Open Mic for the week of 10/14/2024
There’s a phenomenon where someone writes an essay about this or that but someone else wants to discuss something that has not yet made it to the front page.
This is unfair to everybody involved. It’s unfair to the guy who wrote the original essay because, presumably, he wants to talk about his original essay. It’s unfair to the guy who wants to talk about his link because it looks like he’s trying to change the subject. It’s unfair to the people who go to the comments to read up on the thoughts of the commentariat for the original essay and now we’re talking about some other guy’s links.
So!
The intention is to have a new one of these every week. If you want to talk about a link, post it here! Or, heck, use it as an open thread.
And, if it rolls off, we’ll make a new one. With a preamble just like this one.
Happy Canadian Thanksgiving! I hope that Sandy McTire put tons of Coffee Crisp in your shoes overnight!Report
Someone help me, I’m going to post hopium, early/mail in voting seems to be going quite well for Democrats in key states:
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-elections/early-voteReport
More hopium: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/half-voters-plan-cast-ballots-early-huge-partisan-split-rcna172253
“Fifty-one percent of voters say they’ll vote early, either by mail or in person, with Vice President Kamala Harris leading former President Donald Trump 61%-35% (a 26-point margin) among those voters.
By comparison, Trump leads by 20 points, 57%-37%, with the group of voters who plan to vote on Election Day, which accounts for 45% of the electorate in the poll. It’s a smaller lead among a slightly smaller share of the electorate than Harris has over those early voters.
“Either the margin has to close among [those] voting early, or Republican margins on Election Day have to be bigger than this to win,” said Bill McInturff, the Republican pollster who conducted the NBC News poll with Jeff Horwitt of Hart Research Associates.
The massive political difference of early and Election Day voters is the latest evidence of a dramatic and enduring shift in the Trump years.
In the final NBC News/Wall Street Journal polls of the 2012 and 2016 cycles, majorities said they planned to vote on Election Day, not early.”
I also have hard times with the polling that shows Trump crushing Harris in Arizona but shows Gallego crushing Lake. Gallego himself stated Harris wins Arizona if he wins by +7. North Carolina is similar to me. Stein currently polls at +10 to +15. I suppose it is possible a lot of people vote Trump and leave the governor slot blank but I think if Stein wins by such a huge margin, Harris likely wins NC as well.Report
Eh, it looks like Kamala Harris plagiarized for her book “Smart on Crime”.
But what *IS* plagiarism, anyway? Is it just the unattributed copying of someone else’s words?
Or is it something more than that?
And since Kamala obviously used a ghostwriter, shouldn’t this be exculpatory for her and the blame put on her ghostwriter?Report
You don’t get to claim your wrote a book and then throw your ghostwriter under the bus.Report
This was a big topic of discussion on the other blog yesterday but apparently Hamas wanted Iran to participate in 10/7. The Iranian government had at least the intelligence to say no. Hamas seemed to have been fanatical that with Iranian participation, they could have destroyed Israel and make all the Jews go away. There is so much stupidity in Hamas’ plan that the intent had to be malicious and they were basically not even thinking about what could possibly go wrong for them.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/12/world/middleeast/hamas-israel-war.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Rk4.t5oe.XnIWQ5Wgm8QC&smid=url-shareReport
I’m coming to the conclusion that Iran is more interested in challenging the Saudis for regional dominance than fighting Israel.
They greenlit the attacks, but won’t do more than perfunctory missile barrage.
But the the rapproachment between the Arab states and Israel was a threat to them and their surrogates Hamas and Hezbollah.
I could be wrong but that’s how it looks to me.Report
The Iranian Clerical Regimes knows that if they did a direct attack against Israel besides a performative rocket barrage that it would be the end of the road for them. I think you are right about the strategy. They need to keep up the Death to Israel chest thumping for political reasons but really want to challenge the Saudis.Report
I anticipate the day when the Islamic Republic of Pakistan decides it wants a say. 240M people, nukes, and solid-fuel ballistic missiles with sufficient range to deliver those nukes to Israel.Report
Pakistan doesn’t have it’s internal act together enough to do this. It is also an economic basket case and a traditionally very dependent on the United States. Iran can act as a regional player because it is better organized internally, has a more functioning economy, and isn’t dependent on the United States.Report
As antsy in the pantsy as Pakistan might wanna get, India knows exactly how many nukes Pakistan has and the calculus of resolving old unsettled questions changes with every change in that number.
And Pakistan knows this.
(I can more easily imagine a suitcase nuke being developed by Pakistan and carried into the region than I can a Pakistani launch.)Report
Pakistan would attack India (or itself) long before it attacks Israel.Report
That’s a really interesting link and it’s not behind a paywall.
Things to take away:
1) Hamas has agency, vision, and determination. All the good behavior we’ve seen in recent years has been a deliberate ploy to get Israel to lower it’s guard in prep for 10-7.
2) Hamas is serious about its goal being the destruction of Israel and the killing of all Jews. Killing every civilian they could find was the end goal, over running the military bases was just done to make that easier.
3) Although they are allied with Iran, they’re not puppets. Hamas put a lot of working and planning into this, Iran really didn’t.Report
There is a tendency of Westerners to take Hamas seriously rather than literally instead of seriously and literally. A big part of this is because modern diplomacy has no solution on what to do about groups like Hamas and Hezbollah if they are serious and literal. Leftists want to pretend that Hamas is just an ordinary national liberation movement rather than something that has goals completely different than that considered acceptable by the Left. So the assumption is that the Palestinians will always calm down and start becoming normal once they get their state. What if this isn’t the case? Nobody knows what to do?Report
“Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas… This is part of our strategy – to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank.”
Benyamin Netanyahu at the Likud Party conference in 2019Report
Harris agrees to interview on Fox News: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/14/business/media/fox-news-kamala-harris-interview.htmlReport
What are her internals saying?Report
Well, mostly her internals are making a blorbly blorbbing noise with the occasional rattling gurgle. There’s windy sproinging sounds if she’s eaten raw garlic recently.Report
I think her internals are irrelevant here. But this is a kind of goes into the Lion Den move that is smart. Can you consider Trump going on MSNBC to be interviewed by Chris Hayes? He won’t go anywhere he will be challenged.Report
Didn’t Trump get yelled at when he went to the National Association of Black Journalists Conference?
Anyway, Hillary’s interview with Fox was the best of the election cycle. It’s one of the things she did which was pretty smart.
Let’s hope Harris does well.Report
Yeah but Trump said obvious howlers. Harris is going to be the one who pushes back on lies from Murdoch and Co.Report
So we’re switching from “She’s too scared to do interviews” to “She must be desperate to be doing so many interviews”?Report
Rephrase it to “her handlers” and we can probably run with that.
Did you hear that her team is considering having her go on Joe Rogan?Report
Good, she should.Report
She seems like she’s doing exactly what she should be.
That’s particularly the case if Trump starts melting down or behaving noticeably strange (stranger than usual?) in his appearances.Report
I agree, it’s encouraging.Report
Here’s a throwback to when we discussed Joe Rogan back in 2022.
Man, the past is another country sometimes.Report
She’s trying to run on Obama’s “hope and change” without detailing what she’d change since she’s the incumbent. That translates into “I’m a woman and it’s our turn”.
None of which works well in an interview.
Unless she’s ready to define more of her message she should avoid interviews.Report
Whatever it is this is good news for John McCain!Report
Trump has apparently threatened to use the military against the Left and this is another example of people taking him neither seriously or literally: https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2024/10/i-dont-believe-thats-what-hes-sayingReport
1. Trump and Vance need to go fundraising in NYC on October 27th instead of campaigning: https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2024/10/ultra-maga-experience
2. Trafalgar Group has Trump up by 2 in Arizona and they are such partisan buffons I assume this means he is actually not doing great in Arizona.Report
538 has him up by 1.8% in its polling average, though I am sure it’s because of stuff like this being in play.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/2024/arizona/Report
It absolutely is because of stuff like this even when they weigh it. Another partisan outfit, Patriot Polling (founded and run by two High School Republicans who are now college Republicans) has Baldwin up by 1 in Wisconsin and Trump up 1 nationally.
What do you think the real numbers are? How bad is it if partisan hacks can only get him breaking even or up a point or two?Report
Trump decides to spend 39 minutes swaying to music in front of a live audience:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/10/14/trump-music-sways-town-hall/Report
You just aren’t intelligent enough to see how beautiful the Emperor’s robes are.Report
I wish I was. The unvarnished truth is painful to the brains and eyes.Report
Trump should drop out and they should put Vance at the top of the ticket.Report
It would probably greatly improve the GOPs chances if they did.Report
I’d take that bet.Report
I’m very unsure. I think this may be a rare moment when I agree more with Chip than you. Trump has this visceral connection to a constituency of voters that other more Theilian and Republitarian politicians on the right so far seem unable to replicate. Those voters genuinely believe, for instance, that Trump won’t allow cuts to safety net programs that impact them. Removing Trump doesn’t automatically mean Vance would inherit their support or, more importantly, their entheusiastic support.Report
Didn’t say he’d definitely win. If the Republicans wanted to definitely win they’d have nominated Haley.
From my perspective it’s important to remember that Trump has just massive, massive unfavorables. His cultists aren’t free of charge and their influence seems to be putting GA, AZ, and in particular NC in play in a way that they probably wouldn’t otherwise be. Vance himself has said some pretty out there stuff but only us political junkies know about that. From the clips I’ve seen of the VP debate he plays normal well enough on TV and in a way Trump will never be able to.
As I said below it’s too late for a move now but it isn’t like we didn’t just experience a pretty significant bump from getting rid of our original candidate, who fairly or not was seen as old baggage.Report
It really reads different going back and re-reading those defenses of Biden back in July, don’t it?Report
At minimum, there is a significant premium solely for running someone who is not ancient.Report
The contrast between slow on the uptake and out-and-out nuts does seem a little clearer than it was then.Report
I disagree. Vance is wildly disliked.
1. Democrats dislike him just as much as they dislike Trump;
2. Independents dislike him;
3. He lacks the special sauce that Trump has that makes Republicans love him so much.
Vance can take a perfectly normal idea like grandparents especially grandmothers are a big help to new parents and turn it into something off-putting by calling grandmothers post menupasual womenReport
There’s some commenting in socialist FB pages and blogs about how this is the real GOP plan.Report
It’s way too late to change ballots.Report
What I’ve heard is the election will go forward, and once Trump/Vance get into the WH, Trump will be 25th Amendment’ed and that will be that. Its wild, but it’s out there.Report
Put mine in the dropbox yesterday.Report
Me too!Report
I washed a popular history video about the early history of Australia last night on YouTube. It was based for a mass Australian audience that was patriotic. The video was basically about a collection of early White immigrants/settlers to Australia who did important things like start farming, the wool industry, increased the status of women, found gold, and wrote the rules for Australian football.
It was interesting to see how another country dealt with the issue of it’s original inhabitants. The documentary acknowledged the existence of the Australian Aboriginals, their conflict with the English immigrants and settlers, and how they might have contributed to Australian football and that’s about it. No real big questions about guilt or what happened to them. I’m wondering if this is just because that is how these things are seen in Australia as a whole or because of the patriotic mass market the documentary was going for. I’m used to documentaries that are aimed at less mass market and ones more open to feeling guilty that “yeah, these things happened and sucked but what can you do?” was an unusual framing.Report
I’d be very surprised if Australia didn’t have at least some difficulties with this, same as you hear about in the US, same as in Canada and other parts of the new world. Personally I think a lot of the discomfort is a sign of a weird combination of ethnocentricity and historical ignorance. My thoughts are as follows:
-There’s no existing or historical country that did not come into being by conquest and displacement. All societies were founded this way including that of the conquered themselves.
-The archeological record is such that calling anyone ‘indigenous’ to anywhere is not well supported. Humanity came out of Africa in the deep past, spread all over the place, and has been conquering and displacing each other ever since.
-It sucks being conquered and colonized. It leaves hard cultural memories and scars that can take many generations to resolve.
-The western democracies that were founded, as they have evolved into their modern forms, are superior in virtually every objective measurable way to those they replaced on the territory they now hold. There are a whole lot of weird, noble savage myths that say they aren’t but these don’t stand up well to scrutiny either.
-As long as the descendants of the conquered are fully enfranchised today no one needs to feel particularly guilty about any of it. The crimes were committed by the long dead against the long dead. It’s worth learning about it to better understand ourselves but there’s no reason to obsess over it in particular anymore than any other historical episode.Report
I agree but that wasn’t really my point. I guess my main point was that I can’t imagine such a guilt free documentary being made about early America or Canada anymore. There would be a lot more recognition of the bad things done here and the audience would expect it. The documentary about Australia was a lot more triumphant and “how Australia was won” in feeling than contemporary American and Canadian equivalents would be.Report
I think it’s an open question as to whether an American or Canadian audience would expect it.
Certainly the people reviewing the film would, as most likely would the people producing it.Report
Could be. The people who make documentaries about early America and Canada these days are political propagandists of one sort or another.Report
Something, something, Harris is ducking the media, something, something.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/15/media/trump-cancel-cnbc-interview-media/index.htmlReport
Something, something, the US isn’t applying pressure to Israel, something, something.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/10/15/us-weapons-israel-gaza-aid/Report
The “something, something” is snark, right? I mean, it’s October 14, 2024. We’re more than a year in. Better late than never, sure, but I don’t get the snark.Report
It’s a direct swipe at those who seem to think that the US can do much in this situation other then apply rhetoric. Even IF the Administration follows through – and given their previous halt to delivery of ordinance I suspect they will – it won’t stop Bibi.Report
Israel’s military is completely dependent on the U.S., as in fact is much of its economy. There is perhaps no other country in the world on which the U.S. could exert more influence. If Israel is starving civilians while bombing tent cities, hospitals, and schools, the U.S. has said it’s OK for them to do so.
Hell, we just sent troops to Israel. We’re saying, “Keep doing what you’re doing,” no matter what Harris is saying in a desperate attempt to gain a few votes in Michigan.Report
Even limiting deliveries to missile defense would be something. I think the truth is that no one can articulate a rational reason for what we are doing, which at this point is pouring gasoline onto Israel’s recklessness.Report
This is from 2018 but relevant because of Vance’s comments about childless women. According to this article, the number of children want to have has remained remarkably consisted between 1970 and 2018, with around 2.5 children as the ideal. What has changed is the marriage rate with more and more women choosing not to marry because of a perceived or real lack of men deemed marriable material.
https://ifstudies.org/blog/how-many-kids-do-women-wantReport
I am currently reading Ghosts of A Holy War: The 1929 Massacre in Palestine That Ignited the Israel-Palestine Conflict by Yardena Schwartz. It is about the 1929 Hebron pogrom that ostensibly started over a fight regarding the Western Wall and Muslim fears that Jews were going to turn it into a synagogue, which was bad for some reason. One thing that Yardena Schwartz noted is that the 1929 Hebron pogrom made Zionism a lot more politically popular among the Jews of Palestine itself when previously there were disagreements about it since most Jews were now convinced they would not be safe under an Arab majority government.
Palestinian leadership has been pursuing the same failed strategy since before the parents of most people on this blog were born. Even when Jews were much less organized and didn’t have a state or any army they failed. 10/7 was just the latest incident of “one last glorious push will send all the Jews packing.” It has never worked but Palestinian leadership remains devoted to this strategy rather than realize the Jews aren’t going anywhere. There is only so much that Israel can do to make the Palestinian leadership more reality based.Report
This approach did work in all of the surrounding countries. That doesn’t change or disagree with what you said, but it should frame things.Report
The PLO also decided to adopt the strategy of Algeria’s FLN because that seemed to work in driving out the Non-Arab Algerians plus Algeria’s native Jews. I read somewhere the Ho Chi Min warned against this strategy but the PLO did not listen.Report
This strat is highly workable against a small colony where the colonizers exist only because of support from the fatherland and they have the ability to go back to their native country.
The massive flaw is the Jews are native to Israel and have nowhere to go.
The Palestinians reject that fact and are insisting that Israel is a colony of [some empire]. Which empire changes from decade to decade.Report
Russel Brand becomes a right wing Christian influencer who sells magic amulets:
https://x.com/willsommer/status/1846024507758162396?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1846024507758162396%7Ctwgr%5Eb1545730851355c27fa491728254ab6fd953d5a6%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com%2F2024%2F10%2Fgetting-into-that-maga-spiritReport
There has been a slight revision in 2022’s crime stats.
The point stands, though.Report
Three observations –
1) This absolutely needs to be covered in the media. That its largely not being covered is no bueno.
2) This revision (like countless other government statistical revisions) is what you get when reporting is not mandatory. Maddening as it is there is a solution to keeping this way more consistent, but it involves the federal government making it’s help to local law enforcement contingent on reporting.
3) The story does its readers a disservice (probably intentionally) by not casting this revision and its resultant statistics in the long term trends over say the past 30 or 40 years. That means it can put out bar graphs covering (checks link) two or three years that appear nasty, but in reality still fall well below the highest crime rates historically. That lack of context creates sensationalism where none need exist.Report
It’s up instead of down, but it could be upper so, technically, stop complaining?Report
Its up form a year prior (which was still full throated pandemic) by a small amount, but still way down in historical comparison.
Complain all you want but do it honestly.Report
There were a lot of arguments that had, as a foundation, the argument that crime was going up.
The counter-argument was that, no it’s not. Look at the numbers.
What does “honestly” look like in this situation?
“Crime is going up, but it’s still not as bad as before you were born?”Report
Honestly looks like noting that one or two slightly increasing years – inside or on the shoulder of a pandemic – doesn’t buck the trend that violent crime has been in decline for decades. And that trend is important.Report
“Crime is going up”
“The trend over the last few decades is that it is going down!”
“But it’s going up.”
“It’s still lower than when Dirty Harry came out.”
“Yes. But it’s higher than it was last year and last year it was higher than the year before.”
“You need to look at the trend!”
“I am looking at the trend.”Report
Jay me lad, two data points tell you nothing statistically, other then that they exist. There is as yet no trend.Report
Crime in 2020 was up over 2019.
Crime in 2021 was up over 2020.
Crime in 2022, we now know, was up over 2021.
Is it reasonable to expect 2023’s numbers to be similarly revised?
If so, should the emphasis continue to be on a comparison to 1991?
Man, remember when The Rocketeer came out? I thought that movie was great. I mean, it’s another example of “Batman did really well… the kids must love action films with 1940s aesthetics!” producers not quite getting it but, man, I was so sorry that that movie didn’t do better. I thought it was great.Report
The emphasis should always be on the long term trend, and figuring out and addressing what drives it. 2020 and 2021 will likely prove out to be anomalies based entirely on the pandemic. We need to better understand both the reporting and the drivers in 2022, and specifically why a revision was needed. SO far the FBI isn’t talking apparently.Report
Would you say a statement like “crime went up from 2020-2022” to be mis- or disinformation?Report
I would say its an overly broad but accurate statement. I would also say it’s not indicative of a major or worrisome trend, especially with the small increases we see in those years, and the pandemic as the likely (and now gone) driver.Report
Because “crime went up in 2022” was, very recently, marked as misinformation and “crime went down in 2022” was considered the truth.
Now we know that “crime went down in 2022” is misinformation and “crime went up in 2022” requires a great deal of context.
Which seems like a weird attempt to obfuscate rather than illuminate.
Like it’s for some temporary political advantage or something.Report
Because that’s what the data told us. The data changed so the nomenclature changes. This isn’t hard.Report
And now the data is telling us that crime went up.
And, wackily, that’s one of those statements that requires a hell of a lot more asterisks than “crime went down” required.Report
i would say that this trend suggests the current approach to crime fighting isn’t working, and we need to try a new approach.Report
I really hope you are snarking here Chip.Report
Actually no.
I sincerely think that our current approach to crime fighting isn’t ideal and new approaches are needed.
As you might imagine my preference leans heavily on prevention, diversion, and rehabilitation.
Stop & Frisk failed miserably, and so we need to think of new approaches to crime.Report
When the trends were good, what were police like? What were prosecutors like? What were judges like?
Have there been any significant changes between then and now?
If so, are they relevant?Report
Good questions, all.
Has anyone asked Kamala?
She was one of those prosecutors, after all.Report
She was raised in a middle class family.Report
MY GOD NOT THE MIDDLE CLASS!Report
After a decades-long decline, crime rates have fluctuated in a narrow band around a new, much lower normal. A lot of people have trouble believing this, even if their own lives reflect the new normal. I leave the reasons as an exercise for the reader.Report
Kevin Drum has the receipts, showing that for the past decade, violent crime has fluctuated between 360 and 380 per 100k people .
There hasn’t been any dramatic change one way or another.Report
Maybe the solution is more funding?Report
Change the economy.Report
When your unwavering faith in markets to always be correct meets back to back natural disasters (made disasters by actions of city and county council to encourage building in danger zones) financial catastrophe ensues. Guess Florida’s TFG loving voters will need some of that dreaded “Socialism” afterall.
https://www.nbcnews.com/business/consumer/hurricane-milton-helene-insurance-nightmares-torment-florida-residents-rcna175088Report
If memory serves, one of the underlying issues is that insurance fraud in Florida is an industry to the point where many insurance companies exited the market.
That means we have multiple gov created market failures. Gov encouragement to live in flood zones, gov pressure (and sometimes action) for the ins industry to have rates below it’s risk, and gov failure to deal with ins fraud.Report
Most of the major insurers left Florida because they read climate science and understood their exposure was increasing if they stayed. Additionally as the article notes the prior litigation climate wasn’t insurance industry friendly. That’s not insurance fraud per se, but another cost that impinges on the industry’s profit margins (which is why it exists after all). The flood damage isn’t our problem issue goes back to 2004, and was exacerbated in Katrina in 2005.
And the sad thing is – every Gulf state (save possibly Texas) has this same problem and the same or very similar weak solutions. Florida isn’t going to be a one off.Report
In a functioning market, insurance is unaffected by global warming. Various costs will go up but they’ll all be passed on to their customers.
RE: Fraud
Your link is interesting.
13 insurance companies have folded and Florida is involved in 76% of insurance lawsuits with some law firms filing hundreds per day. The top 15 Florida insurers make up 6% of the nation’s premiums but 52% of the nation’s complaints.
Your link says about 20% of premiums go to these lawsuits. There is a disconnect between that claim and the idea that there’s no link between lawsuit payments and companies going under nor rising premiums.
Someone is behaving badly. If the tail end of your article is correct and Florida’s insurance companies are tiny and over exposed to Florida, then somehow Florida (or rather Florida’s ins companies) has been shielded from national companies/competition.
The only way for that to happen would for the State of Florida to pass laws.
That would take us back to “multiple gov created market failures” but we can add that as a fourth potential gov mismanagement of the market.Report
Those local companies filled a void as the national companies left. There is no shielding. The nationals don’t want to write policies in Florida because they have too much exposure. So if you can get homeowners insurance there – or could before these storms, its small firms relying on reinsurance companies to issue policies. Farmers, Progressive, and AAA all left several years ago.Report
In a functioning market, insurance is unaffected by global warming. Various costs will go up but they’ll all be passed on to their customers.
I’m not sure how to interpret this statement in a way that makes it possibly true. Consider Florida, just as an example. There, because of the possibility of hurricanes, you have to have a few different insurances if you want to be sure your house is covered (and if you have a mortgage, you’ll have to have them). Take one of those types of insurance, flood: how much flood insurance costs you depends on the likelihood of a flood. If the likelihood of a flood that causes significant damage is 1 in 200 years, the cost of insuring your house will be one number, and if it’s 1 in 50, it’ll be about 4 times that number. Global warming makes floods much more likely, which makes the cost of flood insurance much higher, or it makes deductibles higher (most likely both). Then you have to throw in wind insurance and whatever else you need in Florida to cover hurricanes and fire (because it’s oddly dry there despite raining everyday) and sink holes and alligators eating your house, all of which (including the alligators, because of the flooding) is made more likely by climate change, which means all those insurance premiums go up. You might be able to reduce this by cracking down on lawsuits (lol… good luck) and fraud, but you’re still looking at huge price increases due to increased likelihood of disaster.Report
And those price increases are why one in 5 (?) or so homeowners in Florida no longer carry any homeowners insurance. And thus are reliant on taxpayers to help them out.
Which I’m sure is representative of bad culture influencing bad decisions. Right Dark?Report
I mean, buying a home in Florida is a bad decision for a lot of reasons.Report
also true.Report
Lots of options, not the least is “bad at math”.
According to google: A 2021 study found that among homeowner households with a mortgage, only 4.1% were uninsured. For those who own their home free of debt, 26% were uninsured.
I totally lack sympathy for someone who lacks insurance because they expect God will protect them or something. The gov shouldn’t be making them whole.Report
https://www.newsweek.com/florida-insurance-warning-1-5-residents-uninsured-1925073#:~:text=According%20to%202023%20data%20from,property%20insurance%2C%20the%20report%20read.Report
There is a massive difference between “insurance is not cheap” and “insurance doesn’t work”.
Insurance spreads risk, not cost.
If there is a one-in-a-million-per-year disease that costs ten million to cure, then the cost of that insurance should be $10 per year per person (plus the cost of run the pool which I’ll round to zero).
If you want to cover someone who already has that disease, then the cost for him to get insurance should be ten million dollars because the odds of him getting it are 100%.
If I own a million dollar house and the odds of it being destroyed in a flood in any year are one in ten, then it should cost me about $100k a year to insure it.
One way we get into “insurance doesn’t work” is “the expected disaster is so big that the insurance company will go bankrupt and not pay”.
Because Hurricanes could reasonably flood an entire area, the risk from that Hurricane needs to be spread around the entire country. That either means national ins companies or re-insurance or both.
The supplied link suggests that insurance is actually not working. That’s a very different animal than “insurance is too expensive to use”.
“Not working” might mean the gov is forcing the insurance companies to have rates lower than risk so they can’t/don’t honor claims. It might mean other things. The whole “Florida insurance companies are small and local” is the opposite of what I’d expect here.Report
And yet that’s precisely what happened in Florida.Report
Rate increases are capped under state law; the cap for a primary home is 14 percent…
The skyrocketing cost of home insurance in Florida, driven by excessive litigation, widespread fraud and the increased risk of natural disasters hitting the state, has caused an ongoing crisis of the sector in the Sunshine State which has hit homeowners hard….
https://www.newsweek.com/florida-insurance-crisis-could-get-even-worse-1918060Report
That’s the state’s insurance, which will eventually have to be bailed out by the federal government, if not not after the hurricane double tap. The reason people are on that insurance is because other insurers have either left the state or jacked up their rates, in no small part because of climate change.Report
I find it funny that we think the number and severity of hurricanes are so much worse now.
Looking at hurricane history shows the number of US landfalls peaked in the 40’s. then dropped dramatically. We are only now seeing the levels approach what happened in the past for the US. Take a look for yourselves.
https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pastdec.shtml
The real issue is the amount of growth that needs to be insured now compared to 70+ years ago. That is what current insurers are struggling with.Report
Helen was a 3 when she hit land in Florida, and Tropical Storm by the time she reached Asheville and its environs. She also dumped an estimated 40 trillion gallons of water in her wake, which is why NC is as messed up as it is. The flooding on at least one USGS stream gauge in that area exceed the previous highwater mark (set in the early 19-teens) by almost 3 feet. I will also note that that chart records a significant number of Cat 1s in that “peak” you allude to, and clearly since then the number of Cat 2 and above has grown as a proportion of strikes.
Things are indeed changing, even if the number of strikes is within trend.Report
Are we looking at the same data? Cat 2s for 1951 to 2022 was 27. taking that same period going from 1950 back shows 36 Cat 2s. More then than less.
Maybe you mean by percentages? Nope that does not work either, From 51-22, 25.2% of hurricanes were Cat 2. While 50’s back was 25.9%.Report
It’s difficult to compare decades, because weather technology has gotten much better, so we’re better able to detect storms now than in the past, but there is no question that named storms are becoming more frequent. There were 104 named storms from 1940-1949; 128 from 1950-1959; 151from 2000-2009; 155 from 2010-2019; and between 2020 and 2023, 85, putting us on pace for more than 200 this decade. The year with the most named storms ever (30) was 2020, the next highest 28 in 2005, the third and fourth highest 2021 and 2023. In other words, the highest years are all in this century, and 3 of the 4 in this decade (5 is 1933, but 6-8 were in the 2010s, 9 was 1995, and then amazingly, 10 was 1887).
Again, some of that is detection (difficult to compare 2020 with 1851, the first year), but there’s already a bunch of research showing that both the frequency of damaging storms is increasing, and that the patterns of air and sea temperatures means the probability of damage along the Gulf and East coasts is still increasing.
Not unless you’re still listening to Pielke Jr and his soft-denialist ilk (there’s a new generation, like Alex Epstein) is any of this controversial. And that’s only talking about hurricanes. We still have a bunch of other natural disasters to talk about (for Florida, e.g., fires, though that’s a bigger issue in California).Report
“there is no question that named storms are becoming more frequent. There were 104 named storms from 1940-1949; 128 from 1950-1959; 151from 2000-2009; 155 from 2010-2019; and between 2020 and 2023, 85, putting us on pace for more than 200 this decade. ”
Storms that don’t make landfall still get names, but prior to 1960 there was very little ability to detect them (and even then it wasn’t until 1994 that there was truly continuous coverage of the entire hemisphere). So I wouldn’t consider “named storms” to be a reliable statistic as it wasn’t always counted the same way.
I’d also suggest that “let’s just multiply the occurrences by the proportion of time remaining in the interval” is a rather naive way of doing forward-progression estimate.Report
“It’s difficult to compare decades, because weather technology has gotten much better, so we’re better able to detect storms now than in the past, ”
You have refuted your own argument right there. Much easier to name storms when you can detect them better.Report
I did find one for you though. Trying to bring this back to Florida and insurance.
Since 2016, Florida has ben hit with 9 hurricanes. The second largest 7-8 year period was 5 from 2004-2012.
Since DeSantis was elected (2019) his state has been hit by 6 of those 9 hurricanes mentioned above. I am sure his evil policies have created a localized global warming effect that is sucking in hurricanes to hit Florida.Report
https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida-politics/2023/10/19/florida-leaders-blame-insurance-crisis-lawsuits-evidence-is-thin/#:~:text=In%20the%20division's%20most%20recent,this%20country%2C%E2%80%9D%20she%20said.Report
Something, Something, Republicans are better on the economy, Something, Something.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/16/business/tariff-tax-trump-nightcap/index.htmlReport
You really ought to rethink your approach to politics when your party ensures the DoJ has to monitor voting at the County level to prevent violence:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/10/15/portage-county-ohio-sheriff-voting/Report
Jonathan Last puts into words how I feel.
“She put America in a position to win by running a smart, vigorous campaign and giving the country a clear choice between a physically decrepit, mentally unfit gangster and a young, viable, centrist vice president.
If she loses, I don’t think any reasonable observer will be able to say it was her fault.
Also, if she loses, then we’re going to need some tough conversations about our country, our system, and ourselves.
But mostly: If she loses, a whole lot of excuses we’ve been making for America are going to dry up, right quick.
2. The Fault Is in Our Stars
Over the last 10 years we have all, at one point or another, manufactured excuses for why Donald Trump happened.
Why were we in the excuse-making business?
Because there was no alternative.
If Donald Trump happened because a significant percentage of our fellow citizens wanted him, and all his works, and all his empty promises, then there was nothing to be done. If 47 percent of the country wants fascism, then eventually it will get fascism. You can’t simply dissolve the people and elect another.
So we looked for rationalizations to explain why so many Americans were voting for Trump in the hopes that, if we addressed these excuses, they would stop choosing him.”
The article is paywalled but the gist is that since 2016 there has been a stady stream of excuse making about how “We Got Trump”..
But the sobering truth is a lot of Americans are angry and looking for someone to blame.Report
And the GOP recognized this dynamic decades ago and began to exploit it toward the end of permanent minority rule.Report
Has she decided if she’s running as an insider or an outsider yet?Report
Lots of insiders have run as outsiders. If Harris can swing it, or even go both ways, more power to her.Report
So did anyone watch the Fox interview? I wasn’t able to but from the initial reactions I am seeing it sounds like she did ok in a hostile environment.Report
Team Evil is posting clips on Twitter.
Team Good is alternating between calling Baier racist and saying Harris won.Report
The Internet Archive has been taken temporarily down in a hack attack. From what I can gather it seems to be an attack from a group in Russia that says it is because of the Israel-Hamas War. The foreign policy aspects of the Israel-Hamas War are just messed up. For a lot of bien-pensant liberals in the West, it is Palestine-Ukraine-Taiwan but the actual foreign politics seem to be Palestine-Russia-PRC.Report
Hoo boy.
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/10/13/netanyahu-mulls-plan-to-empty-northern-gaza-of-civilians-00183574Report
Netanyahu leaks plans a lot so he can stop them. During the 2014 Israel-Hamas War, when Hamas was a lot weaker, the IDF wanted to completely destroy Hamas. Netanyahu leaked the IDF estimates on how many Israeli soldiers would be killed or wounded in order to not go through with it. Netanyahu has been one more the more reluctant Israeli PMs when it comes to military confrontation and using full force believe it or not because he thinks it will threaten his political survival. So the chances are that this is not going to happen and Netanyahu is leaking this to the press to cause outcry.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-39118231Report
https://www.reuters.com/article/business/israel-detains-soldiers-after-whatsapp-leaks-about-gaza-casualties-idUSL6N0PY5FS/Report
It seems Georgians understood the assignment:
https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/15/politics/early-voting-record-georgia/index.htmlReport
Yahya Sinwar may be dead:
https://www.cnn.com/webview/world/live-news/israel-iran-gaza-lebanon-10-17-24-intl-hnk?Date=20241017&Profile=cnnbrk&utm_content=1729169936&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitterReport
Update. Sinwar’s death has been confirmed.Report
That’s the Ace of Spades right there.
Things gonna calm down now?Report
Let us all hope and pray so. This has been going on for quite long enough.Report
Will the necessary parties take yes for an answer?Report
Remember when the U.S. armed forces were in the business of killing ISIS leaders?Report
Here is the BBC on Sinwar. The guy sounds pleasant.
Sinwar was first arrested by Israel in 1982, aged 19, for “Islamic activities” and then arrested again in 1985. It was around this time that he won the confidence of Hamas’s founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.
The two became “very, very close”, said Kobi Michael, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv. This relationship with the organisation’s spiritual leader would later give Sinwar a “halo effect” within the movement, Michael added.
Two years after Hamas was founded in 1987, he set up the group’s feared internal security organisation, the al-Majd. He was still only 25.
Al-Majd became infamous for punishing those accused of so-called morality offences – Michael said he targeted shops that stocked “sex videos” – as well as hunting down and killing anyone suspected of collaborating with Israel.
Yaari said he was responsible for numerous “brutal killings” of people suspected of co-operation with Israel. “Some of them with his own hands and he was proud of that, talking about it to me and to others.”
According to Israeli officials, he later confessed to punishing a suspected informer by getting the man’s brother to bury him alive, finishing the job using a spoon instead of a spade.
Yaari said he was “the kind of man who can gather around him followers, fans – together with many who are simply afraid of him and don’t want to pick any fights with him”.Report
Killed on the front lines by troops who had no idea that’s who they were shooting at.
That implies Hamas’ reserves are insanely low.
Also it’s being suggested that those 6 hostages killed by Hamas a week or two ago were his personally and he ordered them killed because he was running away and couldn’t take them with him.Report
Sinwar was also apparently killed by a Druze soldier.Report
When you lie about what’s happening in disaster relief, people do things like this:
Words matter.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2024/10/16/fema-threats-arrested-hurrricane-helene/Report
He conforms to the observation about fascists, in that they don’t seek peace and prosperity, but crave the heroic theatrics of a starring role in an epic battle against a hated outgroup.
“His account included anti-mask and anti-shutdown messages posted during the coronavirus pandemic as well as posts denigrating Islam and feminism.
“I’M WILLING TO DIE PROTECTING MY 2ND AMENDMENT RIGHTS,” said the banner on his profile. In January 2022, Parsons posted that he was living out of his truck and needed financial support.
He needs help, but prefers to remain angry and hateful, and imagined himself the brave warrior against the hated outgroup.Report
interesting bit in a story linked from that one:
“Upon arriving at Lake Lure, however, Parsons said he realized the situation was different than he had imagined. “I went up and saw that there was absolutely nothing there, so I stayed, and I volunteered all day,” he said.”
And, yeah, this is after-the-fact rationalization, and I’m pretty sure if we asked the FEMA people they’d tell the story as “this weird dude showed up with a gun and ran around all day poking into stuff, we were all too scared to tell him to go away, finally the cops showed up and dragged him off,” but at least he was straight enough to recognize that the thing wasn’t going down how he’d been told and willing to say so on the record.Report
Paywalled unfortunately but NYT has a very long must read on the crumbling DEI apparatus at University of Michigan.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/16/magazine/dei-university-michigan.html
This is really great, and even better that the NYT will publish something like this. I doubt they’d have felt they could as recently as 2 years ago.Report
Further evidence that the excesses of that ideology are in retreat.Report
DEI was basically grift for liberals or close to it. Lots of opportunities for people to make some extra money from the liberal side of things.Report
I do think it has a lot of commonality with Christian Grift on the right, though I fear that nonprofits in general already have that space staked out.Report
Jealous? Wanting another way to make some pocket change? 😉Report
It’s very easy to make a lot of money if all you want to do is make a lot of money.Report
Dude, that is a *GREAT* article.
At some point, stated intentions stop mattering. Deontologists always learn this the hard way.Report
I’d put it differently: that the Vibe Shift means people aren’t willing to accept intentions as an end in themselves. It really did used to be enough that corporations changed their logo to have rainbows during the month of June!Report
It seems unsurprising that an such an initiative at a university like that ended up being the institutional equivalent of an “In This House We Believe…” sign. What’d be nice is if the critics of DEI from the right and center had better suggestions for how to deal with issues of racial and ethnic diversity and discrimination.Report
Sounds like “the old status quo” is a better suggestion than the current status quo.Report
I think there’s two parts to that. Part one is that the broader political right, as best as I can tell, has chosen to no longer participate as a solutions oriented movement. That’s the case with virtually everything, from healthcare to housing to how the economy functions. In fairness higher ed is maybe the one place where conservatives can credibly claim to have been purged, but I’m not sure it matters when they don’t propose solutions in any arena anyway.
Part 2 though is that the broader left needs to make sure it retains its ability to scrutinize whether the solutions it’s proposing are actually solving the problems they are intended to, or if they have even identified the problem in an accurate way. In terms of the piece, it seems easily predictable that priming everyone to look at every interpersonal tension or friction as an identity based offense that is a subset of an even larger identity based conflict would not produce a more open, tolerant place. Quite the opposite.
This is why I think it is a positive sign that an institution like the NYT did and felt like they could run this. It isn’t Chris Rufo, or even somewhere like Reason. It’s a normal liberal newspaper providing the evidence that this stuff doesn’t get the results it’s proponents at the University say it does.Report
There is no longer anything liberal about the NYT.Report
I mean less the people at the University of Michigan, who aren’t going to spend money like this without a lot of outside pressure. The way to get them to do more than putting a sign on their lawn that says they’re in favor of diversity and drinking water is to put counter pressure, but so far, the only pressure I’ve seen from the anti-DEI folks, be it those who think folks like Rufo and Conceptual James are serious people, or people who recognize them for the charlatans they are but still believe DEI is woke excess, has been anti-DEI. I’ve seen no pressure to do anything else. If DEI is falling apart, now’s a great time to start proposing alternatives.Report
If DEI is falling apart, now’s a great time to start proposing alternatives.
The alternative is we look at the root problems, which come down to “culture and not racism”, and (somehow) get the people with the dysfunctional cultures to change their actions.
This is seriously hard and will draw accusations of victim blaming and racism.
Witness how Asians or even Foreign Blacks are hugely successful in the US. Change the culture and everything else is small beer. If we feel the need to virtue signal we can reform the police or remove all lead from pipes, but we shouldn’t expect much from that.
Much more likely we’ll find a DEI version 2 to avoid this conversation. DEI’s flaws included needing to redefine “truth” and “evidence” in order to make their case. Normally that’s what religion needs to do.
We needed to go all in on stopping microaggressions, which we’re not sure have a measurable affect, because we don’t want to talk about single parent families which are strongly associated with massive negative effects.
The purpose of DEI was to avoid painful conversations and allow virtue signaling. We’ll find other ways to avoid those conversations.Report
People have trained themselves to believe that when you says “culture” it’s a lie and you really mean “race” because you’re a racist liar.Report
When I give “bad culture/choices” examples I use my relatives.
I assume this behavior is no less dysfunctional when the person is black rather than white.Report
Chris, are you assuming that they want to deal with those issues, other than, perhaps, shouting STFU?Report
I don’t think it’s at all clear in 2024 what specific issue or issues we’re dealing with. I thought the piece did a decent job of putting into layman’s terms the core holdings of Bakke, and how all of this evolved from SCOTUS holding that the state’s interest in maintaining ‘diversity’ allowed for some consideration of race, but that quotas were held unconstitutional.
The context was of course a demographic situation where for all practical purposes the country was white and black, and most of the then living black people had actually experienced segregation and Jim Crow. Wherever one stands on the public policy question it was at least clear what we were talking about when we said ‘diversity’, namely what, if any, extra consideration could or should be given to the black people who had lived under segregation and in the immediate aftermath. But as some may have noticed, a lot has changed since then. The students in college now are at least 3 generations removed from de jure segregation, there is a successful black professional class, and the demographics of the country are way more complicated.
What does diversity mean now? And what issue are we trying to solve?Report
That was my question: who is this “we?”Report
The Times piece discusses some of the issues, e.g., Michigan (as also here at Texas) actually has as smaller percentage of black students than it did a few years ago. And while it’s true, pretty much no one who’s going to college now or in the near future experienced Jim Crows (I say pretty much no one because there’s always the great “88 year-old woman graduates…” stories every year), the effects of that segregation, and ongoing de facto economic and geographic segregation, along with discrimination at every level of schooling, still exists, and they affect who gets into Michigan and who succeeds there. It’d be nice if instead of institutional yard signs, we tried doing things that actually helped kids get into and succeed at schools like the University of Michigan or the University of Texas.Report
Maybe I’m wrong about this but I seem to recall reading somewhere that by TX law the top 10% of graduates of any TX public high school were guaranteed a spot at a TX public college or university. The idea has always struck me as a reasonable one.
But I also have to ask- does student ability matter? It doesn’t do anyone of any race any good to spend time and money at one of these places if there is reason to believe they won’t get the credential. We’re presuming the correctness of backwards reasoning, that it’s good colleges producing succesful people as opposed to succesful people going to good colleges. To use Jaybird’s favorite jurisdiction, I’m confident we could put students from the worst school districts in Maryland into the best colleges in the state and I don’t think it would magically turn them into something they weren’t. The damage is done well before anyone is thinking about higher ed.Report
The damage done by college mismatching isn’t just student debt. It’s also to blame for getting minority students to not get the harder (i.e. higher paid) degrees.
We’re dumbing down what “successful at college X” means when we assume “all degrees are equal”.
Turning potential Software Engineers into Women’s Studies Majors should have easily predictable affects on inequality.Report
It’s down to 5% now (it fluctuates as a way of controlling incoming class size, though I don’t think it’s been as high as 10% in decades).
And yes, student ability matters, but the abilities that get you into competitive schools like Michigan and Texas are ones that need to be nurtured and encouraged by families, schools, and beyond, and that encouragement and nurturing requires resources that are unequally distributed.
The University of Kentucky, where I got my undergraduate degree, has had since before I went there (and I’m old) a program designed to find ability in a place that does not have many resources, and so academic ability tends to be poorly nurtured by the schools and society generally. This program is extremely popular in the state, despite only applying to a relatively small portion of the state’s residents, all in a specific part of the state. The program is designed to help Appalachian students, overwhelmingly poor white kids, get into and succeed at the university, and is very successful (two of my good friends back then were in the program).
Why aren’t scholarships and institutional support for poor white kids from Eastern Kentucky controversial? I figure the answer is probably obvious. But the principle is the same: kids from places and socioeconomic situations that make it difficult to capitalize on ability should be supported, encouraged, and where possible, subsidized, in their pursuit of what a lot of kids from elsewhere, with lesser ability but significantly more opportunity, take for granted.Report
What is it that the program does exactly? How do they find the beneficiaries and what do they do with them?Report
The gist is that it finds students in Eastern Kentucky, helps them get into the university, provides financial support, and provides institutional support throughout their time at the university. There’s also an Appalachian Center which is kind of like African American Studies, but for Appalachia (and therefore, obviously, less controversial).Report
The University of Kentucky, like most four-year universities, does not have competitive admissions. I don’t mean that it’s less competitive than Harvard—I mean that it has a 95% acceptance rate. Typically an acceptance rate this high means that the university has the capacity to admit all applicants who meet their basic standards of college readiness.
What people find most objectionable about affirmative action at universities with competitive admissions is the rejecting of better qualified applicants from disfavored groups over less qualified—often by as much as a standard deviation—applicants from favored groups. At universities with noncompetitive admissions, this is a non-issue. Admitting a less qualified applicant does not require rejecting a more qualified applicant.Report
Why aren’t scholarships and institutional support for poor white kids from Eastern Kentucky controversial?
Can the kid pass a literacy proficiency test?
If he can, I can think of at least one answer.Report
I don’t think that’s fair. There are diamonds in the rough and there’s nothing wrong with universities expending some resources trying to find them. It also makes sense to me that a state university would be required to do just that as part of its mission to serve the public.
I do wonder how much it scales. It would not shock me that even the worst of the worst high schools have a small number of students who if identified could be coached into an acceptable level of performance. But can you turn a 1 or 2% admission rate into a 10% admission rate that way? I have my doubts.Report
I absolutely think that there are diamonds in the rough out there!
I also think that they can probably pass a proficiency test.Report
There are diamonds in the rough and there’s nothing wrong with universities expending some resources trying to find them. It also makes sense to me that a state university would be required to do just that as part of its mission to serve the public.
This is what makes you a liberal.
Since the Enlightenment, the idea of individuals being malleable and amenable to improvement has been the driving force in what we call liberalism.
As opposed to the other idea, that people are fixed- the way you are is the way you are, immutable and essential.
This is why liberalism always searches for ways to improve people and cultivate them, with everything from free public education to public sanitation to various aid programs.
Its also why conservatives always see the solution to ills like poor schools, crime, homelessness and dysfunction as detachment.
They urge us to leave poor schools, flee bad neighborhoods, detach and withdraw to secluded enclaves.
Because the people who are doing the fleeing are by nature good, while the ones left behind are by nature bad.Report
Far as I can tell, modern liberals mostly think personal success is random and has nothing to do with personal choices or culture.
It is remarkably hard to improve conditions when we’re not allowed to point out that personal/cultural choices have a massive impact on expected personal outcomes.
This is why we keep focusing on racism rather than marriage rates.
The Conservative focus on personal choices has the massive advantage that it’s something I can control and the affects are massive, although not total.Report
It’s remarkably easy to find examples of people who made awful choices and somehow failed upwards, even as far as the presidency.
And vice versa.
Which suggests that success owes as much to outside assistance as any other factor.Report
I don’t think these things are as mutually exclusive as all that. On the one hand, it is clear to me that the best thing you can do for your kids is pass down good genes. The second best thing you can do is raise them in a two parent, in tact family where the parents are married to each other. The third best thing you can do is reinforce values like hard work and deferred gratification. The fourth best thing you can do is immerse them in an environment where the norm is doing 2 and 3.
But it’s also in our interest as a society to have a lot of long ladders, and to have lots of different ways to become successful. Sometimes that requires a little broad mindedness, and understanding that the ROI won’t always be immediate or obvious. We want to live in a civilization, not an every man for himself hellscape where any talk of a helping hand is dismissed as pointless or worse.Report
Chris: Why aren’t scholarships and institutional support for poor white kids from Eastern Kentucky controversial?
Affirmative action isn’t pointed at the “poor”. Obama’s kids qualified.
If we pointed these programs purely at the poor then a lot of issues would drop out. They wouldn’t be racist (and unconstitutional) because poor Whites would qualify. There would be less push back because we wouldn’t be calling poor Whites “racist” for thinking that Obama’s kids don’t need help.
Of course there would be huge push back from higher institutions because they’d no longer be able to make their numbers with the Black middle and upper classes.Report
This goes back to my other question though, of what it is we’re trying to do here. If the answer is ensure that the top echelons of society resemble at least fuzzily, and cosmetically (i.e. on a power point), the racial demographics of the country, it can succeed in that, particularly if everyone agrees that’s what we’re doing and is willing to play along.
But it’s never going to do anything about broader inequality.Report
This isn’t just the poor: you can’t qualify for these programs if you’re just as poor but live in Paducah, e.g. These programs are specifically targeted at a historically marginalized and underserved population, (overwhelmingly) white Appalachians in the Eastern part of the state. As I mentioned, they even have an Appalachian Studies center and department, with a great deal of money poured into researching the present and history of the people in that region.Report
“What’d be nice is if the critics of DEI from the right and center had better suggestions for how to deal with issues of racial and ethnic diversity and discrimination.”
Well, we tried “race-neutral policies” and “race-blind hiring” and “I don’t care what race or color you are” and we got told that those things were just as racist as anything else, that we were saying those things because we didn’t want to think about the implications of our own internal racism and what it meant for a legacy of oppression and prejudice (or maybe we were just lying.)
Then we asked what we ought to be doing instead of that, and we got told that you couldn’t tell us because you weren’t black, and that it was our responsibility to learn and not your responsibility to teach, and anyway it was racist of us to be asking you that question.
And when we asked black people what do to, they mostly looked at us funny for asking and said “dunno, I guess give us money”. And we did that, and they gave it to their friends, and then the money was gone and you were still mad that we were racist, and we kind of figured that maybe there wasn’t a problem with us.Report
Here is a non-paywalled version of the article:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/16/magazine/dei-university-michigan.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Sk4.kMDc.ekoiqfgyDvH6&smid=url-shareReport
Tired: “Kamala should go on Joe Rogan!”
Wired:
Report
LOL. Shades of Edward Murrow.Report
The NYT on how the IDF came upon Sinwar:
For over a year, Israel’s security establishment, backed by the United States, dedicated vast resources and gathered mounds of intelligences in its hunt for Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader who was an architect of the Oct. 7 attacks.
But in the end, a unit of trainee squad commanders unexpectedly encountered Mr. Sinwar while on an operation in southern Gaza, according to four Israeli defense officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
The unit was on patrol in southern Gaza on Wednesday when the Israeli soldiers came upon a small group of fighters, the officials said. The soldiers — backed by drones — engaged in a firefight, and three Palestinian militants were killed.
During the battle, Israeli fire brought down part of a building where the militants had taken cover, two officials said. As the dust cleared and they began searching the building, the Israeli soldiers noticed that one of the bodies bore a shocking resemblance to the Hamas leader, the three officials said.
It was a seemingly unlikely place to find him. Israeli and U.S. intelligence had long assessed that Mr. Sinwar — fearful for his own safety — had been hiding deep underground, surrounding himself with Israeli hostages to avoid assassination.
Photographs obtained by The New York Times, some of which later circulated online, show the body of a man with facial features strongly resembling Mr. Sinwar. The man’s body has several severe wounds, including to the head and leg. The photographs show that the body has several features matching those seen in archival footage of Mr. Sinwar, including distinctive moles near his eyes and crooked teeth.
Hours after the fight was over, the soldiers approached the bodies cautiously. The area was still littered with explosive devices, two officials said. They also thought that the body of one fighter, later identified as Mr. Sinwar, was booby-trapped.
They found money and weaponry alongside the militants, according to one of the officials, who shared photos of the scene, including some in which the items were on display.
The troops, one of the officials said, were also concerned that there might be hostages in the area as well, but none were found with the fighters. There is no evidence that any of the hostages still held in Gaza were harmed during the battle, the Israeli military said.
On Thursday evening, the Israeli military, after completing its identification process, announced that Mr. Sinwar was dead.Report
Moving from one “safe” house to another? Supervising troops? Out for a smoke?Report
Musk goes Full Protocols of the Elders of Zion: https://x.com/AutismCapital/status/1847035061738377317?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1847035061738377317%7Ctwgr%5E24d47c825b542775a5cb9ae46782c5790eb743b2%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com%2F2024%2F10%2Fjust-spitballing-here-but-it-may-be-bad-that-the-worlds-richest-mans-brain-has-liquified-under-the-influence-of-drugs-and-right-wing-media-and-hes-using-his-money-to-try-to-get-a-fascist-electReport
The woman saying Obama is behind Biden (and Harris) echoes what I see a lot from MAGA Facebook. There seems to be a strong belief in MAGA World that, with Biden in the White House, Obama is running the country behind the scenes, and it’s a fascinating turn in racism that deserves book-length treatments.Report
What is the phrase? Every accusation is a confession. Trump is obviously increasingly losing it cognitively. But MAGA thinks it is Biden that is the mushy brained one.Report
Time for some right think . . . .
https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/17/media/florida-judge-tv-abortion-rights-ad-health/index.htmlReport
It needs to be pointed out, once again, that Donald Trump had nothing whatsoever to do with any of this.
This blatant attack on freedom was entirely conceived and carried out by bog-standard orthodox Republicans. The kind who will be in charge long after Trump is gone.Report
For all the undecided voters out there:
Texas AG Ken Paxton sues pediatrician over gender-affirming care for youths
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/10/18/texas-transgender-healthcare-ken-paxton
Senate Bill 14, which went into effect in September 2023, prohibits health-care professionals from treating anyone under the age of 18 with gender-transitioning interventions such as surgeries, puberty blockers and hormones. Physicians found in violation of the law, which was upheld by the Texas Supreme Court in June, can lose their medical licenses.
The lawsuit accuses Lau of “misleading” pharmacies and insurance providers by claiming that the testosterone she prescribed to her patients were for conditions unrelated to gender transition. In addition to an injunction, the lawsuit seeks penalties of up to $10,000 per violation.
Once again, this is what the GOP is, and Trump has nothing to do with it.Report
I suspect if you had run this post by the Harris campaign folks, they would’ve said “are you nuts?? Don’t you know who the undecided voters are?”Report
People who don’t think Republicans are serious?
Sure, lets put them on the spot with showing exactly what Republicans want to do.
Like, who here at OT supports Paxton’s lawsuit, and wants to see this doctor lose her license?
Show of hands, c’mon lets see it.Report
In a filing yesterday, in their new case arguing that states can regulate mifepristone regardless of the FDA, the state AGs of Idaho, Kansas, and Missouri say that states have the necessary interest because abortions reduce their potential population. That in turn reduces the number of Representatives they may get, and the size of federal grants based on population.Report
“Republicans just want to control women’s reproductive systems.”
“That’s a dirty smear!”
Republicans: “No, that’s pretty much it.”Report
I didn’t see the Al Smith dinner, but heard it was filled with bawdy and hilarious jokes.
Did they joke about this?
L.A. Catholic church covered up molesting priests for decades. The price: $1.5 billion and so much pain
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-10-19/hundreds-of-accused-priests-and-a-1-5-billion-payout-how-did-the-los-angeles-archdiocese-get-hereReport
Apparently Trump worked at McDonald’s today.
The pictures appear to be AI generated but, like, they’re actually real.
We’re in a weirder timeline than the last one and the last one was weird too.Report
Apparently that particular McDonald’s was closed to the public while the publicity event was conducted. I had been wondering how the more paranoid than usual Secret Service was going to handle security at an open McDonald’s.Report
I’m not sure how much of a gotcha that will end up being. “They vetted the people who were allowed within 10 feet of Trump with a potential car bomb!”
“He’s so fake!” is one answer, of course. But “no dUh” is another.Report
Currently reading an interview with Donald Johanson, and the discovery of the fossil “Lucy”, discovered 50 years ago.
Why was there so much change over a relatively short period of time? We’re looking at a planet that’s four-and-a-half billion years old, and we evolved into modern humans over a relatively short period of time, only about 7 million years—that’s one of the things that we are always trying to understand. What is the best model to explain our survival?
.
I think that there are hints. First, we’re the most cooperative species on the planet. If a chimpanzee wanders into another chimpanzee’s territory, they’re killed and eaten. Here we are [referring to our interview], we’ve never met, we don’t know each other, but we’re cooperating with one another. No other species has this level of cooperation. Second, within the cultural framework, no other animal has the inventiveness of what we sometimes call “cumulative culture.” Just in my lifetime—I banged out my doctoral thesis on a typewriter; before that, someone probably wrote theirs by hand.
https://nautil.us/lucy-at-50-990900/
Huh. Food for thought!Report
Collaboration is more important to long-term progress than defection?
THE HELL YOU SAYReport
No, that’s not even close to what he was saying.
Cooperation is almost the opposite of the Prisoner’s Dilemma.Report
You lose me at “most cooperative species on the planet”.
The eusocial species, like ants, have us beat by a long way.Report
Ants are incapable of choice.
He should probably have modified it to be “the most cooperative of the higher species”.
Point being, that the ability to use our intelligence to foresee the outcome of a long series of events and choose cooperation is what has led us to the current state of civilization.
Whereas the short term “I got mine” type of thinking prevents the building of civilization.Report
This reminds me of the AI discussions. “An AI isn’t sentient unless it can (proceeds to list something that 50% of humans can’t do)”.Report
One of our killer software apps is the concept of punishing freeloaders, i.e. “justice”.
This makes cooperation at scale possible. It also makes certain aspects of civilization hard.Report
Punishing freeloaders is good; so is tending to the weak or injured.
Knowing which is which is hard.
I mean, the internet and devices we are using to communicate with was only made possible by a bunch of young freeloading college dropouts a few decades ago;
But not every freeloading college dropout is doing something so worthwhile.Report
Who amongst us is shocked that Trump’s stint at McDonald’s was a total fake? https://jabberwocking.com/trump-fakes-a-stint-at-mcdonalds-today/Report
And they’re tweeting stuff like this!
They’re not taking into account how stuff like this is (probably) fake but if it was real then Trump is *STEALING* from the franchisee. Who paid for the extra nugget? NOT THE GUY IN THE PICTURE! You do that six times and it’s an entire nuggets order that didn’t get sold! Stuff like that can be the difference between a McDonald’s that stays open and one that has to close because it doesn’t turn a profit! The people who complain about shoplifting and the people praising Trump for putting extra nuggets in a container are THE SAME PEOPLE.
I never eat at McDonald’s I don’t know why anybody would. Don’t they have an In N Out in Pittsburgh?Report
Showing a distinct lack of solidarity with the masses of people who do eat at McDonald’s and would rightly resent some elitist telling them there’s no reason they should.Report
While I appreciate that it’s not their fault that they don’t have the capacity to be an elitist, they shouldn’t hold it against me that I have realized my own.Report
The world is full of people doing things they shouldn’t.Report