Comments on: Open thread 6/13/23

By: Art Deco

Art Deco — Thu, 15 Jun 2023 14:23:21 +0000

During Nixon’s administration I recall Democrats being apoplectic that Nixon would set White House air conditioners so low in the summer that he could enjoy a hot roaring fire in the fireplace like it was winter.
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I don’t recall the apoplexy, but I do recall a televised tour of the White House with one of his daughters wherein she did say her father liked to have a fire near him when he was working and that it had caused some sort of problem with the HVAC system or the fire alarms. IMO, this odd quirk of Nixon’s is one he should have paid for out of pocket.

By: Snow on Pine

Snow on Pine — Wed, 14 Jun 2023 15:23:00 +0000

One of the arguments used in favor of decriminalizing marijuana–and sometimes other so called “recreational drugs” (my local doctor now has an intake form which asks patients if they use such “recreational drugs”)–is that such use is a “victimless crime” i.e. the idea that “it’s my body and I can do what I want with it.”

A little actual thought, though, should destroy this argument, since there are always likely to be “ripple effects.”

What effect does your drug use have on your family members, on your friends and your relationships with them, on whatever romantic partners you might have, on your work, study, or even spiritual life, presuming you have one, what effects (both short and especially long terms effects) on you health and, therefore, on your need for medical treatment, and the burden that might add to local health care providers, and what effects might it have on the community around you?

Thus, unless you are a hermit and live alone, out in the wilderness, there are always likely to be ripple effects due to your drug use–“no man is an island,” and all that.

By: gallchobhair

gallchobhair — Wed, 14 Jun 2023 14:48:00 +0000

Snow on Pine — It is indeed horrifying. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.

By: Art Deco

Art Deco — Wed, 14 Jun 2023 13:55:47 +0000

Our World in Data has been compiling and publishing country datasets on COVID hospitalizations with metrics going back to 15 July 2020. There are three salient pieces: hospital admissions, the hospital census, and the ICU census. Prior to recent weeks, the nadir in regard to these numbers was reached in April 2022 as Omicron receded. As we speak, weekly hospital admissions are 32% below last year’s nadir, the hospital census is 42% below, and the ICU census is 49% below. Worldometers has been compiling case counts and death counts in the United States and abroad. Case counts in the United States have been declining since the 3d week of December, 2022, and there is nothing in current data to indicate that COVID mortality will soon increase. Death counts were in decline from about 14 January to 11 May. Between 11 May and 2 June, death counts fluctuated up and down but averaged about 94 per day. Note during the years running from 2013 to 2019, the mean annual death toll from seasonal flu was about 34,600 per year, or about 95 per day.

By: Art Deco

Art Deco — Wed, 14 Jun 2023 13:47:12 +0000

I wrote about his hatred of George W. Bush, whom he started excoriating for the Iraq War back in 2007.
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IIRC, it was in 2004 that Trump began to critique Bush. Trump’s judgment at that time was that the result of the disorder would be that the baddest meanest character in Iraq would take control “and he will have weapons of mass destruction”. The prediction proved incorrect.
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George W. Bush has burned his bridges to the people who voted for him. He is best forgotten.
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If we have any policy sense, the National Archives will construct a modular presidential records center in Kansas City and the archival material in the presidential libraries will be relocated there, one module per president with a concourse connecting them. The physical plant and the gewgaws remaining in the presidential libraries can be deeded over to the county governments hosting them and taken off the books of the federal government. If the county governments in question want to auction the stuff off on eBay, great. While we’re at it, take away their security details once they’ve been out of office for 12 years. Jacqueline Onassis shlepped around Manhattan for 19 years with no more security than that provided by the doorman of her building and Richard Nixon and his wife spent their last years in a low density suburb in Bergen County, NJ with no security detail at all. We shouldn’t have federal police officers hauling Jimmy Carter’s luggage. Oh, and one other thing: limit interstate contracts for speaking fees to a maximum value determined by a formula which has employee compensation per worker per annum of the country at large as an argument and which has the hiring institution’s FTE workforce as an argument. The speaking fee racket is a scandal and a fine example of the other-people’s-money problem in higher education. And have federal investigators audit publishing companies who lose large sums of money from giving huge advances to politicians for boilerplate. Whose bribes are they laundering?

By: neo

neo — Wed, 14 Jun 2023 04:52:54 +0000

huxley: Tucker is good on some things and really bad on others. This time what he says is ludicrously simplistic. It's also factually incorrect, because Trump had been speaking out against the war in Iraq very very consistently long before Trump was running for president. I wrote about that in an article I wrote about his hatred of George W. Bush, whom he started excoriating for the Iraq War back in 2007. See this.

By: huxley

huxley — Wed, 14 Jun 2023 02:26:51 +0000

Tucker Carlson:
___________________________________

It’s been inevitable since February 16 2016. that’s the day Donald Trump made a blood enemy of the largest and most powerful organization in human history which would be the federal government.

…we can point to the precise moment that permanent Washington decided to send Donald Trump to prison. here it is it’s from the Republican candidates debate in Greenville South Carolina:

“we should have never been in Iraq; we have destabilized the Middle East. They lied, okay. They said there were weapons of mass destruction there were none and they knew there were none there were no weapons of mass destruction.”
___________________________________

I agree with Tucker much of the time. But this sounds like a terrible oversimplification.

Within two years of the Iraq War’s beginning Democrats were thoroughly opposed to the Iraq War and Obama rode that horse all the way to the White House. The Deep State was more than OK with Obama.

The federal government’s problem with Trump was his populist threat to their power.
___________________________________

They’re not after me. They are after you.

–Donald Trump

By: huxley

huxley — Wed, 14 Jun 2023 02:09:37 +0000

BTW, for anyone too impatient to click the Prof’s bait. The song is:

–“Bachman Turner Overdrive – You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet 1974”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cia_v4vxfE

I wonder how many, knowing the song, would click that video.

By: TJ

TJ — Wed, 14 Jun 2023 01:52:35 +0000

The Deep State and the Federal government made arresting Trump inevitable. This is the thrust of Tucker Carlson’s third opinion-news drop on Twitter, despite threats from FNC.

Zerohedge has a summary as well as the transcript. Here is something worth your week’s infotainment. https://www.zerohedge.com/political/tucker-carlson-talks-trumps-indictment-americas-principles-are-stake

By: huxley

huxley — Wed, 14 Jun 2023 01:43:07 +0000

…it’s moronic.

Desertowl:

I would add, defiantly moronic.
____________________________

And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations
They’re quite aware of what they’re going through

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes (Turn and face the strange)
Ch-ch-changes, don’t tell them to grow up and out of it

–David Bowie, “Changes [Official Lyric Video]”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BgF7Y3q-as
____________________________

I was still young enough when I heard that to identify.