When kids say to me how much better the 1970s must have been, I remind them that the 70s were so awesome that we extrapolated our future to being "Soylent Green" https://t.co/WxZ5kdI8gP
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) December 27, 2021
It’s a long & winding road, though…
When it comes to voter suppression, it’s no longer just about making it easy for eligible people to vote—it's about whether or not those votes will count at all.
It's simple: voter suppression is un-American, un-democratic, and unpatriotic.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) December 27, 2021
The first thing the United States Senate should do in 2022? Protect voting rights. It’s time to pass the Freedom to Vote Act.
— Amy Klobuchar (@amyklobuchar) December 27, 2021
How to steal an election: by making it easier for people to vote legally and convincing them to do so. Wow.
OK, genius. https://t.co/HEG08D37Xg— Slava Malamud (@SlavaMalamud) December 28, 2021
Baud
Thank you. I detest fake nostalgia.
OzarkHillbilly
I remember the ’70s. No thanx.
raven
Shit, we was high as the cost of living!!!
Baud
The funny thing about the Rand Paul quote is the phrase “in a legally valid way.” Completely gratuitous to the evil point he is trying to make.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: “If you remember the ’70s, you weren’t there.”
debbie
And yet, which Floridians were the ones who filled out ballots twice? Villages idiots. Confirmed cases of fraudulent voters, as far as I can tell, are always Republicans. Why isn’t this fact getting national attention?
Baud
But so are Republicans!
NotMax
As it is kind’a sort’a a holiday week, feel as if can get away with linkage which runs slightly longer than the ones I generally drop into morning threads.
Livin’ large.
;)
Brant
It doesn’t seem to matter what the topic is that Rand Paul is talking about, what drops out of his mouth is always shit.
Kay
@Brant:
Normal people like absentee ballots and early vote and vote by mail because it’s convenient and more efficient. So conservatives have to make it seem malicious and presumptively criminal.
The improvements/modernization of voting process are still popular though.
It’s silly to insist everyone show up in person in the same 12 hour window. Why should they have to?
Brantl
What’s the dumbest guy who made it to the Senate in recent years get to be called? “Senator Rand Paul.”
Baud
@Kay:
How else can you make black voters stand in line for hours?
OzarkHillbilly
@Brantl: Here I thought it was “Ted Cruz” or “Ron Johnson”.
Betty Cracker
Kudos to Klobuchar for being on the voting rights beat every damn day! She has been relentless about it, which is exactly the level of attention it deserves.
Relatedly, I’ve read summaries of the bills proposed to address Republican attempts to give legal color to their authoritarian power grab. Do the election protection bills proposed at the federal level address enacted or proposed laws at the state level that would empower statehouses to throw out local results? I don’t think they do, and I’m unsure if they can.
If not, that’s a huge problem. In that case, federal action on voting rights is necessary but not sufficient.
Kay
The Freedom to Vote Act:
Conservative media, led by Trump, are doing a big push demonizing the bill but as you can see by the bill sponsors it’s solidly in the mainstream of the Democratic Party.
If you needed any further proof that they will oppose everything and depict everything as “far Left” look no further than this bill, which has Right wing and centrist Democratic support.
You can’t “outcentrist” the Republican Party. They label the solid middle of the Democratic Party as “far Left” too.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Yeah, it’s arguably based on the constitution, so that requires more creativity to address.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
It does:
The whole Right is going bananas over it, which they would, since they have no intention of accepting the results the next time they lose.
Baud
@Kay:
Oh good.
hueyplong
@OzarkHillbilly: A certain former Auburn football coach is feeling kind of left out.
“I’m dumb, not smart, not like people say. And I want respect.”
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone ?? ?
OzarkHillbilly
@hueyplong: You’re right, I’d forgotten about him.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
Kay
@Baud:
It is good. Pass it and let’s see what the far Right Supreme Court does with it. Alito is a nutjob on elections and he seems to be the leader of the far Right majority.
Baud
@Kay:
I hope they will agree to make a filibuster exception for this. No way the GOP can let this pass.
Geminid
@Kay: One question I have is whether Republican measures restricting voting, particularly curtailing absentee ballots, alienate independent voters. Like gerrymandering, only the most partisan like these measures.
Independent voters are a sometimes derided as a group. but in many purple states Republicans cannot win now without carrying a majority of them. And given the Republicans’ registration edge in Arizona, Joe Biden and Mark Kelly could not have won that state without carrying a majority of these unaffiliated voters. I think most of these people want easier voting, and dislike partisan attempts to restrict it.
Kay
@Baud:
Trump’s already lobbying his justices to bow to his demands on voting rights. We’ll see if they follow orders.
SFAW
@OzarkHillbilly:
“Ron Johnson” is the correct answer. Traitor Ted and Ferret Head have not “cornered the market” on braims, so to speak, but they’re not complete morons.
Now, if you and Brantl want to rate senators vis-a-vis assholishness, that’s a different story.
Gvg
I think we need federal jail sentences for throwing out valid election results, not mere lawsuits where the wealthy have an advantage including that delaying things is desirable for them. Actual consequences for anti democratic actions, that includes the top levels who give orders, is necessary.also an enforcement specified.
Baud
@Geminid:
I wonder how many normies are paying attention though.
Baud
@Kay:
Someone like Alito doesn’t need orders to now what’s good for his party.
Geminid
@SFAW: Ron Johnson still has not announced whether he will run for reelection next year. I wonder what gives. I guess he’ll get off the fence this coming month.
Kay
@Geminid:
The issue has moved a lot since about 2012 and now has widespread acceptance as an issue for the mainstream of the Democratic Party (as evidenced by the sponsors of this bill) but I see it as a top issue among even white rural Democrats and I didn’t before. It was always AA voters and (particularly) AA political leaders and voting rights activists (mostly lawyers). But it rose to the top over the years among all Democrats so hopefully they can also make it an issue among less interested voters or “independents” using the hook you mention- modernization and convenience.
Voting rights legislation is must-pass for Democrats. The AA base want it and they’ll get it and they should get it. It’s a promise they can’t break.
Betty
@Kay: Do you mean people like Trump? When asked about his mail-in ballot, he said it’s OK in Florida. That doesn’t seem to have stopped Republicans from messing with the system there too.
Baud
@Geminid:
Yeah, seems strange if the GOP is confident and given what the media has done to drive down Biden’s poll numbers.
OzarkHillbilly
@SFAW: Ted Cruz may not have cornered the market on moronitude, but for somebody who is supposed to be intelligent he sure makes political own goals with surprising regularity.
Intelligence is no bar to stupidity.
Geminid
@Baud: Yeah, voting restrictions may not be a salient issue for independents. Candidates like Abrams and O’Rourke might be able to make it a salient one, though: “What are Republicans afraid of? They’re afraid of YOU!”
Spanky
@SFAW: True. Randy will NOT be out-assholed if he can do anything about it.
And I too had forgotten about Tommy the Tuber. As he should be, had the Confederates not sent him to DC.
Kay
@Geminid:
In 2011/12 I worked on a state voting rights issue that involved passing a petition to put something on the ballot. I presented it to white rural Democrats as a straight transaction- if they wanted their stuff (labor rights) they needed to allow all Democrats to vote. It was really effective. I wouldn’t even have finished my pitch and they’d be reaching for the clipboard to sign.
It was actually…easy. I was shocked :)
trnc
@Baud: Remember, repubs didn’t go to court last year to claim voter fraud; they claimed that some states made it too easy for eligible voters to vote.
Baud
@trnc:
Once again, they meant to easy for black voters. IIIRC, they were challenging procedures that their voters used only in places where our voters used them.
Baud
@Kay:
My fervant wish is that labor shows up big for Biden. I fear that they will take this window of opportunity for granted (as our side often does IMHO).
zhena gogolia
The NYT has just been on a drumbeat against Biden. “Can his agenda be saved?” “Should he announce that he’s not running in 2024?”
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
Is that second one for real? FWIW, he made clear he is running if his health is good. Besides, there is no situation in which it wouldn’t be political malpractice to announce that he’s not running.
Baud
@Baud:
To easy = too easy
germy
I always find it interesting how people in earlier decades envisioned the future. I noticed many 1920s writers would mention the 1970s, probably because people see time in 50 year increments (?).
I saw A Clockwork Orange in a crowded movie theater when it was first released. There were a few scenes that got chuckles and laughs, that probably wouldn’t register with audiences today.
The first scene was when the hero produces a tiny, micro cassette to listen to a Beethoven symphony. That audience found that absurd. “Imagine a tiny device like that holding an entire symphony!” The other scene that got laughs was when we see the hero’s parents. They’re elderly people, but they’re dressed in mod, 1960s clothes.
Nowadays I see women in their 70s who look like rock stars, and old men who dress like punk rockers. But in the 1970s, elderly people dressed like their own decade, the 1940s and ’50s.
Geminid
In a few minutes, the Ohio Supreme Court will begin hearing oral arguments in the lawsuit challenging the new Congressional districts. Plaintiffs The League of Women Voters and the A. Phillip Randolph Institute claim that the map passed by Republican state legislators violates the Ohio Constitution.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: Bret Stephens kindly expressed his concern that Biden should step aside now. Then they devoted their letters column to it.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
Ah, Bret Stephans is basically a GOP troll. Shame on the NYT for having him on staff, but he’s not someone I would regard as neutral or an independent voice.
I don’t know what letters column means.
germy
@zhena gogolia:
Our liberal media in action.
Biden sat down with ABC’s David Muir recently. Network news is what you’d expect. Lots of pieces skeptical of the high cost of Democratic policies, with lots of feel-good stories involving charity.
Muir got his start at the Institute on Political Journalism at the Fund for American Studies at Georgetown University.
Founded in 1967, the Institute’s mission is “to win over each new generation to the ideas of liberty, limited government and free markets.”
No wonder they’re all skeptical of Biden. He’s going against 40 years of Reaganism and supply-side theory.
debbie
@Geminid:
Well, yeah. Voting patterns show the GOP has a 54 to 46 percent advantage, but the map gives them a 81 to 19 percent advantage based on “how elections have turned out.”
Baud
@germy:
And their own self interest.
Kay
@Baud:
I don’t know. They generally liked Biden. A lot of them are Trumpy though. IMO and locally, the UAW are the most Right wing union and the skilled construction trades, commercial food workers union (which can include Teamsters) and teachers unions are the most liberal. I have very little patience with UAW. I bet they’re 50% or better R at this point, yet they’re endlessly demanding of Democrats. They make no demands at all on Republicans. Apparently gun lust is enough.
Biden’s NLRB is about to take up the “gig worker”/employee issue, so that should be interesting.
Kay
@germy:
The reduction in poverty is really something. If we can maintain that we could finally, finally be trying something new in that area. It’s a great experiment but it needs at least a decade to show anything.
Another Scott
Relatedly, … DW – How sustainable is wind power?
? Everyone knows it’s Windy ?
So much for “nuclear is carbon free and has to be part of the solution!!”
Cheers,
Scott.
Kay
We’re getting a big commercial solar field where I live. The Trumpists have yard signs- “farms not solar” but the protest is just ridiculous because the developer is a commercial entity and they are buying the property- from farmers, who are voluntarily selling it to them and at a REALLY good price. Steve Bannon probably told them the deep state was seizing it.
Geminid
@debbie: This will bear watching. When the Virginia Redistricting Commission deadlocked and the process was punted to the state Supreme Court, Democratic opponents of “non-partisan” redistricting said that Democrats were screwed because a majority of the court were Republican appointees. The Justices refused to appoint Republican data-gunslingers, though, and their two Special Masters came up with what I thought was a neutral map. The Ohio process is different, but I’m hoping the Court will find the new map offensive and strike it down.
Percysowner
On a philosophical level, I’ve often thought that the big scare about overpopulation is a direct reflection of sci-fi being male dominated. It never occurred to most writers that WOMEN having easy to access, reliable birth control would help with the whole issue. It certainly was a blind spot to assume that people, seeing population grow in a way that will hurt their own kids, would simply keep on breeding.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I thought Rs liked mail in voting because a lot of old people use it.
germy
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Apparently Rs like what they’re told to like (and hate what they’re told to hate).
The Thin Black Duke
@Percysowner: An excellent observation. Thank you.
Kay
@germy:
They exempt themselves from the fraudulent vote by mail faction. They objected when people they don’t like could vote by mail, when it was expanded. The same “safeguards” that were always in place were still in place when it was expanded, so this is just purely objecting to other people having the same process they enjoy. They’re better than you are – more honest. You’re a presumptive felon and they’re not.
Nettoyeur
Starfish
@Percysowner: How were they overpopulating when all the stories were mostly men with maybe a few sexpots? DId they not realize that gestation takes time, and that women could only have a limited number of children in their lifetime? I would like to have a word with them about their sex education.
The space eugenics of the future is as odious as the environmental eugenics that some folks propose. They do not see that their depopulation arguments are rooted in eugenics and are associated with some of the most shameful periods in human history.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
The 70s, yes Richard Nixon, fuel shortages, runaway inflation, cocaine and disco. Whose “good old days” were that?
Betty Cracker
@Kay: Excellent — thank you!
Kay
@Nettoyeur:
They were and are deeply, deeply uncomfortable with Biden’s covid relief package. Just the language around it and the tropes they so easily adopted! They trumpeted the “lazy moocher theory” for tight labor markets like they were born to it and it was complete bullshit. They didn’t have a shred of evidence to support it, other than their belief that poor and working class people are, indeed, lazy moochers. They describe the assistance to public schools as “a windfall”, primly disapproving of the largesse. Just deeply conventional people who are very upset that we have veered even slightly from the Reaganism they came up on.
The economic analysis has sucked. If one actually took advice from these people on a personal level one would go broke. Do you know small business starts are way up? Thankfully most people ignored them.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: I read the print paper. On the oped page, they print letters from readers. This column has the effect of amplifying whatever story they want to amplify. They chose to amplify Stephens’s concern trolling.
Geminid
@Nettoyeur: I think you are right here. A lot of these pundits live in an upper class bubble, and are personally unaffected by the middle and working class problems this Democratic administration is trying to solve.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
Yeah, it’s good. Reading the Trumpist plans to overturn the last election, creating chaos and manipulating media to create “questions” was central to it. They were hoping for a “military ballots” type issue (of the 2000 election) to create a delay. So obviously narrowly dodged that bullet and no one should in any way rely on that plan not working next time. All they needed was some idiot cable tv host who wanted to teach the controversy.
But codifying a cause of action helps. Everything helps.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/world-population-by-year/
Population of the Earth, 1850 1,263 millions
Population of the Earth, 1950 2,536 millions
Population of the Earth, 2020 7,794 millions
So, in your’ lifetime the population has tripled.
UncleEbeneezer
Drove into Marshall TX yesterday for groceries for the lake house. Pretty little downtown that unfortunately still has a statue honoring the Traitors In Defense of Slavery. Then when grabbing gas on the way home I noticed that the convenience store door had a sign saying “Pull your pants up, or leave. Show some respect to other customers.” Gee, I wonder what group that is aimed at?…
So this is what they are worried about. Not asking people to wear masks, social distance etc., in order to not give them a deadly virus, nope. Just racist, Respectability bullshit. Sigh…
Such a shame because otherwise the area is quite lovely. As always, the problem is the people.
#ThisIsAmerica
Kay
So one thing I believed when I went to Denmark was that Americans had much more lavish and less expensive housing than a country like Denmark. But this is not true. Their “family” apartments are really spacious and would be considered VERY spacious in expensive US urban areas – they also have locations that would be reserved for the ultra-rich in a US city. A lot of them are right on the water.
So the “US has better housing” trope as a reason for why we can’t have family friendly subsidies is not true. They really have better housing too, in terms of affordability, space and location in their desirable urban areas.
They still have worse appliances, so we’re tops there, but how long can you tell people a really good clothes dryer is a point of national pride? Love me a nice dryer, but I can just ship one from the US, I imagine.
Baud
@UncleEbeneezer:
So much for my freedoms.
Baud
@Kay: they can have my dryer when they pry it from my cold dead hands, Kay.
Leto
Logan’s Run is 2274, not 2500, so between Alien and The Black Hole. Ofc I feel like Idiocracy is our current timeline so I guess I’m glad that it’s still 480~ish years away.
Kay
@Baud:
The location difference in housing is really something. They don’t reserve the nice parcels for uber rich people. Normal people live on some really fucking nice real estate.
“Where are the MANSIONS?” I felt like I was trespassing.
Suzanne
@Geminid:
Arizona also has PERMANENT early voting by mail. You sign up once, and thereafter every ballot gets mailed to your house. You can mail it back or drop it off at a polling place on Election Day. It has been a smashing success there.
RepubAnon
@Kay: Voting by mail lets the average worker vote. Republicans don’t like that.
different-church-lady
@germy: The biggest mistake the GOP was making before Trump was overestimating the intellegence of their base. They’ve fixed that, and it’s terrifying.
Baud
@Kay: In terms of normal people’s housing in Europe, I’ve only experienced AirBnB’s, which are indeed less spacious than the ones I’ve stayed in in the States. Maybe that’s where the myth comes from.
lowtechcyclist
OK, “nuclear produces 1/4 the carbon per KwH as natural gas, and AFAICT that’s without considering methane released as part of getting natural gas out of the ground.”
I don’t know if nuclear *has* to be part of the solution, but if it helps us hasten the reduction of our carbon output, then I’m all for it.
Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima, as bad as they were, were geographically limited in their effects. Global warming is everywhere.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: I think I read a column recently at The Atlantic, NY Mag or somewhere like that on the same topic. IIRC, it wasn’t by a right wing troll and weighed pros and cons.
I agree with you that it’s hard to imagine a scenario in which an announcement wouldn’t be a disaster for Democrats in the short term, let alone 2024. A hard fought primary could turn out to be a catastrophe, IMO.
Still, it’s an interesting question, and not wildly out of line as speculation, IMO, given Biden’s age.
Baud
@Betty Cracker: It’s reasonable to assume he might not be able to run because of his age/health. It’s a dumb question IMHO to ask whether he should announce that he’s not running.
lowtechcyclist
@Kay: From what you quoted:
The key word there may be ‘federal’ given the likelihood that the Bogus Scotus will regard the selection of Electors as a state procedure rather than a Federal one. The Constitution is fortunately quite clear that Congress has the authority to regulate Congressional elections, but the same can’t be said about the Presidential election.
dmsilev
@Kay:
Bosch and Miele both make very nice dryers (and other appliances). Not cheap, but Europeans do know how to make such things…
narya
Listening to an all-staff meeting. We are seeing positivity rates of 33%. Of course people who feel crappy are most likely to get tested, but damn–we’ve never seen it this high. Feeling extremely fortunate to be able to work from home, and will not go any damn where. I’m supposed to have a dental appointment week after next, and I think I’m gonna change that.
Leto
@Kay: Idk about worse appliances. I’m sure they can still buy German washing machines, Japanese clothes washers, and other good small handheld stuff. Fridges are smaller because they believe in not keeping a commercial sized fridge in the home, making more trips to the store, which should result in fresher meals.
Clothes dryer is a unique American pain. When we lived in Italy, the housing office gave us a clothes dryer that did the water reclamation deal. You could run a load of clothes for an hour and they’d still be damp. We wound up following what the Italians, and Scandi’s, do: clothes rack. Benefits: not using all that energy on a dryer; clothes didn’t have as much wear and tear placed on them from the drying cycle; they had a nice air dried smell to them. Downside: just had to be more mindful of the time it took for the wash/dry process. I had to be a bit more on top of it so I had my uniform items ready for the coming week. Plus for most Americans it was “weird” and “backwards”. Just a different mentality.
It wouldn’t really be worth it to ship one. Trying to find a non-commercial 220v unit, the shipping costs/time, and do the Danish homes even have an exhaust port? Again, Americans are spoiled by cheap energy.
Ruviana
@Brantl: There are so many! How do you choose?
lowtechcyclist
I was able to support myself on a job paying minimum wage.
Kay
@Baud:
They don’t have mega mansions, this is true, but their ordinary houses are comparable size and what would be considered an “upper middle class” apartment in Copenhagen is more spacious than one in Chicago and it’s like in a park on the water. It would be millions to purchase in Chicago and there’s like working couples with 2 kids in them.
Megan McCardle pushes this idea constantly – Americans would never put up with the level of privation in Nordic countries- does she know what she’s talking about? :)
I think I could put up with it.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: Agreed! Here’s the article I was referencing — Ed Kilgore, NY Mag. The premise is why Biden wants everyone to think he’s running in 2024, leaving open the question of if he will or should.
Geminid
@UncleEbeneezer: It sounds like that store owner has a pet peeve about “dragging,” the practice of belting one’s pants around the hip bones and showing the top half of ones boxer shorts. This was a fad among young black people some years back, and as these things do it spread to some young white men. I thought it was over, though.
Back when the fad had peaked some Virginia legislators proposed a law to curb it. Another solon objected: “But what about plumbers? Are you going to fine them when their pants ride low?” This image grossed everyone out and the law was tabled and never revisited.
Leto
@dmsilev: when we bought our new home in September, we bought a Miele dishwasher. It’s the quietest dishwasher I’ve ever known, on top of using less water than just about every other brand. We also thought about a Fisher-Paykel unit, but kept reading (user reviews) how they were still having issues with the dual loading drawers.
Baud
@Kay: I don’t think she is thinking of you when she talks about “Americans.”
Baud
The only solution to low riding pants is to not wear pants.
Biff Baxter
@OzarkHillbilly: As one who remembers odd/even gas days and high teens interest rates, no thanks.
Kay
@Leto:
I admit I would miss driving. I’m probably happiest driving – while driving. Alone :)
But I also like trains, so there’s the tradeoff. My youngest loved it. My son gave him a bus/train card and he disappeared for whole days. Danes drink a lot and they have a young drinking age and a culture that encourages drinking so I suspect he was hitting the schnapps. He was thrilled that people kept offering him booze, like all the time, everywhere. “I LIKE this country!”
Another Scott
@lowtechcyclist: To be clear, I wouldn’t be surprised if most/all of the numbers that DW cites have issues with slanting. It’s very hard to reduce any complicated topic to a single number fairly. My bias tells me that the lifecycle emission rankings sound about right.
Personally, my biggest problems with nuclear are:
It’s expensive considering all of the costs. Private companies push those costs onto the rest of us while enjoying the benefits of cost-plus 30+ year design/construction contracts that are backstopped by captive rate-payers who have no choice. And disposal issues still have not been addressed in a meaningful (operational facility) way. The safety issues can, in principle, be addressed (e.g. ending mining and reusing the bazillion tons of stuff generated for the weapons programs), “intrinsically safe” designs, etc., but those can introduce other complications (increased proliferation issues (via technological development if nothing else (it’s much easier to do something once someone else demonstrates how to do it)).
TANSTAAFL.
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
Leto
@Kay: it’s the continued American exceptionalism bullshit combined with a healthy heaping of IGMGFY. It’s also the expression of “the common good”. Feel like America lost that a long time ago, if we ever had it. America is all about “rugged individualism”, and how you can personally rise up to change your fortunes and be a master of the universe. Kids need to GTFO of the home by 18, grandma/gramps can be shipped off to a retirement home/community to live out their days, if you’re poor it’s because you’re a lazy POS so you deserve it…
Americans probably wouldn’t be happy with a Nordic system because while everyone would generally be happier (on par), someone undeserving might have a smidge extra. Or they might be happy. Or not hungry. Or worried. They might be able to go to the doctor. Their home might be 1501sq ft, while yours is only 1500. Or maybe they have a working dryer :P
Suzanne
@Kay: Having been in a fair amount of “normal-people housing” in various countries in Western Europe, I think it is indeed smaller on average, but not really less amenitized. There’s a lot of research in this, about how Americans have the largest homes in the world on average. Their housing is also older on average and therefore they don’t have the same “open concept” fetish Americans do.
Americans own a lot of STUFF and we have big houses for it.
Leto
@Kay: The town we lived in, Montichiari, was small enough where you could just bike everywhere you wanted to go. But I also noticed that most towns had both biking/walking combo paths everywhere. Personally we loved it. Want to go to the bar with friends? Down to the favorite restaurant? Go grab some gelato? Hop on your bike and move along. Enjoying the late spring, early fall evenings and want to just take your time? Walk down.
We still drove. Drove over to Lake Garda, drove to some of the other surrounding towns because they had the good Chinese place, or the excellent sushi place… the train system I’ll always miss. 5 hour high speed train between Milan and Rome. Or an hour between Milan and Venice. Or… just anywhere really. It was absolutely amazing.
Kay
@Leto:
I’ve been thinking about how much of the American opposition to family friendly policy and subsidies is grounded in not wanting to support women, since most of the burden falls on women. Not all the burden! More in some households than others, but still mostly falls on women. I think we saw some of it with the sneering at Mayor Pete taking family leave. “He’s a GIRL”.
Because we really are way behind on things like family leave and child care subsidies and with the roll back of women’s rights it seems that that part of the Right- the religious extremists- are ascendant so I see commonality there, among those issues.
In this instance, the “those people” we don’t want to help, are women.
Salty Sam
I was shaken to my core by a scene in “Soylent Green” when I watched it in a crowded theater- the character played by Edward G. Robinson was checking in to the euthanasia center, tired of living in dystopia. The receptionist pulled up his file, and his birthday was the same as mine. Sent a chill down my back.
Geminid
@lowtechcyclist: The Air Force intends to get a “microreactor” up and running at Eilson Air Force base by 2027. This Alaska base currently generates electricity with a coal plant that requires a special facility to thaw the coal before use.*
I don’t see these SMRs (Small Modular Reactors) geting much traction, though, at least not in this country. Solar and wind power now cost less than natural gas generation, and battery technology is progressing rapidly.
Backup natural gas generation will survive for a while, but nuclear plants are best operated at a constant rate, not for surge use. That’s why Virginia Power paired their four nuclear generators with a pumped storage plant in Bath County. It pumps water uphill at night, during low electrical use, then generates power during the daytime
*Forbes Magazine, Nov.1 2021. AirForce Times also has good reporting on this.
Kay
@Leto:
I don’t think I would ever “feel at home” there, though, which would bother me. My daughter in law has two “mom groups” – it’s Danish policy to set women up with a group of women who have babies the same age and they meet monthly, they just put a lot of thought into supprting new mothers, and she prefers the expat group to the Danish group although she is Danish-American, speaks Danish, and went to high school there. What she really is culturally is a Michigander – they have their own culture :)
Kristine
@Kay:
I watch House Hunters International sometimes to get an idea of flats and homes in various parts of the world, mostly Europe. I’d be happy in quite a few of the smaller flats, especially the ones in the busier neighborhoods and city centers. I live in a late 60s shoebox ranch, which means I am used to dealing with tiny closets and small bedrooms. It just means you need to get rid of some stuff. In exchange, you get a social backstop. There are worse trade-offs.
Brantl
@OzarkHillbilly: Maybe it’s a several-way tie.
lowtechcyclist
@Another Scott: The thing I always wonder about nuclear is, the French seem to be able to do it; how come we can’t? They get something like 2/3 of their electricity from nuclear, and last I heard, they were planning to increase its share. I’d love to read a good discussion of how they handle nuclear power, and what the reasons are that their approach might not work here.
On the flip side, another question I’ve been wondering about for awhile (but haven’t been able to Google an answer) is, if we put solar panels on every rooftop in America that faced southerly enough to be worth the trouble, what share of our current electricity consumption would that generate? Seems like if the answer is ‘a pretty big fraction of it,’ we should just do it. We can ramp up solar panel production a lot faster than nuclear plants.
germy
@Salty Sam:
The audience laughter at Clockwork Orange, when he listened to a symphony stored on a tiny micro-cassette, it was the same sort of laughter you’d hear today at a movie where a character pops a tiny pill into a portable microwave, and then two seconds later removes a fully roasted turkey with all the trimmings.
Your story about Soylent Green and birthdays reminded me of the George Jetson story going around now. He was just conceived.
The Jetsons cartoon was set 100 years in the future from the first broadcast, in the year 2062, and according to Wikipedia, George Jetson’s birthday was August 22, 2022.
So his mom and dad were getting busy last November?
Kay
I think this is a real problem and one Democrats and liberals could solve and they could solve it without regulating Fox news, which will fail anyway. I’m just shocked at how much Right wing content my 19 year old is fed and he follows mostly music.
We all make fun of the 15 year old interviewing Ted Cruz but 15 year olds will be voting in a couple of years. Democrats raise a shit load of money. They need to spread some of it around and stop relying solely on “volunteers”. It’s bullshit. We can pay our young people for content just like the Right pays their young people. Take 10% of the enormous sums we’re feeding to tv stations for ads – media that doesn’t even support Democrats anyway- and give it to some 18 year olds who want to create pro-liberal content.
We have to be smarter and more creative with spending, not raising. We raise plenty. The question is where does it get spent?
Forget Fox news. My 19 old couldn’t find Fox news if you paid him. He’s inundated with online Right wing content. It’s everywhere.
Suzanne
@Kay:
Well, yeah. MAGA looks back to the time when the women were barefoot and pregnant and in the kitchen. The unspoken part of looking back happily to the time when one income could support a middle-class family was that mostly white men got to choose which women to support via marriage, and then women couldn’t leave because they didn’t have income of their own. Family-friendly policy further reduces women’s dependency on men and therefore it’s bad.
Kay
They’re primarily concerned with self promotion because it’s the only way they can GET PAID.
Leto
@Kay: I think that’s a large factor. I read an article the other day on Chien-Shiung Wu (Discovering Dr Wu), who was the definitive authority on beta ray deterioration, was key to the success of the Manhattan Project, and seemed like an all around badass. This quote of hers toward the end really resonated with me:
I think she said this in the 60s? Was true then, true now, not sure how long it’ll still be true. I know more men are starting to stay home to be full time dads, care for the kids, be the “domestic” partner. They really enjoy it. They find a fulfillment they didn’t know/understand before.
Dr Wu’s husband was totally dedicated to her. Did all the “domestic” stuff (cooking, cleaning, household chores), drove her everywhere, while still maintaining his own very successful career. But he absolutely devoted himself to her because she was the one making fundamental changes to how we understood the world, and there was no resentment of that. Personally I don’t know how to replicate that in a greater capacity: you can still have a successful career and so can your wife. Your wife can be the shining star, top money earner in the family, and you can still have fulfillment/joy/purpose. idk man.
Kay
I’ll use a Balloon Juice example. Angry Black Lady. She has a huge following. Is there some reason the Democratic Party (or allied groups) couldn’t pay people like her for content? Or just piss it away on another overpriced tv ad 5 days prior to the election?
Why don’t we pay our people? They do it on the Right. Our money must be forever funelled to the same group of middle aged conduits? Spread some around!
Geminid
@lowtechcyclist: Wind generation capacity can also be built out relatively quickly. I think we’ll reach a point in the medium term when capital tied up in gas generation plants will be a factor delaying the build out of renewables. Also, a lot of supply contracts are for 10 years. New Mexico passed a strong clean power plan in 2019, but even their Four Corners coal plant is not scheduled to go off line until 2031. (Back in the 1960s, astronauts could see this plant’s smoke plume easily).
Still, reaching a goal of carbon neutral electrical generation by 1935 is not too heavy a lift. Heavy surface transport and air transport are tougher problems. Industrial emissions are a tough part of the problem also. Emissions from concrete production are estimated to be as much as 8% of total CO2 produced world wide.
Leto
@Kay: Definitely understand that feeling. I recommended a book a while back, not sure if you noticed, so going to recommend again: The Year of Living Danishly. Talks a bit about that cultural outsiderness via UK transplants to Denmark. The author’s husband gets his dream job at LEGO, they move from London, and welcome to a whole new way of doing things. Wondering how that matches up with your son/DIL’s experiences.
Feathers
@Baud: The myth comes from the postwar period where Europe really was materially behind the US. However, despite it becoming a conservative (and thus MSM) eternal truth, Europe invested in quality infrastructure and had housing policies which made sure that the housing which was built was affordable for the workers at nearby jobs. Germany even had a system where if land was being rezoned, 100% of the increased value was paid to the local government, not the landowners.
Of course, the US squandered that advantage by ending almost all infrastructure investment and allowing real estate and housing to become a corrupt morass. We have the worst of all worlds, large but unaffordable housing, largely owned, which means there is no flexibility for workers to easily move to take advantage of job opportunities. Real estate has become a casino, enabling vast international money laundering. We even had a corrupt, mobbed up real estate tycoon become President and nearly bring the American experiment to an end.
tldr: where American housing is larger than the European equivalent, it is because of corrupt policies demanding that it be unaffordable for the local population.
Sure Lurkalot
@Suzanne: Not only big houses but oodles of public storage facilities. There are probably 10 within a 3 mile radius of my home. We house our shitty stuff far better than people.
Suzanne
I will also note that lots of these heterosexual white men, even today, expected a marriage market in which they could be really mediocre (in intelligence, looks, earning power, personality, education, social station, whatever) and that some women would still be available. And yet that is proving to not be true, and marriage is increasingly concentrated among pairs of higher-status people. I would have sympathy if the reaction wasn’t incel-dom and MAGA.
Kay
@Suzanne:
The elite Right, religious nut division, say that after they ban abortion they plan on promoting family friendly policy. The idea is to use the mechanism of the state to advance the “culture wars” in a far Right religious direction because they admit they can’t win them on popular appeal.
School vouchers are another aspect of this. So Big Government but only in service of far Right religious beliefs and believers. You can get public funding but only if you’ll comply with religious-derived policy preferences.
Baud
@Kay:
Yes, because our side is more attuned to the presence of “corruption.” ABL would lose enormous credibility if she got paid by Dems for doing what she does.
germy
@Kay:
I think Brooklyn Dad Defiant gets paid.
But you’re right. A young conservative who can string two sentences together will be taken care of. While a brilliant young liberal makes jokes on twitter about their day job.
Suzanne
@Kay: Yeah they’re full of shit. Women’s liberation has always been bad for mediocre white men. They’re never going to do anything that helps women. It would loosen the vise grip they want.
Geminid
@Baud: Democratic communications professionals would still do well to take notes from twitter accounts like Ms. Gandy’s. I see some excellant, concise messaging from some of these folks. They may be “amateurs,” but that seems to make their arguments better founded.
mrmoshpotato
@Baud:
Glad you came to that conclusion on your own. I’m so proud of you.
Matt McIrvin
Part of the future imagined in Soylent Green was global warming. It’s my go-to example when people claim that everyone in the 1970s was worried about global cooling instead. Nope. There was a lot of uncertainty over whether particulate-induced cooling or CO2-induced warming would predominate, and there actually had been a few decades of modest cooling at that point, a pause in warming probably caused by particulate pollution. A couple of sensational magazine headlines drummed up fear of a new ice age. But according to retrospective literature surveys, the majority of climate scientists were actually more worried about warming, even then.
germy
@Geminid:
Accounts like Angry Black Lady’s are also good at exposing the frauds and grifters (like Shaun King, for example) and that’s valuable.
Baud
@Geminid: Sure. But we’re talking about whether Dems can give money to our supporters on social media and get away with it the way Republicans do.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: Imani also likely wants to be free to knock Democrats when they do something she doesn’t like, which happens fairly often.
germy
@Matt McIrvin:
There’s this famous video from 1958:
https://youtu.be/m-AXBbuDxRY?t=31
They were warning us for decades and decades.
Jinchi
I remember Trump telling Republicans to vote twice, just to prove how easy it was (for Democrats) to cheat.
So they’ll probably argue that it was legal because ‘their president’ told them to do it.
Geminid
@Baud: I wouldn’t suggest paying twitter advocates. I just want the people who do our paid messaging to learn from these people. Some are really good.
Some Democratic leaders are good at concise twitter messaging. House Caucus Chairman Hakeem Jeffries comes to mind here. I think Jeffries is one of our best communicators, whether short, medium, or long form.
Kay
@Baud:
Wellm can we do some thinking about it? I’m constantly told liberals are “creative” but they’ve set up this weird, rigid top down culture in their messaging and campaigns that seems to be relying on some antiquated idea of volunteers “stuffing envelopes”. Pay people for their work. No labor union would ever say “go out and organize but could you do it free? ” It’s not even consistent with Democratic principles.
They don’t have to put them on a payroll. Create some entity to pass thru funds to pay them for content. It won’t all be strictly on point but the Right’s fucking army of content creators isn’t all strictly on point either.
And find some young ones. “40” is not young when you’re 19.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Geminid: Brian Schatz is good too
Matt McIrvin
@germy: Svante Arrhenius calculated a rough estimate of the climate sensitivity to carbon dioxide in 1896, and later suggested that the burning of fossil fuels could be a significant contributor.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Agree. He’s underrated.
Baud
@Kay: Agree with paying people who work for you. I just don’t think we get away with paying “independent” shills the way the GOP can.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: Yep. Racism as a societal and political pathogen rightly gets a lot of attention, but misogyny is an enormous problem too.
Kay
@Baud:
The online Left doesn’t even have young content creators. Glenn Greenwald and Mat Taibi are middle aged. They’re ranting about vax mandates in colleges- when’s the last time either of them have been near a college? Todays 19 olds were born the year they started as “online Leftists”. I don’t know what they think. We don’t ask them.
Feathers
@lowtechcyclist: On the French nuclear reactors: the short version of the story is after WWII, when the US decided to build nuclear power plants, the decision was made to use the same technology that the navy was using on its submarines. That way there would be a fully trained workforce available to run them. It turns out that process used on submarines did not scale well, with dangerous potential for meltdowns and large amounts of toxic radioactive waste. France decided to start from scratch designing their reactors and use an entirely different technique. It involves feeding pellets of fuel into the reactor, so that there is far less meltdown risk. They are also smaller, and the same design used for every plant, allowing for all plants to be upgraded if a problem is found. Also, the US plants were built by local electric power companies, with their local corruption and cronyism, instead of a new agency building all the plants in the country.
As someone who went to college in the Cold War era, my course on Nuclear Weapons, Nuclear War, and Arms Control has provided me with a weird niche of knowledge that seems to be lost to the civilian population today. The youngs get really creeped out to learn that you know this stuff.
WereBear
@Percysowner: To be fair, a lot of it was written before reliable birth control. And, being men, they never thought of it…
tom
@Kay:
Yes, we do :)
Jinchi
@Matt McIrvin:
True. People in the 1970s who worried about global cooling were usually talking about a post World War 3 nuclear winter.
Kay
@Baud:
I want to think more broadly than “shills” because shills won’t work. Is the benefit from their actual liberal views valuable enough to pay them to write what they want? If they’re engaging and interesting I think it is. But we’d have to let go of a really rigid view of “message discipline” in return for broader dissemination. We have to rethink the whole thing.
If it’s just “Democrats are great!” it’ll be boring anyway and no one will watch it. Young people have a LOT of content from which to choose. We have to compete. It has to be good.
Kay
@tom:
In Denmark they say “there is no bad weather, there’s only the wrong clothing”
In Denmark and in Michigan they say this.
Ruckus
@OzarkHillbilly:
Seems that in DC there is a rather large group of elected officials whose only concept is being the worst and dumbest humans possible. Strangely every one of them is a supporter of TFG.
jonas
@OzarkHillbilly: It’s Johnson, for sure. Cruz isn’t stupid, but he plays an idiot on TV because he knows that’s what his base wants to see.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: Patriarchy runs so deep in culture and society that it’s hard to grasp it’s full extent. I sometimes think that the misogyny and sexism we can see are just the tip of an iceberg.
Kay
@Baud:
And it shouldn’t be “organizing”. Organizing is a different thing that what I’m after. I’m after dissemination of ideas to an audience in an appealing way that they will view because they want to. So what the popular volunteers are already doing. Proven success. They did it with no help.
Steeplejack
Dunno if anyone has posted this. NBC news quiz: “Was it 2020? Or 2021?” Fifty questions. I got 39.
Miss Bianca
@tom: We DO?!?
Baud
@Kay:
I don’t know you need the party for that. A lot of GOP memes come from independent wealthy people (or Putin). We have some wealthy Dems who aren’t elected officials. Why can’t they take initiative?
Feathers
@Betty Cracker: Which is what infuriates me about the whole “white feminism” thing. Not that feminism doesn’t need to be intersectional, but that it ignores the ways in which misogyny and racism are intertwined and denies that misogyny is the more deeply rooted in most men. As one friend put it, they’ll watch a mediocre Black basketball team, but turn up their noses at a superior women’s game. Misogynist white men are an enormous problem. White women who work on that issue need support, not being shit all over.
People’s activism invariably begins in their own community. We want people to grow beyond that, but shaming them for those initial urges will turn them away from activism altogether rather than encourage them to take a broader view.
It also means “liberal” comedians reviving all their misogynist materials by sticking in the word “white” every time they say women. It really does give the whole game away.
Another Scott
@lowtechcyclist:
France doesn’t have any secret sauce. Bellona.org from March 2020.
Reuters from December 2021 (free registration required).
Solar on half the world’s roofs could meet its entire electricity demand – there’s a lot of power in sunlight! ;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
Matt McIrvin
@Steeplejack: 41/50, and in one case I would argue I was right and the quiz was using cooked numbers (“US reaches 500,000 COVID deaths”).
Kay
@Baud:
Agree! Our rich people are too stodgy. It could be this loosely affliated group – if the content is 90% pro Democrat but goes to 4 million people that’s a good return. Obviously if they go full anti-Party they don’t get hired the next cycle, but them’s the breaks. They can go back to being wholly independents.
But it can’t be too rigid. If it’s a campaign website it’s not worth anything.
Kay
@Feathers:
I agree. Every time abortion comes up I’m told “white women voted for it”. Oh, thanks for that news. I wasn’t aware. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with it, but I suspect the answer is “shut up”. That’s what I’m supposed to do with it.
Suzanne
@Kay:
I agree with you again.
I also am really sick of “organizing” being the direction we give to the vast majority of people who want to be more participatory in the political process. Most people — myself included — have no idea what that genuinely means. Most of us have jobs and families and other obligations and don’t have the time or the skill to organize…. what? A rally? A march? A bake sale or a letter-writing campaign?
The better course of action is to POINT PEOPLE toward existing organizations who need volunteers or money, let the volunteers who have an hour or two a month stick stamps on the envelopes, and pay professional content creators and organizers.
Jinchi
Right.
Science fiction writers weren’t so much predicting the future as extrapolating from current trends. In 1970 the world’s population was growing faster than at any point in world history. It’s slowed a lot since then, but at the current growth rate, we’d double again before the end of the century.
Suzanne
@Feathers: Agree. The dumping on “white feminism” also has a crabs-in-bucket feel to me. Not to mention, I would also like to think that I am capable of holding two thoughts in y head at the same time. For example, underrepresentation of women in high-paying corporate jobs is perhaps not the largest problem we face, but it is a problem if you genuinely think, as I do, that full engagement and equality in all aspects of society is the end goal.
Another Scott
@Kay: I saw her mentioning that the signed up for Twitter’s Super Follower stuff (Twitter is finally letting people earn money directly on the site). I have no idea how much she could actually earn there, but if it helps her pay the bills and get more visibility, it’s good.
I do wonder how people like LOLGOP and nycsouthpaw can spend so much time on the site. Someone must be paying the bills…
Cheers,
Scott.
Feathers
@Kay: Blame Ralph Nader for setting up the PIRG system, which has a small cadre of highly paid “professionals” leading an army of young, educated low or unpaid workers, burning them out in the process. Tragically, it became the model for most leftist organizations. That the worker bees were often largely women (& later POC) goes unsaid.
Also blame the tax laws around non-profits. Salaries above a certain level are declared to be “overhead.” This is set too low for city living today, or supporting a family almost anywhere. “Overhead” is seen as waste, when it could simply be paying workers living wages. My father ran into this when he was in the board of the local homeless shelter. They would lose wonderful social workers because they would want to get married and start a family, but paying them what they were worth would make this fantastic org look wasteful and risk losing donations. This also feeds the culture of paying a few large salaries to higher ups and not much to everyone else. So they don’t stay long and leave bitter.
Rightwing donors correctly don’t care about waste. They probably give a shitload of money and want their cousin’s wastrel son to get a six figure salary, so it all works out.
Kay
@Suzanne:
It’s that they’re two different things. The response to “we don’t talk enough to our people” shouldn’t be “organize!”
Talking to them is a predicate to organizing them. You have to get them in the door first. It’s as if we skip the whole “let’s convince these people they need a union” – the ten fucking years of that- and instead said “get the union members out to vote!” Well, okay, but someone MADE them union members. There was a whole thing prior and it was the hardest part.
Geminid
@Kay: Madi Semrau (@Magi_Jay) tries to speak to young people. She’s in her 30s, but works at a Pennsylvania state college. She comes from a position of having organized for Nader as a teenager, but now understanding how good a president Al Gore would have been.
Semrau is good at lucid, logical argument, maybe not punchy messaging. I thought her recent critique of David Sirota was a good takedown, though. At one point she stated the problem of bad faith attacks on the Biden administration very well:
artem1s
@Kay:
FWIW, I saw lots of Biden and pro-voting ads on my game apps during the 2020 election. Angry Birds and some others. They were simple and direct and probable cost pennies on the dollar compared to the #s reached by TV. One benefit to the candidate was there were no comments to wade thru like there are on ads on social media platforms like Twitter of FacePlant.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay:
I think there is a real “hack gap” though. Individual voices on the right are much, much more willing to say what somebody tells them to say. Individual voices on the left will tell you to go fuck yourself and attack the party. I actually wouldn’t have it any other way. But it puts us at a disadvantage.
Baud
@Kay:
I think it’s a labeling problem. “Organize” became the catch all term to refer to everything that isn’t “policy,” which some have argued is what Dems need to improve to attract new voters.
Suzanne
@Kay: The other part that comes even before talking to people is being the kind of people that someone will want to talk and listen to. Credible and aspirational and intelligent and capable. I don’t think we’re always great at identifying those people. To be fair, it’s difficult.
Ruckus
@OzarkHillbilly:
Intelligence is no bar to
stupiditybeing an asshole.At least in the case under discussion…..
Bill Arnold
@Another Scott:
Shutdowns of nuclear power plants are acts of slow mass homicide.
Argue if you will about whether new nuclear plants should be built, but please consider that the mortality cost of carbon is, assuming a death toll from global heating (uninhabitable regions, famine, war, etc) of 1 billion humans, about 1 human future death per thousand tons of carbon. (Coal is mostly carbon.) (That’s roughly a slider; different numbers for estimated future deaths can be plugged in. 1 billion dead/1 gigadeath is on the low side of plausible futures, IMO.)
Here’s a decent estimate, that ONLY looks at excess deaths through high temperature direct kills: The mortality cost of carbon (29 July 2021, Daniel Bressler, open access.)
(D. Bressler expressly says that he restricts his analysis to risks that are easiest to estimate.)
Feathers
@Suzanne: It’s like the race vs class thing. People working in either area should have each other’s backs. Instead, we have endless battles to the death back and forth.
I think some of it is the latent Catholicism in me coming out. We are all sinners, raised in a racist world. Also, people don’t know the history of all these various movements. Yes, it matters that they are coming from a Trotskyist mentality. Yes, “the only war is class war” is bullshit, especially in a globalized world. But how can you use a person like that? What argument might they be willing to at least partially acknowledge? Because you have to understand the point they are making to be able to change their minds. Leave them to work on minimum wage issues and demand to be kept up to date to make sure no sneaky racist bullshit or unintended consequences slip by them.
Another Scott
@Matt McIrvin: I think there’s a huge amount of money wasted on the far-right. Just today I got the latest screaming frothy nonsense from the Hillsdale College monthly newsletter. Some white guy from the “Crime Prevention Research Center” asking “Is Ensuring Election Integrity Anti-Democratic?”
“Over 6,100,000 readers monthly” – yeah, no. I don’t think so.
[ rip! throw into recycling bin ]
(I figure they got my name from an ancient donor list – I gave McCain (and Bradley) some money very early in 2000 (before the first primary). I had weird ideas about politics then…)
Cheers,
Scott.
Jinchi
@artem1s:
The only candidate my 10 year old could name during the primary was Michael Bloomberg and he absolutely hated him for his incessant interruptions.
Which is only to say that messaging and advertising needs to be targeted and complimented with direct voter engagement. It’s really easy to throw away a billion dollars on advertising.
Niques
@lowtechcyclist: Yup. i lived alone in a brand new one-bedroom apartment, making payments on a brand new Firebird … all on a minimum wage job.
zhena gogolia
@Kay: Yeah.
JAFD
My father was a real estate broker, and when I turned 21 he gave me a ‘Real Estate Salesman’s License’ application form, and a bookle of ‘what you need to know to pass the real estate license exam’. So I spent a lot of the Saturdays and Sundays of 1972 sitting in the living room of a sample house, waiting…
At some point this spring or summer, will journey back there, post some pictures of the villas in Aston that could be bought for $27,500 back then…
(The farmland within easy commuting range has all been built over, the big tall trees have been cut … If you bought a house back then, ’twas best deal since selling rifles to the Union Army. And, of course, half the people who looked at these houses said “Don’t build them like they used to…” )
JAFD
There’s a 1980 book, Great Expectations: America & the Baby Boom Generation by Landon Jones. Talks, in one chapter, about reasons why families of the ’50’s and ’60’s were bigger, beside ‘catching up’ after Great Depression and WWII. Worth reading if you’re interested in that chunk of history.
lowtechcyclist
@Another Scott: Thanks for the info on rooftop solar. I wonder how well that applies to the U.S., since a lot of the world lives closer to the equator than we do. But it still strongly suggests that putting solar on every rooftop that faces more south than north (or flat, like we have in more arid parts of the U.S.) would be a winner.
The older of your two links re France says they’re winding down their reliance on nukes, and the newer one says they were pushing to expand their nuclear power program until this problem with the pipes was found. (I’m no expert, but the article’s tenor seems to be that it’s more the sort of thing where they’d pause while fixing the problem rather than one that would call their program into question.)
So that doesn’t answer the question either way, ISTM. But:
@Feathers:
Fascinating. There are all sorts of “how did things get to be the way they are” questions floating around in my mind, and you’ve answered one of them. Nuclear subs and private companies.
It seems that America’s belief in the private sector, which makes sense in many areas, has gotten to be a cancer on this country. From nuclear power to health care, things that are handled by the government in most advanced countries are balkanized among private interests here. It’s crazy.
Nutmeg again
I’ve seen so much Children of Men in the news, last year. Of course, it’s one of my all-time favorite movies, so… I also think the movie is better than the book.
J R in WV
@Kay:
Oh, Come on, Kay, you’re talking about Megan McArglebargle here. Of course she doesn’t know what she’s talking about!
Do you suppose she’s ever visited in a regular working class home in Denmark? Or in Ohio for that matter!!?!! Nope!
dopey-o
There you go, feminist-izing again.
As if a person who designs hospitals wouldn’t be holding dozen of thoughts simultaneously….. deliberately.
artem1s
@Jinchi: I’m not a 10 year old boy. which is only to say that these ads hit a lot viewers of atypical voting age without having to rely on the filter of the press or hackers shouting over the top of the message. AND they cost pennies compared to TV which is exactly what you were bitching about.
No One You Know
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Nothing wrong with disco. Granted, white guys didn’t like it. The rest of us saw opportunities for everything from new dance moves to new careers.