I notice that Trump is now demanding that the Chinese resume buying soybeans from the US. One suspects that he discovered that Midwestern farmers are seriously upset to have a major market snatched out from under them. (Especially those who didn't see it coming, and so failedto plant something else this year. Too late now to do anything but plow the crop under as fertalizer for next year.)
He seems oblivious to the fact that the Chinese have found alternative suppliers. Which is to say, they don't need to buy from us. As opposed to, say, refined rare earths, for which we (and, for that matter the rest of the world) have no alternative sources of supply.
We could develop them, of course -- "rare earths" aren't particularly rare; just challenging to separate from each other. It would just take 5-10 years, even assuming zero regulatory constraints (i.e. no environmental impact reports, no planning permissions, etc.). Can't expect Trump to grasp that, of course.
I could easily see the Chinese playing hardball on this. If only to show the wannabe his place. Hey, it keeps working for Putin, so why not?
it seems natural that rural culture should be similarly homgeneous
The question would seem to be: why is it Southern rural culture which is the model? Why not the Midwest? Or the Mountain West? They all have significant rural populations, too.
For serious animism, one of my favorite memories is still Faith healing for computers:
Operations called Systems Programming because a (mainframe) disk drive was misbehaving. Walked in to the machine room and over to it. Laid my hands on top of the box.
Problem solved. Never did anything else to it. But Ops said that the problem had gone away.
Laying on of hands. Don't see how it could work on inanimate objects, so ...
I don't know about other professions, but I suspect everybody in IT spends some work time cursing when, inevitably, things don't go smoothly.
Whether they are talking to the software, or maybe the hardware. Or if they are appealing to a higher power for help. (Or maybe retribution on said recalcitrant software.). Hard to say. Possibly it varies from one individual to another.
Actual, you know, convictions for assault might be persuasive. But just getting charged? Not so much, considering how often the charges get dropped. Not to mention that even those that get to court don't have the kind of high success rate other kinds of cases routinely have.
And to be picky, I don’t think there is anything to support Noem’s claim that there has been a 700% increase in these incidents.
I doubt that she has the wit for this herself, but there might be someone on staff who does. Percentages are a great way to exagerate an increase from, for example, 1 incident nationwide last year to 7 this year. Both numbers are small enough, given the total numbers of people involved, that the variation might well be nothing more than statistical noise. But it makes for great scare headlines this way.
People should be able to do their jobs without having their home addresses published.
The challenge today is this. If someone can capture your face, they can probably find some facial recognition software to get your name. I don't know how readily available such software is, but it's definitely nor restricted to police departments. And, once someone has your name, getting your home address is difficult only if the name is common enough that there are multiple possibilities. With a name like mine**, it's trivial.
Someday we may work out ways to provide a little more privacy. But for the moment, we are in stalker heaven. (And I'm wondering, now that I think about it, how the Witness Protection Program deals with this.)
** Both the other people in the country with the same first and last names are 1st cousins. No prize for guessing our grandfather's name.
I'd be fine with boosting the link limit to something like 5. 10 definitely seems excessive -- if you have a burning need to share more, putting in multiple comments doesn't seem that much of a burden.
As for closing comments, I incline to something like 21 days. Anything over a month is just way too long. But 14 is a bit short.
No question that climate change is criticality important. What it is not is an issue which will move votes. At this point, political campaigns simply cannot be about educating voters about things that the ought to care about. It has to be about getting them in side for the next election.
God willing, we will get back to a place where we can focus on educating voters. Rather than having to focus on saving the country. But we aren't there now.
if one genuinely wanted to attack the problem one would go after the employers, who have much more to lose than the illegal immigrants.
Fact is, nobody has done it. It's now peculiar to Trunp & Co., so it's not just about Trump being a big empliyer of illehals.
The law has been in place forever. But when I.C.E. (or its predecessors) make a raid on a workplace, somehow the employer never faces legal consequences. Even in cases where the employees really are illegally here (and not merely of the "wrong" racial or ethnic group).
"what justification is there for its presence anyway?"
At this point: inertia.
Half a century ago, when we were a big oil importer and the Saudis essentially controlled the price of oil worldwide, there were obvious economic reasons to be involved there. Plus, at that time, some humanitarian reasons to defend the only democracy in the region (Israel).
But now, we're a net oil exporter. We still import a lot, but on balance. And these days (yes, gradually over the intervening decades) Israel has ceased to be a shining example compared to its neighbors. Even though said neighbors are still pretty appalling.
In fact, from a domestic political perspective, the majority of American Jews are no longer solid Israel supporters. Netanyahu has made manifest for them just where Israel has descended to. All we need is a generation of politicians who don't personally remember the situation from 50-60 years ago.
"There was a way to do it safely. Biden had a date in mind and stuck with it. He owns it."
First, there was? Care to share how it might have been done safely?
Second, Biden didn't have a date in mind. Trump (before he left) had established the date. Biden was stuck either totally reworking the pullout, or trying to execute what he was handed. In retrospect, he should have abrogated the pullout agreement Trump had made, and created a viable plan. And just accepted the fact that he would be totally trashed for doing so.
Did it go badly? No question. But from where I sit, Trump owns it. Or would, if he ever accepted responsibility for anything.
Trump gets along with other authoritarians, but that’s no guarantee they are always going to be bff.
Trump is nobody's friend, for an instant let alone forever. An admirer, sure. But the instant there's an advantage to him, he'll throw anyone under the bus. There are, after all, plenty of other authoritarians to admire and try to emulate.
Trump cheerfully stokes Islamaphobia. But I doubt that he cares about the issue of religion, any religion, personally.
On the other hand, Qatar, like the Emirates and like Saudi Arabia, are totalitarian states. And Trump admires totalitarians, being a wannabe one himself. So he has no problem making deals with them. Any kind of deals -- doesn't matter if they're in the national interest or not, as long as they benefit him personally.
* I doubt the folks saying that are really gonna want to live in a world where it’s “all torn down”.
BIllionaires and centi-billionaires excepted. They have, as the colloquial expression goes, fuck you money. They’ll be fine no matter what.*
I'm sure that they think that. But how fine they will be is likely to depend on whether they manage to flee the country in time. Because, if they stay and it's all torn down, they are going to present an irresistible target.
Sure, they can hire guys with guns to defend them. But the thing is, those guys with guns are going to want to be paid. AND they are going to want somewhere to spend that pay. If it's all torn down, that's going to be problematic.
*what this tells me about the other side is that influential people on it are unconcerned with reality.*
I wonder about that. Is it that they are unconcerned with reality? Or are they (at least many of them) just as caught up in the alternate reality as any Faux News viewer?
Certainly there are some there who will ignore anything that looks like an inconvenient fact. Not to mention those who are simply delusional. But the (mis)information bubble there is both very real and very pervasive.
And it has the huge merit that it will classify as elite a whole bunch of people that today's self-important elitists will be horrified to be classed with.
Nobody cares that if could/should be better. But raise the price of what they already have substantially? Take it away altogether? Whole different kettle of fish.
The decision that the Democrats face, it seems to me, amounts first to whether to attack on all fronts, or to pick one (or, at most two) fronts. My sense is that, while they find themselves in a target-rich environment, they will do better to pick one. The general public is not going to spend the time and effort to understand multiple issues. So focus, focus, focus.
The next question is: which issue? Obvious choices being 1) health care and the impact that Republican policy, as displayed in their budget, will have: skyrocket costs and even making it largely unavailable in places. The fact that those places are generally rural (i.e. deep red) areas is a bonus. 2) ICE and what it is doing to everything from local businesses to food prices.
What they should not do is put all there efforts into fighting Trump's threat to democracy in America and our form of government overall. Granted, it's enormously important issue. But it simply doesn't resonate with the voters (and potential voters) that Democrats need to reach. That doesn't mean ignoring the issue. By all means support those pushing it. But don't make it focus. It's satisfying harassment if you are a non-MAGA activist, but it won't influence existing Republican Representatives (except, maybe, to do dumb things) and it won't win votes next year.
One wildcard is the military. A lot of enlisted military live pretty much paycheck to paycheck. And their next paycheck, in a few days, isn't happening at the moment. Democrats are pushing a special bill to at least pay them, even if not other government employees. But since the Speaker is keeping the House in recess** that can't happen. The military is stationed in relatively compact areas. So messages targetting those locales would be worthwhile. The military leans conservative, but being unable to feed their families is something that way overwhelms that inclination. And it's something they won't forget.
To repeat: focus, focus, focus.
** The actual reason may be something else. But a plausible explanation is the newly elected Representative from Arizona. When the House comes back into session, she gets sworn in; until that she technically isn't yet a member. That matters because she would be the last signature necessary for the discharge petition which will lead to making the Epstein files public. The longer Johnson can stall, the longer he and, more to the point, Trump have to lean on the handful of Republican Representatives who have signed the petition. I have no idea what's in there, but the desperation to keep it quiet is palpable.
I think one of the great (and often overlooked) issues in this kind of discussion is: What is your definition of "elite"? Is it how much money you have (regardless of whether you earned it, inherited it, or maybe won the lottery)? Is it how much you make (whether you hang on to it or not)? Or is it how much education you have (regardless of whether you actually use anything you learned)? Or maybe something else?
Granted there is some correlation among the first three. But they are certainly far from identical. And yet anytime the term comes up in discussion, everybody seems to assume that everybody else is working from the same definition. Or should be.
And that is at the root of any suggestion that someone doesn't recognize their own membership in "the elite.". Almost certainly the other person is coming from a different definition of the term. Under their definition, they might well be correct.
That's how an Oxford professor can believe that he isn't a member of the elite -- he doesn't make enough. While someone who uses the level of education as the governing criteria will think that of course he is part of the elite. Different definitions.
P.S. It belatedly occurs to me that the converse also applies. Some people consider themselves part of the elite. While lots of others strongly disagree. (Only consider the term nouveau-riche.) Again, different definitions.
Also, if you (or you minions acting on your wishes) order an attack on a vessel in international waters, in contravention of both international law and the laws of your own country, that is going to be pretty much an automatic dis-qualification. If you routinely rant and bluster had loudly threaten in all directions, that isn't going to have a positive impact on the Peace Prize committee.
In short, it's fairly certain that, since he can't fire the committe and replace them with sycophants, he's SOL. Probably permanently.
I don’t believe – I’m not willing to believe – that half the voters are evil. We need to talk to them respectfully and sympathetically. We’ve all been taken in at some time by liars: it’s our side’s job to point out the lies, not to judge the liars’ victims. [Emphasis added]
I think this is another piece of the puzzle when trying to break thru. Be up front about having been bamboozled ourselves. Just to avoid the suggestion that "we're smart enough to have seen thru it, but you re so dumb you got conned." It helps if you've got an example of where you got taken in initially. And if it's something that they can see thru, all the better. (Perhaps "when I was in school, socialism looked attractive. Took me a while to see that it wasn't workable in the real world." Even if you still do think it is workable, it can be a useful example.)
I'd say that whether something is usefully measurable depends enormously on the topic.
For engineering it's closer to critic -- "if you can't measure it, you can't manage it." For the physical (including biological) sciences it's important when testing out new theories. But useless for coming up with those theories. For the social sciences, it ought to be important, again for testing theories (but again not useful creating them.) But currently, so much of it is poorly done that it isn't. At least not yet.
For the humanities, I'd say it's totally useless. Doesn't keep fools from trying to do it anyway. But it doesn't work because it can't work.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “The South shall writhe again”
I notice that Trump is now demanding that the Chinese resume buying soybeans from the US. One suspects that he discovered that Midwestern farmers are seriously upset to have a major market snatched out from under them. (Especially those who didn't see it coming, and so failedto plant something else this year. Too late now to do anything but plow the crop under as fertalizer for next year.)
He seems oblivious to the fact that the Chinese have found alternative suppliers. Which is to say, they don't need to buy from us. As opposed to, say, refined rare earths, for which we (and, for that matter the rest of the world) have no alternative sources of supply.
We could develop them, of course -- "rare earths" aren't particularly rare; just challenging to separate from each other. It would just take 5-10 years, even assuming zero regulatory constraints (i.e. no environmental impact reports, no planning permissions, etc.). Can't expect Trump to grasp that, of course.
I could easily see the Chinese playing hardball on this. If only to show the wannabe his place. Hey, it keeps working for Putin, so why not?
"
it seems natural that rural culture should be similarly homgeneous
The question would seem to be: why is it Southern rural culture which is the model? Why not the Midwest? Or the Mountain West? They all have significant rural populations, too.
On “The Return of the Boat Hook”
For serious animism, one of my favorite memories is still Faith healing for computers:
Operations called Systems Programming because a (mainframe) disk drive was misbehaving. Walked in to the machine room and over to it. Laid my hands on top of the box.
Problem solved. Never did anything else to it. But Ops said that the problem had gone away.
Laying on of hands. Don't see how it could work on inanimate objects, so ...
"
I don't know about other professions, but I suspect everybody in IT spends some work time cursing when, inevitably, things don't go smoothly.
Whether they are talking to the software, or maybe the hardware. Or if they are appealing to a higher power for help. (Or maybe retribution on said recalcitrant software.). Hard to say. Possibly it varies from one individual to another.
On “What’s up, doxx?”
Actual, you know, convictions for assault might be persuasive. But just getting charged? Not so much, considering how often the charges get dropped. Not to mention that even those that get to court don't have the kind of high success rate other kinds of cases routinely have.
"
And to be picky, I don’t think there is anything to support Noem’s claim that there has been a 700% increase in these incidents.
I doubt that she has the wit for this herself, but there might be someone on staff who does. Percentages are a great way to exagerate an increase from, for example, 1 incident nationwide last year to 7 this year. Both numbers are small enough, given the total numbers of people involved, that the variation might well be nothing more than statistical noise. But it makes for great scare headlines this way.
People should be able to do their jobs without having their home addresses published.
The challenge today is this. If someone can capture your face, they can probably find some facial recognition software to get your name. I don't know how readily available such software is, but it's definitely nor restricted to police departments. And, once someone has your name, getting your home address is difficult only if the name is common enough that there are multiple possibilities. With a name like mine**, it's trivial.
Someday we may work out ways to provide a little more privacy. But for the moment, we are in stalker heaven. (And I'm wondering, now that I think about it, how the Witness Protection Program deals with this.)
** Both the other people in the country with the same first and last names are 1st cousins. No prize for guessing our grandfather's name.
On “Opinions on settings”
I'd be fine with boosting the link limit to something like 5. 10 definitely seems excessive -- if you have a burning need to share more, putting in multiple comments doesn't seem that much of a burden.
As for closing comments, I incline to something like 21 days. Anything over a month is just way too long. But 14 is a bit short.
On “The Mother-in-law defense”
No question that climate change is criticality important. What it is not is an issue which will move votes. At this point, political campaigns simply cannot be about educating voters about things that the ought to care about. It has to be about getting them in side for the next election.
God willing, we will get back to a place where we can focus on educating voters. Rather than having to focus on saving the country. But we aren't there now.
On “Let’s start calling a thug a thug”
if one genuinely wanted to attack the problem one would go after the employers, who have much more to lose than the illegal immigrants.
Fact is, nobody has done it. It's now peculiar to Trunp & Co., so it's not just about Trump being a big empliyer of illehals.
The law has been in place forever. But when I.C.E. (or its predecessors) make a raid on a workplace, somehow the employer never faces legal consequences. Even in cases where the employees really are illegally here (and not merely of the "wrong" racial or ethnic group).
On “The Qatar that plays like butter”
"what justification is there for its presence anyway?"
At this point: inertia.
Half a century ago, when we were a big oil importer and the Saudis essentially controlled the price of oil worldwide, there were obvious economic reasons to be involved there. Plus, at that time, some humanitarian reasons to defend the only democracy in the region (Israel).
But now, we're a net oil exporter. We still import a lot, but on balance. And these days (yes, gradually over the intervening decades) Israel has ceased to be a shining example compared to its neighbors. Even though said neighbors are still pretty appalling.
In fact, from a domestic political perspective, the majority of American Jews are no longer solid Israel supporters. Netanyahu has made manifest for them just where Israel has descended to. All we need is a generation of politicians who don't personally remember the situation from 50-60 years ago.
On “Let’s start calling a thug a thug”
"There was a way to do it safely. Biden had a date in mind and stuck with it. He owns it."
First, there was? Care to share how it might have been done safely?
Second, Biden didn't have a date in mind. Trump (before he left) had established the date. Biden was stuck either totally reworking the pullout, or trying to execute what he was handed. In retrospect, he should have abrogated the pullout agreement Trump had made, and created a viable plan. And just accepted the fact that he would be totally trashed for doing so.
Did it go badly? No question. But from where I sit, Trump owns it. Or would, if he ever accepted responsibility for anything.
On “The Qatar that plays like butter”
Trump gets along with other authoritarians, but that’s no guarantee they are always going to be bff.
Trump is nobody's friend, for an instant let alone forever. An admirer, sure. But the instant there's an advantage to him, he'll throw anyone under the bus. There are, after all, plenty of other authoritarians to admire and try to emulate.
"
Trump cheerfully stokes Islamaphobia. But I doubt that he cares about the issue of religion, any religion, personally.
On the other hand, Qatar, like the Emirates and like Saudi Arabia, are totalitarian states. And Trump admires totalitarians, being a wannabe one himself. So he has no problem making deals with them. Any kind of deals -- doesn't matter if they're in the national interest or not, as long as they benefit him personally.
On “Let’s start calling a thug a thug”
* I doubt the folks saying that are really gonna want to live in a world where it’s “all torn down”.
BIllionaires and centi-billionaires excepted. They have, as the colloquial expression goes, fuck you money. They’ll be fine no matter what.*
I'm sure that they think that. But how fine they will be is likely to depend on whether they manage to flee the country in time. Because, if they stay and it's all torn down, they are going to present an irresistible target.
Sure, they can hire guys with guns to defend them. But the thing is, those guys with guns are going to want to be paid. AND they are going to want somewhere to spend that pay. If it's all torn down, that's going to be problematic.
"
*what this tells me about the other side is that influential people on it are unconcerned with reality.*
I wonder about that. Is it that they are unconcerned with reality? Or are they (at least many of them) just as caught up in the alternate reality as any Faux News viewer?
Certainly there are some there who will ignore anything that looks like an inconvenient fact. Not to mention those who are simply delusional. But the (mis)information bubble there is both very real and very pervasive.
On “The Mother-in-law defense”
In elite liberal spaces
As so often, we wonder just what definition of "elite" is being used here.
On “Brought to you by your latest captain of industry”
And it has the huge merit that it will classify as elite a whole bunch of people that today's self-important elitists will be horrified to be classed with.
On “The Mother-in-law defense”
Nobody cares that if could/should be better. But raise the price of what they already have substantially? Take it away altogether? Whole different kettle of fish.
"
The decision that the Democrats face, it seems to me, amounts first to whether to attack on all fronts, or to pick one (or, at most two) fronts. My sense is that, while they find themselves in a target-rich environment, they will do better to pick one. The general public is not going to spend the time and effort to understand multiple issues. So focus, focus, focus.
The next question is: which issue? Obvious choices being 1) health care and the impact that Republican policy, as displayed in their budget, will have: skyrocket costs and even making it largely unavailable in places. The fact that those places are generally rural (i.e. deep red) areas is a bonus. 2) ICE and what it is doing to everything from local businesses to food prices.
What they should not do is put all there efforts into fighting Trump's threat to democracy in America and our form of government overall. Granted, it's enormously important issue. But it simply doesn't resonate with the voters (and potential voters) that Democrats need to reach. That doesn't mean ignoring the issue. By all means support those pushing it. But don't make it focus. It's satisfying harassment if you are a non-MAGA activist, but it won't influence existing Republican Representatives (except, maybe, to do dumb things) and it won't win votes next year.
One wildcard is the military. A lot of enlisted military live pretty much paycheck to paycheck. And their next paycheck, in a few days, isn't happening at the moment. Democrats are pushing a special bill to at least pay them, even if not other government employees. But since the Speaker is keeping the House in recess** that can't happen. The military is stationed in relatively compact areas. So messages targetting those locales would be worthwhile. The military leans conservative, but being unable to feed their families is something that way overwhelms that inclination. And it's something they won't forget.
To repeat: focus, focus, focus.
** The actual reason may be something else. But a plausible explanation is the newly elected Representative from Arizona. When the House comes back into session, she gets sworn in; until that she technically isn't yet a member. That matters because she would be the last signature necessary for the discharge petition which will lead to making the Epstein files public. The longer Johnson can stall, the longer he and, more to the point, Trump have to lean on the handful of Republican Representatives who have signed the petition. I have no idea what's in there, but the desperation to keep it quiet is palpable.
On “Brought to you by your latest captain of industry”
I think one of the great (and often overlooked) issues in this kind of discussion is: What is your definition of "elite"? Is it how much money you have (regardless of whether you earned it, inherited it, or maybe won the lottery)? Is it how much you make (whether you hang on to it or not)? Or is it how much education you have (regardless of whether you actually use anything you learned)? Or maybe something else?
Granted there is some correlation among the first three. But they are certainly far from identical. And yet anytime the term comes up in discussion, everybody seems to assume that everybody else is working from the same definition. Or should be.
And that is at the root of any suggestion that someone doesn't recognize their own membership in "the elite.". Almost certainly the other person is coming from a different definition of the term. Under their definition, they might well be correct.
That's how an Oxford professor can believe that he isn't a member of the elite -- he doesn't make enough. While someone who uses the level of education as the governing criteria will think that of course he is part of the elite. Different definitions.
P.S. It belatedly occurs to me that the converse also applies. Some people consider themselves part of the elite. While lots of others strongly disagree. (Only consider the term nouveau-riche.) Again, different definitions.
On “Bathtub Bug is Dead”
wonkie, you can't just leave it there! What kind of crustacean?
On “…..”
Charles, that's an impressive imitation of the Onion. Well done! (It's really hard to parody him)
"
Also, if you (or you minions acting on your wishes) order an attack on a vessel in international waters, in contravention of both international law and the laws of your own country, that is going to be pretty much an automatic dis-qualification. If you routinely rant and bluster had loudly threaten in all directions, that isn't going to have a positive impact on the Peace Prize committee.
In short, it's fairly certain that, since he can't fire the committe and replace them with sycophants, he's SOL. Probably permanently.
On “Let’s start calling a thug a thug”
I don’t believe – I’m not willing to believe – that half the voters are evil. We need to talk to them respectfully and sympathetically. We’ve all been taken in at some time by liars: it’s our side’s job to point out the lies, not to judge the liars’ victims. [Emphasis added]
I think this is another piece of the puzzle when trying to break thru. Be up front about having been bamboozled ourselves. Just to avoid the suggestion that "we're smart enough to have seen thru it, but you re so dumb you got conned." It helps if you've got an example of where you got taken in initially. And if it's something that they can see thru, all the better. (Perhaps "when I was in school, socialism looked attractive. Took me a while to see that it wasn't workable in the real world." Even if you still do think it is workable, it can be a useful example.)
On “Chinese corruption”
I'd say that whether something is usefully measurable depends enormously on the topic.
For engineering it's closer to critic -- "if you can't measure it, you can't manage it." For the physical (including biological) sciences it's important when testing out new theories. But useless for coming up with those theories. For the social sciences, it ought to be important, again for testing theories (but again not useful creating them.) But currently, so much of it is poorly done that it isn't. At least not yet.
For the humanities, I'd say it's totally useless. Doesn't keep fools from trying to do it anyway. But it doesn't work because it can't work.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.