Thursday’s Forum
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FILED UNDER: Open Forum
OTB relies on its readers to support it. Please consider helping by becoming a monthly contributor through Patreon or making a one-time contribution via PayPal. Thanks for your consideration.
Yesterday:
Senate Passes BBB. Will House Go Along?
As predicted:
Playbook: Congress caves again
Ukraine arms freeze part of wider military aid review, Pentagon says
Such bullshit.
@Scott:
Unless the name of the country concerned begins with “I” and ends in “l”.
Well, isn’t this special? What? No McDonald’s around?
Video captures ICE agents allegedly urinating on Pico Rivera school grounds in broad daylight
I got my first formal rejection after submitting a story to a magazine. I guess that’s progress.
Hello? Hello? Is anyone out there? Or are you comfortably numb?
Just 4 posts this morning and 3 of them are mine.
Have all of the malcontents been rounded up and sent to detention centers?
Weakass job numbers at 147,000 for June, although better than expected.
That makes interest rate cuts less likely.
The dollar had the worst 1st half in decades.
Meh. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@Scott:
I could describe what I cooked for this week. Or the knot I have with my current story.
@Kathy:
Take it from me: You get rejected a lot before you get accepted.
@Scott:
Things seem to have picked up a bit.
@Daryl:
Actually an all round good report, including upward revisions (not downward like during Biden) from priors.
Powell isn’t cutting g if this continues, unless inflation was to get to 2.
From the NYT: The Supreme Court has agreed to hear two cases that test the constitutionality of the ban on trans athletes on female sports teams.
@Scott: I have a report to complete by EOD unless I want to work over the holiday weekend. My breaks will be short today! So, less interaction.
@Kathy:
My wife was rejected for the first piece she ever wrote. At one early point she was told that she wasn’t ‘the proverbial there.’ My wife the Newbery winning, best-selling author or co-author of a shocking number of books. At the other end of the spectrum, I’ve never had anything rejected. . . until now, now when I actually know what I’m doing.
None of it makes sense. No one in publishing has a clue what they’re doing. Everyone in publishing is terrified. Maybe you don’t have the marketable talent, but more likely it’s just random.
@Scott:
Two certainties: Republicans in Congress will never stand up to Trump, and Trump will never stand up to Putin. As bad as the pandemic of stupidity is, the pandemic of cowardice may be worse. Isn’t it fascinating that the masculine revival is built around weak and cowardly men?
@Michael Reynolds:
Here’s my all-time favorite rejection: “This book is too well-written to be commercially viable.”
@CSK:
Yes, it’s basic math: there are more submissions than magazines can publish.
@Michael Reynolds:
In entertainment and sports, in particular but not exclusively, people at best have a dim notion of what will work and what won’t.
If one looks at how many hyped NFL prospects had average to below average careers, and how many overlooked prospects went on to above average careers, this is crystal clear.
@CSK:
I think we can guess where the Supremes will come down on the matter, and in the end this will be a good thing for the trans rights movement.
There were two great big land mines out there facing trans activists: transition in minors and trans athletes. The first demanded patience, persuasion and sympathy for parents, but was handled in the social media environment that defines politics, as if every dubious parent was a Nazi. The trans athletes issue made me despair when it first arose because it was so obviously a poison pill, so obviously intractable. If that issue can be sidelined we can get back to pursuing what needs to be pursued without distracting side quests.
@Michael Reynolds:
Fixed that for you.
@CSK:
I was once told at a job that my reformatting of the client list made it too efficient and too easy to work with.
@Scott: I generally write up about 3-4 comments and wind up not pushing the post button each day because my brilliant ideas look lame once they are in concrete form. I know some are thinking that the ones that I do post are not all that great either. I was thinking about deficit spending this morning, but I have nothing insightful to say. A lot of us would be more respected if we practiced more self censorship.
I’m at the point now where I hope the Big Ugly Bill passes and America feels the pain.
We are too stupid to look at words on a page and derive meaning from that; we need to be whacked on the head with poverty, supply chain problems, Gestapo immigration tactics, and militarization of the police.
So let’s get on with the head-whacking so that we can learn our lesson before the 2026 election cycle, presuming it’s allowed to happen.
@Connor:
Jobs report again surpasses forecasts, but revisions hurt (Courthouse News Service – 6 June 2025)
Private-sector payrolls lose 33,000 jobs, surprising analysts (The Hill – 2 July 2025)
These refer to downward revisions of jobs reports from May, April, and March 2025. Trump was president during these months, not Biden.
@Kathy:
When I started in film and tv more than 40 years ago, networks and studios were obsessed with “Testing” and “Focus Groups” for pilots and or movies of the week. Every pilot season shows would get picked up because “It tested through the roof with our target demo of 18-35″. I was at ABC so I’d get to see all the pilots we put out every year, and I was always flummoxed by the choices made. I used to opine to anyone who would listen, ‘If this testing is so great, how on earth do show’s flop?” Yet, year after year, shows that tested highly would be cancelled due to low ratings after a few episodes, and other shows, which tested much worse would go onto multiple episode seasons.
Some of the greatest network television shows of all time tested poorly, and had low ratings to start, yet became classics. “Cheers”, “Taxi”, “Soap”, “Hill Street Blues”, “The Office”, “Breaking Bad”, just to name a few.
Bottom line: It’s hard to know what will cause a show to explode. “Ted Lasso” is a perfect example. No one, and I mean NO ONE, at Apple thought the show would become the worldwide hit it became. The the combination of Covid, the good vibes of the show, and the great writing caught lightning in a bottle. They had a perfect three. year run. So what is WB and Apple doing now? Doing a fourth season, which no one is asking for or cares about, four years after the “final”. episode.
Geniuses.
@Connor:
That’s not even the break even number Drew, which is closer to 180,000.
Since you brought up Biden;
2024; 186,000 jobs per month avg.
2023: 251,000 jobs per month avg.
Post pandemic; In the first two years of the Biden administration, the average monthly pace of job creation was 555,000.
Remember that Trump 1.0 was the only Presidency that lost jobs, after he bungled the pandemic response.
And I notice you failed to address that spiraling dollar.
Get your head out of your sycophantical ass.
@Connor: Good to see you! I thought maybe you had gone on vacation for the long weekend, since you never addressed this.
@DK: As I noted
yesterdaythe day before yesterday, everyone contextualizes the data to match the story they want to tell. Even then, the data only tell the story in aggregate, and we all know that, contrary to the panglossian adage, the rising tide that lifts some boats swamps others.More parents sue to stop Texas’ Ten Commandments requirement in public schools
“Posting the Ten Commandments in public schools is un-American and un-Baptist,” Griff Martin, a pastor, parent and plaintiff in the ACLU lawsuit, said in a statement. “S.B. 10 undermines the separation of church and state as a bedrock principle of my family’s Baptist heritage. Baptists have long held that the government has no role in religion — so that our faith may remain free and authentic.”
In the lawsuit brought by the North Texas parents, the plaintiffs, who identify as Christian, said the law was unconstitutional and violated their right to direct their children’s upbringing.
@Scott: It’s getting really hard to keep up. Even when I’d just come back from Korea*, posting the 10 C was still thought to be a “go to” America/”Christian Nation” move.
Maybe contemporary American Evangelicals are anarchist at core and simply don’t want anyone telling them what to do. That would match a comment I remember one making from an article about them I read:
*Over a decade ago. How time flies.
@EddieInCA:
Maybe the pilot’s good, but the next few eps not so much. Maybe the testing sample isn’t representative. Maybe the way the testing is carried out skews the results. Maybe the show’s premise is good for only one good ep and little or nothing more.
Or, as you and MR put it: no one has a clue.
Megabill, mega bull.
And since MAGA functions purely as a cult, jerking this way and that to the unsyncopated rhythms of a decaying, narcissistic, maladjusted personality, leadership crisis and succession conflict is baked into this toxic cake. Unfortunately, our civil society has to “go through some stuff” to get a shot at healing.
@just nutha: You critique confirmation bias then refer to a comment you once saw online over a decade ago.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/03/epa-lab-animals-trump-cuts
I continue to have problems telling what is real. I would have thought this was satire, and even now I half suspect that someone is pulling the Guardian’s leg.
@Fortune: I don’t follow. Can you explain?
I’ve seen several people online acting like this is not some form of satire.
https://www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/two-days-talking-to-people-looking-for-jobs-at-ice/
I would say that there’s no way this is real, but who knows anymore. It was written by Yanis Varoufuckice, and helpfully explains that “Yanis Varoufuckice is a pseudonym,” so at least that part is true.
@Gustopher: If a person believes “everyone contextualizes the data to match the story they want to tell” and wants to seek the truth he should watch out for confirmation bias. If a person then hears a story about a small group of Christians and connects it to a statement he read in a comment section a decade ago, and treats it as an explanation of Christian thought, he’s committing confirmation bias.
@Steven L. Taylor:
I see Drew is up to his typical hit-and-run style of commenting.
Like one hand clapping.
@Rob1:
And perhaps as a lifeline to the opposition, like the Obamacare repeal efforts of 2017.
It seems Republicans determined to starve the poor and kick tens of millions off healthcare might at least ensure their un-Christian cruelty saved money. Cutting Medicaid, Medicare, clean energy, and food assistance while still increasing the debt by trillions is fiscally diabolical.
What was the point of Trump conservatives championing DOGE cuts that are destroying lives and livelihoods, since the right also supports the Big Ugly Bill’s corporate socialism, welfare-for-billionaires, and increased deficits? Just show and giggles?
@Scott:
RE: Trump’s withdrawal of key military support that allows Ukraine to defend its civilian population (and loosening of banking sanctions) —– a betrayal of America, the West, and the aspiration for cooperative civil societies.
A longish read but worthy of our consideration:
And, Ukraine fights for the soul of America as well. We would be wise to understand and remember this on the occasion of our 4th of July celebration. The human vectors that gave rise to our nation, allowing us unprecedented freedom and opportunity, are the same forces that impell the arc of liberal democracy everywhere, and which others now conspire to quash in pursuit of their own unitary power.
Do not be lulled by simplistic memes like: “the arc of history bends towards justice” and “love wins.” Neither of these things are assured nor can they be true without human muscle, sweat, and sacrifice.
Enjoy your 4th celebration, then identify ways you can be involved to provide continuity to the authentic aspirations we celebrate.
@EddieInCA: “Yet, year after year, shows that tested highly would be cancelled due to low ratings after a few episodes, and other shows, which tested much worse would go onto multiple episode seasons.”
When I worked with Fred Silverman, he had a poster on his wall of the ratings for one of the years he ran ABC, and I remember noting how huge Charlie’s Angels had been. He said that they’d bought the show and made a handful of episodes before the premiere (as you do), and when the scheduler wanted to know what order they should go in, everyone at the network — including Fred — said it didn’t matter, because each one was such a huge piece of shit no one would watch a single minute…
And this from one of the most successful execs in TV history…
@Fortune: You misread. I left Korea a decade ago (that’s why the comment is marked with the asterisk [*] that followed the word Korea). The quote is from 2024 and from one of the “Cletus Safaris” looking at Trump supporters. Evangelical Trump supporters in the case of the citation.
Beyond which, I didn’t so much critique confirmation bias as add support to your critique of confirmation bias. As I noted at the time, I commented on the first lucid and complete thought you’d expressed “since, maybe, ever,” and you misread that comment, too. (Are you sure you’re not a ChatGPT experiment?)
@Steven L. Taylor:
When I point out that @Connor is a coward, it’s this kind of thing. He pops in, drops a lie, and runs away.
@Gustopher: We do seem to be in some weird Poe’s Law reality. Very strange.
@DK:
The question is, can we trust the jobs and other economic reporting that comes from this admin? This was never a consideration of any prior administration.
@DK:
This feature of policy would matter if Republicans actually cared about saving money. I’m not sure it’s ever been about any issue other than who benefits. Republicans/conservatives have always been against spending dedicated to alleviating human suffering. Christian conservatives have been particularly assertive about opposing government action for housing, Medicaid, hunger alleviation, etc. We constantly droned on about “consequences” and not letting people who “won’t work” eat. It’s why I left the type of evangelical community in which I’d grown up.
It was pernicious and evil. And it seems that they continue to not get it.
@Sleeping Dog:
I’d say the jobs reports will be reliable as long as they report some growth. What the Taco regime says about them will most likely be an exaggeration or a lie (ie the bestest ever jobs report in the history of history ever!!111!!!).
When there’s a decline in job numbers, the first such report might be trusted. Subsequent ones will be cooked. the country could see a real 25% unemployment rate, and the Taco team will be reporting millions of new jobs created every month. The Mao regime did something like that, reporting record harvests during a terrible famine.
@Sleeping Dog: The right regularly questioned economic data from previous administrations. Every accusation is a confession. And an excuse for them actually doing the accused action.
@Sleeping Dog: If some mysterious they is cooking the books, they’re not doing a great job at it:
Breakeven job growth rn is about 160,000-180,000 per month. So it wouldn’t make sense to doctor the numbers but still keep them well below average.
Then again, it doesn’t make sense to claim we must cut government jobs, gut government agencies, and cut food stamps and healthcare Because Deficit Hawk Fiscal Responsibility Hard Choices, then vote to increase the debt by trillions.
218-214
Republicans Reps. Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania joined all the Democrats in opposing the bill.
Other Republican blowhards kissed Trump’s ass in the end.
@Kathy: I love the logic. If the data goes up it must be real, unless the data goes down in which case it’ll go up and be fake. Therefore the data will never go down. Except it just did, so they’ll let it go down once, but from here on out it’ll go up and be fake, unless it goes up and it’s real.
The EPA put 139 employees on leave who had criticized Trump and his anti-environment policies. Nazi’s, it seems, have very thin skin.
https://apnews.com/article/epa-trump-employees-dissent-climate-health-f615cac059eb1803692722a814263bf5
@DK:
But Drew told us it was
How could the world’s greatest businessman be so wrong???
The BBB has passed.
@Mister Bluster: Wow! I really didn’t think they’d get their wagons circled this fast. Kudos to the arm twisting group on that. Impressive.
I still wonder how they decide who gets to cast the dissenting votes though. There always seem to be a few, yet not ever as many as objected to begin with. Hmmm…
@Fortune: That’s why I advocate for not going by the numbers in aggregate but rather looking at specific problems: homelessness, underemployment, and minimum wage levels for example, and trying to find things that can be done to address those issues.
ETA: It’s really easy for data to be correct in aggregate* but “miss the forest for the trees” by failing to note that individuals don’t live in “Aggregate,” they live in “The Real World.”
*And even reflect different contrasting phenomena of that aggregate.
@Fortune: No, no, I still think there are a few steps missing in your logic.
@CSK:
You should frame that one for display!
@CSK:
NSFW Behind the secenes look at what most of the GQP House conference did
@just nutha: because those numbers can’t be faked?
@EddieInCA:
I’ve experienced something with Kubrik films which might be relevant. For some reason a few of them I absolutely hated at first viewing but though utterly brilliant in the second. “Clockwork Orange”? Absolutely nauseated in the first go-through, considered brilliant in the second. “2001”? I was confused and felt it incomprehensible first time, but a masterpiece in the second. When I hear a Miles Davis album this crops up too.
Art is strange stuff. A lot of the people who have money on the line are not focused on what they think but what they think other people will think, and have been thereby rendered unfit to judge it.
Republican Marjorie Taylor Green:
She doesn’t know that her boyfriend Donald Trump was President when the 2020 census was conducted.
Source
@Fortune: The question seems like a non-sequitur. My comment was about not paying attention to the numbers because the in-aggregate data seems without value to my aspirations for our country. Whether the numbers can or cannot be faked is immaterial to my concern. I’m looking at a different question.
I ask again, are you sure you are not a Chat GPT experiment/project?
@dazedandconfused:
I’ve seen Clockwork Orange only once. too violent for my tastes, but a good movie overall.
As to 2001, in heaven’s name why?
I’ve seen it several times, through several decades. Here’s a brief story: I read the book around the time I was 12 or so, I saw the movie when we got a VCR some months later, I then must have rewatched that tape four times or so in the 80s and 90s. Since then, I think I’ve seen it three times more, the last a couple of years back when I found it on HBO Max.
Visually it’s still one of the best realistic depictions of space ever. The pacing is slow, very little takes place, and the ending is more like a hallucination than a series of events. And there are no female characters of any relevance*.
If I ever watch it again, I think I’d stop after the TV interview with the Discovery crew.
* The one movie I can forgive for having no relevant female characters is The Shawshank Redemption. Partly because it’s the story of two men in prison. And also because Andy is kind of a believable moral archetype (BTW, did he average as much as two hours sleep per night for years?).
@Mister Bluster:
Correct.
By the time the shit that was passed today hits the fan, they’ll be blaming it on Biden, too.
@dazedandconfused: “I’ve experienced something with Kubrik films which might be relevant. For some reason a few of them I absolutely hated at first viewing but though utterly brilliant in the second. “”
Most critics seemed to hate Kubrick’s films the first time around as well. The sheer loathing they unloaded on Barry Lyndon and Eyes Wide Shut is almost unbelievable, especially considering that both are now considered among his finest…
@Just nutha ignint cracker: We were discussing whether data in general was being tampered with and you said that’s why you look at other data. That’s the non sequitur.
@Kathy:
Not Biden, but probably Democrats. Most of the really nasty, hurtful things are set to kick in in December, 2026…right after the midterms. Other bad stuff hits in 2028.
So, yeah. These aren’t just horrible people, they are horrible people who are designing the pain to hit on someone else’s watch.
Teve’s Rule remains accurate: shitty people with shitty values.
So, a third extrasolar object is passing through our neighborhood.
I assume astronomers are clever enough to rule out any of these being a garden variety Solar Oort Cloud body that got a speed boost through a most eccentric orbit or something. So, let’s take that as given.
What are the odds three such objects passing through in a short time? Naturally this depends a lot on how many such objects exist to begin with, and how they wind up wondering through interstellar space. For all I know, they’re very numerous and this happens all the time. So maybe we have more telescopes, and better means of processing images (unlike, say, Clyde Tombaugh who painstakingly compared lots and lots of images and found Pluto).
I also don’t know whether these three objects all come from more or less the same part of the sky. if they do, they may be related. If not, see the paragraph above.
Last, to paraphrase Douglas Adams, in a very large universe, like for instance ours, even astronomically improbable events will happen now and then.
@Kathy:
The ending is rather enigmatic. Perhaps that was due to having not read the book it was based on when I saw it.
@dazedandconfused:
The book is odd. It’s not the novel Kubrick based the film on, nor is it a novelization of the film. Instead the movie and novel were developed at the same time. So, most of the story is the same (in the book the monolith is on a moon of Saturn, not in orbit around Jupiter*), including the australopithecines at the beginning.
Both book and movie are based on an early Clarke short story called The Sentinel.
And, time to confess: I never reread that book. I don’t quite recall how it ended. It does contain the line by Bowman “My God! It’s full of stars!” which wasn’t in the movie (there is not one word spoken after Hal dies singing “Daisy”). I remember Bowman ended in something described as a hotel room, and the only food was a blue substance found inside cans, bags, and boxes that were replicas of common pantry items.
Maybe I should re-read it, or at least look up the ending.
*Inexplicably the first sequel, 2010, moves the action to Jupiter.
@Daryl:
I guess you disagree with me, in your kindergarten way. Its a good report, period.
I’m still in the same place, as a cold blooded analyst, not a poor, tormented victim of TDR. Let’s let Q3 play out.
@Daryl: @Michael Reynolds:
I’m sorry, I have a life. It doesn’t revolve around OTB, or collecting sycophantic comments from know nothings. I actually think you might be a good guy. But I pity you. You need help.
@Connor: Demonstrated by you getting banned from OTB multiple times but being so obsessed with OTB you’ve come back with multiple different handles.
You need help for your multiple personality disorder. And your OTB addiction.
TDR? Trump Dickriding? Lol you definitely suffer from Trump Dickriding Syndrome, homie. It’s a mediocre report, period.
Is cold blooded analysis how you came up with the embarrassingly stupid lie that Kilmar Garcia had visited Mexico 100 times? Because that sounds like more like dumb propaganda from an amoral hack blindly devoted to an Epstein-bestie rapist who incited a terror attack on Congress.
And why are you too scared to respond to Dr. Taylor? Is it because, like your childish Kilmar Garcia lies, doing so would further expose you as a low IQ phony?
You guys crack me up. You take yourselves so seriously……………..when no serious person would. I guess that’s why you are here.
It July 3. Take a chill pill. Enjoy. Let TDS go. Have some fun.:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHKsg3NIIgQ&t=12s
@Connor: Haha because obsessively crying on OTB from your umpteenth ban-evading multiple personalitiy demonstrates how seriously you don’t take yourself and us.
You’re here every day complaining about OTB like a whiny little bitch, because you’re super chill — giving cold, non-biased analysis like…claiming Kilmar Garcia visited Mexico 100 times lololol
It’s July 4th weekend, homie. It’s about patriotism, not about being a bootlicking slave to this pedophilic pervert:
Ew.
Maybe take a break from being a pathetic sellout and stand up for the 5th Amendment instead of for terror attacks on Congress? Your Trump Dickriding Syndrome is embarrassing bro.
@wr: Not surprised, he was one of a kind, God bless him. I imagine only his “Paths of Glory” and “Strangelove” escaped that. And are still masterpieces to boot.
Found a quote from Kubrick on movie critics which precisely fits what we are talking about. From the NYT:
“To see a film once and write a review is an absurdity,” he said. “Yet very few critics ever see a film twice or write about films from a leisurely, thoughtful perspective. The reviews that distinguish most critics, unfortunately, are those slambang pans which are easy to write and fun to write and absolutely useless. There’s not much in a critic showing off how clever he is at writing silly, supercilious gags about something he hates.”
@Fortune: No, we weren’t. My original comment from two days ago was specifically about employment data. On the subject of data in general as regards confirmation bias, to the degree that I recall, I actually agreed with you and elaborated on the point in a manner that prompted you to attack what I’d said.
At which point, I walked away. As I will do now.
ETA: An at no point in any discussions of employment data have I ever said such data is either corrupt or corrupted. It doesn’t answer any of the questions I care about. That may be a shortfall, but it’s not a sign of corruption. Or dishonesty, either.
@Kathy:
I never did read “the book” on 2001. Now I’m glad I didn’t.
I suspect the first time I watched it I expected an ending that explained everything (as movies usually do) but the second time I watched it I knew that wasn’t coming and just enjoyed the artistry.
@dazedandconfused: I just saw 2001 on Tubi recently. Decent “film,” mediocre “movie,” if you get my distinction.
@just nutha:
Like me on the first viewing: I rated it “so-so”.
Kubrick, like good lasagna, seems inexplicably is better on the second day.. 😉