DL Open Thread Monday, June 10, 2024

If you’re looking for something more esoteric to worry about than World War III or the climate-induced collapse of civilization, you might want to look into the latest outbreak of avian flu, which has infected two farm workers – one in Texas, the other in Michigan – who caught it from dairy cows. Pasteurization kills the virus, so your supermarket milk is safe, but it’s a particularly inopportune time to be relaxing restrictions on raw milk. Yet the state Senate passed SB 273 would do just that, despite objections by Sen. Stephanie Hansen, AFAIK the only one of them who’s actually worked in a laboratory.

If Trump’s latest antics aren’t moving your Rage-o-Meter anymore and you’re looking for something that will infuriate you, consider Investor-State Dispute Settlements (ISDS), a corporate tribunal system in which a panel of unelected lawyers decides whether a company is owed compensation if the actions of national governments leave its assets “stranded.” Corporations are using it to sue when their projects are scuttled by ecological concerns. The Guardian found that governments have paid out over $100 billion in what economist Joseph Stiglitz calls “litigation terrorism.” Read it and fume.

It seems Europe, like the U.S., has a sizable voting bloc of white people in panic. Far-right parties made big gains in European Union elections, mostly at the expense of the Greens, and in many countries the big issue was keeping out foreigners with their strange culture. The Neanderthals probably felt that way, too, and look where it got them.

Give the Rolling Stones some credit: They’re an oldies act, sure, but they put in the effort to write an album’s worth of new songs last year. Donald Trump’s Heat Stroke Summer tour’s gig in Vegas was nothing but old material, highlighted by an extra-long performance of “My E-Boat Is Sinking in Shark-Infested Waters.” That’s the one where he offers a thought experiment in which he has to choose between electrocution or death by shark. This is a particularly stupid bit in that batteries on electric vehicles have to meet safety standards that would prevent electrocution, but it’s a good indication that the guy has the brains and imagination of a not-very-bright 10-year-old. Reporters didn’t know why he was rambling on about this, but they keep missing an important fact about the Dunning-Kruger poster boy: He thinks he’s a funny guy.

Good economic news doesn’t go unreported, it just seems that way. New jobs once again beat predictions by a wide margin while wages grew, but it got less media attention than Trump’s shark story rerun.

The floor’s yours.