Wednesday: Hili dialogue

October 4, 2023 • 6:45 am

Welcome to a Hump Day (“कूबड़ के दिन बा” in Bhojpuri): Wednesday, October 4, 2023, and National Crunchy Taco Day (yesterday was Soft Taco Day).

It’s also National Kale Day (YUCK!), National Vodka Day, National Pumpkin Seed Day, World Animal Day, National Golf Day, Cinnamon Roll Day, and the beginning of World Space Week (Oct. 4-10). I would never turn down a cinnamon roll, no matter when it was offered. They are the apotheosis of American baked goods:

Source

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this by consulting the October 4 Wikipedia page.

And don’t forget to vote for one bear in each of the two pairs on today’s matchups in the Fat Bear Contest. Go here to vote and click on one bear from each pair. Voting starts at noon Eastern time (11 a.m. Chicago time).

Da Nooz:

*House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has been ousted after a motion to remove him  was proposed by GOP representative Matt Gaetz, and then a vote to table the motion has failed. For the first time in modern history, the Speaker of the House has been deep-sixed, and for being bipartisan.  Nor did the Democrats try to save his sorry butt; they want this division and chaos.

The House on Tuesday voted to oust Kevin McCarthy from the speakership, a move without precedent in modern history that left the chamber without a leader and plunged it into chaos.

Democrats joined with a small group of hard-liners in Mr. McCarthy’s own party to strip the California Republican of the speaker’s gavel in a 216 to 210 vote. It was the culmination of bitter Republican divisions that have festered all year, and capped an epic power struggle between Mr. McCarthy and members of a far-right faction who tried to block his ascent to the speakership in January. They have tormented him ever since, trying to stymie his efforts to keep the nation from defaulting on its debt and ultimately rebelling over his decision over the weekend to turn to Democrats for help in keeping the government from shutting down.

Note that there is no obvious successor, as I believe it took 16 votes to elect McCarthy in the first place. Any replacement has to be chosen well before six weeks from now and be savvy enough to keep the government from being shut down. Note that the Republicans are in a huge kerfuffle:

  • There is no clear replacement for Mr. McCarthy. “I think there’s plenty of people who can step up and do the job,” said Representative Tim Burchett of Tennessee, one of the rebels who voted to push Mr. McCarthy out, adding that he did not know who he had in mind for the job instead.

  • Ahead of the vote, a surreal Republican-against-Republican debate played out on the House floor. Members of the hard-right clutch of rebels disparaged their own speaker and verbally sparred with Mr. McCarthy’s defenders, who repeatedly accused the hard-liners of sowing disarray to advance their own political interests and hoard attention. Democrats sat and watched silently. “He put his political neck on the line knowing this day was coming,” said Representative Tom Cole, Republican of Oklahoma and a McCarthy ally who sought unsuccessfully to kill the move to oust him. “Think long and hard before you plunge us into chaos,” Mr. Cole implored the speaker’s detractors, “because that’s where we’re headed if we vacate the speakership.”

. . . Soon after, Mr. McCarthy told Republicans behind closed doors that he would not seek to reclaim the post, ending a tumultuous nine months as speaker. Republicans said they would leave Washington until next week, with no clear path to finding a new speaker of the House.

“I don’t regret standing up for choosing governance over grievance,” Mr. McCarthy said at a news conference after the meeting. “It is my responsibility. It is my job. I do not regret negotiating; our government is designed to find compromise.”

It is thus possible that if the Democrats stick together, we could have a Democratic speaker of a Republican House, which is apparently kosher! But the whole thing is an ungodly mess.

*David Mills at the NYT tells us “Why science is losing Americans’ trust.” The answer apparently is, “It’s covid, Jake.”

[Dr. Mandy Cohen, head of the CDC] has her work cut out for her. According to new survey data, 69 percent of Americans this past May said they had confidence in scientists to act in the public’s best interest, compared with 86 percent of Americans who told the Pew Research Center in a similar survey that they had confidence in scientists in January 2019. Meanwhile, vaccine skepticism has become one of the most divisive political issues of our time.

. . .Americans’ changing attitudes toward science in recent years reveal a rather different — more complex and, frankly, unsettling — picture.

It is not simply that Americans disagree about particular pandemic policies or that some distrust particular expert institutions. Instead, many Americans, especially but not only conservatives, have grown highly distrustful of institutions of all kinds, creating fertile soil for conspiracies and other extreme views to take root.

This, in turn, raises the disturbing prospect of a new politics polarized not so much around public policies but around trust itself — and the public figures who successfully mobilize trust or distrust. Restoring faith, therefore, may prove vital for a functioning society. To get there, experts must consider how and why so many Americans now consider them and the institutions they represent to be unworthy of their confidence.

In response to data showing the Republicans are more skeptical of science than are Democrats, Mills says this:

Yet conservative attitudes toward science since the pandemic do not look like an expression, however exaggerated, of traditional small-government conservatism. Instead, they look like a thoroughgoing skepticism of societal institutions writ large, a skepticism that is neither pro-government nor simply anti-government.

. . . as it turns out, it is not just Republicans who have grown more distrustful since the pandemic. The drop in the number of Americans who express confidence in scientists to act in the public’s best interestincludes Democrats, although it is most significant among Republicans. In 2019, 82 percent of Republicans told Pew that they had confidence in scientists to act in the public’s best interests. The Survey Center on American Life found that in May, just over half of Republicans expressed a similar sentiment. Yet partisanship is not the only factor shaping attitudes toward science. Religious Americans generally express more distrust in scientists — with white evangelical Protestants the least trusting — while secular Americans are among the most trusting overall.

And so we get to Mills’s theory, which is his (he also floats the idea of an increasing polarization between Democrats and Republicans, but doesn’t explain why it’s happening):

The Covid-19 crisis simultaneously laid bare our dependence on abstract systems and shook many Americans’ confidence in them. From this point of view, expert institutions lost the public’s trust not only because of unpopular policies but also because prominent representatives of these institutions either were or were perceived as being self-interested rather than disinterested, politically motivated rather than dispassionate. In this way, the experts appeared to many Americans to be violating the very standards of behavior on which their authority depended.

And how to fix it? A lame answer:

Restoring public trust — as Dr. Cohen of the C.D.C. aims to do — is therefore necessary for not only expert institutions but arguably also democratic society itself. But trust is a two-way street. Restoring it will require careful and perhaps even painful self-scrutiny on the part of those institutions to learn why they lost the confidence of so many Americans during the past four years.

One reason, of course, was the constant vacillation on the part of officials about covid. I attribute that not to lying, but in part to trying to cover one’s butt and in part because good data were simply hard to get.  I guess the solution (for me) is for officials, when they don’t know an answer, to just admit it.

*OMG! (Or should I say OMCC!?). The WaPo has a blatant pro-atheist op ed by columnist Kate Cohen (an atheist Jew, though she may not accept that monicker), “America doesn’t need more God. It needs more atheists.”  (h/t Kevin). It’s from an upcoming book:

This essay was adapted from “We of Little Faith: Why I Stopped Pretending to Believe (and Maybe You Should Too),” by Kate Cohen, published Oct. 3 by Godine,

An excerpt; first, she gives some common reasons for rejecting gods:

1. The Greek myths are obviously stories. The Norse myths are obviously stories. L. Ron Hubbard obviously made that stuff up. Extrapolate.

You could add Joseph Smith and the bogus tale of Mormonism.

2. The holy books underpinning some of the bigger theistic religions are riddled with “facts” now disproved by science and “morality” now disavowed by modern adherents. Extrapolate.

3. Life is confusing and death is scary. Naturally, humans want to believe that someone capable is in charge and that we continue to live after we die. But wanting doesn’t make it so.

4. Child rape. War. Etc.

These are all obvious—and should be dispositive—to any rational person, but of course 75% or so of Americans still believe in God.  Cohen kept quiet about being an atheist as it seemed to be a lot of trouble (it isn’t) and she didn’t want the ostracism. What made her “come out” was having kids:

Given all this, it’s not hard to see why atheists often prefer to keep quiet about it. Why I kept quiet. I wanted to be liked!

But when I had children — when it hit me that I was responsible for teaching my children everything — I wanted, above all, to tell them the truth.

. . . Religion offers ready-made answers to our most difficult questions. It gives people ways to mark time, celebrate and mourn. Once I vowed not to teach my children anything I did not personally believe, I had to come up with new answers. But I discovered as I went what most parents discover: You can figure it out as you go.

The benefits:

Establishing a habit of honesty did not sap the delight from my children’s lives or destroy their moral compass. I suspect it made my family closer than we would have been had my husband and I pretended to our children that we believed in things we did not. We sowed honesty and reaped trust — along with intellectual challenge, emotional sustenance and joy.

Those are all personal rewards. But there are political rewards as well.

My children know how to distinguish fact from fiction — which is harder for children raised religious. They don’t assume conventional wisdom is true and they do expect arguments to be based on evidence. Which means they have the skills to be engaged, informed and savvy citizens.

. . .We need Americans who demand — as atheists do — that truth claims be tethered to fact. We need Americans who understand — as atheists do — that the future of the world is in our hands. And in this particular political moment, we need Americans to stand up to Christian nationalists who are using their growing political and judicial power to take away our rights. Atheists can do that.

Fortunately, there are a lot of atheists in the United States — probably far more than you think.

There’s a lot more, including statistics, data showing that atheists vote more often, citation of the bad societal effects of religion, and so on. There’s really nothing new here for us atheists, but Cohen is aiming at those on the fence, which is great. What surprises me is that the Post published this at all!

*The Wall Street Journal has created a list of what it considers America’s best colleges, and put them on a reddit “ask me anything” site. Here are the top 20 schools in decreasing order of quality.

Princeton University
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Yale University
Stanford University
Columbia University
Harvard University
University of Pennsylvania
Amherst College
Claremont McKenna College
Babson College
Swarthmore College
Georgetown University
Vanderbilt University
Lehigh University
University of Florida
Duke University
Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
California Institute of Technology
New Jersey Institute of Technology
Brigham Young University

I’d never heard of Babson College which turns out to be a business school in Wellesley, MA., nor of Rose–Hulman Institute of Technology (RHIT), which is “aone of the United States’ few undergraduate-focused engineering and technology universities.”  And Brigham Young University, a Mormon school with no distinction in the sciences? Well, yes, these schools are highly rated, but for several reasons I find the list wonky. Where, for instance, is The College of William and Mary, or Luana’s Williams College, ranked America’s best liberal arts college by U.S. News and World Report? And isn’t the U. of Florida a party school? Oy!

*Reader Richard really liked this two hour (!) interview with Robert Sapolsky on determinism, the subject of his latest book. I’ll be reading the book for sure (I’ve already asked our university library to order it), but since I have no patience with podcasts, especially when they’re two hours long, I didn’t listen to this one. Given that Sapolsky is thoughtful and eloquent, I’m sure it’s good, but I’ll get his views from the book. Others prefer listening to podcasts when they’re cooking or cleaning, and those people may want to hear what’s below.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is seeking sun as fall comes on:

Hili: I’m going to check whether there is something new.
A: Where?
Hili: In the southern part of the garden. It should be warmer over there.
In Polish:
Hili: Idę sprawdzić co nowego.
Ja: Gdzie?
Hili: W południowej części ogrodu, tam powinno być cieplej.

*******************

From Su, a lawyer’s ad for cats:

From Ducks in Public. Notice the plethora of Matthews and ZERO GREGS!:

From Larry:

From Masih, another young Iranian woman badly injured by the morality police, most likely for showing a bit of hair that could incite the uncontrollable lusts of men.

From Stephen Knight, the “Godless Spellchecker”, via reader Simon. I believe this woman is a Tory, “Olukemi Olufunto “Kemi” Badenoch née Adegoke, 2 January 1980, a British politician serving as Secretary of State for Business and Trade since 2023 and President of the Board of Trade and Minister for Women and Equalities since 2022.”

If the Tories can speak sense like this while Labour equivocates about what a “woman” is, then Labour is doomed.

Duck slide: look at this little guy jump up the stairs!

From Malcolm: a tuxedo cat who eats treats in a weird way. Look at the expression on its face, as if it’s doing the staff a favor!

From the Auschwitz Memorial, a fourteen-year-old boy, probably gassed upon arrival.

Tweets from Dr. Cobb. This has to be a fake sign:

Speaking of ducks, here’s an affectionate call duck:

Crikey!!!!! (And poor fish!)

49 thoughts on “Wednesday: Hili dialogue”

  1. On this day:
    1582 – The Gregorian Calendar is introduced by Pope Gregory XIII.

    1795 – Napoleon first rises to prominence by suppressing counter-revolutionary rioters threatening the National Convention.

    1853 – The Crimean War begins when the Ottoman Empire declares war on the Russian Empire.

    1883 – First run of the Orient Express.

    1927 – Gutzon Borglum begins sculpting Mount Rushmore.

    1936 – The Metropolitan Police and various anti-fascist organizations violently clash in the Battle of Cable Street. [Last week, Michael Rosen, winner of this year’s PEN Pinter Prize, claimed that the battle was his parents’ first “date”.]

    1941 – Norman Rockwell’s Willie Gillis character debuts on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post.

    1957 – Sputnik 1 becomes the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth.

    1983 – Richard Noble sets a new land speed record of 633.468 miles per hour (1,019.468 km/h) at the Black Rock Desert in Nevada.

    1985 – The Free Software Foundation is founded.

    1991 – The Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty is opened for signature.

    1993 – Tanks bombard the Russian parliament, while demonstrators against President Yeltsin rally outside.

    1997 – The second largest cash robbery in U.S. history occurs in North Carolina.

    2006 – WikiLeaks is launched.

    2021 – Bubba Wallace becomes the first African-American Driver in the modern era of NASCAR to win a major race.

    Births:
    1625 – Jacqueline Pascal, French nun and composer (d. 1661).

    1720 – Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Italian sculptor and illustrator (d. 1778).

    1768 – Francisco José de Caldas, Colombian naturalist, executed by royalists in the war of independence (d. 1816).

    1814 – Jean-François Millet, French painter and educator (d. 1875).

    1835 – Jenny Twitchell Kempton, American opera singer and educator (d. 1921).

    1874 – John Ellis, English executioner (d. 1932).

    1876 – Florence Eliza Allen, American mathematician and suffrage activist (d. 1960).

    1880 – Damon Runyon, American newspaperman and short story writer. (d. 1946). [He almost totally avoids the past tense (English humorist E.C. Bentley thought there was only one instance and was willing to “lay plenty of 6 to 5 that it is nothing but a misprint”, but “was” appears in the short stories “The Lily of St Pierre” and “A Piece of Pie”; “had” appears in “The Lily of St Pierre”, “Undertaker Song” and “Bloodhounds of Broadway”), and makes little use of the future tense, using the present for both.]

    1895 – Buster Keaton, American film actor, director, and producer (d. 1966).

    1896 – Dorothy Lawrence, English reporter, who secretly posed as a man to become a soldier during World War I (d. 1964).

    1903 – John Vincent Atanasoff, American physicist and academic, invented the Atanasoff–Berry computer (d. 1995).

    1906 – Mary Celine Fasenmyer, American mathematician (d. 1996).

    1911 – Mary Two-Axe Earley, Canadian indigenous women’s rights activist (d. 1996).

    1916 – Ken Wood, inventor of the Kenwood Chef food mixer (d. 1997).

    1917 – Violeta Parra, Chilean singer-songwriter and guitarist (d.).

    1923 – Charlton Heston, American actor, director and gun rights activist (d. 2008).

    1928 – Alvin Toffler, German-American journalist and author (d. 2016).

    1937 – Jackie Collins, English-American author and actress (d. 2015).

    1941 – Anne Rice, American author (d. 2021).

    1943 – H. Rap Brown, American activist. [Human rights activist, Muslim Cleric, Islamic separatist, and convicted murderer who was the fifth chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in the 1960s. During a short-lived (six months) alliance between SNCC and the Black Panther Party, he served as their minister of justice. Currently serving a life sentence for murder following the shooting of two Fulton County, Georgia, sheriff’s deputies in 2000. I’m not sure his version of nonviolence would have been recognised by Gandhi…]

    1946 – Susan Sarandon, American actress and activist.

    1958 – Anneka Rice, Welsh radio and television host.

    1959 – Chris Lowe, English singer and keyboard player.

    Life is better than death, I believe, if only because it is less boring, and because it has fresh peaches in it:
    1669 – Rembrandt, Dutch painter and illustrator (b. 1606).

    1859 – Karl Baedeker, German publisher, founded Baedeker (b. 1801).

    1862 – Johanna van Gogh-Bonger, sister-in-law of Vincent van Gogh, who is credited with promoting his posthumous fame (d. 1925).

    1890 – Catherine Booth, English theologian and saint, co-founded The Salvation Army (b. 1829).

    1903 – Otto Weininger, Austrian philosopher and author (b. 1880).

    1904 – Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, French sculptor, designed the Statue of Liberty (b. 1834).

    1904 – Carl Josef Bayer, Austrian chemist and academic (b. 1847).

    1943 – Irena Iłłakowicz, German-Polish lieutenant (b. 1906). [The daughter of Bolesław Morzycki and Władysława Zakrzewska and the sister of Jerzy, she was also a polyglot who spoke seven languages: Polish, French, English, Persian, Finnish, German and Russian.]

    1947 – Max Planck, German physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1858).

    1951 – Henrietta Lacks, American medical patient (b. 1920).

    1970 – Janis Joplin, American singer-songwriter (b. 1943).

    1982 – Glenn Gould, Canadian pianist and conductor (b. 1932).

    1989 – Graham Chapman, English actor and screenwriter (b. 1941).

    1997 – Gunpei Yokoi, Japanese game designer, created the Game Boy (b. 1941).

    2010 – Norman Wisdom, English actor, comedian, and singer-songwriter (b. 1915).

    2022 – Loretta Lynn, American singer-songwriter and musician (b. 1932).

  2. When asked by an X user to provide a short version of whether everything is predetermined or free will exists, Eliezer Yudkowsky responded, “the future is determined by the past —through the intermediate step of the present, which cannot be skipped. So it’s determined, but not *pre*determined, and by factors that include *you.* You are part of physics; for you to control anything, it must be determined by physics.”

  3. I do not put much stock in lists of best colleges and universities as they apply to an individual’s end education. My observations, anecdotal as they be, show that many, many post high school institutions in the US provide excellent educational value to their students. I attended the College of William and Mary where as a math and physics major, I was dragged kicking and screamming into required courses in sociology, english literature, and fine arts. I ended up making my living from physics and math but have made my larger life based on those required liberal arts courses. Many colleges still have such broad requirements. Our very local and very young Christopher Newport University here in Virginia provides post secondary four-year degrees across a broad range of majors…many in business. But they still require that all students take a healthy dose of liberal arts courses. CNU grads include Randall Munroe (What if? Book) and Cassidy Hutchinson (Jan 6 committee testimony fame).  Trying to pick the “best” school is a fool’s errand in my book. Many schools are very good to excellent and a person’s reward is more aligned with the effort she puts in than the offerings and abstract quality of a school according to some rubric. 

  4. As I understand it the speaker does not have to be an elected member of the House of Representatives. If that is correct it is possible that Trump could be elected as speaker. 

    2. He can’t be Speaker. According to House rules, anyone with serious indictments that can get them 2 years or more in prison can’t be elected Speaker of the House.

      1. House rules? When has the contemporary GOP, let alone the MAGA GOP been concerned with rules (or laws for that matter)? They’d probably just change them somehow if they could get their Fuhrer in charge. After all, they want him in charge of everything, anyway.

        1. That’s a good point. Their own party put Rule 26 into effect this past January but you’re right–they’ll probably ignore it the way they ignore everything that’s truthful and ethical.

  5. The drop in respect for scientific institutions was likely influenced by the pronounced rise in woke-ism that occurred during that period as well. For example, medical folk encouraged protests against police brutality during the pandemic falsely claiming that racism by the police was more dangerous for African Americans than covid. There was however a lot of bemoaning of right wing gatherings (e.g. the Sturgis rally) as being irresponsible. 

  6. Like our host, I do not like long podcasts but my local library has Determined on order and I am first in line to borrow it when it arrives. I had not read Behave but am now reading it and find it interesting , educational and enjoyable

    1. I just finished Behave…what a wealth of interesting and important knowledge that book imbues. He’s also quite funny.

  7. I think the moment the public health authorities lost the trust of the public was when we were told it was too dangerous to gather to bury a dead family member, but it was fine to gather for BLM protests.

    Another crystallizing moment was when the CDC allowed the teacher’s union to get involved in school closure recommendations.

    In both cases ideology and politics were elevated over science, and the public responded accordingly by removing its trust.

    1. Agreed. A small funeral service for Mom: bad. Protest business lockdowns: bad. Go to church for an outdoor service: bad. Walk, surf, run, sit alone in a public place: bad. Playgrounds: bad. Schools: bad. March with tens of thousands for George Floyd: good. Oh, very, very good. It wasn’t only the public health professionals who endorsed this that lost credibility. It was also all those people—mostly politicians and reporters and doctors—who privately recognized the incongruity of banning so much of daily life while also encouraging mass public protests but who then refused to openly criticize what they perceived as their “side.”

      Speaking of distrust . . . one doesn’t need to be a conspiracy theorist to believe that large organizations, particularly government ones, are prone to shift from evidence-based policy making to policy-based evidence making. They can be slow to admit the truth when the truth is not favorable to them. You can also tell a great deal from what information they refuse to release. (Newsflash: if the data were favorable or we could spin it as such, then we would tell you.) I wonder: are public health professionals immune to the tendencies that have long infected the defense and intelligence establishments, which often operate under life-and-death conditions?

      Nor does one need to be a conspiracy theorist to raise relevant questions. Here are some. Did our pandemic plan that we implemented look anything like 100 years of flu pandemic planning by national and international public-health organizations? Or did it look much, much more like what emerged in the Bush administration after the 2001 anthrax attacks? Here’s a more current topic: why does Germany recommend the latest COVID booster shot basically only for those over 60, people with certain underlying health conditions, and some health care professionals with significant risk of exposure whereas the US CDC insists that the shot should go in the arms of all Americans over the age of six months—with no concern for infection history, underlying health, the significant age-gradient that we see for COVID deaths and hospitalizations, or any other type of individual risk-benefit calculation? Have the Germans lost their minds? Have they become anti-vax? Do they not “follow the science”?

      To have asked similar questions during the height of the pandemic would get you banned from polite, educated society, as well as tarred with the “right wing” or “anti-vaxxer” brushes. Same playbook as racist, transphobe, Islamophobe, xenophobe, sexist, etc. etc. People and organizations who sling ad hominems as answers probably shouldn’t be trusted. Same for people who try to silence disagreement.

      1. Interesting comment, you make good points, thanks.
        In regards to Germany and other countries where medicine isn’t profit-driven, I see their response in a different light: simple pragmatism. It’s all about the money. Germany would never say it’s actually harmful to get the new booster, but they understand (and want to save money) that in a country where 70% are vaccinated, the risk assessment is minimal for those without exacerbating comorbidities. America pushes the vaccine based on profits (also understanding that getting a booster isn’t harmful even if it’s overkill). It’s not about the $cience. Needs more thought and discussion than provided by this comment.

  8. I don’t understand why Democrats would join in to remove the Speaker of the House. The result will be even more rigid gridlock and a replacement will only be worse. Only harm comes from this, and I can’t see a way where a Democrat could become the Speaker. 

    1. “and I can’t see a way where a Democrat could become the Speaker”

      I can. The Democrats should nominate a moderate from their ranks. With some (not a lot) Republican support, such a person would be elected speaker. Will it happen? I tend to doubt it. But it could happen.

  10. The humorous bits were quite good today, Jerry. I needed the chuckles. All the Ducks Named Matthew, in particular, will have me chuckling all day.

  11. The other question would be Why should the democrats jump in to save this guy. This was as usual self inflicted by the joke party. He lied like a rug for years. He was an election denier. The party is coming apart. It is best to get out of the way.

    I thought the article in the post on atheist was a good one. Being a life long atheist it is always interesting to see how the religious find their way. Why wouldn’t the Post run this story? If we did not have the WP what is really left? I do not intend to get my daily information from social media and I do not care to get lunch from the garbage.

    1. The Democrats have no political reason to ‘save’ McCarthy. However, rather than abstaining (which would have made legitimate sense), they voted against him.

      1. Kevin McCarthy’s speakership was doomed even before it began. In the immediate aftermath of the 1/6 insurrection, McCarthy took a half-assed, weak-kneed stand against Trump on principle. In a January 10, 2021, phone call with Liz Cheney and the other members of the House Republican leadership, McCarthy stated that Trump bore responsibility for the insurrection, that he (McCarthy) “had had it with Trump,” that the only reason for his not endorsing an effort by Trump’s cabinet to remove him from office via the 25th Amendment was that its procedure was too cumbersome, and that he was going make a phone call to Trump that evening to entreat Trump to resign the presidency before his term ended on January 20, 2021. (Lordy, there is a tape, though it is unclear whether Kevin McCarthy actually had the cojones to follow through with a phone call to Trump that night.)

        Then, a week after Trump’s presidential term ended, McCarthy made his hajj to Mar-a-Lago where el caudillo grabbed him by the pussy; McCarthy’s courage folded like a cheap paper fan, and he rejoined the rest of the pusillanimous Republicans in pledging their undying fealty to their cult leader.

        How McCarthy ever thought that, after that pitiful display, and after abasing himself through 15 rounds of voting for the Speakership on the House floor, he could maintain the respect of anyone anywhere on the Republican political spectrum is a mystery, and his days as House Speaker were doomed to their eventual ignominious end.

  12. Regarding the “fake” duck and horse sign, it is in fact real. If you go to Google maps on the A4138 just east of Llanelli, Wales, and engage street view a mile or so before Penprys road, you will see the sign. Also, point if personal pride here, I visited Wales last summer and learned how to pronounce the “ll” sound. Trust me it’s nothing like Spanish! 

  13. Oh, and kale, Jerry if you tasted my wife’s beans ‘n greens with home made corn bread and a splash of Tabasco, you might rethink your opinion of said veggie.

    1. Sounds like soul food to me, Kevin, and I loves me some soul food.

      What I wouldn’t give to be tucking into a great big bowl of your better half’s beans ‘n’ greens right this minute.

  14. Glad to read this:

    “You can figure it out as you go.”

    Can, yes. Doesn’t mean “will”.

    Also doesn’t mean new problems come up – that were covered up before.

    Or that “spiritual” forces that be are not seeking out adherents. In other words : susceptibility to gnosticism that is revealed under the rock of religion.

    Atheism-one-god-further might require as much work – if not more – than religion.

    1. I think that last one – Atheism -one-god-further, is only something you must do if you were religious. If you had been heavily exposed. I was not and never became religious. I assumed there were many like that but may not. In the article she is now an atheist but was religious. She still gives the religious excuses for remaining religious while naming all the reason to not be religious. This is also something you would only see in the converted. Life long atheist just don’t think that way.

    1. Such is the post enlightenment philosophy and ways of post-modernism and critical theory of the woke. As seen in Kendi’s book, it is just supposition and how you feel. 

  16. *David Mills at the NYT tells us “Why science is losing Americans’ trust.” The answer apparently is, “It’s covid, Jake.”
    I’d say it’s politics Jake.

  17. Re “Why science is losing Americans’ trust,” most Americans have a basic Instinct, conscious or otherwise, to “Follow the money.” So when they see that 75% of the ads for mainstream broadcast news (and elsewhere—“Jeopardy” is currently brought to us by “continue-to-be-afraid” ads from Moderna) originates with Big Pharma , they tend to get suspicious about the nutritional value of they’re being fed. Such a reaction is seen as evidence of a lack of trust in the authority of science or, worse, being “anti-science.” But science originated out of the drive to discredit authority (nullius in verba as the motto of the Royal Society has it). So not trusting the authority of science is in fact pro-science.

    1. Even scientists are sceptical of what scientists say.

      So not trusting the authority of science is in fact pro-science.

      What do you mean by the authority of science? Do you mean the authority of scientists, often exerted through the scientific institutions? Or do you mean something else?

      Scientists are, of course, subject to politics and similar ideologies. I think that being sceptical of what scientists say is a good thing because being sceptical in general is a good thing.

      But science originated out of the drive to discredit authority

      Do you think there are other reasons for origination of science? If so, what are they?

  18. “Americans, especially but not only conservatives, have grown highly distrustful of institutions of all kinds, creating fertile soil for conspiracies and other extreme views to take root.” Other recent examples include the current Republican disorder in Congress and in its presidential candidacy; and, on the Left, the spread of palpable nonsense of postmodernist and gender theory varieties. Could these all be symptoms of a generalized nervous breakdown, elicited by the early stages of what James Howard Kuntsler called “the long emergency”? Maybe this is what life was like in Akkad, Palenque, and Easter Island at the beginning of social collapse.

    1. Whatever it is, the end result may be self correcting. Evolution will take care of it. If many in the population become anti science and refuse vaccines, along comes the virus or disease that will wipe them out. Those that believe in vaccination and science will survive and move on. I would not lose any sleep over it.

      1. I hate to point this out, but vaccines have little impact on overall mortality. The key innovation was chlorinated water (with HVAC and the Haber/Bosch process deserving credit as well).

  19. “Nor did the Democrats try to save his sorry butt; they want this division and chaos.”

    Why is this evidence that Democrats want division and chaos? Nothing could be further from the truth- which party stopped the government shutdown, who has tried to compromise, who has successfully governed? Which party is at war with itself, is in total disarray, and follows a hopelessly corrupt authoritarian cult-leader? Why would Democrats support or want to help such a party (and I’ll repeat that I don’t consider the GOP a political party anymore)? McCarthy can’t be trusted, he’s a liar and is a total a-hole when he talks to and about Democrats. Sure, the Dems could have asked for something in return, but again, McCarthy is a liar and can’t be trusted, he’s burned that bridge, so why offer him a hand? I’m tired of Dems getting burned by Lucy and the football, they did the right thing here.

    I’m also interested in how Trump is going to respond to the NY judge’s gag order after Trump doxed one of the judge’s law clerks. As per usual, Trump is his own worst enemy.

    I got my fat bear votes in…thanks!

    1. The Democrats joined with Gaetz to oust McCarthy. They could have abstained. In real life, the Republicans voted overwhelmingly to keep McCarthy. Gaetz needed the Democrats to oust McCarthy and he got them.

      1. You’re right, but that doesn’t prove Democrats want division and chaos (well, not in general which I think was implied, I’m sure they’re fine with the House GOP being in chaos as proof of their inability to govern). And why would the Dems want to save McCarthy? A person who can’t be trusted and does the bidding of a hopelessly corrupt authoritarian cult leader.

        1. Of course, the Democrats were under no obligation to ‘save’ McCarthy. However, they choose to get involved. They voted against him. They could have / should have abstained. They choose to put the House in chaos. They (the Democrats) obviously share the blame with Gaetz.

    2. To quote Matt Yglesias on Twitter: “My view on this is that Democrats should have been willing to bail McCarthy out in exchange for a very very very low price … but he had to offer them *something* and as I understand it he didn’t.”

  20. To save time and energy, could the vote for a new Speaker of the House and the vote for a Fat Bear be combined?

  21. PCC(E), is there any way to see the document linked from ” which is harder for children raised religious” on the other side of the login wall?

  23. Now well over 60yrs later, in my book the best cinnamon rolls ever came from my elementary school, Weyanoke, Fairfax Co VA. First they had raisins, and generous amounts of butter and sugar, both I think post-WWII gov’t surplus along with the flour. I suspect that the cinnamon was the only thing they had to buy, maybe along with the raisins. The butter, sugar and cinnamon would ooze down and caramelize on the bottom, and they were huge!

    Another story, another time, another place.

  24. “In this way, the experts appeared to many Americans to be violating the very standards of behavior on which their authority depended.”

    Don’t forget it wasn’t just the experts who violated the standards of behavior on which their authority depended. It was also the politicians.

    Gavin Newsom was caught dining at the French Laundry soon after he “asked Californians to make sacrifices to stop the spread of the virus, most recently beseeching them to stay home and avoid visiting extended family over Thanksgiving.”

    Or, Nancy Pelosi caught at the hair salon “in violation of the city’s rules that barred salons from operating indoors.”

    Of course, Pelosi said “it was a setup by the owner of the salon, who made public the footage from security cameras.”

  25. My mother used to recite a little poem. I don’t know where she got it…

    A magnificent bird is the pelican
    His beak can hold more than his belly can
    Enough food for a week
    He can hold in his beak
    But I don’t know how in the hell he can!

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