"Men at work" was a pretty good movie. If it is no longer a good movie, that isn't my fault.
I liked it when it came out. I was eight.
I'm pretty sure Bush detonated Building 7 himself.
Oh dear god. Now I'm having flashbacks to two Christmases ago when my (ex)-step-dad made me watch a 9/11 internet conspiracy movie that was over an hour long and started with the oppression of the sun cults by Christianity.
Don't forget, because the 9/11 conspiracy movements took place during the Bush administration they must have been a leftist phenomenon, thus cancelling out whatever happens now. Whew! Back to normal!
the oppression of the sun cults by Christianity.
Nothing to belittle.
5: OK, not to belittle your trauma, but that is kind of awesome too.
Mocking 9/11 conspiracy theories?!?!?
That's it. I quit the blog.
Where does symbology fit into all of this?
9: To be fair, I was going for a more localized Sheen mocking. Come back, Tweety.
Mock the Sheen? That's it. I quit the blog.
14: Dude, if you mock Charlie, you're going to end up having to take on his whole family.
16: I sent Pops a letter. "Martin, WE HAVE QUESTIONS!"
13: Staggering through the vaulted archway.
18: It's Emilio you've got to watch out for. With a name like that, I'm pretty sure he must be loco, ese.
I'm loving mcmc on Dee Brown. Can I get a feed of her comments only? Like, beamed onto the back of my eyelids or something.
Making fun of Dan Brown? Eyes glinting, I toss my Logitech extended USB wireless keyboard to the floor, famously covered in beige industrial carpeting, and quit the blog.
Wow, I wrote "Dee" rather than "Dan" Brown and also forgot some punctuation. That's actually very funny. To me, I mean.
Dunk contest! (Actually, I'm writing about the other Dee Brown.)
24: I thought you were just being familiar, like Dee is what you call him when you cuddle.
I can't believe I was so wrong.
I quit the blog.
I was trying to think of a joke to use to point out ari's confusion of the Browns, but he realized it on his own before I thought of anything.
Shouldn't 23 be written in the third person so you can refer to yourself as "Renowned blog-quitter Sifu Tweety"?
I have to hand in my case tomorrow for why the university should make me a full professor. The virtues of charity, I'm reliably told, is not a persuasive enough argument in my favor. Beyond that, though, I'm quite stumped about what to say. So I quit the blog.
28: probably, but it was hard enough typing in the mirror.
29: go for the old standby, and photocopy your butt.
It is rumored that ari does have a particularly fine "old standy".
31: Hmm, I can't actually see any problem with your plan. Well, except for the fact that during the budget crisis we're really not supposed to use the copier except for emergencies. Is this an emergency, do you think?
33: no, that might send the wrong impression. Get one of your kids to draw a picture of your butt.
Men at Work was fantastic. Still the best definition of "phrenology" that I've ever heard.
Men at Work was fantastic. Still the best definition of "phrenology" that I've ever heard.
So good, in fact, it makes me stutter.
34: No, get one of your kids to draw a face on your butt.
All that said, but of course the 9/11 investigation really was one of those things that would have stood out as a particularly shameful farce if it had happened under any administration other than Bush's. Really, really rotten stuff (and a huge contributing cause to the Sheen kind of nonsense). John Ashcroft's corrupt and disingenuous testimony even led me to get a rage-induced speeding ticket.
that might send the wrong impression.
Do it right, with a plaster butt cast.
Play him tenured, plaster butt cat!
Okay ari, this plan is foolproof.
You know, for some reason I just suddenly found myself wondering whether Robust calls his mom "Robust McMommy-pants", at least when she does something goofy.
I couldn't make sense of 41, but then I thought, 'Actually, it's not gibberish.' My eyes brightened again with the thrill of discovery. 'It's ... Latin.'
Also: in the voice-over in the first part of the video, Charlie sounds exactly like his dad. I kept thinking 'Saigon... Shit.'
A great book that makes sense of the truthers, among other conspiracists. Also, 41 is excellent. But I have tenure. This is the jump to Full Professor. With caps. Or chapeaus. I'm not sure which.
Is 41 supposed to be sung to the tune of "Tiny Dancer"?
I haven't listened to the video, but do you all take the position that all skepticism re 911 is nonsense?
John Ashcroft's corrupt and disingenuous testimony even led me to get a rage-induced speeding ticket.
I've mentioned before that, at the moment that AB was seeing the lines appear on the pregnancy test, indicating Iris' impending arrival, I was ranting at the radio about what a worthless POS Juan Williams is. Heartwarming moment in family lore.
51: You were cuckolded by Juan Williams? Dude, that is harsh.
49 and 50 are awfully close together. In fact, I would argue that it was impossible for text to write 49, listen to the video, and then post 50 with the timestamps that we have been presented with.
WE HAVE QUESTIONS, FRONT PAGE POSTERS.
There's a very clever retort to 52. COuld someone please provide it?
Sifu?
Oh, no, that's right.
49: I have lots of questions about 9/11. But that doesn't mean that I'm not completely dismissive of both the LIHOP and MIHOP camps.
49: I have lots of questions about 9/11. But that doesn't mean that I'm not completely dismissive of both the LIHOP and MIHOP camps.
The buildings did pancake in a suspiciously symmetrical way.
55: I didn't even know what that meant. I would say that I'm more dismissive of MIHOP, simply because I can't see how the causality would run. The JFK assassination is murky, b/c it ultimately came down to 1 dubious guy - you can spin all sorts of tales out of Oswald. But we have a pretty good idea of how 9/11 went down, and there's not much room for USG causation, unless you start buying all sorts of absurd things of Area 51 likelihood.
I would also completely dismiss any kind of strong LIHOP claim (on the order of, "They discussed it at a Cabinet meeting and decided not to do anything"), but I would be open to hearing a plausible story involving a couple CIA guys + Cheney.
I haven't listened to the video, but do you all take the position that all skepticism re 911 is nonsense?
Not all of it, but what appears to be legitimate skepticism is always presented as one little thing in a great big laundry list of lunacy. Which, come to think of it, is how I would present it if I wanted to discredit it. Whoa. This thing goes way deeper than I thought.
55: Leftist International House of Pancake and Militarized International House of Pancakes?
I watched 102 Minutes last week, a realtime compilation of video from 9/11 NYC. All the way through.
I have questions. I also have beliefs and opinions and intuitions which I am probably unwilling to share. I don't have enough facts, and don't even know what "LIHOP" and "MIHOP" stand for.
Bush is an exceedingly evil man.
56: Yeah, it's sentiments like that make me get off the bus. Maybe you're serious. Maybe you're right. Maybe steel really doesn't melt until it reaches one gazillion degrees. Maybe bowling balls really do fall through feathers faster than through air. Maybe the transceiver in my molar really has just been activated. But the thing is, none of that interests me. I'm much more curious about prosaic things, like the run-up to Iraq, like why certain pieces of intelligence were ignored and then covered up, like why there was no legitimate inquiry into what led to the attacks. And I guess, most of all, I disdain LIHOP and MIHOP because I'm pretty sure I know the answers to most of my questions. Which answers, though ugly, don't tell me anything especially new about how much or how little I should trust my government.
62: I thought 56 was a pancake joke. You know, IHOP?
Anyway, I can understand much of what motivates the truthers, I think, but I just don't share their interests.
Not all of it, but what appears to be legitimate skepticism is always presented as one little thing in a great big laundry list of lunacy.
I was thinking that during the video intro (which is very well done, btw. Sheen only sucks it up once onscreen). At first it's, "Wow, that's a lot of suspicious stuff," then it's, "Wow, they're throwing a lot of shit up against the wall." Once you take into account that the vast majority of it can't withstand any scrutiny, you're left with thin reeds.
Presumably, if there were any truth to it, weight would accrue to the most legitimately dubious stuff, with the other stuff fading.
I understand that, in a situation like this, you get a million people all with their hobbyhorses, and no one wants to give up theirs, but still. I was reading up on the Paul is Dead thing today, and there's lots of "clues" I've never heard of - because they're stupid. The ones that are less stupid are the ones that have been transmitted. But with the Truthers, there seems to be no filter at all - even in this very slick, not-cheap video, it's scattershot. Pick your arguments, guys.
63: I thought so, too. That's why I included the line about maybe being serious. That said, it's one among many claims that the truthers make. So much of the conspiracy stuff is predicated on deep-in-the-weeds technical arguments about blast patterns, the load capacities of certain kinds of building materials, and the odd timing of this and that.
Sorry, I'm fascinated by conspiracy theories.
56 - See Why The Towers Fell on NOVA for the best dissection of why they collapsed why they did. According to their experts, the buildings collapsed for different reasons.
but I just don't share their interests.
Dude, if you don't like pancakes, I have nothing to say to you.
On a related note, they're building a new IHOP here in town. I had no idea they were still building new ones.
Let It Happen On Purpose
Made It Happen On Purpose
You people are out of touch and on my lawn. Off!
67: I sobbed through that. For several reasons, obvs, but the efficient cause was all those elderly engineers involved with the building of the WTC who were themselves sobbing. Oy.
On a related note, they're building a new IHOP here in town. I had no idea they were still building new ones.
Really? They build new IHOPs all the time. I myself saw a sign not too long ago advertising an IHOP coming soon, though I forget where.
My "suspicions" are generally in line with Al Franken's "Operation Ignore" from whatever book it was that he talked about it. About what you'd expect from an administration which was so little interested in anything other than their political agenda.
That said, two items have haunted me in the past One was Bldg 7. The second was that what might have paralyzed Bush in that classroom was him thinking. "Holy shit! That crazy motherfucker wasn't kidding? Must try to think ...". His eyes clearly have that furtive, darty, panicked look to them--like the dumb guy in the gang holding the loot as the cops show up and everyone else has skidaddled.
JRoth!
Sorry, I've been traveling. Also, lots of family/personal issues (both good and bad) that have required my attention/presence. And lots and lots of work due to my absences. In fact, I need to be off to do some more of that. At 11:30 at night! Woooooo!
To me, all IHOPS were built in the 1960s with those tall roofs and the same 5 creepy-ass flavors of syrup in the little caddies on the table. You will pry this impression away from my cold, dead brain.
Lingonberries are not creepy-ass, motherfucker.
75: Huh. I tend the think of IHOP as a staple of '90s suburban strip-mall commercial development. They're, like, the separate building across the parking lot from the actual strip mall. That sort of thing.
The ass-covering that immediately followed 9/11—particularly the repeated claim that no one imagined airplanes would be used in such a way in a terrorist attack, which was plainly horseshit—likely went a long way toward fueling conspiracy theories. But yeah, Building 7. Weird.
But yeah, Building 7. Weird.
Something huge and fiery (part of WTC 2 or one of the planes?) fell on it. It caught fire and burned. It collapsed. Is there more to the story?
It's weird, but on truthers, I've found myself arguing both sides of the argument depending on who I'm arguing with. (A different person handling a different subject the same way would be called trolling, but that's not what I was doing. Don't you trust me?)
Here and a little further down that thread at Balloon Juice, I criticize truthers. Mere days later at Obsidian Wings, I defend them throughout this thread.
To summarize, all the weird, implausible details - pancaking, persistent heat at ground zero, Bush just happening to spend that day near where the hijackers had lived - don't indicate anything in particular. They're curious, but they don't point to MIHOP any more than they point to ET. The massive conspiracy needed to cause and cover up MIHOP would need such a huuuge bar to clear before it can compete with the official story that "but neither of the jets hit Building 7" is just crazy. Where is the trail of literally dozens of dead middlemen going back months that would be needed to cover up MIHOP?
And the LIHOP theory is believable but - barring an insider tell-all or the advent of mind-reading powers - it's almost unprovable, so I'll settle for hating the Bush administration for stuff we actually know they did.
My experience too has been that the number of IHOPs in the world is stable, and never does one either appear or disappear. Like Perkins and Denny's. Those showing up all over the place in the 1990s would include Red Robin, Johnny Rockets, Applebee's. Applebee's in particular seems to be generally replacing Ruby Tuesday. Also, I have no idea which of these places' names ends in an s, or an apostrophe s, now that I think about it.
These may just be artifacts of the places starting on the east coast and expanding west, or vice versa.
Jack In The Box has had ads running on cable in Pennsylvania for maybe two years now, although there aren't any Jack In The Boxes within 1,500 miles. According to Wikipedia it is part of a long-term expansion plan, to prime the market for their presence, but it seems weird.
Not like the Sonic ads, which have been running in states that don't contain any Sonic locations for my whole lifetime. Those seem normal.
78: The other part of the standard narrative that chaps my ass is the "20 madmen" (or whatever number). And of course it is consistent with horseshit like "Saddam/Gaddafi (before he played nice with access to his oil) is madman". You know what, there really was a big fucking conspiracy that planned and executed 9-11, it didn't involve the US Government directly, but it was a conspiracy.
skepticism re 911
Yeah, I don't want my tax dollars paying for an emergency service. Oh wait, this isn't a California politics thread.
79: Something huge and fiery (part of WTC 2 or one of the planes?) fell on it. It caught fire and burned. It collapsed. Is there more to the story?
The lack of sense of awe you exhibit here rivals teo's....
I have no doubt there are needs-no-conspiracy logical engineering reasons for Bldg 7, but the hour it changed in my consciousness from "Oh, yeah, another building fell didn't it?" to "Look at this freaking video" was a testing one fro me. It falls very nicely. Anyone who sees it and claims it does not give them pause is probably either lying, self-deluded, ari or teo.
Lingonberries are not creepy-ass, motherfucker.
Obviously not. But blueberry? Strawberry? Ugh.
Huh, JP seems to have successfully intuited my total lack of interest in conspiracy theories. Well done.
It falls very nicely.
Yeah. I'd heard "Building 7" as part of the conspiracy, but I actually had no idea why until I saw that vid. It does fall perfectly. As I'm pretty sure the professional demolition companies would tell you, you need to pay professionals a lot of money for that kind of result.
I'm not actually saying I think it was a demo job. I'm just saying that it was a pro-grade collapse, and that's an unexpected outcome from a minor debris impact and some fires.
it didn't involve the US Government directly, but it was a conspiracy.
Look, I don't know.
I don't know what might have been said in private conversations among Bush/Cheney and the Saudis, or some Saudis
.
I guess ari thinks he knows for certain what was said, or has a set of default assumptions based on a hundred years of conspiracy theories.
I certainly don't see why ari's source in 46, or a discussion of the JFK assassination would answer that question.
Bush was different. Maybe not unique as a President in malevolence or indifference, maybe so. But he had a lifelong relationship wuth the Saudis that makes me wish that somebody ellse had been President that day.
Does "LIHOP & MIHOP is ridiculous" also apply to all levels of the Saudi Royal Family and government, ari?
They're, like, the separate building across the parking lot from the actual strip mall.
"Outparcel." Just so you know.
84: I think, for me, I read the commentary from non-crazy people before I paid any attention to 7's fall. Which is to say, by the time I got around to watching the footage, I had already seen people I trust debunk the conspiracies about its detonation.
Huh, JP seems to have successfully intuited my total lack of interest in conspiracy theories.
Dude, the cliff dwellers totally brought down Chaco as part of a (very) long-term plan to develop an outsize reputation among tourists.
Does "LIHOP & MIHOP is ridiculous" also apply to all levels of the Saudi Royal Family and government, ari?
No, it doesn't. That's one of the things that troubles me, bob. But again, referring back to what I was getting at with one of my comments above, that the American government has been willing to allow a Middle Eastern kleptocracy free reign to do who the fuck knows what isn't really new news to me, if you see what I mean.
89: Ah, expertise. JRoth something I thought I learned in some ancient class. Paint the parking spaces big when you open a new mall, so it looks crowded, but then repaint them smaller after you have the hook in so as to accommodate more cars. It makes perfect cynical sense, but may be *too* pat.
BTW, 87.1 is supposed to read more funny. Picture the professional demo expert as a salesman, assuring his interlocutor that you can only get a neat demo through a six figure contract with a firm such as his....
Also, bob, I really don't think LIHOP is ridiculous. Or at least I don't think it's ridiculous for people to believe that the Bush administration let it happen. It's just that I get off the bus, as I already said, because most of the other passengers spend their time talking about the tensile strength of steel. And I'm not interested in that conversation.
In that particular context I think "reign" works too, actually.
The Day The Saudis Made It Rain Airplanes!
97: Like I said, this sort of thing has been a recurring problem for me lately. I think it's because I'm concentrating on the other thing I'm doing and not my comments. My priorities are out of wack, in other words.
95: I've never heard that. I don't think it could/would be done in a modern development, because of the relationship between the developer (trying to minimize costs) and the retailers (trying to maximize parking). The developer would balk at the large parking spaces, because WalMart, Target, et al each demand some specific count, and if it's skewed by too-big spaces, then it's wasted land/paving.
It seems like something that could work in a more integrated development, where the retailers have less say, but those days are kind of gone.
IOW, I have no idea if it was ever true; if it was true, it probably isn't anymore.
99: I'm not willing to cut ari that much slack. As he readily concedes, he's too invested in his "career" to expend the effort on commenting that we all deserve.
Respect the community or depart, ari.
102: Yeah, this would have been from the days of the "big box" malls.
I'd like to pretend that I was being clever about the Saudi royal family. But I'm not due the credit in this case. Or really in any other than I can think of.
than s/b that
Okay, time to devote myself fully to making my pitiful case for promotion. Do you think they'd notice if I took credit for a couple of Richard Hofstadter's books? Probably not, right?
94:See, ari, that is what is important to me, not the pancaking or structural engineering or flight training.
allow a Middle Eastern kleptocracy free reign to do who the fuck knows what
because I can play with motives. Reserve currency, dwindling Saudi reserves, financing Bush's deficit, even attacking Iraq. I can come up with reasons for cooperation between Bush and the Saudis, reasons to "heighten some sontradictions"
Do you know how many trillions the Saudis made from increased oil prices once Iraq went offline?
Is this useful? Well, yeah understanding the world of high finance, current accounts, international capital flows is pretty important right now, I think. And understanding what the really big players are capable and willing to do is also important.
107: Saying, "I am the paranoid style, bitchez!"
The conspiracy around the Building 7 collapse is this, ari: the public finally learned that if you want a perfect demolition, all you have to do is set fire to a structure. Big dynamite has been covering that up for years.
How paranoid am I about that world of Int'l HiFI?
Well, when I read about this week's little trade kerfuffle between the US and China I wonder what ot might, might be a cover for. Something gonna happen, so that they want us to think that the US and China are mad at each other?
How paranoid? I hated that my favorite currency blogger, Brad Setser, was moved into a position of opacity & silence by Larry Summers. Tim Duy, ex Fed official, had to make some guestimates about stuff Setser jad always provided.
Hey Bob, could recommend your top 5 or 10 or so econ blogs that would be comprehensible to somebody without a heavy econ background?
79
Something huge and fiery (part of WTC 2 or one of the planes?) fell on it. It caught fire and burned. It collapsed. Is there more to the story?
Building codes are supposed to ensure that such buildings don't collapse in fires.
But there had always been doubts the codes were adequate, there were unusual aspects to the design of building 7 and mistakes are sometimes made (as with the I35 bridge in Minnesota).
113:Heck, I don't compehend most of them.
What, you think economists know what they are doing anymore?
Having joked, Mark Thoma has a world historical blog at Economist's View. Some of the commenters are institutionalists (think Galbraith) and much of the conversation is about the political economy and not technical.
The first column to the right of the comments is a blogroll, like an RSS feed, of Thoma's favorite economic blogs. DeLong and Krugman are at the top. The rest of the highlighted blog are mostly excellent. Sample and see what you like. The deeper thickets are below and to the right of that.
I pretty much live over at Thoma's blogroll. Best blog ever.
Setser was really good. calculated risk is good, sometimes Ritholz. Krugman's book, especially the shadow banking chapter, is pretty good. shadow banking online
Dealbreaker and Equity Private's archives are interesting for tone, occasionally a pointer to a relevant fact, though would likely infuriate many here.
Odd fact: Dollar-denominated 2-year maturity bonds issued by Brazil yield only a tiny bit more than US bonds today. Bond markets are less inclined to collective stupidity than equity markets.
Check out the first post, where Thoma has collated dozens(?) of articles. The dude just works too hard on that blog.
I would say that the best econ/finance blogs are Economist's View (Thoma's blog) and Naked Capitalism.
108: Is this useful? Well, yeah understanding the world of high finance ... is pretty important
How so? If it's all an interlocked conspiracy set of people and organzations with vast resources, why do you think any information you get is the *real* information.
What makes one econ blog more reliable than any other blog? What makes any sense except the stockpiling of MREs and ammo for the endgame?
121:Though by no means exactly as I would phrase them or completely accurate descriptions of my views, those are very good questions
What makes any sense except the stockpiling of MREs and ammo for the endgame?
I've eaten MREs. My plan is to stockpile condiments. Once everyone is forced to eat MREs, someone with a good stockpile of mustard or chilli sauce will be able to name their own price.
I should have been more precise: what about the Flava Flav sort of skepticism re: 911?
It wears the late crown.
FLAVOR Flav, not Flava Flav.
And it's SISTER Souljah.
I never said anything about Sister Souljah. Jeez.
I know it's a bit late in the game to comment on the OP, but:
It seems like contrived sincerity, but I can't exactly pinpoint why.
Perhaps because Sheen is such a terrible actor that even his 100% sincere sincerity seems contrived.
130: That seems right. Plus, with McQueen's comment that he sounds just like his dad, I think it falls on my ear almost like a parody of his dad speaking, so my brain's all, "Hey, no need to take this guy seriously; he's just pretending!"
Speaking of stockpiling MREs and such, any recommendations for portable, non-perishable meals that aren't designed for guys carrying 100 pounds of weapons and gear for 10 hours a day? Something more suitable for stockpiling by weekend warrior types in areas with small but non-zero risks of needing to evacuate and being cut off from supplies for a few days?
James @ 114: Building codes are supposed to ensure that such buildings don't collapse in fires.
Yeah, but it didn't collapse in a fire so much - it burned for some ten hours before collapsing. I don't think there are many buildings (or many tall buildings) that would survive a local earthquake followed by 10 hours of unchecked fire. I don't think any code specifies 'fire department absent for a long long time after an earthquake'.
At any rate, most demolitions that I have seen have an explosion 'puff' right before the thing falls down, I didn't see that. Further, most building aren't designed to move, so when one part of the building starts to move, the rest of building goes along, but no building is built to survive those types of (sideways) shear stresses. They're built to resist the movements of ten of thousands of tonnes moving at zero miles an hour (more or less!); when part of the building weighing tens of thousands of tons decides to accelerate to ten miles an hour, you have a big big problem. And force of gravity is the only vector applying. All that without getting into the need to hide shitloads of C4 and the detonator wiring.
If they had tried to do that, the simple thing to do would've been to cut half the supports on one story/side of the building, like AQ tried (and failed) to do in 1993. Had they succeed, I still don't see the building falling over like a bowling pin tipping over; the uncut support columns would've wanted to stay where they were, while the lack of support in the other sections meant entire levels heading off for god knows where, the other support columns resisting still and then the entire building basically blows apart. So I think it would crumble more like sand than anything.
Or to put it another way: 'How the hell is it supposed to fall down?'
max
['Monty Python notwithstanding.']
132: Every week, chop up a few pounds of vegetables, add some nuts, and store. Next week, throw away the veg from last week. Repeat.
Or to put it another way: 'How the hell is it supposed to fall down?'
My structural intuition would be that there would be non-uniform failure, localized to one specific portion of the building - say, the corner where the debris hit and the fire started. Such a failure would not result in "symmetrical pancaking."
But I could completely buy that, after 10 hours of fire, the supports in general were so weakened that there was insignificant lag between whatever part went first and the rest, which would give the appearance of "symmetry" even if it weren't present.
most demolitions that I have seen have an explosion 'puff' right before the thing falls down, I didn't see that.
Most demo companies aren't trying to disguise their efforts. If the fiendishly clever MIHOP operatives did it, they could apply relatively small explosives to the relatively small structural members on the penultimate floor, and let pancaking/gravity do the rest.
All of which is unlikely. I'm just sayin'.
134: Needs to be way lazier than that. So far, the system has been "huh, it's almost hurricane season, need to have something ready", followed by procrastination, followed by "yay, skated again, but we really should do better next year."
How long are MREs good for, anyway?
136: good? Perhaps you mean "edible"?
How long are MREs good for, anyway?
Depends on storage conditions. See here.
137: Well, yeah. Although I don't remember MREs being notably worse than Hormel products and such.
Cans of soup, I guess. They last for years. A microwave to heat it up is ideal, but any over or burner or anything will do.
Off the top of my head I can't think of any non-perishable food that doesn't need to be cooked and is at all nutritious, let alone would make a good meal by itself.
What mostly stops me is that the kind of stuff that keeps forever isn't something I actually want to eat if I don't have to, and I hate wasting food, so I get stuck on how to handle stock rotation. Which is stupid.
It's funny--I run around with the sort of crowd I do and yet I don't know any 9/11 conspiracy folks. In fact, some of them wanted to screen a movie at the bookstore and the collective briefly united to stonewall them, since we figured that stuff like that only occludes other urgent political causes. We got increasingly plaintive emails from them for few weeks and then they let us alone.
There's some relationship between the refusal of many Americans to believe in perfectly real things like the US government's involvement in Guatemala in 1954 and the popularity of lurid and largely unimportant theories about JFK and so on. It's as though a cartoonish endgame-y kind of corruption is more bearable than the actual sordid kind.
I know I'm going to regret finding out the answer to this question, but are there are people who have a) heard claims of US involvement in Guatemala more recently than 5 minutes ago, but b) refuse to believe them?
Estimating here: something like half of my students, very bright people, believe in either LIHOP or MIHOP.
On the other hand, few of them have even heard of Guatemala.
You might look at freeze-dried camping food. You need to boil water, though soaking them for a long time apparently gets them to a barely edible point. I haven't tried the latter, but saw it advocated years ago as a lightweight backpacking (no stove) strategy. With boiled water, some of those meals really aren't bad. Or weren't 10-15 years ago when I last went camping. They can be a bit pricey, though.
133
Yeah, but it didn't collapse in a fire so much - it burned for some ten hours before collapsing. I don't think there are many buildings (or many tall buildings) that would survive a local earthquake followed by 10 hours of unchecked fire. I don't think any code specifies 'fire department absent for a long long time after an earthquake'.
It is perfectly feasible to design buildings to survive unchecked fires and in my opinion it should be required. There isn't too much fire departments can do anyway once the fire is well established. Automatic sprinkler systems have a better shot but don't always work.
Some fires that caused severe damage but no total collapse.
Meridian Plaza .
Windsor Tower .
Beijing TVCC .
136: It was a joke. See Otto's lunchtime regimen, somewhere in TFA of the last 2 days.
On the other hand, few of them have even heard of Guatemala.
The existence of the country, or US meddling there?
I suppose the former. It was all a big deal in the 80s, but that's long past for your students.
are there are people who have a) heard claims of US involvement in Guatemala more recently than 5 minutes ago, but b) refuse to believe them?
I think that there's a vague aura of disreputable conspiracy thinking around stories like Guatemala. Not nec. that example, but the general field. I'd heard the story about GM and the trolley lines a decade before I found out that it was fucking proved before Congress. Before that, I just thought it was DFH* talk, probably based on something, but not nearly as sinister as the stories.
* To be clear, this was not at a time when I was a DFH-hater. It just seemed dubious, like a mythology of a particular culture.
I believe in DOOWOP and SOCKHOP.
I believe in IHOP.
(Unlike that doubter JRoth.)
I'm not sure what you're up to, teo, but I suspect it may be related to humor.
Toads hop, frogs hop, and even some lizards hop.
It's certainly not related to conspiracies, I can tell you that much.
I bought a neft in a lizard shop.
With flu season around the corner, it's time for us to get our nefti pots ready.
On Guatemala: back in the mid-nineties when I first found about about the whole Guatemala fifties through eighties thing (I know, late to the DFH party) I was telling absolutely everyone I could because I found it so shocking that this wasn't major news. Surely if everyone really knew about it, it would undercut the very legitimacy of all American foreign policy post-WWII! And people didn't believe me. They just didn't. It was very shocking. It was the same with East Timor--the truth was too big to see. It's the same with Kissinger and Pinochet; ordinary people simply can't accept that powerful people can be bad without being monsters of fairytale evil. (Even I have trouble about Kissinger, because he's just so cute.)
People can believe in rogue US evil but they can't believe in systematic US evil that persists over time and is to the advantage of large numbers of USians.
(On the topic of DFH-dom: those appalling Genocide Project pro-lifers were on campus with their billboards of fetuses, lynchings and piles of concentration camp dead (they were all white and while they could have been some of our local very blond Jewish community I suspect that they weren't) So I talked to one; he won some points, I won some points. He was better prepared but I've got those lines of reasoning sussed out so they'd better be careful next time. I was talking to him about genocide and Palestine and described this one absolutely appalling picture of a parent holding an impossibly mutilated body of a child from whose legs the flesh had been burned away by white phosphorus--and the guy shed a tear. He didn't make a big production about it and I still think he was disingenuous otherwise and that whole project is dreadful, but it was a tiny moment of humanity in a flurry of talking points.)
while they could have been some of our local very blond Jewish community I suspect that they weren't
Yeah, pretty unlikely. Jews don't generally go for that sort of thing.
141: For a few days where you have other things to worry about besides the artisanal quality of the food?
Bran buds or the like for fiber, cause hyper-constipation isn't fun, high calorie protein bars such as Special K "meal bars", peanut butter, nuts in general, pasta sealed up well, and tuna in pouches.
The thing to do is look at any items you fancy to see if they have expiration dates reasonably far ahead.
If you don't actually like any of it for eating in other than a real emergancy you can rotate it out to a food bank or the next homeless person you run across if just tossing it bothers you. I can eat most anything so long as I have something to read as a distraction so that's not a problem here.
Canned soups are mostly water, fine if you're not going to be humping them anywhere, not fine for treks.
Some way of purifying water is really good to have if there's a possibilty the usual supplies might be contaminated, the converse of hyper-constipation is even less fun, and some things are much worse.
Wait, I thought GM and trolley lines was, at least for LA, debunked. That is, GM had an interest in the trolley lines going away, but that that wasn't why they went away. There's a different between trying to monopolize transit, which companies tried to do within the horsecar, streetcar, and bus systems, and trying to force a change from one mode to another. Or is there another GM/trolley conspiracy?
I am interested in the answer to 162 as well.
It wasn't just GM, man. It was, like, a conspiracy of GM and some oil company and Goodyear (or Goodrich, whatever). And they got taken to court and fined, like, $2000. Total slap on the wrist, and that was the end of the streetcar system. Anyway, that's what I heard, but haven't been able to substantiate, so yeah, I'd appreciate further information too. Maybe Ari the History Dude knows something about it.
Or Robert Halford. Where's his forthcoming history of LA, anyway? I bet the song-recording project beats him to completion. And that makes him a super slacker.
The last time this came up, a few years ago, I mentioned I meant to look it up. I still do.
Oh, fuck, the recording project. That kind of slipped my mind. Sorry! I kept trying to schedule the girls for a recording session, but it hasn't happened yet.
The history of the decline of the L.A. Red Cars is well documented.
167: Don't worry, the rap break is taking much longer to compose than I expected.
"I'm the hip-hop-opotamus / my lyrics are bottomless"
170: You're a disappointment. A big disappointment.
164: Debunked in the particulars. But broadly speaking, still true. If you haven't read Ken Jackson's Crabgrass Frontier and Tom Lewis's Divided Highways, you should. Jackson's better history. Lewis is a better read (though Jackson's a good writer), but he tries a bit too hard to show how the Federal Highway Act CHANGED AMERICA. Which it did, by the way, so he doesn't need to try to so hard to make the case.
I should add: I'm not a historian of LA. In fact, the LA historiography makes me slightly crazy, as there's too much of it. And the historians, who used to work too hard to prove that their metropolis was exceptional, are now working too hard to prove that it's not. Which is to say, it's totally possible the debunking has been debunked. But last I heard, eb was right.
I haven't read either of those books, and in fact I'm not sure I had even heard of Lewis's, but I know that Crabgrass Frontier is very highly regarded in planning circles. It's on pretty much every list of recommended reading on American planning history.
the LA historiography makes me slightly crazy
Content is boring. Let's talk about methods!
The Lewis book isn't scholarship. It's a popular history that, I think, Lewis wrote as a companion piece to a PBS documentary. But it's still quite good, the best survey I've seen on the impact of federal highway construction.
Let's talk about methods!
The LA historians lack rhythm. Happy now?
If memory serves, eb once took me to task about Crabgrass Frontier on this very blog. But I forget the specifics of the conversation.
The Lewis book isn't scholarship. It's a popular history that, I think, Lewis wrote as a companion piece to a PBS documentary.
That would explain why I hadn't heard of it. Thanks.
180: Thanks. That was interesting to re-read.
The penultimate paragraph in comment 215 of that thread is the key to the book, which is much better than pretty good. Flawed? Sure. But incredibly important, especially on federal culpability in poor planning.
Huh, that sounds really interesting. I've always heard about that stuff from housing policy people, but never known a go-to book on the subject.
But incredibly important, especially on federal culpability in poor planning.
True, but key to the book? The book is too much an aggregation of previously published stuff to hold together enough to have a key. Those chapters are the best, but probably make up less than 30% of the book. But this is all unreliable memory for me. Even more than the last time around.
Apparently, I wrote a few more comments on Jackson in that thread. I wonder if I can write a bot that reproduces my old comments in relevant new threads. I just don't put in the effort anymore.
Hey teo, in that linked old thread, why did you write, "And people wonder why westerners don't vote for Democrats."? Comment 166, just when people are starting to discuss western development patterns. I can't figure out the referent, and it's driving me nuts.
Also, I disagree with most of the particular's of eb's 211 in that thread, yet think he's got at least one sound point.
186: Huh, looking back at it now I'm not sure either. I think it was probably just a reaction to some of the eastern commenters' lack of familiarity with the history of the west.
I happen to have Ken Jackson right here, eb. He says to tell you that you know nothing of his work.
No, Professor Jackson, I'm not going to tell eb that; that's just mean.
Um, ari, does this "Ken Jackson" you're talking to have Kung-Fu grip? Just asking.
Actually, M/tch, I think naming your fleshlight "Ken Jackson" is kind of hot.
I take pride in my lack of knowledge about Chaco Canyon and the difference between UC-Santa Barbara and UC-Santa Cruz. There's only so much room in the old brain, you know.
I named mine "Jackson Kin", actually, in honor of Michael and his family.
194: Yeah, I have much less of a chip on my shoulder about that stuff than I did at the time of that thread. I encourage you in your ignorance.
194: Soon enough, all three will be little more ruins, picked over by archeologists looking for emblems of a once-great civilization.
picked over by archeologists
And pothunters.
188: Well, it was the point that I was thinking as I read the thread just now: "lots of what's now soulless is likely to individualize as history gets a hold of it." Levittown is famous for this.
However, there are a million (well dozens) reasons that auto suburbs will never be/act like/work like streetcar/earlier suburbs. You try to suggest that they could be, and it's just not true.
Sorry if that's a bit testy. I need to go, so I can't make it nicer.
And pothunters.
UCSC will be a goldmine for them.
200: I was wondering who would score off of my assist. Well done!
I read Jackson's book seven years ago. That's got to count for something.
One interesting thing about re-reading that thread is that I can still remember walking away from my computer kind of miffed about the whole thing. (Miffed that I wasn't expressing myself well enough, to be clear.) And upon re-reading, I'm like, huh, that was a pretty interesting conversation, and I'm glad we had it.
And upon re-reading, I'm like, huh, that was a pretty interesting conversation, and I'm glad we had it.
Yeah, me too.
I thought that at the time too, though I did wonder if maybe I went into too much detail about the book. (As for 211 in that thread, I'm not really that invested in it. Except for the sound point.) It's easy to criticize books you don't like and sound critical; it's harder to criticize books you really do like without sounding much more critical than you mean to be.
As for ari, well, let's just say I'm going to take on Hofstadter next. Historians, why do you love him so?
204, 205: I should be clear: I thought eb was making a lot of good points in the thread (even if I didn't agree with them all); 211 was the only one that struck me as being largely wrong, not just a difference of opinion. Otherwise a good thread, and I'm sorry I missed it (which is why I'm rehashing it now).
