Economics is mostly bullshit, but . . .

There are some basic ideas that you don't actually need a Ph.D. to understand. (I have one, actually, but maybe that doesn't help.*) What the New York Times and CNN need to understand is that they do not need to and in fact cannot understand or explain the rationale behind the actions of Donald J. Trump because he is simply a deranged idiot and there is no rationale.

 

So. The reason some goods are imported into the United States, in general, is that the people (mostly corporations actually) who buy them find that what they want to buy is available at the most desirable combination of quality and price from foreign producers. It may not be available at any price from domestic sources, at least not in the quantities demanded in the U.S., but we'll put that complication aside for now. Note that since the last purely Communist regime on earth is North Korea, and we don't import anything from them, we are not buying from governments but from private, for-profit corporations. Canada, and Europe, are not "ripping us off" because their business corporations are selling stuff to our business corporations, which freely and  voluntarily choose to buy it because that's where they are getting the best deal.

 

This does mean, obviously, that U.S. workers are not being paid to make that stuff, but it also means that U.S. consumers are getting the best possible deal. That's the whole business model of Walmart -- use their buying power to squeeze the lowest possible price out of suppliers, mostly foreign. Because foreign suppliers are competing with each other, and perhaps also to some extent with U.S. corporations, they are forced to sell at fair prices. Note that in competitive markets, prices are inexorably driven down to the marginal cost of production. Companies try to make a bonus by advertising and branding, to persuade people to pay a little more than the product is really worth, and there are other peculiarities of  consumer behavior that make that statement a little too sweeping, but it's usually close to being true.

 

So, a tariff is not a tax paid by the exporting company or its government. It is a tax paid by the buyer, e.g. Walmart, on the imported good. Since Walmart is competing with Target and Dollar General and so on, they are already making a very thing margin, so if the product costs them more, they have to raise the price to the consumer, and that is who pays the tax. It is true that in the long run, if imported goods are more expensive, that can give U.S. producers an incentive to start making the thing here, or to make more of it, because they can now get a higher price. However, that will take a long time -- factories don't get built overnight -- and it may even be impossible. You need to have workers and managers with the right kinds of skills, you may be far from sources of needed raw materials which may still need to be imported, but now they're more expensive, you may need technological capacity that has to be imported and ditto about that . . . .

 

So, in general, the reason international trade happens is because it enables people all over the world to get the best deals on the stuff they want to buy. From the consumers' point of view, that's pretty much straight ahead. From the workers' point of view, not necessarily. One reason imported goods can be cheaper is because workers in China and Mexico and Vietnam are paid less than American workers, and to the extent U.S. producers need to compete, that can push down wages in certain industries. This in fact has happened in the U.S., as everybody knows. The kinds of low-skilled factory jobs that used to give high school grads a shot at a two car garage and a white picket fence are now scarce. This does not really pertain to trade with Canada and Europe, however. That's not why we buy buy Parmesan Cheese and Swiss watches and Quebec maple syrup, and it's not why there are auto parts manufacturers in Canada.

 

On the other hand, it means that people in China and Mexico and Vietnam now have money to buy stuff from us, and Europeans and Canadians have dollars to spend in the U.S. as well. And they do. Foreigners buy a lot of services -- business consulting, technical expertise, patent licenses -- and whiskey and grain and pharmaceuticals and yes, cars. Also high tech medical and scientific equipment. Even petroleum, of which the U.S. is a net exporter. Of course, it's mostly more highly educated and skilled workers and professionals who benefit from this. So yeah, some people are, rightly enough, feeling left out.

 

So what happens with these massive, indiscriminate tariffs on products from all over the world? First of all, they are paid, 100%, by U.S. consumers. This is the most massive, regressive tax increase in history, and it's mostly going to hurt people with less money, because a higher percentage of their income goes to buying basic goods. After a few years, it might mean that there are a few more manufacturing jobs in the U.S., but they might not pay very well because the employers will be paying more for steel and aluminum and copper. Because other countries will (and already) retaliate, it means farmers won't be able to sell their grain and distillers won't be able to sell their whiskey. Because people will have to spend more on everything they buy, they'll buy less, which could very well mean that the number of manufacturing jobs in the U.S. will decline, not increase. Meanwhile people's retirement savings are wiped out and they can't afford to send their kids to college.

 

So why is Trump doing this? Simple. It's because he is an insane idiot. That's the whole reason.

 * More specifically, I have a Ph.D. in Social Policy, for which I had to pass qualifying exams in economics, political science, and sociology. Of course what that actually means is that I have been indoctrinated by the International Globalist Conspiracy, led by George Soros and the Elders of Zion, into the Satanic conspiracy of science. Oh, and I got the degree from Brandeis University. Aha!

Wednesday Bible Study: Again, the theodicy problem is solved

It is puzzling indeed why people are puzzled by the so-called theodicy problem, AKA the problem of evil. There is no contradiction between the nature of God as portrayed in the Bible, and the bad things that happen in the world, because God is neither good, nor merciful, nor just. He is one evil sonofabitch, a sadistic psychopath and a malignant narcissist. Bad things happen because God makes them happen. Not in the least difficult to explain.

Ezekiel 5 continues with the pattern of God making Ezekiel act out weird metaphors for his vengeance. In this case he has to shave off his hair and do stuff to it that symbolizes the ways in which God is going to torture and murder the Jews because he thinks they've done the wrong ceremonies, or failed to give him his proper worship, although he isn't specific about it. He's going to starve the people so they eat each other, kill them with diseases, and have them massacred by enemies. All because they didn't kiss his ass to his satisfaction. How about we don't worship this asshole? Oh, BTW, does he remind you of anybody?

5 “Now, son of man, take a sharp sword and use it as a barber’s razor to shave your head and your beard. Then take a set of scales and divide up the hair. ² When the days of your siege come to an end, burn a third of the hair inside the city. Take a third and strike it with the sword all around the city. And scatter a third to the wind. For I will pursue them with drawn sword. ³ But take a few hairs and tuck them away in the folds of your garment. ⁴ Again, take a few of these and throw them into the fire and burn them up. A fire will spread from there to all Israel.

⁵ “This is what the Sovereign Lord says: This is Jerusalem, which I have set in the center of the nations, with countries all around her. ⁶ Yet in her wickedness she has rebelled against my laws and decrees more than the nations and countries around her. She has rejected my laws and has not followed my decrees.

⁷ “Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord says: You have been more unruly than the nations around you and have not followed my decrees or kept my laws. You have not even^[a] conformed to the standards of the nations around you.

⁸ “Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I myself am against you, Jerusalem, and I will inflict punishment on you in the sight of the nations. ⁹ Because of all your detestable idols, I will do to you what I have never done before and will never do again. ¹⁰ Therefore in your midst parents will eat their children, and children will eat their parents. I will inflict punishment on you and will scatter all your survivors to the winds. ¹¹ Therefore as surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, because you have defiled my sanctuary with all your vile images and detestable practices, I myself will shave you; I will not look on you with pity or spare you. ¹² A third of your people will die of the plague or perish by famine inside you; a third will fall by the sword outside your walls; and a third I will scatter to the winds and pursue with drawn sword.

¹³ “Then my anger will cease and my wrath against them will subside, and I will be avenged. And when I have spent my wrath on them, they will know that I the Lord have spoken in my zeal.

¹⁴ “I will make you a ruin and a reproach among the nations around you, in the sight of all who pass by. ¹⁵ You will be a reproach and a taunt, a warning and an object of horror to the nations around you when I inflict punishment on you in anger and in wrath and with stinging rebuke. I the Lord have spoken. ¹⁶ When I shoot at you with my deadly and destructive arrows of famine, I will shoot to destroy you. I will bring more and more famine upon you and cut off your supply of food. ¹⁷ I will send famine and wild beasts against you, and they will leave you childless. Plague and bloodshed will sweep through you, and I will bring the sword against you. I the Lord have spoken.”

Footnotes

1. Ezekiel 5:7 Most Hebrew manuscripts; some Hebrew manuscripts and Syriac You have

On Quackery

A few months ago I read Matt Hongoltz-Hetling's If it Sounds Like a Quack, which eviscerates the self-labeled "medical freedom movement." Now I'll gift-link you his piece in the NYT, which illuminates the lethally dangerous insanity of this so-called movement with the story of one woman with breast cancer who decided to forego scientific medical treatment for a fraud, and paid with her life.

 

"Medical freedom" simply means that the man who murdered her, whose name is Robert Oldham Young, has absolute impunity for his crime. Now the Secretary of Health and Human Services is making the federal government a co-conspirator with Young and his ilk in what amounts to mass murder. Well, the American people voted. I don't know if this is what most of them wanted but I know a lot of them did.  There were Kennedy for President signs all over my neck of the woods, and when he dropped out and endorsed Orange Julius they were all swapped out for signs touting the Kennedy's new cult leader.

 

So we have to ask, what is the attraction? Why do so many people believe that biomedical scientists and physicians have somehow gotten it all wrong? One significant data point people might want to consider is that the human life expectancy doubled during the 20th Century. A diagnosis of cancer was a sentence to a quick death until the late 20th Century, and that didn't change because people adopted diets to de-acidify their bodies. It's true that medical procedures often have adverse side effects, that hospitals are cold and unpleasant places, that physicians can be brusque and medical concepts can be confusing. Sure, you'd rather not go through chemotherapy or surgery. On the other hand vaccination is very rarely worse than a two second pinprick and maybe a mildly sore arm for a day, which is one hell of a lot better than smallpox or polio, and in fact most physicians are kindly and caring, even if they aren't the best communicators. And swallowing pills is very easy. In fact people are happy to swallow worthless "supplements" every day, even when they won't swallow the pills the doctor prescribes.

 

I actually find this very puzzling. Maybe someone can enlighten me. In the meantime, Robert Kennedy Jr. is a menace to humanity. Every senator who voted to confirm his appointment (i.e., 100% of Republicans), is complicit. Not a single one is fit to hold public office. 

Sunday Sermonette: Just when you thought it couldn't get any crazier

I know you aren't supposed to do armchair diagnoses, but Zeke clearly has a form of psychosis. The stunts he claims to perform here are bizarre, and some are clearly impossible. First, he has to make a model of Jerusalem under siege. This looks like a fairly complicated craft project, but how the people will benefit from looking at it is not clear. Then he has to lie on his left side for 390 days. Apparently the people of Israel have been sinning for 390 years, so why is God finally getting around to this now? Then he has to lie on his right side for 40 days. God is going to tie him up with ropes so he can't turn over. So he's lying down for the better part of a year and a half, tied up with ropes, but somehow he's able to obtain beans and grain and make bread during this entire time. He has to bake the bread over a fire made with human excrement, but he manages to talk God out of that by some inscrutable logic, and he gets to use cow shit instead. The amount of food he's allowed to eat represents about 640 calories a day, which means he would slowly starve to death. Not to mention the terrible bedsores he's developing. This has got to be a joke, right?

4 “Now, son of man, take a block of clay, put it in front of you and draw the city of Jerusalem on it. ² Then lay siege to it: Erect siege works against it, build a ramp up to it, set up camps against it and put battering rams around it. ³ Then take an iron pan, place it as an iron wall between you and the city and turn your face toward it. It will be under siege, and you shall besiege it. This will be a sign to the people of Israel.

⁴ “Then lie on your left side and put the sin of the people of Israel upon yourself.^[a] You are to bear their sin for the number of days you lie on your side. ⁵ I have assigned you the same number of days as the years of their sin. So for 390 days you will bear the sin of the people of Israel.

⁶ “After you have finished this, lie down again, this time on your right side, and bear the sin of the people of Judah. I have assigned you 40 days, a day for each year. ⁷ Turn your face toward the siege of Jerusalem and with bared arm prophesy against her. ⁸ I will tie you up with ropes so that you cannot turn from one side to the other until you have finished the days of your siege.

⁹ “Take wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and spelt; put them in a storage jar and use them to make bread for yourself. You are to eat it during the 390 days you lie on your side. ¹⁰ Weigh out twenty shekels^[b] of food to eat each day and eat it at set times. ¹¹ Also measure out a sixth of a hin^[c] of water and drink it at set times. ¹² Eat the food as you would a loaf of barley bread; bake it in the sight of the people, using human excrement for fuel.” ¹³ The Lord said, “In this way the people of Israel will eat defiled food among the nations where I will drive them.”

¹⁴ Then I said, “Not so, Sovereign Lord! I have never defiled myself. From my youth until now I have never eaten anything found dead or torn by wild animals. No impure meat has ever entered my mouth.”

¹⁵ “Very well,” he said, “I will let you bake your bread over cow dung instead of human excrement.”

¹⁶ He then said to me: “Son of man, I am about to cut off the food supply in Jerusalem. The people will eat rationed food in anxiety and drink rationed water in despair, ¹⁷ for food and water will be scarce. They will be appalled at the sight of each other and will waste away because of^[d] their sin.

Footnotes

1. Ezekiel 4:4 Or upon your side
2. Ezekiel 4:10 That is, about 8 ounces or about 230 grams
3. Ezekiel 4:11 That is, about 2/3 quart or about 0.6 liter
4. Ezekiel 4:17 Or away in

There's no sanewashing RFK Jr.

The Senate voted to confirm a lunatic to be the Secretary of Health and Human Services, happily with no Democratic votes but no Republican defections either. Now, while he's arbitrarily cut the HHS workforce from 82,000 to 62,000, he's added at least one new position, a fraudster named David Geier, who was sanctioned for practicing medicine without a license, alongside his father who did have a medical license at the time but had it revoked. (Read the licensing board's finding if you want a grim laugh.) According to MedPage Today:

 

David Geier never held a license to practice any health occupation, according to the Maryland state board. He has a bachelor of arts degree from the University of Maryland and was "on staff" at his father's clinical practice, known as the Genetic Centers of America. Mark Geier lost his medical license in Marylandopens in a new tab or window and other states.

So why was David Geier chosen to lead a new HHS study?

"It seems the goal of this administration is to prove that vaccines cause autism even though they don't," noted Alison Singer, president of the Autism Science Foundation, a nonprofit group that funds autism research. "They are starting with the conclusion and looking to validate it. That's not how science is done," Singer wrote in an email to MedPage Today.

 

We know that there is no link between vaccination and autism.  This has been proved beyond any shadow of a doubt. 

Wakefield's article linking MMR vaccine and autism was fraudulent. 

 Measles, Mumps, Rubella Vaccination and Autism: A Nationwide Cohort Study.   

Vaccines are not associated with autism: an evidence-based meta-analysis of case-control and cohort studies.

Autism and measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine: no epidemiological evidence for a causal association.

A population-based study of measles, mumps, and rubella vaccination and autism.

I could go on listing more studies but these are plenty of high quality, irrefutable results. (Actually the risk of autism in vaccinated children tends to be lower, although the confidence interval crosses zero.) As the NYT reports (even they can't sanewash these wackjobs, hard as they might try):

 

On a podcast in 2022, Mr. Kennedy credited the Geiers’ research for showing that vaccines “had nothing to do with” a decline in infectious diseases over decades. “It was all an illusion,” Mr. Kennedy said, attributing the decrease to improving sanitation and nutrition.

The Geiers’ work has been repeatedly discredited by other scientists and federal court decisions. An extensive review of the purported link between vaccines and autism in 2004 by the Institute of Medicine, an elite group of doctors and researchers, panned the Geiers’ studies. The review found their work to be marred by flaws “making their results uninterpretable.” . . .

Judges have rejected the Geiers’ efforts to serve as experts on vaccine safety in court. Records show that judges challenged the father-son team’s billings for hundreds of thousands of dollars related to services they provided as experts for a specialized vaccine injury court. . . 

Judge George L. Hastings Jr. said in 2016 that David Geier was not qualified to render an expert opinion in a National Vaccine Injury Compensation court case. Judge Hastings said his report “is neither useful nor relevant, because he is not qualified as an expert concerning the matters he discusses.” . . .

To [Edward] Hunter, formerly of the C.D.C., the decision to spend federal funds on a new study of a debunked theory would come at the cost of a meaningful discovery.

Since he became health secretary, Mr. Kennedy has presided over cutbacks involving research into nearly every aspect of health care and diseases. On Thursday, he announced a massive reorganization and reduction in the work force from 82,000 to 62,000.

“To me, the big shame is that with budget cuts, we are not ramping up research into what is actually causing autism,” Mr. Hunter said. “And if you are worried about vaccine-preventable disease, this is such a clear setback.”

 

Let me be absolutely clear. As far as I can tell this is a scam, the motive for which is money. That was the motive for Andrew Wakefield's fraudulent study in Britain, which started the whole insanity, that's RFK Jr's motive for promoting it, and that's Geier's motive for defrauding patients and the courts. They want to kill your children to make themselves rich. These people are depraved.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wednesday Bible Study: New dietary fad

Chapter 2 of Ezekiel is fairly short, whereas chapter 3 is tediously long. I'm going to post them both because they only make sense together. Strike that, they make no sense whatever, but you need them both to appreciate the nonsense. 

 

First, I draw your attention to the footnote to chapter 2. The translators are flat out admitting that the Christian project to somehow connect these prophecies to Jesus is fraudulent. They deliberately mistranslate, and say so. Anyway, God gives Zeke a scroll: "On both sides of it were written words of lament and mourning and woe." Then, in chapter 2, God makes Zeke eat the scroll, which he finds tastes good. For the next bit, starting at verse 18, I'll give you the Skeptics Annotated Bible summary:

 

God's killing rules:

If Ezekiel doesn't warn the wicked that God's going to kill them for being wicked, God will kill the wicked people and blame Ezekiel for their deaths.

If Ezekiel warns the wicked, then God will kill the wicked people (if they don't change their wicked ways), but not Ezekiel.

If a good person does something wrong after God "lays a stumbling block before him," then God will kill him. "He shall die in his sin" and whatever good he has done will be forgotten. And Ezekiel will be to blame for their killing.

(Or something like that.)

 Then God renders Ezekiel unable to speak and relegates him to house arrest, for no apparent reason. Yeah, this all makes sense.

2 He said to me, “Son of man,^[a] stand up on your feet and I will speak to you.” ² As he spoke, the Spirit came into me and raised me to my feet, and I heard him speaking to me.

³ He said: “Son of man, I am sending you to the Israelites, to a rebellious nation that has rebelled against me; they and their ancestors have been in revolt against me to this very day. ⁴ The people to whom I am sending you are obstinate and stubborn. Say to them, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says.’ ⁵ And whether they listen or fail to listen—for they are a rebellious people—they will know that a prophet has been among them. ⁶ And you, son of man, do not be afraid of them or their words. Do not be afraid, though briers and thorns are all around you and you live among scorpions. Do not be afraid of what they say or be terrified by them, though they are a rebellious people. ⁷ You must speak my words to them, whether they listen or fail to listen, for they are rebellious. ⁸ But you, son of man, listen to what I say to you. Do not rebel like that rebellious people; open your mouth and eat what I give you.”

⁹ Then I looked, and I saw a hand stretched out to me. In it was a scroll, ¹⁰ which he unrolled before me. On both sides of it were written words of lament and mourning and woe.

Footnotes

1. Ezekiel 2:1 The Hebrew phrase ben adam means human being. The phrase son of man is retained as a form of address here and throughout Ezekiel because of its possible association with “Son of Man” in the New Testament.

3 And he said to me, “Son of man, eat what is before you, eat this scroll; then go and speak to the people of Israel.” ² So I opened my mouth, and he gave me the scroll to eat.

³ Then he said to me, “Son of man, eat this scroll I am giving you and fill your stomach with it.” So I ate it, and it tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth.

⁴ He then said to me: “Son of man, go now to the people of Israel and speak my words to them. ⁵ You are not being sent to a people of obscure speech and strange language, but to the people of Israel— ⁶ not to many peoples of obscure speech and strange language, whose words you cannot understand. Surely if I had sent you to them, they would have listened to you. ⁷ But the people of Israel are not willing to listen to you because they are not willing to listen to me, for all the Israelites are hardened and obstinate. ⁸ But I will make you as unyielding and hardened as they are. ⁹ I will make your forehead like the hardest stone, harder than flint. Do not be afraid of them or terrified by them, though they are a rebellious people.”

¹⁰ And he said to me, “Son of man, listen carefully and take to heart all the words I speak to you. ¹¹ Go now to your people in exile and speak to them. Say to them, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says,’ whether they listen or fail to listen.”

¹² Then the Spirit lifted me up, and I heard behind me a loud rumbling sound as the glory of the Lord rose from the place where it was standing.^{[a] 13} It was the sound of the wings of the living creatures brushing against each other and the sound of the wheels beside them, a loud rumbling sound. ¹⁴ The Spirit then lifted me up and took me away, and I went in bitterness and in the anger of my spirit, with the strong hand of the Lord on me. ¹⁵ I came to the exiles who lived at Tel Aviv near the Kebar River. And there, where they were living, I sat among them for seven days—deeply distressed.

Ezekiel’s Task as Watchman

¹⁶ At the end of seven days the word of the Lord came to me: ¹⁷ “Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the people of Israel; so hear the word I speak and give them warning from me. ¹⁸ When I say to a wicked person, ‘You will surely die,’ and you do not warn them or speak out to dissuade them from their evil ways in order to save their life, that wicked person will die for^[b] their sin, and I will hold you accountable for their blood. ¹⁹ But if you do warn the wicked person and they do not turn from their wickedness or from their evil ways, they will die for their sin; but you will have saved yourself.

²⁰ “Again, when a righteous person turns from their righteousness and does evil, and I put a stumbling block before them, they will die. Since you did not warn them, they will die for their sin. The righteous things that person did will not be remembered, and I will hold you accountable for their blood. ²¹ But if you do warn the righteous person not to sin and they do not sin, they will surely live because they took warning, and you will have saved yourself.”

²² The hand of the Lord was on me there, and he said to me, “Get up and go out to the plain, and there I will speak to you.” ²³ So I got up and went out to the plain. And the glory of the Lord was standing there, like the glory I had seen by the Kebar River, and I fell facedown.

²⁴ Then the Spirit came into me and raised me to my feet. He spoke to me and said: “Go, shut yourself inside your house. ²⁵ And you, son of man, they will tie with ropes; you will be bound so that you cannot go out among the people. ²⁶ I will make your tongue stick to the roof of your mouth so that you will be silent and unable to rebuke them, for they are a rebellious people. ²⁷ But when I speak to you, I will open your mouth and you shall say to them, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says.’ Whoever will listen let them listen, and whoever will refuse let them refuse; for they are a rebellious people.

Footnotes

1. Ezekiel 3:12 Probable reading of the original Hebrew text; Masoretic Text sound—may the glory of the Lord be praised from his place
2. Ezekiel 3:18 Or in; also in verses 19 and 20

 

 

As usual, the corporate media miss the point . . .

 . . . but Josh Marshall sees it clearly. The reason the national security clown car communicated about the attack on the Houthis using Signal is precisely because they did not want to use a secure communication facility of the federal government. Official communications are archived. Even if they are classified, which means you and I can't see them, authorized government officials can, and that includes the succeeding administration, and usually the leaders of the relevant congressional committees. Furthermore they may be declassified at some future time. Signal communications are deleted after 48 hours.

 

That's why it was in fact, objectively illegal for them to conduct business in this way. But that's why they did it. And, obviously, this wasn't the first and only time. It has to be routine. Which also means we have no idea of the level and amount of corruption and malfeasance that's going on, because the administration is operating outside of official channels. That's just fine with the Republicans in congress, while the Democrats remain utterly feckless, for reasons I cannot comprehend.

Sunday Sermonette: Stay away from those mushrooms

Like most of the prophets, it's likely that the Book of Ezekiel is based on writings by the purported author during the time in which he places himself, but it was considerably edited and amended later. Indeed, according to Jewish tradition, the Men of the Great Assembly -- a council of scribes in the Second Temple period, actually wrote the book based on the prophet's words. That means that, again as usual, the prophecies of the future in the book were likely created after the events they predict had already happened.

 

Anyway, taking Ezekiel at his word, he was a priest who was among the literate elite who Nebuchadnezzar took into captivity along with King Jehoiachin, in BC 597. Neb appointed Jehoiachin's uncle as Viceroy, but allowed most of the population of Judah to remain until 586 BC, when in response to a rebellion Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the city of Jerusalem and the temple and took the remaining religious and political leadership into captivity. So the book begins in about 594 BC, shortly after Zeke was exiled. 

 

The first chapter seems to show that either he had eaten some toadstools he should have left alone, or he could have benefited from Thorazine, had it been invented. Some people believe he was actually visited by extraterrestrials, but I find that improbable. If they're going to show themselves, why pick this guy? Anyway you'll have to decide that for yourselves.

 

1 In my thirtieth year, in the fourth month on the fifth day, while I was among the exiles by the Kebar River, the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God.

² On the fifth of the month—it was the fifth year of the exile of King Jehoiachin— ³ the word of the Lord came to Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, by the Kebar River in the land of the Babylonians.^[a] There the hand of the Lord was on him.

⁴ I looked, and I saw a windstorm coming out of the north—an immense cloud with flashing lightning and surrounded by brilliant light. The center of the fire looked like glowing metal, ⁵ and in the fire was what looked like four living creatures. In appearance their form was human, ⁶ but each of them had four faces and four wings. ⁷ Their legs were straight; their feet were like those of a calf and gleamed like burnished bronze. ⁸ Under their wings on their four sides they had human hands. All four of them had faces and wings, ⁹ and the wings of one touched the wings of another. Each one went straight ahead; they did not turn as they moved.

¹⁰ Their faces looked like this: Each of the four had the face of a human being, and on the right side each had the face of a lion, and on the left the face of an ox; each also had the face of an eagle. ¹¹ Such were their faces. They each had two wings spreading out upward, each wing touching that of the creature on either side; and each had two other wings covering its body. ¹² Each one went straight ahead. Wherever the spirit would go, they would go, without turning as they went. ¹³ The appearance of the living creatures was like burning coals of fire or like torches. Fire moved back and forth among the creatures; it was bright, and lightning flashed out of it. ¹⁴ The creatures sped back and forth like flashes of lightning.

¹⁵ As I looked at the living creatures, I saw a wheel on the ground beside each creature with its four faces. ¹⁶ This was the appearance and structure of the wheels: They sparkled like topaz, and all four looked alike. Each appeared to be made like a wheel intersecting a wheel. ¹⁷ As they moved, they would go in any one of the four directions the creatures faced; the wheels did not change direction as the creatures went. ¹⁸ Their rims were high and awesome, and all four rims were full of eyes all around.

¹⁹ When the living creatures moved, the wheels beside them moved; and when the living creatures rose from the ground, the wheels also rose. ²⁰ Wherever the spirit would go, they would go, and the wheels would rise along with them, because the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels. ²¹ When the creatures moved, they also moved; when the creatures stood still, they also stood still; and when the creatures rose from the ground, the wheels rose along with them, because the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels.

²² Spread out above the heads of the living creatures was what looked something like a vault, sparkling like crystal, and awesome. ²³ Under the vault their wings were stretched out one toward the other, and each had two wings covering its body. ²⁴ When the creatures moved, I heard the sound of their wings, like the roar of rushing waters, like the voice of the Almighty,^[b] like the tumult of an army. When they stood still, they lowered their wings.

²⁵ Then there came a voice from above the vault over their heads as they stood with lowered wings. ²⁶ Above the vault over their heads was what looked like a throne of lapis lazuli, and high above on the throne was a figure like that of a man. ²⁷ I saw that from what appeared to be his waist up he looked like glowing metal, as if full of fire, and that from there down he looked like fire; and brilliant light surrounded him. ²⁸ Like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the radiance around him.

This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. When I saw it, I fell facedown, and I heard the voice of one speaking.

Footnotes

1. Ezekiel 1:3 Or Chaldeans
2. Ezekiel 1:24 Hebrew Shaddai

 

NIH -- continued

Okay, I've summarized what a congressional committee has recommended for NIH reform. I endorse some of it and won't bother to argue against the rest. However, there is much they have overlooked. I'm taking the numbers I'm about to present from Rochelle and Loren Walensky, "U.S. Science in Peril," published in JAMA on February 14. It's subscription only, and there's no abstract, so you'll just have to trust me on this unless you have a subscription.

 

NIH uses various so-called "funding mechanisms," with designations such as R03, R21, R01, U24 and so on. Most are grants for single studies -- those are the R grants -- and the numbers basically distinguish how large they are and whether they're for preliminary and exploratory work, or a substantial hypothesis based study. U and P grants are for programs of research incorporating multiple studies, typically with "core" resources such as analytical or laboratory support. K awards are for post-doctoral research and mentorship. All of these are essential components of the scientific infrastructure.

 

The R01 is the substantial grant for a study for which preliminary work may already have been done using an R21 or the like. In 2023, NIH reviewed 48,660 R01 applications and funded 9,632 of them, i.e. less than 20%. These applications are extremely complex and laborious to prepare -- it typically takes months of work by investigators and administrators to put together the application package, which is hundreds of pages long. And the only way to pay for this is through the indirect costs the institution is receiving for projects that are already funded, and what are essentially unpaid hours for investigators. Oh, and BTW full-time tenured and tenure track professors are paid less now than they were in 1970, on average, and it isn't a whole lot for somebody who has 20 years or more of education -- about $100,000/year. 

The maximum budget for an R01 is $500,000/year, unless you get special approval, which is rare. That amount hasn't changed since 1993, meaning that adjusted for inflation it's worth 57% less. On average, scientists don't get their first R01 until they're in their 40s. Even if your R01 application is approved on the first submission, which is quite rate, it's ten months before the money comes. If you have to resubmit, which is almost always the case, it's another year and a half before you have a chance of seeing the money.

 

The Walensky's also aren't totally happy with peer review:

As for peer-review systems in general, gaps in reviewer expertise can lead to scientific misunderstanding, while conflicting feedback hinders the capacity to respond effectively; limited reviewer accountability allows inconsistent or unjustified critiques to undermine worthy grant applications. These systemic issues can slow scientific progress, discourage young investigators, and limit innovation.

In my experience, this is certainly true. There are three written reviews for each submission. The reviewers often contradict each other, and lack expertise to properly understand the proposal. They may also see a proposal as competition for their own program of research and downgrade it to protect their domain, or perhaps a junior faculty mentee; or they may belong to an opposing theoretical school. 

The Walenskys also complain about the shifting priorities that come with each new administration, and various other problems. The benefits to society of NIH-funded research are extraordinary. HIV used to be a sentence to a horrible death, now it just means taking a pill every morning and getting on with a normal life. The same was once true for pediatric leukemia, which now has a 90% cure rate. These are just two examples plucked from what could be a 100 page catalog. The solutions to these problems do not include reducing indirect cost rates or terminating programs of research that conflict with Robert Kennedy Junior's delusions. 

 

Actually they require more money, not less, but changes to the peer review process and simplification of applications are also needed. However, the people currently in charge have no understanding of how NIH and the institutions it funds work, the importance of what they do, or anything having to do with biomedical science. They are incompetent ideologues. So call your representatives in congress and tell them that they must protect NIH, AHRQ, the National Science Foundation, and all of the federal support for science.

Real NIH reform

A reader asks if NIH funds are really spent as efficiently as they could be. A short answer might be that nothing is perfect, but in fact people (including YT) have thought about this quite a lot lately. The House Committee on Energy and Commerce—chaired by former US Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) — released a report in June 2024 entitled Reforming the National Institutes of Health: Framework for Discussion. The report recommended closer oversight of high risk research, including international collaborations, no doubt at least in part resulting from concerns about the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and genetic research in general. I can't argue with that, it's a legitimate public concern even if arguably a bit overblown. However, that would obviously cost money rather than saving any.

 

Other recommendations include limited leadership tenure, which is a somewhat complicated argument but I won't argue with it; and more congressional control over funding decisions, which I'm not crazy about but a congressional committee would say that. Not that congress would actually do it. They already do outline broad priorities for research and allocate funds among the various institutes and centers. 

 

Which brings us to the more consequential recommendation, which I do support. That is to consolidate the 27 institutes and centers into 15. It is a legitimate problem that the missions of the institutes and centers are siloed. For example, alcohol misuse, misuse of other drugs, and mental illness,  not including the previous two problems, are all addressed by separate institutes. Several institutes are concerned with specific body parts -- heart, kidneys -- or systems, e.g. the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease can more or less be thought of as focusing on the immune system, while the National Cancer Institute focuses on innumerable diseases of abnormal cellular replication. 

 

If you know anything about physiology or public health, you can immediately see a problem, or maybe several. Humans don't consist of all these unrelated parts or sub-systems. We're all of them at once and they all go together. Hypertension damages the circulatory system and the kidneys. Among the causal factors are emotional distress and alcohol misuse, and those are all related to social determinants, some but not all of which are separately the concern of the National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities (uh oh, that's presumably going away entirely very soon). If I have a proposal to study primary care, or integrated behavioral health and medicine, or medical and psychiatric comorbidity, among a million other ideas I could suggest, I don't know where to send it. 

There are many additional ways in which the functioning of NIH could be improved, which I'll get to next. But the point is, people have been thinking about this and there are well informed, thoughtful and plausible proposals out there. None of them includes a chainsaw.

Wednesday Bible Study: Let's get this over with

 We'll just skip to the last chapter of Lamentations, since it's all pretty much the same -- death, doubt and doom loom, bazz fazz, as Pogo said. The first four chapters are all acrostics, with each verse beginning with a consecutive letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Why? Who knows. This is not. Again, we don't know when this was written, or by whom, but probably not just one author. Maybe it was some sort of a poetry contest. Anyway, next we're on to Ezekiel, who was definitely eating ethereal cereal.

 

5 Remember, Lord, what has happened to us;
    look, and see our disgrace.
² Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers,
    our homes to foreigners.
³ We have become fatherless,
    our mothers are widows.
⁴ We must buy the water we drink;
    our wood can be had only at a price.
⁵ Those who pursue us are at our heels;
    we are weary and find no rest.
⁶ We submitted to Egypt and Assyria
    to get enough bread.
⁷ Our ancestors sinned and are no more,
    and we bear their punishment.
⁸ Slaves rule over us,
    and there is no one to free us from their hands.
⁹ We get our bread at the risk of our lives
    because of the sword in the desert.
¹⁰ Our skin is hot as an oven,
    feverish from hunger.
¹¹ Women have been violated in Zion,
    and virgins in the towns of Judah.
¹² Princes have been hung up by their hands;
    elders are shown no respect.
¹³ Young men toil at the millstones;
    boys stagger under loads of wood.
¹⁴ The elders are gone from the city gate;
    the young men have stopped their music.
¹⁵ Joy is gone from our hearts;
    our dancing has turned to mourning.
¹⁶ The crown has fallen from our head.
    Woe to us, for we have sinned!
¹⁷ Because of this our hearts are faint,
    because of these things our eyes grow dim
¹⁸ for Mount Zion, which lies desolate,
    with jackals prowling over it.

¹⁹ You, Lord, reign forever;
    your throne endures from generation to generation.
²⁰ Why do you always forget us?
    Why do you forsake us so long?
²¹ Restore us to yourself, Lord, that we may return;
    renew our days as of old
²² unless you have utterly rejected us
    and are angry with us beyond measure.

 

Whistling past the graveyard

So, I got an email today from our dean of finance and administration, which went to all faculty, staff and doctoral students. There's already a university-wide hiring freeze, but now they're trying to find ways of saving some more bucks. If you're old enough to remember the WorldCom debacle, that was a company in dire financial straits (which they misrepresented to stockholders who got wiped out, and the president went to jail, but that's beside the point). So the president issued an order to save money by stopping maintenance of office plants.

 

At our school, the new directive is to cut back on food served at events (we normally get lunch at faculty meetings), if we have an invited speaker we can only take them out to dinner with three guests instead of six, and trying to cut back on office supplies. Sorry, but this is evidence of denial, not a serious response to mortal peril.  At Boston Children's Hospital, they get it: 

According to [Governor Maura] Healey’s administration, the hospital receives over $200 million in NIH funding annually, including $230 million last year. The proposed cuts by the Trump administration would cut that funding in half. 

“That means halting research into the diseases that harm children,” Healey said. “Ripping away hope from families … who are facing a devastating diagnosis. These cuts are going to cost jobs. They’re going to cost lives, young, vulnerable lives.” It’s not rhetoric,” she continued. “It’s not hyperbole. It’s a fact.”

“Everyone needs to understand how very serious this threat is,” said Healey.  “And everyone needs to understand the cuts that are being proposed in order to fund huge tax breaks for some of the richest people in the world are going to come on the backs of these patients and their families.”

Healey said the cuts have already had an effect in Massachusetts. Despite a federal judge’s temporary restraining order against the NIH for barring funding for medical research, Healey said the funding is still not coming through. Healey said that colleges and universities in the state are already reducing their budgets because of these cuts, which are stopping research and clinical trials in their tracks. 

Now, Healey said that a presence from China, Europe, and the Middle East is looking to poach these researchers to move overseas. “That is against America First,” she said. “We are giving away assets to other countries instead of retaining them and supporting them here.”

 

In my previous post, I tried to understand why they are doing this. Yes, as Gov. Healey says, Peter Thiel doesn't want to pay taxes. But believe me, wiping out the NIH entirely wouldn't make a dent. The entire NIH budget is about $50 billion. The federal budget is $1.7 trillion. A trillion, in case you didn't know, is 1,000 billion. In other words the NIH is less than 3% of the federal budget. So no, that can't really be the reason.

 

Too much to deal with

My blogging has been scarce lately, largely because I don't know what I have to contribute to the discourse any more. Here I was writing coherently about public health and health policy, and writing a book about it in which I lay for for the benefit of humanity what expertise I have gathered over the years -- and now I have to go back revise the whole book, and reconsider what use my expertise may be after all when the policy apparatus of the federal government has gone insane. 

I get the basic idea that a small cadre of plutocrats, fronted by a megalomaniacal lunatic, are conspiring to install a fascist oligarchy in the United States. I get that. But I don't get much of the specifics of why they are doing what they are doing with the powers they have arrogated, except for the general idea that they want to create maximum disruption and consternation, and divide and overwhelm any possible opposition. But destroying the scientific enterprise in the United States seems counterproductive for plutocracy. If we fail to create a next generation of scientists, while those who can go oversees, that's not good for the techbros. But maybe they don't believe that. Maybe they think they can take over the scientific enterprise as a proprietary project, that they can own it, and that federally funded research in universities is just competition they don't want.

 

But applied science -- technology and patents, what makes rich assholes rich -- depends for its raw material on basic science, knowledge about the world that nobody can own and that you can't invest in because there is just no telling what's going to become the basis of technology some day and what that technology might look like. It was 100 years before Einstein's relativity theory became of any actual use, but now it's very important because the Global Positioning System depends on it. The same goes for quantum theory which only became useful with the emergence of microelectronics.

 

In the area of biology, it took more than 50 years before the fundamental understanding of the biological mechanisms of genetics and the functioning of the eukaryotic cell turned into effective treatments for disease, and now mRNA vaccines, monoclonal antibodies -- and on and on. They can't own science -- though it goes without saying that wanting to is an abomination. 

 

The tariff thing is equally inexplicable, as is the repudiation of alliances, mass deportation (especially given that plutocrats depend on exploitable workers), and most of what they're doing. It just seems delusional to me, utterly insane. But I must be missing something.

Wednesday Bible Study: Bitching and Moaning

The Book of Lamentations is mercifully short, just five chapters. All of them are just what the title says, lamentations, specifically about the fall of Jerusalem to Babylon in 586 BCE, which has been the main focus of most of what we've been reading lately. Although it was ascribed to Jeremiah, the consensus now is that it has nothing to do with him (like most of the Book of Jeremiah, actually). In fact, it is not known when it was written. It seems reasonable to suppose that it was during the exile, shortly after 586, but there is textual evidence that some of the material was written much later. 

God never speaks in Lamentations. He brought about the disaster, but he was right to do so, it was all the fault of the Jews for sinning against God. Unlike Isaiah and to a lesser extent Jeremiah, there is very little in the way of predicting redemption or restoration. The tone is despairing. That would seem odd if some or all of it was written during the Maccabean period, since the restoration had of course happened by then, but I'm not a biblical scholar so I'll presume there's a case for that. Anyway, as with Jeremiah there's no good reason to read the whole thing, but here's the first chapter. 

 

For unknown reasons, every verse begins with a consecutive letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Few translators have attempted to represent this with the Latin alphabet. Since it seems pointless to begin with, I can understand that. Anyway, Yahweh is one mean SOB.

1 ^[a]How deserted lies the city,
    once so full of people!
How like a widow is she,
    who once was great among the nations!
She who was queen among the provinces
    has now become a slave.

² Bitterly she weeps at night,
    tears are on her cheeks.
Among all her lovers
    there is no one to comfort her.
All her friends have betrayed her;
    they have become her enemies.

³ After affliction and harsh labor,
    Judah has gone into exile.
She dwells among the nations;
    she finds no resting place.
All who pursue her have overtaken her
    in the midst of her distress.

⁴ The roads to Zion mourn,
    for no one comes to her appointed festivals.
All her gateways are desolate,
    her priests groan,
her young women grieve,
    and she is in bitter anguish.

⁵ Her foes have become her masters;
    her enemies are at ease.
The Lord has brought her grief
    because of her many sins.
Her children have gone into exile,
    captive before the foe.

⁶ All the splendor has departed
    from Daughter Zion.
Her princes are like deer
    that find no pasture;
in weakness they have fled
    before the pursuer.

⁷ In the days of her affliction and wandering
    Jerusalem remembers all the treasures
    that were hers in days of old.
When her people fell into enemy hands,
    there was no one to help her.
Her enemies looked at her
    and laughed at her destruction.

⁸ Jerusalem has sinned greatly
    and so has become unclean.
All who honored her despise her,
    for they have all seen her naked;
she herself groans
    and turns away.

⁹ Her filthiness clung to her skirts;
    she did not consider her future.
Her fall was astounding;
    there was none to comfort her.
“Look, Lord, on my affliction,
    for the enemy has triumphed.”

¹⁰ The enemy laid hands
    on all her treasures;
she saw pagan nations
    enter her sanctuary—
those you had forbidden
    to enter your assembly.

¹¹ All her people groan
    as they search for bread;
they barter their treasures for food
    to keep themselves alive.
“Look, Lord, and consider,
    for I am despised.”

¹² “Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?
    Look around and see.
Is any suffering like my suffering
    that was inflicted on me,
that the Lord brought on me
    in the day of his fierce anger?

¹³ “From on high he sent fire,
    sent it down into my bones.
He spread a net for my feet
    and turned me back.
He made me desolate,
    faint all the day long.

¹⁴ “My sins have been bound into a yoke^[b];
    by his hands they were woven together.
They have been hung on my neck,
    and the Lord has sapped my strength.
He has given me into the hands
    of those I cannot withstand.

¹⁵ “The Lord has rejected
    all the warriors in my midst;
he has summoned an army against me
    to^[c] crush my young men.
In his winepress the Lord has trampled
    Virgin Daughter Judah.

¹⁶ “This is why I weep
    and my eyes overflow with tears.
No one is near to comfort me,
    no one to restore my spirit.
My children are destitute
    because the enemy has prevailed.”

¹⁷ Zion stretches out her hands,
    but there is no one to comfort her.
The Lord has decreed for Jacob
    that his neighbors become his foes;
Jerusalem has become
    an unclean thing among them.

¹⁸ “The Lord is righteous,
    yet I rebelled against his command.
Listen, all you peoples;
    look on my suffering.
My young men and young women
    have gone into exile.

¹⁹ “I called to my allies
    but they betrayed me.
My priests and my elders
    perished in the city
while they searched for food
    to keep themselves alive.

²⁰ “See, Lord, how distressed I am!
    I am in torment within,
and in my heart I am disturbed,
    for I have been most rebellious.
Outside, the sword bereaves;
    inside, there is only death.

²¹ “People have heard my groaning,
    but there is no one to comfort me.
All my enemies have heard of my distress;
    they rejoice at what you have done.
May you bring the day you have announced
    so they may become like me.

²² “Let all their wickedness come before you;
    deal with them
as you have dealt with me
    because of all my sins.
My groans are many
    and my heart is faint.”

Footnotes

1. Lamentations 1:1 This chapter is an acrostic poem, the verses of which begin with the successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet.
2. Lamentations 1:14 Most Hebrew manuscripts; many Hebrew manuscripts and Septuagint He kept watch over my sins
3. Lamentations 1:15 Or has set a time for me / when he will

What is to be done?

As far as I'm concerned, protests and calling your congressional reps and letters to the editor and blog posts and all that are fine, and you should do all that if you can. But the only really meaningful action I can take is to organize at the local level. I got a message from Rep. Joe Courtney's aide Adam Richardson that's on the money: "November's municipal elections will be the first referendum on Trump's second term - and we want to send a clear message that eastern Connecticut rejects him and all the harm his administration had already caused."

 

So in our small town, our Democratic Town Committee is committed to running a full slate of candidates for every office, from First Selectman to the Library Board. The town votes Republican and went for the raging orange lunatic by a substantial margin, but I'm determined to hold candidate forums, knock on doors, mail to every address, and do whatever it takes to thump the Republicans in November. We don't have any federal or statewide offices on the ballot, so it's all going to be about turnout.

 

Wherever you live, small town or big city, there's a Democratic Party organization. Join it. If there isn't one, found it -- contact your state party to find out how. Make sure there's a Democratic candidate for every line on the ballot, and make sure people work to get every one of them elected. That's what will make a difference.