In today's Arrow we talk about how fun airports are, the first ATM, the bending of steel, the establishment fights back viciously, Jacinda love of freedom of speech, the rules of the road, and the video of the week.
I am 76 and have been an avid biker all of my life. As an example, at age 15, with two firends, we biked from Detroit to Niagra Falls, via soutern Ontario, in March. Basically, it is a miracle I have never been injured. The new biker/road fascination is going to produce more mangled and dead bodies.
Believe it or not, it was safer biking in inner city detroit in 1960 than it is now in most of the redesigned cities with designated bike lanes. The rail trails are a major step forward, but the attempt to integrate biking and city streets is not.
In 1960 Detroit had few bicyclysts. Because of the rarity, on average, motorists had more tolerance. Secondly, the inner city street corners had small turn radii, which slowed the traffic down, always 25-30 mph. I can't remember when right-turn-on-red came along, but it introduced open season on pedestrians and bikers. If you want to accommodate school buses and speed up the flow, all of this was necessary. Suburbs or even inner cities, like DC, have instituted a Rube Goldberg backfit and it won't work. Recently I even saw a marked, two way bike lane on a one-way street. They did not change the street signals so if you were going the wrong way, you had better guess correctly about the traffic lights.
I confine myself to trails now. The most unsafe riding I attempt is two miles, on a suburban residential street to get me to the W&OD trail. The hazards on the trails used to be confined to the intersections, but lately the electric bikes and scooters have increased. So now, you have to worry about a 250 lb fat guy riding a 50-60lb electric bike at 20 plus mph. And the discharged rental EV's are discarded all over the place, like around a blind curve in the middle of the path. I regard most of this as designed in stupity. It is not progress. LIke I said, it was safer on a bike on a Detroit street in 1960 than it is today.
One of my issues with bike rules as they are today vs when I was a kid is that now bikers ride with the traffic instead of against it. When I was a kid--a time during which I biked everywhere for years--you rode against the traffic. Granted, if you had a head on collision, the force was doubled. But by being able to see what was coming at you, it was much easier to avoid such a collision. If the guy who got run down in Las Vegas recently had been riding against traffic, he could have avoided the murderous teen who hit him. Instead, he never saw it coming. Stupid rule change, in my view, at least.
I put giant side/rear-view mirrors on my bike, and check them all the time. Plus I never ride with headphones. I see people biking just oblivious to the world. God help them.
What an amazing Arrow, Mike - even more so than usual!
I think Bret and Heather were demonetized (which meant losing their income after losing their jobs at Evergreen - another horror story) when they - perhaps it was only Bret - interviewed Robert Malone (he of the mRNA vaccines) and Steve Kirsch. During that interview, which Kirsch kept annoyingly interrupting, I remember Malone saying that he tried to warn the FDA about myocarditis in young men. They paid no attention, obviously. From then on The Darkhorse podcast continued to be shown on YouTube but they got absolutely no money from it. They can now (for anyone who wants to check) be found on Rumble, Locals, and Spotify.
I also share your feelings about Brand - don't like being yelled at for entire videos (besides which I believe he's a vegetarian so he also may be on the "get rid of meat" train) - but you're right - he's definitely gone after big Pharma. And is being punished. First thing I thought of when I saw the headlines. Glad you also wrote about the Ken Paxton debacle. I couldn't quite figure that one out since Texas is normally a red state. As for Jacinda - I'm beyond embarrassed that my alma mater has awarded her so much recognition. When I discovered that she was the 2022 commencement speaker whom Bacow called a "compassionate leader" I nearly lost my lunch. And I too caught the Naomi Wolf/Ed Dowd talk. Honestly - it's absolutely wonderful that you've put all these disparate findings in your column this week although I despair at what it all means since none of the "legacy media seems able or willing to discuss it. So thank you - a million more times.
I was so compelled and fascinated by the Arrow this week that - either I didn't find any typos (just gobbling up the column) or you didn't make any. I'm going with the latter.
Thanks for the nice comment. And thanks for not finding any typos. Maybe I'm improving. Or, more likely, MD caught them all on her once over before I hit send.
It is a really disgusting state of affairs we're in the middle of right now. And, I don't see it getting any better until a lot of things change.
Couldn't agree more about the state of affairs - no clue about how to fix anything. Do you know who Dr. (not medical) Robert Epstein is? Check him out on Wikipedia - he's managed to collect google data on nudging elections for a number of years and at this point - with what he's collected - I'm amazed he's still alive, my faith in the controlling elite being what it is. He's been interviewed by Jimmy Dore (who actually did a good job asking questions) and by Joe Rogan - who mostly asks good questions - and has a lot more time to discuss things.
I didn't know about Robert Epstein until your comment. Just looked him up. Turns out he has the same birthday I do. Not the year, but the day. Interesting guy. Given what he's done, I'm surprised I hadn't heard of him. Thanks for the heads up.
Mike - here's something else to check out: Dr. Anthony Chaffee is a neurosurgeon who has some really interesting videos on eating carnivore where he answers questions - lots of them. In one of his latest YouTube Q&As, he mentions you and your lecture, I believe last year, on calories and heat and weight loss. He does go on about you for a bit - very high praise - thought you might like to see it, if you haven't already. I think I've teed it up at the right place.
I am 67. Over my life, I have always had the most success with the “Atkins” low-carb program or approach. Eliminate all sugar and carbs. I could do this for 30 days and drop a quick 10-15 pounds but always went back to my old self, so I would guess I probably have lost and gained more than 500 pounds in my life.
But as I aged, I found it was getting harder and harder to work for me. I became discouraged, and over the last 25-30 years, I thought, "I guess I will always be fat." I had never found something that felt like a permanent fix. Now I am convinced I found it!
As usual, I started alone with this in mid-March (partly in preparation for my late April hip replacement surgery surgery) and our youngest daughter’s wedding in December. I made up my mind I wanted to take off at least 50 pounds. I probably needed to lose 100-150, but I figured that was impossible. ( FYI, I was 343 and 6'3" at that time).
As an aside, I am an estate planning attorney, and over my 35-year career, I noticed anecdotally, of course, that very few fat clients after age 75 lived, or if they did, they had a poor quality of life! My professional sense told me a longer-term solution was needed, or I needed to consider myself "terminally fat" and make sure my own affairs were in order. My next wife's husband would end up enjoying the fruits of my many hard years of work.
On March 17, 2023, I began another of my "normal" Atkins-style regimes but decided also to read more current material to supplement my efforts. God bless my wife. I found she had previously purchased The Obesity Code: Unlocking the Secrets of Weight Loss by Dr. Jason Fung. I read it nonstop after picking it up. The "science" made sense for the first time. Then I found that she also had purchased your book "Protein Power: The High Protein/Low Carbohydrate Way to Lose Weight, Feel Fit, and Boost Your Health - in Just Weeks by Michael R Eades, MD and Mary Dan Eades, M.D so I read, and enjoyed, it too. This is when I found your substack "The Arrow" and subscribed on 3-25-23. I eagerly devoured all your past content and anxiously awaited your next article. Thank you.
Eventually, I connected with and hired Dr. Elie Jarrouge, who offers online metabolic coaching, https://www.metabolichealthmd.com/ I hired him mostly for the accountability that I needed.
I want to thank you! This is the first time in my life I really understood the interaction and science of protein, carbs, and fat in what food and drink choices I was making. I started using MyFitnessPal app too, which helps me to track too. I have (and Elie wants me to) begun to learn and try out Intermittent Fasting to get as metabolically healthy as I can. Most of the SAD diet (Standard American Diet) is so bad it’s amazing. He promotes higher protein, limiting carbs, eliminating all sugar, and eating “clean” unprocessed food.
I am down 40+ pounds as of today and now am confident that in 2024, I will get to 100 or more pounds off without feeling deprived or even that I am "dieting." It is uncanny and easy now. My blood lipids and triglycerides (and ratios) are all great, and my doctor tells me I am no longer "pre-diabetic"!
I am already at a weight I have not been in 18 years and wearing clothes that I put in the attic closet for Goodwill 15 years ago!
As a side note, my journey was challenged by my surgery. I spent the last few months out of my office from the elective hip surgery on April 25th when I perioperatively hospital-acquired polymicrobial infection (Escherichia coli & Pseudomonas aeruginosa) that surfaced within a week. This required a second surgery to remove the first hip and the joint to be redone. A literal “do over”!
If that’s not bad enough, I spent three days in ICU due to a hospital medication error that caused a type 2 cardiac event and bradycardia during surgery. I required round-the-clock antibiotic infusions for the infections for 12 weeks through a picc line with a nurse in my home. I am still on oral antibiotics but slowly getting my life back and in my office now, albeit with a shortened schedule. My weight loss journey stalled for a couple of weeks, as one might imagine.
But another interesting observation was the food they served most during my hospital stay. The food is generally really bad, but the choices are all way too processed and high carbs. EVERY tray, no matter what I ordered, had two sugar packets! Did they think I had plans to put sugar on my scrambled eggs, broccoli, or green beans?
I also have figured out, and I suspect you agree, that Big Pharma (and even most doctors) are not into making you as healthy as they can. Sadly, their business model needs you kind of sick. We are on our own to learn the rest.
At 67, I have decided to live every day as if it is my last and be sure that in the 5, 10, 15, or more years I have left on this planet, I have done all I can do for my wife, children, and grandchildren to leave them with fond memories. With what I have learned from you, Jung, and Elie, I feel confident I will get back to my high school or college weight, which I never thought possible before!
I plan to drop 10 pounds more before October 5th, my birthday. This week I had to go to the clothing store to get my wedding clothes taken in or reordered so that I may up my carbs and I will can stay the same till after the wedding. Our youngest daughter's wedding is in Puerto Vallarta in December, and the bride wants us to all wear white. I ordered a custom pair made pair of white linen trousers and a white linen shirt for the wedding in February, and as you can imagine, both are hanging loose on me now. When I put them on, I looked similar to a Chinese spy balloon, somewhat deflated! I reordered all new, smaller ones. A nice problem to have.
My wife has been doing this, too, with me, and she has already gotten there! In fact, she has begun adding carbs to slow down and remain steady as she already had to buy a new (smaller size) dress for the wedding. She is now at her college weight.
I cannot thank you enough for what you have done for me and my wife!
Thanks for the long, detailed history. Looks like you're on your way to much better health. Your hospital experience is exactly why everyone should avoid hospitals (the belly fo the beast, as McGuff calls it) like death. With the kind of infections you ended up with, esp Pseudomonas, you're lucky to still be with us.
Congrats on the work you've done so far. Keep it up!
You're lucky you survived your hospital visit! A friend of mine got some jaw surgery which also got infected and hod to be redone. My sister probbly has ALS, but doctors can only "do tests" and not offer any help. Pretty much every story I hear about hospitals/doctors/surgery involves some variation of: got an infection and almost died, they did the surgery wrong, had to do it again; they did the surgery then ignored the sepsis; they gave me the wrong drugs; they never looked at my ex-ray to see the hernia; etc. etc. Has medical care and training actually gotten worse? Too many poorly trained doctors? Or does it just look that way?
Congrats on your weight loss, BTW! Are you doing a very strict low carb? I need to lose wright, but nothing is really working. Too old I guess, plus I'm 55 year old female, so you all know what that means. I eat mostly eggs and meats, having cut out the carbs, sugars, processed foods, fake sugars, drinking milk, eating breakfast, etc long ago. There's nothing "easy" left to do. I envy the people who can just "stop drinking Mt. Dew" and lose weight, lol.
Sep 24, 2023·edited Sep 25, 2023Liked by Michael Eades
Actually, what I am doing is more called high protein, medium fat, and low carb. Dr Eades book is great at explaining much of this. I dropped cheese 100% but eat as many salads and vegetables as possible. I DO NOT count calories. Jung's book explained all that to me. Eliminate all snacking. But intermittent fasting seems to help, too. I try to get all my meals within an 8-hour window, very hard at first. At first, I could only go 10-12 hours, but it makes a difference. I am convinced the idea of eating small amounts all day is total BS. The science does not seem to work that way.
Read the Obesity Code book. Jung makes total sense of how putting more time between meals is historically good for the body.
@Dennis, as you are continuing your journey and learning, you may also want to spend some time learning about your microbiome. You have been on so many antibiotics that devastate your gut health, you'll need to repair that. Sharply increased appetite and inflammation can be a couple of many symptoms (I gained weight sharply after a hospitalization with extended IV antibiotics.) There is a lot of information out there.
Drs. Eades covered Leaky Gut Syndrome in "The Protein Power Lifeplan" book, but it is a couple of decades old.
Some other authors I have read specifically on gut health and the microbiome are Dr. Michael Ruscio, David Perlmutter M.D., William Davis M.D., Emeran Mayer M.D., and Natasha Campbell-McBride M.D.. Any of these will get you started down this rabbit hole.
Thank you. I have been taking both a probiotic and prebiotic daily, and eating as much fermented food, kimchi, pickles, and sauerkraut as I can. Plus Greek yogurt almost every day which has a lot of protein and helps the gut issues.
There's an account on X that posts a variety of insane things that humans do to shorten their lives; many deserve a Darwin award. One of the recurring patterns of road crashes seems to be many drivers have no idea how to brake quickly and forcefully!
Ugh. I took a look at that site. Shows various form of (often fatal) human stupidity on display. Which makes my case (and Doug McGuff's) about roads are for cars. It doesn't matter if you're in the right and obeying every law known to man if you're dead. And with all these idiots out driving, who would want to be at their mercy.
People drive like it's the first time they've ever been in a car. They cling to the steering wheel in fear like it's the safety bar on a roller-coster. They seem to have no idea that the pedals and wheel actually do things.
Welcome back! I hope you got your fill of haggis. (Zero grams would be the appropriate dosage IMO. :) A few remarks on this week's edition.
1. "My opinions on these subjects are all over the place, but I have one lodestone that I kind of set my sights by. And that, hokey as it may sound, is the US Constitution."
Hear, hear! And ditto for me. Neal Stephenson, the speculative fiction writer, once called it the best piece of prose ever written (or words to that effect).
2. "Wow! I just tried to insert this YouTube video like I did the one about the iron bending above. It didn’t work."
Bret & Heather Weinstein have been publishing their videos at Odysee.com after several de-monitization episodes at YouTube over COVID matters. See https://odysee.com/@BretWeinstein:f
Since I don't write on Substack, I don't know whether Substack will embed Odysee videos but that may be worth checking out.
3. "Who is Ken Paxton?"
Yes, I know who A.G. Paxton is. I don't know anything about Texas politics, and his recent impeachment surprised me. The failure to convict him *didn't* surprise me.
Mr. Paxton was the initiator of the "Battleground States" suit he brought against several other states after the last presidential election. I recall it well because the A.G. of my state joined that suit and I wrote my A.G. a letter complaining about his decision to join Paxton's suit. (Such a suit seems plainly unconstitutional to me -- but I Am Not A Lawyer.)
4. "Mail-in voting is rife with the potential for cheating. And as long as it is allowed, we will never have safe and secure elections. "
Show some evidence of "rife with the potential for cheating" or give up this one up, doc. I have yet to see this claim documented. That's not to say that voter fraud never happens, only that I don't think mail-in voting is any worse than in-person voting regarding fraud.
One of the most ironic things about this whole mail-in cheating claim is that Arizona adopted mail-in voting three decades ago -- when it was still "ruby red," mind you, so passed by Arizona's then-GOP-majority legislature. And it makes a lot of sense for Arizona, where there's a lot of territory for not-all-that-many people. Some folks have to drive quite a ways to find a polling place. (I lived in Tucson for several years and there's a lot o' countryside in Arizona.)
But now Arizona's GOP legislature wants mail-in voting curtailed? And all because of the claims by Kari Lake, Donald Trump, Blake Masters, and their like? To quote someone we all know: "SAD!"
Thanks for the welcome back. I did consume plenty of haggis. MD consumed more than I did. We both like it a lot.
No, I cannot embed either Odysee or Rumble on Substack. I could probably do it if I learned how to code, but I don't know if it would work. If you write about controversial subjects from an anti-establishment perspective, you end up using a lot of Odysee and/or Rumble videos, because YouTube censors them. It would be nice to be able to embed them, but I can't do so now.
According to my sources (see above), Arizona has had mail-in voting for "cities, towns, and school districts," but not presidential and other major elections. Recall in 2022 how there was a huge hoorah about how all the voting machines in a deeply red district went down or the printers wouldn't work or something that made GOP voters wait for hours, sending many away from the polls due to their time constraints. Why would that have happened had there been easy peasy mail-in voting?
As I wrote above, I have no issue with mail-in voting if the ballots can be verified. But mass mailing ballots to everyone on the list and accepting them without verification is a recipe for mischief.
Sorry to be so long in replying to your comment. We've been in Japan to meet with our older son's family, and the food there is only marginally better than it is in Scotland. (Japanese food is great... if you like fish and noodles for every meal.)
I'm not sure you're right about limitations on mail-in voting for "presidential and other major elections," doc. See...
Suffice it to say that Mr. Richer's a Republican (https://ballotpedia.org/Stephen_Richer). So what, exactly, should a conscientious *Republican* voting official do when he knows that the voting process works as intended - but he's being shouted down by losing Republican candidates (and their political allies) who command all the media attention?
Doesn't that sound like a media / perception problem, and not a "counting the votes" problem?
Completely disagree with you on the mail-in voting as major fraud thing. Eight states have implemented all mail in voting, 3 for over a decade (+1 other state on a county by county basis), which has shown to increase both parties votes and have equal or less fraud than states with traditional voting. Mail-in voting was never even considered an issue in or for those states for years -- nor all the many years before that when the military was the primary mail-in voters.
Only during COVID shutdowns, when someone in the red party got the idea that the blue party being more COVID adverse would cause more blue votes to come mail in, did all this talk about mail-in fraud destroying elections suddenly show up.
According to my sources (https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/table-18-states-with-all-mail-elections) there are only eight states that allow mail-in voting for presidential elections. Only one--Oregon--for over a decade. I've never lived in any of these eight states when they allowed mail in voting, so I don't know how they verify the identity of the voters sending in the mail-in ballots. I do know that Democrats go crazy whenever anyone in any state--Georgia, for example--asks for any kind of verification for voting. They always call it voter suppression. It always makes me wonder why asking for ID before getting on a plane isn't called air travel suppression. Or why asking for an ID before buying booze isn't called drinking suppression. Or why asking for an ID in any situation isn't called whatever it is suppression. And it's always the Democrats who raise a hue and cry about it. Why is that? Republicans and Libertarians don't ever raise hell if voters are asked to verify their eligibility to vote. It's only Democrats who do so. That should tell you something.
In his video I posted, Ken Paxton makes the case that Trump carried Texas and Georgia by the same margin in 2016. Which makes sense as they are both Red states in the south, i.e., they have similar demographics. Then in 2020, Texas went for Trump by the same margin as in 2016. But Georgia, a state that allowed mail-in balloting for the first time in 2020, went for Biden by a small margin. Same demographics, but a complete switcheroo in terms of how they voted.
As a reader emailed me, Georgia is run by Republicans, and they all said the election was on the up and up. Of course they did. The party in power in each state essentially runs that states election process. Do you think the Republicans were going to say, Oh, yeah, we were asleep at the wheel and cost Trump the election? Of course not, like politicians everywhere, their first thoughts are of their own continued employment. They don't want to admit they screwed the pooch.
California and Washington (and Oregon) vote pretty consistently on a statewide basis for Democratic candidates. I didn't go back and look, but I would bet both Biden and Hillary carried those states by similar margins in 2016 and 2020. Had, say, Washington gone for Trump by a small percentage after a major method of voting had been implemented in 2020, do you not think a few eyebrows would have been raised?
I believe you must have misread NCSL site. According to NCSL (which was also my source), OR enacted in 1998, WA in 2011 and CO in 2013 = 3 states for 10+ years -- additionally UT enacted county wide choice in 2012 (so 4 states although 1 only partially).
The rest of your response appears to be about Paxton's justification about why the GA election in particular must have been fraud due to mail in voting differences. This wasn't anything to do with my argument that mail-in voting has already been proven as not particularly fraudulent via all mail-in voting states + years of military mail-ins.
-- but to address it anyway, IMO comparing GA and TX is a false equivalency -- GA is just going through what happens when a state turns purple. CO went purple back in the late 90's early 2000's. Having lived through it, that is not a fun process for the party going out of power, but it has never meant before that there must have been voter fraud.
If you look across the country at the largest urban/non-urban, urban has been becoming more and more blue over the years. Which means that as urban areas get bigger, those political races that count only the total population are the ones that are impacted by the urban vote the most. CO had that pattern back in the early 2000's and GA very clearly shows that exact pattern with both President and both Senators going blue with most of that blue vote coming from urban areas. Even TX is heading that way too according to Texas Tribune and fivethirtyeight. GA went blue in these 100% of the state elections because their urban areas are just getting bigger and bigger, especially compared to the number of people that are not urban. Mail-in fraud theory doesn't suddenly override this logic just because one might wish the results were different.
Okay, when I looked at the site in the link, I looked at the date the mail-in voting went into effect, not the date it was authorized. I did misread the Washington date (I guess), which makes it six out of eight that do mail-in. But I don't know how they're verified. If the ballots are verified, I don't have a problem. But during the 2020 election, the whole thing was a fiasco.
I don't think Texas is turning blue or even purple anytime soon irrespective of what the Texas Tribune or 538 say. I live here, so I keep up with what's going on. A lot of people want it to turn purple, but it hasn't gotten close as of yet. And how do you explain Florida. It has a huge population and it has gone completely the other way.
As to Georgia, I just don't believe the demographics have turned that much, that quickly. But that's just my opinion. As some talk show host somewhere, sometime used to say, I'll give you the last word.
FL is actually a pretty purple state presidential election wise -- they've gone 50/50 in the last 4 elections.
For clarity, I didn't mean to imply Texas Tribune and 538 said TX was going purple, just that the Democrat vote was growing in TX urban areas (point spread lessoning) over the last 20 years.
The verification thing -- CO uses signature matching + the first time you vote by mail you need to include a copy of your id. If your signature doesn't match on later votes then it has to be cured. If you vote in person you do need an id (and they have a list of acceptable ones, including birth certificate so not just photo id).
But I don't have as much concern there as you do, I guess -- maybe because I remember a lot of years of going in person and just telling them my name and address & not having to show any id at all in both VA + CO.
According to Wikipedia, "no state required a voter to produce a government-issued photo ID as a condition for voting before the 2006 elections" and only 5 states required any id at all prior to the 2000's (quick search for other sites didn't find historical info -- only current info). NCLS site lists 16 states as not needing a specifically photo id.
And now I find myself wanting to do research on what various states actually consider voter fraud and how they find it :D (quick search only seems to find stuff saying there's so little fraud it isn't an issue)
I said I would give you the last word, and I will opinion-wise. I was turned away from the polling place in Dallas during the 2020 primary because I did not have a government ID. I had my wallet, which contained several photo IDs, including my Global Entry card. For some reason I had taken my TX driver's license out of my wallet and left it at home. MD was with me, and she had her TX DL plus all kinds of other ID. Nothing would work to make the woman running the thing let me vote. I had to drive home--fortunately it wasn't far--and get my TX DL before I could vote. In Nevada, where we lived and voted for 20 years, there was signature validation.
I look forward to the Arrow every week. It’s the best thing I read but i cringe when you refer to MD as “the bride” or “my bride”. Ask her if she likes this reference to her. I bet you will be surprised.
I asked her, and she responded, "I am your bride after lo these many decades. I don't mind at all." She said I could quote her, so I did. I figured she would not have an issue with it, because she proofs The Arrow before it goes out. Had she had an issue. she would have changed it.
Now I've got a question for you. Why do you find it distasteful? Or why would you think MD would find it distasteful?
I don’t find it distasteful. We had a neighbor once who often referred to his wife as my bride. It seemed to me she cringed slightly. My husband used it once and I asked him not to. I’m glad MD likes it. Sorry I mentioned it. I do love the Arrow.
Thanks again for your persistent efforts at publishing this newsletter.
About structural steel, my understanding is that it's normally sprayed with an insulating foam after installation, and in the Twin Towers that wasn't done beyond a certain number of bottom floors (i.e. first 60 floors). (This is a vague recollection.) I read this somewhere years ago.
I think your reverence for the US Constitution is misplaced. First, almost every Central and South American country, after gaining their independence, modeled their Constitution after ours. Even the Soviet Constitution guarantees the same freedoms. It didn't work for them. And obviously our Constitution is not working now in this country to prevent our loss of freedoms. I think it was a descriptive document, an attempt to explain or rationalize our founding populations views of their rights and freedoms, a combination of their rights as 18th century Englishman and the autonomy of living away from the centers of British Power. But as hokey as it may sound, those freedoms have to live in the hearts of the people. If it is no longer there for whatever reason, then no legal document will preserve it for very long.
Jacinda Ardern is truly frightening. It goes to show that everyone is a hero in their own story. Once again the only solution I see is to shot them in the head.
Thanks for the Doug McGuff video. I recognized the name from his book Body by Science which has been sitting on my bookshelf for some time. I'm sure Jim Croce wished he'd followed the pilot advice. It seems like a lot of musicians have died in small plane crashes. I will turn down my amateur pilot friends offers, as appealing as they seem at first blush.
Was the Outlander excursion a one and done or will you return to the scene of the drama?
I should have been more explicit. My reverence is to the Constitution and the form of government the founders laid out. The two work together. Here is a terrific video--totally non-partisan--of Scalia discussing this very issue. It will probably show up in next week's Arrow as an addendum to this week's. https://youtu.be/Ggz_gd--UO0?si=zdK_2ZPJMKjEb4F1 I just noticed that YouTube felt the need to put a context box under the video, which implies it is mis- or disinformation people have to be alert to. Jesus wept.
Thanks for that video link, Mike. In the one I watched the comments were turned off "for safety reasons, like to protect minors or for other safety violations." I think at this point Jesus must be weeping and gnashing his teeth at the very least. Excellent video - with nothing in it that I'm certain is being taught in any high schools in the country. Sigh. I look forward to your comments next week.
Thanks again. Only one quibble. I think if you lived in the UK you would not say The Times is a credible newspaper. I would definitely say that since March 2020 it's forgotten all about journalism. Sadly your praise for The Times skews the piece about Russell Brand (who I have worked with but that's another story) Trust me sir, there are no good mainstream newspapers in the UK
Does anyone here live in Texas? My mom's family side of the family is all Texas, and I lived there as a kid and I'm thinking about moving back (from Vermont.) I moved to Vermont for work, but now the work has gone fully remote to I'm the only one still going into the office in Vermont! I wish I had moved back a few years ago, honestly, now that real estate there has gone crazy....
Well, I also live in Texas, but I also don't have cool places to escape to all summer. So I have acclimated to the heat and Houston humidity. I'll admit that my outdoor time is preferentially enjoyed in the morning instead of late afternoon!
Thanks for another excellent issue. I live in Vermont and it seems that lately people just can't drive anymore -- they fly off the road in single-car accidents and run into each other head on -- with neither party making a course correction. The actor Treat Williams was killed on his motorcycle when a drive turned left right in front of him, trying to get to the health food store in Manchester Vermont. Motorcyclists get a hit a lot, people drive into semi-trucks and houses. And the speed limits are never over 50 mph off the interstate and usually much lower. People crash at 40 mph. It's nuts. Is it the hills? The narrow roads? Are they stoned? Playing with their phones? High on crack? Having mini-strokes? Vermont is all about "nature" and clean-air and all -- why oh why won't they build bike paths that actually go somewhere? They have them in Quebec, but not here.
With as much promotion by various governmental agencies of bike riding, I don't know why they don't build bike paths. Not the ones that go along the road, but paths for only bikes. No cars whatsoever. It's a mystery to me.
I hope you got a chance to try some good whiskeys on your trip. I believe you had mentioned being a Jameson fan. If you haven't tried it, I'd highly recommend Jameson Black Barrel. Slightly pricier than regular Jameson but much better, IMHO. For a premium Irish Whiskey, my recommendation is Red Breast 12yr.
I got the chance to try many more whiskies than I should have. All of them Scotch while in Scotland. I prefer Irish whiskey because it is triply distilled (vs doubly distilled in Scotland), so it much smoother. I tried Jameson Black Barrel while In Ireland and loved it. So much so that I'm switching from regular Jameson. Red Breast 12 yr is indeed good, but not enough--in my view--for the price differential. Another Irish whiskey I found over that that I love is Teeling Whiskey Pot Still.
I'm also partial to Irish Whiskey over Scotch. Jameson is not my favorite (I prefer Powers or Tullamore Dew at that price point) but Black Barrel is a great value. I toured the Teeling Distillery last time I was in Dublin; can't remember which of their whiskies I tried.
My recommendation for smoother Scotch come from Japan. Check out Sutory's single malts. Suntory's Yamazaki, and single-malt Harmony, are fine-drinking whiskeys.
I have tried Japanese whisky, and I do think they are smooth. But my Scots-Irish ancestry compels me to drink whisky/whiskey from those countries. Probably for the same reason I wouldn't eat Scottish or Irish sushi.:)
I am 76 and have been an avid biker all of my life. As an example, at age 15, with two firends, we biked from Detroit to Niagra Falls, via soutern Ontario, in March. Basically, it is a miracle I have never been injured. The new biker/road fascination is going to produce more mangled and dead bodies.
Believe it or not, it was safer biking in inner city detroit in 1960 than it is now in most of the redesigned cities with designated bike lanes. The rail trails are a major step forward, but the attempt to integrate biking and city streets is not.
In 1960 Detroit had few bicyclysts. Because of the rarity, on average, motorists had more tolerance. Secondly, the inner city street corners had small turn radii, which slowed the traffic down, always 25-30 mph. I can't remember when right-turn-on-red came along, but it introduced open season on pedestrians and bikers. If you want to accommodate school buses and speed up the flow, all of this was necessary. Suburbs or even inner cities, like DC, have instituted a Rube Goldberg backfit and it won't work. Recently I even saw a marked, two way bike lane on a one-way street. They did not change the street signals so if you were going the wrong way, you had better guess correctly about the traffic lights.
I confine myself to trails now. The most unsafe riding I attempt is two miles, on a suburban residential street to get me to the W&OD trail. The hazards on the trails used to be confined to the intersections, but lately the electric bikes and scooters have increased. So now, you have to worry about a 250 lb fat guy riding a 50-60lb electric bike at 20 plus mph. And the discharged rental EV's are discarded all over the place, like around a blind curve in the middle of the path. I regard most of this as designed in stupity. It is not progress. LIke I said, it was safer on a bike on a Detroit street in 1960 than it is today.
One of my issues with bike rules as they are today vs when I was a kid is that now bikers ride with the traffic instead of against it. When I was a kid--a time during which I biked everywhere for years--you rode against the traffic. Granted, if you had a head on collision, the force was doubled. But by being able to see what was coming at you, it was much easier to avoid such a collision. If the guy who got run down in Las Vegas recently had been riding against traffic, he could have avoided the murderous teen who hit him. Instead, he never saw it coming. Stupid rule change, in my view, at least.
I put giant side/rear-view mirrors on my bike, and check them all the time. Plus I never ride with headphones. I see people biking just oblivious to the world. God help them.
Great Arrow, as usual! The Tucker/Paxton interview scares the shit outta me.
On a happier note, had the pleasure of catching AJ Croce live last summer. Great show! I’m sure his dad would be proud!
Looks like Paxton is tanned, rested, and ready to rock. Let's hope so.
Agreed, but I have a feeling it’s kinda lonely out there. Love to see some more AGs grow a pair!
I don't know if witnessing Paxton's experience will make them grow a pair or shrink what little they already have.
What an amazing Arrow, Mike - even more so than usual!
I think Bret and Heather were demonetized (which meant losing their income after losing their jobs at Evergreen - another horror story) when they - perhaps it was only Bret - interviewed Robert Malone (he of the mRNA vaccines) and Steve Kirsch. During that interview, which Kirsch kept annoyingly interrupting, I remember Malone saying that he tried to warn the FDA about myocarditis in young men. They paid no attention, obviously. From then on The Darkhorse podcast continued to be shown on YouTube but they got absolutely no money from it. They can now (for anyone who wants to check) be found on Rumble, Locals, and Spotify.
I also share your feelings about Brand - don't like being yelled at for entire videos (besides which I believe he's a vegetarian so he also may be on the "get rid of meat" train) - but you're right - he's definitely gone after big Pharma. And is being punished. First thing I thought of when I saw the headlines. Glad you also wrote about the Ken Paxton debacle. I couldn't quite figure that one out since Texas is normally a red state. As for Jacinda - I'm beyond embarrassed that my alma mater has awarded her so much recognition. When I discovered that she was the 2022 commencement speaker whom Bacow called a "compassionate leader" I nearly lost my lunch. And I too caught the Naomi Wolf/Ed Dowd talk. Honestly - it's absolutely wonderful that you've put all these disparate findings in your column this week although I despair at what it all means since none of the "legacy media seems able or willing to discuss it. So thank you - a million more times.
I was so compelled and fascinated by the Arrow this week that - either I didn't find any typos (just gobbling up the column) or you didn't make any. I'm going with the latter.
Cheers and thanks again!
Thanks for the nice comment. And thanks for not finding any typos. Maybe I'm improving. Or, more likely, MD caught them all on her once over before I hit send.
It is a really disgusting state of affairs we're in the middle of right now. And, I don't see it getting any better until a lot of things change.
Couldn't agree more about the state of affairs - no clue about how to fix anything. Do you know who Dr. (not medical) Robert Epstein is? Check him out on Wikipedia - he's managed to collect google data on nudging elections for a number of years and at this point - with what he's collected - I'm amazed he's still alive, my faith in the controlling elite being what it is. He's been interviewed by Jimmy Dore (who actually did a good job asking questions) and by Joe Rogan - who mostly asks good questions - and has a lot more time to discuss things.
I didn't know about Robert Epstein until your comment. Just looked him up. Turns out he has the same birthday I do. Not the year, but the day. Interesting guy. Given what he's done, I'm surprised I hadn't heard of him. Thanks for the heads up.
Mike - here's something else to check out: Dr. Anthony Chaffee is a neurosurgeon who has some really interesting videos on eating carnivore where he answers questions - lots of them. In one of his latest YouTube Q&As, he mentions you and your lecture, I believe last year, on calories and heat and weight loss. He does go on about you for a bit - very high praise - thought you might like to see it, if you haven't already. I think I've teed it up at the right place.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NShw48CUb4
If that doesn't work, try:
Understanding The Carnivore Diet with Dr Anthony Chaffee | LIVE Q&A
Enjoy. He said some really nice things about you - with which many many of us agree!
Dr Eades,
I am 67. Over my life, I have always had the most success with the “Atkins” low-carb program or approach. Eliminate all sugar and carbs. I could do this for 30 days and drop a quick 10-15 pounds but always went back to my old self, so I would guess I probably have lost and gained more than 500 pounds in my life.
But as I aged, I found it was getting harder and harder to work for me. I became discouraged, and over the last 25-30 years, I thought, "I guess I will always be fat." I had never found something that felt like a permanent fix. Now I am convinced I found it!
As usual, I started alone with this in mid-March (partly in preparation for my late April hip replacement surgery surgery) and our youngest daughter’s wedding in December. I made up my mind I wanted to take off at least 50 pounds. I probably needed to lose 100-150, but I figured that was impossible. ( FYI, I was 343 and 6'3" at that time).
As an aside, I am an estate planning attorney, and over my 35-year career, I noticed anecdotally, of course, that very few fat clients after age 75 lived, or if they did, they had a poor quality of life! My professional sense told me a longer-term solution was needed, or I needed to consider myself "terminally fat" and make sure my own affairs were in order. My next wife's husband would end up enjoying the fruits of my many hard years of work.
On March 17, 2023, I began another of my "normal" Atkins-style regimes but decided also to read more current material to supplement my efforts. God bless my wife. I found she had previously purchased The Obesity Code: Unlocking the Secrets of Weight Loss by Dr. Jason Fung. I read it nonstop after picking it up. The "science" made sense for the first time. Then I found that she also had purchased your book "Protein Power: The High Protein/Low Carbohydrate Way to Lose Weight, Feel Fit, and Boost Your Health - in Just Weeks by Michael R Eades, MD and Mary Dan Eades, M.D so I read, and enjoyed, it too. This is when I found your substack "The Arrow" and subscribed on 3-25-23. I eagerly devoured all your past content and anxiously awaited your next article. Thank you.
Eventually, I connected with and hired Dr. Elie Jarrouge, who offers online metabolic coaching, https://www.metabolichealthmd.com/ I hired him mostly for the accountability that I needed.
I want to thank you! This is the first time in my life I really understood the interaction and science of protein, carbs, and fat in what food and drink choices I was making. I started using MyFitnessPal app too, which helps me to track too. I have (and Elie wants me to) begun to learn and try out Intermittent Fasting to get as metabolically healthy as I can. Most of the SAD diet (Standard American Diet) is so bad it’s amazing. He promotes higher protein, limiting carbs, eliminating all sugar, and eating “clean” unprocessed food.
I am down 40+ pounds as of today and now am confident that in 2024, I will get to 100 or more pounds off without feeling deprived or even that I am "dieting." It is uncanny and easy now. My blood lipids and triglycerides (and ratios) are all great, and my doctor tells me I am no longer "pre-diabetic"!
I am already at a weight I have not been in 18 years and wearing clothes that I put in the attic closet for Goodwill 15 years ago!
As a side note, my journey was challenged by my surgery. I spent the last few months out of my office from the elective hip surgery on April 25th when I perioperatively hospital-acquired polymicrobial infection (Escherichia coli & Pseudomonas aeruginosa) that surfaced within a week. This required a second surgery to remove the first hip and the joint to be redone. A literal “do over”!
If that’s not bad enough, I spent three days in ICU due to a hospital medication error that caused a type 2 cardiac event and bradycardia during surgery. I required round-the-clock antibiotic infusions for the infections for 12 weeks through a picc line with a nurse in my home. I am still on oral antibiotics but slowly getting my life back and in my office now, albeit with a shortened schedule. My weight loss journey stalled for a couple of weeks, as one might imagine.
But another interesting observation was the food they served most during my hospital stay. The food is generally really bad, but the choices are all way too processed and high carbs. EVERY tray, no matter what I ordered, had two sugar packets! Did they think I had plans to put sugar on my scrambled eggs, broccoli, or green beans?
I also have figured out, and I suspect you agree, that Big Pharma (and even most doctors) are not into making you as healthy as they can. Sadly, their business model needs you kind of sick. We are on our own to learn the rest.
At 67, I have decided to live every day as if it is my last and be sure that in the 5, 10, 15, or more years I have left on this planet, I have done all I can do for my wife, children, and grandchildren to leave them with fond memories. With what I have learned from you, Jung, and Elie, I feel confident I will get back to my high school or college weight, which I never thought possible before!
I plan to drop 10 pounds more before October 5th, my birthday. This week I had to go to the clothing store to get my wedding clothes taken in or reordered so that I may up my carbs and I will can stay the same till after the wedding. Our youngest daughter's wedding is in Puerto Vallarta in December, and the bride wants us to all wear white. I ordered a custom pair made pair of white linen trousers and a white linen shirt for the wedding in February, and as you can imagine, both are hanging loose on me now. When I put them on, I looked similar to a Chinese spy balloon, somewhat deflated! I reordered all new, smaller ones. A nice problem to have.
My wife has been doing this, too, with me, and she has already gotten there! In fact, she has begun adding carbs to slow down and remain steady as she already had to buy a new (smaller size) dress for the wedding. She is now at her college weight.
I cannot thank you enough for what you have done for me and my wife!
Best regards,
Thanks for the long, detailed history. Looks like you're on your way to much better health. Your hospital experience is exactly why everyone should avoid hospitals (the belly fo the beast, as McGuff calls it) like death. With the kind of infections you ended up with, esp Pseudomonas, you're lucky to still be with us.
Congrats on the work you've done so far. Keep it up!
You're lucky you survived your hospital visit! A friend of mine got some jaw surgery which also got infected and hod to be redone. My sister probbly has ALS, but doctors can only "do tests" and not offer any help. Pretty much every story I hear about hospitals/doctors/surgery involves some variation of: got an infection and almost died, they did the surgery wrong, had to do it again; they did the surgery then ignored the sepsis; they gave me the wrong drugs; they never looked at my ex-ray to see the hernia; etc. etc. Has medical care and training actually gotten worse? Too many poorly trained doctors? Or does it just look that way?
Congrats on your weight loss, BTW! Are you doing a very strict low carb? I need to lose wright, but nothing is really working. Too old I guess, plus I'm 55 year old female, so you all know what that means. I eat mostly eggs and meats, having cut out the carbs, sugars, processed foods, fake sugars, drinking milk, eating breakfast, etc long ago. There's nothing "easy" left to do. I envy the people who can just "stop drinking Mt. Dew" and lose weight, lol.
Actually, what I am doing is more called high protein, medium fat, and low carb. Dr Eades book is great at explaining much of this. I dropped cheese 100% but eat as many salads and vegetables as possible. I DO NOT count calories. Jung's book explained all that to me. Eliminate all snacking. But intermittent fasting seems to help, too. I try to get all my meals within an 8-hour window, very hard at first. At first, I could only go 10-12 hours, but it makes a difference. I am convinced the idea of eating small amounts all day is total BS. The science does not seem to work that way.
Read the Obesity Code book. Jung makes total sense of how putting more time between meals is historically good for the body.
Thanks, I’ll check it out!
@Dennis, as you are continuing your journey and learning, you may also want to spend some time learning about your microbiome. You have been on so many antibiotics that devastate your gut health, you'll need to repair that. Sharply increased appetite and inflammation can be a couple of many symptoms (I gained weight sharply after a hospitalization with extended IV antibiotics.) There is a lot of information out there.
Drs. Eades covered Leaky Gut Syndrome in "The Protein Power Lifeplan" book, but it is a couple of decades old.
Some other authors I have read specifically on gut health and the microbiome are Dr. Michael Ruscio, David Perlmutter M.D., William Davis M.D., Emeran Mayer M.D., and Natasha Campbell-McBride M.D.. Any of these will get you started down this rabbit hole.
Thank you. I have been taking both a probiotic and prebiotic daily, and eating as much fermented food, kimchi, pickles, and sauerkraut as I can. Plus Greek yogurt almost every day which has a lot of protein and helps the gut issues.
There's an account on X that posts a variety of insane things that humans do to shorten their lives; many deserve a Darwin award. One of the recurring patterns of road crashes seems to be many drivers have no idea how to brake quickly and forcefully!
https://twitter.com/BrutalCams
Ugh. I took a look at that site. Shows various form of (often fatal) human stupidity on display. Which makes my case (and Doug McGuff's) about roads are for cars. It doesn't matter if you're in the right and obeying every law known to man if you're dead. And with all these idiots out driving, who would want to be at their mercy.
People drive like it's the first time they've ever been in a car. They cling to the steering wheel in fear like it's the safety bar on a roller-coster. They seem to have no idea that the pedals and wheel actually do things.
Welcome back! I hope you got your fill of haggis. (Zero grams would be the appropriate dosage IMO. :) A few remarks on this week's edition.
1. "My opinions on these subjects are all over the place, but I have one lodestone that I kind of set my sights by. And that, hokey as it may sound, is the US Constitution."
Hear, hear! And ditto for me. Neal Stephenson, the speculative fiction writer, once called it the best piece of prose ever written (or words to that effect).
2. "Wow! I just tried to insert this YouTube video like I did the one about the iron bending above. It didn’t work."
Bret & Heather Weinstein have been publishing their videos at Odysee.com after several de-monitization episodes at YouTube over COVID matters. See https://odysee.com/@BretWeinstein:f
Since I don't write on Substack, I don't know whether Substack will embed Odysee videos but that may be worth checking out.
3. "Who is Ken Paxton?"
Yes, I know who A.G. Paxton is. I don't know anything about Texas politics, and his recent impeachment surprised me. The failure to convict him *didn't* surprise me.
Mr. Paxton was the initiator of the "Battleground States" suit he brought against several other states after the last presidential election. I recall it well because the A.G. of my state joined that suit and I wrote my A.G. a letter complaining about his decision to join Paxton's suit. (Such a suit seems plainly unconstitutional to me -- but I Am Not A Lawyer.)
4. "Mail-in voting is rife with the potential for cheating. And as long as it is allowed, we will never have safe and secure elections. "
Show some evidence of "rife with the potential for cheating" or give up this one up, doc. I have yet to see this claim documented. That's not to say that voter fraud never happens, only that I don't think mail-in voting is any worse than in-person voting regarding fraud.
One of the most ironic things about this whole mail-in cheating claim is that Arizona adopted mail-in voting three decades ago -- when it was still "ruby red," mind you, so passed by Arizona's then-GOP-majority legislature. And it makes a lot of sense for Arizona, where there's a lot of territory for not-all-that-many people. Some folks have to drive quite a ways to find a polling place. (I lived in Tucson for several years and there's a lot o' countryside in Arizona.)
But now Arizona's GOP legislature wants mail-in voting curtailed? And all because of the claims by Kari Lake, Donald Trump, Blake Masters, and their like? To quote someone we all know: "SAD!"
Thanks for the welcome back. I did consume plenty of haggis. MD consumed more than I did. We both like it a lot.
No, I cannot embed either Odysee or Rumble on Substack. I could probably do it if I learned how to code, but I don't know if it would work. If you write about controversial subjects from an anti-establishment perspective, you end up using a lot of Odysee and/or Rumble videos, because YouTube censors them. It would be nice to be able to embed them, but I can't do so now.
According to my sources (see above), Arizona has had mail-in voting for "cities, towns, and school districts," but not presidential and other major elections. Recall in 2022 how there was a huge hoorah about how all the voting machines in a deeply red district went down or the printers wouldn't work or something that made GOP voters wait for hours, sending many away from the polls due to their time constraints. Why would that have happened had there been easy peasy mail-in voting?
As I wrote above, I have no issue with mail-in voting if the ballots can be verified. But mass mailing ballots to everyone on the list and accepting them without verification is a recipe for mischief.
Sorry to be so long in replying to your comment. We've been in Japan to meet with our older son's family, and the food there is only marginally better than it is in Scotland. (Japanese food is great... if you like fish and noodles for every meal.)
I'm not sure you're right about limitations on mail-in voting for "presidential and other major elections," doc. See...
1. https://www.kawc.org/news/2023-09-18/federal-judge-approves-voting-by-mail-in-arizona
2. See this: https://ballotpedia.org/Voting_in_Arizona
This source doesn't mention any "cities, towns, and school districts" limits to mail-in voting.
3. The Dispatch interviewed Stephen Richer, Maricopa County Recorder this week. (https://thedispatch.com/newsletter/dispatch-politics/a-republicans-defense-of-arizonas-election-integrity on 10/23/23). The Dispatch article's paywalled, but you can read it here if interested: https://news.yahoo.com/republican-defense-arizona-election-integrity-155611498.html
Suffice it to say that Mr. Richer's a Republican (https://ballotpedia.org/Stephen_Richer). So what, exactly, should a conscientious *Republican* voting official do when he knows that the voting process works as intended - but he's being shouted down by losing Republican candidates (and their political allies) who command all the media attention?
Doesn't that sound like a media / perception problem, and not a "counting the votes" problem?
Cheers -
Completely disagree with you on the mail-in voting as major fraud thing. Eight states have implemented all mail in voting, 3 for over a decade (+1 other state on a county by county basis), which has shown to increase both parties votes and have equal or less fraud than states with traditional voting. Mail-in voting was never even considered an issue in or for those states for years -- nor all the many years before that when the military was the primary mail-in voters.
Only during COVID shutdowns, when someone in the red party got the idea that the blue party being more COVID adverse would cause more blue votes to come mail in, did all this talk about mail-in fraud destroying elections suddenly show up.
According to my sources (https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/table-18-states-with-all-mail-elections) there are only eight states that allow mail-in voting for presidential elections. Only one--Oregon--for over a decade. I've never lived in any of these eight states when they allowed mail in voting, so I don't know how they verify the identity of the voters sending in the mail-in ballots. I do know that Democrats go crazy whenever anyone in any state--Georgia, for example--asks for any kind of verification for voting. They always call it voter suppression. It always makes me wonder why asking for ID before getting on a plane isn't called air travel suppression. Or why asking for an ID before buying booze isn't called drinking suppression. Or why asking for an ID in any situation isn't called whatever it is suppression. And it's always the Democrats who raise a hue and cry about it. Why is that? Republicans and Libertarians don't ever raise hell if voters are asked to verify their eligibility to vote. It's only Democrats who do so. That should tell you something.
In his video I posted, Ken Paxton makes the case that Trump carried Texas and Georgia by the same margin in 2016. Which makes sense as they are both Red states in the south, i.e., they have similar demographics. Then in 2020, Texas went for Trump by the same margin as in 2016. But Georgia, a state that allowed mail-in balloting for the first time in 2020, went for Biden by a small margin. Same demographics, but a complete switcheroo in terms of how they voted.
As a reader emailed me, Georgia is run by Republicans, and they all said the election was on the up and up. Of course they did. The party in power in each state essentially runs that states election process. Do you think the Republicans were going to say, Oh, yeah, we were asleep at the wheel and cost Trump the election? Of course not, like politicians everywhere, their first thoughts are of their own continued employment. They don't want to admit they screwed the pooch.
California and Washington (and Oregon) vote pretty consistently on a statewide basis for Democratic candidates. I didn't go back and look, but I would bet both Biden and Hillary carried those states by similar margins in 2016 and 2020. Had, say, Washington gone for Trump by a small percentage after a major method of voting had been implemented in 2020, do you not think a few eyebrows would have been raised?
I believe you must have misread NCSL site. According to NCSL (which was also my source), OR enacted in 1998, WA in 2011 and CO in 2013 = 3 states for 10+ years -- additionally UT enacted county wide choice in 2012 (so 4 states although 1 only partially).
The rest of your response appears to be about Paxton's justification about why the GA election in particular must have been fraud due to mail in voting differences. This wasn't anything to do with my argument that mail-in voting has already been proven as not particularly fraudulent via all mail-in voting states + years of military mail-ins.
-- but to address it anyway, IMO comparing GA and TX is a false equivalency -- GA is just going through what happens when a state turns purple. CO went purple back in the late 90's early 2000's. Having lived through it, that is not a fun process for the party going out of power, but it has never meant before that there must have been voter fraud.
If you look across the country at the largest urban/non-urban, urban has been becoming more and more blue over the years. Which means that as urban areas get bigger, those political races that count only the total population are the ones that are impacted by the urban vote the most. CO had that pattern back in the early 2000's and GA very clearly shows that exact pattern with both President and both Senators going blue with most of that blue vote coming from urban areas. Even TX is heading that way too according to Texas Tribune and fivethirtyeight. GA went blue in these 100% of the state elections because their urban areas are just getting bigger and bigger, especially compared to the number of people that are not urban. Mail-in fraud theory doesn't suddenly override this logic just because one might wish the results were different.
Okay, when I looked at the site in the link, I looked at the date the mail-in voting went into effect, not the date it was authorized. I did misread the Washington date (I guess), which makes it six out of eight that do mail-in. But I don't know how they're verified. If the ballots are verified, I don't have a problem. But during the 2020 election, the whole thing was a fiasco.
I don't think Texas is turning blue or even purple anytime soon irrespective of what the Texas Tribune or 538 say. I live here, so I keep up with what's going on. A lot of people want it to turn purple, but it hasn't gotten close as of yet. And how do you explain Florida. It has a huge population and it has gone completely the other way.
As to Georgia, I just don't believe the demographics have turned that much, that quickly. But that's just my opinion. As some talk show host somewhere, sometime used to say, I'll give you the last word.
FL is actually a pretty purple state presidential election wise -- they've gone 50/50 in the last 4 elections.
For clarity, I didn't mean to imply Texas Tribune and 538 said TX was going purple, just that the Democrat vote was growing in TX urban areas (point spread lessoning) over the last 20 years.
The verification thing -- CO uses signature matching + the first time you vote by mail you need to include a copy of your id. If your signature doesn't match on later votes then it has to be cured. If you vote in person you do need an id (and they have a list of acceptable ones, including birth certificate so not just photo id).
But I don't have as much concern there as you do, I guess -- maybe because I remember a lot of years of going in person and just telling them my name and address & not having to show any id at all in both VA + CO.
According to Wikipedia, "no state required a voter to produce a government-issued photo ID as a condition for voting before the 2006 elections" and only 5 states required any id at all prior to the 2000's (quick search for other sites didn't find historical info -- only current info). NCLS site lists 16 states as not needing a specifically photo id.
And now I find myself wanting to do research on what various states actually consider voter fraud and how they find it :D (quick search only seems to find stuff saying there's so little fraud it isn't an issue)
I said I would give you the last word, and I will opinion-wise. I was turned away from the polling place in Dallas during the 2020 primary because I did not have a government ID. I had my wallet, which contained several photo IDs, including my Global Entry card. For some reason I had taken my TX driver's license out of my wallet and left it at home. MD was with me, and she had her TX DL plus all kinds of other ID. Nothing would work to make the woman running the thing let me vote. I had to drive home--fortunately it wasn't far--and get my TX DL before I could vote. In Nevada, where we lived and voted for 20 years, there was signature validation.
Hear, hear! It's only an issue now because Mr. Trump and his minions have made it one.
See above.
I look forward to the Arrow every week. It’s the best thing I read but i cringe when you refer to MD as “the bride” or “my bride”. Ask her if she likes this reference to her. I bet you will be surprised.
I asked her, and she responded, "I am your bride after lo these many decades. I don't mind at all." She said I could quote her, so I did. I figured she would not have an issue with it, because she proofs The Arrow before it goes out. Had she had an issue. she would have changed it.
Now I've got a question for you. Why do you find it distasteful? Or why would you think MD would find it distasteful?
I don’t find it distasteful. We had a neighbor once who often referred to his wife as my bride. It seemed to me she cringed slightly. My husband used it once and I asked him not to. I’m glad MD likes it. Sorry I mentioned it. I do love the Arrow.
Thanks again for your persistent efforts at publishing this newsletter.
About structural steel, my understanding is that it's normally sprayed with an insulating foam after installation, and in the Twin Towers that wasn't done beyond a certain number of bottom floors (i.e. first 60 floors). (This is a vague recollection.) I read this somewhere years ago.
I think your reverence for the US Constitution is misplaced. First, almost every Central and South American country, after gaining their independence, modeled their Constitution after ours. Even the Soviet Constitution guarantees the same freedoms. It didn't work for them. And obviously our Constitution is not working now in this country to prevent our loss of freedoms. I think it was a descriptive document, an attempt to explain or rationalize our founding populations views of their rights and freedoms, a combination of their rights as 18th century Englishman and the autonomy of living away from the centers of British Power. But as hokey as it may sound, those freedoms have to live in the hearts of the people. If it is no longer there for whatever reason, then no legal document will preserve it for very long.
Jacinda Ardern is truly frightening. It goes to show that everyone is a hero in their own story. Once again the only solution I see is to shot them in the head.
Thanks for the Doug McGuff video. I recognized the name from his book Body by Science which has been sitting on my bookshelf for some time. I'm sure Jim Croce wished he'd followed the pilot advice. It seems like a lot of musicians have died in small plane crashes. I will turn down my amateur pilot friends offers, as appealing as they seem at first blush.
Was the Outlander excursion a one and done or will you return to the scene of the drama?
Interesting about the insulating foam.
I should have been more explicit. My reverence is to the Constitution and the form of government the founders laid out. The two work together. Here is a terrific video--totally non-partisan--of Scalia discussing this very issue. It will probably show up in next week's Arrow as an addendum to this week's. https://youtu.be/Ggz_gd--UO0?si=zdK_2ZPJMKjEb4F1 I just noticed that YouTube felt the need to put a context box under the video, which implies it is mis- or disinformation people have to be alert to. Jesus wept.
Thanks for that video link, Mike. In the one I watched the comments were turned off "for safety reasons, like to protect minors or for other safety violations." I think at this point Jesus must be weeping and gnashing his teeth at the very least. Excellent video - with nothing in it that I'm certain is being taught in any high schools in the country. Sigh. I look forward to your comments next week.
Thanks again. Only one quibble. I think if you lived in the UK you would not say The Times is a credible newspaper. I would definitely say that since March 2020 it's forgotten all about journalism. Sadly your praise for The Times skews the piece about Russell Brand (who I have worked with but that's another story) Trust me sir, there are no good mainstream newspapers in the UK
Does anyone here live in Texas? My mom's family side of the family is all Texas, and I lived there as a kid and I'm thinking about moving back (from Vermont.) I moved to Vermont for work, but now the work has gone fully remote to I'm the only one still going into the office in Vermont! I wish I had moved back a few years ago, honestly, now that real estate there has gone crazy....
I live in Texas. It's hot and humid all summer, and the weather is all over the place the rest of the year. Other than that, it's great!
Well, I also live in Texas, but I also don't have cool places to escape to all summer. So I have acclimated to the heat and Houston humidity. I'll admit that my outdoor time is preferentially enjoyed in the morning instead of late afternoon!
Thanks for another excellent issue. I live in Vermont and it seems that lately people just can't drive anymore -- they fly off the road in single-car accidents and run into each other head on -- with neither party making a course correction. The actor Treat Williams was killed on his motorcycle when a drive turned left right in front of him, trying to get to the health food store in Manchester Vermont. Motorcyclists get a hit a lot, people drive into semi-trucks and houses. And the speed limits are never over 50 mph off the interstate and usually much lower. People crash at 40 mph. It's nuts. Is it the hills? The narrow roads? Are they stoned? Playing with their phones? High on crack? Having mini-strokes? Vermont is all about "nature" and clean-air and all -- why oh why won't they build bike paths that actually go somewhere? They have them in Quebec, but not here.
With as much promotion by various governmental agencies of bike riding, I don't know why they don't build bike paths. Not the ones that go along the road, but paths for only bikes. No cars whatsoever. It's a mystery to me.
I hope you got a chance to try some good whiskeys on your trip. I believe you had mentioned being a Jameson fan. If you haven't tried it, I'd highly recommend Jameson Black Barrel. Slightly pricier than regular Jameson but much better, IMHO. For a premium Irish Whiskey, my recommendation is Red Breast 12yr.
I got the chance to try many more whiskies than I should have. All of them Scotch while in Scotland. I prefer Irish whiskey because it is triply distilled (vs doubly distilled in Scotland), so it much smoother. I tried Jameson Black Barrel while In Ireland and loved it. So much so that I'm switching from regular Jameson. Red Breast 12 yr is indeed good, but not enough--in my view--for the price differential. Another Irish whiskey I found over that that I love is Teeling Whiskey Pot Still.
I'm also partial to Irish Whiskey over Scotch. Jameson is not my favorite (I prefer Powers or Tullamore Dew at that price point) but Black Barrel is a great value. I toured the Teeling Distillery last time I was in Dublin; can't remember which of their whiskies I tried.
My recommendation for smoother Scotch come from Japan. Check out Sutory's single malts. Suntory's Yamazaki, and single-malt Harmony, are fine-drinking whiskeys.
I have tried Japanese whisky, and I do think they are smooth. But my Scots-Irish ancestry compels me to drink whisky/whiskey from those countries. Probably for the same reason I wouldn't eat Scottish or Irish sushi.:)