It's interesting in that apparently people have gone down in this sub before and they all survived.
1. Bad for anyone in general to die
2. They were clearly taking major risks, the submarine was hella scuff and followed no standard
3. Given their wealth and acceptance of risk I would like the Coast Guard to bill them the full cost of rescue - or their estates
I felt more sympathy when it was little kids down a well.
They got the NASA managers who approved the Challenger flight to approve this dive.
1: The mainstream media always focuses on the bad news.
It's kind of wild how deep-sea exploration is largely left to these random private companies with improvised equipment. I guess that's what happens when no country has sovereignty.
6: It looks like the NOAA does some expeditions? Probably yield a lot more knowledge than your billionaire adventurers.
6: I think there are more, uh, "official" expeditions and such that do deep-sea exploration. Remember a few years back, there was this series of media articles about the discoveries of that deep-ocean survey of the animals they found on the ocean floor, that showed a large number of newly-discovered species? I could be wrong, but my guess is that those surveys, though, tend to not involve *humans* going down, b/c a robot is just as good for scientific purposes.
1 was my thought too. I was half-expecting when I heard about this to learn that the sub had never done a trip like this.
7,8: Fair enough, but there does seem to be a private-sector swashbuckling element here that's rare elsewhere, although SpaceX/Blue Origin etc. in spaceflight may be comparable. I suspect the murkiness of the legal framework plays a role; historically at least a lot of shipwreck diving was explicitly treasure-hunting and these companies seem like the spiritual successors to that.
A job I kind of wish I'd at least applied for a decade ago was for a historian with a shipwreck salvage company. The job was apparently combing through records trying to identify and locate likely shipwrecks with valuable cargo.
The story around here is that it is a Mi'kmaq-owned company which shifted my sympathies a bit.
Now off to google to see if the rumour is true.
8: I have friends who have been on official deep sea dives. Not like world record level but enough to scoop up some weird worms and crush styrofoam. I think NOAA runs them?
There are people on this very site (not for a while though) who invited us to have our kids decorate styrofoam cups and send them off to her, and then she mailed us back tiny shrunken deep ocean versions of our art. Which we still have!
Nope, looks like the vessel was launched by a Mi'kmaq-owned ship but different orgs.
"there does seem to be a private-sector swashbuckling element here that's rare elsewhere"
Hoo boy, do I have some stories from the history of submarine design to tell *you*. Let's start with the K-boats!
The potassium hulls didn't work, but they sure made a show.
16 is me being hurried and slightly dense! Hiya, hydrobatidae!
I know that this is a reflexive lefty response, but it's the one I feel, apologies if trite.
The Greek navy earlier this week left a rotting hulk packed with 750 or so people to drift until the boat sank and they all died ("they were on their way to Italy they said, we gave them some water, what?" is the official response) . Muted discontent and maybe an official inquiry eventually.
Why are the submarine idiots news? Nobody's going to send a submarine to look for the hulk of this horrifying ghost ship or any that are similar. Is it that the Titanic was fancy, that we're collectively still fascinated by the ambitious intentions of building it? Is it the shock and horror that someone who paid for an expensive ticket didn't get their money's worth?
Is it that there's vestigial shared guilt in the deaths of poor foreign people, that they're dying at some level because our armies and officials want them to and any bit of reflection about that is uncomfortable? I am truly baffled. In the US, lots of Vietnamese and lots of central Americans have pretty terrifying personal or parental migration stories, often too disturbing to share or actively remember. But why make eye contact with the building's cleaners when we can watch the fascinating story of why searching for these watery hero-clowns will inevitably fail because they were 100% predictably idiots
21: the Greek fishing boat story was front page headline news here for several days, it's not like it's been ignored.
The submarine story is an ongoing story with tension and drama, that's why it gets attention.
Meanwhile ten thousand people are dying every week in Ukraine and last time I suggested a thread the response was "Wars are one of those topics that makes every lightbulb in my head shut off". Like OMG yawnfest, seriously. I mean, total snooze LOL.
22: Insert Izzard "we're almost going... 'Well done!'" routine here.
I realized the media was saying "submersible" as opposed to "submarine," looked into this aspect, and learned that a submersible is defined as having much less range/autonomy, needing a mother ship to return to frequently.
22.last: I gotta say, this is edging a bit close to the misplaced outrage of "Why is the plastic-molded zoo animal figurine collectible community not doing enough to fight racism and homophobia?!" Commenting and caring are barely even correlated for me. If a topic seems important and worthy, I'm probably less likely to shoot my mouth off about it.
That may be hyperbole. But even so...
It's because the plastic animals are racist themselves.
Ukraine is a funny topic for posting. I mean, obviously the reason why I haven't posted about it is that I haven't posted anything for years and years. But even if I were still an active poster, I think I'd be really inhibited about it, because my emotional reaction is to straightforwardly cheerlead for the gallant Ukrainians fighting to break free from the tyrannical yoke of the murderous Russian despot. And then I get revolted with myself for talking that way about a war.
Aside from the mocking language, I think the reaction I described is pretty much right, morally, and I'm glad the US is supporting the Ukrainians to the extent we are, but wishing for military success to one side in a conflict rather than peace on almost any terms is weird and uncomfortable for me. It's almost worse because so much of the PR that comes out of Ukraine is successfully charming; I feel like I'm being suckered into being bloodthirsty even though the position I feel like I'm being suckered into is also, I think, right.
This has been another episode of LizardBreath's neuroses.
I'm mostly afraid Putin is going to nuke Kiev if he loses bad enough.
Agree with 8. For both space travel and deep sea travel, scientifically you're better off not sending humans, so the only reasons humans go are for some sort of weird prestige (whether billionaires or cold war).
Becaue I'm a pschopath, I keep imagining the pitch meetings in Hollywood. "What's the biggest movie in 30 years that we couldn't come up with a sequel? Now we have the plot for the sequel! Don't need Leonardo and Kate, just a song from Celine. . ."
I can't quite get past the idea that it looks like a tin can with a camera feed.
I think it's time to send end Musk and his submarine.
22 I don't think the greek refugee boat story got near the amount of press in the US than it did in the UK and Europe. It's outrageous and a violation of one of the most ancient laws of humanity, that you render aid to those who are in distress at sea.
That being said I'm always up for Ukraine threads, I'm in two different chats, one a very active group chat on Twitter and a somewhat less active one on Discord devoted to discussing the Ukraine war. I've often lamented the demise of the Blood and Treasure blog where the topic would no doubt be a very active one.
Yeah, the Greek refugee boat story got basically no attention in the US, as is typical of stories like that from overseas. (We have plenty of our own migrant-tragedy stories closer to home, but they don't get much attention either.)
Remember the early days of blogging when people would trip over themselves to note how very conspicuous it was that someone they disagreed with in politics had yet to comment on a recent tragedy?
It's not getting that much attention in the UK, either, at least not compared to what it deserves. (But still, probably more than in the US.) It's already off The Grauniad's .co.uk front page--which gives the most space to the submarine--and they'd be the most sympathetic.
Too many British people see migrant crossings of the Mediterranean as Someone Else's Problem. For that matter, they want migrant crossings of The Channel to be SEP.
To be fair, the migrant tragedy is just tragedy. It's hell. The submarine thing is entertaining on more dimensions. The hubris, the irony, the MadKatz controller.
More or less what 35 says. What makes for a good discussion is something we can find disagreement on. That's orthogonal to what's important or meaningful, and there's no way anyone here expects me to be qualified to post on important and meaningful topics. The immigrant tragedy is horrific, and I guarantee if I posted on it, it would have gotten five comments of the form, "this is so awful, but what is there to say?"
35: this basic norm has been under attack by the very, very respectable, NYT-coded EU for a good decade. It's horrific. Interestingly, although the UK government on a political level would love to do something similar, they have hit a lot of pushback from the Royal Navy leadership and the courts.
The sub thing has obvious story; there's a ticking clock, there's the absolutely ridiculous obsession with that wreck that's in the fillums.
And on Ukraine, I'm not actually withholding a deluge of guest posts on it. If anyone has something to say, by all means send it over.
To be clear, I think it's a tragedy, too. Not a fan of the pro-dead-rich-guy response to it. Being trapped in a sealed tube deep under the ocean is uncomplicatedly nightmare material.
On the swashbuckling, I got the impression from Natgeo etc that in the 1990s there was an influx of ex-Soviet equipment and personnel.
I share the frustration of 22.2. OTOH, 35.2 is demonstrably true.
"Wars are one of those topics that makes every lightbulb in my head shut off". Like OMG yawnfest, seriously. I mean, total snooze LOL.
I feed seen.
I haven't looked into the story, are they definitely alive and trapped? I'd sort of assumed that the likely situation is that the submarine collapsed and they were dead days ago.
There's no indication yet of what happened to them AFAIK. They're still within the window where there would be enough air for them to have survived so it's not impossible that they're still alive but there's no evidence that they actually are.
My money's on it imploded. The pressure hull was made of carbon fiber which is extremely strong until it isn't. I doubt they'll even be able to find it as there was no beacon (!!!)
the lack of emergency beacon seems extremely sus, & it is beyond aggravating that all these resources/people (at least some of them undoubtedly ready to risk their own lives) are frantically expended/consumed in a likely fruitless search for this thing when an apparently bog standard emergency beacon would at least have allowed for a tighter search.
that the thing previously descended & ascended successfully means it had accrued wear & tear from the forces exerted at depth. it may already have disintegrated.
wonder about the cold, if it is still intact.
barry! ex b& t minds thinking alike!
barry! ex b& t minds thinking alike!
47/49 is my guess, too. I thought the topic was weirdly interesting, for what it's worth, so much so that I stayed up last night learning what a submersible is and trying to figure out how the Coast Guard would even theoretically perform a recovery mission at that depth. I saw a line that said the submersible had a "hull integrity monitor" which I wasn't able to figure out at all - how would that work? Would it give you information at an actionable moment? What sort of person wants to do this? I have no desire to go to space, or anything deeper than standard scuba depth (and even that's kind of iffy).
I think the breathless media coverage of a race against the clock is obviously getting eyeballs, and I feel bad for the poor Coast Guard admiral who has to give public statements about this. I wonder how they will handle messaging around calling off the search.
Apparently they've picked up intermittent banging underwater from the sonobuoys they dropped.
If it's coming from inside of a car, it's the ghosts of Jack and Rose.
I saw a line that said the submersible had a "hull integrity monitor" which I wasn't able to figure out at all
It's so the helmsman can should "Hull integrity at 50%" before the captain says "Reroute all axillary power to the aft deflector shields."
ydnew: I read an article where the company that built and operates the sub, was arguing that they didn't need to get proper regulatory sign-off on the thing, b/c they had all this fancy new-fangled stuff. As if somehow, that meant they were exempt from the normal laws of physics. This "hull integrity monitor" was mentioned. If I were a gambling man, I'd bet the hull was crushed long ago, b/c they didn't build it with enough extra strength so that as it weakened over time, it'd stay intact anyway. [I could be misremembering this, but] I'm reminded of the way pressurized jetliners work: there's a number of compression/decompression cycles that an airframe can withstand, and then it has to be scrapped. It's not like somehow you can go around measuring the integrity of the rivets, and say "hey presto! it'll go for another 1000 flights!" These are things pre-computed based on quality of materials and studies done long ago. I also remember that that's the same way it works for *lots* of critical systems on airplanes: you operate it for N hours, and then you have to take it apart, service every part, and put it back together. Some parts, after N hours, you have to replace them, no ifs, no buts.
I really do suspect these guys simply didn't understand safety engineering.
I'm pretty sure they used only the finest video game controllers.
Carbon fiber has never been used as a sub hull material, and probably AFAIK for good reason, because with titanium or steel you at least have a chance of spotting cracks before they propagate but carbon fibre is much newer and less understood.
SpaceX, which has one of the best aerospace engineering teams in the world, spent a lot of money tooling up to build carbon fibre pressure vessels and then went with good old steel instead because carbon fibre has just too many unknowns.
59.1 someone probably should have told OceanGate that. Hold on, I'm hearing someone did and they fired him for it.
56: Broke: Lasting underarm protection
Woke: MAXIMUM AXILLARY POWER
"Yeah, the Greek refugee boat story got basically no attention in the US, as is typical of stories like that from overseas"
This isn't just a US problem either, or even an ignoring-immigrant-death angle. The terrible train crash in India this month was barely covered in the UK. Mass fatalities a long way away don't get much attention as a rule!
Let us suppose that the great empire of China, with all its myriads of inhabitants, was suddenly swallowed up by an earthquake, and let us consider how a man of humanity in Europe, who had no sort of connection with that part of the world, would be affected upon receiving intelligence of this dreadful calamity. He would, I imagine, first of all, express very strongly his sorrow for the misfortune of that unhappy people, he would make many melancholy reflections upon the precariousness of human life, and the vanity of all the labours of man, which could thus be annihilated in a moment. He would too, perhaps, if he was a man of speculation, enter into many reasonings concerning the effects which this disaster might produce upon the commerce of Europe, and the trade and business of the world in general. And when all this fine philosophy was over, when all these humane sentiments had been once fairly expressed, he would pursue his business or his pleasure, take his repose or his diversion, with the same ease and tranquillity, as if no such accident had happened.
It's not even that we pay more attention to deaths close by, necessarily. One example:
This 2021 murder in London https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Sarah_Everard got massive media attention for weeks. MPs made speeches in Parliament and the Mayor gave a press conference about how it was a sign of "an epidemic of violence against women and girls". (https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/teenage-murders-london-record-homicides-knife-crime-2021-met-police-b974430.html)
The month before, this murder https://twitter.com/metpoliceuk/status/1358455531845910528?lang=en-GB happened. It made it into the local papers, that was it. I only knew about it because it happened very close to where I used to live.
Some stories have legs and some don't.
58: it wasn't even a good or appropriate controller. It was wireless, meaning one more battery-powered device that could fail. Supposedly they had a backup, but still, why would you unnecessarily add a failure point when using a device you can plug in is so easy? So many corners cut.
re: 64
To be fair, the reason that the Sarah Everard murder got so much attention was, I think, because her killer was a cop and she was a young attractive middle-class white lady. It's not a mystery--which might be partly the point you are making?--that the murders of men, or of immigrants, or non-white women get less attention.
The new weekly feature will be called "The Wost Tragedy of the Week" in which we discuss if this week, the horrors of war or mass accidental death outweigh the mundane grind of extreme poverty and pollution.
57/59: Yeah, the testing was one of the rabbit holes I fell into. I know that it's pretty hard to assess integrity of polymers non-destructively over time, so acoustic testing was new to me and strikes me as a fairly elegant solution to general assessment of carbon fiber as a material. However, of course, combining two different materials means that you not only have to test each one, you have to ensure they don't delaminate!
Everything about this vehicle screams "prototype" to me. It's a proof-of-concept experiment, not a robust, rigorously tested, safe piece of equipment. When you build a prototype, you do it cheaply and need to be flexible. Switching from that mode of engineering to safety engineering is a really different mindset. Good comparison with airliners and SpaceX. I wonder how folks responsible for other manned submersibles maintain them. I suspect the Navy has a pretty rigorous maintenance schedule, for example.
It's not a mystery--which might be partly the point you are making?--that the murders of men, or of immigrants, or non-white women get less attention.
Not wrong there. Local weirdo and former politician Jeremy Corbyn felt the need to comment on the Greek fishing boat deaths, thus:
Last week, a boat holding 800 refugees sank off the Greek Coast. No women or children survived. It is a political choice to let human beings drown at sea.
The terrible train crash in India this month was barely covered in the UK.
Huh. I actually saw pretty extensive coverage of that, and normally news from India just doesn't register here at all.
The NYT has a good article* on OceanGate.
As has been mentioned, OceanGate fired its director of marine operations, David Lochridge, after he pointed to problems with the testing of the craft. Also: More than three dozen "industry leaders, deep-sea explorers and oceanographers" wrote a letter to the company's CEO, Stockton Rush, to warn of potential "catastrophic" failure.
Mr. Kohnen said that Mr. Rush called him after reading the letter and told him that industry standards were stifling innovation.
The rightwing nuts who oppose regulation are often accurately accused of indifference to safety, but it's also true that they say dumb shit out of genuine, deeply held conviction. Stockton Rush was the pilot of the missing submersible.
*This is my first attempt at using a gift link. My belief is that the link will work for everybody, regardless of whether you subscribe or prefer being a free rider.
71.last: Worked for me, though on other sites I have seen messages like "This gift has been used!" and I may have been the first to refresh and click.
I have to constantly remind myself that OceanGate is the name of the company and not the ongoing mishegas.
71 That's some Darwin award worthy shit.
it's also true that they say dumb shit out of genuine, deeply held conviction
Honestly, this has been one of the most boggling realizations of my middle adulthood. Sitting down with folks like these in real life has convinced me they exist, but I still haven't really figured out how to work with them. Mostly it's just an exhausting amount of energy trying to work *around* them.
Relatedly, having a national job in the 2015-2023 time period has really afforded me a terrifying perspective on increasing political polarization. The conversations I'm having with folks in MA, MD, CA, NJ might as well be on another planet from the conversations in UT, ID, TX, FL, in ways that are measurably worse than they were back in 2015.
having a national job in the 2015-2023 time period has really afforded me a terrifying perspective on increasing political polarization. The conversations I'm having with folks in MA, MD, CA, NJ might as well be on another planet from the conversations in UT, ID, TX, FL, in ways that are measurably worse than they were back in 2015.
That's interesting; and I'd be curious to hear more if you're willing to share.
A friend who worked at Pew (when i was in DC, so 10-15 years ago) was doing some sort of survey of state governors' offices. When she talked to the education person for Montana, they said they were strongly opposed to evidence-based education.
And now the government is 1000 times worse!
From the link in 71:
"There hasn't been an injury in the commercial sub industry in over 35 years," he told Smithsonian magazine in a profile published in 2019. "It's obscenely safe because they have all these regulations. But it also hasn't innovated or grown -- because they have all these regulations."
Reminds me of the antivax relative who questioned why we're still vaccinating kids for "obsolete" diseases that few ever get.
I think I mentioned before that I have an old friend, known her since we were both 6 years old, who is fairly high up in state government under Noem. But there's really no way I'm willing to ask her the kind of questions I want to ask unless we're face to face and that isn't likely to happen again until 2039.
The OceanGate blog holds forth on the subject of certification standards:
By definition, innovation is outside of an already accepted system. ... Bringing an outside entity up to speed on every innovation before it is put into real-world testing is anathema to rapid innovation.
That's good stuff, but this is my favorite bit:
Classing may be effective at filtering out unsatisfactory designers and builders, but the established standards do little to weed out subpar vessel operators - because classing agencies only focus on validating the physical vessel. They do not ensure that operators adhere to proper operating procedures and decision-making processes - two areas that are much more important for mitigating risks at sea.
Uncertified materials placed under 5,500 pounds of pressure per square inch don't kill people. People kill people!
82.last: Not like they used to though.
At eye doc now, but can elaborate on 77 later if one of the FPPs can anonymize that comment for me.
84: AH, YES. I REMEMBER THE DAYS OF HAND-CRAFTED, ARTISANAL MURDER. THE ERA OF MASS PRODUCTION HAS INCREASED OUR EFFICIENCY, BUT REDUCED OUR RECOGNITION OF INDIVIDUAL ACCOMPLISHMENT.
In Ukraine news this is good https://wavellroom.com/2023/06/07/operational-art-reborn-part-one/
I can't tell if there's deliberate obtuseness on the "why is this a bigger story than X?" thing when "this" is literally a movie-like story that is unfolding right now, and X is something where the story is already over. At some point you have to accept that people act in predictable ways, and this is one of them. If the story were that the submersible definitely imploded and we knew their fate as soon as the news came out, it wouldn't be a big story. A story, sure, but a blurb, maybe with some followup reporting that's heavy on the "lookit these dumb techbros" angle.
Anyway, I don't find the whole thing especially compelling myself, but I'm torn between appreciating callous jokes about it bc I'm not especially torn about these people and finding the glee some people are expressing to be reflective of deep personality flaws. I don't think it's paradoxical--pretty clear distinction between "tasteless joke" and "loud cruelty for clout"--but it makes the whole discourse more tiresome.
There's also definitely a hubris angle to the story that makes it more compelling as a narrative. Not just the hubris of the company itself but the fact that they were selling expensive tours in a makeshift submersible to a shipwreck which is itself an infamous symbol of hubris in a very similar way.
Yes, hubris. That's the only cause.
There's also an overall "the sea fights back" narrative going on right now that this fits very nicely into. The orcas are part of it.
Right, it's morbid so you're not supposed to say it, but the submarine situation is funny which is why it's big on the Internet. There's nothing funny about say the train crash in India, there's just not much to say about it other than it's sad.
It's a variation on the "baby in the well" story which are always huge. There's a good "You're Wrong About" episode about the Baby Jessica story and other similar incidents in history. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/baby-jessica-with-blair-braverman/id1380008439?i=1000591339366
It's not exactly funny, but I find it easier to believe McManus's theory about the rich fleeing to under the sea than I do to believe this sub is just something born of a spirit of adventure.
Apparently they heard some noises under the sea so there's still hope.
For me, the hook is the ongoing horror of it. The idea of spending hopeless days miles below the surface of the ocean ... I think somehow it's worse that it's a group of people. It would be less horrible to go through this alone.
(Of course, they were probably killed instantly when the vessel imploded, but today's news reports raise the possibility that people are banging on the hull trying to get the attention of rescuers. Brrrrrr ...)
I have to wonder what underwater noises detected by aircraft really means. The plane that's detecting the sound is used to detect submarines so that seems like an appropriate tool, but how confident can they be in a "banging sound" vs some other kind of sound that has a similar signal pattern?
Seems like the official description is more cautious than the news reports that described "banging" noises.
Completely off-topic, but this odd request might be something teo can help with. Maybe there's a government agency whose work generated photos that happen to include Alaska lamp posts?
I found a couple. What's the best way to send them along?
Mail to thisisprobablynotafetish@bigcoldpoles.edu.
103: Moby! I told you not to share my email address!
102: I'm not sure. I did some scrolling to see if they posted contact info. I guess I could be "social" on "social media" and ask via my own mastodon account.
It turns out what they're specifically hoping to find is a photo with enough detail to make out a poster on a lamp post. I guess they posted a bunch of posters in the area back then but don't have any copies or pictures of them.
Hm, yeah, no posters on these. Let me know if they would still be useful though.
98: Not to mention how do they tell the difference between a human banging on something from the inside vs. a giant octopus banging on something from the outside.
7: My wife really enjoys watching Nautilus Live, which is an unmanned submersible tethered to surface ship. It's fascinating to watch; the scientists on board each cruise are different, and each brings different specialties and enthusiasm to bear. https://nautiluslive.org/live/quad
I used to watch a show where they put a former swimsuit model into a shark cage. Pretty much the same.
I recently ended up on a Wikipedia binge of Deaths-on-Mountains articles and I feel like deep sea diving and high mountain climbing are similar in many ways- hubris, wasting money, unnecessary risking of others' lives in addition to yourself, crazy sci fi equipment, etc.
The way I got to this binge was that I was reading a book where an unidentified dead body found in the snow was nicknamed "Green Boots" by all the main characters, with an aside that it was "because of Mount Everest". I didn't get the reference so I looked it up and got sucked in by all the horror and waste.
The book was "Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone" which is one of my favorite recent reads, in case anyone likes sort of silly murder mysteries.
That does sound good. The book, not the death on the mountain thing.
I remember Green Boots from Into Thin Air.
If you really want to die a fast horrible death try cave diving.
I don't want to buy a book, but I don't want to wait 18 weeks for the library book either.
113: Walking in front of a bus would be so much simpler.
They moved the "Into the Wild" bus to a museum in Fairbanks, so making a pilgrimage there is no longer a very effective way to die.
Speaking of Krakauer and bus-related deaths.
You need to ambush a self-driving one to avoid the moral dilemma.
I also would like to draw heebie's attention to 85 because I'm interested in what Anon has to say.
Hm, okay, where to start. I think I'll just post little things as they come to me, rather than trying to do a big comment.
So the first thing is the sheer open disdain with which (some) state officials now refer to "equity" and anything related to it. Sometimes I'm working with civil servants (who of course typically stay for many years across different gubernatorial administrations, and are often not strongly partisan in either direction) and we have to spend a lot of time thinking creatively together about how to get something good done without triggering any of the words or ideas that will get it reflexively dismissed by their political higher-ups.
E.g. I was doing a 1-page fact sheet. Just basic information and light-touch advocacy (NOT lobbying) for garden variety good things -- think economic development-type stuff. The kind of thing that traditionally would get huge majorities in state legislature or Congress because it's commonsensical and broadly appealing.
First we had to change the headline because (as one of the civil servants said): "If it says 'equity' they'll immediately dismiss it as woke and cancel culture." Then we had to change a reference in the body text that referred to immigrants to make it more vague that immigrant state residents were among those who would contribute to (and benefit from) this essentially universal state policy.
Then we had to ADD references to rural residents and veterans to make it very very clear that white men would definitely, for sure, absolutely benefit from this blandly good policy that -- again -- is essentially universal.
It's an exhausting amount of extra work for a state fact sheet that in years past would have moved along quickly.
Another example. A national organization (not mine) got a multi-million-dollar grant from a private foundation to help several states improve policy implementation in anticipation of new federal infrastructure funding that's coming down. They put out the call for applications to all the 50 state leaders who are part of their org.
Most of the states that chose to apply were Democratic-led. The review process (in which I participated) bent over backward to try to drum up interest from R-led states and then, once they got a few proposals, to identify some R-led proposals that they could accept.
They did this because it is super important to their organizational mission to be bipartisan, and also because they know that choosing only D states would be noticed and critiqued by their state members and their funder.
Eventually they settled on one R state (which was a notably inferior proposal compared to he other half-dozen selected states). Even once that state got accepted, it required exceptional amounts of cajoling and hand-holding to get them to participate meaningfully in the project, and the final report dug deep to make it appear that their chosen activity was as relevant and meaningful as the other states'.
Is this *general phenomenon* something that is new? No. But is it an example of how the growing R-led distrust of bipartisan efforts and resistance to granting legitimacy to bipartisan orgs (as opposed to their R-only counterpart organizations) is rippling outward to discourage R states' participation in boring, mainstream, just-good-for-state-residents initiatives? YUP.
The thing is that it doesn't actually require many people to create these bottlenecks. Almost all the civil servants, nonprofit advocates, and state residents that I work with are regular ol' humans who are on board with basically good policies. But once you get a half-dozen or so zealots in decisionmaking roles in state government -- well, it's Katie bar the door.
110: Also fascinating to me! I got drawn in by the NYT article a couple of years ago about the recovery of bodies of a group of unlucky/unprepared climbers and read a bunch of related articles. Climbing Everest sounds so deeply unpleasant.
118: I knew the general outline of the story mostly from writeups in chemistry publications (man dies in wilderness from accidental poisoning, kept journal) and didn't realize there was more to it (human interest!) until a few months ago. I'm a but tempted to listen to the Krakauer book now.
An example from a sister organization: they spent years and a huge amount of organizing effort to get a large number of state residents to advocate for more childcare funding. This was a full-court press with many unlikely allies coming together. The effort succeeded.
And then the governor unilaterally decided to send unspent childcare money back to the feds because "we can take care of our own here."
Another example: A different piece of the infrastructure bill is sending billions to states that is in most cases being overseen by newly-created state offices. In several R-led states, these state offices are staffed by people with no relevant background whatsoever -- no subject-matter expertise, no background in state government, no experience with public procurement, no relationships with the relevant stakeholder groups.
Why? In some cases, I think it's outright corruption -- the big corporate interests who are going to be competing for these public dollars know they can run roughshod over inexperienced state agency staff, and thus used their donor power to push governors to appoint who they wanted. (And this is happening in a couple of D-led states too; it's not exclusively an R-led phenomenon)
But in other cases, it's just blind belief by governors that expertise doesn't matter, and anyone trying to argue that it does is just a pointy-headed liberal and a party pooper.
It reminds me of feeding a toddler, kind of.
OT: Will nobody make a movie where Diane Keaton just gets fed up and shoots a guy?
None of that is surprising exactly and it is depressing. But I mean, we've been turning down Medicaid expansion for over a decade now. Much of that mean-spirited destructiveness is not new, at least?
The language massaging part sounds (1) close kin to CCP shibboleth compliance and (2) something LLMs should be good at.
Thanks, Anon. Even if that kind of behavior isn't entirely new - I remember a Bush appointee to oversee education in Iraq declare that he didn't want to read about the region because it was better to come in "unbiased" - it's still troubling to see it continue to spread.
Yeah, thanks Anon. Very illuminating.
In several R-led states, these state offices are staffed by people with no relevant background whatsoever -- no subject-matter expertise, no background in state government, no experience with public procurement, no relationships with the relevant stakeholder groups.
*diego gambetta intensifies*
This is classic signalling. If you appoint an absolutely top-quality civil engineer as your director of road construction, well, yes, he'll do a brilliant job, but he won't be loyal to you. He's a top-quality civil engineer. If you sack him, he'll be able to get another job. He's probably pretty likely to stay in his current job even if you lose the next election, because he's really good at his job, and the opposition party respects expertise. He might even vote for the opposition! Donate money to them!
Whereas if you appoint a lightly toasted cinnamon bagel as your director of road construction, it will know beyond a shadow of a doubt that its job - its having any job - depends on your electoral success and your continued support and goodwill.
The bagel has nothing to offer except loyalty.
Red state bagels are frankly awful. New York is overly snotty about its bagels, but the bagels in many states are just round bread with a hole in the middle.
I'm a but tempted
I too am frequently butt-tempted.
139: I'm not a bagel connoisseur , but the consensus seems to be that Columbus now has a few locations with world-class bagels. But this is another example of how extreme the polarization is between the red and blue parts of the state. I suspect that there are parts of deep-blue Ohio where even saying "bagel" would get you in trouble.
142: Wow, I must be about to turn 60! Please substitute "deep-red" for "deep-blue".
Red state bagels are frankly awful. New York is overly snotty about its bagels, but the bagels in many states are just round bread with a hole in the middle.
In Heebieville, they're frequently spongy and light. With a nice, barely-there skin. (Skin? crust?) Melts away like tissue-paper, just like you like them. You'll be happy to find them with all sorts of fruity cream cheese as well.
Thanks, Anon, for the follow-up. The stories aren't that surprising in a vacuum, but it is interesting to hear that you've seen a visible shift that dynamic over the last eight years.
But I mean, we've been turning down Medicaid expansion for over a decade now.
In our state we just re upped Medicaid expansion for another seven years (not permanently) and in exchange for allowing this to happen the Republicans get to accelerate the phaseout of our state tax on interest and dividend income. They literally will not help the poor unless it comes with a tax cut for the rich.
138 is profound and correct and generalizable. Slavish obedience to reality is slavery, and the less you have to fret about facts, the more free you are. Admittedly, you are subject to the occasional mishap, as Stockton Rush discovered. The key here is to be a bit more attentive to reality as it applies to you personally. Many people correctly perceive that beliefs are mostly useful not for their correspondence to reality, but for what they liberate you to do and think.
Rush's mistake was not his belief that he could make money by eschewing certification. His error was piloting the submersible.
"What you say about his company
Is what you say about society"
I knew the general outline of the story mostly from writeups in chemistry publications (man dies in wilderness from accidental poisoning, kept journal) and didn't realize there was more to it (human interest!) until a few months ago. I'm a but tempted to listen to the Krakauer book now.
I haven't read the book, but Alaskans in general hate it (and Krakauer) for allegedly romanticizing the whole thing and inspiring people to try to hike to the bus in pilgrimage, often resulting in them either dying or needing to be rescued and substantial public expense. It's kind of hilarious to me how intense this loathing can get. Moving the bus to the museum will hopefully eliminate the dying/rescue aspect of the whole thing.
Coast Guard is reporting that they've found a debris field (which presumably is not that of the Titanic because why bother?)
148: In wrestling parlance, that's referred to as "turning a work into a shoot".
And it's the sub. They've been dead days and mercifully instantaneously.
The knocking was an unrelated sub.
150: It's not a bad book, but leaving aside all the attention that the cause of death has gotten, Krakauer is definitely sympathetic. I don't think he'd have written the book without being sympathetic unless he was mean-spirited. I haven't read it in a long time, but I didn't feel particularly sympathetic to the Alaska part. IIRC, McCandless put more preparation into some of his earlier adventures, but of course since you know what's going to happen it's easier to see his mistakes as the narrative progresses.
It's bizarre to me that people make pilgrimages there.
Interesting. I don't get the pilgrimage thing either but I presume people will keep doing it now that it's in a museum. At least they're a lot less likely to die.
The original location isn't actually all that isolated by Alaska standards, but hiking to it involves crossing a swift stream that can be very very dangerous depending on water levels in a way that isn't obvious to someone without a lot of experience. What would often happen to spur a rescue is that someone would successfully cross on the way out when the water was low, then get stuck on the far side on the way back when the level rose and it was no longer possible to cross safely.
Even the museum is trying to downplay the McCandless part of the story:
The bus is a story not just of one particular person who spent the last few months of his life there. It is a history of interior Alaska and mining, the occupation of wilderness, and personal exploration.
[P]assengers had to sign consent forms describing the vessel as "experimental" and uncertified, and that could potentially lead to their deaths. ... People who do take massive risks shouldn't expect a massively publicly funded effort to bail them out of trouble.
They bought their tickets. They knew what they were getting into. I say, let 'em crash.
155: There are a lot of sadly deluded people in the world: https://www.chron.com/news/bizarre/article/Woman-hunting-Fargo-movie-loot-dies-in-Minnesota-2063350.php
Woman hunting 'Fargo' movie loot dies in Minnesota
DETROIT LAKES, Minn. - A Japanese woman whose body was found by a hunter near the North Woods town of Detroit Lakes was apparently obsessed by the the fictional buried treasure of the movie "Fargo," police said Thursday.
Before her body was discovered Nov. 15, Takako Konishi, 28, had shown police a crude treasure map she had drawn based on the darkly comic film of 1996, in which a character takes ransom money and buries it in a snowdrift in the barren Minnesota landscape -- a location he marks poorly with a short stick.
The character ends up dead, and his body is fed into a wood chipper.
Konishi had been brought to the police in Bismarck, N.D., after she was found rooting around in a dump. Seemingly rational, she made clear to non-Japanese-speaking officers that she had come from Tokyo to search for the cache of money from "Fargo," and she could not be talked out of her project, Police Lt. Nick Sevart said.
154: Which was running on low-octane fuel.
159: I love how this sentence begins "Seemingly rational" and ends the way it ends.
Seemingly rational, she made clear to non-Japanese-speaking officers that she had come from Tokyo to search for the cache of money from "Fargo," and she could not be talked out of her project, Police Lt. Nick Sevart said.
159 there was a great movie based on that, Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter.
156: That's basically what happened to him. He crossed when the water was low and when he decided it was time to come back he couldn't cross. I don't know the geography so I don't know if it's plausible to find another crossing up or downstream but he went back to the bus. I think he figured he could wait it out, which is what makes the question of whether the berries were edible more important than it might have been. He did catch an animal at one point but wasn't able to preserve the meat. So the berries seem to be most of what he had to eat by the end, and eventually he was too weak to look for alternatives.
It's a tragic story even if you think he did a lot wrong. Without his life backstory, it would be a lot like other hiking/outdoors deaths, like the family in central California who apparently died of heat exhaustion after starting out descending into a valley on a cool morning and then ran out of water on their return in the heat.
Did they get Steve Buscemi for that too? He was in Vibes with Julian Sands (who is still missing).
This was good https://twitter.com/abc/status/1671965549381689533?s=46&t=nbIfRG4OrIZbaPkDOwkgxQ
Who knew that innovation is not necessarily a perfect substitute for safety rules?
"History shows again and again
How nature points up the folly of man."
Oh, is that why you surrounded it in quotation marks?
150: The book isn't bad, but it's definitely Krakauer, who tends to wax on about the drama in all these kinds of things (Into Thin Air, which mountaineer friends HATE for how he made a villain out of one of the characters.) He paints McCandleless as a kid who more or less was like other risk-taking adventurers including himself, and I can see how that would annoy people whose response is "okay, bro, but the thing with the wilderness is that it kills you, whatever Thoreau thought about camping..."
But on the Titan: what I haven't heard is a compelling reason as to why the company cut so many corners on their design and safety protocols. I expect greed to be an explanation when billionaires try to get around workplace safety regulations and developers try to get around, well, geology. There's a lot of money to be made and the costs will be borne by others. I get it when an inconvenient or unreliable safety protocol leads people to take shortcuts. But I don't get greed as an explanation here because the costs of failure are so disastrous and they're chasing a bunch of rich people who presumably would pay $500K to see a Titanic through video screens just as easily as they'd pay $250K, so... why not build something that exceeds safety regulations or has a beacon or can be opened or has an actual XBox controller instead of the Aliexpress knockoff?
159: Apparently, that story isn't true - it was all a bizarre misunderstanding.
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2003/jun/06/artsfeatures1
I see people joking about the company offering rides to Supreme Court justices, but the NYT article linked above says they really offered a ride to a judge at one point, so I guess it's not that much of a joke.
They use Xbox controllers on Navy submarines for some functions, that was the least problematic bit imho. Personally I think it was for bragging rights, so he could style himself as an innovator.
177: The judge overseeing the trial when they fired the whistleblower, IIRC. And she was into it!
The weird thing is that the CEO himself was piloting the thing, so it wasn't just a matter of cutting corners because they didn't care about other people's safety. They clearly believed their own hype on some level.
For some reason I thought the CEO was British, but it turns out he was so extremely American that he was both descended from and named after two founding fathers (Richard Stockton and Benjamin Rush).
That's per his dad's obituary in the Princeton Alumni Weekly.
Forgot the link https://twitter.com/stonking/status/1671945151961333784?s=46&t=nbIfRG4OrIZbaPkDOwkgxQ
181: right! so the usual greed/etc explanation doesn't seem to fit. and the CEO doesn't seem to have been a hack, given his record, or at least he's been a lucky hack in the past. I just can't get past the idea where the place to cut corners is on overbuilding the submersible -- it's not like this is a little oops!
Yeah, XBox controllers have been very well-tested and are going to work better than whatever nonsense this company could cobble together. Moreover they're fully inside the submarine and don't need to satisfy any unusual pressure demands so there's no need to make a new controller to satisfy special submarine demands.
This is a good thread https://twitter.com/ladydoctorsays/status/1671700989429297152?s=46&t=nbIfRG4OrIZbaPkDOwkgxQ
Right, a bunch of tech people just think engineers are way too cautious for cultural reasons and not because it's necessary for safety. Those people are wrong and keep killing people (especially in the car sector), but I don't think it's about if othering the victims.
As I said here on a different thread recently, lots of people ride motorcycles without helmets. It's not that they think their life isn't valuable, it's that they think they're great riders and would never get into an accident. Accidents are for dumb people.
Alternatively, lots of people have heard good things about death.
I know the breaking-news pages on the Washington Post are always works in progress, but this is an odd juxtaposition:
The debris found Thursday "is consistent with the catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber," and signaled that Titan imploded, probably killing all five of its passengers, said Rear Adm. John Mauger of the U.S. Coast Guard.
But the implosion wasn't picked up by searchers.
The implosion "would have generated significant broadband sound down there that the sonar buoys would have picked up," Mauger told reporters. Listening devices in the area did not detect any signs of such a catastrophic failure, he added.
Is it possible that our equipment failed to function at 100% expectation? No, the multiple hull fragments we found must be wrong!
WSJ reporting the Navy knew it exploded immediately, but didn't reveal that to protect the methods they're using.
189: sure but at least motorcyclists usually have had the experience of growing up before helmets were common and so their misplaced confidence is explainable! This is just like -- don't cut corners on the implodey box?
(Also Xbox controllers are great, but wouldn't you spring for the non-knockoff to control your carbon fiber sub?)
Logitech PR is probably trying to figure out if it's better or worse when people confuse them with Xbox in this context.
191: I thought I read in the Guardian that the sensors that didn't pick up an explosion weren't in place until the search operation began, so if the explosion was earlier that would explain it.
It's behind a paywall so I haven't read the whole article, but the first paragraph says "hours after the submersible began its voyage." So before search operations began seems likely.
It was only supposed to be a three hour tour. Basically the same as Gilligan's Island, but inflation turned the millionaire into a billionaire.
194.1: I have to imagine they thought they were smarter than the regulators. They wanted to move quickly, and detailed testing and compliance take both time and money. I know a bunch of researchers who would make the same calculations on small scale. I've made that calculation (this will probably be fine), luckily without permanent consequences.
164.1: You clearly didn't follow the debate over every toxic chemical in wild potato seeds. Simple starvation is such a straightforward explanation.
https://medium.com/galleys/how-chris-mccandless-died-992e6ce49410
199.2: I followed it but the outcome hasn't felt that important to me. What I was saying in that comment is that in the larger context the decision to stick with the bus instead of looking for an alternative route out, plus his inability to catch enough animal food, is how the seeds ended up so important. I have wondered, if they were edible, if he still would have starved.
I guess it's more accurate to say I'm aware of the seed discussion in that I've read about it after it hit the news, rather than following research.
200/201: I was just amused that you summarized it clearly and simply with appropriate context, when all the chemistry-specific articles I come across are, er, highly detail-oriented about the possible diet related contributing factors. Like, "This guy died somewhere in the wilderness. We sequenced the DNA of every plant growing within an acre of the site, analyzed all possible secondary metabolites by fancy techniques, etc etc etc."
I am really perplexed at how often I'm seeing variants of "the Titanic is a grave site, leave those souls alone" which I think is such a weird take to see so often, and this seems like a good place to complain about it.
Thanks everybody for already handling the billionare submersible tragedy vs. Greek migrant boat tragedy business already, which I feel a similar wtf annoyance about.
195: heh, but also probably literally true
I'm kind of mad at the sub people for making me have intrusive thoughts of being trapped and running out of oxygen.
I mean, it's not exactly their fault, but it's not not their fault.
Hep A in flood zone occupied Kherson. Russians are hushing up widespread jaundice.
196: The implosion "would have generated significant broadband sound down there that the sonar buoys would have picked up," Mauger told reporters. Listening devices in the area did not detect any signs of such a catastrophic failure, he added.
This is a very confusing thing to say because a sonar buoy (or sonobuoy) is not a permanent fixture. It's not like a mooring buoy - there aren't loads of them tethered to the seabed all over the Atlantic (certainly not in 4000 m depth). It's a temporary thing that you drop from an aircraft when you're looking for a sub. It's got a little active sonar set in the bottom and a radio in the top, and it floats in the water pinging away looking for subs until it runs out of battery.
Obviously there weren't any in the water until after the sub was lost because they were presumably only dropped as part of the search.
What there was, and this is completely different, was the IUSS (formerly SOSUS) net. This is a long line of hydrophones on the seabed, listening (not pinging) for submarine noise. It's been there for decades and has picked up several previous submarine accidents (Thresher, Scorpion, K-129). If it missed a loud implosion off the Grand Banks, there are some questions to be asked. The IUSS net runs along the edge of the Grand Banks. The sub implosion would have happened virtually on top of it.
Hep A in flood zone occupied Kherson.
And cholera, apparently. https://news.yahoo.com/russian-units-kherson-oblast-crimea-202400191.html
Allow me forlornly to repeat my plea for dam-collapse geography expertise.
175 In the spirit of nitpicking, should the Guardian writer have used this phrase: "a 28-year-old Japanese girl" ?
211: no, and it's odd because earlier in the article he uses "a 28-year old Japanese woman".
But it's a very odd article.
Presumably the author knew someone on the Guardian and managed to get a bit of space to publicise his film.
It is a very odd article.
My idea was to reconstruct the last week of Takako's life using still photographs, mixed with some digital video, in a kind of contemporary response to Chris Marker's legendary 1964 film roman short, La Jetée. I was going to interview the people she encountered along the way, hoping to excavate the real story and the real person beneath the urban myth. The interesting thing - or what I hoped would be interesting - was that the eyewitnesses would then recreate those encounters on film, "playing" themselves across from an actress playing Takako.
This is a terrible idea.
The inhabitants of Bismarck are certainly among the nicest people in the world, but that doesn't stop many of them from engaging with strangers as one would with an extraterrestrial - politely, but plainly astonished at its existence.
I am a suave, cosmopolitan, polyglot man of the world, at ease with many cultures, an ocean away from the wary troglodytes of Bismarck ND, but if some weirdo film maker told me this was what they were doing, I too would engage with him as one would with an extraterrestrial - I would leave the conversation immediately in my Cheyenne dropship and nuke him and indeed the entire diner from orbit, this being the only way to be sure.
Yeah. It's wrong, except it's also true.
213.3: Remind me not to ask for help from ajay, if I'm an extraterrestrial or trying to make an odd film.
I mean I agree with your point generally, but this reaction ("nuke him") seems slightly extreme.
I know all about this stuff. I'm in rural Ohio now.
The locals gave me a muffin, but it wasn't very good. As is their custom.
Presumably the author knew someone on the Guardian and managed to get a bit of space to publicise his film.
This doesn't seem to be correct, because he never made this film. I guess he wrote the article (and maybe knew somebody in the Guardian), to get something out of this ridiculous adventure.
216: Whatever you do, don't say "bagel". If you want one, ask for a savory donut.
If you're a drug trafficker, when you drive into Ohio, they give you a number to call and report yourself so they can take you to prison.
They use the word "introducted" instead of "introduced."
Also, I'm not the Doug who is discussed at the end of the Guardian article. Nor am I in rural Ohio.
208: reports now are saying they heard sounds consistent with an implosion when the submersible lost contact but didn't make it public till confirmation of debris.
I have recently encountered for the first time an Ohioan in the flesh, and to the extent she is representative I perhaps begin to understand the 'tariats animosity.
224 So the whole drama -- the sole reason this story got any attention at all beyond a single one line mention -- was manufactured? If I had any faith in our worthless media to lose, I'd lose some.
225: Enlightened and topless, just like the last time I checked.
228: If the Navy withheld the info, how does that reflect on the media?
230: The media are above the thermocline.
168: it recently came up that AB had never heard of, let alone heard, the song in which that quote originates. I'm pretty sure I said the line at dinner, and she just looked at me blankly.
I came back to this thread specifically for Anon's stories, but now I'm profoundly depressed, and I don't know what else I expected.
So, the kids climate change trial over in Helena came to an abrupt end, as the state realized that its bullshit-spouting experts weren't going to help its case and would only further embarrass the state. Turns out all the public attention had some real value.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/20/held-v-montana-climate-trial-youth-end
Judge Seeley is a serious player. The issues about redressability are real, but she seems pretty determined to find that a declaratory judgment that state government is not complying with the state constitution could have some real value. I'd like to think our Supreme Court will back her up on that.
My six year old granddaughter is pretty impressed that these kids -- the youngest is 5 now, I think -- are standing up to the grownups. So's her old granddad.
I don't get it. Like, how much climate change could a 5 year old possibly have committed?
234: No, no. You are profoundly compressed.
The Amish buggy has a lot of traffic backed up.
There's a sign reading "Trump-Pence 2020: No More Bullshit." I chose to read this as a call for them to do better.
Good thread here on the acoustics of what the Navy presumably detected:
https://twitter.com/BrynnTannehill/status/1672241884876374021
(Don't think I saw this upthread, apologies if I missed it)
Steubenville has a really nice bridge.
WTF is happening with Prigozhin? He just declared war on the Russian MOD and the FSB seems to be treating it as real.
235: My appetite for making policy changes that involve resource prioritization through the courts, never very high, is diminishing after learning more about the ideas of those pushing a California constitutional amendment guaranteeing a right to housing. A judge is going to order... what? Rent control beyond the "just and reasonable return" federal standard? Ordering cities to reallocate more of their insufficient funding to housing? Requiring all new housing be $1,000/month? It seems a quagmire.
In this Montana case, suppose the judge strikes down the state law barring them from considering greenhouse gas emissions as contrary to the state constitution. A victory on paper, but what will the state do thereafter?
243: I'm baffled too. It could simply be that the MOD is about to legally put Wagner out of business and he's spinning out of control as he waits for the inevitable. Still weird that his friendship with Putin can be stretched to this much sedition. Suicide-by-FSB?
245 cont'd: Nor do I particularly want judges to be setting carbon thresholds!
Real conflict doesn't seem logistically possible- where will he get bullets? Maybe the videos are real for whatever incomprehensible reason, but I don't see how it affects much in the larger war, aside from some net weakening of Russian strength. Wagner is Russia's African intermediary, maybe some consequences there.
Telegram from RIA Novosti (state media): "In connection with these statements, the Russia FSB has initiated a criminal case on the charge of calling for armed rebellion. We demand the illegal actions be stopped immediately." Looks like his leeway finally ran out.
"Putin is aware of the situation unfolding around Prihozhin. All necessary measures are being taken, [presidential press secretary] Peskov said."
Prigozhin appears to be doing the Albrecht con Wallenstein speed run
Holy shit https://twitter.com/chriso_wiki/status/1672338798691115009?s=46&t=nbIfRG4OrIZbaPkDOwkgxQ
Real conflict doesn't seem logistically possible- where will he get bullets?"
Buy them off the army? He seems to think that some at least of the army will join him.
Wallenstein would have moved to CAR and set up his power base there. This is more like a Raoul Salan speed run. (Or indeed Julius Caesar.)
Fuck, it's the planet of the pink ponies [i.e. nonsense]
Mouseover?
Reports of police being mobilized in Russia and Rostov (military command), but no whispers of fighting yet. Patriotic reminders on Telegram that no one is fighting for Prigozhin or Shoigu, that there is one enemy, across the lines.
All Prigozhin has for this purpose, ISTM, is a bunch of employees. They're not going to fight the army for him. He's just going to be arrested or killed.
Maybe they'll show up at the Moscow equivalent of Four Seasons Landscaping and dispute Putin's last election, whenever that was.
It's called "Potemkin Garden Center."
I think this is right https://twitter.com/dalperovitch/status/1672344063746490368?s=46&t=nbIfRG4OrIZbaPkDOwkgxQ
Salan lived. Prigozhin, like Wallenstein was, looks like he'll be a target of assassination soon.
258: Points to the person suggesting NATO send ammo to Wagner.
there is one enemy, across the lines. That's silly, everybody knows that Ukrainians are actually Russians. Brotherhood!
Anyway, what's most remarkable to me is that it took like 10 minutes for this to go from "Don't get wound up, this is probably nothing" to "Prigozhin has been declared an enemy of the state." I mean, there's still some fog of... whatever this is, but it's kind of wild how different this all is compared to how this sort of thing played out historically.
It's remarkable how fast he grew a Trotsky-like mustache.
That's silly, everybody knows that Ukrainians are actually Russians. Brotherhood!
The Ukrainians are Russians, but all their troops on the front lines are Nazis.
Wagner might be the new record for Posting Through It. In addition to all the stuff that triggered the government finally turning against him, he's continuing to post nonstop about the glorious advances his troops are making into Rostov. It might all be hallucinatory.
(Writing down my most pessimistic take to defang it a bit: it's a big Potemkin civil war to make Ukraine think it's broken through the lines, have them make a big push, and then trap them.)
266.2 that thought had occurred to me too. Though I'm sure the Ukrainians are well aware.
Anyway, what's most remarkable to me is that it took like 10 minutes for this to go from "Don't get wound up, this is probably nothing" to "Prigozhin has been declared an enemy of the state."
Yes; I feel quite confused at the moment.
245.2 -- I don't think that Judge Seeley thinks she can do that. But suppose she did: If an agency is reviewing a proposal to start up a coal mine, and grants a permit without considering climate impacts, then the permit can be vacated.
Our constitution has this provision because of the century of destruction, primarily from mining, that preceded its adoption. Our Copper Collar history loomed large in the 70s . . .
You don't want judges doing shit because you don't have a legislature and an executive actively cheering on the destruction of the planet. To own the libs (and further enrich the rich).
Prior to this case, the head of the Department of Environmental Quality had never heard of IPCC. If nothing else, that's now changed.
Writing down my most pessimistic take to defang it a bit: it's a big Potemkin civil war to make Ukraine think it's broken through the lines, have them make a big push, and then trap them.
It's possible, but given the Russians' track record in this war so far I think this gives them way too much credit for coordinate subterfuge.
Wagnerovci have control of military building in Rostov, video.
But are they playing Wagner as they advance?
Except for Bugs Bunny cartoons, I wouldn't know what Wagner sounded like.
Are they trapped in the building? Have the Mongols Russians set it on fire?
There seems to be disputation over whether the people around the military building in Rostov are Wagner or regular forces.
There do seem to be Wagner elements moving around within Russia, at least, but numbers and achievements unclear.
It's not as bad as it sounds.
They're Wagner (and some other guys), Prigozhin just met the deputy MOD in Rostov
He's demanding delivery of Gerasimov and Shoigu or he'll go to Moscow.
https://twitter.com/maxseddon/status/1672464666868498433?cxt=HHwWgoC2gZzw5LUuAAAA
I say, therefore, that the arms with which a prince defends his state are either his own, or they are mercenaries, auxiliaries, or mixed. Mercenaries and auxiliaries are useless and dangerous; and if one holds his state based on these arms, he will stand neither firm nor safe; for they are disunited, ambitious, and without discipline, unfaithful, valiant before friends, cowardly before enemies; they have neither the fear of God nor fidelity to men, and destruction is deferred only so long as the attack is; for in peace one is robbed by them, and in war by the enemy. The fact is, they have no other attraction or reason for keeping the field than a trifle of stipend, which is not sufficient to make them willing to die for you. ...
I wish to demonstrate further the infelicity of these arms. The mercenary captains are either capable men or they are not; if they are, you cannot trust them, because they always aspire to their own greatness, either by oppressing you, who are their master, or others contrary to your intentions; but if the captain is not skilful, you are ruined in the usual way.
Prigozhin has been making very specific accusations since yesterday--
Anne Applebaum@anneapplebaum·19h
Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner group, is now saying that all of the publicly stated reasons for the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine are false. In fact, after plundering the Donbas for eight years, the Russian elite got greedy and wanted more:
Dmitri@wartranslated
Prigozhin released today a new interview going over the current state of affairs as well as looking back at the events preceding the start of the "SMO". In this first bit, he explains that the Donbas was plundered by Russians since 2014 and the 2022 war began for reasons very different from those advertised to the public.
https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1672177488535977984
Dmitri@wartranslated
In continuation of his interview, Prigozhin lists two reasons for the start of the SMO: a) personal ambitions of Shoygu and b) the desire of Russia's ruling clan, who were not satisfied with the Donbas, to appoint Medvedchuk as the president of Ukraine and divide its assets between each other for plundering. According to Prigozhin, denazification and demilitarisation make no sense since Azov wouldn't be exchanged for Medvedchuk otherwise.
Dmitri@wartranslated
"The war will end inside Russia, the process has begun" - Oleksiy Danilov, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine.
Wagner and Putin seem to have turned on each other. Couldn't happen to better people.
OK, waking up and seeing the confirmations on Rostov I've had a status-quo bias so far.
I think Putin is in trouble no matter how the rebellion turns out. His value proposition was keeping order, and allowing your buddy to become a rival power center who then turns on you is not delivering that.
Prigozhin's videos are still no more trustworthy than Trump's tweets or Putin's speeches, though.
This cracked me up https://twitter.com/michaelh992/status/1672497439868084224?s=46&t=nbIfRG4OrIZbaPkDOwkgxQ
I emailed Heebie about a new Russia thread.
287: It's not quite "Bread, Land, Peace. "
This is good on Prigozhin:
https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1672520308790525953
Of course he can't be trusted but his reasons for the war in Ukraine make far more sense in retrospect than any of Putin's stated reasons-- and his videos were intended for a Russian audience-- not us. They seem to be having some effect.
I've seen speculation that his complaints about a shortage of ammunition were faked, and that he had been hoarding it all along for this.
Correlation isn't causation, but I'm sure everyone noticed that this started right after Taylor announced her international tour dates with no Russian locations.
Of course he can't be trusted but
No, really, you can stop there. The classic adage: fibbers' forecasts are worthless. You don't say maybe he's half right, you don't shade it down, you don't work off anything he says. (If he's right about anything on the runup to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it can be considered a coincidence.)
Remember this is the guy with the Internet Research Agency as well.
But this time, his propaganda is intended for a Russian audience-- not us.
So far, it is working-- he has encountered remarkably little resistance.
Will it last longer than a day? Who knows.
Lily, in general: It's all noise. Prigozhin isn't acting against Putin or against the war. He's acting for himself, to take more of the scraps from Putin's table (or more likely merely to keep those he has).
He's scrupulously sticking to the good tsar/evil boyars script. "Denazification' etc are denounced (even though these came straight from Putin) Putin is blameless (despite calling all the shots); the war isn't a mistake, it's just been mishandled by corrupt glory hounds; the war mustn't be ended, it must be pursued with greater vigor; etc etc. Prigozhin is trying to play within the rules of Putin's game (though Putin evidently thinks Prigozhin has broken them).
In particular: 290 link is fantasy.
Go enjoy your brand new dedicated Russia thread! Run free!
290 certainly reeks of wishful thinking-
Elissa Slotkin is always sensible and well-informed:
https://twitter.com/RepSlotkin/status/1672578605958811648
290 certainly reeks of wishful thinking-
Elissa Slotkin is always sensible and well-informed:
https://twitter.com/RepSlotkin/status/1672578605958811648
I just found out that one of my friends has a kid who was friends with the kid on the sub. So, I'm apparently only two degrees of separation from really rich people.
I realized yesterday that I hadn't thought to post the obligatory song in this thread: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtbZSNHWc9E
Borderers were not averse to bringing their quarrels into church and were warned not to carry into church 'weapons longer than a cubit and to talk to no one but the priest'.
The non-clerical roles of priests are varied.
CDC says "Do not spray repellent on the skin under clothing." Why? Bugs can fly, bugs can crawl. I won't be wearing a hazmat suit.
Permethrin goes on your clothes, but can't go on skin. 100% coverage.
302: Travis learned from the NPIC Specialist that repeated misapplications and prolonged exposures to a DEET repellent could potentially cause the skin to tingle, flake, and feel irritated. In some cases, overexposures have caused dermatitis and worsened pre-existing skin diseases.
Don't be like Travis!
http://npic.orst.edu/capro/deet.html
Yeah, DEET burns my skin -- I go bright red any place I spray it. Which means I don't use it, I just suffer.
I'm not allergic to DEET and I don't have permethrin for my clothes, and the bugs where I'm going are fucking aggressive. Like, they'll bite you right through your socks. So why not extra deet under the edges of sleeves etc?
305: what you want is Avon Skin-So-Soft. 100% of terrifying people who sneak silently through the jungle at night on their way to stab the King's enemies recommend it, and it's kind to your skin!
DEET, meanwhile, tends to melt plastic on prolonged contact, which isn't so good if you like wearing a watch or spectacles, and is also a bit worrying just in general.
Jesus ajay, I don't spray the stuff on my eyes.
No, but if you're putting it on as a roll-on (which is better anyway, less wasteful), then you'd put it on your face and behind your ears, and it'd melt any plastic bits it came into contact with, like spectacle frames.
Also, I probably am one of the King's enemies. Like, at least 3/8 enemy.
I didn't even know you could get a deet roll-on.
299: Similar vibe, same era, different horrors:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goYHMnge7Ik
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