Re who will emerge as having benefitted handsomely when all this artificial inflation returns to the ground right, as evidently AMC actually did yesterday It may not ever be possible to trace where the Reddit rumor really started. But as the whole drama plays out, it's looking less and less like a Robin Hood narrative where the little guy sticks it to the big. Robinhood the medium-sized intermediary acted agilely (perhaps inappropriately) in the moment to protect itself. The yuge hedge funds largely had the resources to wait the clearly-artificial moment out. At least two large companies, AMC and (private equity fund) Silver Lake, benefited handsomely by acting agilely in the moment to avail of the opportunity. (click through that link to see Silver Lake's filing to the Securities Exchange Commission on how many (actual, not short) shares they managed to sell on the one day, 1/27, during the Reddit run-up) (I expect in the next few days we'll hear more and more stories like Silver Lakes', where large holders of the actual shares -- not shorts -- of the companies in the Reddit-fueled artificial run-up did extremely well) And some of the small retail day-traders newly into the game will do fine; and others will lose. As happens in gambling games. It's fine to gamble, just recognize that what you're doing is gambling: do it out of the entertainment budget rather than the rent money; and don't accidentally wander into doing it with borrowed funds and call commitments without realizing that that's what you've signed up to do. But someone started the initial rumor and initial idea of Hey Guys Let's Stick It To the Hedge Funds run-up. I am increasingly curious about who that was. The ethics (and potentially the law) of the game are quite different depending on who it was.

** blinking ** I humbly bow before genius This never once occurred to me. I feel like leaping up right this instant to sweep. Whew, managed to suppress THAT urge LOL

re just getting lucky My area has been doing once-a-week mobile clinics at fire departments / municipal halls / visiting nurse association facilities etc . We're still on essential workers and 75+ year olds, so no one in our family has yet even tried to go onto the appointment portal. But a friend of mine just happened to be walking around near the VNA office last week, when all of a sudden a throng of health care workers came running out to the sidewalks at 5p. They were about to close up shop, but had ~25 doses from the 6th dose in the Pfizer vaccine and were dragging anyone off the sidewalk who was willing to do the paperwork and take it, rather than let the doses go to waste. They all got 2nd dose appointments as well even though they wouldn't otherwise be eligible yet. Yes please, here is my arm. She *definitely* felt like Charlie with the ticket!

One very specific thing I do is, whatever the prelude / whatever the PITA thing the kid did / however "right" I continue to believe I am about the Big Picture of the episode, is to say and then... STOP. Just.stop.there. No "I'm under stress because _______", no "let's move on quickly to watch a movie together," no move toward a hug or any other expectation from the other person who may not yet be ready for it (the kid in question takes a good long time, alone, before coming around to any kind of readiness), and DEFINITELY NOT anything on any version of Just, I'm sorry that I lost my temper. And then leave the room. Because I'm the dang grownup in the relationship. It's OK for me to get irritated, frustrated, angry; not OK for me to lose my sh!t, even in absolute PITA conditions. That is what it means to be the dang grownup. However "right" I may feel about the Big Picture, I do not believe it is "right" for me to lose my temper, ever. So a "narrow" apology is quite sincere; and -- in the case of the kid in question -- any more than that is not constructive.

[eyeroll] Well HERE are two players that definitely won big out of the whole brouhaha. Hard to see either AMC or Silver Lake as "little people" in any kind of David & Goliath or Robin Hood narrative, but, every gamble does yield winners. ETA Curious now if Elizabeth Warren or SEC or other investigators ever really will try to dig down to the bottom of the stack of turtles nearly all the way down and unearth where exactly the Reddit pile-on really started.

(( hugs )) Normal. If you happen to be lucky enough to be more or less on the same page in how you respectively process hard-to-hold feelings, as it sounds like Mercy and her daughter happen to be... ... well, first, count your blessings; and then second, what Mercy does. The much harder dyads are the ones where YOUR go-to way of processing hard-to-hold feelings happens to be Absolutely Totally Different Planet than the other person's. One out of three of mine is like that. And it's unspeakably hard and you, as the actual grownup, have to learn first how to act like a grownup in the face interactions that are abruptly, overnight, immeasurably harder than when they were -- just yesterday!! -- our sweet/ funny/ cuddly/ quirky little ones. My sweet funny late last little one is about to turn 18. I am sorry to report that they will never go back to the little kids they were before. But happy to report that it definitely gets better. Just not the way it was. It's their job, developmentally, to separate, differentiate, develop identities distinct from their parents. It's our job to adjust to that. Both jobs are hard.

The Wayfair and #SaveTheChildren tropes, about the trafficking of white children by unseen but powerful cabals, did not target low IQ people. The targets were (are) people who care about the welfare of children. What could pull maternal heartstrings more than that? That's why it WORKED. That's how QAnon crossed over from mostly-men's gaming and incel and white supremacist circles, over to women who'd affiliated around crafts and cooking and wellness and Bible study.

re prospects of tamping down conspiracy theories through civil suits (I live 20 minutes from Sandy Hook/Newtown and, like many folks in the area, was *transformed* emotionally and politically by the mass shooting itself and the conspiracy-theory-driven aftermath) There have been several runs at civil suits by the Sandy Hook families at Alex Jones, but the legal line that seems ultimately to have successfully threaded the needle includes TWO components: 1) that Jones knew he was furthering lies when he frothed forth about child actors staging a false flag event in order to TAKE OUR GUNS; and 2) that he was doing so in order to hawk his vitamins/ water supplements to fix the gay frogs/ snake oil. That is, the suit was able to establish both the "knowingly" and the "intent" hurdles: I knowingly lie so as to drive traffic so as to sell snake oil. This is the same threading-the-legal-needles sequence that Seth Rich's brother used successfully with Fox for their dissemination of the HRC-ordered-Seth-Rich's-murder lie (NYT article)... ... and also the same logically sequence that Dominion has recently used both to effect retractions from Fox and Newsmax about their dissemination of the Hugo-Chavez-directed-electronic-voting-machines-to-switch-candidates lie... ... and which Dominion actually did file against Giuliani last week. The basis of the suit (AP article here; actual filed complaint here) is that Giuliani knew perfectly well his claims were false (Chavez is long dead, the machines aren't connected to the internet, the machines generate a paper record, in the ~60 suits Giuliani and his comrades attempted to lodge he himself repeatedly said "we are not alleging fraud in this motion"... only questions about process) but the hype driven by the click bait enabled him to sell cigars and (always) vitamin supplements on his new show. So in all three cases, the legal line includes BOTH a component that "this demonstrates the person spouting the conspiracy theory knows full well it's false" AND ALSO one that "this demonstrates how the person is making money by driving clicks and viewers to their money-making business" (snake oil in Alex Jones and Giuliani's cases; the standard ad-based media businesses of Fox and Newsmax). In the case of legislators reeling against their colleagues inciting crowds to "fight to Stop the Steal" before the coup attempt... or tweeting out their office locations during the coup attempt... or reportedly giving tours of the Capitol tunnels the day prior or receiving calls from the instigators outside the Capitol as it took place... I expect there will be SOME effort at accountability; there has to be. But absent the snake oil sales I'm not sure it can be quite the same line of reasoning. That snake oil (and the grifting of small donations from passionate supporters and other tawdry monetization of the gullible) is surprisingly central to the cultivation of conspiracy theory adherents. It's *almost* like it's the *point.*

(( Amy Gen ))

re use of child trafficking trope as recruitment tool The amped-up emphasis of the satanic trafficking trope served an instrumental function. Until a year or so ago, QAnon followers were overwhelmingly men. The Wayfair and #SaveTheChildren myths, which circulated and disseminated quickly through different social media channels like crafting/ parenting/ wellness groups on platforms like Pinterest and church groups, successfully crossed QAnon over into many more women. [Also: homeschooling and education boards] And as an instrument to identify and attach to women, the global cabal intent on snatching and trafficking white children hits a resonant chord because the evidence-affirmed truth about child abuse is that kids are most likely to be abused by a known person with close familial proximity (stepfather/ uncle); and next most likely to be abused by a known person in a position of authority and trust (coach, clergy, teacher). That is a *mighty uncomfortable truth to hold.* I will never forget my experience as a young parent, reading Gavin Becker's Gift of Fear, and trying to absorb the data and the implications it thrust at me -- my unhappy brain darting between mental images of the particular uncles in my 4 year old's life -- my own brother, my husband's brother, my sister-in-law's husband -- and trying to assess them as potential abusers of my sweet little girl. The exercise was HORRIFYING, it literally made my stomach churn, I literally couldn't sustain the thought. But that unhappy place is where the odds lie. And that is so hard to hold-- even as an abstract idea to a person like me reading an abstract BOOK, let alone to... ... people who have themselves endured trauma at the hands of stepfathers and uncles and clergy and teachers and other adults who ought to be trustworthy. So much better to associate child abuse with Strangers, lurking in dark corners, commandeered by an all-powerful cabal pulling unseen strings. And if that same hidden satanic cabal is simultaneously "creating" the tide against racial injustice and sexual violence and the "hoax" of COVID? Well. That is indeed quite a neat little trick.

re what we are witnessing vs impulse to avert the gaze and "Move On!" too briskly Right. The root causes of the 1/6 insurrection to overturn the results of the election are all still there. Including... ... this, which is itself a reflection of the same bloodlust. There were no federal executions at all from 2003 to 2020 -- throughout all those years, Presidents of both parties held a moratorium on capital punishment. There were thirteen between 7/14/20 right up to 1/16/20. Three in the week before the Inauguration. Lisa Montgomery's was particularly horrific. But the enthusiasm and speed for federal executions reflects the same bloodlust coming from the same principals as was evidenced in the coup itself. re quiet before a dreaded second storm There are solid evidence-based reasons to be a bit spooked. OTOH, there've been more than 80 arrests and the FBI are actively hunting for others who've shown up on surveillance cameras and other video feeds -- which means that a good number of the 1/6 coup participants are either subject to bail conditions, or trying to stay under the radar. That doesn't solve for the root causes in the slightest, but it may well account for the quiet.

If it is true that (as reported) more shorts were purchased, than the number of shares that actually exist, this HAS to happen. As in all forms of gambling, there will be a *handful* of people who come out ahead. Lucky for them! Use that windfall wisely! But the house has house advantage.

aaaaaand.... Scene , lol from linked Robinhood blog post / press release an hour ago: LOL re "in light of recent volatility." [It's fine to gamble; just know that what you're doing, is gambling. And in every gambling game there actually are winners -- every weekend in Vegas there are a handful of folks who actually do win big and actually do come home with a suitcase of money. But know that the house is structurally advantaged by the rules of the game. And also that the house can change the rules at any time, like Robinhood just did.]

re ~1.1M vaccines into arms pace of deployment Kiplingers is right that the pace needs to be "more" than 1.1M a day to get to herd immunity by end-summer... but that language understates the issue IMO -- with a 2-dose regimen we have to pretty much DOUBLE that pace: Days until "end-summer" = about 210 (7 months x ~30 days to end-August) Number of doses reguired to get to herd immunity = about 550M (330M population x "herd level estimate" range from ~80-90% x 2 doses per person) Number of doses that have actually gotten into arms as of yesterday = 25M So with a 2-dose regimen, we've done 25M and need to get to 550M > we need to do 525M more over just 210 days > that means we have to ramp up to doing something like 2.5M a day -- well more than twice what we've been doing over the last two weeks (and it was even slower before -- we're keeping a running daily tally over on the Politics board). The one-dose J&J shot would indeed be a game-changer, since it's not just supply but also sheer logistics that is impeding deployment. (That same link also shows the state-by-state metrics that the Kiplingers cited, updated daily, for folks curious about how well your state is doing on actually deploying the vaccine that has been distributed to your area. Alaska and West Virginia continue to lead the pack. There was a good article in the New York Times a few days ago about what WVa has done differently: the headline was that they have NOT established statewide partnerships with big box chains like CVS and Walgreens (as many states, including mine, have done), but rather painstakingly paired local independent providers with particular nursing homes and congregant care facilities; and they made use of their National Guard on both logistics and actually delivering the shots from the outset.)

re Gamestop & hedge funds as a David & Goliath story This is a good explanation of the front-stage scene. And as is so often the case there is also a simultaneous off-stage scene, where the institutions actually buying & selling (& bundling, & repricing the consolidated bundles of) the options, complicate the Robin Hood narrative. (The linked article also includes helpful little sidebars that walk through what shorts, options, execution of trades etc are).

re public lust for televised extrajudicial executions Maybe as a culture we've recently been Pavlovian-trained by Hunger Games- and Survivor- storylines, or hunt and assassinate video games, or the inside-a-reality-TV-show nature of the last few years. Or maybe it's the same phenomenon as Sunday picnics to watch lynchings. The core fantasy of the QAnon conspiracy always was an expected culmination in which the the perceived "enemies" would be rounded up, hauled before fast-tracked "martial courts" and publicly executed. Bloodlust always was the organizing longing. Dismaying for sure. There were warning signs.

So glad to hear. Stay safe and warm and here's hoping for a sopping wet diaper in the morning.

It was not your plastic bag. Your world is upended; grief is awful; it was not.your.fault. Holding you in the light.

I was comfortable with the concept, with certain risk-mitigating strategies, back in September, and had made plans. Sadly, because my kids' return-to-school schedule got juggled at the last minute, we didn't end up doing it. Between 1) much higher cases throughout New England; 2) increased evidence of airborne transmission; and 3) the emergence of the new much more easily transmissible strain, I'm no longer comfortable. That said, these are the risk-mitigating strategies we'd sorted: standalone properties (like a house) rather than shared HVAC (like an apartment) planned interval between availability and taking the key (ie if the house is available as of 11a, plan on picking up the key at 2p) planned aeration interval (ie if we pick up the key at 2p, run in open up every window dump bags and go for a hike until 5p) bring all food for first 2 days and work out in advance how deliveries for subsequent days will be done We did not plan on going out to restaurants (which we ordinarily love to do) or any indoor recreations, then. So it basically amounted to a change in scenery, literal and metaphoric. When the weather was good and cases were low, the advantages of a change in scenery and different outdoor activities seemed "worth it." At this point, between more risk and fewer hours of less pleasant weather for outdoor activities... the balance isn't there any more. But if I were to do it, that's how I'd mitigate the risks.

re sincere hopes for our future This is how I experienced every election of my life up to 2016, and it is my fervent hope that we're able to make our way back to the garden. We're supposed to have different views about policy matters. That is healthy. We're supposed to argue about them; that too is healthy. And when the candidate we favor loses an election, we're supposed to behave they way we teach our kids to lose a ball game. You feel the sharp pang of disappointment, you take a breath, you line up (perhaps grumpily: that is OK) to shake the hands of the winning team. And you retreat to regroup to figure out how to do a better job so you can win the next time around. You don't suddenly howl that the rules are unfair and you certainly don't chase after the ref with noose in hand.

re folks unhappy with the 2016 electoral outcome vs folks unhappy with the 2020 outcome In 2016, there were a lot of folks deeply unhappy with the outcome of the election. I was one. We stressed and stewed and vented; then we pulled it together and sat up to knit pink hats; then stood up and marched; then organized hard for the next electoral round. What we did not do was orchestrate kidnappings of governors, storm state capitols, break entry into the US Capitol, construct gallows with nooses, bring napalm and IED to the Mall. Or make repeated cries to overturn the electoral results by force. There is real difference. The anguish of 2016 was raw and real and carried out within the guardrails of Constitution and law. The anguish of 2020 has not been. And it is not over. This is the United States' first coup attempt, so we aren't well equipped to recognize the signs. In other nations, coups very often take weeks, not hours, to conclude. That democracy survived 1/6 does not guarantee it will survive 1/20, or 2021. The insurrectionists carrying Confederate flags and Nazi insignia, their direct enablers, and their sympathizers all know this.

Agree with pp on both "fix him whatever registers to him as comfort food" and also "try to orchestrate so he's got someone with him when he's eating." Both of which it sounds like you are, collectively as a family, doing. I've had modest success in two different contexts trying support weight gain (a chronically underweight kid, a parent with cancer) leaving small bowls of nuts near them, unasked for and unannounced, so they absentmindedly take handfuls of them. This worked better with the kid, who'd reach for them unthinkingly while doing homework, than the adult. With my father, after some experimentation we found a chocolate protein shake he'd eat as an afternoon snack (he couldn't finish it in the morning, so later in the day worked better). We also mixed in powdered protein into anything we could -- mashed potatoes, scrambled eggs, soups, anything soft enough. Hugs.

re hydroponic winter gardening OMG I.Have.Questions. Will come back with them later because like everyone else in America I am currently on Zoom, pretending to "multitask" (as if browsing WTM is a "task," but, Denial, a powerful drug...) My problem isn't so much that I can't pull off "old-fashioned gardening" -- I genuinely adore being outside with my hands plunged in dirt when the weather allows it, it's probably the healthiest and most therapeutic thing I do. It's that I have neither sufficient light, nor sufficient space in on the (narrow) one side of the house that gets a few hours' good sun in the winter. Will.Be.Back on this.

I spread them out on paper towels, put them on my "garden bench" which is inside a south-facing picture window for maybe 2 weeks, and popped them in. Evidently according to the interwebs you're supposed to build these mound things -- like a very short cone volcano -- so they drain properly. They run all over the place, climb trees and run up stone walls and the backside of the barbecue, so we had spaghetti squash festooning the terrace like birthday balloons.

Last summer was my first effort at vegetables as well. (I've long grown flowers and attractive herbs.) It was modestly successful - kept us in lettuce, tomatoes, peppers and carrots throughout the summer, with a a comical surfeit of zucchini, a good end-season crop of green beans, and bits and pieces of other stuff. Spaghetti squash was BY FAR the runaway surprise - I just dried out some seeds from some we had for dinner and gave it a go, and they came up numerour and enormous. Critters ate my brussel sprouts to the ground so I'm never trying them again. I've failed to keep the cold frames adequately watered over the winter -- I know they don't need MUCH but they do need SOME -- and I think all that stuff died. I have a bunch of seeds left over from last year and just ordered more.