Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

Democracy cannot function without a free press.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Disagreements are healthy; personal attacks are not.

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.

“But what about the lurkers?”

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

Republicans got rid of McCarthy. Democrats chose not to save him.

Come on, man.

Fear or fury? The choice is ours.

Roe is not about choice. It is about freedom.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

“In the future, this lab will be a museum. do not touch it.”

The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

Let me file that under fuck it.

The revolution will be supervised.

We will not go quietly into the night; we will not vanish without a fight.

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And the actuaries shall inherit the Earth

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The insurance industry believes in climate change no matter what the MAGA says to their cult.

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— American Patrick (@americapatrick100.bsky.social) January 9, 2025 at 12:26 PM

These BlueSky posts are about State Farm pulling out from parts of the Southern California property insurance market over the summer.

I am betting State Farm’s actuaries and risk management teams looked at their numbers and basically said that no matter the premium level charged, losses would be greater than premiums and overhead in these areas do to increased wildfire risk so the best option for the company was to get the hell out of the region with substantial notice to their former policy holders.

That is just my bet.

Actuaries rule the world over a long enough time horizon and as the world’s climate changes due to very predictable mechanisms, actuaries will be making very unpopular decisions as they attempt to balance future premiums to future obligations. Their choices are to cover less, charge more or run like hell.

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Fire Fiction

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Fire Noise

When confronted with fires that reflect the impact of climate change, there’s sure plenty of political incentive to blame it on anything but that.  One of the claims floating around is that LA cut the Fire Department budget.  Nope:

Bass also took heat from far-left activists online, who accused the mayor of cutting the fire department’s budget in order to pay for a costly new contract with the city’s police. Also weighing in against her was Patrick Soon-Shiong, the politically idiosyncratic owner of the Los Angeles Times, who echoed the attack, posting on X that “the Mayor cut LA Fire Department’s budget by $23M.”

That assertion is wrong. The city was in the process of negotiating a new contract with the fire department at the time the budget was being crafted, so additional funding for the department was set aside in a separate fund until that deal was finalized in November. In fact, the city’s fire budget increased more than $50 million year-over-year compared to the last budget cycle, according to Blumenfield’s office, although overall concerns about the department’s staffing level have persisted for a number of years.

Politico frames it as far-left vs Bass, but it’s really both left and right, since the right is looking for anything to distract from the global warming explanation.  Steve M makes a good point about this:

But this is how the mainstream media operates. Because right-wingers have been attacking mainstream news organizations as liberal for sixty years or so, they reflexively assume that any criticism of a liberal is justified, while assuming that there must be a valid reason for nearly everything conservatives do, even when they’re proposing batshit crazy ideas like annexing Greenland.

As a rule, Democratic officeholders spend the majority of their terms on the back foot because when they’re viciously attacked by the right, the mainstream press inevitably piles on. The right is attacking Bass for reducing fire department funding […]

Steve also notes that the Police Department budget was increased, which is what right-wingers want, but zero credit to Bass for that, of course, because she’s a Democrat.

The fire, of course, is a terrible thing for LA.  From the perspective of Bass herself, there’s a bunch of  extra bad political luck piled on top of the fundamental bad luck of the fire.  First, she was in Ghana for some kind of conference and had to fly back as quickly as possible. So, of course all of her critics have to pretend that modern communication doesn’t exist and that Bass’ physical presence would have somehow made the Santa Ana winds stop blowing.  Second, the explanation for why the Fire Department budget was lower this year is a “well actually it’s complicated” one, which means the media won’t report it correctly even if she explains it at a press conference.  I saw a post on Bluesky indicating that the question about the Fire Department budget caught her unaware at a press conference, but obviously she has bigger fish to fry.  Finally, she’s black, so the right will pile on the DEI nonsense as high as it will go.

Anyway, as far as I’m concerned, it’s worth asking if the police budget in LA is bigger than it should be in comparison to the LAFD budget, given that these kinds of fire events are going to be far more common in the future, due to climate change.  And it’s certainly worth asking what changes need to be made to the way we build, and insure, communities at risk for these kinds of fires that will only become worse, due to climate change.  But in order to ask those questions, we need to acknowledge that climate change exists.  The right won’t do it, so instead the distractions will be piled higher than the rubble in places that burn to the ground.

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Truth is Getting Its Boots On

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Truth is Getting Its Boots On

Canadians are half past give-a-shit with the tariff and 51st state talk:

TORONTO (AP) — U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s comments that Canada should become the 51st state are no longer a joke and are meant to undermine America’s closest ally, Canada’s finance minister said Wednesday.

Dominic LeBlanc, the country’s point person for U.S-Canada relations, said Trump was smiling when he first made the comment during a dinner at Mar-a-Lago with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in late November.

“The joke is over,” said LeBlanc. “It’s a way for him, I think, to sow confusion, to agitate people, to create chaos knowing this will never happen.”

[…]

Trump refused to rule out acquiring Greenland and the Panama Canal by military force and has said the U.S doesn’t need anything from Canada, including automobiles, lumber and dairy products.

“I don’t know who is misinforming him,” Ontario Premier Doug Ford said. “Right now we ship 4.3 million barrels of crude oil into the U.S. 60 percent of their energy imports are coming from Canada.”

The U.S. imports approximately 60% of its crude oil from Canada, with Alberta alone supplying 4.3 million barrels per day. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the U.S. consumes about 20 million barrels a day, while domestically producing about 13.2 million barrels a day. This means about quarter of the oil the U.S. consumes every day is from Canada.

Canada is the top export destination for 36 U.S. states. Nearly $3.6 billion Canadian (US$2.7 billion) worth of goods and services cross the border each day.

The graph above is from Mexico Daily New’s story on tariffs.  From that story, I hadn’t heard this before:

Trump has long been critical of Mexico’s trade surplus with the United States, and it was a significant factor in his desire to terminate NAFTA, which was replaced by the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA, during his first term as president.

However, Mexico’s surplus with the United States has only increased in recent years, at least in part due to the trade war between the United States and China that Trump initiated.

The El Economista newspaper reported that Mexico’s surplus increased 146% between 2017 and 2024, whereas it only increased 3.6% between 2010 and 2017. The trade war between the U.S. and China began in early 2018.

The truth is that there’s a lot of stuff that we need that we import from Canada and Mexico, those imports have increased because we don’t import some of it from China, and both of our North American neighbors would be able to decimate our economy with retaliatory tariffs if Trump decides to pick a fight.

LeBlanc, Canada’s new Finance Minister, also announced that he’s not going to run for the leadership of the Liberal Party, giving the threat of tariffs as the reason.  LeBlanc was at the dinner at Mar-a-Lago when Trudeau hurried down there to try to placate Trump.  Chrystia Freeland, the former Finance Minister, resigned from Trudeau’s Cabinet after Trudeau made clear that he wanted someone else in her position.  Many see that as the last straw for Trudeau, especially with how tough her resignation letter was.  Now, she’s a major contender to become the head of the Liberal Party and the new PM.  This means that Trump will be facing at least one, and perhaps two tough women if he tries to impose tariffs.

Also, LOL at Doug Ford having to shit on Trump.  He’s the brother of late Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, and a leading member of the Tories, who are going to have a lot of explaining to do about their leader Pierre Poilievre’s Trump-curious leanings.

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Jimmy Carter, Good President, Great Man (we won’t see the likes of him again)

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Jimmy Carter, Jimmy Carter.

That’s how I think of him, because of the book by that name, where I first learned about Jimmy Carter all those years ago.

You can also watch or listen to the funeral or read a great Jimmy Carter story at this link.

h/t Raven

Jimmy Carter 1

Jimmy Carter, Charles Kirbo and a Billy Goat named Mac

by Jeff Hullinger

…So Mr. Kirbo and then-Governor Jimmy Carter traveled to Plains because they knew Billy Carter (the governor’s brother) had a goat for sale.

The perfect Christmas gift. A Billy (Carter) goat.

“Governor Carter then drove the goat [3 and a half hours] back to Atlanta from Sumter County,” Kathy continues. “They put the goat in the offices across from the state capitol, the Trinity Washington Building, until Christmas; so I wouldn’t see it.”

Governor Carter brought the goat through the basement of the government building.

And who was this Charles Kirbo?

Jimmy Carter

One of the greatest attorneys ever produced by the University of Georgia.

“He was my closest friend,” President Carter has said, “Without his wisdom, sound judgment and guidance, I never would have been a state senator, governor or president of the United States.”

Now back to the hidden Christmas goat.

Read the whole thing at the link above.

 

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Fire Check-in for Our California Peeps, Day 2

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So far, it looks like our California peeps were physically safe at the end of yesterday, but some are facing terrible losses.

It looks like UncleEb and BigJimSlade have lost their homes.  Please let us know what we can do to help.  With so many homes being lost, how do you find a place to stay?

What’s the expectation for today?  Have the crazy winds died down?

Hoping our California peeps can stay safe and will check in with us!

Fire Check-in for Our California Peeps

Edit: I keep hoping against hope that one or both of those houses miraculously didn’t burn after all.
Never would I be so happy to be wrong.

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Thursday Morning Open Thread: We Regret to Inform You…

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… I’m fresh out of good news. Maybe tomorrow!

Planet Fitness locations in Los Angeles are “offering anyone impacted by the fires—first responders and residents—free access to shower, recharge, and relax”
No membership is required to take advantage of locker rooms, WiFi, charging stations at any LA County location not impacted by the fires.

— Phil Lewis (@phillewis.bsky.social) January 8, 2025 at 3:53 PM

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Late Night Open Thread: NOLA Strong

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In the Christian liturgical calendar (work with me, here), Epiphany marks the end of the Christmas season on January 6th. But the next official ‘holiday’ season — Easter — is tied to the lunar calendar, so the date of ‘Mardi Gras’, announcing the start of Lent, falls anywhere from early February to the second week of March. This year, it’s on March 4th, which gives the New Orleans krewes (& the tourism board) a less-crowded-than-usual schedule for the various parades.

(Jehanne la Pucelle, supposedly born on January 6th, seems like a very appropriate patron saint for the much-beleaguered city named for her; she was executed by fire for ‘having blasphemed by wearing men’s clothes, acting upon visions that were demonic, and refusing to submit her words and deeds to the church because she claimed she would be judged by God alone’. Despite widespread veneration across generations and the globe, the Catholic hierarchy remained sufficiently insecure about her behavior that she wasn’t officially canonized until 1920.)

St. Joan of Arc parade last night in front of the St. Louis Cathedral. (snippet)
It was nice to see crowds there and a lot of police presence. Thoughts of those who were killed or hurt last week were not far from our thoughts, as many vigils have been held in the Quarter.

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— Toni McGee Causey (@tonimcgeecausey1.bsky.social) January 7, 2025 at 12:18 PM

She ran around in silver sparkling shoes, her faux chainmail tunic shimmering in the freezing breeze, maneuvering horses made of paper mâché, a giant green dragon, and sheep constructed from milk cartons.

Antoinette de Alteriis was preparing with hundreds of others to put on the Joan of Arc parade, a joyous, freewheeling kickoff to Carnival season.

Just a few blocks away, people wept and laid flowers and crosses at the site of a horrific truck attack that killed 14 people only six days earlier. A memorial to the dead stretched for half a block.

“That’s a hard thing. How do you reconcile that with having a parade?” de Alteriis said. “Here’s how we reconcile it: We chose hope.”

Countless times in the past week, politicians and outsiders have praised the city for its ability to bounce back. New Orleans has faced tragedy again and again, perhaps more than any other American place.

Locals wince when people praise the city’s “resilience.” They say they’re exhausted at being asked to endure the systemic problems and inequities and government failures.

Mark Schettler, a veteran bartender, said he prefers to think of this parade, and all the ones that will come after it, as an act of defiance that inspires others to follow, to act. That, he said, is what the city needs most right now.

“We’re so sick and tired of having to be resilient. How about for once things just work?” Schettler said. “But as long as I have two middle fingers I will always be waving them around defiantly.” …

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