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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Remember Steven Chu?

Remember Steven Chu?

by @heymistermix.com|  February 27, 20207:08 pm| 104 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

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I’ve been busy with a project so I missed the debates, and haven’t been in the comments. So, apologies if someone else already mentioned this.

Consider this copy for a 30 second ad that I just made up:

When the Gulf of Mexico was threatened by a blowout in the Deepwater Horizon well, the Obama Administration sent in the Energy Secretary, Steven Chu, a Nobel Prize winner in Physics who played a “commanding role” in getting that disaster under control. Chu had the smarts and respect to overrule the well owners, BP, when they proposed band-aids that threatened the Gulf. The oil spill was stopped, due in part to competent oversight by Democrats in power.

Today, when the world is threatened by a pandemic, the Trump Administration repeatedly overruled experts at the Centers for Disease Control. Possibly infected patients were met by workers without protective gear or proper training. And the person sent in by Trump is Mike Pence, a man who knows nothing about public health, and who oversaw the worst HIV outbreak in Indiana history due to inaction and failure to support common-sense public health measures.

Who do you want running the country?

Here’s something Bloomberg can spend his money on if he wants to run more than a vanity campaign.

(I’m generally skeptical of the “send in a Nobel Prize winner” mentality, but the oldsters in the audience might remember Richard Feynman and the Challenger disaster commission, where he stole the spotlight in a press conference by doing an ad-hoc experiment with a piece of O-ring and a cup of ice water. The fact that I remember it, and the further fact that he was right, indicates the huge public relations impact of someone who basically has no fucks to give and tells it like it is. We sure don’t have that with the Trump Administration.)

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Next Post: Election Year Open Thread: Joe Biden Is Having A Better-Than-Expected Week »

Reader Interactions

104Comments

  1. 1.

    Ten Bears

    February 27, 2020 at 7:14 pm

    “Safe” is relative. There are thousands of those wellheads drilled and capped in the gulf.

    Those plugs won’t last forever.

  2. 2.

    hells littlest angel

    February 27, 2020 at 7:16 pm

    I think all convinceables will soon be convinced no matter what advertisements say. The money would be better spent on GOTV and fighting voter suppression.

  3. 3.

    Martin

    February 27, 2020 at 7:17 pm

    @Ten Bears: Yes they will. Because we can’t see them, they don’t exist.

  4. 4.

    debbie

    February 27, 2020 at 7:18 pm

    Pence, Kudlow, Mnuchin. We are so fucked.

    Even worse, these jerks care more about the stock market than the American people. Even the ones who support them!

  5. 5.

    hells littlest angel

    February 27, 2020 at 7:20 pm

    @Ten Bears: The way things are going, they only need to last 50 years.

  6. 6.

    sukabi

    February 27, 2020 at 7:22 pm

    There’s a whistle blower that claims the folks sent in to check in on the quarantined Americans returned from Wuhan weren’t properly trained or equipped with the proper gear. May have spread the virus outside quarantine areas….

     

    https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5e584414c5b6450a30bc2cd3

  7. 7.

    Elizabelle

    February 27, 2020 at 7:22 pm

    MisterMix:  what’s link to the article you cited?  What’s the publication?

  8. 8.

    JMG

    February 27, 2020 at 7:23 pm

    I’d forgotten the O-ring deal. Nice catch!

  9. 9.

    download my app in the app store mistermix

    February 27, 2020 at 7:23 pm

    @Elizabelle: I made it up myself. I’ll clarify in the post.

  10. 10.

    JPL

    February 27, 2020 at 7:32 pm

    @download my app in the app store mistermix: lol   reminds me of my High School years when I wrote a book report on a book I made up

    btw probably only works on student teachers though

  11. 11.

    Kraux Pas

    February 27, 2020 at 7:34 pm

    @hells littlest angel: The way things are going, they only need to last 50 years.

    Even if we manage to destroy all human life, or even all surface life, there’s no reason the sea life should have to pay for our mistakes by consuming poison.

  12. 12.

    jl

    February 27, 2020 at 7:35 pm

    ” Richard Feynman and the Challenger disaster commission, where he stole the spotlight in a press conference by doing an ad-hoc experiment with a piece of O-ring and a cup of ice water. ”

    I read someplace, maybe something he wrote, that he actually practiced it a few times the night before to make sure the results were dramatic enough to work reliably and make a real impact on the hearing audience the next day.

    OTOH, I read a short memoir by him, or maybe he was telling a story that during WWII when he was sent to a uranium processing facility he lost track of what the technicians were talking about over some blue prints, and decided to say something random to see if he could figure out what they were talking about without him looking dumb. So, they mentioned some type of equipment that needed to be very precisely connected up to a network. Feynman had totally lost track of what they were talking about, and what it was on the blue print. So he put his finger on the blue print on a random symbol to see if that was what they were talking about and said “did you check that one?” And it was the right symbol, and it turns out there was a problem with networking them up. The engineers told Feynman he was a genius. At least, that is the story Feynman told about it.

  13. 13.

    Kent

    February 27, 2020 at 7:36 pm

    Since this is an open thread, if you need your animal smile today, here’s an older video of a German Shepherd Ryker giving it his all before flunking of Service Dog Training School.  May e this has been around already but someone forwarded it to me today:

    https://youtu.be/ND63UPelkIw

  14. 14.

    germy

    February 27, 2020 at 7:38 pm

    Dog people always act like dogs are so much better than cats but as a cat person just wanna say that you never see cats working with the cops
    — Kivan (@KivanBay) February 26, 2020

  15. 15.

    germy

    February 27, 2020 at 7:39 pm

    Since Trump thinks COVID-19 is 'just a cold', and Traumatic Brain Injuries are 'just headaches', what would he consider dementia to be?
    — Rodney Caston (@RodneyCaston) February 27, 2020

  16. 16.

    Amir Khalid

    February 27, 2020 at 7:41 pm

    As it happens, Feynman was terminally ill with cancer when he did that. So he really had no fucks left to give.

  17. 17.

    Aziz, light!

    February 27, 2020 at 7:41 pm

    Nero was an excellent violinist. A lot of people are saying that.

  18. 18.

    jl

    February 27, 2020 at 7:42 pm

    @germy: That is speculation. If cats do work with the cops, you’d probably never know about it, unless the cops leaked it.

  19. 19.

    Martin

    February 27, 2020 at 7:42 pm

    @Kraux Pas: What makes you think the next dominant life form won’t be oil based?

  20. 20.

    Kraux Pas

    February 27, 2020 at 7:44 pm

    @germy: Since Trump thinks COVID-19 is ‘just a cold’, and Traumatic Brain Injuries are ‘just headaches’, what would he consider dementia to be?

    Daily life

     

    @Martin: Point me to a known oil-based life form and I’ll consider the possibility.

  21. 21.

    Amir Khalid

    February 27, 2020 at 7:45 pm

    @Martin:

    Petroleum is made of dead life forms, so if they came back to life that would be cool.

  22. 22.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    February 27, 2020 at 7:45 pm

    @Kent:

    Thanks for the laugh! I especially like the ones in which other, well-behaved dogs look appalled.

  23. 23.

    Anya

    February 27, 2020 at 7:46 pm

    Sorry to derail from discussing the potential pandemic doom but I’ve been living under the proverbial rock for the past several days and I just read something about Republicans ratfucking in South Carolina by using President Obama’s words and voice from Dreams from My Father audio book to create an ad basically making it sound Obama was denouncing Biden for selling out black people. 2 Questions: would this ad work considering everyone knows Biden was Obama’s VP? 2) would Obama calling on TV stations to stop airing an ad and strongly denouncing the pro-Trump super PAC help Biden and give the impression that Obama was supporting Biden?

  24. 24.

    Martin

    February 27, 2020 at 7:46 pm

    @Kraux Pas: Pretty sure Pence qualifies.

  25. 25.

    Martin

    February 27, 2020 at 7:47 pm

    @Amir Khalid: Right. Basically zombie dinosaurs.

  26. 26.

    cckids

    February 27, 2020 at 7:48 pm

    @germy: 

    Since Trump thinks COVID-19 is ‘just a cold’, and Traumatic Brain Injuries are ‘just headaches’, what would he consider dementia to be?

    Thursday??

  27. 27.

    John Revolta

    February 27, 2020 at 7:49 pm

    @jl: Feynman was a bit of a character and a self- promoter, but only by scientist standards. His book “Surely You’re Joking, Mr Feynman” is a pretty good read. An interesting part is when he gets asked down to Brazil to teach science to university students; he quickly discovers that the reason Brazil was lagging behind scientifically was that universities were “teaching to the test” by using rote learning and not getting students to actually think. So, here we are in this country, 60 years later, adopting the same methods. Great.

  28. 28.

    Anya

    February 27, 2020 at 7:49 pm

    @Amir Khalid: OT but I’ve been meaning to ask you if you’d agree that Virgil van Dijk is the  best centre-back in Premier League history? If so, who’s second?

  29. 29.

    jl

    February 27, 2020 at 7:57 pm

    I haven’t seen this mentioned on a front post yet, though apologies if I missed it. Anyway, democracy today in the US! India will intervene in the election if Sanders keeps criticizing the BJP for human rights violations.

    I guess the Sanders haters here will like it. Maybe I would if it helped Warren, but she’d probably end up on their shit list too.

    Who was the genius Supreme Court justice who said the idea that blowing away campaign finance regulations would invite foreign intervention was ridiculous?

    BJP General Secretary Threatens Bernie Sanders With US Election Interference
    BJP’s BL Santhosh responded to Sanders’ condemnation of Donald Trump’s response to the violence in Delhi.
    By Meryl Sebastian
    https://www.huffingtonpost.in/entry/delhi-violence-bjp-leader-threatens-bernie-sanders-with-us-election-interference_in_5e573f59c5b66137fb5d90d1

  30. 30.

    Sally

    February 27, 2020 at 7:57 pm

    I was thinking about this too. Crisis: Obama sends in Prof Chu. Frump sends in Mike Dense. The virus isn’t frump’s fault, but his response is. It’s intriguing that even those (few) members of the regime whose IQ > room temp aren’t working on meaningful response. They have no agency.

  31. 31.

    Amir Khalid

    February 27, 2020 at 7:58 pm

    @Anya:

    Big Virg is the best centre-back not just in the EPL’s history but in the history of world football. (As a Liverpool supporter, I admit to a slight bias.) Second? Vinnie Kompany. Man City’s defence has been crap since he went back to Belgium.

  32. 32.

    kindness

    February 27, 2020 at 7:59 pm

    Just wait till we start getting ‘vetted’ statements from the CDC about anything concerning the coming pandemic.  Since they’ll be written by Trump’s staff and they’ll sound like a N. Korean mid level party functionary regaling their Great Leader and his Supreme Wisdom.

  33. 33.

    MomSense

    February 27, 2020 at 8:00 pm

    @Kent:

    I laughed so hard I cried.  I took my dog, then puppy, to visit an elderly relative at a nursing home.  We arrived just at the end of lunch.  Imagine trying to control a puppy with a nursing home full of walkers with tennis balls coming toward you all at the same time.

  34. 34.

    Baud

    February 27, 2020 at 8:00 pm

    @jl:

    I guess the Sanders haters here will like it

    No. Defeating Sanders is a job for Democrats, not foreign leaders.

  35. 35.

    Professor Bigfoot

    February 27, 2020 at 8:01 pm

    @John Revolta: Seems appropriate, really.

    From what I see these days, an “education” is strictly in order to “get a better job.”

    Rote learning is appropriate to that.

  36. 36.

    Brachiator

    February 27, 2020 at 8:02 pm

    It chills me to think that some evangelicals might believe that Pence will pray the virus away.

  37. 37.

    Raoul Paste

    February 27, 2020 at 8:07 pm

    Yes, I remember Sheven Chu  head of the Department of Energy.

    Do we still have Rick Perry?  That contrast is the essence of the Trump administration.

  38. 38.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    February 27, 2020 at 8:10 pm

    @Anya:

    I can answer two: he’s sent a cease and desist letter to that super-pac

  39. 39.

    Mary G

    February 27, 2020 at 8:12 pm

    They use some tools, but this is still amazing. Skip to about a minute in for the reveal.

    ODDLY SATISFYING: Team of vets pull AN ENTIRE BEACH TOWEL out of a python in Australia – with their bare hands. pic.twitter.com/rjzR2lrmEW— CBS News (@CBSNews) February 27, 2020

  40. 40.

    prostratedragon

    February 27, 2020 at 8:16 pm

    @Kent:
    Oh, shriek! A fitting metaphor for our national predicament, except that Riker might have been more well-meaning.

  41. 41.

    Another Scott

    February 27, 2020 at 8:16 pm

    @John Revolta: Feynman’s little book QED – The Strange Theory of Light and Matter is amazing for its clarity. It’s a brilliant little book.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  42. 42.

    Bex

    February 27, 2020 at 8:19 pm

    @Brachiator: Just send him $50 for a prayer cloth to put over your nose and mouth.

  43. 43.

    schrodingers_cat

    February 27, 2020 at 8:24 pm

    @Another Scott: His lectures in physics series is also pretty great. And even his actual scientific papers make for lucid reading. I had to read a couple when I was writing my master’s thesis.

  44. 44.

    Elizabelle

    February 27, 2020 at 8:26 pm

    @download my app in the app store mistermix:

    Thank you, MisterMix.  I skimmed through way too fast. You made that very clear.

    Did you see Gail Collins in the FTF NYTimes?  She was on point with your point.

    Let’s Call It Trumpvirus

    If you’re feeling awful, you know who to blame.
    She made it clear that Saint John Bolton, the (prefer not to do so) truthteller helped clean out the experts.

    … The run-up to the Pence unveiling had not been exactly calming for citizens who wanted to have faith in competent White House oversight. Barack Obama used to have special epidemic-watching groups just in case this kind of crisis developed. One was headed by the highly regarded Rear Adm. Timothy Ziemer, who got sent packing by John Bolton. Another infectious disease expert, Tom Bossert, suddenly vanished from the Department of Homeland Security in 2018, presumably also at the hand of John You-know-who.

    If Bolton’s memoir ever makes it into print, do you think it’ll have a chapter called “My War on Pandemic Fighters?” OK, probably not.

    Virus Week hasn’t really provided a whole lot of comfort to citizens who wanted to believe the president’s replacements were super high quality.

    ….  Losing faith in presidential appointees for health protection? Stop being so negative. They’re all vetted by the Presidential Personnel Office, which is now headed by John McEntee, 29, who was previously fired from another White House job because of concerns about a history of gambling problems and tax issues.

    McEntee will be getting plenty of help from other stellar appointees, the newest being a 23-year-old college undergraduate. Together they’re going to be cleaning house, getting rid of folks who are insufficiently loyal to the president. Or maybe aren’t qualified or something. Never can tell.

    I regret that you, me and all of us will be collateral damage, but if that’s what it takes to get Trump and his horrible hires out of DC … that’s the only silver lining I can see.

    Along with proving the benefits of a National Health Service and paid sick leave for workers.

  45. 45.

    mozzerb

    February 27, 2020 at 8:30 pm

    @jl: I read someplace, maybe something he wrote, that he actually practiced it a few times the night before to make sure the results were dramatic enough to work reliably and make a real impact on the hearing audience the next day.

    It’s in the followup autobiographical volume to Surely You’re Joking, Mr Feynman, called Mr Feynman Goes To Washington.

    I also remember from that book that he found that the shuttle software people were much better at testing than the hardware people. As a programmer, that’s good to hear, and also extremely scary given how difficult testing complex software is.

  46. 46.

    bluehill

    February 27, 2020 at 8:33 pm

    @Mary G: Did they get the person laying on the beach towel too?

  47. 47.

    hitchhiker

    February 27, 2020 at 8:38 pm

    Didn’t any Republicans watch Chernobyl?

    FFS, it’s the story of some hapless guys trying (on pain of losing their jobs) to please their incompetent superiors, followed by a catastrophe, followed by a government filled with people determined to make sure somebody else got blamed and nobody outside the USSR ever found out. Gorbachev himself was involved, and he said later that it was Chernobyl that truly led to the destruction of the USSR, in the sense that it exposed the essential flaw of a system built on corruption.

    We have that level of corruption, stupidity, and short-sightedness in the goddamn White House right now. I can’t believe I’m witnessing this.

  48. 48.

    burnspbesq

    February 27, 2020 at 8:38 pm

    @Anya:

    when he’s done it for as long as Rio Ferdinand, Martin Keown, or even Phil Jagielka, we’ll talk.

  49. 49.

    burnspbesq

    February 27, 2020 at 8:42 pm

    Ever heard of Paolo Maldini, Amir?

  50. 50.

    gene108

    February 27, 2020 at 8:47 pm

    @jl:

    We May come to a point that pro-Republican foreign election interference gets so out of control, with other countries joining Russia that anybody running for office will need foreign backers to interfere on their behalf

  51. 51.

    rikyrah

    February 27, 2020 at 8:49 pm

    "Stop and frisk, for instance, is not just a policy — it has bodies attached to it. And you would like me to overlook that to vote blue no matter who, which my people have historically done election after election," a prospective voter tells @AriMelber. https://t.co/Qj5pL49mJZ pic.twitter.com/jrqLqEshvA— MSNBC (@MSNBC) February 28, 2020

  52. 52.

    Kent

    February 27, 2020 at 8:51 pm

    @gene108: China if you are listening.  How about hacking the IRS and finding Trump’s tax returns (and those of Jared and Ivanka too). They are still running 1980s era servers, how hard can it be?

  53. 53.

    rikyrah

    February 27, 2020 at 8:56 pm

    @Kent:

     

    ????

  54. 54.

    Anya

    February 27, 2020 at 9:03 pm

    @Amir Khalid: I agree on both points. Where do you rate Koulibaly?

  55. 55.

    Anya

    February 27, 2020 at 9:05 pm

    @burnspbesq: Come on. He is the best. No denying it. Plus he has an awesome leadership qualities.

  56. 56.

    Anya

    February 27, 2020 at 9:07 pm

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Thanks! I am wondering if this does the opposite and ends up helping Biden.

  57. 57.

    Amir Khalid

    February 27, 2020 at 9:08 pm

    @burnspbesq:

    Of course. Also his dad Cesare, who captained AC Milan and went on to manage the club as well as Italy; and his 18-year-old son Daniel, a central midfielder who has just started his career with AC Milan. Quite the footballing dynasty.

  58. 58.

    TS (the original)

    February 27, 2020 at 9:13 pm

    Back to listening to Rachel – she seems to be the only person to tell the truth about Trump omitting all and any euphemisms.

  59. 59.

    dexwood

    February 27, 2020 at 9:14 pm

    @debbie: Pence, Kudlow, Mnuchin. We are so fucked.

     

    The Scream Team.

  60. 60.

    Bill Arnold

    February 27, 2020 at 9:14 pm

    @jl:

    I guess the Sanders haters here will like it.

    No, because D.J.Trump is BJP’s preferred candidate. Such (amusing, reasons) arrogance! Here’s the relevant deleted (alleged but I trust HuffPo on this) tweet for others:

    How much ever neutral we wish to be you compel us to play a role in Presidential elections . Sorry to say so … But you are compelling us .
    — B L Santhosh (@blsanthosh) February 27, 2020

  61. 61.

    Amir Khalid

    February 27, 2020 at 9:17 pm

    @Anya:

    If Man City can sign Koulibaly, he might be the Vinnie Kompany replacement they need. Laporte is injured again, and Stones is simply not good enough. Then again, defending in Serie A is not quite like defending in the EPL so one can’t be certain.

  62. 62.

    bluehill

    February 27, 2020 at 9:18 pm

    @Kent: I wonder if China would want Trump to lose. For the economic harm he’s caused, Trump is a useful foil to keep Xi in power and Trump seems willing to cede regional influence to China in Asia as well as Africa and South America.

    Also wonder if his tax returns even matter any more. There could checks signed by Putin himself and Trump’s base will still vote for him. As in 2016, Trump doesn’t need the majority of votes just the majority in swing states and the repubs, Russia, the Saudis and now india (?) are  busying trying to splinter the traditional dem coalition and discourage turnout among those groups.

  63. 63.

    Sab

    February 27, 2020 at 9:24 pm

    @Mary G: Who lets their python eat a beach towel? So afterwards was he hungry for real food, or did he just want a nap?

  64. 64.

    Anya

    February 27, 2020 at 9:32 pm

    @Amir Khalid: They’re fragile defensively so add in Nathan Ake and they’d be unstoppable.

  65. 65.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    February 27, 2020 at 9:34 pm

    Kraushaar is kind of a douche, but this is interesting

    Josh Kraushaar @HotlineJosh
    Sanders at 13 percent and under the threshold in delegate-rich FLORIDA If Biden wins big in SC and in the South on Super Tuesday, possible to see him pass Sanders in delegates on March 17 (or in Georgia in March 24)

  66. 66.

    Emma from FL

    February 27, 2020 at 9:36 pm

    @jl: You know, even when you’re trying to bring important news you have , just HAVE to try to piss on people. No, those of us who oppose Sanders would still be pissed with any foreign interference in our elections. No matter from whom. Now go back to your pissy-moany idol who’s now trying to change the rules AGAIN to benefit himself.

  67. 67.

    schrodingers_cat

    February 27, 2020 at 9:36 pm

    @Bill Arnold: I did some digging around. This buffoon Santhosh is a Sangh pracharak much like P. M. Modi. He was made the party’s general secretary in July 2019. Under his leadership BJP has lost 2 of the 3 states they held. They lost 2 Maharashtra and Jharkhand.

    ETA: He is likely posturing for his Sangh bosses because he is failing at his job.

  68. 68.

    zhena gogolia

    February 27, 2020 at 9:46 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Pleasepleaseplease. And somebody posted a picture of Biden with Harris today. Pleasepleaseplease.

  69. 69.

    zhena gogolia

    February 27, 2020 at 9:46 pm

    @Emma from FL:

    I think you have identified a certain psychological quality that I do not see here among supporters of Warren, Buttigieg, or Biden . . . I wonder why.

  70. 70.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    February 27, 2020 at 9:49 pm

    @Sab:

    Before we get to the beach towel, who keeps a python?

  71. 71.

    Dan B

    February 27, 2020 at 9:49 pm

    My cousin’s son is getting married in Tuscany in September (correct month?) so the virus is distressing to plans for a splendid event and travel adventure.

    I offered a high tech tent and some wilderness locations in Utah and Colorado which would probably not have coronavirus.  Issue is getting there.  Gas shortages?  Scarce or zero planes?  No shipping?

     

    My mind riffed on Amazon shipping and/or shortages of items.  Microsoft has already announced zero growth for this year and another Seattle business, (technically Chicago but three big manu plants here, so…) Boeing.

    Who will turn out the lights this time?(Old joke billboard from the Boeing Bust in the 70’s.  “Will the last person to leave Seattle please turn out the lights.”)

    There are so many things that depend upon institutions and infrastructure that have been eaten away by “Move fast and Break Things” mentality that we may be at a point when too many fail at once to be restored to their former function.  We’ll need a lot of people who can conjure up new and robust structures.  There is probably a lot of talent in marginalized communities that have survived destruction, like black people who persevered, refugees who rebuilt their lives, LGBT people who survived AIDS and reimagined, and a few white elites who saw the handwriting that read: danger from current thinking and resilient opportunity from different actions.

     

    Not certain that will arise in time for Tuscany in the Fall.

  72. 72.

    Another Scott

    February 27, 2020 at 9:51 pm

    @zhena gogolia: The picture of Biden and Harris was from December 2018.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  73. 73.

    TS (the original)

    February 27, 2020 at 9:52 pm

    Juror from Stone trial on Rachel – does not seem intimidated by the President. Interesting to see trump’s reaction – no doubt he is watching or will be informed.

  74. 74.

    zhena gogolia

    February 27, 2020 at 9:52 pm

    @zhena gogolia:

    Oh, I thought they were meeting up today. why do people tweet false stuff? I don’t spend enough time reading them to figure out they’re false.

  75. 75.

    Mike in NC

    February 27, 2020 at 9:55 pm

    @zhena gogolia: Really hoping Biden does very well in SC despite Republicans trying to skew the numbers for Bolshevik Bernie. Then he can keep up the momentum and name Senator Harris as his preferred VP running mate.

  76. 76.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    February 27, 2020 at 9:57 pm

    Sam Stein @ samstein
    NEW — One day after attempting to calm nerves about the spread of the coronavirus, President Trump spent forty-five minutes talking to the lead actors of a low-budget conservative play about the so-called Deep State.

    “We went for a 15 minute meeting that took 45 minutes… We were there for 45 minutes in the Oval Office, and he loves it, he loves the play

    Trump hasn’t seen the play, according to McAleer, but praised its concept: a script based entirely on congressional testimony and the text messages between former FBI agent Peter Strzok and former FBI lawyer Lisa Page, who discussed the FBI’s investigation into Trump’s campaign and Russia while having an affair. The play’s leads—Superman actor Dean Cain and former Buffy the Vampire Slayer actress Kristy Swanson—also attended the White House meeting.

    I’d heard of the “play”, I hadn’t heard about the cast. He also held an apparently last-minute meeting with Diamond and Silk

  77. 77.

    Dan B

    February 27, 2020 at 9:59 pm

    @Mike in NC: And if Biden is elected, and manages to pry the Orange Twitler and Scabrous Retinue from the White House, he has said he’d serve one term, enough time for Harris or other VP to be like an incumbent.

  78. 78.

    Omnes Omnibus

    February 27, 2020 at 10:00 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I am disappointed in OG Buffy.

  79. 79.

    Bill Arnold

    February 27, 2020 at 10:01 pm

    @schrodingers_cat:

    He is likely posturing for his Sangh bosses because he is failing at his job.

    That would be good.
    Said threatened interference. would be messy. (A small subset might be annoyingly competent.)

    BTW, any thoughts on how COVID-19 will affect India? Big city air pollution would aggravate it.

  80. 80.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    February 27, 2020 at 10:02 pm

    @Dan B:

    he has said he’d serve one term

    Has he said that officially, or is it ‘people close to him said he is considering…”

  81. 81.

    Martin

    February 27, 2020 at 10:06 pm

    @Dan B: Move fast and break things mentality is almost certainly not our problem here. Instead, it’s old-school MBA grinding efficiency. Why make virus testing kits in the US when you can make them for 4% less in China? Why warehouse them when you  can just-in-time manufacture them? Any product sitting idle is inefficient – ask anyone at any B-School in the US.

    I always use the military as the contrast.  Their focus is effectiveness, not efficiency. So, they aren’t trying to save money – they’re trying to maintain agility and resilience. It’s routine for their shit to get blown up, so they always have extra shit. It’s expensive, though.

    Move fast and break things is about exploiting that B-School efficiency by upturning traditional business models and introducing new ones knowing that the incumbents are so lean that they can’t adapt fast enough. They aren’t necessarily efficient, but they are far more adaptable and resilient. I have a colleague that bemoans AWS as being too expensive. He can build and deploy servers for 20% less money, but it takes him weeks to do that. I can deploy a server in 15 minutes. It costs me more, but I can respond way faster so much so that I now have projects that should have gone to my colleague because we needed them implemented in days, not months.

    This is the kind of scenario where agility could be helpful.

    Amazon has vastly more resiliency than the systems it replaced. Quarantine their Nevada distribution centers – they can fulfill out of any of their others. A bit slower, a bit more expensive to ship, but everything keeps going. They can adapt their supply chains pretty quickly – generally a lot faster than your local stores can do it. Now, they don’t have that inventory right up the street from you which is a downside, but Amazon is basically just infrastructure. It’s not public infrastructure, which is bad, but well, we weren’t going to build any public infrastructure anyway, so private is better than nothing.

  82. 82.

    J R in WV

    February 27, 2020 at 10:06 pm

    @Ten Bears:

    “Safe” is relative. There are thousands of those wellheads drilled and capped in the gulf.

    Those plugs won’t last forever.

    Actually, they should last a very long time if done to specification. They involve hundreds or thousands of feet of specialized concrete in the well, not just a metal cap screwed onto the stem pipe.

    If done to specification, thousands of feet under the surface of the ocean… that may be kind of a big if, there. And as specified does a lot of work, also, too. I live in an old small oil patch, so we’ve seen lots of local wells plugged around here. It’s different in the Gulf, but similar.

    I also paid a lot of attention to the whole disaster, how those wells are properly plugged, etc. Properly, there’s another word doing heavy lifting.

  83. 83.

    Peale

    February 27, 2020 at 10:14 pm

    @germy: I was going to add that you don’t see cats in the military either. There have never been cats bred like mastiffs to be war cats. Then I remembered that wasn’t true. There have been tactical battle cats.

  84. 84.

    J R in WV

    February 27, 2020 at 10:28 pm

    @Kent:

    Regarding the IRS and their IT infrastructure:

    They are still running 1980s era servers, how hard can it be?

    While this is somewhat true, the “servers” are probably mainframes, which have a completely different architecture from what we know as “servers” in the internet world. I never worked for the IRS, but we had pretty good security at the state tax department I worked at back in the ’80s.

    Not that I disapprove of the idea… I think it would be great for China to dump Trump’s financial data to the world wide web… but probably from accounting systems, not the IRS…

  85. 85.

    jl

    February 27, 2020 at 10:34 pm

    @Emma from FL: “You know, even when you’re trying to bring important news you have , just HAVE to try to piss on people. No, those of us who oppose Sanders would still be pissed with any foreign interference in our elections. No matter from whom. Now go back to your pissy-moany idol who’s now trying to change the rules AGAIN to benefit himself.”

    I support Warren. I’ve contributed a lot of money to her campaign. And am working for her campaign this weekend. Maybe you’re reading something into my comment that isn’t there?

  86. 86.

    Another Scott

    February 27, 2020 at 10:38 pm

    @zhena gogolia: It generates clicks.  ;-)

    https://www.google.com/search?q=biden+harris+2020

    (Scroll down.)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  87. 87.

    Nelle

    February 27, 2020 at 10:42 pm

    I just got home from a house meeting with Senate candidate Mike Franken here in Iowa.  I think he can beat the increasingly unpopular Joni Ernst in the general but apparently about a year ago (unsure of time frame), Shumer, et. al., thought Ernst was then too popular to put much effort and money into beating her and endorsed a woman who has never held political office (she didn’t make it in her House race in 2018 because her campaign manager was caught putting fake names on her petition to be on the ballot.  Along comes retired Vice Admiral Mike Franken, who has served all around the world and as a liason in the military.  Whip smart and funny, grew up in northwest Iowa in what is now Steve King’s district.  Iowa would be so lucky to have him.  If we can get him past the woman chosen by DC.  She just got $400,000, maybe more, from where?  Bain Capital, among others, through some DC pac.  Not clear on the details yet.    Now why would they want a weaker candidate against Joni Ernst?  Hmmm.  Anyway, if you care to throw even just $5 his way, it would be gratefully received.

  88. 88.

    Mike in NC

    February 27, 2020 at 10:42 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Witless Dean Cain pops up a lot on TV talk shows like the Today Show. Apparently another Hollywood wingnut with no other income stream. Surprised Trump didn’t try to name him ambassador to Yugoslavia.

  89. 89.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    February 27, 2020 at 10:44 pm

    @Mike in NC: or Krypton

  90. 90.

    Mike in NC

    February 27, 2020 at 10:46 pm

    @Nelle: Mike Franken is my former Navy roommate. We served on the same ship for three years as junior officers. I tossed his campaign some money and would crawl over broken glass to get him elected.

  91. 91.

    Emma from FL

    February 27, 2020 at 10:46 pm

    @jl: “I guess the Sanders haters here will like it.”

    By thy words we shall know thee.

  92. 92.

    Jackie

    February 27, 2020 at 10:48 pm

    @Kent: I LMAO!!! TENNIS balls!!! Bouncing BALLS!!! Thank you♥️

  93. 93.

    Mike in NC

    February 27, 2020 at 10:55 pm

    Here in NC, a PAC funded by Moscow Mitch is trying to boost the candidacy of a Democratic State Senator who supports “Medicare for All” and “Green New Deal” and other scary GOP-hated programs against an Iraq War vet who has an excellent chance of ridding us of the spineless dirtbag Thom Tillis. Apparently Moscow Mitch has very deep pockets thanks to assorted Russian oligarchs and is doing this in many states.

  94. 94.

    Another Scott

    February 27, 2020 at 10:58 pm

    @Nelle: Thanks for the report. The June primary should be interesting, if this report about the candidates is anything to go by.

    The DSCC likes candidates who demonstrate they can raise money, so Franken needs to up his game. But winning the primary will certainly help him do that!

    Donated.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  95. 95.

    Cheryl Rofer

    February 27, 2020 at 11:07 pm

    @Peale:

    Z-8G pic.twitter.com/1liyeLOm9t

    — Giant Military Cats (@giantcat9) February 27, 2020

  96. 96.

    randy khan

    February 27, 2020 at 11:08 pm

    @Amir Khalid:

    If you read his memoirs, you realize he never had any to give.  Apparently they forgot to give him his supply when he was born.

  97. 97.

    Nelle

    February 27, 2020 at 11:10 pm

    @Mike in NC: The connections in this BJ world!  He’s got such a wry humor and his intelligence is clear.  Questions tonight focused on health care, gun safety, and climate change.

  98. 98.

    Kent

    February 27, 2020 at 11:38 pm

    @Nelle: One of my oldest friends who is a social studies teacher in Iowa is heavily backing Mike Franken.  Seriously campaigning for him.  He says the DSCC jumped way too early behind Greenfield.

    So Franken must be the real deal.

  99. 99.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    February 27, 2020 at 11:46 pm

    @Another Scott:

    Here’s an edition of QED that is still in print, with a link to a Kindle  edition.

  100. 100.

    nasruddin

    February 28, 2020 at 1:26 am

    @hitchhiker:  Sure, they took notes.

  101. 101.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    February 28, 2020 at 3:23 am

    @Kraux Pas: Honestly? Life is going to happen. It might not be life as we expect it, but there are microbes that can eat petroleum (I’m 99% sure), for example. The thing that dummies (creationists/inteligent design folks, and people who just don’t know WTF science actually *is*) don’t get is, the world is like a huge, brute force, analog supercomputer, and it will find *an* answer, *something* that can evolve and live in almost any circumstances.

    It’s like, I saw a wonderful comic strip where a person is expressing great remorse to an incarnation of Mother Nature (or maybe Gaia?) regarding global warming, and she gives a compassionate hug and  says “oh, don’t worry – animals will *adapt*, even if it takes millions of years. No, no, no, you’re killing *yourselves*, not ‘nature'” (as the poor slob’s eyes widen).

    That’s not to say that it wouldn’t be an ecological tragedy (and travesty), whether you’re talking global warming or massive oil leaks ; but the idea that we humans are likely to destroy “all life” is vanishingly small; we’re far more likely to make the earth uninhabitable for *us*, and many/most critters we recognize.

    Since I, personally, don’t *care* if “life” exists, and am more concerned about people, that isn’t any  comfort.

    (But that does explain why Republicans are so stone cold stupid about environmental issues – they call themselves “pro-life”, not “pro-human”.) (JK – obviously, the vast majority couldn’t give a (presumably, dead) fig about “life”.)

  102. 102.

    opiejeanne

    February 28, 2020 at 3:36 am

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Mostly creepy guys, but there are others. When I was a little girl, a lady on our street kept a boa constrictor. She brought it to the bus stop before school one morning and let us look at it and touch it, if we dared.

    About a week later, the bus stop got moved to across the street from our house. I wonder if someone’s mother complained to the district.

  103. 103.

    Jamey

    February 28, 2020 at 1:14 pm

    Obama isn’t running.

  104. 104.

    Kenneth Fair

    March 2, 2020 at 12:12 pm

    @mozzerb:  One additional thing about Feynman and the O-ring. Feynman’s stunt at the press conference was not winging it. He had already understood what the problem was by reading through a lot of reports and talking to the engineers. The O-ring in the ice water was his way of dramatizing the issue for the press so that everyone would understand.

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