Wednesday’s Forum
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FILED UNDER: Open Forum
Fuel surcharges are insane.
They’re no longer even called that, but that’s what they are. Now they’re called carrier imposed surcharges. But look at the breakdown of the JetBlue ticket price. The fare is $0.50. Really? fifty cents? And a surcharge of $320.00?
Some days I wish aviation were possible without airlines.
This years elections (not just the Presidential one) are a battle between a merit based democracy, one where politicians vie for support by trying to make their constituents’ lives materially better, and Jim Crow governance, wherein a small number of powerful elites coopt the government to keep the populace from interfering with how they want to run things. An important technique for this is to form and enforce rigid social hierarchies and distract the masses by setting them against each other. A major tool is semi-sanctioned violence, performed by either informal paramilitaries (the Klan and the Militia movement in the past, the Proud Boys and 3%’ers today) or by inciting a mob. The mob is dangerous, but important. As every mafia Don knows, nothing keeps your minions in line like making them complicit in violence and crime.
The Republicans have reached the point in their scapegoating of Haitians where they are reaching for the paramilitary tool but may land on mob violence in addition or instead. Either or both are good for their purposes though. It seems inevitable, though, that the next step is a killing of some sort.
@MarkedMan:
Talia Lavin has a new article that lays out how the pattern is tracing that of past pogroms and race-riots.
On a lighter note, here is Jalopnik’s summary of 10 cars Consumer Reports recommends that cost between $21K and $25K. These aren’t the cheapest cars available, but they are the cheapest CR thinks are worth buying. To give you a comparison to days of yore, in year 2000 dollars, these range from $11.5K to $13.7. I can’t remember what I paid for my new Saturn SW2 wagon in 2000, but it would have been MSRP or above (because of options) given Saturn’s no haggle policy, and that was $14.8K. So while the average price of cars sold has gone up greatly, there are still solid cars available for roughly the same cost as 25 years ago.
Nice paper at link looking at drug prices in terms of national comparisons. Most people know that our drug prices are higher than those of the rest of the world and that Medicare has not been allowed to negotiate drug prices. The Biden admin made a dent in that, still a long way to go, but it has provoked major howling by conservative and libertarian economists who believe that innovation will go away if the US alone doesnt pay whatever the drug companies demand. So it’s nice to know the scale of the issue.
“The gap between U.S. prices and prices in other countries was larger for brand-name originator drugs. U.S. prices were 422 percent of prices of non-U.S. countries for these drugs. However, prices for unbranded generic drugs were generally lower in the United States than in other countries. U.S. prices were 67 percent of prices of non-U.S. countries for unbranded generics. ”
IOW, when drug companies are protected they charge over 4 times what people pay in the rest of the world. When in the case of generics they are not protected we in the US actually pay about 2/3 of what the rest of the world (first world countries) pay. For example, in Mexico (sorry Kathy) you pay on average about twice what you pay in the US for generics.
Steve
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11147645/#:~:text=The%20gap%20between%20U.S.%20prices,States%20than%20in%20other%20countries.
Russian disinfo groups target Harris-Walz campaign, Microsoft says
@steve:
Sounds about right.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/ernest-shackleton-ship-discovery-antarctic-explorer-history-180979702/
Some of you may have seen this story about the discovery of the Endurance in your feed and wonder what this is all about. It’s one of my favorite stories of a “successful failure”. Not unlike the dramatic story of Apollo 13 many years later, where the crew overcame many obstacles after a catastrophic malfunction.
The crew of the Endurance was poised to cross Antarctica from shore to shore. Before the crew was even able to set foot on land the Endurance was trapped on an ice flow January 19th 1915. The Crew survived on the ship until October when it was crushed and sank. The 28 crew members spent the next two months on the ice flow with all their supplies, camera equipment, and three life boats.
The after five harrowing days at sea, the exhausted men landed their three lifeboats to a spit of land called Elephant Island, 346 miles from where the Endurance had sunk. After spending some time there they decided that they would modify the strongest life boat and have 5 crew member and Shackleton sail 800 miles to South Georgia island. This would be one of the longest open boat trips in history over the brutal conditions of that part of the south Atlantic Ocean.
After a 15 day voyage in hurricane winds and 50 ft swells, they landed on the wrong side of South Georgia island. Shackleton and a crewmember hiked for 36 hours over the mountains of the island to reach the whaling station.
It would take four attempts to reach the balance of the crew members on Elephant island in August of 1916. No Crew members perished during the ordeal and they retrieved all of the pictures and film that was taken on the voyage. Truly amazing.
… and now you know … the rest of the story.
Are the shots included in her memoir?
http://www.thedailybeast.com/melania-trump-this-is-why-im-proud-i-posed-nude?ref=home?ref=home
Without trying to diminish the bravery of Shackleton and crew, Rick DeMent, I just going to point out the Polynesians who apparently did these open boat voyages every day before breakfast.
@CSK:
Ehhh. From time immemorial models have posed nude, some the only reason they were hired was a willingness to be nude. The Felon isn’t the first president to have married a model, nor Mrs. Felon being the first to model nude. Carla Bruni Sarkozy gets that award. IIRC the photos of Mrs. Felon are already in circulation.
Given that for time in the public eye, she’s mostly been a cipher, she likely needed something salacious to spark interest in the biography. Besides, she wouldn’t confess to being a former escort, if that rumor was true.
Today is Dear Wife’s birthday. We’re going to Outback for dinner.
My endoscopy is tomorrow in Boca Raton. My parents lived in BR for 9 years and I have never been to that hospital. Mom and Dad always went to North Broward Hospital* in Pompano Beach.
I’m tying up my Yakuza epic. The latest I see me being finished writing it is the end of next month. That will make it my 4th book for my publisher.
Not much else is happening with me. I’m alive.
*- Mom died there in 1985.
Wow. Ukraine blew the shit out of a Russian ammo facility 5 sq km in area in Tver. Every sort of Russian missile is cooking off. Tver is about equidistant between Moscow and St. Petersburg.
That is a hell of a long flight for a drone. I wonder if Ukraine used some of their home-made ballistic missiles. It looks to be about 375 miles from Ukrainian-occupied Russia. I think it’s too far for British Storm Shadows, or ATACMS. If it was drones, how did the Russians fail to intercept slow-moving drones crossing 375 miles of territory? It looks like multiple hits. And you don’t store missiles in tents, so these were presumably in some sort of hardened structure.
If they can hit Tver, they can hit the Kremlin itself.
J. D. Souther, 78, has died. RIP.
@Joe: Completely fair. Although I would guess if you showed some of those Polynesians the seas the Endurance crew had to sail that open boat through, they might be all, “No thanks”. Freezing to death, and ice floes were not really on their menu.
@Michael Reynolds:
Was just about to mention this.
It looks like a very big hit indeed.
As to the how and the distance there are various possibilities
(Paranoid Russians might be looking 200 km west, where there are neighbours who love Russia very little. Personally: doubt it.)
The most likely explanation I’ve seen is that there were indeed hardened bunkers for storage. (Evident on satellite imagery).
But the Russian army, with their usual degree of rationality, had filled the site bunkers, and then had further deliveries of munitions for storage.
Which they proceeded to stack on the surface.
EEK!
UAF spotted this, and used their long range drones on round-about routings to the site.
(I suspect some had special thermite payloads for the task: just using HE might not light off the stacks.)
And perhaps SOF teams as spotters for terminal guidance?
Outside piles of ammo cook off, and that in turn blows the bunkers.
Oopsie.
@Michael Reynolds: They’ve already hit Moscow with drones. I don’t see how hitting the Kremlin would do much good for Ukraine.
The biggest limitation for Ukraine has been those imposed by the USA and allies on what targets Ukraine is allowed to hit in Russia.
@Michael Reynolds: I don’t know how this is accomplished, but that is not remotely the furthest reach of drone attacks.
1500 km is a long way to just fly, never mind not getting detected/intercepted.
@Joe: True dat!
However the Pacific ocean is a much more inviting place than the south Atlantic near Antarctica (save the typhoons). It’s mariner hell.
I think the open boat trip of Captain Bligh was well over 3000 NMs. But again in much friendlier waters. But yes the Polynesians were the all time champs no doubt.
Great elite heroes of the law enforcement force caste the FBI who protect our rights and keep us safe.
“Can you please stop recording”
Because if you nothing to hide.
“Was it right or in the public interest for you to film FBI agents?”
Fed lowers interest rates by half point in first cut since 2020
Queue up a lot of whining from Trump and the failure-hoping, America-hating MAGA crowd.
A sign of things to come if Trump wins:
EPA Scientists Said They Were Pressured to Downplay Harms From Chemicals. A Watchdog Found They Were Retaliated Against.
@JohnSF:
And what happens to the stuff that doesn’t cook off? Someone’s gotta clean up the mess and I’d imagine that whole place remains dangerous as hell until it’s all cleaned up.
I have been reviewing the archives of posts by OzarkHillbilly. I think I will take a break after this one and go sit in the dark somewhere so no one can see me cry.
@Rick DeMent:
Pleased to see the Polynesians getting some love. This hits close to home. I have family who works on and voyages with the Hōkūleʻa bunch. Good people spreading aloha pomaika’i around the world.
@Mister Bluster:
That’s lovely.
@Scott:
It’s also very interesting to look at US stats re manufacturing investment and plant openings etc.
The US economy is looking remarkably healthy.
The only “nasty” is the high debt level and repayment costs; but combining reasonable economic growth with sensible, and moderate tax increases, can resolve that readily enough.
In general, rest of the world looks at US and wishes it had YOUR problems, in terms of economics, if not politics.
@Beth:
Not a job I would fancy, to be sure.
Tsar Vladimir: “Surely that’s what serfs are for, after all?”
Writer Nelson DeMille, 81, has died. RIP.
Following up on our earlier conversation about the Troll Under the Bridge in Ohio:
No, I don’t think I’ve taken his earlier comments the wrong way at all. I suspect that I understand exactly what he wants.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/ohio-sheriff-says-facebook-post-about-harris-signs-migrants-was-a-little-misinterpreted/ar-AA1qMTwA?ocid=socialshare&pc=LCTS&cvid=fe3238c1359c46e28b4f24044acd9cf9&ei=58
@Bill Jempty:
Bill, bappy hirthday wishes to Dear Wife. May you enjoy all the time you have together.
@Mister Bluster: I’ve been teary-eyed all yesterday and today thinking about Ozark. Sure wish I’d gotten to meet him in person.
@JohnSF:
Kind of have to love that. Where should we stack these SAMs? Just lean ’em up against the wall of that bunker.
@Matt:
The job now is to turn the Russian people – especially billionaires and generals – against Putin. To do that you want to penetrate the wall of censorship. Good luck keeping it secret if one of the walls of the Kremlin is all a-tumble in Red Square.
@Beth:
One nasty tactical trick used with cluster bombs, is to set some bomblets on a delayed fuse. This means people clearing the damage and/or helping the wounded risk getting blown up later.
@Jax:
Indeed. As I said when Teve died, it’s astonishing how close you can feel to someone you’ve never met in person.
In politics news, Quinnipiac, which is a good pollster, has Kamala up 1 in WI, and 5 in both MI and PA. If we can stay at +5 in MI and PA, that’s 261 pretty solid, and all we need is one of the following: WI, AZ, NC or GA. NV would be icing.
@Jay L Gischer:
Interesting. I still think of drones as either big honkin’ Predators or FPV’s dropping grenades. Doesn’t say much for Russian air defenses if slow-ass drones can fly along for hours unmolested.
@Michael Reynolds:
Quite possibly they were launched locally by infiltration or anti putin ruskies that are collaborating with Ukraine
@Michael Reynolds:
Remember Mathias Rust landing in Red Square? lol
A “low and slow” ground-hugger is a nightmare for certain sorts of air defence.
UAF have done remarkably well at countering them using various methods, including distributed detectors and AA gunnery; but still can’t get them all.
Russia has a lot more space to cover, and likely a wide-open hole re Belarus.
@Jax:..
@CSK:..
If this link works (scroll down) there is a post signed
OzarkHillbilly (used to be tom p) says: from 2011. I did not know he used another handle.
@Jax: me, too. It’s gonna take a bit to not feel a pang opening up the daily forum and not have his hot takes of the morning.
Currently in Deadwood, SD, Trump signs very prevalent, Lots of Harris hate, t shirts calling her dumb. Depressing. I think the worse he is the more they love him. Some businesses have Trump flags which us surprising in a heavy tourist destination. Been in three states (WY, MT, SD) that hate the federal government but love the money they get. Lots of complaining about cost of gas (about $3.20) because Trump will get it back to $1.80.
@Lucy’s Football: That’s the hardest part of living in Wyoming. None of these people understand the President doesn’t set the interest rates, the price of gas, or the price of groceries.
@Jax:
Or that interest rates and gasoline prices are not particularly high right now, relative to recent history.
Mortgage rates dipped during/following the 2008 and 2020 recessions, but right now are on par with the pre-recession rates of the 2000s, and significantly lower than the rates of the 1990s and 1980s and so on.
30-Year Fixed Rate Mortgage Average in the United States
Gasoline prices are similar to what they were one and two decades ago, not even adjusting for inflation. And the big price drop in the 2010s happened fully two years before TFG took office.
US Regular Conventional Gas Price
A question for the other lawyers here: why does this job suck so bad?
@Eusebio:
As a real estate attorney this has been my career long nightmare. People do not get this at all. I’ve taken to just telling people that if they are going to live in a house for longer than 10 years the exact rate doesn’t matter. You gotta live and store your crap somewhere.
Mortgage rates are roughly around where they were when I started in 08. Great time to become a real estate atty. Now we’re stuck between people who don’t want to sell and get stuck with a higher rate and whatever the hell the investor morons are doing (sucking up inventory). We need to raise property taxes on large investor owned properties until their eyes bleed.
I’m rather cranky today.
@Beth:
This.
The biggest problem with the current tax system is that it rewards parasitic behaviors instead of monetizing them. This is not an accident — regulatory capture by the parasites is reaching Gilded Age levels. The definition of “Republican” is “someone who is either too ignorant to understand what’s going on, or actively complicit in making it happen.”
@Beth:
That sent me off on a tangent–specifically, the George Carlin Stuff routine…
And so on, saying “stuff” several dozen times in 5 minutes.
You know, at the end of times, maybe @Teve and @OzarkHillbilly are having a drink together.
I love you all. You are my sanity in this fucked up world.
@Rick DeMent: My favorite book about a doomed Arctic expedition is In The Kingdom Of Ice by Hampton Sides, which describes the doomed voyage of the USS Jeannette, searching for a sea route to the North Pole. Not only is this one of those pieces of history you’ll be amazed you never heard of before, but the details are amazing. I don’t want to give anything away that might reduce the wow factor when you read it, but man oh man, there are some crazy aspects to this story. Be warned, the specifics are often quite brutal.
@CSK: My thoughts exactly. Since I’ve started following OTB, we’ve lost teve tory, Doug Mataconis, and now Ozark Hillbilly. Life is so damned unfair.