I could see it as a statement: "In case you're wondering if our intermediate and long-range Nuclear deterrent still functions in post-Soviet Russia..."
I'm curious to see if he takes his seat in the next congress... I'd assume yes, but seeing some armchair House Rules mongering that he resigned from both current and future congresses.
Maybe he figured he was going to get Santos'ed so he's indifferent... but if not, would be the first of many who's careers Trump will end.
"Hey, Vincent, don't you see? That sh*t don't matter. You're judging this sh*t the wrong way. I mean, it could be that God stopped the bullets, or He changed Coke to Pepsi, He found my f***ing car keys. You don't judge sh*t like this based on merit. Now, whether or not what we experienced was an "according to Hoyle" miracle is insignificant. What is significant is that I felt the touch of God. God got involved."
[Joke aside, I think the unprepared kid on the roof missed. Missed close, but missed all the same]
Yeah, but as I said on Twitter... I'm not sure Trump is qualified to exploit a Trump victory at the polls.
He might buckle down and focus on shepherding legacy defining legislation through congress; or he might appoint Matt Gaetz and just f*ck around with the DOJ for two years. Hard to say, really.
The modern Federal machine has 1-yr to execute whatever their mandate heart desires... and which can muster 60-votes in the Senate.
...or can be maneuvered through a reconciliation bill on straight party-line votes.
...or is no longer subject to the filibuster.
...or nukes the filibuster.
...or -- and this is the real meaning of a mandate -- voting against the proposed 'Mandate Legislation' will cause you to lose your next election because the Mandate Party will take their mandate for this legislation and use it for that.
Clearly the Republicans have a reconciliation bill level of mandate.
It could, however, attempt to leverage an 'Immigration Mandate' because many Dems campaigned on Immigration and the Dems are concerned about Immigration at the polls ... so Trump could position a Trump inflected Migration Bill that needs the support of 7 senators to pass. It all depends on whether there are 7 Senators who are vulnerable to the *Immigration Mandate*... or Dem leadership that is worried about campaigning against Immigration Reform and pressures for a general consensus bill. But make no mistake, it will be a general consensus bill of Trump's influence, not the weak tea that was served prior to the election.
I never have any confidence that Trump and his team can execute on these sorts of things... but if he does, that's what he can accomplish before 2026 as part of a 'Mandate' strategy.
That, and I assume they can just extend the TCJA for 4 (8?) years via reconciliation? In some ways it's ironic that Trump wanted the TCJA to expire on his successor's watch, but now that he's the successor, he can probably just extend it 4 or 8 more years (depending on the limits of Reconciliation).
Biden was CiC during the Evacuation; he's the one who had primary responsibility for oversight for that specific operation. He ordered it, the Generals and their Staffs planned and executed it. It is his role to see to it that operational failures are reviewed and accountability maintained.
The outcome is accountability in the US Military; it's genuinely an important outcome that Sr. Officers in charge of Military operations are held accountable for the success or failure of missions. It's also a bedrock principle of the Officer Corps itself.
One could, perhaps, make a broader argument that the Flag Officers in all branches have increasingly been exempted from this level of accountability; and that this represents a sort of regulatory capture of DoD, and I'd certainly be sympathetic to that... but that just means that Bush, Obama, Trump, Biden, Trump should acknowledge this 'problem' and take more and more timely corrective actions.
Afghanistan was particularly egregious; and, Biden didn't do his duty. Ironically, he ended up taking all the heat for it, and that moment was the start of the precipitous decline in his approvals.
I'd even go so far as to say, it would have been to his advantage to own the decision to withdraw, but acknowledge that the operation was botched, and hold the Sr. Staff accountable. It would have demonstrated his own competence and leadership, plus make sure that the Civilian Commander in Chief takes responsibility for the order, but the military takes responsibility for the execution.
This has nothing to do with Trump... I said at the time that Biden should have done this.
I favored Biden's decision to withdraw; he owed it to himself as President to hold the Sr. Officers who executed the military withdrawal in the way that they did accountable.
I have my doubts that Team Trump will handle this matter well, but I'm saving my powder to fire on Trump's failings when they are actual failings.
Biden really should have held the military accountable for the poor performance of the withdrawal. Some careers should have publicly ended.
Not sure what the statute of limitations are in the UCMJ, but the incident with the Drone should certainly be reviewed again... it had all the appearance of a whitewash at the time.
The article is, of course, focusing on the most sensational aspect of their anonymous source (treason), but it does have one or two more lucid moments:
"It is not clear the Trump administration would pursue treason charges, and instead it could focus on lesser charges that highlight the officers’ involvement. “They want to set an example,” said the person with knowledge of the plan."
Again, Biden *should* have done this (and more)... I'm not wild about the next administration doing it, but setting aside the fantasy of treason, if commanders need to have their careers ended publicly 4 yrs after the fact... that's good, actually. The Officer Corps really does have a tradition of accountability -- for Majors and below -- it needs some reviving for Sr. Officers.
Thanks for linking that... I'd never heard of such a program -- glad to see it living in the wild. Based on a quick skim of the FAQs and About Us, I'd be happy to start there and see how it has worked in practice and what the gotcha's were (for customers and agency) and how it could be improved upon.
But if I were an all-in YIMBY, I'd start every meeting/debate/TV hit with the idea that: FIRST, we'll protect your assets; after that it's all blah blah blah.
(65 ILCS 95/2) (from Ch. 24, par. 1602)
Sec. 2. Purpose. The purpose of a Home Equity Program and commission created under the provisions of this Act by the voters of a territory within a municipality with a population of more than 1,000,000 shall be to guarantee that the value of the property of each member of the program shall not fall below its fair market value established at the time the member registers in a program, provided that the member remains in the program for at least 5 years, keeps the property well maintained, continuously occupies the property as his or her principal residence, or a family member continuously occupies the property as a principal residence, and adheres to the guidelines of a program.
BTW, my godparents have lived on Lemont just north of that area (in Sauganash?) for the past 40 years.
Right?.. that's the beauty of it. Protect actual losers (there will be some) allay fears of many who won't see any difference, and make sure that the State thinks a tiny bit about how it changes use laws so as not to nuke their budget.
Risk sharing semi-Georgist policies (opt-in?) are way better than ideological Georgism.
But why? As BB says above, there's a good chance that most of the change will be a net increase.
So you're making a completely unnecessary ideological point that makes your preferred policy *less* likely to be supported -- and provides no particular gain rather than trading for a policy almost no or limited cost?
Additionally, while it may be a net benefit, there really are losers in some cases -- so providing some sort of protection in exchange for removing veto's and/or moving the zoning process up a layer to states is precisely the point.
Don't actually see it as a bribe; Govt. created various zones that become market inputs and influence decisions and allocation of resources.
If Govt. changes the rules that negatively impact previous decisions, it is good policy to mitigate the negative impacts on some so that they are freer to make those changes that benefit the larger portion (hopefully).
It's actually a good use of Govt. resources.
As far as I can tell, there isn't an actual Red/Blue split on the issue... I see as much, if not more NIMBY in Blue areas than Red. As I say, I think it's a valid calculus that people make, and the way to overcome the most valid objection is to recognize that some YIMBY choices will in fact harm some individuals and the party changing the terms of the original agreement ought to compensate the injured party.
The thing is, if the YIMBY assumptions are true, and most people will see increases in value then when they sell, the Govt. will see a gain in revenue from increasing those values (if we employ a semi-Georgist approach). Hence, it isn't bribery, it's the other side of making 21st century policy. Things we couldn't imagine doing in 1980 with primitive computers are now 'trivially' easy (from a technology point of view).
OMG, you kids and your fancy graphics... I remember when Castlevania was green stick figure men shooting Na*is with 45* firing vectors. And we liked it. Oh, wait, that was Castle Wolfenstein - get off my lawn.
I'm currently angry at the ARPG Game developers; feel my wrath. Diablo IV is just plain bad... too many skills on really long timers... dumb dumb dumb.
Last Epoch had a really strong release, but hasn't been able to keep up with the 3-4 month update/release cycle that's required to bring back players... so it's just grinding gears hoping its delays will see people return.
Speaking of Grinding Gears, I *should* be playing the PoE2 early release right now... but they delayed it because the realized that one of their Original Day1 plans of Account cross-over for Micro Transactions wasn't going to work. So they pushed it back to Dec6. They then pushed out the patch to update all of the Account code, and crashed PoE1, so they rolled it back. Turns out that in unifying all the Accounts across all the platforms, they were going to have to append three digits to everyone's name -- naturally there is more than one Legolas, not to mention xLegolas or xLegolasx or xxLegolasxx or, well you get the picture. Anyhow, according to the post mortem, if the old Charater limit was 24, they forgot to update that number to 27 *and* that part of the code was deployed without some sort of fault toleration (devs prob know what this means) and once one name failed, the entire section failed which caused the game to fail.
So, anyway, I'm still not testing PoE 2 *and* my confidence in the new game continues to erode; I'll definitely give it a go as PoE is the best game out there right now -- but from what I've watched, they aren't fixing PoE1 and making it better, they are making a different game that the Devs think is better than PoE2 -- and in my experience, Devs making new things because they are bored with the old have about a 25% success rate. I'm low-key expecting a big failure primarily because they have adopted WASD movement... and, well, WASD movement isn't ARPG, it's a Souls game.
Got back from our Cruise vacation and almost immediately had to go to NYC for business meeting; got to see a Ranger's game in MSG as a 'team building' exercise though.
I'm way behind on Hunting this season and should be going out today... but after the travel I feel kinda drained... so might just veg in front of College Football games and the 'puter.
Fun fact about the cruise... Hurricane Rafael formed in the western Caribbean (our destination) and the Greek Captain simply sailed us right across it's path north of Cuba when it was hitting the Caymans; then we sailed behind it one day later and stopped at the Caymans. Calm seas and no rain (other than the usual SUNSHINE RAIN ANGRY RAIN SUNSHINE you get in those parts)... Caymans were fine - it was just a little hurricane. Lady Marchmaine got to swim with the Turtles on Grand Cayman which was a highlight for her and had been a minor source of anxiety watching the Hurricane reports leading up to and during the Cruise.
There's probably a rarely read Econ dissertation out there about this, but one thing I've wondered that YIMBY's never propose is to protect (or at least mitigate) NIMBY's from economic harm.
NIMBY's win because the loss aversion is stronger than the potential benefit *and* the losses could be very particular, even if the benefits are general. So the NIMBY position is both rational and widespread.
One way to mitigate this would be some sort of Property Value protection -- could be Govt. funded, Market based, or both. Basically, your investment (and growth) is protected and should YIMBY policies tank your particular investment, you are made whole by the insurance program. It takes the primary loss aversion off the table, which then leaves the much weaker aesthetic concerns such as: I grew up here; or I like this shady boulevard and can't find an exact match near work; or I can't afford the craftsman houses in the good part of town, and they don't make craftsman houses the way they used to, etc. etc.
There's all sorts of 'mathy' things you could do to make this revenue neutral -- that is, a semi-Georgist principle that losses are covered, but 25% (50%? 75%?) of the gains from YIMBY policies are collected as a tax upon sale... and so forth.
But simply trying to sell YIMBYism as a collective good (or some sort of moral imperative) when in any one particular instance it can be a individual bad is why YIMBY's don't make progress. Pool the gains and insure the risk.
I don't know... my baseline assumption is the Senate will defer to the President's picks.
Just don't know R Senate dynamics well enough to know strong his 29 votes are. We'll see if there's now a whisper campaign to sabotage Gaetz on the right to give him cover to push back to Pres. I assume no; but that would happen first - not Thune making some Olympic stand on Day 1.
Eh, there's a pretty widely known Scientific hypothesis (esp in Farm/Organic circles) that possibly some of our autoimmune (and other) issues come from an excessive sanitation 'problem'. That's probably why he mentions 'inoculating himself' and why having dirty hands is a sign of health -- metaphorically and scientifically. Generally, though, you still avoid pissing on your hands.
Personally I wouldn't shake his hand because after three marriages and however many affairs, I doubt he's a trustworthy guy.
---
"Exposure to environmental microbes, including those found in soil, plays a significant role in the development and regulation of the human immune system. This concept is central to the "hygiene hypothesis," which suggests that reduced exposure to diverse microorganisms may contribute to the rise in allergic and autoimmune diseases."
"Mr Hegseth later told USA Today that his remarks were intended to be a joke.
"We live in a society where people walk around with bottles of Purell (a hand sanitiser) in their pockets, and they sanitise 19,000 times a day as if that's going to save their life," he said.
"I take care of myself and all that, but I don't obsess over everything all the time."
On “Open Mic for the week of 11/18/2024”
I could see it as a statement: "In case you're wondering if our intermediate and long-range Nuclear deterrent still functions in post-Soviet Russia..."
On “The Mandate That Wasn’t”
I'm curious to see if he takes his seat in the next congress... I'd assume yes, but seeing some armchair House Rules mongering that he resigned from both current and future congresses.
Maybe he figured he was going to get Santos'ed so he's indifferent... but if not, would be the first of many who's careers Trump will end.
Rubio up next.
"
"Hey, Vincent, don't you see? That sh*t don't matter. You're judging this sh*t the wrong way. I mean, it could be that God stopped the bullets, or He changed Coke to Pepsi, He found my f***ing car keys. You don't judge sh*t like this based on merit. Now, whether or not what we experienced was an "according to Hoyle" miracle is insignificant. What is significant is that I felt the touch of God. God got involved."
[Joke aside, I think the unprepared kid on the roof missed. Missed close, but missed all the same]
"
I should just stick to 280 characters, nay 140.
But all this whitespace with and expandable box? Too tempting.
"
Yeah, but as I said on Twitter... I'm not sure Trump is qualified to exploit a Trump victory at the polls.
He might buckle down and focus on shepherding legacy defining legislation through congress; or he might appoint Matt Gaetz and just f*ck around with the DOJ for two years. Hard to say, really.
"
Mandate is as mandate does.
The modern Federal machine has 1-yr to execute whatever their mandate heart desires... and which can muster 60-votes in the Senate.
...or can be maneuvered through a reconciliation bill on straight party-line votes.
...or is no longer subject to the filibuster.
...or nukes the filibuster.
...or -- and this is the real meaning of a mandate -- voting against the proposed 'Mandate Legislation' will cause you to lose your next election because the Mandate Party will take their mandate for this legislation and use it for that.
Clearly the Republicans have a reconciliation bill level of mandate.
It could, however, attempt to leverage an 'Immigration Mandate' because many Dems campaigned on Immigration and the Dems are concerned about Immigration at the polls ... so Trump could position a Trump inflected Migration Bill that needs the support of 7 senators to pass. It all depends on whether there are 7 Senators who are vulnerable to the *Immigration Mandate*... or Dem leadership that is worried about campaigning against Immigration Reform and pressures for a general consensus bill. But make no mistake, it will be a general consensus bill of Trump's influence, not the weak tea that was served prior to the election.
I never have any confidence that Trump and his team can execute on these sorts of things... but if he does, that's what he can accomplish before 2026 as part of a 'Mandate' strategy.
That, and I assume they can just extend the TCJA for 4 (8?) years via reconciliation? In some ways it's ironic that Trump wanted the TCJA to expire on his successor's watch, but now that he's the successor, he can probably just extend it 4 or 8 more years (depending on the limits of Reconciliation).
On “How Republicans Can Save Trump’s Presidency”
What?
Biden was CiC during the Evacuation; he's the one who had primary responsibility for oversight for that specific operation. He ordered it, the Generals and their Staffs planned and executed it. It is his role to see to it that operational failures are reviewed and accountability maintained.
The outcome is accountability in the US Military; it's genuinely an important outcome that Sr. Officers in charge of Military operations are held accountable for the success or failure of missions. It's also a bedrock principle of the Officer Corps itself.
One could, perhaps, make a broader argument that the Flag Officers in all branches have increasingly been exempted from this level of accountability; and that this represents a sort of regulatory capture of DoD, and I'd certainly be sympathetic to that... but that just means that Bush, Obama, Trump, Biden, Trump should acknowledge this 'problem' and take more and more timely corrective actions.
Afghanistan was particularly egregious; and, Biden didn't do his duty. Ironically, he ended up taking all the heat for it, and that moment was the start of the precipitous decline in his approvals.
I'd even go so far as to say, it would have been to his advantage to own the decision to withdraw, but acknowledge that the operation was botched, and hold the Sr. Staff accountable. It would have demonstrated his own competence and leadership, plus make sure that the Civilian Commander in Chief takes responsibility for the order, but the military takes responsibility for the execution.
On “Ordinary Times Needs Your Help”
Donated. Thanks for hosting.
On “How Republicans Can Save Trump’s Presidency”
Did I say anything that resembled that?
This has nothing to do with Trump... I said at the time that Biden should have done this.
I favored Biden's decision to withdraw; he owed it to himself as President to hold the Sr. Officers who executed the military withdrawal in the way that they did accountable.
I have my doubts that Team Trump will handle this matter well, but I'm saving my powder to fire on Trump's failings when they are actual failings.
"
Biden really should have held the military accountable for the poor performance of the withdrawal. Some careers should have publicly ended.
Not sure what the statute of limitations are in the UCMJ, but the incident with the Drone should certainly be reviewed again... it had all the appearance of a whitewash at the time.
The article is, of course, focusing on the most sensational aspect of their anonymous source (treason), but it does have one or two more lucid moments:
"It is not clear the Trump administration would pursue treason charges, and instead it could focus on lesser charges that highlight the officers’ involvement. “They want to set an example,” said the person with knowledge of the plan."
Again, Biden *should* have done this (and more)... I'm not wild about the next administration doing it, but setting aside the fantasy of treason, if commanders need to have their careers ended publicly 4 yrs after the fact... that's good, actually. The Officer Corps really does have a tradition of accountability -- for Majors and below -- it needs some reviving for Sr. Officers.
On “Open Mic for the week of 11/11/2024”
Thanks for linking that... I'd never heard of such a program -- glad to see it living in the wild. Based on a quick skim of the FAQs and About Us, I'd be happy to start there and see how it has worked in practice and what the gotcha's were (for customers and agency) and how it could be improved upon.
But if I were an all-in YIMBY, I'd start every meeting/debate/TV hit with the idea that: FIRST, we'll protect your assets; after that it's all blah blah blah.
(65 ILCS 95/2) (from Ch. 24, par. 1602)
Sec. 2. Purpose. The purpose of a Home Equity Program and commission created under the provisions of this Act by the voters of a territory within a municipality with a population of more than 1,000,000 shall be to guarantee that the value of the property of each member of the program shall not fall below its fair market value established at the time the member registers in a program, provided that the member remains in the program for at least 5 years, keeps the property well maintained, continuously occupies the property as his or her principal residence, or a family member continuously occupies the property as a principal residence, and adheres to the guidelines of a program.
BTW, my godparents have lived on Lemont just north of that area (in Sauganash?) for the past 40 years.
"
Right?.. that's the beauty of it. Protect actual losers (there will be some) allay fears of many who won't see any difference, and make sure that the State thinks a tiny bit about how it changes use laws so as not to nuke their budget.
Risk sharing semi-Georgist policies (opt-in?) are way better than ideological Georgism.
"
But why? As BB says above, there's a good chance that most of the change will be a net increase.
So you're making a completely unnecessary ideological point that makes your preferred policy *less* likely to be supported -- and provides no particular gain rather than trading for a policy almost no or limited cost?
Additionally, while it may be a net benefit, there really are losers in some cases -- so providing some sort of protection in exchange for removing veto's and/or moving the zoning process up a layer to states is precisely the point.
On “Saturday Morning Gaming: Castlevania (Remembered)”
Yep, Path of Exile... free to play. It started as a Diablo II successor, but has evolved into a much better Diablo II and a much better Diablo.
https://www.pathofexile.com/game (can also get it on steam, if preferred)
On “Open Mic for the week of 11/11/2024”
Don't actually see it as a bribe; Govt. created various zones that become market inputs and influence decisions and allocation of resources.
If Govt. changes the rules that negatively impact previous decisions, it is good policy to mitigate the negative impacts on some so that they are freer to make those changes that benefit the larger portion (hopefully).
It's actually a good use of Govt. resources.
As far as I can tell, there isn't an actual Red/Blue split on the issue... I see as much, if not more NIMBY in Blue areas than Red. As I say, I think it's a valid calculus that people make, and the way to overcome the most valid objection is to recognize that some YIMBY choices will in fact harm some individuals and the party changing the terms of the original agreement ought to compensate the injured party.
The thing is, if the YIMBY assumptions are true, and most people will see increases in value then when they sell, the Govt. will see a gain in revenue from increasing those values (if we employ a semi-Georgist approach). Hence, it isn't bribery, it's the other side of making 21st century policy. Things we couldn't imagine doing in 1980 with primitive computers are now 'trivially' easy (from a technology point of view).
On “Saturday Morning Gaming: Castlevania (Remembered)”
OMG, you kids and your fancy graphics... I remember when Castlevania was green stick figure men shooting Na*is with 45* firing vectors. And we liked it. Oh, wait, that was Castle Wolfenstein - get off my lawn.
I'm currently angry at the ARPG Game developers; feel my wrath. Diablo IV is just plain bad... too many skills on really long timers... dumb dumb dumb.
Last Epoch had a really strong release, but hasn't been able to keep up with the 3-4 month update/release cycle that's required to bring back players... so it's just grinding gears hoping its delays will see people return.
Speaking of Grinding Gears, I *should* be playing the PoE2 early release right now... but they delayed it because the realized that one of their Original Day1 plans of Account cross-over for Micro Transactions wasn't going to work. So they pushed it back to Dec6. They then pushed out the patch to update all of the Account code, and crashed PoE1, so they rolled it back. Turns out that in unifying all the Accounts across all the platforms, they were going to have to append three digits to everyone's name -- naturally there is more than one Legolas, not to mention xLegolas or xLegolasx or xxLegolasxx or, well you get the picture. Anyhow, according to the post mortem, if the old Charater limit was 24, they forgot to update that number to 27 *and* that part of the code was deployed without some sort of fault toleration (devs prob know what this means) and once one name failed, the entire section failed which caused the game to fail.
So, anyway, I'm still not testing PoE 2 *and* my confidence in the new game continues to erode; I'll definitely give it a go as PoE is the best game out there right now -- but from what I've watched, they aren't fixing PoE1 and making it better, they are making a different game that the Devs think is better than PoE2 -- and in my experience, Devs making new things because they are bored with the old have about a 25% success rate. I'm low-key expecting a big failure primarily because they have adopted WASD movement... and, well, WASD movement isn't ARPG, it's a Souls game.
On “Weekend Plans Post: Garlic (Specifically Toom)”
Got back from our Cruise vacation and almost immediately had to go to NYC for business meeting; got to see a Ranger's game in MSG as a 'team building' exercise though.
I'm way behind on Hunting this season and should be going out today... but after the travel I feel kinda drained... so might just veg in front of College Football games and the 'puter.
Fun fact about the cruise... Hurricane Rafael formed in the western Caribbean (our destination) and the Greek Captain simply sailed us right across it's path north of Cuba when it was hitting the Caymans; then we sailed behind it one day later and stopped at the Caymans. Calm seas and no rain (other than the usual SUNSHINE RAIN ANGRY RAIN SUNSHINE you get in those parts)... Caymans were fine - it was just a little hurricane. Lady Marchmaine got to swim with the Turtles on Grand Cayman which was a highlight for her and had been a minor source of anxiety watching the Hurricane reports leading up to and during the Cruise.
"
I'd throw a little Tahini in it... ride that garlic bomb all the way to the ground - now with 30% more umami!
On “Open Mic for the week of 11/11/2024”
There's probably a rarely read Econ dissertation out there about this, but one thing I've wondered that YIMBY's never propose is to protect (or at least mitigate) NIMBY's from economic harm.
NIMBY's win because the loss aversion is stronger than the potential benefit *and* the losses could be very particular, even if the benefits are general. So the NIMBY position is both rational and widespread.
One way to mitigate this would be some sort of Property Value protection -- could be Govt. funded, Market based, or both. Basically, your investment (and growth) is protected and should YIMBY policies tank your particular investment, you are made whole by the insurance program. It takes the primary loss aversion off the table, which then leaves the much weaker aesthetic concerns such as: I grew up here; or I like this shady boulevard and can't find an exact match near work; or I can't afford the craftsman houses in the good part of town, and they don't make craftsman houses the way they used to, etc. etc.
There's all sorts of 'mathy' things you could do to make this revenue neutral -- that is, a semi-Georgist principle that losses are covered, but 25% (50%? 75%?) of the gains from YIMBY policies are collected as a tax upon sale... and so forth.
But simply trying to sell YIMBYism as a collective good (or some sort of moral imperative) when in any one particular instance it can be a individual bad is why YIMBY's don't make progress. Pool the gains and insure the risk.
"
I don't know... my baseline assumption is the Senate will defer to the President's picks.
Just don't know R Senate dynamics well enough to know strong his 29 votes are. We'll see if there's now a whisper campaign to sabotage Gaetz on the right to give him cover to push back to Pres. I assume no; but that would happen first - not Thune making some Olympic stand on Day 1.
But seriously, Gaetz?
"
Ok, that's batsh*t insane.
"
Eh, there's a pretty widely known Scientific hypothesis (esp in Farm/Organic circles) that possibly some of our autoimmune (and other) issues come from an excessive sanitation 'problem'. That's probably why he mentions 'inoculating himself' and why having dirty hands is a sign of health -- metaphorically and scientifically. Generally, though, you still avoid pissing on your hands.
Personally I wouldn't shake his hand because after three marriages and however many affairs, I doubt he's a trustworthy guy.
---
"Exposure to environmental microbes, including those found in soil, plays a significant role in the development and regulation of the human immune system. This concept is central to the "hygiene hypothesis," which suggests that reduced exposure to diverse microorganisms may contribute to the rise in allergic and autoimmune diseases."
https://www.immunology.theclinics.com/article/S0889-8561(05)00013-5/abstract
https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12916-015-0306-7
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/immunology/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2020.615192/full
"
Agree on DeVos -- she did a lot of things that really helped education beyond just the Public Schools -- especially during Covid.
Also agree that I'd take the 'under' on pretty much all of his picks and initiatives if I had to bet on them.
Then again, I'd probably lose on some of those 'under' picks, but I'm not entirely sure which ones.
"
dude... I clicked on the link:
"Mr Hegseth later told USA Today that his remarks were intended to be a joke.
"We live in a society where people walk around with bottles of Purell (a hand sanitiser) in their pockets, and they sanitise 19,000 times a day as if that's going to save their life," he said.
"I take care of myself and all that, but I don't obsess over everything all the time."
"
"At Eton they taught us to wash our hands after using the toilet"
"At Harrow they taught us not to piss on our hands"