June links

Negotiations with Iran. Trump does a U-turn because he wants something done. Also he might be trying to head off Bolton's push to war.

Hong Kong protests. China is trying to depress freedoms in Hong Kong, again. That's a difficult situation, and those are brave people.

Did tax cuts help the economy? Economists were in a race to check for the indicators before they were swamped by Trump's trade wars. The data is rather muddy.

Shaming Congress. Jon Stewart speaking with such humanity and passion to a bunch of butt-kissing politicians. This is the kind of person we need in Congress, not the ones we have now. (Scroll down for video of his full speech.) An economist tells Trump why too many sanctions are harmful.

Shaming a politically correct college. Oberlin College was hit with a massive judgment for abetting trumped-up demonstrations by students against a local business.

Special considerations when pregnant women are jailed. I have never considered this issue, but it seems that the jail and prison managers haven't either, and they have no excuse.

Forged videos and fake news. The fakers now have even better tools for the lies they may want to spread. Yikes!

The internet remembers everything. And Twitter rewards 'mean,' so you're screwed if you've used it, and you're nobody if you haven't.

Image: giphy.com

Debunking idiots who believe conspiracy theories

Sigh. I know I spend too much time on the internet, and sometimes get enraged (or merely involved) with gullible people who have fallen for various conspiracy theories. There are theories about CFR (Council for Foreign Relations), PNAC (Project for the New American Century), 9/11 truthers, and, of course, lizard people.

A crazy commenter, Stonehillady, got me thinking about how the World Trade Center towers fell. In turn, I found a great site that explains it very well, while pointing out the flaws in the half-baked conspiracy theories.

Here's one: how many pounds of thermite would be needed to bring down the Twin Towers? I read it somewhere (can't find it now), and the load would have taken something like nine trucks full of thermite. Then the charges would have had to be placed and wired, and who knows what else. And it was all set up to coincide with terrorists flying planes into the towers. Amazing planning that must have been! Literally incredible and unbelievable.

So, if you don't believe the thermite hypothesis (hint: don't believe it), here is a fairly thorough explanation of why the towers collapsed. I can't give a particularly short version of the explanation, except to say it was a combination of the construction, impact of the plane, fire, and buckling of the supports under those conditions. Read the whole thing if you're interested. I learned a lot.

Image: debunking911.com

Resilience

An American remembering 9/11:

...I was in an office five blocks from the Capitol on 9/11, and after watching the second plane hit the Trade Center live on television, and seeing the smoke rising on the horizon in the direction of the Pentagon from our windows (right after a colleague called in to say she had seen a plane crash into the Pentagon from her car on I-95), several of us, without words, left our office and walked out onto Pennsylvania Avenue and stood on the sidewalk staring at the Capitol, from which pedestrians were streaming. The dome looked so incredibly frail, like an eggshell. 

I also have vivid memories of 9/11. Like the author, I was watching live reporting when the second plane smashed into one of the World Trade Towers.

All that fall, I worried about additional attacks. And they happened--in the form of anthrax sent through the mail. I was on edge for months, turning on CNN immediately after coming home from work or errands.

Gradually, I got over this anxiety and obsessive vigilance. And even my anxiety was a luxury because the country didn't come close to collapsing. I wasn't worried about defending myself, my family, and any survival provisions we had. I watched as debris was cleared, people moved back into homes near the disaster site, the economy teetered but didn't nose-dive.

Still Going

What I saw was the resilience of this country. But it wasn't a large attack. It's unclear what the Islamist planners of the attack thought would happen. Perhaps they thought it would provoke a major war between the West and the Islamic countries. If so, they partially got their wish.

However, neither side is even close to victory or defeat. There is still lots of fighting, but it's confined almost exclusively to Islamic countries, while the Western countries enjoy mostly peace and relative comfort. Perhaps that means the planners of the 9/11 attacks failed, but they play the long game--hoping for success decades or centuries from now. I don't think they will win, but the hope clearly keeps them going.

I'm so happy for my resilience (which didn't face much of a test), and for the resilience of the US. Unfortunately, the people who hate us are also resilient. But perhaps that's an attribute of humanity, so I can't be too upset about it. Better that we're all resilient than none of us.

Then...

Now...

Images: (top) nbsnews..com; (bottom) cheekyspanky