Update on "Signalgate": Yesterday I opined that the discussion of the Houthi attack plans on the (extremely unapproved) Signal app were probably only SECRET. That now seems false.
Jeffrey Goldberg's account in the Atlantic makes clear that intelligence reports (which he wisely chose not to quote) were part of that discussion. That could easily bump the clearance level to TOP SECRET SCI, and absolutely should only have taken place with the participants in SCIFs (where their nonsecure, unapproved smartphones would not have worked).
The Goldberg article is available at the link below. The paywall can easily be sidestepped by signing up for a 30 day free trial, and cancelling after you have read the article.
There is also a link to another article with the transcript, which I have not read.
In my my opinion, at least Mike Waltz (who admitted Goldberg into the group chat) and possibly all the participants, should be prosecuted for gross negligence under the Espionage Act, the same charges that were considered (correctly) for Hillary Clinton.
That won't happen, of course, any more than it did for Clinton.
Spent this morning on biohazard cleanup instead of hiking — super glad to have brought a bottle of plain ammonia on our vacation.
We had a nice late-afternoon hike yesterday, except for our younger‘ uns having tummy troubles on the trail. We were late returning, couldn’t find our trailhead in the dark, so returned to a different one, upon which some kindly campers offered to load us in the back of their pickup truck and drive us to the trailhead we should have returned to. We got to see the stars during the ride — it was magical. And our youngest, who got sickest on the trail, was very brave about it. Wonder what the kids ate, though, since they didn’t get sick from heat, cold, or dehydration.
We have an afternoon hike planned once the laundry is done.
One of my email addresses attracts much junk mail, although I am curious by the offers, what they think I have searched for. For example, a week ago we looked at some pyrex, since we found an unopened box we bought 15 years ago (it was in the garage). 🙄Today, "Macy's awards you a free pyrex set". Obviously junk mail.
But the email above this one concerned me: the sender line read "Easy Seniors Club". Are they swingers? A singles site? More importantly, what did I click on that made them think I was looking? 😳The actual title line was about changes in social security, so who knows. Maybe SSA is offering mixers? I'm gonna delete it, unopened.
On X, a popular trend is to ask Grok to identify from your tweets something about you. Often it is "who do I resemble (along with a category)"? Last week it was musicians. Grok said I resemble Jimmy Buffet. Thankfully it's because he is a storyteller and not because he's dead.
I have no doubt that the personal data DOGE is hoovering up at the IRS and SSA will be sold to the highest bidder. And they will tweet us to death with offers that look like something important from the IRS and SSA so people will click on them and end up buying something they don't want. That's why they wanted the personal data so very badly--it's highly profitable.
It can also be used for malign purposes, but that isn't profitable so will only be used when Trump--or one of his minions--wants retribution or to manipulate (vote for or be audited).
This is the US today; this is the US the majority voted for (not by much, but by enough).
That is one beautiful beetle! The prettiest we get are the Japanese beetles and their beauty is tarnished because they are so destructive. One time I was driving the family home from up north and my husband was in the passenger seat. He looked over at me and said “don’t move!” Of course I freaked out and started swatting myself all over knowing that there was something on me. It was just a Japanese beetle. He could’ve just said it.
"Although beetles of this kind chew holes in the leaves of their host plants, they are not found in large swarms, and they rarely damage plants’ health significantly."
From Cynthia's description, I suspect if the golden tortoise beetle becomes established outside the Americas, it could be an invasive pest as bad as the emeral d ash border, which has killed countless ash trees.
There are destructive leaf beetle species that are invasive in the United States. There are also leaf beetle species, like the coconut leaf beetle, that are invasive in parts of Asia, having originated in other parts of Asia. I didn't find any information about beetles of American origin that are invasive in Asia, but that doesn't mean they don't exists.
There are plenty of Convolvulaceae plant species in Asia and Africa which these beetles could eat, if they got there. Whether they would reach destructive levels of population depends on competition from other insects and whether they were eaten by native predators.
It's actually a growing trend in pyschology and its workplace cousin, organizational behavior (OB). In OB they try to tie it to performance outcomes, including retention, calling off, engaging in helpful behaviors (Organizational Citizenship Behaviors, or OCBs). In society, an OCB might be rolling a shopping cart into a corral on your way into the store, or picking up litter, etc.
I like French because he adapts to new information. But he's slower than a beetle walking 100 miles thru molasses. He's 5 years behind what I've been saying
Poor David is still coping with having a lifetime, and early career, of "scales drop from his eyes" on his entire world view (practically) -- from the reception his adoption of a Black baby girl received to his wife's exposure of the largest Christian camp pedophilia to Trump and the co-option of law to support everything Trump does.
I don't think David has fundamentally changed his principles. Rather, what happened is that many who seemed to be Reaganite conservatives along with David (and myself) showed themselves to be something altogether different, and even willing to give expression to ugly (previously hidden) things like the racism that David experienced.
A lot of that had to do with Donald Trump intuitively tapping into the feelings of those fake-conservatives. But as David pointed out in another recent column, that goes back at least to the emergence of the Tea Party, itself a reaction to increasing polarization from the Obama era.
I think that, had the northeast - centered media done its job reporting objectively on DJT early on, he would never have been elected in the first place. But because they knew him and didn't grasp the power of anti- NY sentiment, anti-DC sentiment and because they were arrogant, they didn't do that. To be fair, they gave us credit for having more sense than subsequent events revealed.
As I said to Phil, self reflection is the slowest of things.
Not to start any unpleasant argument, but I said 5 years ago at The Dispatch, that the long war by Conservatives vs Liberals would lead to Autocracy. That some strong conservatives overtly desired it, some subliminally so. The actions of McConnell vs Obama.
As in thermodynamics, and complex systems, one thing wins. A driving force. That driver was the Conservative overt "we must always win and always never be wrong. Never any Liberal program, no matter what". The forcing is the majority national leaders drive to win win win.
Coexistence with Liberal policies, became over time, an anathema.
Consider roommates in an apartment. One likes it warm, the other needs cool. Then the warm one decides I need hot and I need hotter and hotter. Every attempt to cool by the cool roommate prompts a rapid response to raise the temperature. Even higher. And then when the Cool roommate even rises out of their chair, Jot mate leaps to the thermostat and raises it even higher. Something like this.
Except imagine a frat house. The hots and the colds. The Hots have a goal. Hot always no matter what. Every Hot is responding with the same rapiditity. Hot hot instantly. Meanwhile, the disorganized Colds are talking about lunch, what to call boys and girls and others, worrying about the garden and nutrition of the meals. Not realizing until too late, how dangerous HOT it became.
David's column is probably best read as a kind of status report on the attacks of the Trump administration on the rule of law. In that regard, there is still hope, as the judiciary (unlike Congress) is still opposing him.
And (despite the fact he's writing for the NY Times), he comes from a more conservative perspective than you do, so he's not as inclined to react as you do (or as many other online liberals do).
And (not that I accuse anyone here) knee-jerk reactions are the quickest of things.
Once Donald Trump was elected the first time in 2016, I believed that he deserved at least a chance to show he was better than his manifest unfitness would suggest. He proved that wrong soon enough. But the initial reaction on the Left, practically on his first day in office, was pure hysteria. The "pussy-hat" marchers were a prime example. Those were classic "knee-jerk" reactions.
What is interesting is that, given that 1/6 showed how bad Trump really was and is, reaction on the Left to Trump 2.0 is strangely muted.
Neither Normal Right or Normal Left can beat Trump and his 1930s populism. Trump has gained approval per Gallup. Except for use more elderly.
It will take a catastrophic situation or a Leftist Trump populist. One that has yet to be on stage. And a man. Americans don't want a POC or female President. Imho
Not convinced about a female President. Kamala Harris was the wrong female (as was, for different reasons, Hillary Clinton). But rabid populism is probably more convincingly expressed by a male. Men make better bullies.
Blacks or "persons of color" is a different matter. Plenty of those have been active in the Democratic Party for decades, but Barack Obama (for various reasons) was the only one even to get nominated, let alone win.
IMO, a substantial part of of Trump's gallup "approval" simply see him as the lesser evil, not really good in himself.
Good morning. 32 degrees here with highs in the high 50s and sunny.
The mothership is covering how the Trump administrations vaccine skepticism is affecting new mRNA research as well as potentially the production of our annual flue shots. And on this Opening Day, the FP asks “Does baseball suck?”
Yesterday the mothership thread Democrats Need To Dig Deep brought out a lot of anger in participants. I read through - it provided more semi demoralizing theatre than it did enlightenment.
These days I generally answer the LUK question, maybe drop 1 or 2 other comments then leave and come here. In part that's because I comment early and don't feel like reloading the page to get more comments (although I will check my comment on the Disqus profile).
Our local Y is doing an "opening day" event this afternoon. People are to wear their favorite baseball jersey (I don't own any), eat hot dogs (provided by the Y), and win tchotchke.
Back when I worked in advertising, my working group used to be taken to Cubs opening days at Wrigley Field, courtesy of some of the media. Typically we would need to bundle up and have hot beverages. Later we would get to warm up at a local bar.
The old mRNA research wasn’t that great. Of course you won’t hear about any of the recent findings about the Covid shots unless you follow people like Alex Berenson. Things like people making spike protein years after receiving a shot and some people who got boosters are more apt to get Covid infections.
I can promise you that the people involved in this kind of work are paying attention to these studies. mRNA vaccines/cancer treatments are a huge area of research/interest. The last thing anyone that works in that field wants to happen is for a treatment to be approved that does substantial harm (as we all know, all treatments have side effects).
This study does not in any way mean that the old research "wasn't that great". Our knowledge is constantly growing and evolving. There are so many things we did in the recent past that we now know was wrong. You make the best decisions with the information you have, and you constantly re-evaluate what you are doing as new information becomes available. Waiting for the perfect study or the perfect treatment is foolish (and futile).
There’s so much more to experiment with and measure and discover and learn about almost everything. When you try to pursue any angle of this stuff, you normally can expect to discover lots and lots of unexpected details and nuance, such that whatever passes for the conventional narrative proves to reside in a different neighborhood from Fact and Truth.
Claims that the benefits are involve too much risks ignore the complexity of all the individual risks people face. Proclaiming a pharmaceutical treatment is squeaky-clean and devoid of potentially terrible side effects is equally short-sighted. Government spokespeople—presumably with noble intentions—promoted the latter idea and brought down all sorts of built-up public trust in doing so.
You sound like my vaccine-skeptic sister. She doesn't talk about mRNA but she does claim her husband's hard issues are due to his taking the vaccines.
I would be curious about what the scientific consensus is regarding Berenson's research. Unfortunately, it could easily be politicizled, for or against vaccines in general.
No. I recognize that mRNA research is an important thing, but I'd be more interested in a reading an article focused on that topic, pro and con, than one about the Trump administration's something something.
I guess what I'm saying is that anything that includes Trump has pretty much lost my interest.
They probably give them a paper survey, and see which answers they chew through. In psychology, they give surveys and you self report how happy you are. Generally a 5 point Likert scale, the question is "I describe my self as happy most of the time" (along with some fluff), and you either strongly agree (5) neutral (3), or strongly disagree (1). So for beetles, they don't fill out long paper surveys as they get tired.
As for the anal fork, perhaps something like "you seem very flexible; I could never eat with an anal fork at my age, I can't reach". It seems a nice compliment.
Or perhaps for Halloween you wear an all gold outfit and tape a fork to your outfit down there. I am sure that will generate questions for conversation starters!
Fortunately, the description of a golden tortoise beetle's larval stage is too obscure to qualify as a bad pun (is there any other kind?). And you already got a 🚪 today.
1. I need to know how the researchers determine "happiness" in a beetle.
I think they deduce that the bright gold color indicates happiness - enough food, enough water, no stress - by observing that the color changes when environmental conditions are negative.
We need to develop a new vocabulary for where we're at. I used to say "thru the looking glass" to imply we're breaking new ground in weirdness, but we passed the looking glass barrier a while back.
These are cool. And look remarkably like a gold pin my mom had.
Update on "Signalgate": Yesterday I opined that the discussion of the Houthi attack plans on the (extremely unapproved) Signal app were probably only SECRET. That now seems false.
Jeffrey Goldberg's account in the Atlantic makes clear that intelligence reports (which he wisely chose not to quote) were part of that discussion. That could easily bump the clearance level to TOP SECRET SCI, and absolutely should only have taken place with the participants in SCIFs (where their nonsecure, unapproved smartphones would not have worked).
The Goldberg article is available at the link below. The paywall can easily be sidestepped by signing up for a 30 day free trial, and cancelling after you have read the article.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/03/trump-administration-accidentally-texted-me-its-war-plans/682151/
There is also a link to another article with the transcript, which I have not read.
In my my opinion, at least Mike Waltz (who admitted Goldberg into the group chat) and possibly all the participants, should be prosecuted for gross negligence under the Espionage Act, the same charges that were considered (correctly) for Hillary Clinton.
That won't happen, of course, any more than it did for Clinton.
Spent this morning on biohazard cleanup instead of hiking — super glad to have brought a bottle of plain ammonia on our vacation.
We had a nice late-afternoon hike yesterday, except for our younger‘ uns having tummy troubles on the trail. We were late returning, couldn’t find our trailhead in the dark, so returned to a different one, upon which some kindly campers offered to load us in the back of their pickup truck and drive us to the trailhead we should have returned to. We got to see the stars during the ride — it was magical. And our youngest, who got sickest on the trail, was very brave about it. Wonder what the kids ate, though, since they didn’t get sick from heat, cold, or dehydration.
We have an afternoon hike planned once the laundry is done.
Sounds like it's good and bad.
Stars in the woods from the back of a pickup sounds wonderful.
Not a cat. Not a tortoise, either. A very shiny bug.
Yes, just a bug.
One of my email addresses attracts much junk mail, although I am curious by the offers, what they think I have searched for. For example, a week ago we looked at some pyrex, since we found an unopened box we bought 15 years ago (it was in the garage). 🙄Today, "Macy's awards you a free pyrex set". Obviously junk mail.
But the email above this one concerned me: the sender line read "Easy Seniors Club". Are they swingers? A singles site? More importantly, what did I click on that made them think I was looking? 😳The actual title line was about changes in social security, so who knows. Maybe SSA is offering mixers? I'm gonna delete it, unopened.
On X, a popular trend is to ask Grok to identify from your tweets something about you. Often it is "who do I resemble (along with a category)"? Last week it was musicians. Grok said I resemble Jimmy Buffet. Thankfully it's because he is a storyteller and not because he's dead.
I have no doubt that the personal data DOGE is hoovering up at the IRS and SSA will be sold to the highest bidder. And they will tweet us to death with offers that look like something important from the IRS and SSA so people will click on them and end up buying something they don't want. That's why they wanted the personal data so very badly--it's highly profitable.
It can also be used for malign purposes, but that isn't profitable so will only be used when Trump--or one of his minions--wants retribution or to manipulate (vote for or be audited).
This is the US today; this is the US the majority voted for (not by much, but by enough).
I also saw a quick mention of a beetle on TwiX. The bombardier beetle. Worth a TSAF?
So would TSAF be the Turkmenistan States Air Force or the Turkish? I could see both having bombardiers....
I don't think Turkmenistan can afford bombers.
I am quite familiar with that insect, but I don't know if I covered it in print.
That is a beautiful beetle.
That is one beautiful beetle! The prettiest we get are the Japanese beetles and their beauty is tarnished because they are so destructive. One time I was driving the family home from up north and my husband was in the passenger seat. He looked over at me and said “don’t move!” Of course I freaked out and started swatting myself all over knowing that there was something on me. It was just a Japanese beetle. He could’ve just said it.
I agree it's beautiful! Something unexpected to say about a beetle.
The Emerald Ash Borer is beautiful, too.
"Although beetles of this kind chew holes in the leaves of their host plants, they are not found in large swarms, and they rarely damage plants’ health significantly."
From Cynthia's description, I suspect if the golden tortoise beetle becomes established outside the Americas, it could be an invasive pest as bad as the emeral d ash border, which has killed countless ash trees.
There are destructive leaf beetle species that are invasive in the United States. There are also leaf beetle species, like the coconut leaf beetle, that are invasive in parts of Asia, having originated in other parts of Asia. I didn't find any information about beetles of American origin that are invasive in Asia, but that doesn't mean they don't exists.
There are plenty of Convolvulaceae plant species in Asia and Africa which these beetles could eat, if they got there. Whether they would reach destructive levels of population depends on competition from other insects and whether they were eaten by native predators.
You gotta be careful saying "convolvulceae."
Lol 😆.
Not if you liked ash trees.
I still think it's beautiful.
It's more beautiful crushed. 🙂
They are ugly invasive species in the US, like the lantern fly.
I don't think lantern flies are cute.
Really, Cynthia? No mention of dropping it through the eye-hole of a skull to find Captain Kidd's treasure?
No, just the science today.
Happy” doesn’t seem like a scienc-y word
True. I'm a science popularizer, not an actual science person.
You sell yourself short.
I have some expertise in the science of survival.
It's actually a growing trend in pyschology and its workplace cousin, organizational behavior (OB). In OB they try to tie it to performance outcomes, including retention, calling off, engaging in helpful behaviors (Organizational Citizenship Behaviors, or OCBs). In society, an OCB might be rolling a shopping cart into a corral on your way into the store, or picking up litter, etc.
Measuring it is the messy part.
From JohnM at the mothership, an occasional visitor here:
WWorth Your Time II: ' Trump Is Coming for Every Pillar of the State '--David French
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/27/opinion/trump-judges-congress.html?unlocked_article_code=1.7E4.j2rb.9dz8OStvNPPV&smid=url-share
'George Will's 2025 Opening Day Quiz
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/interactive/2025/george-will-opening-day-quiz-2025/?pwapi_token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJyZWFzb24iOiJnaWZ0IiwibmJmIjoxNzQyOTYxNjAwLCJpc3MiOiJzdWJzY3JpcHRpb25zIiwiZXhwIjoxNzQ0MzQzOTk5LCJpYXQiOjE3NDI5NjE2MDAsImp0aSI6Ijk2ZTgxMmNkLTQwYjAtNGY0My1iNThiLTBkMDUyZmI5M2U4ZiIsInVybCI6Imh0dHBzOi8vd3d3Lndhc2hpbmd0b25wb3N0LmNvbS9vcGluaW9ucy9pbnRlcmFjdGl2ZS8yMDI1L2dlb3JnZS13aWxsLW9wZW5pbmctZGF5LXF1aXotMjAyNS8ifQ.yRE2AkK1SClLvfDWq0SFwWjbljqrRTbBvWs8a5pfWPY&itid=gfta
I like French because he adapts to new information. But he's slower than a beetle walking 100 miles thru molasses. He's 5 years behind what I've been saying
Poor David is still coping with having a lifetime, and early career, of "scales drop from his eyes" on his entire world view (practically) -- from the reception his adoption of a Black baby girl received to his wife's exposure of the largest Christian camp pedophilia to Trump and the co-option of law to support everything Trump does.
I don't think David has fundamentally changed his principles. Rather, what happened is that many who seemed to be Reaganite conservatives along with David (and myself) showed themselves to be something altogether different, and even willing to give expression to ugly (previously hidden) things like the racism that David experienced.
A lot of that had to do with Donald Trump intuitively tapping into the feelings of those fake-conservatives. But as David pointed out in another recent column, that goes back at least to the emergence of the Tea Party, itself a reaction to increasing polarization from the Obama era.
So how do you account for that slowness?
I think that, had the northeast - centered media done its job reporting objectively on DJT early on, he would never have been elected in the first place. But because they knew him and didn't grasp the power of anti- NY sentiment, anti-DC sentiment and because they were arrogant, they didn't do that. To be fair, they gave us credit for having more sense than subsequent events revealed.
As I said to Phil, self reflection is the slowest of things.
Not to start any unpleasant argument, but I said 5 years ago at The Dispatch, that the long war by Conservatives vs Liberals would lead to Autocracy. That some strong conservatives overtly desired it, some subliminally so. The actions of McConnell vs Obama.
As in thermodynamics, and complex systems, one thing wins. A driving force. That driver was the Conservative overt "we must always win and always never be wrong. Never any Liberal program, no matter what". The forcing is the majority national leaders drive to win win win.
Coexistence with Liberal policies, became over time, an anathema.
Consider roommates in an apartment. One likes it warm, the other needs cool. Then the warm one decides I need hot and I need hotter and hotter. Every attempt to cool by the cool roommate prompts a rapid response to raise the temperature. Even higher. And then when the Cool roommate even rises out of their chair, Jot mate leaps to the thermostat and raises it even higher. Something like this.
Except imagine a frat house. The hots and the colds. The Hots have a goal. Hot always no matter what. Every Hot is responding with the same rapiditity. Hot hot instantly. Meanwhile, the disorganized Colds are talking about lunch, what to call boys and girls and others, worrying about the garden and nutrition of the meals. Not realizing until too late, how dangerous HOT it became.
David's column is probably best read as a kind of status report on the attacks of the Trump administration on the rule of law. In that regard, there is still hope, as the judiciary (unlike Congress) is still opposing him.
And (despite the fact he's writing for the NY Times), he comes from a more conservative perspective than you do, so he's not as inclined to react as you do (or as many other online liberals do).
Naturally. Self reflection is the slowest of things
And (not that I accuse anyone here) knee-jerk reactions are the quickest of things.
Once Donald Trump was elected the first time in 2016, I believed that he deserved at least a chance to show he was better than his manifest unfitness would suggest. He proved that wrong soon enough. But the initial reaction on the Left, practically on his first day in office, was pure hysteria. The "pussy-hat" marchers were a prime example. Those were classic "knee-jerk" reactions.
What is interesting is that, given that 1/6 showed how bad Trump really was and is, reaction on the Left to Trump 2.0 is strangely muted.
Neither Normal Right or Normal Left can beat Trump and his 1930s populism. Trump has gained approval per Gallup. Except for use more elderly.
It will take a catastrophic situation or a Leftist Trump populist. One that has yet to be on stage. And a man. Americans don't want a POC or female President. Imho
Not convinced about a female President. Kamala Harris was the wrong female (as was, for different reasons, Hillary Clinton). But rabid populism is probably more convincingly expressed by a male. Men make better bullies.
Blacks or "persons of color" is a different matter. Plenty of those have been active in the Democratic Party for decades, but Barack Obama (for various reasons) was the only one even to get nominated, let alone win.
IMO, a substantial part of of Trump's gallup "approval" simply see him as the lesser evil, not really good in himself.
George Will's baseball quizzes make me realize I know nothing about baseball, so I don't take them.
Good morning. 32 degrees here with highs in the high 50s and sunny.
The mothership is covering how the Trump administrations vaccine skepticism is affecting new mRNA research as well as potentially the production of our annual flue shots. And on this Opening Day, the FP asks “Does baseball suck?”
Yesterday the mothership thread Democrats Need To Dig Deep brought out a lot of anger in participants. I read through - it provided more semi demoralizing theatre than it did enlightenment.
These days I generally answer the LUK question, maybe drop 1 or 2 other comments then leave and come here. In part that's because I comment early and don't feel like reloading the page to get more comments (although I will check my comment on the Disqus profile).
Our local Y is doing an "opening day" event this afternoon. People are to wear their favorite baseball jersey (I don't own any), eat hot dogs (provided by the Y), and win tchotchke.
Back when I worked in advertising, my working group used to be taken to Cubs opening days at Wrigley Field, courtesy of some of the media. Typically we would need to bundle up and have hot beverages. Later we would get to warm up at a local bar.
The old mRNA research wasn’t that great. Of course you won’t hear about any of the recent findings about the Covid shots unless you follow people like Alex Berenson. Things like people making spike protein years after receiving a shot and some people who got boosters are more apt to get Covid infections.
I can promise you that the people involved in this kind of work are paying attention to these studies. mRNA vaccines/cancer treatments are a huge area of research/interest. The last thing anyone that works in that field wants to happen is for a treatment to be approved that does substantial harm (as we all know, all treatments have side effects).
This study does not in any way mean that the old research "wasn't that great". Our knowledge is constantly growing and evolving. There are so many things we did in the recent past that we now know was wrong. You make the best decisions with the information you have, and you constantly re-evaluate what you are doing as new information becomes available. Waiting for the perfect study or the perfect treatment is foolish (and futile).
There’s so much more to experiment with and measure and discover and learn about almost everything. When you try to pursue any angle of this stuff, you normally can expect to discover lots and lots of unexpected details and nuance, such that whatever passes for the conventional narrative proves to reside in a different neighborhood from Fact and Truth.
Claims that the benefits are involve too much risks ignore the complexity of all the individual risks people face. Proclaiming a pharmaceutical treatment is squeaky-clean and devoid of potentially terrible side effects is equally short-sighted. Government spokespeople—presumably with noble intentions—promoted the latter idea and brought down all sorts of built-up public trust in doing so.
https://open.substack.com/pub/alexberenson/p/immune-changes-from-repeated-mrna?r=3jz3i&utm_medium=ios
You sound like my vaccine-skeptic sister. She doesn't talk about mRNA but she does claim her husband's hard issues are due to his taking the vaccines.
I would be curious about what the scientific consensus is regarding Berenson's research. Unfortunately, it could easily be politicizled, for or against vaccines in general.
I don't feel interested in either topic.
Really? Not even the first?
No. I recognize that mRNA research is an important thing, but I'd be more interested in a reading an article focused on that topic, pro and con, than one about the Trump administration's something something.
I guess what I'm saying is that anything that includes Trump has pretty much lost my interest.
So you don't play euchre then?
Take your right and left bowers (bauers?) and head out the 🚪
we spell it Bauer, but in parts of Indiana, they call them the left and right guard.
Nope, nor bridge. And I stopped reading Tarot cards when I got religion.
Wise move (about Tarot).
Good point. It’s a real interest sapper.
I get that. I'm more a political junkie than most here. (Maybe I have more of a tolerance for bad political news, like Trump's antics).
Good morning, everyone. They Say it will be 70 today.
1. I need to know how the researchers determine "happiness" in a beetle.
2. Additional research needs to be implemented to determine how I can work the term "anal fork" into casual conversation.
Perhaps "happiness" equates to "one more hour without being stepped on"?
Yeah, I’m just about to have breakfast and the anal fork part is giving me second thoughts.
....still laughing...
They probably give them a paper survey, and see which answers they chew through. In psychology, they give surveys and you self report how happy you are. Generally a 5 point Likert scale, the question is "I describe my self as happy most of the time" (along with some fluff), and you either strongly agree (5) neutral (3), or strongly disagree (1). So for beetles, they don't fill out long paper surveys as they get tired.
As for the anal fork, perhaps something like "you seem very flexible; I could never eat with an anal fork at my age, I can't reach". It seems a nice compliment.
Or perhaps for Halloween you wear an all gold outfit and tape a fork to your outfit down there. I am sure that will generate questions for conversation starters!
Fortunately, the description of a golden tortoise beetle's larval stage is too obscure to qualify as a bad pun (is there any other kind?). And you already got a 🚪 today.
Better choose a plastic fork
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣...ohhhh....that was a good laugh.... I needed that.
Yes, by all means to the research. Please keep the results to yourself. Yuck.
I blame the current news cycle...I'm regressing into disgusting silliness as a defense mechanism.
Oh, that's my standard mode...
What's the Chinese word for "anal fork"?
Google to the rescue!
In "traditional Chinese" Google says it is 肛叉 (spelled Gang cha with a straight line diacritic over the a in both words).
Btw in Russian it is Анальная вилка
oh man...I haven't laughed this hard in a while.
I came up with the 肛 （gāng, first tone) which refers to...uh...you know, and 门...which is the door character...so...uh... Can we just move on now?
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Lost in translation....
Better that way. 🙂
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1. I need to know how the researchers determine "happiness" in a beetle.
I think they deduce that the bright gold color indicates happiness - enough food, enough water, no stress - by observing that the color changes when environmental conditions are negative.
That makes sense.
That’s easy. Just talk about politics. Same with collecting your own excrement on your back and using it as a poop shield, as the larva does…
I need to be careful here...my predilection for extrapolating to filthy topics, crude language, and scatalogical humor is tingling....
If I try to talk politics these days, I find I need to eat a bar of soap afterwards.
We need to develop a new vocabulary for where we're at. I used to say "thru the looking glass" to imply we're breaking new ground in weirdness, but we passed the looking glass barrier a while back.
'Round the bend?
That works. How about "over the waterfall"?
Morning.
For once, a shiny, non-invasive pest, rather than an invasive harbinger of apocalypse. Huzzah!
yeah, something cool looking and apparently harmless is welcome.
That’s what they want you to think.
That made me laugh.