Category: Scarred Brain murmurings

I’ve been following along with the outrage surrounding the DC takeover. The local news outlets have been trying to highlight “both sides” of the situation. I checked the local TV sources while I was listening to WTOP; are they searching for things to prove Orange Man Bad?

I’m seeing three basic perspectives on this:

1. Everything he does is awful, and just how awful it is can’t be understated. We’re all going to die! (This is understandable in a city where Officer Harris got well over 90% of the vote.)
2. There was a better way to do it, and it’s bad because OrangeManBad is doing it, and this other way should have been tried first
3. I may not like it, but it might work.

This story kind of hits those points. I don’t know if it’s just audience service, but they mention the Women’s March from January 2017 without any comment offensive backers. Okay, they’re bad, but nowhere nearly as bad as Trump.

I’m listening to/watching the news, and watching the local news stations, the coverage seems to be overwhelmingly-focused on position #1.

Along with the tack I’ve taken with the title of my Substack, “I’m Okay With This,” I’ve been thinking about Isaiah 41 quite a bit lately; be not afraid.

Maybe that’s influenced by too much attention to Human Progress. I’ll be the first to admit that many of the actions fall into the do-something-even-if-it’s-wrong category. The people in the second group I identified seem to fall into this camp. He’s never going to satisfy the people in Group One.

But what’s been happening, especially since the “Summer of Love,” hasn’t been working.

Logically, I understand that absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence, but I have noticed a paucity of the usual crime stories since the takeover; maybe this will work?

I started writing this in the thick of the controversary over President Trump’s firing of the head of BLS statistics, but set it aside for a while. Given the media’s recent track record, maybe that’s not a bad thing.

But my ultimate conclusion is unchanged — it’s okay to get blown out if you’re not good at your job.

The colloquialism in the entry title is related to the outrage OUTRAGE President Trump used his hammer, firing someone, on the head of the BLS. The reasoning is something like “if the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” I was looking for proper attribution, but it looks like there’s no real good story on it, and it’s something that popped up in the 60s and 70s.

Why might I be looking for the line? President Trump’s catchphrase from his time at The Apprentice is “you’re fired.”

Recently, he did this to the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Some of the things I sample made a really big deal about the repeated employment restatements under the Biden Administration.

The employment numbers are one of the many factors used by the Federal Reserve calculating core interest rates.

Some. of the restatements under Biden were remarkable. The one in early 2023 comes immediately to mind.

Fre^H^H^HChris Cuomo did have a rather-decent take on this on his NewsNation show. (If I’m watching somewhat-regularly, I can joke, okay? Also, what happened to the bird?)

My ribbing is good-natured; as I said, I watch. He got fired for not being good at CNN. This is the way things are supposed to work. People seem to forget that. This is especially true for politicians and union members.

Yes, there’s something generational at work, too. I can remember my dad making jokes about how he lost his job when he was on terminal leave from the Army. While the retirement might have seemed premature to some, it was time for him. The Army continued on without him.

Back to the topic, if I was conspiratorial, I’d look at previous BLS revisions; how close are they to an election. But I’m not that conspiratorial about it.

I was inclined to accept the originally-reported outrage I saw over at Racket News. Don’t I understand that people make their livings analyzing those numbers before anyone else can?

Noted. But when the numbers completely off over and over again, why is it an outrage that someone gets fired?

Outrage actualities won’t fix the problems. Yes, the BLS head is a government employee, but if you fail “bigly” at your job, you should be fired. It doesn’t mean that you’re a bad person, regardless of what the MSNBC analyst might imply. Or what the union rep might say.

Bubuhbut, people rely on those numbers. Whatever. Run your own. If they line up, you can attribute your story to both official sources, and my agency’s sources.

(_{I think interest rates are artificially-low, and have been since the Clinton Administration. Rate cuts have been used as a king of economic panacea for the past quarter-century. What largely fed the late-90s/early-2000s balanced budgets were tax increases passed by President Bush and the Democratic Congress. Lips read and ignored.})

I think there might be something that ties in with polling. I wrote in one of the discussion threads on WTF‘s chat,

“2024 Iowa was an example, I suppose, but how much attention did it get?

I had to STFW for Ann Seltzer’s name.

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/11/17/ann-selzer-retirement-iowa-poll-0019003

But for a government employee, there’d be a union rep who’d have the name at the ready.”

Anyone who’s worked in the private sector after the fall of the wall just yawns.

(Side note: I did run this through an AI tool for review. It found a couple of typos; unsurprising. But it did catch a few things that were typed-correctly, but confusingly-worded. When I have some spare cash, I will probably purchase that company’s product. No, it’s not ChatGPT…)

Even though there’s no space shuttle, now.

Whoever’s writing The Drudge Report had this as one of the top stories.

There’s something The Experts seem to always forget — it’s not 1987. Things that were difficult and expensive in 1987 are now basically instant and free-of-charge.

I remember heading into the stairwell of the quarters where we lived during that time to fetch our copy of The Stars and Stripes. One of the pages covered the exchange rates. AFN would also have the daily exchange rates at the end of its newscasts. If you were travelling among the countries within NATO, you needed to carry the local countries’ currency with you. You could easily find yourself in countries with three different currencies within an hour’s drive.

Going to Bastogne to tour the Battle of the Bulge battlefields? Neat! Make sure you have Belgian and Luxembourg Francs. If you’re getting there through France, you’ll want some French Francs. If you’re coming in through The Netherlands, make sure you’ve got some Guilder. (Traveler’s tip, too — the 5NLG coin was exactly the same size as a 5DM coin….and that’ll help save you on a pack of cigarettes from the fence-top machines when you get back to Germany)

But back to whatever interest rate is being paid on the US Dollar — it doesn’t matter very much today. Don’t like what the US is paying, and you’re worried that the dollar isn’t correctly-valued? Move to another currency. It’ll take a few minutes, and if the difference in return might make up for whatever costs you’ve paid to do the conversion almost immediately.

So go to EUR. CDN. DOGE. It really doesn’t matter what a central bank does. If your wealth is spread among many asset classes around the world, whatever the Federal Reserve does isn’t going to take everything.

_{(Am I disturbed by what pretty much every western government has done for the last quarter-century? Absolutely. But it’s not just the US Federal Reserve.)}

Kind of an uneventful week. I’m relieved it’s over. On Thursday, I managed to slam my right thumb It’s actually throbbing so often that it wakes me up from sleep.

Paperwork working. I don’t have to get the roto-rooter up the next five years.

Still trying to figure out what the rest of the year will be.

Kind of behind last few days on my normal smorgasbord of podcasts and news articles.

Ozzy died. Theo from Cosby Show died. Hulk Hogan died.

When I sent this post, I hadn’t seen the news on The Hulk.

None of those was really a big figure in my life growing up. The Cosby Show was something that was about kind of unobjectionable moral values. WWF was mindless entertainment after learning that it was, largely, scripted. (Though, as an adult, I appreciate more the physical prowess required to do those moves.)

I was listening to a podcast of a national radio show despairing about these things. There was another column from a “right-wing” website with similar despair. I don’t remember whether Adam Curry was similarly-distraught on No Agenda, though he did recount some memories of the rock show in Russia where Ozzy was prominently-featured.

But those media personalities are all born in 1964; the tail end of the Baby Boom.

Rarely have I been so tempted to come back with an “Okay, Boomer” quip.

So, the late-Boomers are trying to meld themselves into Gen X. See the title.

Those of us born 65-79 are in a strange place in history.

Things happen. Deal with it.

Can you even imagine what the response today would be to something like Challenger, Tiananmen, or the Berlin Wall?

WORST. THING. EVER.

There’s not many things I have complete control over, and I just need to try to be the best person I can be.

Again, mixing up the songs of the generations as I’m writing.

Gen X:

And the Boomer anthem popping up randomly in my Apple Music mix:

I don’t. And I can’t.

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Why am I so behind on stuff? Medical procedure on Friday. I like Propofol probably more than I ought.

And several summers before.

To paraphrase Ice Cube, it ain’t over, mothafucka.

From early in his administration, there were notable media outlets accusing President Trump of treason for whatever he’d done in Russia.

The pandemic and the simultaneous things happening with the Summer of 2020 led to the “mostly peaceful protest” on January 6, 2021.

That same protest where many MAGA stooges ended up with Federal convictions for parading around the Capitol in search of votes that just weren’t there.

The overreach in penalizing people for that day is remarkable for so many reasons. I think about Brandon Staka who didn’t do anything more serious than being unruly. He pleaded guilty to a charge saying basically that, but he spent how long in the awful DC City Jail?

Then they sprung things back into action in advance of last year’s election.

I am happy that President Trump pardoned him, and others like him.

I am not happy that a litany of people who appeared on cable news from late 2016 until the Pandemic get by without the scorn they so deserve.

In my experience, it’s not hard to get a dedicated CNN or MSNBC viewer to nod in violent agreement if you casually mention the things that Michael Cohen did in Prague.

Leaving out that bit when trying to wipe away what DNI Gabbard uncovered is amazing.

Matt Taibi’s reporting over at Racket News has been pretty spot-on. As I’ve explained repeatedly, I didn’t vote for Trump. EVER.

To be kind, it’s convenient to paint over what so many did surrounding an investigation that was predicated on Clinton campaign disinformation.

No. Nobody should ever question what law enforcement on the Intelligence Community said, much less what they did.

I’ve heard some lawyers describe the elements of RICO. Many of these weren’t in reference to Gabbard’s referrals, but to the RICO charges Diddy faced.

That some of these things are old news is noted with interest, but there were raids that can be traced to what DNI Gabbard released until 2023.

It ain’t over.

Lately when I’ve listened to various old people’s music, I’ve thought more than I probably ought too much about the way telephones used to weave so much into popular music, and how younger people just have no idea about what the authors were signing about.

It’s all YOUR fault I screen my phone calls.

CALL ME! On the line. You can call me anytime.

In the modern era of social media, you can just block people. Or, even more passive-aggressively, mute people.

But, no, in my experience, a phone call provides a lot of opportunities to straighten out any issues.

Speaking with someone else is incredibly important. There was a long argicle this morning in The FP by Chris Arnade talking about the importance of walking around cities, and meeting other people.

STFW for TFAuthor…..

The other end of Gen X; as close to Boomer as I am to Millennial. Perspective.

So much can be accomplished by just speaking to another person.

But so many people don’t ever do that anymore.

As I was trying to rework my MetroAccess ride yesterday, I ran into similar issues.

Could I tell the driver that, no, my appointment was just cancelled, and he should he should just take me home? (The doctor got caught in an emergency situation. Which is fine. I understand. It happens. And I’m happy that her PA called to tell me).

So he dropped off the other rider, pulled to the side of the road to let me navigate through the weird phone system just to speak to someone who could program the driver’s computer to let him take me home.

This required, no kidding, three-plus minutes of waiting for all the options to be play.

Part of the reason I ended up, again, at Georgetown for my care is that I got sick of dealing with the phone system at another research university in DC. Hmm. I saw this doc at Georgetown before. Maybe she’s accepting new patients. Yep. And I’ve been very happy with the care I’ve gotten from them.

But this morning I got a strange call about a similar circumstance to this. It was a bill that hadn’t been paid. It happens. Did I get a phone call about it? Nah, that’d be too easy. Let’s just sell it off to a collections agency.

I understand the benefits many get from face-to-face communication. Maybe for many that’s better than speaking. But I’m nearly blind. I can still listen and speak.

If there’s a problem, call me.

Really, speaking to someone else is not dangerous. Do it.

My email to the person responsible might be causing intense fear…

Please give me a call sometime Monday so we can discuss.

No, if you’d done that first, we wouldn’t be in this situation.

Last week, I went down to Biloxi to see family. As I’ve done, now a couple of times, I took Amtrak down. Roomette allows me privacy and food for a couple of days. It’s slow, but, generally it’s a relaxing trip. The trip down was just that. Poured through podcast queue, and listened to some stuff on Apple Music.

The trip back, on the other hand, was an absolute shitshow. The ride from Biloxi to Hattiesburg wasn’t great because the car’s A/C wasn’t working. The train was running about twenty minutes behind to board. The morning of the trip, I got notification that my assignment had been changed. It appeared that I’d been switched to a bedroom, something I’d considered. I didn’t feel like bidding up, but given that it was Independence Day, maybe the rooms weren’t sold. Whatever. The roomette is fine; I don’t need a whole bedroom to myself. So, car ####, Bedroom 2. Fine. I didn’t pay any more for it.

Got on the train, and the conductor directed me to my room. And it’s a roomette in a new car. The car is a bit warm, but it’s probably something with power being on and off. Once this blocking freight train moves off, it’ll be fine.

There’s also no toilet in the new roomette, which was annoying. I would have to make sure I’m dressed, and wearing shoes to go use the bathroom. Annoying. Is there a roomette with a toilet in a different car?

But we finally pulled out of Hattiesburg, and things aren’t working. The A/C never really kicked on. Wait for another freight train, and it’s getting hot. Down one of the water bottles. Stumble down to the toilet, and it doesn’t flush. Well, just number one, and it went down the hole. I did blow my nose with a piece of toilet paper, and that was still there. Whatever.

Head back to my talentless-roomette. Why are we stopping? When is that A/C going to kick on? It’s like 95 degrees outside. I’m starting to sweat through my shirt.

When I get hot, two things happen. First, I have trouble with my diaphragm; the MS Hug. Second, my vision gets notably worse. (Strangely, I’ve really not had problems with this when I’m in the gym. I can go hard, and my vision seems to be, generally, fine.)

Now we’re going back to Hattiesburg because there’s a power problem. Great.

We were told that we could go into the station to cool off while they figure out what’s wrong. Leave my suitcase, but take the laptop bag.

I was not very nice to the car attendant who finally escorted me off into the station. I wasn’t sure whether I’d be able to get home from Hattiesburg, my legs weren’t working, and I couldn’t see.

I might have even used the dreaded F-word.

Were they going to cancel the train? If so, where the hell would I go? It’s not like there’s a ton of ways in or out of Hattiesburg, Mississippi.

The guy running the counter in the station wasn’t an Amtrak employee, and he seemed at least accommodating to my physical distress.

After about 45 minutes, we finally were put back on the train. I apologized all over myself about my discourtesy earlier.

The actual roll up to Virginia was largely uneventful, though it was uncomfortable having to walk to the two toilets at the other end of the car periodically.

The pod queue got pretty much emptied, but I was really working through a few things.

My ire might have been fueled by this FP article. This kid was publicly-shamed for something he absolutely did not do, and it had major effects on his life. The adults at the school basically kicked him out, and the people responsible for that remained nameless hidden behind a veil of academia.

No. That’s fucked up. (There I go again) If you are at all responsible for this misdeed, you lose your own right to privacy. Sign your name. For almost everything I’ve done in my life, I’ve made sure that with the exception of things that are between myself and my wife, there’s few things in my life I’m ashamed of.

UPDATE: Amtrak, after an hour on hold, gave me a credit for what i experienced. Still, I’m probably not going to use them nearly as often. The trip back sucked.

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I’ve seen a catchphrase used often lately; Don’t huck his/her/my yum.

By and large, I agree with the sentiment. At the same time, there’s things that I like or dislike that aren’t the business of anyone other than a select few people. What I do in a private setting is my and one other person’s business. Nobody else needs to know.

Those preferences are held in confidence; the world doesn’t need to know.

While they’re not shameful, I don’t need to share them with anybody.

Perhaps it was a function of being in the “Bible Belt,” but two things came to mind.

Lewis Grizzard’s Don’t Believe Ida Told That was the first thing that came to mind, along with Sister Bertha-Better-Than-You from Ray Stevens’ Mississippi Squirrel Revival.

The public confessional thing in the Protestant churches is something that’s unfamiliar to me as a lapsed member of the Papist Conspiracy.

You share your deep secrets to a priest who’s bound to keep them secret. They are among you, the priest, and God.

Nobody else needs to know. For most things, there’s nothing to be proud of.

Discussion, too, of Disability Awareness Month on Twi^H^H^HX.

I didn’t know that there was a pride month for those. I’m not proud that I have MS, or that I’ve been diagnosed with OCD, two of the disabilities covered by the Americans With Disabilities Act. The mental disability might well be a function of some really bad coping mechanisms I developed to deal with my physical problems.

Why should I be proud of that?

Yeah, it might seem like I’ve got a case of the Mondays, but Lawrence’s response, to me, is 100% correct.

Nobody needs to know.

Same is true of so many things in life.

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I’m listening to EconTalk on specialization.

Whatever you’re good at, whatever you like, is none of my business. I don’t have the right to make you do things for me. If you’ve produced enough excess that you’re willing to trade with me, wonderful.

My mind is wandering. Time to take a break.

Woke up after a bad dream that I’d slept through my stop on the train. This past week’s trip, well, the trip home, was remarkably bad. Amtrak will be getting a call later this morning.

Listen to No Agenda, which has good information about the flooding in Texas. No, it wasn’t unprecedented. No, NWS cuts didn’t cause the problems. Adam Curry, who lives just north of the affected area, gave a pretty good recap of what’s happened recently. But, when your entire role in life is blaming everything bad that happens on Trump, it has to be about changes that have happened in government.

After figuring out that I wasn’t on the train having missed my stop, onto seeing what’s on FB. Typical zOMG SHARE THIS thing from ActBlue or similar groups. Because now I’m awake, let’s go through the points.

• Medicaid work rules — Yeah, just like Clinton had. But, you know, your health coverage should come from your employer-sponsored plan. Oh wait. 
• Food Aid — Why is the Federal Government doing this? Drive this down to the lowest-possible level. I remember being on an HRT bus near a holiday when the other passengers were discussing which places had the best meals for the holiday. This can happen without government
• Clean Energy Credits — On vehicles and housing features that poor people can’t afford. These, by and large, are welfare programs for the affluent. 
• Student Loan Changes — Again, why is the Federal Government involved in this at all? When I took my student loans in the 90s, FAFSA dispatched me to private banks who lent the money. Why’d that change? Oh, I dunno. Ask Harry Reid. 
• Affordable Housing phase out — I think there would be plenty if government got out of the way. Reason had a video comparing San Francisco and Austin. Why is Austin working, and SF isn’t?
• Rural Hospital Reimbursements — Let the market meet the demands. And having full hospitals everywhere isn’t needed. There’s a reason the Army got rid in 2006. Stabilize the patient, and transport somewhere that can deliver care.  

Maybe I can fall back to sleep. Geez.

Listening to more arguments about the Iran strike, which I supported.

There seem to be a few different arguments against.

• Iran isn’t trying to get a nuclear weapon
• What happened was an improper use of Executive power
• This strike didn’t really work, and it’s going to really piss them off ensuring that Iran will finish the weapon, and start nuking people

The first one I am skeptical about. Yes, many of the strongest proponents have been right about everything all the time, that they were even refining Uranium argues against that position. I don’t at all think this is even remotely true. If they were just interested in nuclear fuel for peaceful purposes, there’s a laundry list of countries that’d be happy to supply energy-grade fuel. That they insist on doing it themselves, and refining it, indicates that their intentions aren’t pure.

I understand the arguments for the second bullet, but they really fall short for me. Congress, and the actions/inactions of many previous administrations and congresses, disprove this. Yes, there should be checks, but Congress has for so long abandoned those to the Executive Branch that it doesn’t convince me at all. It’s similar to the zOMG DUE PROCESS!!1! arguments about immigration/deportation. No, those duties have been dispatched by Congress to the Executive Branch. If they don’t like that, they can change the laws they passed. Yes, it’d require a super-majority, but Congress did this to itself. (It also speaks to my idea that every law should have an expiration date which would let everything revert to Common Law, but nobody seems excited to do that…)

Point three. There’s multiple things there. I’m inclined to think that it did work. So did Stuxnet. How long it’s going to delay the efforts is subject to debate, but it would have knocked things back a bit, at least. As for it provoking Iran into moving even faster, perhaps. But let’s say they get enough material to build a bomb; does it even work? Can they get it where they want it to go? Yes, I understand that it’d be safer if I got a vasectomy, but you should be about to start, and who knows if things coming out of me even work; I don’t need to wear a rubber.

The things that float around my scarred brain….