Galileo

By some circuitous route (doesn't matter), I ended up on his wiki page. This particular quote, like Ruby Begonia, strikes a familiar note.

Galileo's championing of Copernican heliocentrism was met with opposition from within the Catholic Church and from some astronomers. The matter was investigated by the Roman Inquisition in 1615, which concluded that his opinions contradicted accepted Biblical interpretations

He wasn't burned at the stake, as was Bruno and some, according to the wiki narrative, viewed his handling as cowardly.

Will the Evangelical Reactionary Radical Right Wingnuts under Garfield 2.0 deal with the Smart and Scientific Set the same way? What's your bet?

Best Case Scenario

As I've opined, the best case scenario for surviving Garfield 2.0 is for his demented directives to crash the economy along about June, 2025. If he does what he promised, not out of the question. Well... he's staaaaarted

President-elect Donald Trump said that he plans to institute a 25% tariff on all products coming into the US from Canada and Mexico, starting on the first day of his administration.

Do you know when he got the rag on about Canada? Lots of good hooch from there. Of course, Real Americans only drink Kentucky Bourbon swill. They ain't got no palate.

No more cheap avocado from Mexico.

Being an ignorant slut, Garfield 2.0 has no idea that taxing (which is what a tariff is, but you do know that, right?) goods for which there is an American equivalent primarily encourages American producers to raise their price to a penny or two below the import price. Why not? The import isn't going to get any cheaper. The CPI will soar. Well... may be. Being the Unitary Executive, Garfield 2.0 has the authority to order Census/BLS to report CPI at the number Garfield 2.0 wants. The Greatest Threat in action.

Of course, for the scenario to work out, Garfield 2.0 will have to not suspend elections in 2026 in addition to not messing too much with the macro-data. I'm not willing to make odds on that.

A Game of Chicken

Just happened to be channel surfing, and came across a "Good Eats: Reloaded" episode (2019) on chicken. In fact, left it to compose this. In the narration, Alton mentions the USDA requirements for "organic". They're rather extensive, and expensive. So, let's say that one of the agribusiness poultry oligarches calls up The Utterly Unhinged^© and says that these requirements are cutting into profit. "Could you please tell USDA to lay off? We'll pay a nice fee to USDA (and you, of course), to cut back on the requirements. Waddaya say, big guy?"

USDA poultry organic requirements. Feel free to read them, if needed.

Corruption - part the third

Well... not to be outdone by The Boss, we now find that Boris is up to his ears in shit. Why would we expect any different? We need keep in mind that The Gang of Six^© has deemed immune for any actions deemed (by whom, exactly?) an Official Act. So, one might surmise that Boris's influence peddling is standard operating procedure for any American Bidnezzman.

The internal investigation, which was confirmed by half a dozen sources and is not criminal in nature, has probed multiple instances of Epshteyn allegedly requesting payment in exchange for promoting candidates for administration positions or offering to connect individuals with people in the upcoming administration relevant to their industries, sources said.

In one instance he requested as much as $100,000 per month in exchange for his services, according to sources familiar with the matter.

Hey, if it's your cow, milk it to death.

Scammers

Well... at long last Cassava Sciences (SAVA) reported out the data in its first PIII trial. Not even close. As I type, the share is down 86%. Since it has no other compounds, that I'm aware of, the company is toast. What's particularly devious, just a week ago they hired a commercial officer, thus pumping the share.

The second trial is shut down.

What started out as a pain compound company, morphed into an Alzheimer's outfit on the basis of a compound with a fantastical MoA. Many in the scientific community called it out as garbage over the years, but relying on gullible retail plungers, kept the momentum going for more than a decade based on vapour. Quite a trick. Now, the turkeys have come home to roost. And a boatload of retail plungers won't be moving into their villas in France and St. Kitts.

There is a legion of nano- and micro- cap pharmas out there promising that they've found the answer, where Big Pharma has failed. Seldom happens, and when it has, it's because the nano-cap has developed a robust platform tech over many years, not just a single molecule. Caveat emptor.

Spoilers

As of now, 18:54 24 November, the wiki report has an interesting sidebar. What if there weren't any other candidates but The Utterly Unhinged^© and Commie Law and the Junk Yard Dog^© and that the Other votes all went to Commie Law and the Junk Yard Dog^©? The latter not necessarily too far fetched, in that his zealots know better than to defect. Death and all that.

Trump  - 76,876,907
Harris - 77,317,255 

Landslide mandate my bony ass.

Captain Obvious - part the second

Well... The Musk Ox, et al, are on the verge of demanding that all Damn Gummint workers return to their offices. At the same time the putative DOGE (fun fact: the word actually means a Venetian Dictator) intends to save (high income) taxpayers money. "Danger Will Robinson", Cognitive dissonance here.

As Dr. McElhone was fond of saying, "It is intuitively obvious to even the most casual observer..." that these are mutually contradictory orders. Exactly how much the organizations save by not having bodies in the buildings is open to debate, but here's one estimate.

According to Global Workplace Analytics, a remote workforce helped IBM save $50 million on real estate costs.

And that's just part of the savings.

Stupid is as stupid does. Well... OK, the reason for ending remote work isn't better productivity or such, it's just intended to cull the best workers from the Damn Gummint so the Damn Gummint will fail, and give Garfield 2.0 and his henchmen the meme to assert that the Damn Gummint is worthless. And so forth.