The Frankish Reich

Prescription medicine advertising to the general public used to be banned. For good reasons.

Gateway drugs, JD. You gonna wind up like mama if you don't nip it in the bud.

Hoecht, an Ivy League grad who tutored kids in calculus, says he just trusted the guy (unnamed) who provided him with various supplements.

Few things have been more studied in the last two decades. There is no link. It is simply that autism is often diagnosed at around the same time as some childhood vaccinations. It made sense to see if there is any correlation (which is still a long way from a "cause"), but that has been done. We are now at a point where it is nothing more than the classic error of logic: post hoc ergo propter hoc. https://www.chop.edu/vaccine-education-center/vaccine-safety/vaccines-and-other-conditions/autism#:~:text=Vaccines are not associated with,vaccines and development of autism.

I always go back to the MLB Mitchell Report for insight. One thing we learned then: GMs know (or as the lawyers say, "have reason to believe") when one of their players is benefiting from PEDs. Example: Paul LoDuca, Dodgers catcher. "Late bloomer" - never more than 8 HRs in many minor leagues seasons. Age 29: all of a sudden 25 big league HRs. Signs to a big contract a couple years later. Dodgers GM Paul DePodesta learns that he's off the juice as the steroid scandal gets hot. Dumps him in a trade to the Marlins. Nobody was fooled. Everyone knew what was going on. Players were signed because teams knew (had "reason to believe") they were juicing and would be good additions. Today I have to assume GMs damn well know what's going on too, and they also know that there's no reason to believe that a guy who was caught juicing in February won't still be benefiting from the PEDs in December. Beane surely wasn't snookered by Hoecht, who signed after the Bills knew he'd be suspended. It's almost like a selling point: I just finished a cycle, I'm gonna kick ass this season. How idiotic is it that we give guys 6 game suspensions for PED cycles that may confer benefits for an entire season or more? Show me the incentives, and I will show you the behavior.

I think it shouldn't count unless the president signed with a quill pen and an ink bottle. No sharpies in 1789.

And guess who's picking those French wine grapes? Seasonal immigrant workers. Not French workers. That's what I saw in Bordeaux. By the way, does our illegal immigrant labor give us an unfair advantage such that other countries should impose a tariff on our agricultural goods?

You forgot the part about reading your posts that he so strenuously denies he ever saw. Strange, lonely bird

I watched Bill Maher last night. The guest did do a good, spirited defense of the purpose behind Trump's tariff wave. I will point out that she forgot the 5th strategic/national security interest Trump says he must protect. It is wine and champagne (umm, "sparkling wine"). OK, all snark aside, a few facts: - Manufacturing output is not the same thing as manufacturing employment. Yes, 1970s manufacturing continued to provide jobs that allowed workers and their families to achieve a middle class livelihood: home ownership, the ability to save for retirement, etc. But it was at a cost - the use of human labor for heavy, literally back-breaking jobs (I had a great uncle who could barely walk after years in a Buffalo tire factory). Those jobs are now automated if they are performed in developed economies at all. And if steel production "returns" to the US, it is certain that steelworker jobs won't follow in anything like the numbers we used to see. Efficiency, they name is Elon Musk and the automated manufacturing process. Given the political environment, it is quite clear that Trumpism will also not bring back union jobs, which were part and parcel of keeping more money with the middle class than with the ownership/capitalist class. - So Sam Stein had a point about peak manufacturing output during the Biden years (since output is not employment). So his female guest (I don't recall her name) had a point about income and wealth distribution in America, 1970s vs. 2020s. And Bill Maher had a point about Trump's tariffs being about some kind of nostalgia for a bygone era of U.S. manufacturing that we will never see again, regardless of what tariff he slaps on aluminum and steel next week. Remember that from an economic perspective the numerator is output and the denominator is something like man-hours when we talk about something like "efficiency" or "productivity." Those jobs are gone, whether they've gone to low-wage men in China or high-tech machines in Fremont, CA.

My secret admirer busted again. How did he know that I mentioned the Trump assassination attempt? No one quoted me. Answer: he is fake ignoring people. What kind of fool does that?

Right. I don’t know if this Mike Davis is really that dumb a lawyer or whether he just thinks you’re all too dumb to realize this is flat out wrong.

Because I have kind of a special interest in Justice (both the concept and the Department), I am currently suffering through a mentally challenged old man ramble on and on and on about Bobby Knight, Indiana basketball, and his near-death experience on the Mount Calvary of Butler PA.

You will eat your turnips and be happy. But I do feel compelled to defend the lowly turnip. I have made a very tasty (and hot) ultra low carb pork green chile stew with turnips substituting for potatoes. They are really good if cooked correctly in a dish that doesn't depend on their flavor but rather on their texture.

Did Alan Simpson get everything right? Of course not. But he was an honorable, decent, witty man who tried to move the country in the right direction. The 1986 Reagan amnesty was a perfectly defensible deal at the time, largely ruined by lax enforcement in subsequent years. The US would be a very different - and I say much better - place today if both parties hadn't completely ignored the recommendations of the Simpson-Bowles budget commission. And in retirement he did not become a lobbyist. He joined an ordinary (yeah, it was personal injury) law firm and made money the old fashioned way, by suing people.

I just delay liked this. For obvious reasons.

⬆️ Meanwhile, perhaps a, umm, I don't know, vaccine scientist? would care to weigh in on how his life has been devoted to the destruction of freedom in the name of public health. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/03/14/opinion/pre-vaccine-america.html

COVID? No, not anymore, because the pandemic is over, silly. Would have been over sooner if my advice had been adopted.

Hmm ... Barkley, Trubisky, Keenum, Trubisky ... generic white guy fits the bill

Oh, I stand corrected. About the same in the broad market (SPY). Ooh. Maybe we should add in Trump 2.0's first 50 days to correct that.

MMR should be mandated. No exceptions other than medically inappropriate (compromised immune system, etc). So too polio, HPV for girls* according to current medical guidelines. Feel free to try to argue otherwise. *as assigned at birth. haha

The usual bs. Trump 1.0 not counting the first 9 months of COVID, because of course Trump's inept management (or lack thereof) of that doesn't count. So you tell me: why is consumer confidence lower today than it was when Biden left office?

Remember the Biden "vibecession" anyone?

Still ignoring me by obsessing over me. He's really good at that.

"Never confuse activity with accomplishment" - John Wooden One of my favorite quotes of all time by a man who knew what it means to be a winner. The Madness of King Trump II. Trump has lost it. Paul Krugman says it best: https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/a-mind-is-a-terrible-thing-to-lose When Trump first began talking about turning Canada into the 51st state, many people treated it as a joke. But Trump doesn’t appear to be in on the joke. He just keeps doubling down, even as the people of Canada grow ever more outraged. No sane leader would imagine that it’s a good idea to threaten a heretofore friendly but proudly patriotic neighbor and ally with annexation. But a sane leader is exactly what we don’t have. And look beyond what Trump and Musk have said to the actions of the people they’ve chosen to oversee key public agencies. Robert F. Kennedy, the secretary of health and human services, refuses to respond to a measles outbreak with a clear call for vaccinations, instead suggesting that people take cod liver oil. The secretary of agriculture has suggested that Americans respond to high egg prices by raising their own chickens. How did the highest levels of U.S. government become infected by madness? Well, this is what you get when you give flawed people — people prone to grandiosity, vindictiveness and paranoia — so much power that nobody dares tell them when they’re going too far. Cowed Republicans and timid Democrats have effectively given Trump and Musk the freedom to become the worst versions of themselves. And the whole world will pay the price.

News you can use! Exactly what I've been doing here ... giving people life hacks on how to spend within their means. Which is usually met with ridicule, so watch your back.