The New York Times has a lengthy report this morning about the monthlong campaign of destruction that Israel has imposed on the towns of Jenin and Tulkarm in the West Bank:
For months, Israeli raids destroyed roads and other infrastructure that local officials said they repeatedly fixed, only to see their work razed again in the next assault.
In Jenin, some 70 percent of roads have been damaged or destroyed by the recent raids, according to the mayor, Nidal Obeidi. Internet, electricity and phone lines were shut down in some areas. Sewage and water lines were also cut, leaving about 80 percent of Jenin without running water, local officials said, including the main hospital.
The main road in Jenin that runs through the heart of the business district.
This is just a snippet, but it's an example of what I meant when I criticized Ta-Nehisi Coates a couple of days ago. This kind of stuff is reported all the time. Maybe not as much as it should be, but plenty nonetheless. So if you don't know about it, either you don't care about the whole subject or else you have remarkably narrow reading habits. It's not an example of the media betraying you, it's just a matter of personal incuriosity.
This is within a hair's breadth of the lowest level in the past five years (November 2023) and well on its way to busting the record. But maybe the Fed's latest rate cut, which has already lowered mortgage rates, will turn that around?
I'm in the DOU, the Definitive Observation Unit, which means I'm being observed by a lot of nurses. However, since I'm untethered from all the usual machines that go beep there's nothing much to observe except for the blood pressure readings they take every four hours. And you know what? It's surprisingly pleasant to be in the hospital when you aren't sick and aren't hooked up constantly to a bunch of machines.
(I do have a heart monitor, but it's portable and I just stick it in my pocket.)
In any case, I got my first dose of chemo last night around 6 pm, which means I also got my first dose of dex at 6 pm. It takes about 10-12 hours to take effect, so I actually got a few hours of sleep before waking up at 5 am.
5 am! What am I supposed to do at 5 am? There's no news yet, and even the day's statistical releases are mostly still a few hours away. However, the Census Bureau is kind enough to release their summary of steel imports at 5:30 am (Pacific time), so perhaps you'd like to know a little bit about the current state of US steel imports?
No? Tough luck. Here it is:
UPDATE: Bastards. At the last second they moved the release time to 7 am. So I have nothing for you. I suspect dirty tricks from the Deep State.
Are we meeting our goals? It doesn't look like it. If you take out the pandemic year of 2020, we've been consistently above target by about 10% since 2018.
I'm sitting in a hospital bed tonight after my first chemo injection and I have nothing to do. So let's play a game of AITA.
Before I checked in, I had already decided to make a nuisance of myself over two things. The first is that I wanted to wear my street clothes instead of the dumb hospital gown. To my surprise, that was no problem. They didn't care.
The second was bound to be more contentious: I also didn't want an IV line installed. They're magnets for infection—and a pain in the ass—and none of my meds were going to be administered via IV. Nor did my case require a constant saline drip.
Needless to say, the nurse objected. The nurse's boss objected. The doctor objected. Procedure demanded a peripheral IV line. Beyond that, their case was simple: I was here under observation because the chemo meds can have severe side effects. If that happened, they wanted the IV line ready to go. My case was also simple: If anything goes wrong, you can install an IV in two minutes, which is faster than you can get drugs from the pharmacy. There was no danger in waiting.
To my surprise (again) I also won this argument—with a stipulation that if there were any problems I wouldn't object to the IV line. Naturally I agreed with that.
All that said, I understand that maybe I was being an asshole.¹ What do you think? AITA?
¹Despite this, I'm the nurses' favorite! This is only partly due to my natural charm and mostly due to the fact that I'm alive and friendly while practically everyone else on my floor is old and all but comatose.
John Lanchester says today that the inflation rate, as measured by the Consumer Price Index, "has for a century described economic reality, shaped political debate and determined the fate of presidents."
Amen to that. I wish we could staple the CPI to the forehead of every adult in America.
This is a example of Zephyranthes in our front yard. According to Wikipedia, there are now about 200 species of this flower "following the expansion of the genus in 2019." Also:
The name is derived from Ζέφυρος (Zephyrus), the Greek god of the west wind, and ἄνθος (anthos), meaning flower, referring to the slender stalks.
That's all very fine, but why is it named after the god of the west wind? And why was the genus expanded? Seems suspicious.
Did you know that Joe Biden held a cabinet meeting on Friday? Probably not. Why would you?
But wait. Did you know that Joe invited Jill Biden to speak to the cabinet about the White House Initiative on Women’s Health Research? Probably not that either.
Did you know that Jill sat at the head of the table? No?
Then you missed out! For the past four days conservatives have been in a tizzy about how Jill "ran" the cabinet meeting and is now running the country because Joe is too feeble to do it. They apparently don't know that the president never sits at the head of the table. He sits at the center of the table, flanked by the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense. And that's not all. Here's the latest from the geniuses at National Review:
According to the official White House transcript of the cabinet meeting on Friday: President Joe Biden spoke 305 words and then turned it over to First Lady Jill Biden, who spoke 563 words. Biden then took three questions from the reporters in the room, where he offered answers of 85 words, two words, and 32 words. His total words spoken were 424, three-quarters as much as the First Lady spoke.
Jesus Christ. This was an ordinary cabinet meeting. It was open to the press for the first few minutes, which included Jill's presentation and a couple of shouted questions, and that's the part that was recorded. Then the press was herded out and the real cabinet meeting began. Needless to say, they don't post public transcripts of this part on the White House website.
What the hell is in the water at conservative HQ these days? Their conspiracy theories get stupider and more juvenile every day. Do they even know how the government works anymore?
My PSA score is now well into the normal, healthy range:
I was somehow expecting something even lower, but I don't know why. According to the Kaiser test portal, anything below 4.5 is normal, so this is a very good result. I'm now down to only one cancer, for which I'll be getting a new treatment later today. That means a week+ in the hospital so they can keep an eye on me just in case I have a bad reaction. Huzzah.
The $100 Trump coin containing one troy ounce of .999 fine silver, worth $30.63 at the current London fix.
Melania Trump is hawking a $600 gold necklace these days while Donald is peddling a Trump commemorative coin—to go with his sneakers, his picture book, his NFT, his Bible, and pieces of the suit he was wearing during his debate with Joe Biden—to go with pieces of the suit he wore at his mug shot and pieces of the suit he wore at his indictment. Collect them all!
Serious question: Does anyone know why they do this? The Trumps may not be quite as rich as Donald claims, but he's still a billionaire and Melania shares in his wealth. None of this stuff amounts to more than a microscopic part of their net worth and surely doesn't raise their income more than a hair.
So what gives? Aside from the usual snark, does anyone have any idea?
