A blog about societal, cultural, and civilizational collapse, and how to stave it off or survive it. Named after the legendary character "Crazy Eddie" in Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's "The Mote in God's Eye." Expect news and views about culture, politics, economics, technology, and science fiction.
Stephen Colbert delivers his LIVE monologue following President Trump’s address before a joint session of Congress, where Texas Democratic Rep. Al Green was thrown out for shouting down the President, and each of Trump's lies was met with cheers from the Republican side of the aisle.
Yes, Hoover Cleveland could say something that would make the Democrats cheer, "I resign." Too bad he almost certainly won't do that. Speaking of doing something, at least Representative Al Green got himself ejected for civil disobedience. Effective or not, that's more than the rest of the Democrats attending.
Trump addressed a joint session of Congress, he got quite an intro from the Sergeant at Arms, many of Donald’s closest allies were in attendance, he laid out his agenda for the next four years, Elon was in the house tonight in his official capacity as America’s highest-ranking DOGEbag, a new poll from CNN said 52% of Americans do not approve of the way Trump is handling his job as President, the Dow dropped 1300 points in two days, Trump touted that he has made English the official language of the United States, Democrat Al Greene of Texas got thrown out, there was a second Democratic rebuttal in Spanish from a representative who’s from right here in The Golden State, Justin Trudeau of Canada spoke about America’s new tariffs, SHAQ provided our favorite moment from a parade in New Orleans, and Trump celebrates Women’s History Month.
Former Biden Administration official Pete Buttigieg lays out tactics that Democrats can pursue in defending American democracy and calls on peace-loving conservatives to do the same while there's still time.
Pete Buttigieg as Senator from Michigan to replace Gary Peters — I could get behind that, but it's too early. Besides, it's up to Buttigieg.
I close with the cold open to last night's Late Show, MAGA Maniacs.
Hidden beneath the surface of our coastal seas are towering forests - of kelp. These underwater ecosystems are as crucial to our environment as their land-based counterparts. We’ll explore them alongside conservationists who are working to restore these threatened habitats. We'll also meet some adorable sea otters and learn about the role they play in maintaining the balance in this sensitive environment.
While PBS Terra uploaded this video on August 15, 2024, a little over six months ago, I first heard this story in 1985, when I was working on my M.S. thesis at Rancho La Brea, then heard it again when I was working at Channel Islands National Park. I held on to this story for another decade until I was hired to teach environmental science at the community college in 1996. That's when I started telling it myself. I have told it to every environmental science class since then and also my organismal biology classes. It was time I told it to my readers. I hope you all enjoyed it and learned something new.
I'm not done with holidays, because tomorrow will be a double celebration of Fat Tuesday on Marching Music Day. Marching bands of Mardi Gras, anyone?
Elon Musk (Mike Myers) interrupts a heated meeting with Donald Trump (James Austin Johnson), JD Vance (Bowen Yang), Marco Rubio (Marcello Hernández) and Ukraine President Zelensky (Mikey Day).
I'll let the top comment on the video speak for me: "This was less chaotic and embarrassing than the real thing." That's even with Mike Myers playing Elon Musk as an Austin Powers villain crashing the meeting.
Weekend Update anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che tackle the week's biggest news, like a U.S. appeals court blocking a Biden-era student debt relief plan.
Weekend Update anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che tackle the week's biggest news, like Dunkin' Donuts announcing they will stop charging more for plant-based milk.
The stories about the ceiling collapsing during a screening of Captain America: Brave New World and the CBS soap opera Beyond the Gates alone qualified this entry as the Sunday entertainment feature, but there was more movie content in The Movie Guy Shares His 2025 Oscars Predictions.
The Movie Guy (Marcello Hernández) stops by Weekend Update to discuss his predictions for the 2025 Oscars.
No, it's not going to be Wicked winning Best Picture tonight. Maybe next year.
Jane Wickline stops by Weekend Update to share some tips about wooing potential love interests.
On the one hand, I'm recycling what I wrote in 'SNL' spoofs the VP debate in its cold open, the first time I saw Wickline sing: "Now I'm wondering if this song is eligible for Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics at next year's Emmy Awards. I'll have to wait until July to find out!" On the other, I don't think that's a good solution to the Trolley Problem if you want to favorably impress a potential romantic partner.
SNL was not done with making fun of the news, so I'm closing this entry with Mid-Day News 2.
Things go off the rails as anchors of a news channel (Shane Gillis, Kenan Thompson, Heidi Gardner, Ego Nwodim) cover the latest news.
Listening to all that reminded me of Science confirms my opinion of life in the country: "I've lived out in exurbia and semi-rural areas for more than a decade. In that time, I've witnessed more crime and depravity there than in all my time in the city." I'm with Kenan and Ego on this one.
That concludes today's comedy entry, where my readers and I laugh at the news because it hurts too much to cray. Stay tuned for WorldWildlifeDay.
Best Picture: Six editors voted for Anora, four chose Conclave, and one picked The Brutalist, which was an early leader, but has since faded. I'm torn, so I'm splitting my pick between Anora and Conclave. Best Director: Ten editors picked Sean Baker for Anora, while one still thinks early leader Brady Corbet can still win for The Brutalist. I'm going with Anora. Best Actress: Eight editors think Saturn Award and Golden Globe winner Demi Moore will win her first Oscar for The Substance. Two think it will be Mikey Madison for Anora. One holdout is hanging on to Golden Globe winner Fernanda Torres. I would have voted for Moore at the Saturn Awards, so I'm rooting for her. Best Actor:The Brutalist's best chances are in this category, with nine editors picking early leader Adrien Brody, while two are choosing Timothee Chalamet for A Complete Unknown. As much as I like Chalamet, it's not his time yet, so I think Brody has this in the bag. Best Supporting Actress: Speaking of having this award in the bag, every editor selected Golden Globe winner Zoe Saldana to win this award for Emilia Perez. I agree. Best Supporting Actor: Kieran Culkin is also the editors' pick to walk off the podium for A Real Pain; every editor voted for him, too. Again, I agree. Best Adapted Screenplay:Conclave won the Golden Globe as well as the Critics' Choice Awards and WGA Awards, so it's a prohibitive favorite here; again, all eleven editors voted for it to win. Best Original Screenplay:Anora was the favorite to win the equivalent award at the Critics Choice Awards but lost it to The Substance, then won the equivalent WGA Award. It's not a prohibitive favorite; while seven editors expect it will win an Oscar, four think A Real Pain will instead. I'll pick Anora. Best Cinematography: Ten editors voted for The Brutalist; one apparently hasn't committed to this or most of the rest of the categories. That won't deter me from beating the drum for The Brutalist. Best Costume Design: This is one of the best chances for Wicked to win as ten editors expect it to walk off the podium with the Oscar. I agree. Best Film Editing: Nine for Conclave, one for Anora. I'm for Conclave.
Best Makeup and Hairstyling: The Substance. Since this was my choice for the equivalent Saturn Award, I'm agreeing. Best Production Design:Wicked should win this one, too. Best Score: Nine for Conclave, one for The Brutalist. I'll pick Conclave with reservations until I hear the main theme myself. Best Song: "El Mal" from Emilia Perez has the support of nine editors, while "Like a Bird" from Sing Sing holds onto one. Like Best Score, I'm agreeing with the expert opinion with reservations. Best Sound: Seven for Dune: Part Two, two for A Complete Unknown, and one for Wicked. The Saturn Awards don't have a sound category, but I would have voted for the sequel in Music, so I'll transfer that to Dune: Part Two. Best Visual Effects:Dune: Part Two has an even better chance of winning this award and it was my second choice for the Saturn Awards, so, yes. Best Animated Feature: Eight for Saturn Award winner The Wild Robot, two for Flow. I'm going with The Wild Robot. Best Documentary Feature: Seven for No Other Land and three for Porcelain War. No Other Land has been leading since I started looking at the odds, so why not? Best International Film:Emilia Perez was leading, but is now behind I'm Still Here, six to four. It's one of these two, and I'm not choosing. Best Animated Short: Eleven editors voted for this category, six for Magic Candies, four for Yuck!, and one for Beautiful Men. I'm being contrary and choosing Yuck! for the title alone. Best Documentary Short: The Only Girl in the Orchestra leads with six, but the rest of the field has support, with two each for Incident and I Am Ready, Warden and one editor supporting Death by Numbers. Best Live Action Short: Eight for A Lien and three for The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent. Sure, A Lien.
Francis Ford Coppola accepts his Razzie® for Megalopolis.
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In the new world of 2025: Bad is good. Dumb is smart. Ghastly is great. Oh, and winning a Razzie is a good thing. Here's looking at the top of the bottom and bestowing 2024's "Bizarro Best" with the honors they deserve!
Worst Picture : Madame Web
Actor: Jerry Seinfeld / Unfrosted
Actress: Dakota Johnson / Madame Web
Razzie® Redeemer : Pamela Anderson / The Last Showgirl
Supporting Actor : Jon Voight / Megalopolis, Reagan, Shadow Land & Strangers
Supporting Actress : Amy Schumer / Unfrosted
Director : Francis Ford Coppola / Megalopolis
Screen Combo : Joaquin Phoenix & Lady Gaga / Joker: Folie a Deux
Prequel, Remake, Rip-Off or Sequel : Joker: Folie a Deux
Screenplay : Madame Web, Screenplay by Matt Sazama & Burk Sharples and Claire Parker & S.J. Clarkson
I am thrilled to accept the Razzie award in so many important categories for @megalopolisfilm , and for the distinctive honor of being nominated as the worst director, worst screenplay, and worst picture at a time when so few have the courage to go against the prevailing trends of contemporary moviemaking!
In this wreck of a world today, where ART is given scores as if it were professional wrestling, I chose to NOT follow the gutless rules laid down by an industry so terrified of risk that despite the enormous pool of young talent at its disposal, may not create pictures that will be relevant and alive 50 years from now.
What an honor to stand alongside a great and courageous filmmaker like Jacques Tati who impoverished himself completely to make one of cinema’s most beloved failures, PLAYTIME! My sincere thanks to all my brilliant colleagues who joined me to make our work of art, MEGALOPOLIS, and let us remind ourselves us that box-office is only about money, and like war, stupidity and politics has no true place in our future.
I appreciated Coppola's acceptance remarks more than Dinesh D'Souza's, about which I wrote, "At least D'Souza showed up to 'own his bad,' proving he has some sense of humor, but he doesn't seem [to] realize it's not the Hollywood insiders who were voting, it's the fans. Dude, Hollywood doesn't hate your movie, America hates your movie."
That written, between Todd Phillips, my choice for Worst Director, and Coppola, I suspect the Razzie voters voted for Coppola because he's the more famous director. That fits the pattern I noticed nine years ago.
In addition to the covert misogyny I suspect among the voters, there is overt Schadenfreude; the voters seem to delight in finding bad performances by big name performers and creators and using them to bring the highest low. I don't have a problem with that, so I find it to be a useful role for the Razzies.
Even though I think Phillips did a worse job than Coppola with his creative control, I doubt he'd have written such a good acceptance speech, let alone accepted at all. Coppola owned his bad, even though he didn't really think that his movie was actually bad.
On the other hand, Madame Web's bad was so strong I could see its Razzies coming last year, "I'm afraid Madame Web will earn multiple Razzie nominations and might even win some of them." It led the "winners" with three Razzies, Worst Picture, Worst Actress for Dakota Johnson, and Worst Screenplay. Joker: Folie a Deux, Megalopolis, and Unfrosted tied for second with two Razzies each. Jon Voight's roles other than Megalopolis — Reagan, Shadow Land, and Strangers — tied those movies for last place.
Finally, Unfrosted winning two Razzies surprised me. Not only is it likely the first movie with both an Emmy nomination and at least one Razzie nomination, I'm sure it's the first movie with an Emmy nomination and two Razzies. Congratulations?
I'm not done with the movies. Stay tuned for the Oscars post I promised.
Some Trump voters regret sending him back to the White House because he's doing nothing to lower prices on everyday items like coffee and potato chips, and there's a new medicine that might extend your dog's lifespan by years.
Elon Musk is still going with his Chainsaw Massacre of our federal workforce, Guillermo lists the five things he did at work this week, a group of Republican Senators met privately with the White House to complain about Elon’s impulsive and haphazard cuts, companies owned by Elon Musk have been the recipients of more than $30 billion from our government, Trump is now hocking dollar bills made of gold, and he is meeting with President Zelensky of Ukraine to discuss what is being called a “reconstruction investment fund,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi announced that a list of Epstein clients and his flight logs would be released today (they were not), instead they released a binder full of information everyone already had, people keep forgetting that Trump and Epstein were good friends, and in honor of the Oscars we took to Hollywood Blvd for a new edition of “Breaking the News.”
You pointed out four years ago that Elon Musk's fortune and the success of his companies were both built on government subsidies. American liberals may not have liked Musk for being a billionaire, but they generally quietly ignored what you pointed out as long as they thought he was on their side. Now that he is trying to buy Twitter, potentially ruining their venue for activism and entertainment, then announced that he wasn't on their side, they are all over that fact. They've also called into question the purported technological achievements of his companies and realized a lot of their value springs from faith in Musk himself. His companies' stock prices are now collapsing, which was one of the "black swan" events Lathechuck postulated in the comments four years ago. I don't suppose you are surprised by any of this, are you?
He wasn't. In fact, he joked that he was bored by it. Just the same, liberals and progressives were right about his effect on X, the site formerly known as Twitter. It's one of the main reasons we've moved to Bluesky.
[O]ne of the recurring themes in the comments to No More Mister Nice Blog, particularly from Yastreblyansky at The Rectification of Names, that a lot of the "working class" supporters of Trump based on their educational levels are actually small business owners, the petite bourgeoisie. Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene come to mind. Both were small business owners before being elected to Congress, which adds new meaning to "petty bourgeoisie."
Desi Lydic rates the Democratic Party's methods of opposing Trump on the cringe-o-meter: from off-key protest chants to interpretive dance to podcasts. Plus, with so many Dems saying "F**k Trump," Grace Kuhlenschmidt thinks that might just be a great idea.
I'm in an "I can't be all DOOM all the time mood," so I'm wishing my readers a happy Pokémon Day!
February 27 is officially Pokémon Day on the National Day Calendar. We are taking you on a journey through the world of Pokémon to learn why the Pokémon brand has reached the hearts of millions of kids, adults and fans across the globe.
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Pokémon Day commemorates the launch of the first Pokémon video games, Pokémon Red and Pokémon Green, in Japan on February 27, 1996, kicking off a global phenomenon that catapulted Pokémon into one of the most popular and successful entertainment properties in the world. Since then, the community of global Pokémon fans — known as Trainers — come together to celebrate their love for the brand on Pokémon Day.
Pokémon are inspired by flora and fauna, science, religion, yokai and other supernatural beings. But the series is teeming with not just Japanese folklore, but versions of monsters from across the globe made cute with softened features.
I'm glad I re-watched this episode, as I'd forgotten about the environmental message of the franchise. That alone makes it worth sharing, despite some of the minor errors, which the viewers pointed out in comments. When one makes a video about a property with millions of fans, there are bound to be some who know more than you do!
Scientists are starting to find a strange connection between neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, ALS, MS, and dementia. They all seem to follow on the heels of common but severe infections. And that means we might be able to stop them.
Hosted by: Savannah Geary (they/them)
This story looks familiar, because it's similar to the one told in SciShow asks 'Could a Vaccine Prevent Type 1 Diabetes?' for World Diabetes Day; an infection triggers a pathological response by the body, sometimes years later. That's the bad news. The good news is that prevention already exists in the vaccines for flu, shingles, and pneumonia. Unfortunately, a segment of the population turned against the COVID-19 vaccine and there is evidence that vaccine hesitancy has spread beyond SARS-CoV-2 to other viruses. That's a story that deserves its own entry, especially because it's topical and can develop more before I share it next month. That's only three days away, so my readers may not have to wait long. Stay tuned.
Trump wants to repeal Section 230 so that Twitter and Facebook can't flag his posts, which he considers censorship. Personally, I think that concept of censorship is kooky, but that's not the worst of it. As the Vox video describes, changing that part of the law could cause chaos on the internet, where a lot of commerce happens, to say nothing of free expression like mine. Any change would have to require a lot of thought and care so that companies have protection so long as they exercise responsible and reasonable moderation. Unfortunately, one side of the aisle wants even less moderation. Consequently, I don't think Congress will come up with a solution if the two sides don't agree on the problem. Sigh.
I was more optimistic in the second post.
Yes, Section 230 will likely change as a result of the failedself-coup and more in the way Democrats want than what Trump and other conservatives say they want, although they would likely have been hurt worse than they expected if they had gotten their way.
That didn't happen. Instead, Hoover Cleveland got what he wanted without a change in the law. All he had to do was intimidate convince Zuckerberg. As one of the commenters on the video wrote, "So basically the world's most powerful bully made the world's most powerful nerd give up his lunch money." Sigh.
I close with this cartoon I first shared in 2011.
Stay tuned for another evergreen entry I can share next month.
This video explores what has gone wrong with one of the country's biggest fabric and craft stores.
As I customarily do for Company Man Mike's videos, I'm displaying his complete list.
"Less sewing" is a phrase I've never written here before; the closest I've come is using less and sewing at opposite ends of 'Fahrenheit 11/9' wins three Razzie Awards, two for Donald Trump and one for Kellyanne Conway, but not together, so that's a false positive. Also, while I've been been blogging about women's careers since Mother's Day 2012 and have been writing about how women (and men) shop since 2009 (reproduced in 2011), I don't know if I've connected the effect of women entering the workforce on shopping before. It was about time.
Competition is a common theme, although Joann's story didn't mention the usual suspects of Amazon and Walmart; instead, it was Michael's and Hobby Lobby.* Joann's vanquished their competitors in the fabric business, so their competition is in crafts.
"External factors" were very much the same for Joann as it was for Big Lots! Both thrived during the pandemic because people were at home, then suffered once people returned to work. Ironic.
On the other hand, inventory fits the pandemic narrative of disruptedsupply chains compounded by tariffs. At least it's not Big Lots! issues with inventory tracking and billing. I'd never seen that before!
Company Man Mike's video came out nearly a month ago and the story has developed since then. For that, I'm turning to Jen of Sewing Report LIVE for JOANN Bankruptcy Auction...Who Won + What's Next?
Day 2 update of the JOANN bankruptcy sale auction at Kirkland & Ellis LLP. The winning bidder is GA JOANN Retail Partnership, LLC (partnership between Great American Group + term lenders). Next up is the bankruptcy court sale hearing on February 26, where the judge has to approve the sale of assets to the winning bidder.
Great American Group CEO Scott Carpenter said during the auction call most JOANN stores will stay open until the end of May and every item in every store will be discounted. They are working on a multi-million dollar retention plan for company employees, with 90% of that budget going to stores. Fresh inventory should soon be rolling out to locations.
Disclaimer: I am NOT an attorney, this is obviously not legal expertise.
Looks like all stores will close and the inventory will be liquidated by the end of May. That will be an especially sad day for people who sew clothes and costumes.
*I'd love to write a "Decline of Hobby Lobby...What Happened?" post, but their customer base may support them as much as they do Walmart, for reasons I like even less. Instead, I might have to settle for Hobby Lobby - The Controversial History. Sigh.
This tool might just change movies forever.
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In 2025, Tom Hanks is 67 years old. Yet, in his latest film Here (directed by Robert Zemeckis), he's convincingly transformed to appear as young as 18, and aged even beyond his current years. And the effect actually looks …. good!
But de-aging effects haven’t always looked this good. Attempts at de-aging can be seen as early as 2006 — and since then filmmakers have experimented with tools and had … varying degrees of success. While 2D blurring and enhancement was the first iteration, realistic de-aging in motion required 3D methods — but no matter which way you sliced it, the process remained labor-intensive and results were often somewhere between okay and the uncanny valley.
Here’s VFX supervisor Kevin Baille told me that the current versions of these tools weren’t going to work on Here. There were too many shots, and the results were too inconsistent for the quality level they were striving toward. So the filmmaking team looked elsewhere, to the bleeding edge of AI tools, to see what was possible. By feeding it a wealth of images featuring Tom Hanks and co-stars Robin Wright, Paul Bettany, and Kelly Reilly, they found they could create images that were remarkably realistic, streamlining the once arduous process.
But the true game changer was optimizing the speed of this tool to enable a real-time feed on set. This empowered actors, costume designers, makeup artists, hairstylists, and other crew members to ensure that every version of the characters, at any age, felt authentic and believable.
Short answer — not yet, but we need to pay attention. All the virus requires to become dangerous to people is the ability to be transmitted from human to human. Should it recombine with a human flu strain, it could acquire that ability. Then it's time to start worrying.
Cows in North America are getting bird flu. What happened? How did we get here? And is this the next pandemic? In this deep dive narrative history of avian influenza, SciShow takes on these questions.
Correction:
38:50 This video's consultants should be listed as Kelly Hills MPH and Dr. Nicholas Evans
This is a fascinating history of not only bird flu, but other flu pandemics, SARS, and COVID-19. I am a paleontologist, so I appreciate the historical and comparative approach to science this video took. I also learned a lot of new things from this video, so it's a good day. While I won't show this to my students — it's 30 minutes too long — I can definitely incorporate some of its facts into my lecture on flu and other viruses. This includes the following image, which updates one I used to show my students.
Welcome to blogging as professional development.
By the way, listening to Dr. Pardis Sabeti mention leadership, gaining trust, and fighting misinformation as important for fighting pandemics reminds me that Hoover Cleveland shares an Ig Nobel Prize for Medical Education with "Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, Boris Johnson of the United Kingdom, Narendra Modi of India, Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Mexico, Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus...Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, Vladimir Putin of Russia, and Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow of Turkmenistan, for using the COVID-19 viral pandemic to teach the world that politicians can have a more immediate effect on life and death than scientists and doctors can."
While funny and worth pointing out when Hoover Cleveland says he wants a Nobel Peace Prize, these people are not good company and this award is not a good sign for the near future. Who knows, maybe he'll win an Ig Nobel Peace Prize for his designs on Greenland and Canada or an Ig Nobel Economics Prize for tariffs. We'll find out this fall.
Stay tuned for the Sunday entertainment feature. What can I write about awards season that is worth sharing next month?
Nearly 20 years after Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth," ABC News Chief Meteorologist Ginger Zee investigates the science from the film to see how much holds up today.
While I replaced AnInconvenientTruth with Chasing Ice during the pandemic five years ago, I think it's worth looking back at its predictions. As Zee said, most of what Gore said either was and still is true or became true since 2006. The rest are still likely to come true, although a bit later than he thought when he was giving the slide show 20 years ago.
If I were still showing the documentary to my students as a required exercise, I'd go over the answers to the questions Zee touched on. I'm not, although my students can still watch it for extra credit. I won't go to that much effort for extra credit. Instead, I will close by noting that An Inconvenient Truth is still the only documentary to win two Oscars, Best Documentary Feature and Best Original Song. That will definitely hold true through at least next year, as none of this year's nominated documentaries are also nominated for Original Song.
Stay tuned for another entry worth sharing next month tomorrow.
One of country's the oldest, biggest, and most iconic drugstores has been declining. This video attempts to identify some of the biggest reasons behind the struggles.
As I customarily do for Company Man Mike's videos, I'm displaying his complete list.
"Too many stores" — I guess being the (second) biggest drugstore chain has its disadvantages, one of them being too big when the retail environment changes. I am a paleontologist, so I am quite familiar with that story; being big becomes a disadvantage when the natural environment changes, too — adapt or die.
I'm recycling what I wrote earlier this month about "Pharmacy Operations"...
I learned a lot about the importance of the pharmacy to Walgreens and CVS — 76% of Walgreens in-store sales and 60% of the company's total revenue! Also, CVS is the leading Pharmacy Benefit Manager with CVS Health/Caremark having 34% market share. Since CVS also owns Aetna Insurance, it looks like they profit both coming and going. Near vertical integration, anyone?
...and "Retail Operations."
I'm a diabeticandasthmatic, so I am in my local Walgreens a lot to pick up my prescriptions. I also go there to pick up other supplies, but no longer my blood glucose test strips. I found out CVS had cheaper test strips, so I bought them there until my wife found them on Amazon for even cheaper. We now have them delivered on a regular schedule — price and convenience! That makes us examples of customers shifting their front-of-store shopping to Amazon.
I got some pushback from a commenter at MeWe, who asked skeptically, "Shopping at Amazon?" My wife and I have decided to cut back on our Amazon purchases and will re-evaluate our Amazon Prime membership when it expires this summer. Jeff Bezos rolling over for Hoover Cleveland pissed us off. That deserves its own post.
"Wider Scope" has worked well for CVS, but not so well for Walgreens, which both CNBC and Erik of Retail Archaeology noted. Too bad. That was a good strategy on paper.
"Lawsuits" were among the main causes of Rite Aid declaring bankruptcy, so I shouldn't be surprised they are troubling Walgreens. As I wrote in 2023, "TheRetailApocalypse and theopioidcrisis finally cross paths. After all the years I've written about both, it was time I saw it happen." Now I'm wondering how CVS is handling this issue.
CNBC listed "shrinkage" as an issue for both Walgreens and CVS earlier this month, but I think this is the first time I recall Company Man Mike putting "Theft" as one of a chain's issues. I mentioned shoplifting as contributing to Big Lots! filing for bankruptcy, but discounted it as employee grumbling on Nextdoor. Big Lots! management didn't give that as a reason for the chain going out of business.
Notice what's missing? Private equity, although that could be in Walgreens' future. I hope not.
This concludes today's tale of the Retail Apocalypse. Stay tuned for another evergreen entry tomorrow.
Every day, airplanes fly over the Panama-Colombia border and drop millions of flies from the sky. It's part of an intense effort to control a deadly pest called screwworms, and believe it or not, it works.
Hosted by: Stefan Chin (he/him)
The tale of screwworm eradication from North America is one I tell my environmental science students every semester in a lecture about pest control in agriculture. I currently have a video about screwworms infesting Key deer, "an endangered subspecies of the white-tailed deer that lives only in the Florida Keys." That makes for an interesting connection between agriculture and wildlife, but it's tangential to the main story. I'm planning on replacing that video with this one, which is the main story. The only element missing from the version I tell already is the part about using Florida as proof of concept by eradicating the flies from the Sunshine State first. Instead, it's Curacao, which makes even more sense than Florida.
The video also introduces a new technology to control screwworms, gene drives. While that will be new to my environmental science students, I've been showing a video about the technique to my organismal biology students for years. I embedded the video in For World Mosquito Day, TED-Ed asks 'Ethical dilemma: Should we get rid of mosquitoes?' My readers who haven't seen it yet can watch it there. Welcome to blogging as professional development.
Stay tuned for more posts I can share next month, as the blog made its page view goals for February on the evening of the 16th. Evergreen entries until the 28th!
I write a lot about Commoner's Laws, which I use extensively in my environmental science course. There is another concept that is central to environmental science, the Tragedy of the Commons, that I've only mentioned twicebefore on this blog (although the second is a false positive, as it's an episode title). That's because I find it a bit too much of a bummer. Fortunately, it isn't inevitable. SciShow explains why in How To Solve Game Theory's Unsolvable Problem.
One of game theory's most famous quandaries is the Tragedy of the Commons. But, through her years of research, Nobel Prize winner, Elinor Ostrom, showed us that we're not doomed to tragedy after all.
Communication and regulation are the solutions to the problem. May we learn to apply these lessons more fully.
John Oliver discusses the first four weeks of Donald Trump’s second term as president, the strategy behind some of the choices his administration has made and why it is indeed fuck time. You heard us: It’s fuck time.
I responded to the election of Trump 1.0 by writing Kunstler said Americans would elect maniacs. He is even more of a maniac now and his supporting cast this time is, if anything, more maniacal than he is. The one I was worried about before January 20th was Russell Vought, one of the authors of Project2025. He's now Director of the Office of Management and Budget, putting him in a position to implement his plans to downsize the federal government. That's bad enough. What I didn't anticipate was Elon Musk taking on more than an advisory role. Nope, he and his minions are carrying out the downsizing of the federal government much more rapidly than Vought could have using legal means. It looks like what Musk did to the site formerly known as Twitter. When Americans wanted government run like a business, I don't think they wanted a government run like one of Trump's businesses or X under Musk.
So, what do we do to slow or stop "a hostile government takeover?" I used to be the director of a nonprofit, so I like the idea of supporting NGOs. Indivisible and MoveOn would be good ones to help. Also, civil society will be under increasing attack and needs all the reinforcement it can get. I also like the rest of Oliver's suggestions. The audience seemed particularly enthusiastic about replacing Democratic lawmakers who aren't up to the moment. More AOCs, anyone?
Seth takes a closer look at Trump shifting his focus from bringing down consumer prices to more pressing issues like arts programming at the Kennedy Center and banning media outlets who won't go along with his geographical name changes.
Seth found the comedy in Hoover Cleveland's takeover of the Kennedy Center board. It's time for some serious news about it, beginning with NBC 4 Washington reporting on Fallout as President Trump takes over Kennedy Center.
President Trump is officially the new chair of the Kennedy Center. News4 has reaction from audience members, performers and the Kennedy family.
Members of the LGBTQ community march from Washington Circle to Kennedy Center in protest of President Trump's new decision.
I doubt Hoover Cleveland will listen to them; he has become even more homophobic thanks in part to following his base. Just the same, I'm glad they're demonstrating and making their voices heard.
I might have more to say about Hoover Cleveland tomorrow for (Not My)Presidents Day. Stay tuned.
President Trump wants to ditch the penny, a move that some experts say is long overdue. Advocates of the least-valuable coin say it should stick around. WSJ examines the question of whether or not it makes sense to get rid of the penny.
The penny has always been assigned a hardness of around 3. But we have conducted tests and found this is not true.
The penny has changed in composition over the years since 1909 when the first Lincoln cent was issued. Its composition was specified as 95 percent copper and 5 percent tin plus zinc, an alloy classified as bronze. Except for the wartime year of 1943, pennies were bronze from 1909 until 1962. Pennies for the following 20 years were copper and zinc, technically brass rather than bronze. And in 1982 the proportions were reversed so that pennies today are 97.5 percent zinc surrounded by a thin, thin copper shell.
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The Indian head penny had the same nominal composition as the Lincoln penny, with zinc and tin combined making up 5 percent, but we suspect that the older penny had a little more tin. Maybe one penny isn't a fair test.
Each of these changes made pennies cheaper to produce. To make them even cheaper, the U.S. would have to make them out of steel, like we did in 1943. Those became collectors items, but I don't know if most Americans would accept such a different looking coin when we're not in a world war. It might be easier to stop minting them.
President Donald Trump wants the U.S. Mint to stop making new pennies, but is the one-cent coin really more trouble than it's worth? Andrew Chang explains.
Based on the Canadian experience, ceasing to mint pennies might actually be a good idea. Chalk that up to a stuck clock being right twice a day, and Hoover Cleveland is definitely a stuck clock. The other issue he might be right on? Ending Daylight Saving Time, which will be a subject for next month. In the meantime, stay tuned for the Sunday entertainment feature. Awards season, anyone?
What are animal-like fossils doing in rocks a billion years old, and what does that mean for our understanding of their evolution and geologic time itself? Turns out, there might've been a long, slow-burning fuse that ultimately ignited the Cambrian Explosion.
More than 150 years later, scientists are still answering questions that puzzled Darwin.
*I got so distracted by the shiny object of bird flu that I forgot about the day until I watched Danny Anduza of Paleontologizing do a Twitch stream about it. Oops!
