You've got to give this to JD Vance. He's smooth. Unlike Trump who lies with the grace of a slegehammer, Vance delivers his bullsh-t via a grease-lubed Slip N Slide. "I think you can make a really good argument that [Trump] salvaged Obamacare, which was doing disastrously until Donald Trump came about." That lie was so absurd I almost needed to utilize the Affordable Care Act to stop myself from my vomiting. But it was just one of many collegially delivered absurdities ranging from where solar panels and guns come from, to the supposedly illegal immigrants in Springfield, to his own past statements on a national abortion ban, to the insane notion that Trump peacefully transferred power after losing the last election. I would have liked to see Tim Walz call out these lies as aggressively as I was calling them out in my living room (Put me in, Coach!). Most pundits seem to agree that JD Vance performed better in the debate while Tim Walz was more effective on the big issues such as abortion, health care, and the biggest issue of all, democracy. Vance refused to acknowledge that Trump lost the 2020 election (which should be game over in any debate). In the end, the big headline from this debate may be no headline at all. Most polls called it a draw and it's already being moved out of the top story slots by the Middle East crisis, the port strike, and the brutal aftermath of Helene. 2After the FloodThe storm passes. The clean up starts. The cameras and journalists leave. But the human cost of massive storms goes on. And on. "There’s the heightened physical and mental stress caused by the crisis. There can also be a cascade of added environmental hazards, like chemical releases from damaged industrial facilities. On top of that, storms hit people’s pocketbooks. They might have a harder time paying for healthcare as a result. Disasters tighten government budgets, which also could lead to less funds to spend on public health initiatives. And lastly, big storms can fray social support systems when people are displaced." The hidden toll taken by tropical storms. "The average tropical storm or hurricane leads to the early deaths of between 7,170 and 11,430 people, the researchers estimate." 3Hostage Negotiation"Gary Sick, a former Iran specialist on the National Security Council, was alleging that during the 1980 presidential campaign, while more than 50 Americans were being held hostage in Iran, Ronald Reagan’s team made a backroom arms deal with the new Islamic Republic to delay the hostages’ release until after the election. Carter, bedeviled by the international fiasco, would be denied the narrative he needed to save his sinking chances—an October surprise, that is—and Reagan could announce the Americans’ freedom just after he was sworn in (which he went on to do) ... Craig Unger’s career was nearly destroyed when he investigated a possible election conspiracy. Three decades later, he says he’s got the goods." The Atlantic(Gift Article): The Journalist Who Cried Treason. (I guess it's refreshing that most of today's nefarious political plots are carried out right in the open.) 4Erewhon Kenobi"If every city has a culinary punch line, it’s easy to identify Los Angeles’s: Erewhon, the cultish chain of grocery stores, where a half gallon of 'hyper oxygenated' water will run you an unconscionable $25.99. It started, in 1966, as a bean-sprouts-and-bulk-bins health-food stall in Boston, the brainchild of Japanese immigrants who evangelized the macrobiotic diet. Since then, it’s moved West and morphed into a slick, high-end wellness behemoth—a constant site of workaday paparazzi photos, a case study in capitalism posing as counterculture." Hannah Goldfield in The New Yorker: How Southern California became the epicenter of hype diets and twenty-dollar smoothies. (FWIW, I think the Hailey Bieber ‘Skin Glaze’ Smoothie is a bit overrated.) "A tour through Erewhon is a tour through the cultural pathologies of the day: seed-oil paranoia, Jordan Peterson-influenced masculinity panic, gratuitous self-medication for the remote-work set." 5Extra, ExtraInfiltrated: "Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned Hezbollah leader Syyed Hassan Nasrallah to flee Lebanon days before he was killed in an Israeli strike and is now deeply worried about Israeli infiltration of senior government ranks in Tehran." (I would say that's a pretty valid concern). Meanwhile, as the fighting becomes more fierce in southern Lebanon, the world waits to see how Israel will respond to Iran's missile attack. Here's the latest from CNN. 6Bottom of the News"Keighley is an old textile town, surrounded by the windswept moors of Yorkshire’s Brontë Country. The scars of postindustrial decay remain livid here: spectacular scenery that houses some of the most deprived areas in England. And the Cougars play Rugby League, an especially brutal iteration of a famously bruising discipline. Largely the exclusive preserve of old pit towns in northern England and northeastern Australia, Rugby League involves 26 musclebound players charging into each other at full speed for 80 minutes. Think N.F.L.-level collisions, but without all the helmets and padding. It is a tough game, played by tough people, in tough places. The plan hatched by Mr. Garcia and Mr. O’Neill, then — to arrange a Pride-themed day at Keighley’s stadium, and to employ a drag queen as the pregame entertainment — seemed ambitious." Great story from Rory Smith the NYT (Gift Article): Can Pro Sports and Drag Queens Coexist? A Mill Town Finds Out. |
Wednesday, October 2, 2024
Smooth Operator
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