
I am taking a break from this site.
We all need a break now and then.
Just chiming in to say it'd be our loss if you were to make that permanent.
Thanks for hanging with us.
Well, I'm up to just under 1500 miles on the electric mountain bike. No problems with it so far (Trek Fuel EXe), and just about to change tires for the first time. Had it in the bike shop once so far to get the suspension serviced - not an inexpensive prospect, but far less expensive than replacing a shock or a fork.
Just did my favorite ride again this week - 18 miles with a bit over 2000 feet of climbing. Went in the morning as soon as the trails open and passed a Great Horned Owl sitting beside the trail and staring at me.
Just ordered a 529 Garage shield to put on my bike to protect it from theft. Have it registered at project529.com in case it goes missing.
Been doing a bit of research for gravel/ bikepacking bikes or a dropbar MTB that I might want to pick up if we are forced to retire and move someplace more flat. If there is anything good to be said for getting a full suspension emtb, it's that once you shell out for that, the price of a fancy modern gravel bike seems completely reasonable and the mechanicals seem dead simple.
Thinking of getting some bike mechanic training for retirement. Might volunteer at a community bike shop.
FWIW, Donald, I didn't take lj's initial commentary as being aimed at you in particular, but rather being more meta-commentary about the current media environment.
Yes, I know it may have been a shock, I do meta-commentary so rarely that everyone was probably totally confused. (I am assuming we are all channelling Joni Ernst at this point)
I think you are quite well informed, Donald, and trust your information.
I do too, and I notice that when you are not particularly knowledgeable about a subject, you say so.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Plus ça change…”
A somewhat different case of Plus ça change...:
One of the favorite obsessions of the MAGA-verse, for the past decade, has been the Epstein Files. Trump used it to smear his opponents. And to demonstrate how he was in sync with the common folks against the Elites. He regularly demanded that they be made public.
But then, Trump's Attorney General, after saying shortly after taking office that she had the file on her desk, announced that there was nothing there that warranted publication. And Trump posted various suggestions that it was old news and people should just move on.
No surprise: while a few cultists followed directions, a substantial majority are having none of it. They want to see those files. They are demanding to see them. (And, incidently, demanding that the AG be fired for not publishing them.)
A lot of us have wondered what would hit the MAGAts hard enough to wake them up. Which, we innocently assumed, was what would get them to abandon Trump. Lots of discussion of economic pain, loved ones dying for lack of medical care, other real stuff. Somehow nobody (that I saw) suggested that one of the conspiracy theories would turn around and bite him.
My guess is that, if they'd just published them, no matter how damning the contents the true believers would have come up with a conspiracy theory to explain it all away. SStereotypically,it's not the crime, it's the cover-up.
"
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/democrats-put-previous-misgivings-hit-trump-jeffrey-epstein-files-rcna218608
This makes me a little queasy, but maybe it's the sort of thing Democrats need to do right now.
"
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/jul/13/are-a-few-people-ruining-the-internet-for-the-rest-of-us
Neanderthals would never act this way.
"
Far fewer men self-identify as Neanderthal than the number of women claiming they're married to one...
"
IN response to Russell up thread. The books I read about Neanderthals attributed the care art to homo sapiens but scientific knowledge is always evolving! It is easier for me to believe that they did have religious art than to believe that their one and only ceremony was the apparent shrine built out of stalagmites.
Yes, I remember now that there were a few burials that indicated some ceremony.
There are also burials that indicated people eating other people, but that also can be done for ceremonial reasons.
On “An open thread on July 4th”
I have a t-shirt from Live 8, bought from a dude on the street, now usually worn while mowing my lawn. I only attended on the periphery in Philadelphia. It was a hot day.
Being in the middle of however-many-thousands of people wasn't appealing. But it was still a lot of fun hanging out in nearby establishments and cooling off in the AC. That whole part of town was jumping.
One thing that made me apoplectic was watching coverage from London of the Pink Floyd reunion in a slacker bar, when MTV decided to break in midsong during Comfortably Numb so some 20-year-old nitwit could yammer on about nothing.
I wanted to throw my glass at the TV, but it wasn't the bar's fault.
On “Like encountering stone age tribes in the Amazon”
I'm confident that 2 is, in fact, prime.
“This is the type of arrant pedantry up with which I will not put.”
On “An open thread on July 4th”
I've just finished watching the CNN/BBC three part documentary about the 40th anniversary of Live Aid, whose two concerts (London and Philadelphia) took place 40 years ago today and were watched by something like 1.5/2 billion people. The first part (all of which was very familiar to me) was mainly about how it all began, and the single Band Aid brought out, which also led to We Are The World. The second part was about the Live Aid concerts, and how they were organised and what happened, which again I knew a lot about (and had watched the whole thing).
The third part was about Live8, which led to the cancellation by the G8 of African debt payments, and vastly increased international aid budgets. I knew comparatively little about it, and it was completely fascinating, particularly politically, seeing the interviews with George W Bush, Blair, Condoleeza Rice et al, as well as hearing some of the criticisms. For anyone not interested enough in watching the first two parts, I nevertheless strongly recommend the third. Here is a guest link to a piece in today's NYT about the anniversary, and the documentary:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/13/arts/music/live-aid-bob-geldof-anniversary.html?unlocked_article_code=1.WE8.c0_h.2CwG2nKJUmpQ&smid=url-share
On “Like encountering stone age tribes in the Amazon”
I'm confident that 2 is, in fact, prime.
On “An open thread on July 4th”
Further to russell's comments about Ringo, he (and others) might like this, by T Bone Burnett:
"Ringo was the fire, totally the fire underneath that band. I think of what McCartney said, that the first song they played with Ringo, they all just looked at each other. Because he was the soul of rock ‘n’ roll, man. That cat, his energy was so beautiful and so exciting and wild — just his whole, his spirit is the thing he had. He played with Sister Rosetta Tharp, you know? He played with all of this ecstatic music that would come through Liverpool. And he is an ecstatic musician. The Beatles were all ecstatic musicians, you know, but Ringo was the fire under it.
"To me, he has as good a claim as anybody to the greatest rock ‘n’ roll drummer of all times, with his tones, the way he hit the drums, the type of beats he played, the way he would construct drum parts where nothing would be playing straight through . . . Ringo was an extraordinary musician."
On “Like encountering stone age tribes in the Amazon”
The same case with Casanunda the dwarf - the world's second greatest lover.
On “An open thread on July 4th”
Most western metro areas are constrained by "they're not making any more attractive land" for a long time. Boulder, CO began fencing itself in with permanent open space purchases back in the 1940s, I believe. Lots of empty land east of Denver, but (a) the climate degrades quickly as you go that way and (b) there are no meaningful water rights that come with the land. Many of the neighborhoods burned in the LA fires had been built right up to the foothills by the 1950s and 1960s.
There are a lot of pictures around of those neighborhoods with isolated houses still standing. Invariably, those houses are on lots where someone scraped off the old house and build new to contemporary codes. We know (and require) so much more in the way of fire resistance and energy efficiency than we used to.
We see similar pictures every time a hurricane goes through a piece of the Gulf Coast that hasn't been hit directly for 25-30 years. Everything flattened except where the old house was scraped off and replaced.
On “Like encountering stone age tribes in the Amazon”
That's because you don't have Amazon Prime. Being #2, you aren't prime, which means you have to try harder.**
** For those outside the US, back in the day (and, for all I know, today) Hertz was the biggest car rental company. Avis, the next largest, advertised "We're #2, We try harder."
"
I ordered a Stone-Age Tribe on the Amazon, but they said I couldn't get next-day delivery. Zero stars!
On “An open thread on July 4th”
Used to work for a homebuilder in the Denver Metro. They were all about how much more a square foot of home was worth than a square foot of property. They'd buy a parcel of land and then figure out just how many homes they could tile onto it that were in the center of the bell curve for size and trendy features. They would pare down the lot sizes until they had the maximum number of (unnecessarily large) houses they could fit into the space.
FWIW, that's also the way of it in Southern California. The development philosophy is the same, but the climate and the demographics make for differences in home design.
But both places are run by the same real estate mafia.
"
And that's just the regional aspect.
My friend the anthropologist says that the suburbs of any two metro areas from Denver west are more alike than they are like anywhere else in the country. One way could be demonstrated once the Census Bureau made it possible to measure density based on "built area" rather than county area. Suburbs in the major metro areas in the West are just about twice as dense, on average, as suburbs in the rest of the country.
I'm sure I've mentioned it before, but when we were moving from New Jersey to the west Denver suburbs, my first observation was, "they really cram the houses close together here".
On “Plus ça change…”
Maybe some of Musk's space vehicles could drop on it for starters (after installing Grok as steering software).
"
I can't wait for the ocean to swallow Mar-A-Lago like a bad case of reflux.
Personally, I'd like to see the site become a sewage treatment plant. (A real one, not a metaphor.) Give the cult a focus for pilgrimages.
But your alternative does have merit. Not to mention a high probability.
"
Meanwhile, in "stuff that pisses off nous":
https://www.propublica.org/article/newtok-alaska-climate-relocation
Federal auditors have warned for years that climate relocation projects need a lead agency to coordinate assistance and reduce the burden on local communities. The Biden administration tried to address those concerns by creating an interagency task force led by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Interior Department. The task force’s report in December also called for more coordination and guidance across the federal government as well as long-term funding for relocations.
But the Trump administration has removed the group’s report from FEMA’s website and, as part of its withdrawal of climate funding, frozen millions in federal aid that was supposed to pay for housing construction in Mertarvik this summer. The administration did not respond to a request for comment.
These fucking people...
I can't wait for the ocean to swallow Mar-A-Lago like a bad case of reflux.
On “An open thread on July 4th”
What russell said.
"
I am taking a break from this site.
We all need a break now and then.
Just chiming in to say it'd be our loss if you were to make that permanent.
Thanks for hanging with us.
On “Plus ça change…”
Well, I'm up to just under 1500 miles on the electric mountain bike. No problems with it so far (Trek Fuel EXe), and just about to change tires for the first time. Had it in the bike shop once so far to get the suspension serviced - not an inexpensive prospect, but far less expensive than replacing a shock or a fork.
Just did my favorite ride again this week - 18 miles with a bit over 2000 feet of climbing. Went in the morning as soon as the trails open and passed a Great Horned Owl sitting beside the trail and staring at me.
Just ordered a 529 Garage shield to put on my bike to protect it from theft. Have it registered at project529.com in case it goes missing.
Been doing a bit of research for gravel/ bikepacking bikes or a dropbar MTB that I might want to pick up if we are forced to retire and move someplace more flat. If there is anything good to be said for getting a full suspension emtb, it's that once you shell out for that, the price of a fancy modern gravel bike seems completely reasonable and the mechanicals seem dead simple.
Thinking of getting some bike mechanic training for retirement. Might volunteer at a community bike shop.
On “An open thread on July 4th”
FWIW, Donald, I didn't take lj's initial commentary as being aimed at you in particular, but rather being more meta-commentary about the current media environment.
Yes, I know it may have been a shock, I do meta-commentary so rarely that everyone was probably totally confused. (I am assuming we are all channelling Joni Ernst at this point)
"
Sorry, that first sentence is a quote from nous, and should have been in italics.
"
I think you are quite well informed, Donald, and trust your information.
I do too, and I notice that when you are not particularly knowledgeable about a subject, you say so.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.