The Daily Parker

Today is the 30th anniversary of the trope-namer first appearing in Calvin and Hobbes, making the comic strip self-referential at this point. (It's the ur-noodle incident.)

Unfortunately, today's mood rather more reflects The Far Side's famous "Crisis Clinic" comic from the same era:

• Adam Gray (D) has defeated US Representative John Duarte (R) in California's 13 district, bringing the House of Representatives to its final tally of 210 Democrats and 215 Republicans.
• An assassin shot and killed UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, 50, this morning in midtown Manhattan.
• The president of South Korea, Yoon Suk Yeol, attempted an autogolpe yesterday that failed when the military and police refused to prevent the legislature from meeting to reverse his martial law declaration and start impeaching him.
• US Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel will move back to his house eight blocks from mine in January as he decides what to do with himself next. (Personally, I'd like to see him back on the Fifth Floor.)
• The US Federal Bureau of Investigation has reversed its stance on end-to-end cryptography for mobile phones now that international hackers are running amok with insecure iPhone-to-Android messages.
• Bruce Schneier analyzes the good and bad ways that AI was involved in the world's elections this year.

Let's hope tomorrow's mood is a different Far Side comic...

I believe the precipitating event that led to the OAFPOTUS winning re-election was President Biden's decision to run for re-election—something he promised, in 2020, he would not do.

This evening the news comes that he has pardoned his son Hunter for the crimes he went to jail for, crimes that we can state with some certainty he would not have committed or been charged with had his dad not been president.

[President] Biden said that he came to the decision this weekend, which coincided with the family being together in Nantucket, Massachusetts, for Thanksgiving. Hunter Biden’s attorneys this weekend also mounted a vigorous public defense, releasing a 52-page paper on Saturday titled “The political prosecutions of Hunter Biden.”

“I believe in the justice system, but as I have wrestled with this, I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice,” Biden said in his statement. “… I hope Americans will understand why a father and a President would come to this decision.”

There's a lot to untangle here, but bottom line, I think this was a bad move on principle. Yes, Hunter Biden was only prosecuted (by an OAFPOTUS-appointed US Attorney) because his dad was president. And yes, the actual offenses he was convicted of were not even in the same league as the offenses the OAFPOTUS pardoned Charles Kushner for in 2020.

But we're going to spend the next four years opposing an unprincipled horse's ass. We have to be better than that. It's literally what we are fighting for.

The US Thanksgiving holiday tomorrow provides me with a long-awaited opportunity to clean out the closet under my stairs so an orphan kid more boxes will have room to stay there. I also may finish the Iain Banks novel I started two weeks ago, thereby finishing The Culture. (Don't worry, I have over 100 books on my to-be-read bookshelf; I'll find something else to read.)

Meanwhile:

• Even though I, personally, haven't got the time to get exercised about the OAFPOTUS's ridiculous threat to impose crippling (to us) tariffs on our three biggest trading partners, Mexico's president Claudia Sheinbaum used our own government's data to call bullshit on his claim that Mexico hasn't done enough to stop the flow of drugs into the US: "Tragically, it is in our country that lives are lost to the violence resulting from meeting the drug demand in yours."
• The UK will start requiring all visitors (even in transit) to register with their new Electronic Travel Authorisation scheme as of January 8th—similar to how the US ESTA program has worked for the last 16 years.
• Evanston, Ill., my home town, wants to protect bicyclists on one of its busiest streets, which of course has a bunch of stores panicking. (Note to the merchants: bike lanes don't hurt business, and in fact they encourage more foot traffic.)
• John Scalzi mourns the loss of Schwan's Home Delivery and it's bagel dogs.

Finally, as I mentioned nearly five years ago, today's date is a palindrome if you happen to study astronomy. The Julian Day number as of 6am CDT/12:00 UTC today is 2460642. Happy nerdy palindrome day!

Yesterday, the OAFPOTUS once again said something so blindingly stupid that the only appropriate response had any regular person said it would be peals of laughter. Had any other incoming president said it, it would elicit genuine surprise and alarm from all parties in Congress and even friendly newspapers like the Wall Street Journal (especially the Journal).

But since we're talking about the biggest troll ever elected to public office, a man who puts Zaphod Beeblebrox to shame (since Zaphod at least had a plan), a man who can't say "hello" without bullshitting, the only appropriate response is to ignore him unless he follows through with the threat. In fact, I would say that the only sane response is to ignore everything the OAFPOTUS says or posts on Xitter, doubly so if Stephen Cheung hurr-hurr-hurrs immediately after.

Look, the guy loves getting reactions from people. He's a 12-year-old boy of below-average intellect saying whatever pops into his head to shock his mother's friends and win points with the other mouth-breathers in his 7th-grade class. But until he actually does something (meaning his aides have followed through with the institutional process actually required to fuck something up), his words are completely meaningless.

If we have learned nothing from the past nine years, I hope we have learned this. (The New York Times has not, but that's a different post.)

This morning's stand-up meeting begins in a moment, at the only time of day that works for my Seattle-Chicago-UK team (8am/10am/4pm respectively). After, I have these queued up:

• EJ Dionne lists some bright spots for progressives in the late election, and points out that we have won the issues that the Right no longer talks about. But actor Joel Gray warns us that Cabaret isn't as far from where we are as we'd like.
• Robert Wright says Pete Hesgeth has an Islam problem that disqualifies him for taking over the Dept of Defense.
• Charles Marohn has moved off Xitter*, "but not for the reasons you might think."
• The Chicago Transit Authority is heading for billion-dollar losses by 2031 if it can't secure new funding sources—or cut costs.

Finally, a new paper found something I've long suspected: small amounts of alcohol actually do help you speak a foreign language better. (Large amounts do not.)

* The X in "Xitter" is pronounced "sh," as in Xi Jinping.

The weather doesn't seem that great for a planned 15-kilometer walk through Logan Square and Avondale to visit a couple of stragglers on the Brews & Choos Project. We've got 4°C under a low overcast, but only light winds and no precipitation forecast until Monday night. My Brews & Choos buddy drew up a route starting from the east end of the 606 Trail and winding up (possibly) at Jimmy's Pizza Cafe.

Also, I've joined BlueSky, because it's like Xitter without the xit. The Times explains how you, too, can join. (Cassie also has an account, of course.)

My 4-minute train to Clybourn leaves in 45 minutes, so I want to save a few things for later reading:

• Josh Marshall says: "There’s plenty of time for theorizing and message testing. But the first thing to do is to oppose. Less arguing, more doing."
• After Pro Publica reported on the deaths of two women due to Georgia's religiously-motivated anti-abortion laws, Georgia disbanded its Maternal Mortality Committee, embarrassing not only the Republican-led government in the state but also every ostrich at the Atlanta Zoo.
• Blue Man Group has announced it will close its Chicago run on January 5th after 30 years at the Briar Street Theater.
• The Chicago Tribune, once more reminding me why I need to just give up my subscription, raised a hue and cry that "Lake Michigan water levels drop to lowest in years" without providing the context that the lake level is just 40 millimeters below its long-term average. Oh the humanity!
• Molly White spends 30 minutes explaining how crypto charlatans spent unbelievable sums to get their favored stooges elected, and largely succeeded.

Finally, NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day this morning has a diptych of the Earth, one side from Saturn and the other side from Mercury. What makes it even more interesting is that both photos were taken 19 July 2013, making it the first time the Earth was photographed simultaneously from two other worlds in the solar system.

The most hated person in Congress until his resignation two weeks ago has decided he really, really didn't want the House Ethics Committee to release its report on him, and has therefore withdrawn his nomination for Attorney General. He used the classic "I don't want to be a distraction" excuse, even though his entire career in politics has been a distraction.

Meanwhile, John Hendrickson guesses about the OAFPOTUS's pick for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Dr Donald Duck Mehmet Oz:

As you may have guessed, [Robert F Kennedy, Jr] and Oz are not only friends but kindred spirits. Oz is a global adviser at iHerb, a for-profit company that offers “Earth’s best-curated selection of health and wellness products at the best possible value.” He and Kennedy, two relative outsiders, are now positioned to enjoy a symbiotic relationship within Trump’s chaotic ecosystem.

Oz was last seen running for a Pennsylvania Senate seat in 2022. He lost to John Fetterman, who, despite dealing with the aftereffects of a stroke, carried the state by five points. Throughout that race, Oz struggled to combat the perception that he was a charlatan and carpetbagger who primarily lived in New Jersey. (Fetterman’s team repeatedly tagged Oz as an out-of-touch elitist, trolling him, for example, when he went grocery shopping for crudités and lamented high prices.) After that electoral defeat, Oz’s political dreams seemed all but dashed. But he wisely remained loyal to Trump—a person who has the ability to change trajectories on a whim.

Oz holds degrees from Harvard and Penn, and he worked as a professor of surgery at Columbia. In spite of that pedigree, Oz has spent years facing credible accusations of medical quackery for his endorsement of dietary supplements. In 2014, he received a dramatic dressing-down on Capitol Hill.

How did we get here? Oz landed this gig because he’s good on TV, yes, but also because, when he entered the political arena, he fully aligned himself with Trump. The 47th president rewards loyalty. If there’s one thing that’s become clear from his administration nominations so far, it’s that.

Some of Trump’s appointments will be less consequential than others. Anything involving the health and well-being of tens of millions of Americans is inarguably serious. Oz’s confirmation is not guaranteed, but his selection has already confirmed that nothing about Trump 2.0 is mere bluster.

It's vitally important that we not fall for every trolling thing the OAFPOTUS says. Toward that end I will confine my posting to the things he actually does. Since Oz seems likely to pass Senate confirmation—which I doubted could ever happen for Gaetz—I will report on his quackery and anti-science charlatanism.

The most charitable thing I can say about the incoming administration is that it will be an interesting experiment on the resilience of the American people while a vandal is setting fire to our government. But, hey, almost half of the voters chose him.

The OAFPOTUS has nominated TV personality and shameless quack Dr Oz to head up Medicare, which is of a piece with the rest of his cabinet nominations so far.

I think the OAFPOTUS has some other grievance than against the government, law enforcement, international norms, rational thought, and everything else he's railed against since 2015.

Clearly, the OAFPOTUS wants to drive The Onion out of business.

We're having gray, rainy weather for our few hours of daylight today. We haven't yet had a freeze this fall, and none is forecast before winter officially begins in two weeks, so all the moisture in the air just hangs around and makes more fog and rain. And yet, tomorrow we might get a high of 15°C—about 8°C above normal—before flurries and "wintry mix" Wednesday night.

Yeah, it's the end of November in Chicago.

Otherwise, I'm still mulling our electoral loss from two weeks ago, even as it looks less like a disaster and more like just three million Democrats staying home. In fact, it looks like neither candidate got a majority of the popular vote, with the OAFPOTUS increasing his total popular vote count by a little over 2½ million while our side lost about 7½ million compared with 2020.

Oh, and it's the 141st anniversary of time zones, which had a far more lasting effect than the election will have.

Happy Monday.

Yesterday I posted a short video from Robert Wright reminding everyone that the OAFPOTUS and his hangers-on thrive on negative energy. The moral: don't waste your own energy on his bullshit.

For example, I haven't agonized at all about his kakistocratic nominations for top cabinet posts, for the simple reason that I think they're distractions from the Republican Party's principal goals of increasing the wealth of billionaires and stealing as much as they can rake in from the American People. I mean, the only person in Congress more hated than Ted Cruz is Matt Gaetz; I have little doubt that the Senate will bounce his ass to a bottom-feeding lobby firm.

But nominating Gaetz and having him fail miserably doesn't bother the OAFPOTUS at all. Because when Gaetz fails to get confirmed, the OAFPOTUS will nominate someone even worse. He did this sort of thing more than once during his first term.

The United States has just re-elected Zaphod Beeblebrox to the presidency. We should really care more about the six guys with the black ships, and not worry about the idiot with two heads and three arms. (I'm just waiting for some Fox News guest to finally declare, "Donald's just zis guy, you know?")

Again: let's don't let the flim-flam distract us. Oppose the policies, not the pronouncements. We'll have enough to do for the next few years without wasting our breath on every trolling utterance that comes from the Administration.