Understanding society via self-discovery Asad Zaman This item is extracted from Asad Zaman’s longer article with the same title [1] If “to know yourself is…
Reading
The NY Times reports that Musk has pretty much moved in to Mar-a-lago which explains why Trump was so upset when he didn’t see him around that he mistakenly posted a private text to him on Truth Social telling him he misses him. It’s such a sweet relationship. Trump is elderly, you know, and it’s about time for him to turn over the family business to his son: Elon Musk plays many roles with President-elect Donald J. Trump. He is Mr. Trump’s most important donor, most influential social media promoter and a key adviser on policy and personnel. For most of the time since Election Day, he has also been Mr. Trump’s tenant. Mr. Musk has been using one of the cottages available for rent on Mr. Trump’s property at Mar-a-Lago, the former Marjorie Merriweather Post home in Florida that Mr. Trump converted into a members-only club and hotel in the 1990s, according to two people with knowledge of the arrangement. The cottage where he has been staying, named Banyan, is several hundred feet away from the main house, according to a person who knows the property. Staying right on the grounds has helped provide Mr. Musk with easy access to Mr. Trump.
Trouble in paradise for Trumpy and Kim: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un hailed Vladimir Putin as his “dearest friend” in a New Year’s letter to the Russian leader praising close bilateral ties, state media said on Tuesday. The two countries have deepened political, military and cultural ties since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, with Putin and Kim repeatedly professing their personal closeness. Moscow and Pyongyang signed a landmark defense pact during Putin’s visit to the isolated North in June. The pact obligates them to provide immediate military assistance if the other is invaded and came into effect this month.
Richard Munson’s 3 greatest revelations while writing Ingenious, his biography of Franklin, the scientist.
The post The Genius of Benjamin Franklin appeared first on Nautilus.
Ten books we loved to start your new year off right.
The post Introducing the Nautilus Winter Reading List appeared first on Nautilus.
From H1B to H5N1 We move now from the MAGA civil war over H1B visas to the H5N1 bird flu. (It’s getting hard to keep the abbreviations straight without a bound reference.) CDC: December 18, 2024— A patient has been hospitalized with a severe case of avian influenza A(H5N1) virus (“H5N1 bird flu”) infection in Louisiana. This marks the first instance of severe illness linked to the virus in the United States. The case was confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Friday, December 13. Since April 2024, there have been a total of 61 reported human cases of H5 bird flu reported in the United States. […] A sporadic case of severe H5N1 bird flu illness in a person is not unexpected; avian influenza A(H5N1) virus infection has previously been associated with severe human illness in other countries during 2024 and prior years, including illness resulting in death. No person-to-person spread of H5 bird flu has been detected. This case does not change CDC’s overall assessment of the immediate risk to the public’s health from H5N1 bird flu, which remains low. No need to panic.
MAGA GOP in disarray So NOW reparations are on the table. When they’re presumed for Americans of a certain hue (Daily Beast): Steve Bannon escalated the MAGA civil war Monday by calling for ‘reparations’ for Americans for losing out to immigrants on H-1B visas–who should themselves, he said, be deported. Bannon repeatedly railed against the program—and billionaire Elon Musk, who backs the visas—on Monday’s War Room, asking guests including conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer and former-Democrat-turned-MAGA-backer Allison Huynh whether Musk understood the visas were a “scam.” H-1B visas, which allow U.S. companies to hire highly skilled foreign workers for specialty jobs, were signed into law as part of the Immigration Act of 1990 by President George H.W. Bush, a Republican. President-elect Donald Trump said on Saturday he supported the program. See, this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody’s part! And Steve Bannon is just the guy to do it.
Long holidays are nice. But sometimes, amid all the relaxation, you can feel your brain getting a bit mushy. What do you do then? Personally, yours truly usually solves crosswords, chess problems, and the occasional mathematical puzzle to keep the grey brain cells active over Christmas and New Year…
- - -
We’re counting down our twenty-four most-read articles of 2024. Check back daily for updates to the list, as we make our way to number one. Happy Holidays!
- - -
24. We Are Not a ‘School’—We Are a Hospital System with a Football Team
by Andrew Patrick Clark
23. I Am a Boomer’s iPhone and I Will Not Be Silenced
by Julia Bensfield Luce
22. Deciphering Your Daughter’s ‘MOM’ Texts
by Dani Bostick
21. Gen Z Beowulf
by John-Clark Levin
Trump wants to boost exports, bring back American jobs from overseas and reduce the trade deficit. To achieve this he needs a weaker dollar. Trump also wants a strong dollar and will not brook any challenges to its near monopoly of international payments. Can he possibly have both? Trump’s Problem No.1: His announced tariffs will […]
The post Trump, the Dollar and China: What to watch for in 2025 appeared first on Yanis Varoufakis.
I think we’ll all be talking about Jimmy Carter over the next few days and rightly so. The man led a fascinating and impactful life and there’s a lot to say about his accomplishments, his values and his contributions to America. I thought today that I would just remind everyone of this episode which informs us of the corrupt nature of so much of the GOP’s history, even before Trump. People’s lives were at stake and they did this: It has been more than four decades, but Ben Barnes said he remembers it vividly. His longtime political mentor invited him on a mission to the Middle East. What Mr. Barnes said he did not realize until later was the real purpose of the mission: to sabotage the re-election campaign of the president of the United States. It was 1980 and Jimmy Carter was in the White House, bedeviled by a hostage crisis in Iran that had paralyzed his presidency and hampered his effort to win a second term. Mr. Carter’s best chance for victory was to free the 52 Americans held captive before Election Day. That was something that Mr. Barnes said his mentor was determined to prevent. His mentor was John B.
Josh Marshall has been closely following the recent South Korean coup and subsequent fallout and has uncovered something (via this article) that I’ve not heard anyone else report. He notes that while S. Korea may be a more recent democracy by American standards it’s actually very well entrenched. But it also has a social media ecosystem that resembles our own with right wing extremists dominating the scene. The country’s reaction to the attempt can best be described as a widespread “What the fuck?” Like not even, “this won’t stand!” or “we’ll defend our democracy!”, though those were there too. The immediate reaction to Yoon’s move was as much bafflement as fear or anger. The whole thing was so crazy and out of left field that people struggled to understand what Yoon had even been thinking. That’s why the attempted coup played out as it did and why Yoon is currently out of power and looking at likely treason charges. So back to our far-right YouTubers.
Is like watching a cage match between the two worst people in the world.
In this corner, the screw the peons billionaires.
In the other corner, the racist anti-immigrant nativists!
Personally I’m cheering for the racist anti-immigrants.
Vivek Ramaswany delightfully opinined that the problem is that American culture doesn’t produce people willing to work hard enough and celebrates prom queens and jocks over math olympiads. (American engineers aren’t keen on 12 hour work days.)
So what did I get through in a year’s worth of "novel" reading on the commute to work, in the evenings after work, and while travelling outside of my “normal” academic reading? My use of the term “novel” reading is loosely adopted, as you will see from the list below.
The post Novel Reading in 2024 appeared first on Progress in Political Economy (PPE).
When I was young and travelling around the world I’d tell people I was from Alaska and they’d occasionally tell me that we should become part of Canada because America was such a terrible place. I’d feel a little uncomfortable about that, being an American and having some affection for my own country. But now I don’t know that I’d react the same way. Trump and his cult are making it very easy to look to Canada. Robert Reich discusses Trump’s new obsession with territorial expansion and has a modest proposal: But as long as we’re considering changing national borders, why not do it in a more sensible way? How about the West Coast states of Washington, Oregon, and California becoming the 11th province of Canada? After all, the politics of these blue states would fit much better with Canada’s than with Trump’s America. Meanwhile, the New England states (Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut) and New York could become the 12th Canadian province, for much the same reason.
I’ve avoided post-mortems on the US election disaster for two reasons. First, they are useless as a guide to the future. The next US election, if there is one [1], will be a referendum on the Trump regime. Campaign strategies that might have gained the Democrats a few percentage points in November 2024 won’t be […]