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It seems that every conversation I have about politics these days begins with someone making a breathless observation that “OMG! Joe Biden is soooo oooooold!” I get it. He is old. And he looks his age. Anyone but movie stars who have had extensive plastic surgery look old at 81 and they usually just look weird. He walks stiffly and he’s losing his hair — again. (He had a receding hairline before he was 30 and famously had hair transplants.) He also stumbles over his words and rambles when he’s speaking spontaneously, but as someone who’s been watching the guy for decades I can tell you that he’s always done that. Everyone knows now that he’s been fighting a stutter all his life but he’s also one of those garrulous old-style East Coast politicians who tells stories and flits from subject to subject. Still, there’s no getting around the fact that he’s the oldest president we’ve ever had and he’s running for another term, so people are going to be concerned.

FDA approves Alzheimer’s treatment Whatever your age now, you’ll be old sooner than you’d like. Old age carries risks. Joints wear out and bones get brittle. Live long enough and cancers of various kinds may catch up with you. Cancer claimed Joel Siberman, a media trainer and friend, one of progressives’ brightest lights, five years ago. But perhaps the most frightening of scaries is mental decline. Particularly from Alzheimer’s. Watching it claim the mind of someone you love is tragic enough. For the first time, the FDA has approved a medication for Alzheimer’s. Not a cure, but a drug shown to “modestly” slow the disease in its early stages (Associated Press): U.S. officials granted full approval to a closely watched Alzheimer’s drug on Thursday, clearing the way for Medicare and other insurance plans to begin covering the treatment for people with the brain-robbing disease. The Food and Drug Administration endorsed the IV drug, Leqembi, for patients with mild dementia and other symptoms caused by early Alzheimer’s disease.

The U.S. health care system is broken and corrupt — our coverage shows we can fix it.

The families of profoundly learning-disabled people are involved in a continuous struggle for their most fundamental rights and dignities, writes Stephen Unwin

Is Kari Lake coming on too strongly? Kari Lake’s oh-so-unsubtle efforts to audition as Donald Trump’s 2024 running mate may be backfiring. Sure, she came in first for VP in CPAC’s straw poll this year. But the failed Arizona gubernatorial candidate and championship election-denier seems not to know to avoid upstaging The Donald. Lake has spent more time at Mar-a-Lago than Melania Trump lately, a source told People, in “a suite there that she practically lives in.” The Daily Beast reports that Lake is falling out of Trump’s favor: “She’s a shameless, ruthless demagogue who wants power and will do whatever she has to do to get it,” a Trump adviser told The Daily Beast. This adviser added that, in recent months, Trump has been less enthusiastic about Lake himself. Two Trump advisers who spoke to The Daily Beast said the heart of Trump’s frustration with Lake is that, in his eyes, she always wants attention. As one of the advisers put it, she’s a “spotlight hound.” People called Bill Clinton “the Big Dog.” But nobody had better stand between Trump and center stage.

Steering the horsecart

Priming the generator

Drawing in the day’s catch

Bongo drum solo

Vulcan greeting

Praise the Lord

I surrender

Marcel Marceau wall push

Six-in-ten voters don't trust the Government's promise to keep the National Health Service in public hands

What are tankies, vatniks, and 'useful idiots', and why do they deride traumatised Ukrainians as warmongers and Nazis? 

Economist James K. Galbraith discusses the history of how price controls have been used to address inflation.

The post Price Controls: An Inflation Solution That Doesn’t Screw Workers appeared first on The Intercept.

What the cold, open water means to the Irish endurance swimmer Stephen Redmond, set to the lyrical poetry of Derek Mahon

- by Psyche Film

Watch at Psyche

How French cuisine became beloved among status-hungry diners in the United States, from Thomas Jefferson to Kanye West

- by Kelly Alexander & Claire Bunschoten

Read at Aeon

Ivan Yotzov, Nicholas Bloom, Philip Bunn, Paul Mizen, Ozgen Ozturk and Gregory Thwaites Since late 2021, annual CPI inflation in the UK increased sharply. Alongside this increase, there was also a significant rise in firm and household short-term inflation expectations. In this post, we use data from the Decision Maker Panel (DMP), a UK-wide monthly … Continue reading Firm inflation perceptions and expectations: evidence from the Decision Maker Panel →

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When we provide such a critique, we often hear another mantra to which many economists subscribe: ‘It takes a model to beat a model.’ On the contrary, we believe that it takes facts and observations to beat a model … If a model fails to answer the problem to which it is addressed, it should […]

Affirmative action might be gone...

Well, not so much anymore. Comics from The Archive.

Biden sidesteps the perception of being a "woke warrior."