The Canadian Broadcasting Company, which has a channel on SiriusXM, has

spent a huge amount of time devoted to this subject (CBC Radio One).

For whatever reason, there was a period where you would hear a report or a mini-documentary about this every day. It was really fascinating and some of the interviews actually made me sympathetic towards the nurses. In Canada they are (or were, two weeks ago) trying to decide whether or not to make vaccination of health workers mandatory.

Anyway, I just wanted to post this because when you dig down into the reasons and listen to them it's kind of a poignant debate. They are totally exhausted, have sacrificed any normalcy in their lives and feel they have given everything they have to the COVID fight, and they spend most of their days following guidelines and obeying orders and feel they have no control over their lives, and they are using the vaccine debate to try to assert some little measure of control.

So people can call it stupid or ignorant or whatever, but that is one of the major reasons they are hesitating or resisting. It is not an anti-science issue; deep down it is a personal and psychological issue having to do with exhaustion and a sense of powerlessness.

Personally, I think the answer is to make it voluntary and then a lot of these people will get the shot, but if you tell them they have no choice in the matter, they are going to resist and feel aggrieved.

I wish we would hold off just a bit before going after Kyrsten Sinema

Unlike Manchin, she just got into office in 2018 and some of us are still watching to see if she finds her sea legs. She has been more assertive since this time last year at Impeachment #1. It looked like she was beginning to come out of her shell, so to speak.

She has done other things too. At a time when no public officials, not even our governor, were giving advice or helping with COVID, she set up her own personal website to get people help, she sent out emails every few days or once a week, and she is easy to access and get responses from.

Arizona is not California or Massachusetts. We shouldn't put a senate seat at risk so capriciously. Let's see if she makes good on her threat re: the filibuster. Don't forget all the times she has voted with us when the stakes were high, when she could have done the safe thing and voted with Repukes without it actually changing the outcome.

Okay, I'll admit it.

I think Epstein committed suicide.

And my opinion is based on the nonstop flurry of legal activity he engaged in the weeks prior, and that he redrafted and deliberately restructured his will to shield his fortune from his victims ever recovering any of it, and signed it two days before he committed suicide... or whatever happened to him.

Witness and anecdotal reports are that he was in a much better mood those last days than he had been prior to that, when he was said to be a broken, inconsolable mess. That last week or so he seemed in better spirits, talkative with his lawyers etc... (i.e., his plan was in place). It is not uncommon for people who decide to end their lives to have a burst of euphoria in the days prior to suicide. It's a strange thing, but it's like a weight has been lifted off of them, because they know what they will do, they have a plan, and they are happy with their decision. From their point of view, their misery is about to come to an end.

And also, I reflect on the kind of life he lived and how he was looking at spending the rest of his life in prison, and how humiliating his trial would have been.

Narcissists do commit suicide sometimes, especially if it is a way to screw over their "enemies." It is usually an act of anger, and a way of "having the last laugh."

Same here.

I can't stand activist investors like Bill Ackman who shorts a company like Herbalife and spends the next five years trying to destroy the company. I don't care if those guys are ruined.

But the "Russell 2000" weighted funds and ETFs are in a lot of pension funds and 401Ks. Those passive investors, who are mostly ordinary people, mostly retirees, woke up two days ago owning a shitload of unstable GameStop stock...

What if the Reddit crowd figures out how to ruin regular long investors?

This is so reminiscent of how Paul Manafort pressured Alt-Right influencers

to spread pro-Yanukovych, anti-Tymoshenko Russian disinformation earlier last decade. Ben Shapiro, then at Breitbart, was one of a number of easily-manipulated tools.

Former Trump aide approved 'black ops' to help Ukraine president

Exclusive: Paul Manafort authorised secret media operation that sought to discredit key opponent of then Ukrainian president

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/apr/05/ex-trump-aide-paul-manafort-approved-black-ops-to-help-ukraine-president

This system serves them well enough; they reuse it to our detriment.

Absolutely brilliant

as is Christopher Browning.

IMHO, Hindenburg was was more indecisive and susceptible to influence than McConnell. He was prodded into taking these measures mostly by General Kurt von Schleicher and former Chancellor Franz von Papen, who also made the mistake of thinking Hitler could be pushed around. Again, they wanted his base, mostly the SA, but they were afraid disillusioned Nazis would defect to the Communist party, because a large segment of them were nihilistic anarchists at heart. The Russian Revolution and conspiracy theories spawned by Germany's defeat in WWI created a "terror" of a far left revolution in Germany.

You're definitely not wrong.

I would only suggest one go back a bit further to at least the conclusion of WWI, the Treaty of Versailles, the dangerous conspiracy theories Germany's loss spawned, the phobia triggered in Germany by the Russian Revolution, and also include the later impact of the Great Depression on the German economy. There were also a ridiculous number of political parties in Germany, making it nearly impossible to form a dominant coalition party in the Reichstag.

I agree there is a lot to unpack, and only studying WWII is not sufficient to understand the Third Reich.

Checked by reality, some QAnon supporters seek a way out

Associated Press via Press Herald
BY DAVID KLEPPER ASSOCIATED PRESS
Posted 3:41 PM Updated at 3:41 PM

Some followers of the QAnon conspiracy theory are now turning to online support groups and even therapy to help them move on.

It's a really hard nut to crack. Cult expert Steven Hassan writes in

Matt Gaetz recently made a strange statement: