Today in Evil, Elsivier Edition

It looks like the Ebola of the academic publishing world, Elsevier has so mismanaged one of their journals that the entire staff has resigned en masse.

They cut staff, upped the work load, removed copy editing support, and used AI to process articles, which has consistently introduced errors otherwise acceptable articles.

All but one member of the editorial board of the Journal of Human Evolution (JHE), an Elsevier title, have resigned, saying the “sustained actions of Elsevier are fundamentally incompatible with the ethos of the journal and preclude maintaining the quality and integrity fundamental to JHE’s success.” 

“Elsevier has steadily eroded the infrastructure essential to the success of the journal while simultaneously undermining the core principles and practices that have successfully guided the journal for the past 38 years,” the journal’s “joint Editors-in-Chief, all Emeritus Editors retired or active in the field, and all but one Associate Editor” said in their resignation statement posted to X/Twitter yesterday.

Among other moves, according to the statement, Elsevier “eliminated support for a copy editor and special issues editor,” which they interpreted as saying “editors should not be paying attention to language, grammar, readability, consistency, or accuracy of proper nomenclature or formatting.” The editors say the publisher “frequently introduces errors during production that were not present in the accepted manuscript:”

In fall of 2023, for example, without consulting or informing the editors, Elsevier initiated the use of AI during production, creating article proofs devoid of capitalization of all proper nouns (e.g., formally recognized epochs, site names, countries, cities, genera, etc.) as well italics for genera and species. These AI changes reversed the accepted versions of papers that had already been properly formatted by the handling editors. This was highly embarrassing for the journal and resolution took six months and was achieved only through the persistent efforts of the editors. AI processing continues to be used and regularly reformats submitted manuscripts to change meaning and formatting and require extensive author and editor oversight during proof stage. 

 Seriously, these guys make McKinsey & Company look good.

Because, of Course They Did

Remember Tesla laying off hundreds of workers?    The Apartheid Era Emerald Heir Pedo Guy™ is replacing those laid off workers with H1-B visa hires.

Anyone want to guess how much the going wage has dropped at the worst car company in the world? 

Electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla has reportedly hired foreign workers with H-1B visas after a wave of layoffs in the U.S.

Electrek reported on Monday that Tesla recently "ramped up its use of H-1B visas to replace U.S. workers it let go during a wave of layoffs earlier this year."

Current and former Tesla employees confirmed the car company's move in recent days, Electrek said. Tesla reportedly laid off at least 14% of its 120,000 workers in 2024.

So Musk laid off about 17,000 American workers, and he's replacing some (or all) of them with cheap foreign workers.

Elon, take a big step back and f%$# yourself in the face.  (Not mi words, I am quoting Elon.  Not even I write that badly)

Headline of the Day

OpenAI’s Board, Paraphrased: ‘To Succeed, All We Need Is Unimaginable Sums of Money’

—Daring Fireball

The technical term for this is, "The Bezzle,"  which John Kenneth Galbraith referred to as the period between when a con is executed and when the mark realizes that they have been had.

To the economist embezzlement is the most interesting of crimes. Alone among the various forms of larceny it has a time parameter. Weeks, months, or years may elapse between the commission of the crime and its discovery. (This is a period, incidentally, when the embezzler has his gain and the man who has been embezzled, oddly enough, feels no loss. There is a net increase in psychic wealth.) At any given time there exists an inventory of undiscovered embezzlement in — or more precisely not in — the country’s businesses and banks. This inventory — it should perhaps be called the bezzle — amounts at any moment to many millions of dollars. It also varies in size with the business cycle. In good times people are relaxed, trusting, and money is plentiful. But even though money is plentiful, there are always many people who need more. Under these circumstances the rate of embezzlement grows, the rate of discovery falls off, and the bezzle increases rapidly. In depression all this is reversed. Money is watched with a narrow, suspicious eye. The man who handles it is assumed to be dishonest until he proves himself otherwise. Audits are penetrating and meticulous. Commercial morality is enormously improved. The bezzle shrinks.

The bezzle abides.

Linkage

• Never Forgive Them (Where's Your Ed At?) A good essay on the Tech Bros enshittification of everything.
• Cutting Government Is Easy... If You Go After McKinsey (Big by Matt Stoller) His point is that we have hollowed out government by outsourcing to private business in the name of saving money, but it actually results in higher costs, because the foxes run the henhouse.
• In Waning Senate Days, Kyrsten Sinema Screwed Workers and Spent Campaign Cash on Stay at French Castle (The Intercept) Toxic narcissists gotta toxic narcissist, I guest.
• EU burns through gas storage at fastest rate since energy crisis (Financial Times) More fallout from the Ukraine conflict.
• The MAD Files (Tablet Magazine) A nice essay on Mad Magazine in its heyday.
• Ancient DNA sheds light on syphilis origins (Washington Post) It originated in the New World.
• Martin Niemöller was a not especially repentant anti-Semite (BlueSky) He had no problem with sending Jews to concentration camps, he had a problem with Jews who converted to Christianity being sent to the camps.
• Tortoise engraving suggests Middle Eastern religion from 37,000 years ago (Euronews) Far further back than I would have anticipated.
  

A very nice video about the drum line in various iconic '60s songs:

Quote of the Day

I will let people better equipped to interpret such things provide a fuller interpretation, but if you read the Gaetz report (.pdf) starting at page 3 (as numbered) at Procedural History, it is the kind of Calvinball sh%$ you would expect from the Trump DOJ but it was Garland.

—Duncan "Atrios" Black on the degree that Merrick' Garland's Department of Justice aggressively obstructed the House Ethics Committee's investigation of Matt Gaetz.

(%$ mine)

The DoJ refused to provide information to the committee, even after it had been subpoenaed.

The money quote is, "To date, DOJ has provided no meaningful evidence or information to the Committee or cited any lawful basis for its responses."

This is not ethics, nor is it non-partisanship.  It is cowardice and corruption.

Of Course He Will

Trump is looking to kill a rule that requires car manufacturers to report fatal crashes. 

Rather unsurprisingly, this means that Tesla would no longer have to report this data which shows it to be the most dangerous make of car in America:

Elon Musk’s car company Tesla doesn’t have the greatest track record when it comes to road safety. In fact, a recent analysis of federal data came to the conclusion that Musk’s car company ranks highest in fatal crash incidents. We have this information because of a federal reporting rule that was instituted by the Biden administration several years ago, the purpose of which was to improve transparency surrounding the deployment of new autonomous technologies on America’s roadways. Unfortunately, now that Donald Trump is headed back to the White House, it seems increasingly likely that he will nix that rule, which would be a big win for Trump’s new political ally, Musk.

Reuters reported Friday that members of Trump’s transition team are recommending that he eliminate the car crash reporting requirement. Reuters is basing its reporting on a document that showed that the recommendation to kill the crash reporting rule came from “a transition team tasked with producing a 100-day strategy for automotive policy.” The group called the measure a mandate for “excessive” data collection. Getting rid of the reporting requirement has been a goal of the company for some time. Reuters reports:

………

Previous reports have found that Tesla ranks high when it comes to their involvement in fatal incidents. As previously stated, a recent analysis of NHTSA data arrived at the conclusion that Tesla has the highest rate of involvement in fatal accidents of any major brand. A 2022 report released by the NHTSA itself claimed that, in the preceding year, Teslas had accounted for some 70 percent of the car crashes that involved driver-assist systems. This year, the agency published another report that found that Tesla’s Autopilot function had a “critical safety gap” that could be linked to hundreds of crashes. A previous analysis of federal data published by the Washington Post showed that Tesla’s Autopilot function had been involved in 17 fatalities and as many as 736 crashes since 2019.

So Trump wants to do a solid for the Apartheid Era Emerald Heir Pedo Guy™, who has, by lying consistently for over a decade about the capabilities of its Autopilot and Full Self Driving capabilities, which has resulted in thousands of drivers driving unsafely.

But Elon's rich, and he supported Trump, so he gets  what he wants.

Another War Criminal Has Died in His Own Bed

Jimmy Carter has died at the age of 100.

As I have noted, I consider Jimmy Carter to be a war criminal for the evil that he inflicted on Afghanistan.

He and Zbigniew Brzezinski bought a civil war in Afghanistan just to f%$# with the Soviets.  Brzezinski admitted as much in an an interview with the Nouvelle Observateur in 1998.

This was about 5 years after the Vietnam war had ended, with the deaths of 1.4 million Vietnamese civilians.

So massive destruction and death was almost a certainty when this decision was made.

1.5 million Afghan civilians died from 1978 to 1992, though it could be argued that the casualties after 1992 are also a part of Carter's toxic legacy.  (There is also about 200,000 additional casualties after 2001, but who's counting?)

And then there is the whole creation of the whole global Jihadi movement, and some unpleasantness in New York on September 11, 2001.

It should be noted that Carter is not alone in this sort of foreign interventions, nor is he alone in the long term failures that resulted.  (Look at Iran, Chile, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Syria, Guatemala, Nicaragua,  Indonesia, Iraq, Congo,  Dominican Republic, Brazil, Angola, East Timor, Argentina, etc.)

Credit where credit is due, he did not cash in after he lost the 1980 election the way that his Democratic successors did, but that is kind of like saying, "Apart from that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play."

Today in Cowardice

Trump was found liable for sexual assault in a civil case, and George Stephanopoulos, described it Trump's being found, "Liable for rape,'  and Trump sued, because under New York law at the time, it has to involve a penis penetrating a vagina to be rape.  Everything else is sexual assault or sexual abuse.

Trump sued, and now ABC has capitulated and settled, because they fear that President Trump will make their life difficult.

F%$# that.  Having a beef with authority is more than just part of the job for journalists, it is a badge of honor.

Even if one does not subscribe to New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, which remains the law of the land, Trump was found liable for what would be called rape in most of the United States.

A judge would dismiss this pretty early in the process.

In settling, they have endangered every journalist in the nation.

Last week, ABC News made a decision that should alarm anyone who cares about press freedom: it agreed to pay Donald Trump $16 million and issue a public apology over accurate reporting about his sexual abuse case. This wasn’t just a settlement—it was a surrender, and the implications for journalism are deeply troubling.

The details matter here. ABC is paying Trump $15 million (which will go to his “future presidential foundation and museum”) plus $1 million in legal fees because George Stephanopoulos used the phrase “liable for rape” when discussing Trump’s E. Jean Carroll case verdict. While the jury technically found Trump liable for sexual abuse rather than rape, even the judge noted this distinction was largely semantic, writing that the verdict didn’t mean Carroll had “failed to prove that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape.’”

In other words, ABC is paying Trump $16 million over what amounts to careful, defensible journalism.

As Margaret Sullivan points out in her latest American Crisis newsletter, this settlement breaks a cardinal rule of journalism: Don’t cave to legal intimidation. Drawing from her experience as editor of The Buffalo News, Sullivan explains that news organizations traditionally refuse to settle defamation cases because “settling would only encourage more people to sue.” Once you show that bullying works, you invite more bullying.

We know why they settled, it's because the owner of ABC, Disney, does not want any trouble with Trump in their activities.

F$#@ the F%$#ing Mouse.

Gee, Ya Think?

Around the turn of the century, there was a story on NPR about counseling, and insurance coverage for psychiatric services.

As is common, they started with a specific case and a specific person, because they felt that this would provide a reference point for the listeners.

In this case, it was a high power executive who was spending 15-20 days a month away from home, and hated it, and so needed counseling to deal with this.

I remember shouting at the radio (I shout a lot while driving, I inherited that trait from my Dad), "You don't need counseling, you need a different job!" 

This is not what is typically done in the United States.  I am not sure if this is a conceit of the profession, that is that they see themselves as being able to work everything out, or because the economic incentives make the practitioners disinclined to provide a permanent, or at least durable, solution which requires no additional treatment.  

You choose.

In any case, Dan Nelson has made a similar observation, though it is focused at general issues with societies more than the specific example above:

Human behavior is shaped by a complex interplay of life’s events, conditions, and circumstances. To truly understand a person’s actions and behaviors, one must ask: What was this person exposed to? What did they experience? These questions point to a profound truth: behavior cannot be separated from the environment in which it develops. From the safety of one’s surroundings to access to proper nutrition, sleep, and social stability, the circumstances of life have a lasting biochemical effect on the brain. These experiences are not merely coincidental with development, they actively shape it. 

………

Yet, it seems natural to us today, in a society shaped over a mere few hundred years, to assume we know better than nature itself. When we make aspects of nature illegal, we may be damaging humanity in ways we cannot fully grasp. Likewise, when we sever people from the natural rhythms and connections to their natural environment, we risk causing problems that remain beyond our understanding.

Yet, modern psychiatry operates as though behavior can be neatly categorized, diagnosed, and treated without this deeper understanding and consideration of the biological, social, environmental, circumstantial evidence and events that need to be understood unless they want to sell snake oil remedies. Psychiatric diagnoses, rooted in observable patterns of behavior, are often presented as authoritative conclusions.

His conclusion, that treating mental illness without recognizing the effects of an ill society, is a valid point.

It's a good read.  So read it.

Support Your Local Police

In yet another example of how New York City Mayor Eric Adams' unqualified support for any excesses of law enforcement in the city, we have learned that New York City Police Chief of Department Jeffery Maddrey has resigned after sex abuse accusations.

Maddrey has come up here before, specifically because he, or his Evil Minions™ retaliated against an officer for ticketing a "Friend of Maddrey" who had a courtesy card. 

So, we already know that he was corrupt, but it's gotten bad enough that he was forced out:

New York City’s top uniformed police officer, the chief of department, abruptly resigned Friday night following allegations of sexual misconduct, setting off local and federal investigations and extending years of turmoil at the Police Department.

The former chief, Jeffrey Maddrey, submitted his resignation and Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch accepted it, according to a statement from the department on Saturday.

Mayor Eric Adams had vocally supported Mr. Maddrey, a close ally, as recently as October. But on Saturday, a spokeswoman for the mayor, Kayla Mamelak Altus, said that he was working with Commissioner Tisch to conduct a “separate departmentwide review to ensure no high-ranking officers are using their power inappropriately.”

“We are deeply disturbed by these allegations and the N.Y.P.D. is investigating this matter,” Ms. Mamelak Altus said.

The New York Post reported Saturday morning that Mr. Maddrey had demanded sex from a subordinate, sometimes at Police Headquarters, in exchange for overtime.

………

Federal investigators have joined a city Department of Investigation inquiry into the provision of overtime and the allegations of misconduct against Mr. Maddrey, according to two people with knowledge of the matter. The F.B.I. declined to comment.

The Manhattan district attorney’s office is also looking into the matter.

………

Mr. Adams, a former police captain, has taken an outsize role in the department, and Mr. Maddrey was one of several of his associates who had reached its top echelon. In October, the mayor said during a podcast appearance that “everyone knows and loves” Mr. Maddrey.

But Mr. Maddrey rose despite a series of troubling investigations and allegations, including that he had once harassed a female subordinate. Throughout his three-decade career — and long before being elevated to the department’s highest-uniformed rank — Mr. Maddrey faced disciplinary charges and litigation.

What a surprise.  A cop rises through the ranks despite decades of reported misconduct.

This appears to be a feature of police departments everywhere.

I Love it When They Eat Their Own

It appears that a significant portion of MAGAts have taken exception to Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy saying that we need programs like the H1-B visa because Americans are lazy and stupid.

Gee, who could imagine that a movement largely motivated by hostility to immigration would take exception to such a position?

Also, why does the Apartheid Era Emerald Heir Pedo Guy™ hate America?

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, who will soon head President-elect Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, have repeatedly demonized undocumented immigrants. In recent days, though, Musk and Ramaswamy have both argued Big Tech firms desperately need foreign workers — generating controversy among the MAGA base.

Both Musk and Ramaswamy appeared to be expressing support for H-1B visas for high-skilled workers. These visas have often been criticized by the left and right for allowing companies to rely on cheaper foreign labor. Companies also maintain significant control over such workers; it’s difficult for them to switch jobs, and if they lose their jobs, they can be forced to leave the country.

Musk took to his social media site, X, on Wednesday to argue that Silicon Valley firms need foreign workers because there aren’t enough “super motivated” and “super talented engineers” in America. His statements quickly drew criticism from conservatives who support Trump’s draconian immigration policies.

“The number of people who are super talented engineers AND super motivated in the USA is far too low,” Musk wrote. “Think of this like a pro sports team: if you want your TEAM to win the championship, you need to recruit top talent wherever they may be. That enables the whole TEAM to win.” 

………

Ramaswamy further argued on Thursday that tech firms need foreign workers because Americans don’t have a good enough work ethic — blaming the culture.

“The reason top tech companies often hire foreign-born & first-generation engineers over ‘native’ Americans isn’t because of an innate American IQ deficit (a lazy & wrong explanation). A key part of it comes down to the c-word: culture,” wrote Ramaswamy.

I do not think that either of these con-men are long to Donald Trump's inside circle.

Oh, Clarence

And we have yet more undeclared luxury junkets provided by Harlan Crow to Clarence Thomas.

Clarence, you have been a very bad boy:

Justice Clarence Thomas failed to disclose two additional trips from a billionaire patron that had not previously come to light, Senate Democrats revealed on Saturday after conducting a 20-month investigation into ethics practices at the Supreme Court.

The findings were part of a 93-page report released by Democratic staff members of the Judiciary Committee along with about 800 pages of documents. It said the two trips, both of which had been previously unknown to the public, took place in 2021 and were provided by Harlan Crow, a real estate magnate in Texas and a frequent patron of Justice Thomas’s.

One trip took place that July by private jet from Nebraska to Saranac, N.Y., where Justice Thomas stayed at Mr. Crow’s upstate retreat for five days. The other came in October, when Mr. Crow hosted Justice Thomas overnight in New York on his yacht after flying him from the District of Columbia to New Jersey for the dedication of a statue.

A special thanks to Merrick Garland, Dick Durbin, and the rest of them for normalizing corruption at the highest court in the land.

In a just world, Thomas would have been frog-marched out of his offices in handcuffs, or at least forced to resign in disgrace.

Can You Say Jury Nullification? I Knew You Could.

For all of the outrage from the "Very Serious People" it does appear that the American public understands the significance of the murder of UnitedHealthcare's CEO, and that the vast majority of Americans understand that the underlying issue is not one of violence, but of the complete dysfunction of healthcare in the United States.

Believing the health insurance industry is at least partly responsible for the murder of the UnitedHealthcare CEO is not some fringe position. 69 percent of Americans say health insurance claim denials had “a great deal” or  “moderate amount” of responsibility for the killing of CEO Brian Thompson, according to a new poll conducted by NORC at University of Chicago. Nearly as many (67 percent) blamed health insurance company profits.

The poll also captures a nuance that’s sorely lacking in major media coverage, which tends to collapse the issue into two camps: those who condemn the murder vs. those who support it. That kind of two-sizes-fits-all framing leaves no room for the view that both the shooter and the healthcare industry share responsibility for the CEO’s death. NORC’s poll suggests this more nuanced attitude is in fact quite mainstream. The number of respondents who blamed the shooter wasn’t much higher (78 percent) than those who blamed health insurance claim denials (69 percent).

Now compare that with the tsunami of corporate media op-eds and pundits expressing the sparkling insight that murder is wrong. Yeah, we know. Episodes like these really show you how much contempt these elite media organs have for the public, which they apparently see as helpless children in need of a preschool level moral lesson. This is the exact same media paternalism that prevented them from publishing Mangione “manifesto,” thinking the zombie-like masses would have no choice but to obey the writings and carry out similar acts of violence.

The response of the authorities, and of the pundit class, has been, "Let them eat cake."*

It should be noted that such attitudes when juxtaposed with completely justified outrage of the general populace have not generally been particularly harmonious.

^*A bit of a correction here. First, the quote is actually, "Qu'ils mangent de la brioche," let them eat brioche, a French egg bread, and this term was coined by Jean-Jacques Rousseau decades before Marie Antoinette became queen.

Headline of the Day

People Left Twitter Because Twitter's Product Sucks, Not Because of Purity Politics

—Splinter

When people look at social media, or other "Free" products, and note that, "You are the product," they are only partially correct.

A large portion of what makes these sites valuable is their moderation policies and their execution on those policies.

Given Musk's pro fascist/Nazi/racist proclivities, and how this has affected Ecch (Twitter), it should come to no surprise that Twitter is shedding users, and more important active participants quickly.

If your post about a child being born is responded to by pictures of mutilated babies, you are less likely to participate.

If your statements about your family or religion result in bigoted replies, you are less likely to participate.

If you are a racist only posting to other racists, you are unlikely to participate, because you are in it for "Owning the libs."

Musk's self defenestration would be amusing were it not for the collateral damage3.

Of Course They Did

I am not surprised that health insurance companies strong-armed the Department of Justice into filing federal charges against Luigi Mangione.

Lobbying to get their interests placed ahead of the interests of the rest of us is a core of their business model:

According to reporting by Joe Marino, Ben Kochman and Matt Troutman last week, health insurance leaders pressured the DOJ to make an example of Luigi Mangione by bringing federal charges against him in a surprise announcement that caught his lawyers off guard. If tried in federal court, Mangione could be sentenced to death, silencing any further criticism of the American healthcare system he decried in his manifesto.

According to the Post’s report, “federal charges came amid pressure from health insurance industry leaders to make an example out of Mangione.” The post also writes that the decision to unveil federal charges “came from the top of the DOJ in Washington D.C.”

How and when healthcare industry leaders tried to strong-arm the department of justice remains unclear. But the top three DOJ officials under Attorney General Merrick Garland have all represented massive healthcare companies during their respective stints in private practice before joining the DOJ.

(emphasis mine)

Note that the original source is The New York Post, but the rapidity and ferocity of the filings support their reporting.

Thanks, Merrick.

Yeah, This is Gonna Last About a Month

As one of her last acts as FTC Chair, Lina Khan has placed limits on junk fees by hotels and ticketing providers.

It's nothing particularly extreme, it simply says that you need to include the aforementioned fees in the price that you advertise your service for.

This is reasonable, easy to implement, and would probably be highly effective. 

This is why Trump and his Evil Minions™ will reverse this decision almost immediately, or Congress will use the CRA to ban this forever.

A few years ago, I started to notice something when I went to stay in a hotel. There would often be some sort of undisclosed “resort fee” or “facility fee” that I’d have to pay, which hadn’t appeared on the upfront price that I found on Expedia or on the hotel website. There was little I could do about it, it was a deceptive price hike, and usually the person managing the counter was just as frustrated about it as I was.

As it turns out, I’m not alone. According to Consumer Reports, 85% of Americans “have experienced a hidden or unexpected fee for a service in the previous two years,” and 96% found them “highly annoying” and said they were paying more in hidden charges than they were five years ago.

So I figured the day after Christmas would be a nice time to discuss one of the final things that the Federal Trade Commission under Lina Khan did, which is to restrict these extremely annoying hidden fees in the ticketing and short-term lodging industries by mandating that sellers disclose the full price upfront. Such a change has been a long time coming. Last October, the FTC put out a proposal to formally declare these fees unlawful as part of their mandate to ban unfair and deceptive practices. The commission found that such hidden charges cost consumers 53 million wasted hours searching for the actual price.

………

From now on, as the FTC rule states, “to offer, display, or advertise any price of live-event tickets or short-term lodging without clearly, conspicuously and prominently disclosing the total price” is an unlawful and deceptive practice. The rule goes into effect 120 days after it’s published in the Federal Register, so in late March or early April.

The Trump administration will kill this, arguing that this is anti-business.

It's not anti-business, it's anti-grifter, and people like Elon Musk (Look at buying or servicing a Tesla) and Marc Andreeson see these deceptive practices as central to their businesses and a God given right.

It's Thursday ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Initial unemployment claims fell more than forecast, but continuing claims rose to a 3 year high.

So, employers are still skittish about letting people go, but people are not finding new jobs.

Recurring applications for US unemployment benefits rose to the highest in more than three years, adding to signs that it is taking longer for out-of-work people to find a job.

Continuing applications, a proxy for the number of people receiving benefits, rose to 1.91 million in the week ended Dec. 14, according to Labor Department data released Thursday. Initial claims, meanwhile, ticked down to 219,000 in the week ended Dec. 21.

Recurring filings have been gradually trending up this year, consistent with other data showing the unemployed are having a harder time finding work.

………

The four-week moving average of new applications, a metric that helps smooth out volatility, rose to 226,500.

Before adjusting for seasonal factors, initial claims rose last week. New Jersey, Connecticut and California registered the biggest increases while Florida, New York and West Virginia saw the largest declines.

That last bit is important.

We are in a time of the year where seasonal factors are kind of squirrely. 

I think that we might get a more accurate picture by the 2nd week of January or so.

Linkage

• Ricky Gervais Says That David Bowie Calling Him A ‘Chubby Little Loser’ Was One of the Greatest Moments of His Life (Cracked.com) I am so jealous of Ricky Jervais
• Flour, water, salt, GitHub: The Bread Code is a sourdough baking framework (Ars Technica) Yes, there is a GitHub for sourdough.
• Sources of Permanent Capital for Cooperatives (Grassroots Economic Organizing) Useful.  Conventional banks won't help.
• How Typing Transformed Nietzsche’s Consciousness (The MIT Press Reader) Nietzsche's later output was enabled by his use of a typewriter.  He had become too ill to use longhand. 
• Matt Yglesias Is Confidently Wrong About Everything (Current Affairs) A very amusing, and very well deserved take-down.  The subhed says it all, "The Biden administration’s favorite centrist pundit produces smug pseudo-analysis that cannot be considered serious thought. He ought to be permanently disregarded."
• UnitedHealthcare Tells Employees to 'Shut Up'  (Ken Klippenstein) His employees hated him too.
• Wasabi (Nippon.com) Everything you wanted to know about the pungent rhizome but were afraid to ask.
• Are Social Media Platforms the Next Dying Malls?  (The Honest Broker) First, I hope so, and second, there are significant similaraties.
• What Ireland's Great Famine can teach us about the EU-Mercosur free trade deal (Thomas Fazi) He argues that this deal threatens the existence of farming in the EU.  I'm not sure I agree, but it is worth a read.
  

You want to teach the bible in public schools? Teach the real bible:

As If There Weren’t Enough Reasons to Hate Them with a White Hot Passion

It turns out that Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) extorted money from pharmaceutical companies to in furtherance of the pharma companies peddling addictive drugs.

Seriously.  Just shut them down.  Make them illegal.

In 2017, the drug industry middleman Express Scripts announced that it was taking decisive steps to curb abuse of the prescription painkillers that had fueled America’s overdose crisis. The company said it was “putting the brakes on the opioid epidemic” by making it harder to get potentially dangerous amounts of the drugs.

The announcement, which came after pressure from federal health regulators, was followed by similar declarations from the other two companies that control access to prescription drugs for most Americans.

The self-congratulatory statements, however, didn’t address an important question: Why hadn’t the middlemen, known as pharmacy benefit managers, acted sooner to address a crisis that had been building for decades?

One reason, a New York Times investigation found: Drugmakers had been paying them not to.

For years, the benefit managers, or P.B.M.s, took payments from opioid manufacturers, including Purdue Pharma, in return for not restricting the flow of pills. As tens of thousands of Americans overdosed and died from prescription painkillers, the middlemen collected billions of dollars in payments.

Let's be clear here.  PBMs did not, "Take,"  payments from big pharma, they did not, "Accept," payments from big pharma, they DEMANDED payment. 

Demanding payment from drug manufacturers and pharmacies is their whole business model.

………

The documents reviewed by The Times — including contracts, invoices, emails, memos and financial data — span more than two decades, beginning with the debut of OxyContin in 1996. Many came from a public repository of records unearthed during court cases and investigations. The Times also obtained more than 200 previously confidential documents from plaintiffs in litigation against drugmakers, P.B.M.s and others.

In the public assignment of blame for the opioid epidemic, the P.B.M.s have largely escaped notice. Drugmakers, distributors, pharmacies and doctors have paid billions of dollars to resolve lawsuits and investigations. But more recently, the largest P.B.M.s have been in the legal cross hairs.

………

But this often presented the clients with a fraught choice: If they added restrictions, they could lose the rebates that helped make coverage affordable.

In addition, documents show that P.B.M.s sometimes collaborated with opioid manufacturers to persuade insurers not to restrict access to their drugs.

Fines are not enough.  Jail the mother-f%$#ers.

Headline of the Day

The Case for Dismantling the Rules-Based International Order

—Glenn Diesen

Dr. Diesen makes the argument that the, "Rules-Based International Order," is actually code words for US hegemony and the law of the jungle.

I agree.

Here are the first few 'graphs:

The so-called “rules-based international order” aims to facilitate a hegemonic world, which entails displacing international law. While international law is based on equal sovereignty for all states, the rules-based international order upholds hegemony on the principle of sovereign inequality.

The rules-based international order is commonly presented as international law plus international human rights law, which appears benign and progressive. However, this entails introducing contradictory principles and rules. The consequence is a system devoid of uniform rules, in which “might makes right”. International human rights law introduces a set of rules to elevate the rights of the individual, yet human-centric security often contradicts state-centric security as the foundation of international law.

The US as the hegemonic state can then choose between human-centric security and state-centric security, while adversaries must abide strictly by state-centric security due to their alleged lack of liberal democratic credentials. For example, state-centric security as the foundation of international law insists on the territorial integrity of states, while human-centric security allows for secession under the principle of self-determination. The US will thus insist on territorial integrity in allied countries such as Ukraine, Georgia or Spain, while supporting self-determination within adversarial states such as Serbia, China, Russia and Syria. The US can interfere in the domestic affairs of adversaries to promote liberal democratic values, yet the US adversaries do not have the right to interfere in the domestic affairs of the US. To facilitate a hegemonic international order, there cannot be equal sovereignty for all states.

You should read the whole thing, but his thesis is that it all comes down to, "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."

I agree.

This Needs to be Said

When people talk about the dire consequences of demographic collapse, what they really mean is that they have real estate investments, or that they want excess workers so that they can underpay or otherwise mistreat workers, or that they need cannon fodder for wars.

When one looks at historical examples of population declines, the Black Death is a classic example, it turns out that the aftermaths are a time of increased well being for the bulk of the population.

I've been saying this for a while, and now so has Ian Welsh.

There is a genre of population decline doomerism. An example:

Three terrifying charts about Japan’s demographics.

1) Japan’s population is shrinking. It decreased by 850,000 last year. pic.twitter.com/HOKijFWRdx

— S.L. Kanthan (@Kanthan2030) December 21, 2024

Here’s the thing, Japan imports about sixty percent of its food. Japan is, by any reasonable measure, over-populated.

If you can’t feed your population and if there is no reasonable prospect that you could feed your population, perhaps you have too many people?

Another country for which this is true is Britain, which imports about 80% of its food. Yet the British have also been importing over a million people a year.

One might suggest, as well, that any country which has a large number of homeless people is also overpopulated: clearly it has more people than it is capable of taking care of. (Though we all know that’s usually a choice, not a constraint.)

The world is overpopulated by humans and our domesticated animals. We are in classic population overshoot.

………

Population doomers never ask the simple question: Under what circumstances is population growth good and under what circumstances is population decline good?

And for whom?

There was no better time to live in Medieval Europe than after the Black Death.

Decline now, while it’s gentle. If you insist on not doing so, you will do it the hard way.

(Much of this is driven by prioritization of GDP, a desire for low wages, and a deep misunderstanding of what makes an economy strong. More on that in the future.)

I'm not sure how much this all means, but someone is agreeing with me, and that is a rare thing.

This was Inevitable

It appears that Donald Trump is profoundly unamused by reports that Elon Musk is running things.

This is not a surprise, Elon Musk is profoundly arrogant, and Donald Trump is a delicate snowflake:

Donald Trump dismissed the “President Musk” jokes Sunday, and it was less than convincing.

During his address at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest conference in Phoenix, Arizona, the president-elect pushed back on claims that Musk planned to supplant him as president.

“No, he’s not gonna be president, that I can tell you,” Trump said. “And I’m safe, you know why? He can’t be, he wasn’t born in this country.”

But Trump carefully elided the actual criticism of Musk’s growing political influence. People aren’t worried that Musk is plotting to steal the presidency—they’re worried he already has.

I expect that there will be a loud breakup in the next 6 months or so.

About that Russian Interference in the Romanian Presidential Elections

You remember that election, where unknown nut-job Călin Georgescu came in first, and then the Romanian Supreme Court voided the elections because of a Russian meddling in the election via TikTok?

Well, it turns out that it was the mainstream center right party that ran the campaign, because they thought that it would divert votes from their main opposition. 

So, are they going to the runoff then?  Of course not.

A communications agency picked influencers to make TikTok videos about the qualities of a future Romanian president for the centre-right PNL party, endorsing little-known ultranationalist Georgescu instead.

Romania’s center-right National Liberal Party (PNL) has paid for a campaign on videosharing platform TikTok which ultimately led to the win of far-right ultranationalist candidate Calin Georgescu in the first round of the presidential election on 24 November, a report published by investigative outlet Snoop.ro suggests.

………

The report quotes a source from Romania’s tax authority, which conducted the investigation into the political spending, who said, "it is a shock for everyone that the public money offered by taxpayers to the PNL was used to promote another candidate."

………

The Snoop.ro report also suggests that the TikTok campaign is not the only tool from which Georgescu benefited: IT expert Bogdan Peșchir, known as "BogPR," donated over €1 million to users of TikTok accounts that promoted Georgescu. EU Commission investigation

………

The election was annulled after the Constitutional Court received evidence of Russian interference in the voting process, particularly on TikTok, as provided by the country’s intelligence services.

Sounds to me like some serious rat-f%$#ing is going on, and my guess is that the rat-f%$#ers in question hail from both Moscow and Brussels.

When elephants fight, the grass suffers.

Deep Thought

Obviously, being Jewish, I really don't have a dog in this hunt, but it is kind annoying that we see Christmas advertisements before Columbus Day.

History Rhyming

Not GoodRemember 2008 and 2009 when the financial system imploded because of widespread failures of high risk loans and governments across the world had to bail out the banksters?

Well, it is happening again.

Gee, massive bailouts and no prosecutions, and no one learned their lesson?

Hoocoodanode? 

US companies are defaulting on junk loans at the fastest rate in four years, as they struggle to refinance a wave of cheap borrowing that followed the Covid pandemic.

Defaults in the global leveraged loan market — the bulk of which is in the US — picked up to 7.2 per cent in the 12 months to October, as high interest rates took their toll on heavily indebted businesses, according to a report from Moody’s. That is the highest rate since the end of 2020.

The rise in companies struggling to repay loans contrasts with a much more modest rise in defaults in the high-yield bond market, highlighting how many of the riskier borrowers in corporate America have gravitated towards the fast-growing loan market.

Because leveraged loans — high yield bank loans that have been sold on to other investors — have floating interest rates, many of those companies that took on debt when rates were ultra low during the pandemic have struggled under high borrowing costs in recent years. Many are now showing signs of pain even as the Federal Reserve brings rates back down.

That's kind of scary, but then there is this:

 ………

Punitive borrowing costs, together with lighter covenants, are leading borrowers to seek other ways to extend this debt.

If you are not a financial wonk the whole, "Lighter Covenants," thing may sound arcane.  It's not.  (Wikipedia article here)

The short version is that business loans have covenants which allow lenders to intervene under certain conditions.  For example, if the underlying assets fall in value, or certain cash flow levels are not met, or regular financial reports are not made to the lender, and consequences can include calling in the loan(s).

These requirements are supposed to protect the lender for high risk loans, but over the past few decades, competition from non-bank entities like private equity and hedge funds have resulted in a lowering of lending standards.

So this paragraph basically saying, that the loans are extremely low quality, and the lenders are at serious risk of massive defaults.

Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

Skeet of the Day

All the finest character witnesses.

[image or embed]

— Ron Filipkowski (@ronfilipkowski.bsky.social) December 24, 2024 at 6:52 PM

Oh, snap!

It's also up on Ecch (Twitter), but why the f%$# would I link to that?

Seriously, you cannot make this sh%$ up. 

This is a massive, and a massively amusing.

I guess that pedophiles stick together.

I have some sympathy here, but it is not for Josh Dunlap, it is for the writers for The Onion.

How the f%$# can these guys get up in the morning and snark for a living?

They have the toughest job in the world.

Forget it Jake, It's Amazon

So Amazon is insisting that employees report to the office 5 days a week even though there is no space for them.

If you were wondering if this is about workplace performance, or if it's just a crude and cruel attempt to put workers in their places, I think that you have your answer:

Amazon announced in September that it will require workers to be in the office five days a week starting in January. Employee backlash ensued, not just because return-to-office (RTO) mandates can be unpopular but also because Amazon is using some of the worst strategies for issuing RTO mandates.

Ahead of the mandate, Amazon had been letting many employees work remotely for two days a week, with a smaller number of workers being totally remote. But despite saying that employees would have to commute five days per week, the conglomerate doesn’t have enough office space to accommodate over 350,000 employees. Personnel in “at least seven cities,” including Phoenix and Austin, Texas, have had their RTO dates delayed until after January, Bloomberg reported today, citing “people familiar with the situation." Employees in Dallas won’t have enough space until March or April, and an office in New York City won’t have sufficient space until May, per Bloomberg's sources.

RTO dates are also delayed in Atlanta, Houston, and Nashville, Tennessee, Business Insider reported this week, citing “internal Amazon notifications.”

………

The differing messaging around workers returning to offices full-time represents another hiccup around a debated policy. Amazon’s approach thus far seems to align with what some research suggests irks employees about RTO mandates.

A November study of over 3 million "high-tech and financial" workers at 54 companies on the S&P 500 index (PDF) concluded that RTO mandates could lead to employees doubting leadership’s ability to lead and make decisions. Amazon workers were already questioning the “non-data-driven explanation” provided to them for the RTO policy, as over 500 Amazon employees wrote to Amazon Web Services CEO Matt Garman in October. Issuing a strict, widespread mandate only to share three months later that the self-proposed deadline is unfeasible in some places likely exacerbates concern about Amazon's ability to effectively manage an exodus from hybrid work and the necessity of returning to offices full-time in January at all.

The RTO mandate is about 2 things, demonstrating management's power, and engaging in a stealth layoff.

I might suggest that Amazon office workers consider a union, though given the realities of Amazon (mis)management, this is a non trivial action.

If This Weren't Typical, It Would Be Laughable

The Navy has a program to modernize its Aegis Cruisers (Ticonderoga Class), and as is typical for all US defense procurement efforts, it is not going well:

This week the United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) published a groundbreaking report on the lessons and failures of the Cruiser Modernization program, building on the statements of U.S. Navy officials throughout the program’s history.

The Cruiser Modernization program was initiated as a result of the Navy’s intent to begin decommissioning the Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser fleet. The retirement of the first seven Ticonderoga-class cruisers was proposed in 2012. Congress rejected this proposal and provided funds to modernize the fleet of Ticonderoga-class cruisers, marking the start of the Cruiser Modernization program that would last nearly 15 years.

………

After back-and-forth between the U.S. Navy and Congress regarding specifics of the Phased Modernization Plan submitted as part of the President’s Budget for Fiscal Year 2015, the U.S. Navy adopted a “2-4-6” strategy. According to the GAO, this strategy consisted of the following:

“A total of 11 cruisers [modernized] over 10 years by inducting no more than 2 cruisers each year into modernization cycles, for up to 4 years in modernization, and with no more than 6 cruisers undergoing modernization at the same time.”Government Accountability Report on the Cruiser Modernization program

………

The entire Cruiser Modernization plan proved to be a failure for the U.S. Navy. 

………

According to the GAO, the main point of failure in the Cruiser Modernization program was a lack of long-term planning and preparation for such a complex task. The program experienced over 9,000 contract changes, resulting in delays and scope creep that made modernization extremely difficult for contractors and U.S. Navy inspectors. Little to no preparation was done in the planning, and no alternatives were considered.

………

The original cost for the modernization of five Ticonderoga-class cruisers, the USS Cowpens, USS Vicksburg, USS Gettysburg, USS Chosin, and USS Cape St. George, was estimated at $2.44 billion. According to GAO findings, the cost of this estimate grew by 36%, or nearly $881 million.

Schedule delays also marred the program. Cruiser Modernization had a planned modernization period of four years, as part of the 2-4-6 plan, but actual modernization periods that stretched between 3 years to 5 years, with each ship unique in its needs for modernization and repair. Four ships brought into their modernization periods were never completed; USS Hué City, USS Anzio, USS Cowpens, and USS Vicksburg.

………

The U.S. Navy spent nearly $4 billion to modernize three Ticonderoga-class cruisers, giving those cruisers a cumulative 10 years of service life extension to 2030. The most recent extension was announced by Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro in early November. Naval News detailed the final breakdown of the Ticonderoga-class cruiser fleet here.

Of that $4 billion total, $1.84 billion was spent on four cruisers that never returned to the fleet. If the U.S. Navy moved ahead with the completion of modernization of one of those four cruisers, the USS Cowpens, it would take at least $88 million and an additional three years of drydock work according to the Surface Ship Modernization Program Office.

And people wonder why the Russia out-produces the United States in artillery shells despite having a GDP roughly 1/15 that of the US.

The US defense procurement system is completely broken.

About that Other Pedo Guy

The Matt Gaetz ethics report is out, and Mr. "Close Encounters with the third grade" a rapist:

A House ethics committee report on Matt Gaetz, the former Florida Republican congressman, found “substantial evidence” that he paid for sex with a minor, among other serious violations of state law and congressional rules.

The investigation concludes that Gaetz, Trump’s first pick for attorney general, made payments totalling tens of thousands of dollars to women for sex and drugs across at least 20 separate occasions. The report also states that in 2017 Gaetz paid a 17-year-old girl for sex when he was 35 years old, which would constitute statutory rape under Florida law.

“The committee determined there is substantial evidence that Representative Gaetz violated House Rules and other standards of conduct prohibiting prostitution, statutory rape, illicit drug use, impermissible gifts, special favors or privileges, and obstruction of Congress,” the Republican-led panel wrote in the investigation.

 ………

According to the report, Gaetz used payment apps including Venmo and PayPal to transfer money directly to more than a dozen women during his time in Congress.

The committee determined that Gaetz regularly used illegal drugs including cocaine and ecstasy between 2017-2020, and appears to have set up a pseudonymous email account from his House office to purchase marijuana, violating both state laws and House ethics rules.

The committee believes that Gaetz “knowingly and willfully” attempted to obstruct the investigation, including failing to comply with subpoenas, withholding evidence, providing misleading responses, and making false public statements about “voluminous documentary evidence” that he never actually produced. 

………

Gaetz, who has denied all the allegations, in effect forestalled the report’s release by abruptly resigning from Congress last month after Trump nominated him as his attorney general in a decision that drew fierce bipartisan condemnation.

(emphasis mine)

Matt is a corrupt SOB, and had Merrick Garland not corruptly punted on this case, he'd be in the dock, or in jail, right now..

Support Your Local Police

On a number of occasions, I have noted that police appear to be objectively pro fascist.

We have another data point with the conviction of former head of the Washington, D.C. police department's intelligence unit tipping off Proud Boys leader Henry “Enrique” Tarrio about an outstanding arrest warrant, and then lying about it.

A former D.C. police lieutenant was found guilty in federal court Monday on charges that he improperly warned Proud Boys leader Henry “Enrique” Tarrio of his pending arrest two days before the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack, then lied about it to investigators.

Shane Lamond, a 24-year department veteran, withheld from colleagues that Tarrio had confessed to burning a Black Lives Matter banner stolen from a historic African American church during a pro-Trump rally weeks earlier and leaked word to Tarrio that a warrant had been signed for his arrest, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson found.

“Whatever the relationship had been before, after the banner burning the defendant was not using Tarrio as a source; it was the other way around,” Jackson said Monday. “He knew then, and he knows now, that it was wrong.”

She found Lamond guilty of obstructing justice and subsequently making three false statements in an interview with two U.S. attorney’s office investigators to hide his involvement: Lamond denied tipping off Tarrio to the investigation or the arrest warrant and claimed their communications were mostly “one-sided” from the Proud Boys leader.

The week-long trial spotlighted D.C. police interactions with extremist groups in 2020 and 2021, when liberal groups accused police of appearing to favor right-leaning organizations. Lamond, 48, of Stafford, Virginia, headed D.C. police’s intelligence unit at the time.

………

What mattered, she said, was that Lamond shared sensitive information with Tarrio and lied about it — the rest was “icing on the cake.” 

………

Jackson set Lamond’s sentencing for April 3. The District obstruction charge is punishable by up to 30 years in prison upon conviction, and the federal false statement counts are each punishable by up to five years, but first-time offenders rarely receive maximum sentences.

This one should get the max, or something close to it.

Police know the law, and he abused his position, and then lied about it.

Cops should be held to a higher standard than the rest of us, because they are given the right to apply force, often deadly force, by the state.

To quote Peter Parker, with great power comes great responsibility.

Deep Thought

Donning My Tinfoil Hat

So, it appears that after Niger kicked the French military out of their country, there has been a huge upsurge in terrorism from Islamic extremists.

I'm thinking that there are entities in France and the US that might be supporting the aforementioned Islamists because they want to put the country back under Paris' thumb.

No evidence here, just my inner paranoid whispering in my ear:

Attacks that killed dozens of civilians and soldiers in Niger this month have put a spotlight on the military’s failure to restore security in the West African nation, nearly 18 months after staging a coup.

When the military seized power in July 2023, the generals claimed they were better suited to restore order to a country racked by the world’s deadliest jihadist insurgency. But Niger has since spiraled into further violence, with frequent attacks on military forces, the recent destruction of a village and the killing of more than 20 passengers on a bus.

The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack on military forces. All three attacks took place in western Niger, where affiliates of the Islamic State and Al Qaeda are active.

Militants affiliated with these groups have killed nearly twice as many civilians since the coup, compared with the 18 months that preceded it, according to data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data, or A.C.L.E.D., a nonprofit that tracks global conflict.

If this is the case, it would not be unprecedented, as western intelligence has been supporting Jihadis as a way to achieve regime change in Syria.

Yes

Not even the Joker had a perp walk of this magnitude. pic.twitter.com/INQMii6RAn

— Dom Lucre | Breaker of Narratives (@dom_lucre) December 19, 2024

This is like a painting by Raphael

Did the NYPD's perp walk of Luigi Mangione backfire?

This has been another episode of simple answers to simple questions.

Nice to see the little bit of NYPD sadism blowing up in their faces.

Also, it appears that Eric Adams was there, probably to practice for his inevitable perp walk:

It was the perp walk that launched a thousand memes.

Luigi Mangione, the 26-year-old charged in the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, was brought to New York City on Thursday via helicopter, clean shaven and wearing an orange Department of Correction jumpsuit.

He was promptly escorted off the helipad, the Hudson River behind him, by close to two dozen people including NYPD officers, federal officials and Mayor Eric Adams. Thompson’s killing sparked a national debate about the animosity many feel towards health insurers, with some praising Mangione for the alleged murder. The scene of him arriving Thursday resembled something more out of an action movie than a routine prisoner transfer.

Typically a perp walk is designed to shame the suspect and celebrate the police department’s work. Arguably no one engages in the practice more than the NYPD, who have paraded around everyone from small-time gang members to John Gotti. But the practice has been criticized by many for harming the reputations of people who have only been accused, not convicted of a crime.

In the case of Mangione’s perp walk, at least on social media, the optics appear to have backfired on the NYPD and the mayor. Many noted that the mayor himself has been criminally charged for corruption and bribery. On the morning of Mangione’s arrival, the mayor’s closest adviser Ingrid Lewi-Martin surrendered to authorities on criminal charges of bribery. She was herself perp walked later in the day.

But the overriding theme on X, Instagram, Facebook and elsewhere was that Mangione’s perp walk made a man accused of premeditated murder seem sympathetic.

Generally, I do not approve of murder as a means to resolve disputes.

That being said, I understand why people are inclined to be supportive of Luigi Magione, and the fact that the NYPD did not get that when they engaged in this stunt is not going to reflect well on them.

Just F%$#ing Shoot Me

I have an ear worm, the Chipmunks Christmas Song.

If I have to suffer, so do you.

The Stupid, it Burns

The state of Louisiana has forbidden the state health department from supporting Influenza, Covid, and Mpox vaccines.

This means that they are forbidden from even mentioning that they have the vaccines available at their facilities.

A group of high-level managers at the Louisiana Department of Health walked into a Nov. 14 meeting in Baton Rouge expecting to talk about outreach and community events.

Instead, they were told by an assistant secretary in the department and another official that department leadership had a new policy: Advertising or otherwise promoting the COVID, influenza or mpox vaccines, an established practice there — and at most other public health entities in the U.S. — must stop.

NPR has confirmed the policy was discussed at this meeting, and at two other meetings held within the department's Office of Public Health, on Oct. 3 and Nov. 21, through interviews with four employees at the Department of Health, which employs more than 6,500 people and is the state's largest agency.

According to the employees, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they fear losing their jobs or other forms of retaliation, the policy would be implemented quietly and would not be put in writing.

Yeah, "Not put in writing," for when you told to do something illegal or incredibly stupid.

Staffers were also told that it applies to every aspect of the health department's work: Employees could not send out press releases, give interviews, hold vaccine events, give presentations or create social media posts encouraging the public to get the vaccines. They also could not put up signs at the department's clinics that COVID, flu or mpox vaccines were available on site.

 These folks are doing the level best, by means fair and foul, to kill as many of us as possible.

I Did Not Know That I Needed This

Researchers in Liverpool have released a questionnaire that claims to identify psychopathic tendencies in cats.

I have embedded it following the break.

Personally, I did not find it particularly useful, since our cats are indoor cats, so about ⅓ of the questions are irrelevant.

Also, I have always considered my cats merciless psychopathic murder machines.  It's why I love them so much.

What, exactly, is your cat thinking? Scientists came up with a questionnaire in 2021 that might give you some idea of where your feline friend fits on what's known as the triarchic model of psychopathy.

The model measures levels of boldness, meanness, and disinhibition in order to assess overall psychopathic tendencies. Ordinarily, the test is for human beings, of course, but here it's being applied to cats.

Having completed the survey – which you can find online – you'll be given what's called a CAT-Tri+ measure for your pet's level of psychopathy. The team is hoping that knowing this score can improve human and cat relationships.

This Sounds Very Familiar

It appears that there is yet another complex financial instrument finding favor in international finance, the "Synthetic Risk Transfer" , which sounds a lot like the Credit Default Swap (CDS) that was described by Warren Buffet as a, "Financial weapon of mass destruction."

When Wirecard went belly up a few years ago, Deutsche Bank ended up with a loss of just €18mn — miraculously little for a bank that had up until then made a habit of ambling into nearly every major financial cow pie in the world.

And this had been a giant pile of manure right on its own doorstep. Deutsche had previously underwritten Wirecard bonds, arranged loans for the company, and handed its chief executive a giant margin loan. Fellow German lender Commerzbank took a €175mn hit.

How did Deutsche manage to avoid this doo-doo? FT Alphaville gathers that it was probably at least partly thanks to something known as a “synthetic risk transfer” — one of the hottest bits of high-octane financial engineering these days. Deutsche Bank declined to comment.

In SRTs, a bank offloads some or all of the risks of some of its loans to ease how much capital it has to set aside for regulatory purposes. The loans remain on the bank’s balance sheet, but the buyer of an SRT typically promises to cover a chunk of the losses if the loans go bad. The buyers are investors such as insurance companies, hedge funds and (increasingly) private credit funds, which take on the risk in exchange for a fee.

Come to think of it, this sounds exactly like a CDS, only skeevier.

And they manage to invoke, "Saroff's Rule," "If a financial transaction is complex enough to require that a news organization use a cartoon to explain it, its purpose is to deceive." (With The Simpsons no less)

………

The advantage for GGG Capital is that it can harvest returns of typically 10 to 15 per cent without much work (beyond the initial due diligence on the loan pool) The loans remain on the Banque Alphaville balance sheet, so it does the ongoing work of monitoring the borrowers. And if they go bad, Banque Alphaville has to handle the actual clean-up, since they’re still on its balance sheet. GGG Capital is just there to reimburse the bank for losses (up to a point).

For Banque Alphaville, the advantage is (if the structure passes muster as a “true” risk transfer) that regulators will then require less capital to be set aside for the loans.

So basically, by papering over risk by paying a fee to an insurer (who is not actually an insurer), and who, if the whole things goes titsup, might not be able to make good on their promise, you can boost returns, and generate more bonuses for senior management.

All you have to do is set everything up for an economic crisis.

This sounds a f%$#-tonne like the sh%$ that f%$#ed us in 2008.

I Did Nazi This Coming

Guess what?  The Apartheid Era Emerald Heir Pedo Guy™ has endorsed the Neo-Nazi Alternative für Deutschland party in Germany.

I'm not particularly surprised.  Elon's racism has been on public display for well over a decade:

Elon Musk is backing the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), triggering an outcry in Berlin in the run-up to a critical snap election.

“Only the AfD can save Germany,” the billionaire X owner wrote on the platform on Friday in the latest of a series of endorsements of European far-right parties.

Musk has recently supported European populist-right politicians in increasingly clear terms, including Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Reform UK leader Nigel Farage. Earlier this week, Farage boasted that Musk is “right behind” him — and raised the prospect that the tech tycoon would financially back his Reform UK party.

The AfD endorsement also served as a stark rebuke by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s most powerful adviser of the conservative alliance that is likely to lead Germany following a snap election set for Feb. 23.

Friedrich Merz, the conservative candidate leading the race to become next chancellor, has portrayed himself as leader who’d be able to make “deals” with Trump despite European fears the president elect will start a trade war and withdraw American military support for Ukraine.

AfD leaders, of course, were pleased by Musk’s endorsement.

 Time to go long on guillotine futures.

Not a Surprise

When the exemption was given to allow colleges to collude on financial awards in the 1990s, the requirement was that admission was to be. "Need Blind, meaning that they could not favor students with rich parents, even if said parents were big donors.

It comes as no surprise that the elite colleges and institutions have been violating the terms of that exemption for almost as long as it has existed.  (How do you think that Jared Kushner made it into Harvard?)

A filing in an antitrust lawsuit against some of the nation’s top universities alleges the schools overcharged students by $685 million in a “price-fixing” scheme, raising serious questions about their past admission and financial aid policies.

Documents and testimony from officials at Georgetown University, the University of Notre Dame, the University of Pennsylvania, MIT and other elite schools suggest they appeared to favor wealthy applicants despite their stated policy of accepting students without regard for their financial circumstances. That “need-blind” policy allowed the schools to collaborate on financial aid under federal law, but plaintiffs in the case say the colleges violated the statute by considering students’ family income.

Every year, according to a motion filed in federal court Monday night, Georgetown’s then-president would draw up a list of about 80 applicants based on a tracking list that often included information about their parents’ wealth and past donations, but not the applicants’ transcripts, teacher recommendations or personal essays.

“Please Admit,” was often written at the top of the list, the lawsuit contends — and almost all of the applicants were.

Former students accuse 17 elite schools, including most of the Ivy League, of colluding to limit the financial aid packages of working- and middle-class students. The claimed damages of $685 million, which were detailed in the court filing Monday night, would automatically triple to more than $2 billion under U.S. antitrust laws.

………

A coalition of highly selective universities, formed in the late 1990s and known as the 568 Presidents Group, collaborated on aid formulas under a 1994 federal antitrust exemption. The exemption applied only if schools engaged in need-blind admissions. But attorneys for the former students say at least nine universities maintained admissions policies that still favored wealthy students in violation of the antitrust exemption, which expired in the fall of 2022.

Meanwhile, according to court documents, the schools’ endowments grew dramatically from a collective total of about $55 billion in 2003 to more than $220 billion in 2022.

Details that emerged in the case Monday included allegations that a former MIT Corporation chair applied pressure for the admission of two wealthy applicants; testimony from a former Harvard official who said the school had not joined the group because it would compel the school to reduce its financial aid awards; and a Vanderbilt University official writing in 2014 that if the statute expired, the school could be forced into a bidding war for students.

The court document contends Notre Dame has admitted that it sometimes granted admission to applicants based on factors that included the donation history, or future capacity, of the applicant’s family.

And at Penn, the suit says, applicants given a special-interest designation — indicating they were from a wealthy or donor family — were more likely to get in. A spokesman for the university said, “Penn’s dean of admissions testified the tag had ‘nothing’ to do with a family’s financial circumstances.” In 2020, Penn left the group to be more generous to students, according to the court filing.

The allegations stem from a class-action lawsuit brought in 2022 by eight former students who said the universities shared a methodology for calculating students’ financial need that reduced the amount of aid the schools provided to low- and middle-income students.

………

The group dissolved after the lawsuit was filed.

If the 568 President's group was above board, they would not have dissolved it, and they would not have increased financial aid awards.

………

Ted Normand, co-lead attorney for the plaintiffs, said in a statement that rather than competing based on the aid they could afford to distribute, the schools “saved themselves, and cost their students, hundreds of millions of dollars in aid.”

The schools did more than that, they engaged in a fraud on the students conspired to violate federal law.

Frog march administrators out of their offices in handcuffs.

Quote of the day

The Democrats Are a Social Club for Gerontocrats Who Love Losing

—Splinter

This is true...as turnips is. It was as true...as taxes is. And nothing's truer than them.

The Democratic Party is unquestionably the party of old, rich white people at this point. Kamala Harris became the first Democrat in ages to lose voters who make less than $100,000 per year, and the only demographics who shifted left in this last election were voters over the age of 65 and white voters with a college degree. One would think that in a historic realignment election which served as a wholesale rebuke to the Democratic Party writ large that the Democratic Party would want to make some serious changes.

But the Democratic Party is not a political party first and foremost. It’s a social club for gerontocrats and braindead consultants who specialize in losing winnable elections. It’s difficult to find a better example of what the Democratic Party actually values than losing a two out of three series to Donald Trump then giving a bunch of lip service to fundamental change, all while the same people stay in place.

This is the Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) in a nutshell.