Holy Moses

Another in a seemingly endless series of very busy weeks but we’ve got you covered. First up: The Oracle himself, Governor Haley Barbour. He’s got a perspective of 50 years in politics, so we thought we have him on to see what he thinks of the last few months. Prepared to get schooled. Then, as freedom of speech on digital platforms –like the one you’re reading right now– is now one of the most important issues facing society, we thought we have on someone who is on the front lines of the debate. Meet Venture Capitalist and fierce 1st Amendment advocate David Sacks (and be sure to watch the extended cut David’s segment in our new members only feature, Rob Long’s Six Dumb Questions which can be found here). Also, impeachment, Pelosi, and yes, Rob Long predicts the coming re-unification of the Republican Party. You heard it here first.

Music from this week’s show: Man Out of Time by Elvis Costello

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  1. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Single-use litter boxes, delivered to your door?

    Wow.  The whole country REALLY IS being turned into a gigantic assisted-living facility.

    I also note that that sponsor does not appear above.  ^

    • #1
  2. EDISONPARKS Member
    EDISONPARKS
    @user_54742

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Single-use litter boxes, delivered to your door?

    Wow. The whole country REALLY IS being turned into a gigantic assisted-living facility.

    I also note that that sponsor does not appear above. ^

    I thought the litter boxes were intended for the domesticated animals(ie: cats and dogs).

    Has this become a Vegan thing …. who knew?

    • #2
  3. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    EDISONPARKS (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Single-use litter boxes, delivered to your door?

    Wow. The whole country REALLY IS being turned into a gigantic assisted-living facility.

    I also note that that sponsor does not appear above. ^

    I thought the litter boxes were intended for the domesticated animals(ie: cats and dogs).

    Has this become a Vegan thing …. who knew?

    Yes, but it’s still becoming an assisted-living facility in that more and more, nobody has to leave their home for anything:  food, tools, electronics… and now pre-filled, disposable litter boxes!  Yes, for their pets.  But people have been able to get their own “litter” – toilet paper – delivered for quite some time.  This is another step.

    • #3
  4. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    “Jack?”  Let’s just call him what he is:  Beardie McWeirdBeard.

    • #4
  5. MARTIN WORNATH Coolidge
    MARTIN WORNATH
    @ManOfTheWest

    Haley said, “I hope the pandemic is a once in a hundred year deal”….  No, it will come once every four or eight years – whenever there is a Republican President.  Count on it.

    • #5
  6. James Lileks Contributor
    James Lileks
    @jameslileks

    kedavis (View Comment):

    EDISONPARKS (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Single-use litter boxes, delivered to your door?

    Wow. The whole country REALLY IS being turned into a gigantic assisted-living facility.

    I also note that that sponsor does not appear above. ^

    I thought the litter boxes were intended for the domesticated animals(ie: cats and dogs).

    Has this become a Vegan thing …. who knew?

    Yes, but it’s still becoming an assisted-living facility in that more and more, nobody has to leave their home for anything: food, tools, electronics… and now pre-filled, disposable litter boxes! Yes, for their pets. But people have been able to get their own “litter” – toilet paper – delivered for quite some time. This is another step.

    Capitalism, baby! Find a niche and fill it. I say this as someone who shops outside in the Real World as much as possible, but if I had a cat, as slight or infirm,  and didn’t want to schlep bags of litter back and forth, sure. 

    • #6
  7. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    James Lileks (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    EDISONPARKS (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Single-use litter boxes, delivered to your door?

    Wow. The whole country REALLY IS being turned into a gigantic assisted-living facility.

    I also note that that sponsor does not appear above. ^

    I thought the litter boxes were intended for the domesticated animals(ie: cats and dogs).

    Has this become a Vegan thing …. who knew?

    Yes, but it’s still becoming an assisted-living facility in that more and more, nobody has to leave their home for anything: food, tools, electronics… and now pre-filled, disposable litter boxes! Yes, for their pets. But people have been able to get their own “litter” – toilet paper – delivered for quite some time. This is another step.

    Capitalism, baby! Find a niche and fill it. I say this as someone who shops outside in the Real World as much as possible, but if I had a cat, as slight or infirm, and didn’t want to schlep bags of litter back and forth, sure.

    Sure, if you can afford it.  That’s a big difference right there.  Obviously there’s no way they’re providing this service for what it costs to buy a bag of litter and put it in the pan you already own, after dumping out the old.  (I don’t bother with clumping stuff, too many cats for that to work out well.)

    And plain litter can be delivered free too, for that matter.  By walmart.com for example, if you order $49 worth of stuff or whatever the free-shipping point is now.

    It wouldn’t actually surprise me if that place is getting the pre-filled disposable litter boxes put together by “slave labor” in China, shipping them over, and then they get sent to customers for X times what it would cost to do it themselves.

    It sounds to me like those people have the problems of the Average Joe!

    And thus our economy declines further…

    • #7
  8. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    I’ll save everybody some grief on the latest distribution controversy. The reporting still isn’t that great but the initial reporting is very confusing. You have to look at what they are saying about it very carefully instead of listening to Democrats or the statist media.

    A senior administration official told CNN that when the administration announced that it would be releasing reserved doses Friday, many of those reserves had already been released into the system starting last year as production was ramping up.When Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar was asked Friday whether there is in fact a reserve of second doses left to release, he said, “No. There’s not a reserve stockpile.”“We now have enough confidence that our ongoing production will be quality and available to provide the second dose for people, so we’re not sitting on a reserve anymore,” he said in an interview with NBC’s Lester Holt. “We’ve made that available to the states to order.”

    However, vaccine maker Pfizer said it had the doses ready to deliver. What was not immediately clear was how long it might take to get those doses to states.

    So when you hear people babbling about this, it isn’t clear who is lying, if they are lying, there was miscommunication between the government and Pfizer, or if Pfizer just screwed up.

     

    https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/15/politics/coronavirus-vaccine-reserve-dose/index.html

     

     

    • #8
  9. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

     Haley Barbour going on and on about being a “party of ideas”. Then he spouts the tedious stuff Republicans always repeat that they are for. 

    Everything moves left and statist no matter what.

    If you want to know where we have been and where we are, you are better off listening to David Stockman and Steve Bannon. Then act accordingly.

     

    • #9
  10. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    Everything is different today because of the network effect. There has never been a situation like this in history and everybody leaves it out. The government has to step in and call them common carriers because nobody is going to overcome that.

     

     

     

    • #10
  11. MISTER BITCOIN Inactive
    MISTER BITCOIN
    @MISTERBITCOIN

    RufusRJones (View Comment):

    Everything is different today because of the network effect. There has never been a situation like this in history and everybody leaves it out. The government has to step in and call them common carriers because nobody is going to overcome that.

     

     

     

     

     

    • #11
  12. MISTER BITCOIN Inactive
    MISTER BITCOIN
    @MISTERBITCOIN

    • #12
  13. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    MISTER BITCOIN (View Comment):

    The potential of block chain is mine boggling. It’s also insanely deflationary.

    • #13
  14. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    The David Sacks segment was the best explanation of this stuff I have ever heard. 

    • #14
  15. Jon1979 Inactive
    Jon1979
    @Jon1979

    RufusRJones (View Comment):

    However, vaccine maker Pfizer said it had the doses ready to deliver. What was not immediately clear was how long it might take to get those doses to states.

    So when you hear people babbling about this, it isn’t clear who is lying, if they are lying, there was miscommunication between the government and Pfizer, or if Pfizer just screwed up.

    From what I can see here in Texas (which reported its one millionth vaccination on Friday) distributing the Pfizer vaccine has to be more carefully done than the Moderna one, because of the ultra-cold temperatures Pfizer’s product has to be stored at (i.e. — Moderna vaccines can be shipped and stored at secondary vaccination centers like pharmacies, but Pfizer’s doses are general limited to large medical facilities, because they’re the only ones with the refrigeration equipment to store the vaccine at -70 to -100 F. Your local Walgreen’s just isn’t going to have that type of cold storage on property).

    • #15
  16. Belt Inactive
    Belt
    @Belt

    I don’t mean this as an aspersion, or a slur, or any sort of comment on his ideas, but to my ear Haley Barbour just sounds like he’s really really drunk.

    • #16
  17. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    Jon1979 (View Comment):

    RufusRJones (View Comment):

    However, vaccine maker Pfizer said it had the doses ready to deliver. What was not immediately clear was how long it might take to get those doses to states.

    So when you hear people babbling about this, it isn’t clear who is lying, if they are lying, there was miscommunication between the government and Pfizer, or if Pfizer just screwed up.

    From what I can see here in Texas (which reported its one millionth vaccination on Friday) distributing the Pfizer vaccine has to be more carefully done than the Moderna one, because of the ultra-cold temperatures Pfizer’s product has to be stored at (i.e. — Moderna vaccines can be shipped and stored at secondary vaccination centers like pharmacies, but Pfizer’s doses are general limited to large medical facilities, because they’re the only ones with the refrigeration equipment to store the vaccine at -70 to -100 F. Your local Walgreen’s just isn’t going to have that type of cold storage on property).

    A decent reporter would be trying to find out if that had anything to do with it. 

    People were going crazy about this yesterday, but you have to tease out exactly what is happening instead of just babbling about it. Something clearly went wrong, but we don’t know what it is yet. The other thing is two people at 60% are better than one at 100%, theoretically. 

    The left and never trump went full political on this right away of course. 

    • #17
  18. EJHill Podcaster
    EJHill
    @EJHill

    Belt: I don’t mean this as an aspersion, or a slur, or any sort of comment on his ideas, but to my ear Haley Barbour just sounds like he’s really really drunk.

    Mr. Barbour has always sounded like that. His is the textbook of a Southern drawl. As a certain crooner from the Pacific Northwest used to say, a good Southern drawl can take a three syllable word and spread it over 16-bars of music.

    • #18
  19. Ida Claire Member
    Ida Claire
    @IdaClaire

    EJHill (View Comment):
    good Southern drawl can take a three syllable word and spread it over 16-bars of music.

    I love this. Being a PNW native, Is love to know, who is the crooner? Bing Crosby?

    • #19
  20. Weeping Inactive
    Weeping
    @Weeping

    kedavis (View Comment):

    EDISONPARKS (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Single-use litter boxes, delivered to your door?

    Wow. The whole country REALLY IS being turned into a gigantic assisted-living facility.

    I also note that that sponsor does not appear above. ^

    I thought the litter boxes were intended for the domesticated animals(ie: cats and dogs).

    Has this become a Vegan thing …. who knew?

    Yes, but it’s still becoming an assisted-living facility in that more and more, nobody has to leave their home for anything: food, tools, electronics… and now pre-filled, disposable litter boxes! Yes, for their pets. But people have been able to get their own “litter” – toilet paper – delivered for quite some time. This is another step.

    That’s technology for you. It’s definitely a double-edged sword. 

    • #20
  21. Weeping Inactive
    Weeping
    @Weeping

    MARTIN WORNATH (View Comment):

    Haley said, “I hope the pandemic is a once in a hundred year deal”…. No, it will come once every four or eight years – whenever there is a Republican President. Count on it.

    I fear you may be right about that. Sigh.

    • #21
  22. dukenaltum Inactive
    dukenaltum
    @dukenaltum

    RufusRJones (View Comment):

    Everything is different today because of the network effect. There has never been a situation like this in history and everybody leaves it out. The government has to step in and call them common carriers because nobody is going to overcome that.

     

    The Chinese model comes to the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave. 

     

     

    • #22
  23. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    dukenaltum (View Comment):

    RufusRJones (View Comment):

    Everything is different today because of the network effect. There has never been a situation like this in history and everybody leaves it out. The government has to step in and call them common carriers because nobody is going to overcome that.

     

    The Chinese model comes to the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave.

     

     

    Everybody has to be able to explain this really well and you have to include the term “network effect”. If you leave it out, it makes it sound like combining capital with good management is going to give the libertarians and the conservatives some kind of opportunity. This is never happening. 

    They are obviously doing the bidding of the Democrat party which controls the bureaucracy and vice a versa. 

    Four companies control the public square and the constitution cannot function as intended in this situation.

    • #23
  24. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    RufusRJones (View Comment):

    Haley Barbour going on and on about being a “party of ideas”. Then he spouts the tedious stuff Republicans always repeat that they are for.

    Everything moves left and statist no matter what.

    If you want to know where we have been and where we are, you are better off listening to David Stockman and Steve Bannon. Then act accordingly.

    I pretty much skipped over Haley Barbour.  Seems like he hasn’t really been very relevant for at least a couple decades.

    • #24
  25. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    David French weighs in on extra-governmental law enforcement. It’s all OK because they report to the Democrat party.

    As these collective failures convulsed the nation, the individuals who ran Facebook, Twitter, and AWS faced a difficult choice. Do they use their lawful power to help restore order when other institutions had failed? At Twitter and Facebook, that meant potentially yanking the president’s accounts. He had, after all, serially violated the site’s terms of service. His very presence on the platforms was a sign that he enjoyed a certain presidential privilege – a degree of immunity denied the conventional user.

     

    So AWS pulled the plug. Parler went dark.

    Why spend so much space outlining the factual context? Because context matters, and discussions of theoretical and hypothetical ramifications of “Big Tech’s” decision should not be divorced from the meaningful facts. American democracy itself was under attack, and there were already online indications that armed protests would be staged throughout the country. These three companies, staffed with thousands upon thousands of American citizens who love their country, had not just the liberty to respond meaningfully, they had the power to respond meaningfully.

    They could help choke off the lines of communication between a president and a nascent insurrection. And they did. They could help prevent the spread of specific death and rape threats against their fellow Americans. And they did.

     

     

     

    • #25
  26. EJHill Podcaster
    EJHill
    @EJHill

    Ida Claire:

    EJHill:
    good Southern drawl can take a three syllable word and spread it over 16-bars of music.

    I love this. Being a PNW native, Is love to know, who is the crooner? Bing Crosby?

    That would be correct. And the person he was referring to was actress Tallulah Bankhead who hailed from Alabama. She came from a prominent Cotton State political family – her father, William, was an 11-term member of the House (the last two as Speaker) and her grandfather and uncle, John and John II, each were elected to 3 terms in the US Senate. 

    • #26
  27. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Weeping (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    EDISONPARKS (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Single-use litter boxes, delivered to your door?

    Wow. The whole country REALLY IS being turned into a gigantic assisted-living facility.

    I also note that that sponsor does not appear above. ^

    I thought the litter boxes were intended for the domesticated animals(ie: cats and dogs).

    Has this become a Vegan thing …. who knew?

    Yes, but it’s still becoming an assisted-living facility in that more and more, nobody has to leave their home for anything: food, tools, electronics… and now pre-filled, disposable litter boxes! Yes, for their pets. But people have been able to get their own “litter” – toilet paper – delivered for quite some time. This is another step.

    That’s technology for you. It’s definitely a double-edged sword.

    Maybe Gene Roddenberry was right, but not in the way he thought:  We won’t eventually FIND the Talosians, we’re going to BECOME the Talosians!

    • #27
  28. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

     

     

     

     

    • #28
  29. Blue Yeti Admin
    Blue Yeti
    @BlueYeti

    kedavis (View Comment):

    RufusRJones (View Comment):

    Haley Barbour going on and on about being a “party of ideas”. Then he spouts the tedious stuff Republicans always repeat that they are for.

    Everything moves left and statist no matter what.

    If you want to know where we have been and where we are, you are better off listening to David Stockman and Steve Bannon. Then act accordingly.

    I pretty much skipped over Haley Barbour. Seems like he hasn’t really been very relevant for at least a couple decades.

    The point of having Haley on was to let him share his perspective of a 50 year career in politics on current events. He’s seen it all and done it all. Seems like we might learn something from him?

    “Your guest isn’t relevant, have Steve Bannon on” is hilarious, though.

    • #29
  30. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    Blue Yeti (View Comment):
    “Your guest isn’t relevant, have Steve Bannon” on is hilarious, though. 

    I find him informative. The 2 1/2 hour Frontline interview is excellent.

    I already tried to get him on before and you said no.

    • #30
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