Let me be the first to suggest they redo everything using the distance correlation.

So should I bother quitting drinking?

Quit drinking is busy right now.

Shit, makes no difference. I live downwind of an industrial revolution.

The nice thing about a family history of Alzheimer's is that I'm both afraid that I'll die before I get very old and afraid that I won't.

I have appallingly long life in some grandparents and abruptly early death in another. Which lives, as in most things, anchorlessly drifting.

That second sentence failed badly but came out vaguely poetic, so I won't fix it.

Maybe doctors are asking about drinking in a gendered way? If she's gone to the doctor over the years and never been told to maybe consider drinking less, that's not my experience.

When they matched samples they didn't control for smoking? I don't believe it.

An MD is no substitute for training in statistics.

The British epidemiologist A. Gerald Shaper began a wide-ranging men's heart health study in the late 1970s, and when he examined the data, he found that 71 percent of nondrinkers in the study were actually former drinkers who had quit.

If I hadn't come across so much of this sort of misclassification so often in financial statistics, it would boggle my mind that it took until the late 70s for someone to think about this distinction, and decades more for it to actually sink in.

Also, suddenly all those questions on US immigration cards suddenly don't seem so silly.

"Are you a terrorist?" "Well, not now..."

It was better in some ways before they started all this number crunching: you lived, and then you died. Finis. I recognise that treatment protocols can be evaluated to increase median 5 year survival for this and that; I recognise that preventative medicine saves a shitload of money. But who is evaluating the psychological stress caused by the "Do this!", "Stop doing that!" messages, usually contradictory, that emerge from the medical establishment every Thursday?

What?! What if I'm going to die when I'm 60 and I didn't even know enough to spend the next 20 years fretting?!

Maybe you could fret about other things?

Oh no. I don't know what else to fret about.

I bey tour house will flood again soon!

Or maybe you'll make egregious typos in public!

16: It's turning out just like he warned us - now that Trump is President all our worries are gone and we don't know what to fret about.

It's pretty clear that alcohol is correlated (using distance correlation?) with cancer, but the effect size seems small (7% increase for each daily drink) for epidemiology. If you found that effect in a clinical trial where people were randomly assigned to PBR or O'Doole's, that would be a strong finding. When you do that in a retrospective epidemiological study, you have to consider that people who drink do so for reasons that very often related to cancer themselves (like having a shitty job that might expose you to more risk from pollution). Researchers will try to control for those things, but you can only ask so many questions, peoples' memories of what they have done over the course of a lifetime are only so good, and if you consider the potential ways the factors can interact you run out of statistical power. You could learn enough about each field to assess how good a research study is at controlling for those factors or you could just figure small effects maybe are worth only a small amount of worry.

But when will I die?

I assume on March 14, 2038, along with everybody else.

Get this shit off the blog. I'm serious, this post and link needs to be deleted, buried, burned, and never referred to again, on penalty of banishment.

22 I wasn't really hoping to make 80 anyway.

Why are we dying on March 14, 2038?

You don't want to know.

Okay.

I am on a conference call listening to someone complain about p I am on a conference call listening to someone complain about p LT .05.

And, you know, typing about it.

20 seems right, and anyway honestly what are you going to do, life eventually causes cancer. Countless life choices may raise or lower your personal risk -- what kind of canned tomatoes you eat, what kind of car your parents drove, the zoning laws in your city, whether you live near a heavily-trafficked street, etc. You can make yourself crazy trying to control every aspect of your body and environment in order to avoid what is ultimately inevitable, or you can eat mostly-not-garbage foods, exercise when you can, not smoke too much, and just live your life. Which includes having a few drinks when you want, because JFC, otherwise what's the point.

But will it be in my 60s?? That seems discomfortingly soon.

If you are eating canned tomatoes that aren't San Marzano, you're doing something wrong.

Do I have terrible, terrible genetics? Will they kill me?

No. Land-use policies upstream of your house will kill you.

If you think about it, Mr. and Mrs. Menendez were killed by their terrible genes.

Life is just a party, and parties weren't meant to last.

You can say that as much as you want, but I still think you or your doctors should have been more careful with the elephant tranquilizers.

I don't trust the linked author because his name is an anagram of A Horde Demon.

Wait until you find out what your name means in German.

I don't have cancer but I am still grumpy about my doctor's request I try just not having caffeine until menopause. That's easily 15-20 years and the ones in which I'll most WANT caffeine, but I've been compliant for I guess two months now and it's not too hard except the wanting.

The wanting is the hardest part.

30 and 20 are responses to 23, and show that it's okay to have the original post as long as we can agree that there is no conceivable reason to change our behavior.

40: I can't imagine getting through a work day without caffeine. I'd be awake even less!

I was told to stop caffeine in January; episodes of palpitations, currently under investigation. After wearing a monitor, the Dr was pretty adamant I had to lay off the coffee.

I've mostly managed. I have one half-caffeinated coffee in the morning (one scoop caff, one scoop decaff in the Aeropress) and that's it. I've completely cold turkey'd it with Coke and all other caffeinated drinks.

I resent it deeply, because, I'm not one of those people who generally believes caffeine is bad for you, and I love coffee so much.

But ... I have basically stopped having the heart symptoms I was having, now that I've stopped caffeine (and nicotine). So there may be something in it.

On the other hand, if it was just some kind of vague disapproval on 'your body is a temple' grounds, I'd have told the Dr to fuck off.

Waaaah I'm going to die in my 60s.

My parents are both very young and healthy 60 somethings, and my grandfather died shortly before his 103rd birthday. On the other hand, compared to my older relatives, I'm falling apart. No serious illnesses, but lots of minor, irritating joint injuries, or aches and pains. So yeah, me too.

44: Do you ever drink decaffeinated coffee during the day or is the caffeine essential to the experience of good coffee?

re: 47

Sure, if it's good coffee, yeah. I still often have at least one, and sometimes two other coffees during the day. It's not as good, but I still enjoy it.

Heebie I'm sure with your math knowledge you can find a base system where 60 is plenty. Hexadecimal seems good enough.

I gave up caffeine* in January because it messes with my sleep too much. Turns out my sleep's still pretty awful without it. However, I've managed to stick with it--on the rare occasions I need to be extra alert, one-sixth caf suffices. More than that and I go bonkers.

I love coffee, though. I probably drink more coffee since when I drink decaf I no longer have caffeine as a limiting factor.

* I gave up alcohol at the same time. That lasted a month. There's only so much willpower to go around at once.

||

NMM to Barbara Bush.

|>

I was/am kind of skeptical about this article. Moby's right about the size, and in terms of absolute risk, it's not so large. Lifetime risk of breast cancer for a woman is 12%, so the 7% extra risk brings it to 12.8%, right? And then, if we get to three drinks a day, it's up to 14.5%? (Not sure whether you compound increased risk.)

The thing that bugged me, though, was the explanation of metabolism. Small quantities of alcohol create large quantities of acetaldehyde? I think I know what they mean in that acetaldehyde is way worse for you than ethanol, but one molecule of ethanol makes one molecule (at last transiently) of acetaldehyde. I know acetaldehyde is carcinogentic, but I am curious how well-founded this is. I'd think most would convert to acetic acid, which is much less harmful. I'd love to see a study tracking alcohol metabolites and their disposition. (No longer in a job where I can search the literature for what I'd like to see.)

I'm not skeptical that alcohol is carcinogenic. That's well established. I'm also not surprised that is has basically no health benefit, nor that industry would suppress information about harm. I just think this is written to be as frightening as possible.

Given all the others risks alcohol can be shown to increase by way more than 7%, maybe you need to sell it a bit.

52: one-for-one is scary, though. As you said, I think by comparing quantities of the substances they're trying to denote relative badness. I wouldn't do a shot of acetaldehyde.

Might not be so bad on the rocks, though.

Everything I eat metabolizes into poop.

That is probably less true than you think.

Poop and farts?

Yes, those, but mostly exhalation.

You know what one burp said to the other?

Turtles can breathe through their butt. I feel people might be able to also, if they applied themselves.

That answer was smarter than I expected of a burp.

51: Eeewww.

Also, I wish Molly Ivins had been the one to live to 92 instead of dying at 62.

Turtles can breathe through their butt

And humans can talk shit. Advantage: chelonian.

Some humans can even sing through their butt.

30 is words of wisdom. Really.

54: I looked quickly this morning, and nearly all of the acetaldehyde is converted fairly rapidly into acetate, like I thought. Acetaldehyde also occurs naturally in alcohol at low levels and used as a flavoring agent/preservative in some foods.

It looks like what's going on is two things: genetic variation in rates of metabolism from alcohol to acehaldehyde to acetate, causing some indivuduals to have higher exposure to acetaldehyde after consuming the same quantity of alcohol, and consuming large amounts of alcohol leads to additional enzymes producing acetaldehyde, not just the regular pathway of alcohol dehydrogenase, leading to more accumulation.

I feel better now.

67: The genetic variant that disables aldehyde dehydrogenase-2 is associated with higher rates of cancer, especially esophageal cancer, which would support that: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9744533

So my ex has a higher likelihood of getting it, given that he does a lot of socially obligated drinking despite turning bright red after half a glass of beer. I'm not sure how I feel about that. Glad that the one of my two kids who's inherited that gene hates alcohol, I suppose. (Though he's only 14, so there's still time for him to learn to enjoy living dangerously.)

68 reminds me to look up the Biochemists' Songbook for the alcohol metabolism pathway (set to "Good King Wenceslas"):

Winter solstice celebrate! Hail the festive season!
Wise men cease to cerebrate! Take a rest from reason!
Super-ego is defined (Ellis and Karminski)
As that part of human mind soluble in whisky.

But beware, for ethanol at levels elevated
In liver cells in cytosol is dehydrogenated;
NADH to NAD, the ratio's distorted,
There's aldehyde toxicity (as recently reported).

I can't remember the rest, but it got me through exams...

I get pretty red in the face after a few beers, but not at half a beer.

I've also never really had "socially obligated drinking." I have had "socially obligated that's your last drink".

My mom and her brothers' diagnoses were: esophageal cancer, multiple myeloma, and acute leukemia. I'm BRCA+. How soon am I going to die and will it be awful? What are the odds for Jammies and my kids? Please show your work.

Although I don't drink much.

Would you like some peer pressure?

Come on, everybody is doing it. All the other professors are drunk during office hours.

Your students are drunk, and they're going to live forever. Just ask them if you don't believe me.

Kind of on topic, I've been unable to move without pain since like Monday. Not the usual ankle pain, but new pain. I'm thinking about going to the doctor, but then I'm also worried about getting MRSA or accidental castration while there. Also, it's getting better.

An abruptly decelarating bus possibly pulled some muscle in my shoulder blade a little bit. Will I live 'til morning?

Were you on the bus or under it?

On. Or inside, to be precise.

I've also never really had "socially obligated drinking." I have had "socially obligated that's your last drink".

That'll be one of those transatlantic divides.

80: That's probably the safest place.

The way these goddamn cowboys slam on their brakes one sometimes wonders.

Why not commute by electric scooter instead?

It would involve driving, and owning a vehicle.

||
You know what's great? Coming home to a novel and disturbing noise outside one's window, investigating, and discovering it's not your problem.
|>

How soon am I going to die and will it be awful?

A friend of mine asked me exactly the same question the other day in a low mood, and I reassured her by replying "Gloriously, surrounded by a ring of your slain".

Small Goddaughter?

Until you are sure it's your last stand, you should try to keep the pile of the slain in a horseshoe shape.

No, SGD knows it already.

69: Damn you, Ajay, mentioning the Biochemist's Songbook has given me the Waltzing Matilda TCA cycle song as an earworm. And I can't remember past the first two lines, which is particularly irritating.

89: Because you don't want to mess up your shoes?

92: UX. People see a complete circle, they assume the downfall is completed. You need to be consistent with your patterns.

Well, if you are in a position to have your slain enemies fall in a ring around you, you're surrounded, and therefore things are not going well and you're probably going to die. If they're falling in a horseshoe, there's a gap - use it to escape.

Basic science.

94: Helpful! Ok, I'm going.

FAGGOTS.

Kind of on topic, did you know that when you buy a headstone, a black granite stone is much more expensive than a lighter color?

Really, ring is a synecdoche for any topologically closed form. If you want to die gloriously surrounded by a perfectly symmetrical eight-pointed star of your slain, possibly as a result of your long-standing feud with the infamous Synchronised Swimming Yakuza, go for it.

93 still applies.

I AGREE WITH MY DISTINGUISHED COLLEAGUE.

I feel now that I need to change my life so that my death won't be a disappointment to ajay.

Don't worry. If you crawl off shamefaced to Hel you won't have to meet him.

heebie, I'm sorry about your uncle's leukemia diagnosis, and doubly sorry that it's causing you such mortality-related anxiety. That's a terrible feeling. My mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer at 64 and died before her 65th birthday, and it felt pretty traumatic for similar reasons. The thing she seemed saddest about was that her grandchildren were too young to be able to remember her when they grew older, and it's true--they don't. Lots of people on both sides of my family died relatively young (mostly from cancer of one variety or another, although there's plenty of heart failure and strokes, too), and everyone that lives longer seems to develop Alzheimer's, which makes me feel damned either way. There's not really anyone I recall who lived into genuine old age in good health. It's incredibly depressing to think about, so I mostly try to not think about it. And try to enjoy the days that I have as best as I can. That sometimes feels like I'm just burying my head in the sand. But I don't know what else to do. I think that's the best we can do. It sucks.

If ostriches could breathe through their butts they would have the last laugh.

87 / 89 are fabulous.

If drinking wine from enemy skull is the wine or the skull more carcinogenic

Just wash the skull.

Unless you live in Michigan.

108: And then fill the skull with a delicious and healthful banana and kale smoothie.

Definitely Hel for you.

thanks, Urpie. I'm glad to have company in the abyss.

It's never easy to plan about this stuff, because if you make a mistake you could outlive the output of your corgi breeding line.

Wow. Are the ravens at the Tower alright?

Is it just me, or is the writer of the article in 113 having a real field day? I can't pick my favorite line.

Mine was, "It's not just a sexual thing."

My mom is both a royalist and a dog-lover. Surely I'm obliged to inform her.

Off topic, probably false, but still: The Fuck?

Try this.

Frankly, I'd more worried about the detectives going to protests in plainclothes.

I'm more curious as to why the Pittsburgh police department thinks today was the day that message needed to go out.

115 - Ogged is the "Foundation Bitch" of Unfogged.

Foundational, not to be confused with Basic.

Apparently, it's confirmed as a real email.

OK, the email is real. Is Pittsburgh a hotbed of activism such that unusual concern by the police there is justified? If so, why? If not, are similar emails going out in other cities, and Pittsburgh is just the one that was leaked? And is Mueller actually going to be fired this week? If so, how was it leaked? Because I assume the Trump administration is going to literally send the leaker to Gitmo if they can identify them. If not, is this a case of the police being paranoid and authoritarian and looking for any excuse to crack down on protesters? And if Mueller actually is fired, I assume the only legal institution with a Trump investigation worth mentioning is the attorneys general of New York, DC, and maybe two or three other states and he can look forward to two terms, right? Also, what impact will it have on my commute?

I have no idea. The local police had a bad day, if being sued for beating up a guy makes a bad day.

22 to 125.

I get pretty red in the face after a few beers, but not at half a beer.

Possibly Ume's ex is Asian and you're not?

Aaand yikes a little googling suggests that the flushing and the cancer are associated. Good thing my wife's a lightweight and is otherwise genetically destined for immortality.

I'm only not Asian in the usual senses, but I did have an uncle who bombed Japanese ships.

Also, I've got like 30 publications in medical journals.

I also have all the questions in 125 besides the one about Cyrus's commute. I don't think it necessarily means two terms, but I do think everything hinges on taking back the House in November.

It might also just mean the local police enjoyed the G20 a little too much and dreams about the return of hippie punching.

129: Still not the same as having an uncle who got bombed on Japanese ships.

128.3: I should warn my nephew (his mother is Japanese). But he probably knows.

Most people who get bombed don't get cancer.

My uncle died about ten years ago and stopped bombing Japanese ships several years before that.

Depends on what you mean by "bombed."

/Standpipe's Blog

131 - with or without Mueller or his firing, everything hinges on at least taking the House back in November. Trump is 99.9999% certainly not going to be impeached and then convicted by 2/3 of the Senate and removed from office by this Senate based on anything Mueller finds, so the importance of the investigstion is primarily on limiting the damage Trump can do while in office by making him unpopular and weak and encouraging Congressional oversight. I know everyone here knows this already but why not be told something you already knew with extra mansplaining.

When I die early from alcohol-related cancer people will miss my futile annoying obvious mansplaining, which is why it was a good way to spend my life. Oh wait.

It may be wishful thinking, but I'd put the odds of impeachment significantly higher than that. If November continues to look as ugly for them as it does now, Repubs may start liking the idea of going into 2020 with a President Pence a whole lot better after their primaries.

Serious question: do the Russians want the Republicans to win in November for maximum dysfunction, or the Democrats for maximum Trump frustration and gridlock?

Probably the former, but I'm grasping at straws.

I've done that before. Eventually, somebody comes from behind the counter and chases you out of McDonald's.

I made my kid happy this morning because I bought Nutter Butter cookies at the store to pack in his lunch.

Does he like them or does he have a bully with peanut allergies?

141. Any incompetent is fine. Remember, they did support Jill Stein directly, and a bunch of their facebook ads were for Sanders.

140
It may be wishful thinking, but I'd put the odds of impeachment significantly higher than that.

This is vague. Halford said there was a 0.0001 chance of impeachment. 1 percent, 10 percent, and 80 percent would all be "significantly higher" than that. Which of those would you put the odds at? Also, by what date, specifically? I really can't imagine impeachment due primarily to the investigation of wrongdoing that has already happened before the midterms at this point. If the midterms go badly for Republicans, I might expect some of them to support impeachment in 2019.

141: The best-case scenario for the Russian government would have been a strong Trump administration secretly in their pocket. I'm pretty sure that's no longer on the table. Chaos and gridlock is still good for them. Putin probably personally benefits from chaos and gridlock most of all, to discredit democracy.

By 2019 why wouldn't Republicans just primary him? An untainted successful primary challenger would probably be more likely to succeed than an embattled, barely started Pence administration.

To answer my own question: his base might not go along. Oof.

146: They may not have expected Trump to win, but they KNEW that Jill Stein wasn't going to win.

147.1: No shit it's vague. I don't know what the odds are. I don't think it's anything like an even bet, but I also don't think it's as vanishingly unlikely as Halford suggests. A handful of Republicans in the Senate and a double handful in the House are stupid enough and/or batshit insane enough enough that they actually support Trump, but most aren't. They're tribal Republicans, and they're more scared of losing a primary than a general, but they'd be happy to see Trump gone if they didn't have to do anything to make it happen. As we get closer to November, some of those people are going to start worrying less about the deplorables in the Republican primary and more about general election voters. We'll likely also know more about what Mueller has on Trump, and a chunk of that will be the sort of grubby, greedy criminality that even tribal Republicans will have a hard time with. Add those two factors together and there could be a window of opportunity in the second half of the year for impeachment to get enough support to happen. More likely the House Rs just get crazier and the Senate Rs more craven, but I'm happier with some glimmer of hope.

I overuse the same example, but when CA couldn't pass a budget for years under Schwarzenegger because every Republican was rightfully afraid of being primaried, we never did get one to cave. We only needed one some years, and no amount of "failed state" pressure ever worked. My takeaway is that persuasion won't work and brute force is the solution.

Not super happy with our preposterous NIMBY Democratic-controlled Legislature today.

You keep Democrats out of your back yard?

No, today they did not do the necessary work.

I'd sell my vote for a Nutter Butter.

Their Russians, not devils. They don't just appear when you say something like that.

They made me typo that.

Also 150 seems reasonable. But I still think the likelihood of enough Senate Republicans concluding that they are in fact better off sans Trump to get a 2/3 conviction vote in the Senate is ... extraordinarily small. Not all of them are Trumpistas but all of them are craven assholes who are by now well-schooled in the "brazen it out" school of being a craven asshole. E.g. I would bet almost anything that almost every single one of them thinks that Nixon should not have resigned.

Maybe they all think Nixon should have resigned for starting the EPA.

The revelations about just how mobbed-up Trump's lawyer is are nothing short of astonishing even as they are unsurprising if that makes any sense. Once again TPM and Josh Marshall's twitter feed are really essential reading.

Jeet Heer had an interesting suggestions that relentless televised hearings may be the key missing ingredient for a serious chance of impeachment (they probably helped with Nixon).

161: The more reason to retake Congress. And when Mueller and/or state AGs start prosecuting people that'll fill some of the gap.

The Senate map militates strongly against impeachment, I think. If Democrats win the Senate, and I think this is pretty unlikely, or if Republicans hold or gain a couple, the overall Senate composition isn't going to be much different from what we see right now. Not many Republicans are running for re-election. In 20, though, the map will be quite different, and a bunch of them will be running. They'll have to face primary challengers if they deviate and, quite possibly, fired up Democrats -- and thus need strong turnout from Trumpers, even if they didn't have a primary.

Impeachment only becomes possible, imo, with some real wild mad king shit that gets the crazy base to turn on him. Wilder than anything we've seen yet.

151: My takeaway is that persuasion won't work and brute force is the solution.

Electoral therapy, applied as often as necessary.

Ultimately I think it's true that the only way to get Trump out of office is voting him out in '20. That sucks, and it's not a sign of the health of the US system, but that's overdetermined anyway.

I can spin up circumstances that might result in X Republican Senators voting to impeach, but I can't possibly get X to approach the ~16* you need.

*if there aren't 51 Dems, does McConnell even take up theoretical Articles of Impeachment? I don't see why he would.

A handful of Republicans in the Senate and a double handful in the House are stupid enough and/or batshit insane enough enough that they actually support Trump

I think the concept of "actual support" isn't helpful here. These people mostly aren't patriots or altruists in the conventional sense. They may find Trump distasteful, but they will "actually support" him because there is no foreseeable set of circumstances where their interests don't substantially align with Trump's.

The optimistic take, if we have to have one, is that they will follow Trump into the abyss.

Grab them by the abyss.

166: Basically, they define "patriotism" as "that which is necessary for them to win a primary election".

Related: Cohen has dropped his libel suits against the people who said he meet with the Russians while in Prague. I assume this means that there is proof that he met with the Russians while in Prague.

IANA Californian, but I think Chait gets the NIMBY thing wrong in an interesting way.

The larger issue is that too many Democrats have taken a misguided, knee-jerk defense of the restrictive zoning policies that have perpetuated the urban housing crisis. ... Allowing the construction of more multifamily housing means relaxing -- gasp -- regulations. And it means working with -- gasp -- developers. The controversy in California and other Democratic-dominated areas has been heavily infused with instinctive support for existing regulation, and distrust of business as a malignant force.

Chait occasionally likes to adopt dumb rightwing frames to describe the behavior of liberals -- as he does here when he suggests that liberals like regulation purely for the sake of regulation, or that liberals are anti-business.

In fact, NIMBYism is a collective action problem, and liberals are human beings and therefore susceptible to it. Individuals aren't inclined to make sacrifices in the interest of the greater good; homeowners don't want the prices of their homes to fall.

168: Certainly there's a lot of that, but I think there's a sort of genuine altruism/patriotism at work here, too. I mean, a lot of fascists/oligarchs/conservatives are genuinely convinced that this is the proper way to order society. When we found out that Joe the Plumber wasn't actually going to be affected by Obama's tax increases, we learned that Joe is a great American who is willing to make sacrifices to make his country a better place.

"What's the Matter with Kansas" isn't that people vote against their own interests; it's that Kansas has a lot of altruists who want a better society and are willing to make sacrifices to achieve it.

I don't buy that. They think the costs will fall on other people (e.g. that only black people get government aid) or that there won't actually be any costs (e.g. trickle down economics).

I do think that here's a large number of people who would spend $20 to stop a black person from getting $5, if that's what you mean. I just don't think they believe they are making the country a better place. I think they just hate black people.

170 - I think you're broadly right and the main issue was an old-fashioned collective action problem. But in this particular case there were also a lot of "activist" types who weren't homeowners but sided with the NIMBYs out of some kind of misguided antidevelopment something. There was a lot of dumb "we don't need more housing, we need more affordable housing" type language, ignoring that the subsequent possible plan for building socialist apartment blocks is [crickets chirping]. And ignoring that it was largely an environmental measure designed to increase density, but bad because *developers*. That wasn't the most significant opposition force, but it was the most annoying, as always in particular online.

173 understands what I'm saying.

I just don't think they believe they are making the country a better place. I think they just hate black people.

Well, yeah. Immigrants, too. And they think the country would be a better place without them. They're patriots!

I keep being admonished by a certain type of liberal to try to put myself in the place of a Trump voter, and understand the motives that would lead decent, non-deplorable Americans to support him. This is the best I can do.

170 and 171, if there's so much altruism and idealism going on in politics, why is everyone in California who doesn't have a degree in economics or urban planning also extremely NIMBY? I'm tired of politicalfootball's GOP propaganda trying to convince us that only Republicans are motivated by morals.

175.last: I grew up around them so I don't feel compelled to give a fuck about understanding Trump voters.

177: Yeah, the way that Hunter S Thompson can't escape Kurtz, I find myself haunted by Thompson these days:

"On my way back to San Francisco, I tried to compose a fitting epitaph. I wanted something original, but there was no escaping the echo of Mistah Kurtz' final words from the heart of darkness: "The horror! The horror! ... Exterminate all the brutes!"

They're extremely NIMBY because all their wealth is tied up in their real estate. Not only must it not fall in value today, it has to sell for double what it's worth today 15 years hence when they are ready to downsize. (Feel free to adjust math for age.)

Around here, densification increases land values. Imagine that!

Thompson again:

"Ominous" is not quite the right word for a situation where one of the most consistently unpopular politicians in American history suddenly skryockets to Folk Hero status while his closest advisors are being caught almost daily in nazi-style gigs that would have embarrassed Martin Bormann.

How long will it be before "demented extremists" in Germany or maybe Japan, start calling us A Nation of Pigs? How would Nixon react? "No comment"? And how would the popularity polls react if he just came right out and admitted it?

180 - yes, there was also a lot of confusion between per-house house prices and the value of land. If you live near transit in a single family house that you own and people are putting in a "massive" (ie five story) development your land value can go up (a lot) even as the number of living spaces increase. But there's still the fear of neighborhood change or of not selling at the right time or of just messing with the details of the incredible post 1975 wealth machine that is being lucky enough to own a home in coastal California.

Five storeys! Adorable!