Saturday, August 31, 2019
Which Type Of Flame Warrior Is Bret Stephens?
We’re watching a middle aged man go through his first forum flame war on the grandest possible stage. Like any first flame war it’s 100% just a guy digging in and saying progressively stupider things with ever greater gravity
— ~Swinton (@Basic_Chunnel) August 31, 2019
Obviously he's Newbie but also Filibuster and Ideologue.
Friday, August 30, 2019
And You're Surprised By This????
It's maybe the most annoying response on the internet, communicating that You, Observing A Bad Thing, are stupid for Being Surprised By Something Not Surprising.
Me: Wow, a mass shooting. Bad.
You, Wise Person: And you're surprised by this? Don't you know about all the guns???
No most of the time this stuff is not surprising. It's also the twin of "that's just the way the system works." Well maybe it shouldn't?
Me: Wow, a mass shooting. Bad.
You, Wise Person: And you're surprised by this? Don't you know about all the guns???
No most of the time this stuff is not surprising. It's also the twin of "that's just the way the system works." Well maybe it shouldn't?
Bret's Safe Spaces
People have said most of what I would've said about Bretbug, except maybe one thing. There's a reason Bret went after Karpf, a professor, and not some random shit talker. Karpf is lower in the hierarchy than Stephens, which is why Stephens tried to assert his AUTHORITAH, but he's still in the hierarchy. Karpf is supposed to know the rules. The peasants outside the castle are allowed to get drunk and talk shit because who cares about the peasants? Well unless they get too annoying and then you just shoot some arrows at them. But Karpf was violating the rules of the court.
Gotta Play The Game
One can complain (and I do, justifiably) that the political press shouldn't mostly be about Republicans kicking the soccer ball and then all of their little 5-year-old selves chasing it around, but still politics is inevitably part theater, even though it shouldn't be the worst of Vaudeville (the best of Vaudeville would be fine). And if the Dems don't even show up to the stage...
Sternly worded tweets don't count.
Sternly worded tweets don't count.
Wow Who Told Him
Tory MP. Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union.
People have been saying this for years...
The car industry’s ‘just in time’ supply chains rely on fluid cross-Channel trade routes. >1,100 trucks filled with car parts cross seamlessly from EU into UK each day. We need to start talks now on how we make sure this flow continues if we leave without a deal. /4
— Steve Barclay MP (@SteveBarclay) August 28, 2019
People have been saying this for years...
Thursday, August 29, 2019
Anybody Who Will Love Us
I really don't get the establishment liberal fondness for any conservative grifter who suggests they might not love Trump all that much, even when they are, obviously, grifters.
As for why posh liberals seem to feel more personal affection for Joes Scarborough and Walsh than they do for, say, the young liberal people who are actually in their employ, there’s no need to psychoanalyze it that deeply. They are flattered by the approval-seeking of Republican men, and annoyed by the upstart left-wingers who insist that they live up to liberal ideals these same elites find inconvenient or unprofitable. Should Walsh find himself with an MSNBC contract at the end of all this, he will make few demands of his new audience, except that they forget how he got there.
Oft is Seen The Wicked Prize Itself Buys Out The Law
Someone said (sorry, forget who, internet brain) that basically the Democrats wanted a spy thriller instead of a boring corruption story, as if the former would have magically solved their problem (HE WOULD SELF-EVIDENTLY HAVE TO SELF-IMPEACH AT LONG LAST), while the latter would actually require that they Do Leadership and take care of the problems themselves, aside from sending sternly worded tweets.
An alternate, if not entirely contradictory, theory is that one must be careful before one starts turning over rocks. Never know what might be under them, and whose name is on them!
An alternate, if not entirely contradictory, theory is that one must be careful before one starts turning over rocks. Never know what might be under them, and whose name is on them!
Pretty Big Letdown After That Exciting Cliffhanger
If Democrats aren't going to use what power they have to deal with Trump, they'd better get better at faking it. Voters might conclude that the guy isn't so bad after all.
Wednesday, August 28, 2019
Neato
I've been staring at this self-driving car issue for years without having any clue how people could imagine it's going to work. It just isn't a problem that can be solved by making it incrementally better, especially when the fantasies are about "robotaxis," the hardest possible application. I suppose it's somewhat of a function of the roads that you are used to. Newly developed suburban road systems in areas of CA and AZ "seem" like solvable problems, but I can't picture these things traveling half a mile here in the urban hellhole, and not because the urban hellhole is hard driving for human drivers.
Mountain View-headquartered Waymo wants to expand the rideshare with its advanced self-driving taxi service. But if San Francisco test riders have anything to say about it, the previously Google-owned company still has a long way to go if its executives plan to compete with Lyft and Uber.That they work as well as they do is genuinely neato. But neato doesn't mean useful.
Sorry, David
Final wish not granted.
Voters in Phoenix have soundly rejected a proposal that would have halted the expansion of the city’s light rail system — a proposition that had the backing of dark money linked to the notorious anti-transit Koch brothers.
In a 62-to-38 percent vote, residents turned aside Proposition 105, which would have redirected a previously passed tax away from light rail towards other transportation improvements. It would also have required “terminating all construction, development, extension, and expansion of” light rail.
Christ, What An Asshole
I suppose we should end Bretbug Day with the foul insult wielder himself.
But here’s what still bothers me as this strange episode recedes from the news cycle: Bret Stephens seems to think that his social status should render him immune from criticism from people like me. I think that the rewards of his social status come with an understanding that lesser-known people will say mean things about him online.
Stephens reached out to me in the mistaken belief that I would feel ashamed. He reached out believing my university would chastise me for provoking the ire of a writer at The New York Times. That’s an abuse of his social station. It cost me nothing, but it is an abuse of his power that would carry a real penalty for a younger or less privileged academic. The Times should expect more of its writers. Stephens should expect more of himself.
Time For Some Sternly Worded Tweets
Maybe some sassy clapping.
The president has told senior aides that a failure to deliver on the signature promise of his 2016 campaign would be a letdown to his supporters and an embarrassing defeat. With the election 14 months away and hundreds of miles of fencing plans still in blueprint form, Trump has held regular White House meetings for progress updates and to hasten the pace, according to several people involved in the discussions.Mueller is coming.
When aides have suggested that some orders are illegal or unworkable, Trump has suggested he would pardon the officials if they would just go ahead, aides said. He has waved off worries about contracting procedures and the use of eminent domain, saying “take the land,” according to officials who attended the meetings.
Tuesday, August 27, 2019
Tenure
An important thing is that while tenure generally protects a tiny number of people from assholes like Bret Stephens, most people certainly can face consequences from having the manager called on them for being mean to Bret Stephens on twitter.
David Karpf: The two things that stand out are that it’s entertaining, and distracting. It does keep occurring to me the reason why this is actually pretty fun for me is that I’m a white guy with tenure, which means that—if he had sent this to me before I had a tenured job, that would have been a powerful and terrifying message, and I’m 100 percent sure that that’s what he expected it to do. When he writes a message where it says, “From Bret Stephens, New York Times,” from his New York Times account, it means that he’s trying to indicate that he’s above me in the social hierarchy. But I’m a professor of strategic political communication, and I have tenure, and I really didn’t do anything wrong. That makes the entire thing bizarre and fun. If I was pre-tenure or I was a woman and had to deal with harassment on Twitter all the time, then I imagine this would be a lot less fun.
They All Told Me He Would Be An Asshole... And He Is
If only we could make Bret wake up every day to repeat Bretbug Day.
News and Opinion Are Separate
This used to be a thing that opinion people would say when readers would get mad at them for being "biased" or similar. That made some sense. Now I see journalists expressing it regularly as if to say "those people aren't my problem." That is dumb. The political desk isn't responsible for the Arts section either but it is all one product ultimately.
(hazards of posting from a phone)
(hazards of posting from a phone)
America's Most Ridiculous Humans
Bret Stephens.
Combined Bret Stephens on TV this morning vs. his anti-safe spaces speech from 2017. Enjoy! pic.twitter.com/qCvXjkDhmX
— Parker Molloy (@ParkerMolloy) August 27, 2019
Who Cares
The thing with Bretbug isn't just that he's a conservative baby man behaving like a big baby. Nothing new there. It's that he is one of the prominent "COLLEGE LIBERALS HATE FREE SPEECH" conservatives, which is a tough trick because they're all on that beat. Bret's on that beat more than most because he only has 3 column ideas that he cycles through. Summer - a quieter time on college campuses, so to speak - must be hard for him if he doesn't at least get July off. He writes stuff like this all the time.
What a shitty person.
The signature move in each of these instances (and there are so many more) is to allege an invisible harm in order to inflict an actual one. In place of an eye for an eye, we have professional destruction for emotional upset. Careers and reputations built over decades come to ruin, or nearly so, on account of a personal mistake or a disfavored opinion.And then tries to get a guy in trouble with the boss for calling him a bedbug on the internet.
All of these struggle sessions play to the sound of chortling twenty-somethings, who have figured out that, in today’s culture, the quickest way to acquire and exercise power is to take offense. This is easy to do, because the list of sins to which one may take offense grows with each passing year, from the culturally appropriated sombrero to the traditionally gendered pronoun.
What a shitty person.
A Piece Of Work
Bretbug's email to the professor would have been just stupid and funny. Mockable, but not much more than that. But that he actually cc:'d the provost - close enough to being your "boss" when you are tenured faculty - shows what a demented authoritarian he is. What's the point of being a Pulitzer Prize Winning Columnist for an elite newspaper if *just anybody* can say mean things about you? That's blogofascism!!! What a fucking wanker.
Do note that Stephens is now aware that the entire Internet thinks he’s a bedbug. “He wrote a followup email to me after seeing this go viral, which just said, ‘Dear Dr. Karpf, you’re a real piece of work,’” Karpf said. But not as much work as bedbugs, which take multiple visits from a pest control operator and a small lifetime of laundering to eradicate for good.
On Tuesday morning, Stephens appeared to concede that he’d lost the argument, announcing that he was getting off Twitter forever.
Monday, August 26, 2019
Monday Night
Hilarious.
Rhymes with "Bret Stephens" who, of course, is very concerned with snowflake lefties suppressing free speech at universities. So concerned he contacted a provost because a professor made fun of him.
This afternoon, I tweeted a brief joke about a well-known NYT op-Ed columnist.
— davekarpf (@davekarpf) August 27, 2019
It got 9 likes and 0 retweets. I did not @ him. He does not follow me.
He just emailed me, cc’ing my university provost. He is deeply offended that I called him a metaphorical bedbug.
Rhymes with "Bret Stephens" who, of course, is very concerned with snowflake lefties suppressing free speech at universities. So concerned he contacted a provost because a professor made fun of him.
St. Rudy Of Seven World Trade Center
The worshipful myth creation of this hideous human after 9/11 was, like so many things then, well, hideous.
Donald Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani promoted discredited conspiracy theories about murdered Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich on Twitter early Monday morning, further fueling the baseless speculation that has anguished Rich’s grieving family.
Or You Can Vote To Defund ACORN
Journalists (some) do have these weird and dumb notions of JOURNALISM but the issue about bad faith (as opposed to good faith and correct or even good faith but misguided and wrong) attacks on you and your employees is that is shouldn't be that hard to figure out if it is actually in bad faith or even in good faith but wrong or who cares. If your employees do "bad things" whether that's bad tweets or trying to ruin the careers of colleagues who won't sleep with them, it is up to you, the boss, to decide whether you need to back your employees (because they deserves to be backed) and then explain that to the rest of your employees.
An under appreciated thing is that there is so much bad management in our dumb society. Not just bad management in the broad abstract sense of "badly running a company." Bad management in the sense of being just being bad at managing employees and employee issues.
An under appreciated thing is that there is so much bad management in our dumb society. Not just bad management in the broad abstract sense of "badly running a company." Bad management in the sense of being just being bad at managing employees and employee issues.
You're Our Only Hope (Checks Notes), Joe Walsh
There's just something off when the entire Dem structure, from Nancy Pelosi to cable news hosts to think tank presidents to random person on twitter, is looking for Republicans to Do The Right Thing and save us. Whether it's NeverTrumpers or Mueller or that One Good Senator, or some disgusting grifter doing an obvious grift, focusing on those agents rather than what is "our" own agency is both misguided and pathetic. I often blame the media for making the Republicans the protagonists in The Story of Politics, but sadly I have to admit that Democrats are more than happy for them to do so.
A grifter ex machina isn't going to bring this story to a happy conclusion. Use the damn power and money and activism that you have available to you.
It's so depressing.
A grifter ex machina isn't going to bring this story to a happy conclusion. Use the damn power and money and activism that you have available to you.
It's so depressing.
Sunday, August 25, 2019
Oh, Elon
What a silly man.
In June 2014, SolarCity bought Silevo, a solar-panel manufacturer that had struck a deal with New York to build a factory in Buffalo. On a conference call, Musk boasted that the deal would enable SolarCity to install tens of gigawatts of panels every year—far beyond the company’s peak annual run rate of about one gigawatt. He spoke as if the technology were already proven. On its website, SolarCity predicted it would “achieve a breakthrough” in solar-power pricing thanks to “massive economies of scale.”And I mean Cuomo. Gotta respect the con. The marks, not so much.
“It was shoot first and aim later,” says the former senior employee. “There was a lot of machismo going on: bigger, better, badder, faster.”
By the time Cuomo visited the site three months later, Silevo’s smallish deal had metastasized. The state promised to spend $350 million to build a factory and another $400 million on equipment specified by SolarCity. The company would get a 10-year lease on the facility—for just $1 a year. In return, it promised to employ at least 1,460 people in “high-tech” jobs at the factory, hire another 2,000 to support the sale and installation of solar panels in New York, and help attract an additional 1,440 “support jobs” in the state. Once it achieved full production, the company pledged, it would spend some $5 billion in New York over the following decade.
“It was sold as a perfect marriage,” says the former senior employee. “The area around the factory is terrible, and I remember thinking: Wow, we are going to save the town where steel was made.” Cuomo too was hooked. “He was enchanted with the idea of Elon Musk in Buffalo,” says a longtime lobbyist in Albany. “I think he actually thought Musk was the next Dalai Lama.”
Everybody's Working For The
Was busy with various things this weekend. It's the weekend! Nice weather, at least.
Saturday, August 24, 2019
No Method In The Madness
One might be tempted to see bucking trade orthodoxies and reconsidering our various relationships with China as good things. They probably are good things!
But Trump has no idea what he's doing and even if he accidentally settled on smart policies he'd forget about them and do something differently the next day.
But Trump has no idea what he's doing and even if he accidentally settled on smart policies he'd forget about them and do something differently the next day.
Friday, August 23, 2019
Our Ivy League Betters
One really doesn't know where to start with my local hero, Amy Wax, as one could start with any sentence, but how about:
Even if you ignore (because they all ignore) various forms and manifestations of colonialism and empire... There were two recent wars which mostly involved the peaceful and orderly people of Europe slaughtering each other. The UK (anglosphere!) alone lost 800,000 people in the first one and 450,000 in the second one. Some other countries lost a few more.
And the question is: Why are successful, peaceful, orderly, prosperous, technologically advanced, democratically sound countries so rare and so few, and why do they clump up in one tiny corner of the globe, namely Europe, the Anglosphere?There's too much wrong with even this one little sentence such that even the least important ones... (is Europe the Anglosphere, or is the Anglospehre a tiny corner of the globe spanning [checks globe] almost the full range of time zones? what is she talking about)
Even if you ignore (because they all ignore) various forms and manifestations of colonialism and empire... There were two recent wars which mostly involved the peaceful and orderly people of Europe slaughtering each other. The UK (anglosphere!) alone lost 800,000 people in the first one and 450,000 in the second one. Some other countries lost a few more.
Wow Sounds Bad
Pelosi, without mentioning the I-word, denounces Trump for making hotel profits while president: "That's wrong. That's in violation of the Constitution of the United States. We will not let that happen."
— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) August 23, 2019
Looking forward to the stopping!!!
Hereby
My President is having quite the week, with the chosen one ordering all companies to not buy from China. Or try not to. Or something.
I wonder what's put his durian melon in the blender. It certainly isn't the threat of getting into trouble for all the crimes.
I wonder what's put his durian melon in the blender. It certainly isn't the threat of getting into trouble for all the crimes.
So They're Nazis
This is... the Nazis.
Must do everything possible to make sure they stay in power! What could go wrong.
Right-wing agitator Mike Cernovich said he knows of young staffers in the White House who are fans of Bronze Age Pervert’s Twitter account — where the author posts photos of buff, shirtless men and promotes far-right positions on the culture war — though he does not know if they have read the book.What's funny (not haha funny) is most of these guys would be offended if you called them Nazis because Hitler was a liberal.
The 200-page book mixes Nietzschean philosophy with critiques of contemporary Western society, denigrating homosexuality, Judiasm, Islam, feminism and much else along the way. “Inside every noble Greek was an unquenchable lust for power,” is one fairly typical statement. “Modern world not bad just because modern,” is another, displaying the author’s habit of lapsing into broken English by dropping articles. The book claims that the leaders of the European Union have “tiny moleman eyes.” Many of its passages are profane and unprintable.
Must do everything possible to make sure they stay in power! What could go wrong.
Though We Die La Resistance...Well...
Does its best to stay dead.
I mean read the whole thing but, basically, hahah oversight, suckers. Just keep doing crimes!
I mean read the whole thing but, basically, hahah oversight, suckers. Just keep doing crimes!
Thursday, August 22, 2019
When There's Nothing Left To Burn
Friday happy hour throwback.
...apparently it is Thursday. Nobody tells me anything.
...apparently it is Thursday. Nobody tells me anything.
Duh
I don't want to go to the airport on peak travel day either.
These kinds of hassles aren't easily quantifiable because they're mostly uncertainty. If you know it's gonna take 10 hours at the border you can plan (and charge) for that but chaos is chaos. Stay away!
Britain has been warned by the German government that its food producers might stop delivering to the UK rather than risk their goods getting caught up in bottlenecks at ports in a no-deal Brexit, BuzzFeed News can reveal.If it costs a lot more money in time and hassle they might not bother. It isn't complicated.
It is understood the warning was issued in recent meetings between officials from the country's agriculture ministry and the British Foreign Office.
According to a diplomatic source, German officials expressed their frustration at how the Brexit negotiations had gone and said that food businesses in Germany "expected" huge delays at the borders. They said that despite the industry's efforts to prepare, the delays, coupled with any rise in tariffs, could persuade food producers to focus on other markets.
These kinds of hassles aren't easily quantifiable because they're mostly uncertainty. If you know it's gonna take 10 hours at the border you can plan (and charge) for that but chaos is chaos. Stay away!
But 100% Of Trump Supporters Who Say They Still Support Trump Still Support Trump
The bizarre coverage of the electorate in the age of Trump - and all reporters are quite aware of this criticism and they do it anyway - is that the only voters who matter are the people who support Trump. Weirdly if you focus on them, it seems like Trump has 100% support! It's like going into a room full of people (some random diner filled with old white people) who mostly likely Trump, and then only interviewing the ones who say they like Trump! Haha I kid. It isn't like that. That's what they do!
Trump has never been popular. At best he's been about as popular as B. Barry Bamz overall, though squinting at polls tells me he's been a bit less popular generally, but Obummer was always treated as a fairly unpopular president - with his critics dominating the narrative - and Trump has been treated as a popular one.
Again, reporters know this. While they are not as smart as they think they are - congrats on your expensive SAT test prep course, we are all very impressed with your accomplishments at age 16 - they are not too stupid to be aware that this is what they have been doing.
Trump at 36% won't be enough to change this. When Bush hit low poll numbers they started writing "comeback kid" stories before there was any evidence of a comeback.
"Trump's low approval provides a unique challenge for Democrats" will be a NYT headline soon. And the sad thing is, Democrats will believe it.
Trump has never been popular. At best he's been about as popular as B. Barry Bamz overall, though squinting at polls tells me he's been a bit less popular generally, but Obummer was always treated as a fairly unpopular president - with his critics dominating the narrative - and Trump has been treated as a popular one.
Again, reporters know this. While they are not as smart as they think they are - congrats on your expensive SAT test prep course, we are all very impressed with your accomplishments at age 16 - they are not too stupid to be aware that this is what they have been doing.
Trump at 36% won't be enough to change this. When Bush hit low poll numbers they started writing "comeback kid" stories before there was any evidence of a comeback.
Just 36% of Americans approve of the way Trump is handling his job as president; 62% disapprove.
The numbers may be ugly for a first-term president facing reelection in 14 months, but they are remarkably consistent. Trump’s approval rating has never dipped below 32% or risen above 42% in AP-NORC polls since he took office. By comparison, President Barack Obama’s approval never dropped below 40% in polling by Gallup.
"Trump's low approval provides a unique challenge for Democrats" will be a NYT headline soon. And the sad thing is, Democrats will believe it.
Wednesday, August 21, 2019
Someone's Gotta Lead
A fair question - one I have raised here on this dumb blog myself I think - is why all those newspaper editorial boards which called on Clinton to resign haven't called on Trump to resign. Sure they aren't all the same people but there is institutional continuity at these places.
Somebody always has to jump first on these things, however, and asking editorial boards to do so (which they should!) is asking for the mythical referees to make the call so the Democrats don't have to. If Democrats started calling on Trump to resign, or leadership allowed impeachment proceedings to be a real thing, they might start. Not sure why it should work the other way. Politics is political, and politicians gotta do their jobs.
Somebody always has to jump first on these things, however, and asking editorial boards to do so (which they should!) is asking for the mythical referees to make the call so the Democrats don't have to. If Democrats started calling on Trump to resign, or leadership allowed impeachment proceedings to be a real thing, they might start. Not sure why it should work the other way. Politics is political, and politicians gotta do their jobs.
And Why Would It Be Easier This Time
Joe Biden says if elected president tomorrow, the first thing he’d do is send an immigration bill to Congress. "I think we’d get it passed this time,” he says. “We came close last time. People are realizing how lopsided we are in dealing with this."
— Matt Viser (@mviser) August 21, 2019
The only way Biden's repeated assertion that the the very fine people in the GOP will work with him when they wouldn't work with his Best Friend, Barack Obama, makes sense is if he believes they wouldn't work with Obama because reasons (I think you know what those reasons are). I don't that's true, but thinking it's true says a lot about Onion Joe, and none of it good.
Don't Make Me Root For Walmart
But reasonably personal home solar (which this is not but Tesla is otherwise involved in) is a "good" thing, installing it on existing homes is not quite as straightforward as some (including Tesla) like to make it sound, and having a high profile company (allegedly) screw it up this badly is, well, bad.
In its complaint, filed in New York late Tuesday, Walmart contends Tesla breached its contract to design, install, maintain and operate solar-power systems on the roofs of its stores. Aside from the fires — complete with photographic evidence — Walmart accuses Tesla of a pattern of negligence, obfuscation and, as in the instance with the plumbing tool being used to tighten electrical connectors, sheer incompetence. Tesla did not respond to requests for comment. However, in letters from its lawyer, included as exhibits, Tesla blamed Walmart for “breaches of contract, deliberate delay, and bad faith,” effectively blocking the inspection process for the solar installations and unnecessarily forcing the entire fleet shut down for months because of a handful of “thermal events.”
An unusual feature of Walmart’s complaint is that the “substantive allegations” section begins not with the fires or even the installation of the offending panels but an important chapter of Tesla’s own corporate history, namely the 2016 acquisition of SolarCity Corp. Walmart pulls no punches, characterizing the deal as a bailout of a struggling related party. This section reads like a dramatic prologue aimed at establishing the narrative that Tesla’s energy business was built on shoddy foundations, setting off a chain of unfortunate events that ultimately sparked those fires and put that plumbing tool in that inspector’s hand.
What If We Made A Mistake
One can have different views about how the press should treat Trump, and "the press" isn't and shouldn't be monolithic in any case, but one knows that "the press," as defined by certain elite supposedly nonpartisan "objective" outlets, currently treats Trump differently than they even treat the people who are merely running for the Democratic nomination.
No they never seem to ask that question.
No they never seem to ask that question.
Tuesday, August 20, 2019
The Indignities Of Air Travel
I'm sure I've brought this up before (but no I am not complaining about a recent personal experience), but it is a mystery that rich people haven't solved this one. Yes the real rich fly private planes now, and of course first and business don't crush you like cattle class does and otherwise provides better service, but better legroom doesn't solve the other inconveniences of air travel, from the horrors of some (not all) airports, and the difficulties of getting to and from them, to cancelled flights, etc.
Sure I'd rather be at the front of the plane (don't think I've had an upgrade since like 2002), but the overall experience is still bad.
Sure I'd rather be at the front of the plane (don't think I've had an upgrade since like 2002), but the overall experience is still bad.
The War On Cars
There's aren't that many cities in the US where significant banning of cars would be an easy endeavor, but there are plenty of places where reclaiming *some* streets from them would be trivial and cause little harm except "but my free on street parking."
If you visit old parts of European cities that didn't get bombed to bits, there are streets that are largely not compatible with automobile traffic. Cars aren't even always banned in these places, but nobody wants to drive down them unless they absolutely have to (or made a wrong turn). They're small, windy, dominated by pedestrians, have no on street parking, and just aren't useful places to drive. Sometimes cars are banned, or bollard systems exist to only allow local and otherwise authorized vehicles, but taking some streets away from cars doesn't even require banning them, just making them a bit more hostile to them.
US cities doesn't have many places like this, so it would require a conscious decision to make them car unfriendly. And who knows maybe I am dumb and this is a bad idea and even I don't think it's a good idea everywhere, but it's also a pretty easily reversible decision some places. Give it a try!
If you visit old parts of European cities that didn't get bombed to bits, there are streets that are largely not compatible with automobile traffic. Cars aren't even always banned in these places, but nobody wants to drive down them unless they absolutely have to (or made a wrong turn). They're small, windy, dominated by pedestrians, have no on street parking, and just aren't useful places to drive. Sometimes cars are banned, or bollard systems exist to only allow local and otherwise authorized vehicles, but taking some streets away from cars doesn't even require banning them, just making them a bit more hostile to them.
US cities doesn't have many places like this, so it would require a conscious decision to make them car unfriendly. And who knows maybe I am dumb and this is a bad idea and even I don't think it's a good idea everywhere, but it's also a pretty easily reversible decision some places. Give it a try!
It's Pat
There are really no views that right wingers can have that make them toxic to your liberal media, including PBS.
How To Beat Trump
I actually try (and often fail) not to play campaign manager and tell people how to win. We all have opinions and this blog needs content but certainly my criticisms aren't going to influence anyone. I do often fail, of course, and I'm not trying to pretend otherwise. Still as is true for every other wannabe pundit it is best to focus on what appeals to *MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE* and unlike most wannabe and actual pundits not pretend that what appeals to me happens to be the secret sauce to winning.
Monday, August 19, 2019
Just In Time
It's all above my - and most people's - pay grade, but it has hard to imagine how the Brexit-related logistics problems get solved. It doesn't matter too much if fresh plums don't show up in the supermarket, but there aren't big stockpiles of nonperishable items, or places to store them, either. London's not the only place in the UK, of course, but thinking about the problem of feeding 8 million people per day and how you can possibly get around a major disruption of that....
They Never Should Have Talked To Him
Halperin was a disgrace before he was actually a disgraced, and it's a problem that so many professional Democrats just see him as one of the gang.
A Little Bit Of Bread And No Cheese
Everything is wonderful.
The UK will face a three-month meltdown at its ports, a hard Irish border and shortages of food and medicine if it leaves the EU without a deal, according to government documents on Operation Yellowhammer.
The documents predict severe extended delays to medicine supplies and shortages of some fresh foods combined with price rises as a likely scenario if the UK leaves without a withdrawal agreement, which is due to happen on 31 October.
Sunday, August 18, 2019
Gonna Give Mitch All Your Lunch Money
Then brag about it.
Biden at a Cape Cod fundraiser tonight: “There’s an awful lot of really good Republicans out there. I get in trouble for saying that with Democrats, but...every time we ever got in trouble with our administration, remember who got sent up to Capitol Hill to fix it? Me.”
— Matt Viser (@mviser) August 18, 2019
Saturday, August 17, 2019
Saturday Saturday
I don't like most people who write about Trump's melon, because most of them don't start from the obvious premise that it is made of custard and rusty nails.
Friday, August 16, 2019
Get Out The Vote
There's a weird contradiction between the generally accepted Dem view that GOTV operations are important and necessary and that people who don't vote are stupid assholes we should yell at on the internet.
My centrist take: people are stupid assholes but probably yelling at them on the internet doesn't help.
My centrist take: people are stupid assholes but probably yelling at them on the internet doesn't help.
The Left
I am sure that if The Left ever had any power outside of the mythical Oberlin Student Council which according to our elite media runs the world I would have some objections to its agenda of [whatever its agenda is]. But my response to all critiques of The Left is, basically, THE LEFT HAS NO POWER COME BACK TO ME WHEN THEY DO.
Who hurt you in college, Bret and Conor? Show me on the doll of someone else because obviously you were never hurt.
Who hurt you in college, Bret and Conor? Show me on the doll of someone else because obviously you were never hurt.
So Many People To Pin It On
Epstein was murdered by (point at random unsympathetic felon) this guy. So easy!
Thursday, August 15, 2019
When The Innovation Stops
We are all used to buying new "tech" frequently. Those PCs really did get better every couple of years, and for awhile the phones did too. And nothing lasts forever of course. We accept some degree of things just wearing out, or being dropped in the toilet, or whatever. Still some of the purchases have long been driven genuine improvements. My 2nd "smartphone" was certainly better than my first, and my third one was a bit better than the 2nd...but... not sure what the next improvement will be?
Better battery life and easier for old people. But, nah.
Better battery life and easier for old people. But, nah.
The Aunt Sally Problem
A good explanation of why self-driving cars, even a parking lot app, aren't gonna happen.
A Little Thing Called The General Election
If you're working for a candidate to beat Trump and your thought is "well, you see, we gotta hide him because the more people see him the less they like him" consider what you are planning to do to the country.
In it to win it...
In it to win it...
Meatloaf Remainers
It's the joke that might actually save the country, pointing out very simply that the group of people who have made their entire political raison d'etre opposition to Brexit were, in fact, just using it as one more thing to use to complain about Corbyn with. They dislike Corbyn more than they dislike Brexit, and "Corbyn isn't doing the right thing to stop Brexit!!!" has almost always been stupid and disingenuous and just a way to try to undermine him. The Lib Dems, the upChuks, the Blairites, the other "Labour Centrists" have been full of shit for years and as is always the case the "crazy" people who pointed this out are now being greeted with "of course you idiots this was true all along."
I would do anything to stop Brexit, but I won't do that...
(title fixed)
Jeremy Corbyn has written to MPs inviting them to install him in Downing Street, having deposed Boris Johnson with a vote of no confidence. His tenure would, he promises, be “strictly time-limited” – long enough to call a general election and seek the necessary article 50 extension to conduct a ballot.No man is perfect, but the truth is Corbyn has handled the "stop Brexit" movement about as well as possible, given the electorate and the intra-party coalition he has had to work with. It is true that he'd probably be fine with a "soft Brexit" and even prefer it, but it's also true that a "soft Brexit" would be a reasonable outcome. The people undermining the stop Brexit movement have been its leaders, because it's really been a Stop Corbyn movement all along. All of their "stop Brexit" ideas were truly stupid and unworkable and now they admit they never really cared.
...
But in the minds of scores of MPs he is not. His past equivocations over Europe are not the reason, or at least not the only reason. Pro-European Tory rebels, Liberal Democrats, the rag-tag platoon of independents and semi-autonomous tribes of Labour MPs have spent months fretting about ways to thwart a hard Brexit, apparently ready to pull every procedural lever and contemplate all manner of unorthodox coalitions. Not much has been excluded from those considerations, except for a tacit prohibition on any route that makes a prime minister of the current Labour leader. Their horror of Corbyn is equal to – or greater than – their horror of Brexit. That has been so well understood by the participants in the discussion that few have felt much need to articulate it. Corbyn’s letter now obliges them to spell it out.
I would do anything to stop Brexit, but I won't do that...
(title fixed)
Little England
What a disaster.
Hoyle was really responding to the Christian apologist C.S. Lewis, who regularly denounced Hoyle as a secular atheist on radio and had written his own science fiction novel, That Hideous Strength, a decade before. The villain of Lewis’s book was a sinister institute called NICE, which Satanic aliens wanted to impose contraception, lesbianism, secularism and surrealist art on an unsuspecting Britain. Lewis wanted to preserve old Britain against the filthy tide of modernity.
Hoyle riposted with a novel where rational and benevolently ruthless aliens used an organization called ICE to pull the priest ridden republic next door into the technological age. His satirical portrait of Ireland told British readers that the world was being transformed around them, and that even their most backwards seeming neighbor would outstrip them if they didn’t embrace modernity.
The irony of history is that Hoyle’s parody is now the truth. Today’s Ireland has its highways and its contraceptives. The referendum for marriage equality passed in a landslide, and the Taoiseach is a gay man. Ireland’s voters have embraced modernity with enthusiasm and a barely tolerable degree of self-congratulation. Irish Catholic reactionaries are a tiny, bitter minority.
...
Now it is Britain that has fallen back into the nightmare of history. Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson models himself on Winston Churchill, while Jacob Rees-Mogg, that ungodly hybrid of Bertie Wooster and Roderick Spode, pines openly for the Victorian era. Pro-Brexit conservatives want to reverse the last few several decades, and return to a better era for Britain. They think of the Republic of Ireland as a joke or a historical mistake. They cannot understand why it is still committed to Europe and indeed now standing in Britain’s way, by refusing to capitulate on the “backstop.”
Because We Agree With Them
A perfect distillation of "we must obey critics on the Right, and get VERY VERY MAD AT CRITICS ON THE LEFT."
In regard to the debate on how to cover race, some staffers inside The Times agreed wholeheartedly with Baquet's approach. "Using that language is a turn off to some readers," one said. "And there are a lot of people that think The Times is too liberal, and when you start throwing words like that around, people will accuse us of editorializing."I spent too many years buying this argument but it doesn't make any sense. Journalists who say these things aren't scared of conservatives. They agree with them. Left wing criticism makes them mad because they don't agree with left wing critics. It's that simple. They aren't worried that they're "editorializing" the other way.
Wednesday, August 14, 2019
Why Can't Good People And Bad People Find A Compromise?
Of course there are good and bad people across the political spectrum (well, bad people, at least) but so much of our mainstream political discourse is like this. Should we put poor people in the chipper or not? [Serious Centrist Voice]: How about just some of the poor people?
For a long time there was this myth that people on the Left and Right (mainstream Ds and Rs anyway) mostly agreed about the ends we were just fighting about the means of getting there. Or, at most, the Ds were a bit more inclined to smooth of the rough edges, but basically "we" "all" wanted equality of opportunity! And prosperity! And justice! And ponies!
And we've had decades of the best possible political approach being conservative means to liberal ends, and they mostly haven't worked out very well, in part (but not just) because conservatives never really agreed on the liberal ends and do their best to sabotage, when they can, programs they offered up as distractions.
It's fair (if a bit more complicated than some people make it out to be) to say that the ACA is an example of this. It's fundamentally a conservative approach to providing "better" health care, even if there are some liberal sweeteners to make it better than that. Though an example of why this whole thing is hilarious is that one of the liberal sweeteners - the Medicaid expansion - also exists largely to meet the demands of conservative/mainstream budget politics which required finding ways to make the ACA cheaper. Even the liberal stuff is conservative, or at least there to meet the ridiculous demands of conservative politics.
But, really, the conservative political movement, if not all conservative voters, are quite happy to put all the poors into the chipper. "We" should stop pretending otherwise.
For a long time there was this myth that people on the Left and Right (mainstream Ds and Rs anyway) mostly agreed about the ends we were just fighting about the means of getting there. Or, at most, the Ds were a bit more inclined to smooth of the rough edges, but basically "we" "all" wanted equality of opportunity! And prosperity! And justice! And ponies!
And we've had decades of the best possible political approach being conservative means to liberal ends, and they mostly haven't worked out very well, in part (but not just) because conservatives never really agreed on the liberal ends and do their best to sabotage, when they can, programs they offered up as distractions.
It's fair (if a bit more complicated than some people make it out to be) to say that the ACA is an example of this. It's fundamentally a conservative approach to providing "better" health care, even if there are some liberal sweeteners to make it better than that. Though an example of why this whole thing is hilarious is that one of the liberal sweeteners - the Medicaid expansion - also exists largely to meet the demands of conservative/mainstream budget politics which required finding ways to make the ACA cheaper. Even the liberal stuff is conservative, or at least there to meet the ridiculous demands of conservative politics.
But, really, the conservative political movement, if not all conservative voters, are quite happy to put all the poors into the chipper. "We" should stop pretending otherwise.
The Hard Problems
One reason I pick on Elon Musk specifically is that he obviously has absolutely no idea what the difficult problems of his pet project are. A good example is parking lots. Elon thought that even before he unleashed his "turn your car into a robotaxi with just a software update" onto the world that he could have a useful parking lot summons system. Basically you walk out of the Wal-Mart, hit a button, and your car pulls out of the spot and drives up to where you are waiting for it. Not all that useful of a feature, but ok it's "neato" and "neato" drives a lot of this stuff, so to speak. But parking lots are hard! Sure they have the slight advantage of (hopefully) only low speed driving, but they also don't have any consistent lane and sign markings or clear paths for pedestrians (though it's a parking lot, people not using the neato feature still gotta walk to their cars). They rely a lot on nonverbal communication (eye contact, waves, etc.) between drivers. Far from being the easiest problem, they're actually probably the hardest! And not only that, they're a *specific* hard problem. Solving that problem isn't going to help you all that much with all of the other ones. Not directly, at least.
A left turn is a tricky maneuver, but the driving environment itself is also a factor in what kind of obstacles the human—or the self-driving car—might encounter. A two-lane road on a sunny day with clearly painted lines and scant traffic offers an easy landscape. But an Ikea parking lot on a Saturday afternoon? Ouch.Waymo might not solve the problem, but at least they get that it's a *hard one.* Modern construction suburban Arizona and California driving is probably fairly easy by the standards of these things - certainly relative to here in the urban hellhole - but good luck navigating those parking lots!
In fact, parking lots are a distinctive enough environment that Waymo, the self-driving car company that’s a sibling to Google, specifically trains its vehicles to deal with them by setting up real-world scenarios in a controlled environment. We spoke with Waymo engineers to learn more about how.
Is Trump A Racist?
Honestly until he dies and we can extract brain tissue and test it we will never know for sure.
Tuesday, August 13, 2019
Outrage Culture
Many people at the Times are even worse than we imagine.
Last week’s drama appears to have underscored a gulf between some veteran Times journalists and an increasingly influential and vocal cohort of typically younger, next-generation employees. To boil down the nuance as simply as possible, the former camp sometimes views the latter as hypersensitive and politicized; the latter sometimes views the former as blindly tethered to tradition. As a more traditional Times reporter put it, “The headline was inelegant, it missed the point, it was poorly written, but it was not a federal hate crime, as you would think based on reactions from some people in the newsroom. The bigger issue is the culture of outrage.”
Stars Of The Politics Show
Too much exposure to the internet occasionally leaves me with the worrying conclusion that too many people really just want the stars of this particular reality show to be pleasing and entertaining, to play their roles with appropriate gravitas. Or, for some of the population, something else (I didn't get why 20-year-olds I knew wanted to be Rush Limbaugh when they grew up when I was that age but I guess those are the people who think Trump is a role to be admired).
Primary season exaggerates this, as it's a beauty contest on "our side," and political journalists love to play up the stuff that shouldn't matter even if it does - theater criticism - and play down the stuff that should matter more than maybe it does.
Primary season exaggerates this, as it's a beauty contest on "our side," and political journalists love to play up the stuff that shouldn't matter even if it does - theater criticism - and play down the stuff that should matter more than maybe it does.
Why Aren't You Talking About The Thing I Think Is The Most Important Thing
Fortunately that era mostly faded. Those of us who remember way back to [checks notes] 2017 remember the weird internet thing where every horrible thing Trump did or said was a DELIBERATE DISTRACTION from the other horrible thing he said or did which by some unquestionable metric was WAY MORE IMPORTANT. This was dumb because Trump is just a rage monster who doesn't give any thought to anything. Sure he has a bit of the instincts of a showman and I don't doubt that occasionally he does do a racism or similar to get attention, but even if WE SHOULD IGNORE THE DISTRACTION just talking about stuff on the internet or not talking about it sadly usually doesn't affect the world so much.
Still even in the Bush era there seemed to be moments when random distractions like "this is a fun TV show!" didn't seem inappropriate on this sucky blog or elsewhere. Not so much these days, and not because the Trump era is worse. Bush was bad. Don't forget.
Still even in the Bush era there seemed to be moments when random distractions like "this is a fun TV show!" didn't seem inappropriate on this sucky blog or elsewhere. Not so much these days, and not because the Trump era is worse. Bush was bad. Don't forget.
A Unique Nation Of Violent Sociopaths
This is what the "guns don't kill people" crowd is saying. It's an interesting argument, especially given the tremendous overlap between them and extreme "patriotism."
Shouting And Shrieking
Initial reports said he hung himself. In this context (not being dropped from a height) this means strangulation, not neck snapping. Dying from strangulation takes a long time. 4 minutes minimum if everything "goes right" which means no intervening wheeze. Needless to say if he was shrieking and shouting (this report does not make clear who was shrieking and shouting)...
CBS News has learned that the morning of Jeffrey Epstein's death there was shouting and shrieking from his jail cell. Guards attempted to revive him while saying "breathe, Epstein, breathe."
There Is No Such Thing As "No Deal"
There is, of course, in a way, but it doesn't really mean what it sounds like as commonly used. It means "we did not use the one method available to us to agree to a basket full of deals before the drop dead date, and now we have to scramble around trying to play whack a mole with the very problems this causes while struggling to come to some actual deals on numerous issues."
The real "managed Brexit" is actually "no deal Brexit" because while Brexit-with-a-deal, even a dumb one, doesn't require endless management, "no deal" does. And a bunch of Bertie Woosters with mean streaks run the government so those managers are not good at, well, managing.
Amber Rudd believes the risks of a no-deal Brexit are no more than a challenge that could be countered by government action, going back on her previous assessment in which she said it would cause “generational damage” to the UK.
The work and pensions secretary, who kept her job when Boris Johnson became prime minister by renouncing her previously resolute opposition to no deal, said she still believed this would be much less preferable than a managed Brexit.
Rudd told ITV News: “I can tell that a no-deal Brexit would be far worse than a deal Brexit, which is why the government is so focused on trying to get that. But we’re also putting in place a lot of preparations to make sure that should it come to that, we will have done all we can to mitigate against any difficulties.”
The real "managed Brexit" is actually "no deal Brexit" because while Brexit-with-a-deal, even a dumb one, doesn't require endless management, "no deal" does. And a bunch of Bertie Woosters with mean streaks run the government so those managers are not good at, well, managing.
Monday, August 12, 2019
The Moustache Of Empty Promises
This isn't even close to being Bolton's official job but lol whatever.
"Within a year" is at least a bit more realistic than the brexiteer cry of "eleventy zillion trade deals on day 1!" or whatever (and they say trade deals like Trump does, as if they're scoring a big sale, instead of just desperately trying to replace existing agreements with the EU).
But there's also a little thing called Congress and a big thing called "industry lobbyists" and trade deals are when everyone gets their snouts in the trough so, uh, good luck with that.
Breaking: US National Security Advisor John Bolton says the US and UK could do some mini trade deals, sector by sector, within a year of Brexit (1)
— Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) August 12, 2019
"Within a year" is at least a bit more realistic than the brexiteer cry of "eleventy zillion trade deals on day 1!" or whatever (and they say trade deals like Trump does, as if they're scoring a big sale, instead of just desperately trying to replace existing agreements with the EU).
But there's also a little thing called Congress and a big thing called "industry lobbyists" and trade deals are when everyone gets their snouts in the trough so, uh, good luck with that.
Acceptance
I am quite amazed that people in British public life have basically given up. Boris is driving us off a cliff and what else is there to say? There are barely even any "what is going to happen on Nov. 1?" pieces to prepare people. We're fucked. That's it. Good luck!
Rich People Like Trump
I won't link to reports of his rich people fundraiser, but the dirty little secret of America is that rich people are ridiculously stupid people who support the most ridiculously stupid president. And not in the "oh they just like their tax cuts" sense, which is how the press likes to portray them. In the "god I hope I get to shoot a round a golf with him" kind of way. Rich MAGAs are as absurdly stupid and gross as poor MAGAs, just with bigger credit lines.
They're All Just Quite A Bit Racist
Too much of what the objectitudinal press does is excused as a desire to placate rabid conservatives, instead of seeing it as just doing what they think they should be doing.
Tolerance of racism by conservatives (it isn't just Trump) isn't simply because they have appear to be Fair to Both Sides, it's because many in the press are just pretty tolerant of racism. Have you been paying attention to much of the coverage of, for example, poverty and crime over the last several decades? Or the general tolerance of "race science" by our glorious liberal editors? Have seen the "it's just science, stupid liberals" argument so many times by elite members of the press who think that believing black people are just stupid is the height of intellectual sophistication and bravery.*
We're not racist, we just speak perfectly for the guys in Ohio diners who are, from our 3 bedroom UES perches.
(The whole concept of "intellectual bravery" is hilarious. The bravery to say things which are disgusting and wrong which are basically conventional wisdom (and evil and wrong) for large checks in elite publications).
Tolerance of racism by conservatives (it isn't just Trump) isn't simply because they have appear to be Fair to Both Sides, it's because many in the press are just pretty tolerant of racism. Have you been paying attention to much of the coverage of, for example, poverty and crime over the last several decades? Or the general tolerance of "race science" by our glorious liberal editors? Have seen the "it's just science, stupid liberals" argument so many times by elite members of the press who think that believing black people are just stupid is the height of intellectual sophistication and bravery.*
We're not racist, we just speak perfectly for the guys in Ohio diners who are, from our 3 bedroom UES perches.
(The whole concept of "intellectual bravery" is hilarious. The bravery to say things which are disgusting and wrong which are basically conventional wisdom (and evil and wrong) for large checks in elite publications).
Sunday, August 11, 2019
Healthy Country
I really don't see a way forward which isn't "no deal Brexit" though no deal Brexit isn't a real thing. It just means "we didn't bother to solve all the problems we have to start solving piece by piece now."
Britons have spent £4bn stockpiling goods in preparation for a possible no-deal Brexit, new research suggests.Not entirely sure how "short-term supply problems" get solved.
One in five people are already hoarding food, drinks and medicine, spending an extra £380 each, according to a survey by the finance provider Premium Credit. The survey found that about 800,000 people have spent more than £1,000 building up stockpiles before the 31 October Brexit deadline.
If the UK leaves with no deal, businesses predict there will be short-term supply problems, which the government says it is mitigating.
The Intended Audience
While they want to sell to everyone, their imagined and target audience is a certain slice of wealthy New Yorkers.
The paper’s target audience explains everything from its bizarre fixation on elite private universities and the behavior of the students attending them to its unshakably windshield-obsessed perspective on transit issues, despite covering the only American city where a majority of households don’t own a car. It explains the entire real estate section, and “Vows,” and why a significant portion of the Gray Lady’s op-ed page is given over to people who only exist to troll a sort of imagined effete elitist caricature of Manhattan liberalism. It even explains the crossword puzzle.
True, this perspective doesn’t entirely explain why its coverage of the president regularly retreats into misleading euphemism, or treats him with a level of saucer-eyed credulity its top reporters know he has never earned. The explanation for this egregious failing is more about the pernicious elite media worldview that leads the paper’s deputy Washington editor to parrot racist generalizations because he believes them to be widely accepted common sense. But the paper’s reliable fallback posture of professional managerial entitlement does unlock one central feature of the Times worldview: It explains why the people who run the paper react to having this pointed out to them by people on Twitter with one or another variation of do you have any idea who you’re talking to?
Saturday, August 10, 2019
What Is The City But The People?
Had to go to NYC briefly and randomly encountered their "making Park Avenue free of cars" day. I'd guess more cyclists and pedestrians traveled on it than people to do normally in cars (I'd guess a lot more, actually, but don't know if I am good at estimating such things) and the city didn't grind to a halt.
You don't have to close all the streets to cars all the time, but pretty sure you could randomly close 5% of them and improve life immensely. Give it a bit more thought and even better.
You don't have to close all the streets to cars all the time, but pretty sure you could randomly close 5% of them and improve life immensely. Give it a bit more thought and even better.
Never Gonna Know
I said all along we'll never get the full accounting of Epstein-related criminal activities.
Of course I have no idea what happened but "nothing to see here move along" is ridiculous.
Of course I have no idea what happened but "nothing to see here move along" is ridiculous.
Friday, August 09, 2019
Being President Is Hard
Obviously Trump puts in the minimum possible hours but even then the poor man has to work now and again.
Not one for Bush nostalgia, as you, dear readers, should know, but the man did show up for work early (and knocked off early, too, but not that early).
Not one for Bush nostalgia, as you, dear readers, should know, but the man did show up for work early (and knocked off early, too, but not that early).
The Greatest Deliberative Body In The World
I don't even know what that is supposed to mean, really. But senators - older ones, at least - really believe it. It's especially weird given that the rules of the Senate seem to preclude actual meaningful deliberation. But their club is the best club of all and don't you suggest otherwise.
Thursday, August 08, 2019
Uber'd
The Uber business model was something like
1) become monopoly
2) profit
then when that didn't work it was:
1) become monopoly with self-driving cars
2) profit
and now it's "oh wow weird how people don't make that much money in the taxi business who knew."
1) become monopoly
2) profit
then when that didn't work it was:
1) become monopoly with self-driving cars
2) profit
and now it's "oh wow weird how people don't make that much money in the taxi business who knew."
NEW YORK — Uber lost $5.24 billion in the second quarter — its largest quarterly loss ever — after making huge stock-based payouts in the months following its initial public offering.
The ride-hailing giant said Wednesday it paid $3.9 billion in stock-based compensation and expenses during the quarter. It also paid $298 million in stock and cash to drivers to show appreciation in connection with the IPO.
Aggressive Urban Driving
It is almost entirely pointless from the perspective of "getting to your destination faster." Depending on my perspective at the time I laugh at or want to smash in the windows of people who gun their cars for half a block and then slam on the brakes for the other half. And higher speed limits in that context don't help, either.
The time benefits one gets from boosting speeds in urban areas can end up being surprisingly modest: In downtown streets, the difference between a 25 mph commute and 45 mph commute is roughly an addition 48 seconds for every three-quarters of a mile traveled, according to Nelson\Nygaard. It’s also worth remembering that even urban “rapid transit” often isn’t really all that fast. (The New York City subway averages 17 miles per hour.)If you're traveling 5 miles within Philly, for example, you're traveling *a long way* in Philly, and even if that's on a road without stops or congestion, that's 12 minutes versus 6.5ish minutes. Add in the realities of most urban streets and a higher speed limit barely helps at all.
Angels and Demons
The flip side of monstering - perhaps the more important part - is who they don't monster.
Monstered
It's a term the British press has for when they do the full "destroy this person" 24/7 coverage of someone over some often minor scandal. To monster someone. It isn't good, but they're self-aware enough to know they're doing it. It's very wrong to have high opinions of the British press generally - including the BBC (domestic) these days - but they are at least not as full of shit about the role they actually play, which is not merely as objectitudinal impartial observers just presenting the facts and occasionally calling balls and strikes.
Wednesday, August 07, 2019
Insulin
One reason I am very pessimistic about the possibilities for the current dominant democrats is that if they can't even take on insulin...
A month of naming and shaming would do it. I don't think this is true of all health care issues, but this is the ultimate low hanging fruit and the "oh people want to talk about kitchen table issues"* crowd can't even fix this.
*I do think people want politicians to talk about kitchen table issues, but more than that they want them to solve them, and the "people want to talk about ktichen table issues" crowd just uses it as an excuse to not impeach the motherfucker (or do strong oversight, whatever that means) while not actually doing anything about kitchen table issues.
Diabetic groom-to-be dies after taking cheaper insulin to pay for wedding https://t.co/kg3HqvKIGI pic.twitter.com/NE1PRRXb0j
— New York Post (@nypost) August 6, 2019
A month of naming and shaming would do it. I don't think this is true of all health care issues, but this is the ultimate low hanging fruit and the "oh people want to talk about kitchen table issues"* crowd can't even fix this.
*I do think people want politicians to talk about kitchen table issues, but more than that they want them to solve them, and the "people want to talk about ktichen table issues" crowd just uses it as an excuse to not impeach the motherfucker (or do strong oversight, whatever that means) while not actually doing anything about kitchen table issues.
I Always Have Security
Is that the explanation? Do rich weirdos like Sean Hannity advocate for a police state because they don't leave the house without bodyguards and it just seems normal to them? If I thought I had to live like that and I had money like these guys I wouldn't want to live like that and I'd just put on some sunglasses and retire to Italy where nobody knew or cared who I was.
Squirrel
The only explanation I could think of for Maggie's stupider than usual freakout over Castro's daring to highlight publicly available information about maxed out Trump donors was that the group text went out from the usual GOP suspects and Maggie and a few other reporters (simultaneously!) went "SQUIRREL!"
Buy This Book
One more pitch since Amazon actually has copies in stock now (you can buy from Amazon or not, or think they are good or bad or not, but a lot of people do buy from Amazon for various convenience reasons and this might apply to you). As I wrote before:
You can also buy directly from the publisher here.
Enter RLFANDF at the checkout page for the promo code for a 30% discount.
Somebody I know rather well (20+ years!) wrote a book. It is a good book. It isn't a travel guide or a recipe book, but a history, though it does have significant discussion of the contemporary food situation and some representative (including historic) recipes.Buy the book!
You can also buy directly from the publisher here.
Enter RLFANDF at the checkout page for the promo code for a 30% discount.
Seriously, What The Fuck
Beutler.
The answers to these questions are no more reassuring or elusive than the answer to the question that bedevils the political establishment most of all: Why does Trump constantly stoke hatred of immigrants and Muslims and minorities? They are all easy to answer if you can acknowledge that Trump is engaged in a fundamentally malevolent project. The inability to do that, and the attendant unwillingness to connect the dots around it, has given rise to a media failure that in some ways exceeds the 2002 and 2003 coverage of the build up to war in Iraq. The consequences of this more recent failure have not been as catastrophic, not so far anyhow, but at least back then the fact that the Bush administration was building a case for war with Iraq didn’t escape the notice even of the reporters who most eagerly laundered its lies and propaganda.
Today, before our eyes, Trump and his allies seek to crush the foundations of multiracial democracy and replace them with a white ethnostate where the ruling class directs violence at scapegoat communities to create the climate it needs to get away with looting the country and dismantling all checks on its power. If you can see that, and articulate it, you don’t ask what Trump might do to make things better, or say he “urges unity vs. racism.” If you can’t see it, or your job requires you to blind yourself to it, you must treat his ultimate purposes as an impenetrable mystery. You might explain away his efforts to end an investigation of an attack on the United States, and his coziness with the perpetrator, as impulses of a man who merely worries the Russia matter undermines his legitimacy. You might marvel at his occasional, scripted, disingenuous condemnations of all the forces he has fostered, and chase down Democrats to ask them if they think Trump is racist. But seriously: What the fuck?
Priorities
Our Maggie of the New York Times got upset last night because a presidential candidate brother of a presidential candidate pointed out who some of Trump's maxed out donors were, using easily searchable publicly available data. This was very bad, according to Maggie, she of the newspaper which teamed up with Bannon's "Clinton Cash" to write story after story, including a database of donors, about how the Clintons were probably just accepting bribes, and the main person who covers the president who loves to point out whenever any of his critics or their family members gave money to his political opponents.
Tuesday, August 06, 2019
Land of the Free
I don't understand these people. I really don't.
Gotta have a police state to we can all own guns to protect us from a police state. True freedom is when a bunch of minimum wage Paul Blarts with twitchy trigger fingers are everywhere.
Presidential adviser Sean Hannity: "I'd like to see the perimeter of every school in America surrounded, secured by retired police ... have one armed guard on every floor of every school, all over every mall, the perimeter and inside every hall of every mall." pic.twitter.com/Renh47IiBY
— Brendan Karet 🚮 (@bad_takes) August 6, 2019
Gotta have a police state to we can all own guns to protect us from a police state. True freedom is when a bunch of minimum wage Paul Blarts with twitchy trigger fingers are everywhere.
Give Us All Your Money
For a long time newspapers really didn't rely on single copy/subscription revenue. They wanted to sell copies, sure, but almost entirely so that they could sell your eyeballs to advertisers. The price of the newspaper covered distribution costs, basically, and they would have been quite happy to give them away for free if they could convince advertisers that people were actually looking at those free copies. It always bothered reporters that their product was "free" after the internet came along, though whether or not that was smart business strategy long term it wasn't an alien concept to the business side, especially as "now" they could prove to advertisers that people were actually reading their free product. Metrics!
Another way of putting this is that their "customers" were mostly Ford and Macy's, not you, and reporters didn't really have to give a shit about their readers, leaving the business to the business side of the paper.
I don't entirely know why the New York Times is the way it is. Twitter provides a window into the souls of some of their reporters and they are not pretty things. Shitting on your core customers and then yelling at them for not wanting to buy more shit is a strange business model. Twitter's New York Times defense force, both Times people and other reporters kissing up, is always hilarious.
Another way of putting this is that their "customers" were mostly Ford and Macy's, not you, and reporters didn't really have to give a shit about their readers, leaving the business to the business side of the paper.
I don't entirely know why the New York Times is the way it is. Twitter provides a window into the souls of some of their reporters and they are not pretty things. Shitting on your core customers and then yelling at them for not wanting to buy more shit is a strange business model. Twitter's New York Times defense force, both Times people and other reporters kissing up, is always hilarious.
Monday, August 05, 2019
Trade Wars Are Easy To Win
One can think our approach to China generally is a problem, that free trade as a pure good that cannot be questioned is ridiculous, and that Trump's tariff policies are at best stupid. Things are complicated!
But, generally, as the UK is discovering with the EU, and the US is discovering with the whole world, it is best not to bet on the idea that they need us more than we need them.
But, generally, as the UK is discovering with the EU, and the US is discovering with the whole world, it is best not to bet on the idea that they need us more than we need them.
Calling All Good Nazis
Something is deeply wrong with the New York Times.
Those who sympathize with the white nationalist ideology but who deplore the violence should work closely with law enforcement to see that fellow travelers who may be prone to violence do not have access to firearms like semiautomatic assault-style weapons that are massively destructive.This is like an echo of all the "good Muslims need to turn in all the bad Muslims" pieces but there are no good Nazis!!!
Midwestern Americans
Pareene:
These Minnesota refugee communities exist in a strange kind of quantum superposition: Invisible to the Beltway journalists who imagine (and frequently give voice to the imagined needs and desires of) a monolithically white Midwest, they also exist as a terrifying caricature in the minds of the people who consume conservative media. Your average Meet the Press panel member could probably tell you next to nothing about the country’s largest Somali community, in the heart of the much-venerated heartland. The average American consumer of right-wing media could probably tell you a thousand false things about it. Republican politicians know precisely how to exploit this selective ignorance. When a senator rails against “elite cosmopolitans,” he knows the longtime political reporter will think, Upper East Side snobs, while another audience thinks of George Soros conspiring with the United Nations to turn Minnesota brown. As the intensity of anti-Muslim and anti-refugee rhetoric has increased on the right, the nonpartisan press has mainly concerned itself with how that rhetoric affects white turnout, not how it affects communities like Omar’s. And when the next worst thing happens, they’ll all ask How We Got Here in the manner of a tipsy student awakening on the last stop of an unfamiliar subway line.
Shut The Fuck You Stupid Assholes
Yesterday we got Better Beto.
There's this lingering fantasy (a bit Jimmy Stewart, a bit Cronkite of legend, sprinkled with some West Wing Fairy dust), that a politician comes along and Tells The Truth, and there's some cathartic moment where people See the Light and everything Gets Better. This is bullshit, and the truth would be a bit more Bullworth/Network than this particular fantasy, but one reason it's bullshit is that the people capable of endorsing and magnifying that moment are largely part of the system that needs to critiqued. The political press (Not All Journalists) are mostly just players in this particular bit of theater known as politics, and the great truthtelling moment requires an indictment of them as much as anything. So, yes, fuck you and your stupid ass questions you stupid fucking fucks. The president has been the leader of a racist terrorist movement since the campaign and you've all ignored it and invented increasingly ridiculous euphemisms for it so, like members of the press, what the fuck?
Beto O’Rourke on his way to his car was asked if there’s anything Trump can do now to make this better.
— Eric Bradner (@ericbradner) August 5, 2019
“What do you think? You know the shit he’s been saying. He’s been calling Mexican immigrants rapists and criminals. I don’t know, like, members of the press, what the fuck?” pic.twitter.com/zjLYf4mzBr
There's this lingering fantasy (a bit Jimmy Stewart, a bit Cronkite of legend, sprinkled with some West Wing Fairy dust), that a politician comes along and Tells The Truth, and there's some cathartic moment where people See the Light and everything Gets Better. This is bullshit, and the truth would be a bit more Bullworth/Network than this particular fantasy, but one reason it's bullshit is that the people capable of endorsing and magnifying that moment are largely part of the system that needs to critiqued. The political press (Not All Journalists) are mostly just players in this particular bit of theater known as politics, and the great truthtelling moment requires an indictment of them as much as anything. So, yes, fuck you and your stupid ass questions you stupid fucking fucks. The president has been the leader of a racist terrorist movement since the campaign and you've all ignored it and invented increasingly ridiculous euphemisms for it so, like members of the press, what the fuck?
Today is the Day Donald Trump Became President
Every prominent media person or institution that communicates the premise that maybe, just maybe, Trump could do the right thing, is just contributing to all of this.
Sunday, August 04, 2019
Thoughts and Prayers
Team D is not all good, but the ones who mostly are need to realize that their Republican gym buddies are monsters and if they can't see that they are, themselves, no good.
And Aftter Sandy Hook
A bunch of Republican members of Congress almost got killed by a shooter and even that wasn't enough.
Saturday, August 03, 2019
Failed Political System
It isn't just guns, but also guns. When the response to Sandy Hook was:
I don't know what our system is capable of responding to.
I don't know what our system is capable of responding to.
My Second Op-Ed In The New York Times Today
Is creeping on a teenage girl because she makes me so horny mad.
What a newspaper!
What a newspaper!
Saturday Saturday
While me, a man of advancing age, has not spent time on a college campuses in over 25 years, I have heard that they are just like North Korean indoctrination camps now.
Friday, August 02, 2019
What's It All About Then
CAP's VP of Health Policy saying it's absurd to focus on... health policy (resign then, bitch!)... is just part of the "whatever The Left happens to think is important that day must be shouted down" and the more general "anything which sounds like it's criticizing Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, even obliquely, must not be tolerated, at least if the wrong people are saying it" and also, too, "Biden 2020!"
The argument against Democrats and the left criticizing and distancing themselves from Obama is an argument against evolution and progress. Practically speaking, it’s also an argument against the left, which is the real crux of the argument that Obama’s defenders are making.
The underlying reason why the Obama criticism stings so much is that it equally serves as an indictment of these defenders, and of their politics over the past decade. For most of these people, a return to “normal”—life under Obama, or even George W. Bush—is all that’s needed, because life was perfectly fine for them under these presidents. As others within the Democratic Party have slowly but surely started to realize, it wasn’t fine for everyone, and so the party is now having a thorough debate about how to deal with that. And you cannot have that conversation without talking about the last president of the United States.
Why Are You Focused On This When You Should Be Focused On That?
Always focusing on the wrong thing that like [checks notes] everything else has no chance of passing the senate.
hmm...
Can't quite see. Gonna zoom in a bit.
Zooming in a bit more...
Can't quite see...
Holy shitballs
We're in a planetary emergency and we're debating health care plans that stand no chance of enactment in 2021. https://t.co/CCZeyZ6j3x
— Topher Spiro (@TopherSpiro) August 2, 2019
hmm...
Can't quite see. Gonna zoom in a bit.
Zooming in a bit more...
Can't quite see...
Holy shitballs
Move To Cherry Hill
I have no idea why people even spend time in cities if they just want door to door car service and an otherwise hostile pedestrian environment. Almost the entire country is set up that way! Take your stupid self-driving cars there.
Kim
Trump's fixation with the North Korean leader is not... normal... and is not even in the same basic framework as his love of dictators generally or his fondess for Putin. It is...weird.
They Aren't Going To Work
But they're going to do their best to finish the job that the automobile industry started a hundred years ago.
In New York, the unwritten rule is plain: Cross the street whenever and wherever — just don’t get hit. It’s a practice that separates New Yorkers from tourists, who innocently wait at the corner for the walk symbol. But if pedestrians know they’ll never be run over, jaywalking could explode, grinding traffic to a halt."Societal part" = anything outside but cars.
One solution, suggested by an automotive industry official, is gates at each corner, which would periodically open to allow pedestrians to cross.
...
“With autonomous vehicles, the technical stuff will get worked out. It’s the societal part that’s the most challenging,” said Mark Rosekind, a head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration under President Barack Obama and now the chief safety innovation officer for Zoox, an autonomous vehicle developer.
Musk Versus The Monrail
Pretty sure this is never going to be completed, certainly not on schedule. But it's going to be hilarious if it is!
Sorry, Las Vegas, shoulda left this one to Shelbyville.
According to a TechCrunch report, TBC’s Las Vegas project may significantly damage support columns for the existing monorail. And it will still require human drivers. In the past, The Boring Company has promised some type of efficient travel through narrow tunnels with “electric autonomous vehicles with alignment wheels.”How is this even possible?
Loop plans submitted by TBC to Las Vegas show a modest glass structure at surface level, with elevators, escalators and stairs leading down to a mezzanine level with gates, and then down again to three platforms. With no room at the platform level for vehicles to turn around, it appears TBC’s people movers will operate in both forward and reverse.These are supposedly modified Teslas (I have no idea how this makes sense) so you're going to have to put pedals and steering wheels on both sides?
Sorry, Las Vegas, shoulda left this one to Shelbyville.
Thursday, August 01, 2019
Better Things Are Not Possible
Details vary, but basically this debate is between those who think that the only way to achieve better things is to aim for one more cookie crumb, and those who think it is better to aim for more. Those who support the former push it as smart strategy even though one more cookie crumb is really want they want.
Think what you want about Obama generally, but it is hard to defend his "if I come to Republicans with a reasonable compromise they will be so impressed by how reasonable it is that they will have to support it." This worked precisely zero times and I am not sure why anyone would think this group of Republicans (not your father's Republican party! Joe Biden keeps saying) is more receptive to this than the early groups.
And the voters who matter - swing and irregular ones - don't reward "reasonableness" no matter how often they tell pollsters it's something they value.
Think what you want about Obama generally, but it is hard to defend his "if I come to Republicans with a reasonable compromise they will be so impressed by how reasonable it is that they will have to support it." This worked precisely zero times and I am not sure why anyone would think this group of Republicans (not your father's Republican party! Joe Biden keeps saying) is more receptive to this than the early groups.
And the voters who matter - swing and irregular ones - don't reward "reasonableness" no matter how often they tell pollsters it's something they value.
And It Never Will
You might create some sort of transit service which will be useful to some people (particularly employees), but you can't build something at that spot and then as an afterthought figure out how to get a significant number of people there.
Anxious shoppers trying to figure out how they will get to the American Dream were supposed to begin seeing advertisements explaining transit options to the mega-mall last week. But, there’s one problem. The bigger plan for train and bus service to the development is still being finalized.HAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
It has a lofty goal of getting 50% of mall customers out of their cars and on trains or buses. Even the conservative estimate in a 2012 transit plan by consultants Parsons Brinkerhoff calls for one-third of American Dream customers to shun their cars for transit. The mall expects 40 million visitors each year.
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