Welcome to The Cruelest Day: Tuesday, December 9, 2025, and Lutefisk Day. This malodorous concoction is simply dried whitefish cured in lye, and must be soaked for ten days (with more lye) before it’s even cooked. Here’s a guy making lutefisk tacos, calling it “the food of the gods”. Not if your god is Ceiling Cat! Note that the chef says, “it’s a bit gelatinous.” LOL! A fish Jell-O taco!
It’s also National Pastry Day, National Llama Day, and International Day of Veterinary Medicine.
There’s also a Google Doodle (below), and if you click it it goes to a video showing what they describe the results of a search “for ways to rediscover, reinvent, and rethink what’s possible. See how people reimagined their worlds in 2025. #YearInSearch”.
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the December 9 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
*Despite the provisions of the cease-fire that Hamas disband and disarm, the terrorist group has grown stronger since Israel left Gaza. Is that a surprise? (Article archived here.)
Since Israeli forces withdrew from parts of Gaza in October under a cease-fire agreement, Hamas has moved quickly to fill the void.
Its police forces are out on the streets again. Its fighters have executed opponents. And its officials have levied fees on some costly goods being imported into Gaza, according to local businessmen.
Over two years of war, top Hamas commanders and thousands of fighters have been killed, and the group’s arsenal has been severely depleted. It now controls less than half of the territory in Gaza, with the rest occupied by Israel.
Yet Hamas has managed to reassert its power in Gaza, according to Israeli security officials and an Arab intelligence official. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal assessments.
“Hamas was hit hard, but it wasn’t defeated,” said Shalom Ben Hanan, a former senior official in the Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency. “It’s still standing.”
This swift regrouping presents a formidable obstacle to the Trump administration’s plan to reconstruct a Gaza free of Hamas. The plan envisions the enclave’s demilitarization and calls for all military infrastructure, including tunnels and weapons production facilities, to be destroyed.
Hamas emerged from the war with a foundation it can build on.
Mr. Ben Hanan, who receives briefings from the Shin Bet leadership, said that even though Hamas’s ranks are thinned, official estimates say that 20,000 fighters remain.
Remember that this is part of Trump’s 20-point peace plan (archived at the BBC). Here are three of its stipulations:
1. Gaza will be a deradicalised terror-free zone that does not pose a threat to its neighbours.
6. Once all hostages are returned, Hamas members who commit to peaceful co-existence and to decommission their weapons will be given amnesty. Members of Hamas who wish to leave Gaza will be provided safe passage to receiving countries.
13. Hamas and other factions agree to not have any role in the governance of Gaza, directly, indirectly, or in any form. All military, terror, and offensive infrastructure, including tunnels and weapon production facilities, will be destroyed and not rebuilt. There will be a process of demilitarisation of Gaza under the supervision of independent monitors, which will include placing weapons permanently beyond use through an agreed process of decommissioning, and supported by an internationally funded buy back and reintegration programme all verified by the independent monitors. New Gaza will be fully committed to building a prosperous economy and to peaceful coexistence with their neighbours.
14. A guarantee will be provided by regional partners to ensure that Hamas, and the factions, comply with their obligations and that New Gaza poses no threat to its neighbours or its people.
None of these provisions have been met by Hamas, which has not de-armed, is still terrorizing its own citizens, and is governing the parts of Gaza that it controls. All of this means that there is not peace and, futher, the two-state solution will not be implemented. Remember the next-to-last provision here:
19. While Gaza re-development advances and when the PA reform programme is faithfully carried out, the conditions may finally be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood, which we recognise as the aspiration of the Palestinian people.
This lays our the requirements to begin a PATH to a two-state solution, not a requirement that there be one. Yet a Palestinian state has already been recognized by France, the UK, and many other countries.
*This WaPo article is puzzling: “Democrats, who bludgeoned Trump in term 1, have grown quiet.” What?? And why? (Article archived here.)
Trump has unleashed even more draconian immigration policies in his second term that have amounted to the harshest crackdown on immigrants since World War II. But Democrats have not mounted the same unified and visible pushback, even as Trump has halted immigration applications from 19 countries, deployed federal agents into minority communities and called Somali immigrants “garbage.”
“The targeting of immigrants, the targeting of Muslim communities — we’ve seen this rhetoric climb over the past several months and I anticipate it getting worse,” said Abdullah Hammoud, the Democratic mayor of Dearborn, Michigan, an Arab-majority city where Trump has deployed federal agents in recent weeks.
“The fact that we do not have a strong counterresponse from [Democratic] elected officials at all levels of government is the most frightening, especially when the vitriol is coming from the highest office in the world,” Hammoud said. “Communities are looking for people with courage, people with a backbone, who are willing to stand up.”
The hesitation among many leading Democrats to forcefully challenge Trump reflects a rapid shift in the politics of immigration since Joe Biden won the presidency in 2020. At the time, leading Democrats advocated for more compassionate and lenient immigration and border policies in response to Trump’s crackdown in his first term, with many supporting plans to decriminalize illegal crossings.
And here’s the telling reason:
But Biden’s failure to stem a surge of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border until his final months in office helped propel Trump’s 2024 victory and Republican control of Congress. Democrats have since struggled to coalesce around an alternate immigration plan, making it more difficult for them to criticize Trump’s approach. And in recent weeks, a series of off-year and special elections focused on affordability have helped Democrats perform above expectations, prompting party leaders to encourage a relentless focus on the cost of living and health care.
Instead of staging a unified response on immigration, Democratic leaders have largely relied on a small cadre of lawmakers to express the party’s objections to Trump’s immigration policies. Over the past two weeks, Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Arizona), Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minnesota), Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota) and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-New Hampshire) are among those who have condemned Trump’s policies and rhetoric.
The Democrats have never coalesced around a sensible immigration policy: progressives on the far Democratic left basically call for open borders, and that drives away centrists. The American people clearly want such a policy, and the next Democratic candidate for President had better have one in place before he or she throws their hat in the ring.
*The American Conservative has a 7-minute audio called “Bannon, Mearsheimer: Trump’s Ukraine plan won’t end the war.” The people quoted are the well known Steve Bannon and University of Chicago political seicntist John Mearsheimer, who are quoted in the audio but don’t speak on it. But there is a complete transcript of the report, and here’s a summary:
Russia hawks in Congress and their allies in corporate media have been on the warpath against the Trump administration’s 28-point peace plan for ending the Ukraine war, dubbing the plan a “Russian wish-list.” The MSNBC host Rachel Maddow went so far as to hold it up as proof that “the Kremlin runs U.S. foreign policy.” Those cable news narratives have proceeded almost entirely without reference to the actual text of the plan, which—as noted in TAC—is hardly a one-sided victory for Moscow.
Yet there are also criticisms of the plan from the other end of the ideological spectrum. Among the most prominent voices who argued from the start that the United States should never have been drawn into the Ukraine conflict are the War Room host and former White House advisor Steve Bannon and the University of Chicago’s Professor John Mearsheimer. They now warn that far from being a “Russian wish list,” the Trump administration’s plan may not actually address the underlying political problems that ultimately caused the Ukraine proxy war. The American Conservative asked both which aspects of the 28-point plan concern them the most.
“The very concept of it,” Bannon said. “America First [broke] the globalist mindset that we have the capacity financially, economically, militarily, culturally to govern everywhere and everything. Both plans—20-point in the Middle East and 28-point in the Bloodlands are ENORMOUSLY complex and mind boggling on their execution. We don’t have the capacity to take on—particularly because these are side shows to our vital national security interests.”
Mearsheimer likewise argues that there are “three major sticking points in the original 28-point plan that simply cannot be resolved to the satisfaction of both sides, guaranteeing that the war will ultimately be resolved on the battlefield, likely with a Russian victory.
“First, the Ukrainians want a meaningful security guarantee from the U.S. if they cannot be in NATO. The Russians will not let that happen,” Mearsheimer said. “Second, the Russians demand that Ukraine and the West accept the fact that Moscow has annexed Crimea and the four eastern-most oblasts of Ukraine. Ukraine and Europe refuse to do so.”
But Mearsheimer suggests there’s an even more fundamental issue. “Finally, Russia wants Ukraine to permanently disarm to the point where it is not an offensive threat to Russia,” he said. “The Ukrainians and the West refuse this demand, because they say it will leave Ukraine vulnerable to a future Russian attack. There is no middle ground regarding these three issues, which the Russians and the Ukrainians—as well as their European allies—see as non-negotiable.”
Among the questions raised by the 28-point plan is whether any settlement reached now would survive beyond a single administration. Even if Trump were to secure an agreement from Moscow and Kiev, nothing stops the permanent foreign-policy apparatus in Washington from treating it exactly as it treated Minsk: not as a genuine political settlement, but as “an attempt to give Ukraine time,” as Angela Merkel famously described it.
“There is nothing Trump can do to assuage Russian fears that any agreement Moscow reaches with Ukraine and the West will stick over time,” Mearsheimer said. “How can any Russian leader trust the West given what has happened since 2014? More generally, how can any state know for sure that another state won’t renege on a deal in the future. In fact, it can’t.”
Bannon and Mearsheimer agree that the 28-point plan cannot work while the United States continues to arm Ukraine through NATO, but they diverge sharply on what that failure implies. Bannon argues the U.S. can still walk away, while Mearsheimer maintains that Washington will remain deeply involved regardless.
Mearsheimer, despite his continuous opposition to American allyship with Israel, is talking sense here. Ukraine will not agree to what Russia wants, and that guarantees that the war will continue. And the way it’s going now, with Russia bombing and missile-ing and drone-ing Ukraine on a daily basis, all of Ukraine will be in Russian hands. I wonder what Measheimer would say if Russia were, for example to invade Belarus?
*The WSJ reports that drug companies are beginning to sell drugs (so long as you have a prescription) directly to patients through websites, cutting out the middlemen (hospitals, pharmacies, and the like):
Drugmakers are moving to sell their medicines directly to patients, abandoning the middlemen they have long relied on.
The shift is a huge departure from how pharmaceutical companies including Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk and Pfizer have sold drugs for decades and threatens the multibillion-dollar business of firms that have traditionally filled prescriptions.
It is saving some patients hundreds of dollars off the cost of prescriptions because companies have been lowering the prices for drugs sold directly.
Meantime, drugmakers who have been rolling out the services in recent months see a big opportunity to boost sales, though they risk losing revenue if they don’t offset lower prices by selling to more patients.
“For the first time, pharma is actually looking end-to-end at the full patient journey,” said Pratap Khedkar, chief executive of pharmaceutical consulting firm ZS. “That is a very different mindset than has been the case for the last 50 years.”
Drugmakers selling directly to patients threatens the traditional multibillion-dollar business of filling prescriptions. Daniel Acker/Bloomberg NewsThe trend is most pronounced in the booming weight-loss drug market. Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk are seeing big growth in sales of their popular drugs through direct-order services the companies have started since last year.
Bristol-Myers Squibb and AstraZeneca, in addition to Pfizer, have launched the services for treatments for diabetes, psoriasis and cardiovascular disease, including the widely used blood thinner Eliquis sold by Pfizer and Bristol-Myers.
The growth of the services, which are offered through websites, reflects just how comfortable consumers have become with getting healthcare digitally. Now, many patients talk with doctors and order drugs online.
“This is how people are experiencing healthcare,” said David Moore, executive vice president of Novo Nordisk’s U.S. operations.
David Moore, executive vice president of U.S. operations at Novo Nordisk. Aaron Schwartz/Zuma PressDrugmakers generally offer direct-to-patient services through company-operated websites. Since patients will need a prescription, some sites help patients find a doctor for either an in-person or telehealth visit.
Patients buy their medicines through the sites at discounted prices—often half the list price—and often without using insurance. The services usually arrange for home delivery, or for patients to pick up prescriptions at a pharmacy.
This is probably being done because Trump is doing a great deal to lower the cost of many medications, which are often grossly inflated. For those with a huge drug deductible, or without insurance at all, this is a good thing. My own drug plan, however, gives me big reductions in price for the sleep meds I take (my only drugs) and that will apply to the inevitable future time when I have that infernal box of pills. But if you want to save money on many drugs, check out the GoodRx website, which I’ve used in emergencies (there’s an app). If you have a prescription, or have phoned one in, then put in the name of the drug and the quantity prescribed in the app, and it will give you a coupon on the screen that you can just show to the pharmacist on your phone. Discounts are often big.
*The reliable AP “Oddities” site reports that a rare species of imported palm tree in Rio de Janeiro’s Botanical Gardens and parks is flowering en masse, as the palms planted there in the have attained reproductive maturity. They will flower and then die, and people will have to wait decades to see them again:
Towering talipot palms in a Rio de Janeiro park are flowering for the first and only time in their lives, decades after famed Brazilian landscape architect Roberto Burle Marx introduced them in the 1960s.
Towards the end of its life — which can span between 40 and 80 years — the palm tree sends up a central plume crowded with millions of small, creamy-white blossoms that rise high above its fan-shaped leaves.
The rare phenomenon that ties past to present has sparked the curiosity of passersby in Flamengo Park who stop, crane their necks to admire them and take photos.
Vinicius Vanni, a 42-year-old civil engineer, was even hoping to collect seedlings and plant them.
“I probably won’t see them flower, but they’ll be there for future generations,” he said from Flamengo Park, which hugs a nearby beach and offers a spectacular view of Sugarloaf Mountain.
Originating from southern India and Sri Lanka, the talipot palm can reach up to 30 meters (98 feet) in height and produce around 25 million flowers when it blossoms, using energy accumulated over decades.
In addition to Flamengo Park, the talipot palms can be found in Rio’s Botanical Garden, where they are also flowering.
[The synchronous flowering is] because they were brought across from southern Asia together, have the same metabolism and have been exposed to the same Brazilian rhythm of daylight, according to Aline Saavedra, a biologist at Rio de Janeiro State University.
And of course you’ll want to see this spectacle. Here’s a video:
And a picture from the Wikipedia article of a palm flowering in Kerala, India:
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, the editor and Andrzej discuss the moving of Listy to Substack, which will take place soon. Hili is worried about her job as editor.
Hili: Will Letters from Our Orchard on Substack be any different from those in Textalk?
Andrzej: I’m not sure. I’m trying to make them not too different.
Hili: I’ll have to think about what my new role means.
In Polish:
Hili: Czy „Listy z naszego sadu” będą na Substacku inne niż w Textalk?
Ja: Nie wiem, próbuję, żeby się specjalnie nie różniły.
Hili: Muszę przemyśleć swoją nową rolę.
*******************
From The Dodo Pet:
From Silly Signs Funny Signs Dumb Signs Stupid Signs:
From CinEmma:
From Masih, a woman singing illegally in Iran. She’s a brave one, since women are forbidden to sing in public:
Listen to this. A powerful moment at a recent concert in Iran;
A woman’s voice rises from the crowd, something that’s illegal in Iran.
For 40 years, only men have been allowed to sing on stage. Women? Banned from singing by the regime.
Men who perform in Iran have a choice:
stand… https://t.co/Tg5WJkqj6p pic.twitter.com/OugkoUORMs— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) December 7, 2025
And don’t forget the oppression of women in Afghanistan. This woman reminds us of that, and also quotes Masih’s motto: “Woman, life, freedom.”
Afghan women are being completely erased from the society and they are ignored by UN!pic.twitter.com/X06uqNSHSp
— Azat (@AzatAlsalim) September 15, 2025
From Jez, who notes, “I can no longer tell whether these things are old and recycled or AI generated, but just in case . . . . :
He is trained to ignore tourists, hecklers, and bad weather. He was not trained for this.The Queen’s Guard is famous for their discipline. They are forbidden from moving, smiling, or reacting to anything. But this local stray cat didn’t care about royal protocol.
He saw the red… pic.twitter.com/qOCAN5Z1kw
— Crazy Vibes (@CrazyVibes_1) December 7, 2025
From Malcolm; a cloudfall:
A massive cloud waterfallpic.twitter.com/XVy9nlXL45
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) November 21, 2025
One from my feed; people walk out when they hear biological truth, calling the speakers Nazis and fascists. I know the man is Peter Boghossian, but I don’t know the two women. Anyone?
What do you have to say about this?pic.twitter.com/t1cT2QAiuZ
— Thomas Sowell Quotes (@ThomasSowell) December 7, 2025
. . . and one I retweeted from The Auschwitz Memorial:
This French Jewish boy was gassed as soon as he arrived at Auschwitz. He was three years old and would be 87 today had he lived.
— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-12-09T11:41:32.024Z
Two from Dr. Cobb. First, Wisdom, 73 or 74 years old, appears to have a mate. Fingers crossed for a chick!
Uluru is the Aboriginal name for what was previously known as Ayer’s Rock in Australia (it now bears both names):
Sunday PhotoFirst light over Uluru
— Kenan Malik (@kenanmalik.bsky.social) 2025-11-30T18:36:42.872Z
The woman on the far left is Helen Pluckrose. I like her very much. She’s been kind of quiet on X lately, though. I hope she’s okay. But if that’s a recent video, there’s probably nothing to worry about.
Hi Brooke. I follow her on Substack where she’s still very active (and thought-provoking).
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Nothing so soothes our vanity as a display of greater vanity in others; it makes us vain, in fact, of our modesty. -Louis Kronenberger, writer (9 Dec 1904-1980)
Winston Churchill is given attribution for saying about Clement Atlee that “Attlee is a modest man who has a great deal to be modest about.” Snarky, what?
Another favourite Churchillism is that once, on being asked by an aquaintaince to borrow thruppence so he could telephone a friend, Churchill gave him sixpence and said ‘Here, phone both of them’.
The woman in the middle in the walkout video looks like Heather Heying.
Heather Heying is talking and Helen Pluckrose is on the left. Heather is Bret Weinstein’s wife. I think this is an older video.
What are those children doing in a university? They obviously aren’t mature enough to be there yet.
On selling drugs directly to patients: Chewy.com lets you buy drugs directly from their website for veterinary drugs (many of which are the same drugs as are prescribed for people). They offer two options: you send them a prescription, or alternatively they will arrange to get the prescription if you provide the required information. This is enormously convenient and very fast.
I wouldn’t recommend doing this because the drugs may differ and I can’t really tell people to go to a vet medicine place to get their own medicine. Anybody interested can investigate this on the Internet.
It is a poor people’s trick and I might say, quite nifty.
I’d also avoid it but if it came to getting/affording a medication (for me…. or my dog) I’d go to the vet’s before doing without. Its a worse case option surely.
Also better than street drugs b/c at least the quality/dose is KNOWN. Like you say… good to research it carefully b/c diff species and weights of creatures have differing reactions to lots of drugs.
D.A.
NYC
I will absolutely, unabashedly agree that lutefisk is the food of the gods, or at least one god. Loki, the trickster, would be my first candidate.
But, as I am not a god, I find it slightly less pleasant than the odor of butyric acid
If the consequences weren’t so dire, the contradiction of Europe being simultaneously a collective of pansies freeloadung security and a serious threat to Russia would be ridiculous.
While Bannon’s stance is just shortsighted and egocentric, it is at least coherent – until he wants to keep all the benefits of US foreign action without paying for it. In contrast, I really don’t know how Mearsheimer thinks Ukraine poses an offensive threat to Russia while simultaneously claiming Russia to be a great power and Ukraine a minor one. I also don’t know why the US as a great power should not screw with its great power rival. Isn’t that the core of great power competition?
Great comment. Mearsheimer is full of strange contradictions. At some point (and maybe this has already happened), an analysis will be done that exposes his true motivations. I suspect no small measure of anti-Semitism is lurking there.
Mearsheimer’s view is not that Ukraine itself poses a security threat to Russia but that (from Russia’s perspective) Ukraine’s alignment with (and potential membership in) NATO is a security threat.
“I wonder what Measheimer would say if Russia were, for example to invade Belarus?…”
He would say something about billiard balls and “Great states doing what Great States do…”
Someday, someone will explain why the smug Mearsheimer is considered a great intellect. He dogmatically adheres to his simplistic and addled “realist” conception of geopolitics, despite numerous real world examples that contradict it…one of those being the existence and success of Israel, which helps explain his consistent hatred of the country. I actually heard Mearsheimer describe the brilliant “Operation Grim Beeper” as “indiscriminate killing”…which makes me wonder if he understands the basic definitions of words like “indiscriminate”.
Let’s not also forget that Mearsheimer initially blamed the West and NATO for Russia’s aggression. Around the time of invasion, he participated in a debate in which the other side (in my mind) raised some excellent points to counter this. Instead of addressing those points, he completely ignored them in his rebuttals….mindlessly repeating that there was “no evidence” that Putin and the Russians had historically viewed the Ukraine as part of Russia and might have other reasons besides simply reacting to the West to invade.
An enormously grating and frustrating man to listen to…
“Let’s not also forget that Mearsheimer initially blamed the West and NATO for Russia’s aggression.”
I guess he was wrong because NATO never expanded eastward. (Or if it did thusly expand Russia shouldn’t worry since American policy makers have never wanted to contain and split up Russia, or foment regime change wherever on the globe.) The West bangs on about the notion that “spheres of influence” (and concomitant security concerns) is an outdated “19th century” idea. If so, let’s do away with the sacred Monroe Doctrine, eh? (I hear lately that there has come into existence a “Trump Corollary.”) Or is that an exception (due to “American Exceptionalism”)? Is it not a reality that the whole world is the U.S.’s sphere of influence, what with “American Primacy” and “Full Spectrum Dominance”?
Regarding Russia’s position on Ukraine and NATO eastward expansion, which Russia has repeatedly and clearly stated over the years, per former U.S. ambassador to Russia William Burns’s communication to the State department: “Nyet means nyet.” (Another Burns, Nicholas, former U.S. ambassador to China, here and there recently has lamented that the U.S. must maintain dominance in the Indo-Pacific and not allow China to do so, even though at least Southeast Asia/the South China Sea – not the “West Philippine Sea” per Hillary Clinton – is China’s back yard. Where is China seeking dominance in the U.S.’s back yard, the Americas?)
The U.S. neocon and MSM initial Pavlovian knee-jerk response to the above is that such remarks are “Russian talking points” and that those uttering them are “useful idiots.” (Appropriated from the Soviets by Hillary Clinton of “deplorables” fame.) This response and name-calling – as if that somehow constitutes rational and logical argument – is the first item on the list of American and European talking points.
Russia is upset at losing the great power competition. That’s what the whining about the NATO expansion is about. The cleptocracy that’s ruling Russia is unable to create culture and prosperity to bind its “sphere of influence” to Russia by any means other than threat of force.
Is it any wonder that sovereign nations seek protection from Russian aggression in an alliance? NATO didn’t force the Baltics to join. They did so gladly because they knew they wouldn’t survive and would be subjugated without NATO. Having lived for decades under Russia’s thumb, they did what they could not to repeat that experience.
Do you think the sovereignty of those nations has to be disregarded not to hurt Russian feelings? It’s Russia’s own fault for being a shitty great power to live under.
If you don’t want the other kids to gang up on you, maybe consider not being a cruel bully.
To what extent do you think Russia is just Putin? He is over 70 and unlikely to continue in power for another twenty years. I wonder if Western Europe will find Russia easier to negotiate with after he is gone.
Russia is marked by a culture of corruption, violence and political apathy of the population.
Unless Russia splinters in a war of succession, the post-Putin Russia will likely be worse than the current version since it would lack Putin who is a savvy tactician. I fully expect a nasty competition for the presidency before the current oligarch supported autocracy resumes.
💯🎯. I ignore Mearsheimer, ever since I heard his rants on Israel.
The problem Trump is having with peace plans is that neither Russia nor Hamas want peace. Russia wants to expand its territory; Hamas wants to destroy Israel.
IMO it’s not much of a stretch to think of Vladimir Vladimirovich’s Special Military Operation as a Holy War, on a par with Hamas’ one. When has a holy war ever been resolved by compromise before one or both sides were exhausted?
Absolutely, Jeff (again).
I’ve come to loathe him nearly as much as Fraud of the Century the hideously always wrong con man Peter Zaidan.
It is frustrating… if you write about foreign affairs as I do.. to see people taken in by frauds, grifters and NBC-ready fools. It isn’t ideological either – just expertise.
There are so MANY good analysts: Nial Ferguson, Sarah Paine, youtube’s “Perun” of Australia or US vet Preston Stewart, William Spaniel (“lines on maps”) and ….
….
…..my personal Paul McCartney level idol: Stephen Kotkin. (where’s the heart emoji?)
hahah There’s always my column if you like Gabonese politics or enjoy watching me roast Pawethtine/Islam. 🙂
https://themoderatevoice.com/author/david-anderson/
best to you Jeff,
D.A.
NYC
Thank David. I’m embarrassed to say I was also a fan of Peter Zeihan(?) until I read others much smarter than me poking holes in his analysis. It also didn’t help that the guy never, ever seems to admit he might have gotten something wrong.
The Israeli leadership is giving peace a chance, but the IDF will either soon need to go back into Gaza in a big way or revert to the old model of “mowing the lawn.” We all know where mowing the lawn leads.
Regarding the drug companies selling directly to consumers… . This reminds me of what I believe to be the fundamental problem with our health care system: the food web. That web includes: doctors, the practices (the companies the doctors work for), the hospitals, the insurance companies, the pharmaceutical companies, the politicians (beneficiaries of donations from many of the aforementioned), attorneys, ambulance services, lobbyists (e.g. the professional societies), the stockholders, the politicians, and more. The tentacles extend everywhere, and everyone gets paid.
How does one even begin to solve this problem? Extending COVID-era subsidies is not a solution; it’s simply a way to keep the monies flowing. Trump’s effort to negotiate drug prices is a small help (in the grand scheme of things). Allowing insurance companies to compete across state lines might be a bigger help. But it doesn’t seem to me that we can tackle the overall problem one band-aid at a time. With everyone in the current system having a vested interest in keeping it going—getting paid—I don’t see anything getting better without a crisis.
“The best healthcare system money can buy”.
Your reference to “the food web” got me thinking, Norman. The fundamental problem is that patients demand as an entitlement services priced at less than what the “Web” – great name! — charges to produce them. In the limit, where medical services are free at first dollar, their utility approaches zero. We denizens of the Web are happy to provide those low-utility services to all who demand them so long we all get paid. All we have to do is find a reliable compliant payor.
Contrast with the Web that puts a new car in your driveway. All those participants expect to be paid too, by you in the end, but no one frets about the cost of providing cars to all who will pay for them. There is no “crisis of automotive spending.” Rather, that spending produces economic growth! If you don’t want a new car, you keep your money to spend on other goods you value more. If you want one but can’t “afford” one your neighbours won’t buy it for you. (Although you do force them to help you buy a more expensive electric car in jurisdictions that still subsidize them.)
Your insured co-workers do have to pay for you to have expensive cancer chemotherapy, even if you could afford it and would, or wouldn’t, — your choice — pay for it out of your own resources. There is no price signal to test how much you value the treatment. Your providers in the Web just submit their claims on your behalf and they get paid. Do you perhaps value the treatment only at its free or steeply discounted price? “Six more weeks of survival would be nice to have but I certainly won’t pay $50,000 for it,” becomes, “Chemotherapy is my right. I shouldn’t have to choose between giving my money to the Web versus giving it to my heirs, or blowing it on cocaine and hookers. I demand to have it free even though it’s too expensive for me to want to pay for it. Who can put a value on six weeks of my life? Not me. I’ve just valued it at zero by wanting it for free!” (Self-interested doctors encourage the idea that health care is a human right because that guarantees a steady stream of reimbursement when price resistance is totally ablated.)
Economists call the demand for goods and services that consumers value at less than what it costs to produce them a “welfare triangle” because of its shape on cost-utility graphs. (Sort of like the “coffin corner” in aeronautics.) The area of the welfare triangle is an estimate of the rents that sellers extract from the larger economy (through taxes and insurance premiums in this example). The non-patients who paid those rents lost the freedom to choose how to spend the money to maximize their own utility. Welfare triangles are an example of deadweight losses to the economy –aka waste–that confiscate wealth from productive sectors.
Eventually the Web will collapse under its own dead weight. It gets fatter as we get fatter. Perhaps all that survives will be means-tested Medicaid to include the elderly. Sell your house if you value that operation. Medical innovation will stop because innovations happen only with the foreknowledge that insurance will pay for the luxuriant use of whatever new discoveries doctors call medically necessary, regardless of value. Medicaid just won’t feed enough flies and sow bugs into the Web to incentivize that. If 17% of the tax-paying economy suddenly vanishes? Crisis? What crisis?
I think the male between Helen Pluckrose and Heather Heying is James Damore, and that this video is several years old.
All in one post, we can see this strange overlap between the fashion police in Iran, who cannot bear seeing and hearing women as they are, and the adult children in Portland who also cannot bear seeing and hearing women as they are.
PCC(E) reports: “Andrzej discuss the moving of Listy to Substack”
I think that’s a good idea (he/they translated an article of mine to Listy). Substack is a broader platform, and pays. As a columnist I’ve found the new media ecosystem’s constant churn to be… annoying at best.
—————————-movin’ right along—————
Let’s drop the pretense and/or belief that the Gazan Pals can’t be “negotiated with”.
In any sense. There’s no place for “peacekeepers”. Not in Islam, not in the M.E.
For Israel – there is just a poisonous sore next to it where they have to “cut the grass” (periodically kill jihadis) from time to time. Irrespective of our Western fantasies that this is at all about land. It isn’t – it is about jinnah – “paradise” – one we secular/atheists can not see.
Again I write – and it wins me few friends – It demeans us to take the moral or factual claims – or “promises” of the Palestinians in Gaza seriously.
D.A.
NYC
I don’t know if it “demeans” us, but it sure makes us look stupid if we do. Unfortunately, you’re correct. Israel will have no choice but to mow the grass again.
Sorry but the guard IS AI. Only the cat ‘moves’ between the images, the people in the background don’t, and his buttons are wrong.
It’s easy to tell if you wait a day or two…… because someone who is more expert than me always comments quite quickly that it’s AI and explains how they know. That’s the only reason I know on the above. 😂 Such people must check so many posts every day, but i’m picking up clues from them. Maybe it’s a game to them. I’m just generally suspicious of anything that looks unusual now.