Outside the Beltway

Comments

1. Mikey says:
   Sunday, 18 January 2026 at 09:32

   A PSA for everyone, on the day of the Sun: wear your sunscreen!

   About a month ago, I noticed a new mole on my left temple, that looked a bit odd. I poked at it and it bled a little. It doesn’t take an M. D. to know what that probably means, but I went to one anyway and a biopsy confirmed skin cancer. Fortunately, it was non-metastatic basal cell cancer, but even those need prompt treatment, because they will grow in place until they become so large that treatment is disfiguring.

   I went in Thursday for Mohs surgery , which was fully successful and only required one pass (score one for prompt treatment). The whole process took less than 90 minutes, which includes the time necessary to examine the extracted tissue and determine whether more passes were necessary. I’ll tell you what, though–the surgery site stil hurt like hell when the anesthetic wore off!

   This ordeal could have been avoided, had I been more conscientious about using sunscreen. I’ve had a couple of nasty sunburns on my face and forehead the last few years and that’s likely what triggered the cancer.

   In the grand scheme of cancers, basal cell is pretty much the least bad, but getting it treated early means simpler, quicker resolution and much less intrusive treatment.

   Now I’m an evangelist for sunscreen and wide-brimmed hats…lol…trust me, you don’t want to deal with skin cancer of any type.

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2. Tony W says:
   Sunday, 18 January 2026 at 10:07

   @Mikey: This is a wonderful warning – thank you!

   Last year I noticed a couple of skin-color “scabs” on my face that wouldn’t heal even after 6-8 weeks. I went to the doctor – he froze them off with liquid nitrogen and it was quick and basically painless.

   He told me that they were actinic keratosis, they are very common, they result from sun damage to the skin, and about 10% of them turn into squamous cell carcinoma.

   I’m now religious about sunscreen, especially on my face, and I wear a hat outdoors nearly all the time.

   Anything we can do to prevent small things from becoming bigger problems is a step in the right direction!

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3. Mikey says:
   Sunday, 18 January 2026 at 11:34

   @Tony W:

   actinic keratosis

   I had one of those as well, but like yours it was treated with liquid nitrogen and just fell off after a couple of days.

   Anything we can do to prevent small things from becoming bigger problems is a step in the right direction!

   This is something to remember especially as we get older. All the external factors that contribute to diseases and other problems accumulate over the years.

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4. Jay L. Gischer says:
   Sunday, 18 January 2026 at 11:49

   I just read a really interesting piece by Scott Alexander on the topic of Scott Adams.

   I feel about Scott Alexander roughly the same he feels about Scott Adams: This guy was really funny [well, Alexander for me is less funny and more interesting], but he was also a giant problem.

   For instance:

   Every few months, some group of bright nerds in San Francisco has the same idea: we’ll use our intelligence to hack ourselves to become hot and hard-working and charismatic and persuasive, then reap the benefits of all those things! This is such a seductive idea, there’s no reason whatsoever that it shouldn’t work, and every yoga studio and therapist’s office in the Bay Area has a little shed in the back where they keep the skulls of the last ten thousand bright nerds who tried this. I can’t explain why it so invariably goes wrong. The best I can do is tell a story where, when you’re trying to do this, you’re selecting for either techniques that can change you, or techniques that can compellingly make you think you’ve been changed. The latter are much more common than the former. And the most successful parasites are always those which can alter their host environment to be more amenable to themselves, and if you’re a parasite taking the form of a bad idea, that means hijacking your host’s rationality. So you’re really selecting for things that are compelling, seductive, and damage your ability to tell good ideas from bad ones. This is a just-so story that I have no evidence for – but seriously, go to someone who has the words “human potential” on their business card and ask them if you can see the skull shed.

   I am amused by this. I might even have heard the crack as the bullet just narrowly missed me.

   Also there’s this:

   And some of his commentary was good. He was one of the first people to point out the classic Trump overreach, where he would say something like “Sleepy Joe Biden let in twenty trillion illegal immigrants!” The liberal media would take the bait and say “FACT CHECK: False! – Joe Biden only let in five million illegal immigrants!”, and thousands of people who had never previously been exposed to any narrative-threatening information would think “Wait, Joe Biden let in five million illegal immigrants?!” Once you notice it, it’s hard to unsee.

   Thing is, I have seen this idea from academics, who understood it far before Scott Adams. I’ve read articles about it that weren’t written by Scott Adams. What Scott Adams had was a following and a catchy way of describing it. Which sort of supports the Scott Adams way of thinking about how the world works, as long as you’re willing to view the rest of the world in contempt, because you are the smartest person on earth.

   Unfortunately, acting like you are the smartest person on earth makes people more likely to take in the things you are saying. They are called “confidence” men for a reason. Scott Adams aspired to be one.

   Seriously, it’s a good post and outlines why I stopped reading Dilbert long before he said anything about Trump.

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5. Eusebio says:
   Sunday, 18 January 2026 at 12:56

   @Mikey:
   That’s a familiar story, down to the location — except for the initial appearance, which in my case was more like a flat reddish spot or even an enlarged pore. But the eventual bleeding and refusal to heal is what sent me to the dermatologist for treatment and now-regular dermatology appointments. My theory, which seemed to be supported by the dermatologist, is that all those years in the driver’s seat, especially to workplaces to the south (often resulting in sun on the left side in the morning and evening), made my left temple a more likely trouble spot.

   After years of sun-splashed decadence, I’m now, not surprisingly, an apostle for sun protection including sunscreen and wide-brimmed hats (aka my “big dumb hats”). But I’ve yet to find a good hat that provides adequate shade and ventilation, and isn’t folded by the breeze — some hardhats and those little head-worn umbrellas may meet the criteria, but no thanks.

   I also encourage whatever one can do for early detection and treatment, recognizing that those without fair-to-good health insurance face financial barriers. The multi-step but relatively quick outpatient surgery, on a day when the surgeon worked on many patients, was billed at about $7k, but the insurance plan allowance was only about $2k, of which I paid about $300. And add about 20% to those numbers for the initial visit, biopsy and lab charges.
6. Gustopher says:
   Sunday, 18 January 2026 at 14:31

   https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/jan/18/embarrassment-fifa-donald-trump-peace-prize

   There is a growing sense of embarrassment among mid-level and senior officials within Fifa over the awarding of its peace prize to Donald Trump. The US president was handed the award at the World Cup draw in Washington DC in December with the Fifa president, Gianni Infantino, telling Trump: “We want to see hope, we want to see unity, we want to see a future. This is what we want to see from a leader and you definitely deserve the first Fifa Peace Prize.”

   Since then, the US has launched airstrikes across Venezuela and captured the country’s president, Nicolás Maduro, and his wife, Cilia Flores, and flown them to the US, where he was put in jail. Maduro appeared in court on 5 January, pleading not guilty to drugs, weapons and “narco‑terrorism” charges. Trump has also threatened to invade Greenland because he said the US needs the territory “very badly”.

   There was unease within Fifa at the time of Trump receiving the award with the governing body not disclosing any details of the selection process. Now, though, that has shifted to “deep embarrassment”, according to one senior Fifa source. Multiple officials have expressed their unease about the way it was handled.

   I’m not sure anyone at FIFA is capable of embarrassment,

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7. Neil Hudelson says:
   Sunday, 18 January 2026 at 15:08

   In my early 20s i dated a very attractive woman who once said something like “In 20 years I’ll still be hot, while your face will look like cured leather that was drug through a desert.” not an exact quote. Regardless it convinced me to start wearing a daily face moisturizer with SPF.

   Slap that stuff on your neck, which gets almost as much exposure as your face, and swipe some in your ears too. You’d be surprised how common skin cancer in the ear is, especially the left ear which is exposed to sun while you drive.

   2
8. Kathy says:
   Sunday, 18 January 2026 at 16:39

   If Greenland is so crucial to US security that El Taco will risk a war in Europe and the end of NATO, why didn’t it rate a mention in the US National Security Strategy published las November?

   On other things, the cable TV converter in my TV stopped working last weekend. Between work and difficulties finding the contract number, I’ve been without cable TV since, and have missed the playoffs.

   Allegedly they’ll send a technician tomorrow…

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9. gVOR10 says:
   Sunday, 18 January 2026 at 17:59

   @Kathy: Also, too, our need for bases in Greenland was so crucial that the number of bases fell from fifty to one. Personnel at the remaining base, Thule AFB, now Pituffik Space Base, dropped from a peak of 10,000 to 150. But the administration has plans to increase our presence, pretending, as conservatives will, that they’ve always believed Greenland was critical.

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