Remember pagers? They were huge in the 80s — these little devices that could receive short messages. Sir Mix-A-Lot even had a song about them! But then cell phones came along, and pagers more or less became obsolete.
Except there's one group of people who still carry pagers: medical doctors. At a surprisingly large number of hospitals, the pager remains the backbone of communication. Need to ask a doctor a question? Page them. Need to summon a doctor to an emergency? Page them. And then... wait for them to call you back.
Almost everyone agrees that pagers are a clunky and error-prone way for doctors to communicate. So why do so many hospitals still rely on them?On today's show: A story about two doctors who hatched a plan to finally rid their hospital of pagers. And the surprising lessons they learned about why some obsolete technologies can be so hard to replace.
This episode was hosted by Jeff Guo and Nick Fountain. It was produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler. It was edited by Keith Romer and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. It was engineered by Robert Rodriguez with help from Maggie Luthar. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.
In court filings Tuesday, the secretary of state’s office argued that the plaintiffs in the election contests “never served a citation” properly. But there’s no guarantee it’ll work.
After a Travis County district judge cleared the way for Kate Cox, 31, to terminate her pregnancy, Ken Paxton petitioned the state’s highest court to halt the ruling.
Canadians buy a lot of Christmas Presents. And while most should be from the Beaverton Merch Store, some aren’t. Here is our list of the most popular Christmas Presents in every province. Newfoundland: Trunk with hidden compartment to hide from the Mummers Nova Scotia: Cameo from Ron James Prince Edward Island: Pre-Paid Confederation Bridge Toll […]
MOSCOW—Saying the passing of his best buddies never got easier, Russian President Vladimir Putin was reportedly distraught Friday over the loss of friends who kept dying under mysterious circumstances. “It just breaks my heart to go to all these funerals of people I loved who have suddenly and suspiciously left this…
LOS ANGELES—Following an indictment on nine federal tax-related charges, Hunter Biden reportedly prepared for court Friday by drawing a tie on his bare chest. “I’ll have to look presentable if I want the judge to take me seriously,” said the troubled son of President Joe Biden, straining to look down at his exposed…
Rosemary Hayne, the 39-year old mother of four who threw a burrito bowl in the face of a Chipotle in Parma, OH, was sentenced to work two months in a fast food restaurant in addition to a 30-day jail sentence. What do you think?
CHAPTERS: 00:00 - 01:41 Intro 01:41 - 19:48 Women & the Economy 19:48 - 33:03 Women & Society 33:03 - 43:31 Women & Fascism 43:32 - 49:14 OH GOD HE'S BACK 49:14 - 56:32 Conclusions 56:32 - 1:03:10 A HUGE ANNOUNCEMENT!
BIBLIOGRAPHY Alexander Avila, “Did Feminism FAIL Men?” Zoe Belinsky, “Transgender and Disabled Bodies: Between Pain and the Imaginary,” in Transgender Marxism Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France Melinda Cooper, Family Values Kevin Duong, “Gender Trouble in France,” in Jacobin Silvia Federici, Caliban and the Witch Silvia Federici, Wages Against Housework Chanelle Gallant, “The Future is Indigiqueer,” in Xtra Julie Gottlieb, Feminine Fascism: Women in Britain’s Fascist Movement Virginia Guitzel, “Notes from Brazil,” in Transgender Marxism Fredrick Hayek, Law, Legislation, and Liberty Eleanor Janega, The Once and Future Sex Barbara Laslett and Johanna Brenner, “Gender and Social Reproduction: Historical Perspectives,” in Annual Review of Sociology Yasmin Nair, “How to Make Prisons Disappear,” in Captive Genders Lola Olufemi, Feminism, Interrupted Carole Pateman, The Sexual Contract Joni Pitt (Cohen) & Sophie Monk, “We Build A Wall Around Our Sanctuaries,” in Novara Nat Raha, “A Queer Marxist Transfeminism: Queer and Trans Social Reproduction,” in Transgender Marxism Roger Scruton, How To Be A Conservative Roger Scruton, “Identity, Family, Marriage: Our Core Conservative Values have Been Betrayed,” in The Guardian Fulvia Serra, “Reproducing the Struggle,” in Viewpoint Magazine Kim Tallbear, “Yes, Your Pleasure! Yes, Self-Love! And Don't Forget, Settler Sex is a Structure” Jessica Valenti, “American Moms are Being Gaslit” Kara Voght, “Inside a conservative confab for young women, where feminism is a lie,” in The Washington Post Trashfuture, Anarchy, State, and Scrutopia
HOUSTON—Hailing the discovery as a major milestone in interplanetary exploration, NASA administrator Bill Nelson announced Thursday that the agency had found strong evidence of red on Mars. “After careful analysis of the Martian soil collected by the Perseverance rover, we believe we’ve found very large deposits of…
TUSCALOOSA, AL—Running around the stage in an effort to corner the unnamed individual, presidential candidates spent the fourth GOP primary debate Wednesday evening attempting to hog-tie a greased-up nude man who reportedly represented the woke mind virus. “It takes a strong woman to catch a nude, greased-up man,”…
Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), who was ousted as House speaker earlier this year, announced he will resign from office at the end of this month. What do you think?
SHEBOYGAN, WI—Squinting as she braced herself to face the sharp winter gale head-on, local sturdy Midwestern gal Angie Czajkowski reportedly shielded the rest of the nation from a strong gust of wind Friday. According to all 335 million Americans huddled behind the burly 5-foot-4 woman, Czajkowski used her big, broad…
WASHINGTON—In an emotional appeal to voters, the Biden reelection campaign released a new ad Friday showing the candidate eating all alone at an Olive Garden restaurant. Shot in stark lighting with a melancholy orchestral score, the 60-second spot features the president sitting by himself at a table that could have…
When asked whether he would use a second term to “abuse power, to break the law, to use the government to go after people” during a Fox News town hall, former president Donald Trump said that he would only be a dictator on “Day One” if elected next year. What do you think?
TEL AVIV—Addressing observers concerned about the toll of the nation’s ongoing incursion into Gaza, Israeli officials assured critics Friday that it was doing everything possible to minimize civilians. “To those expressing apprehension about this war, just know that our troops are taking every effort to mitigate…
Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current writing projects, current reading
An adversarial iMessage client for Android (permalink)
Adversarial interoperability is one of the most reliable ways to protect tech users from predatory corporations: that's when a technologist reverse-engineers an existing product to reconfigure or mod it (interoperability) in ways its users like, but which its manufacturer objects to (adversarial):
"Adversarial interop" is a mouthful, so at EFF, we coined the term "competitive compatibility," or comcom, which is a lot easier to say and to spell.
Scratch any tech success and you'll find a comcom story. After all, when a company turns its screws on its users, it's good business to offer an aftermarket mod that loosens them again. HP's $10,000/gallon inkjet ink is like a bat-signal for third-party ink companies. When Mercedes announces that it's going to sell you access to your car's accelerator pedal as a subscription service, that's like an engraved invitation to clever independent mechanics who'll charge you a single fee to permanently unlock that "feature":
Comcom saved giant tech companies like Apple. Microsoft tried to kill the Mac by rolling out a truly cursèd version of MS Office for MacOS. Mac users (5% of the market) who tried to send Word, Excel or Powerpoint files to Windows users (95% of the market) were stymied: their files wouldn't open, or they'd go corrupt. Tech managers like me started throwing out the graphic designer's Mac and replacing it with a Windows box with a big graphics card and Windows versions of Adobe's tools.
Comcom saved Apple's bacon. Apple reverse-engineered MS's flagship software suite and made a comcom version, iWork, whose Pages, Numbers and Keynote could flawlessly read and write MS's Word, Excel and Powerpoint files:
It's tempting to think of iWork as benefiting Apple users, and certainly the people who installed and used it benefited from it. But Windows users also benefited from iWork. The existence of iWork meant that Windows users could seamlessly collaborate on and share files with their Mac colleagues. IWork didn't just add a new feature to the Mac ("read and write files that originated with Windows users") – it also added a feature to Windows: "collaborate with Mac users."
Every pirate wants to be an admiral. Though comcom rescued Apple from a monopolist's sneaky attempt to drive it out of business, Apple – now a three trillion dollar company – has repeatedly attacked comcom when it was applied to Apple's products. When Apple did comcom, that was progress. When someone does comcom to Apple, that's piracy.
Apple has many tools at its disposal that Microsoft lacked in the early 2000s. Radical new interpretations of existing copyright, contract, patent and trademark law allow Apple – and other tech giants – to threaten rivals who engage in comcom with both criminal and civil penalties. That's right, you can go to prison for comcom these days. No wonder Jay Freeman calls this "felony contempt of business model":
Take iMessage, Apple's end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) instant messaging tool. Apple customers can use iMessage to send each other private messages that can't be read or altered by third parties – not cops, not crooks, not even Apple. That's important, because when private messaging systems get hacked, bad things happen:
But Apple has steadfastly refused to offer an iMessage app for non-Apple systems. If you're an Apple customer holding a sensitive discussion with an Android user, Apple refuses to offer you a tool to maintain your privacy. Those messages are sent "in the clear," over the 38-year-old SMS protocol, which is trivial to spy on and disrupt.
Apple sacrifices its users' security and integrity in the hopes that they will put pressure on their friends to move into Apple's walled garden. As CEO Tim Cook told a reporter: if you want to have secure communications with your mother, buy her an iPhone:
Last September, a 16-year old high school student calling himself JJTech published a technical teardown of iMessage, showing how any device could send and receive encrypted messages with iMessage users, even without an Apple ID:
In the weeks since, Beeper has been working to productize JJTech's code, and this week, they announced Beeper Mini, an Android-based iMessage client that is end-to-end encrypted:
Beeper is known for a multiprotocol chat client built on Matrix, allowing you to manage several kinds of chat from a single app. These multiprotocol chats have been around forever. Indeed, iMessage started out as one – when it was called "iChat," it supported Google Talk and Jabber, another multiprotocol tool. Other tools like Pidgin have kept the flame alive for decades, and have millions of devoted users:
But iMessage support has remained elusive. Last month, Nothing launched Sunchoice, a disastrous attempt to bring iMessage to Android, which used Macs in a data-center to intercept and forward messages to Android users, breaking E2EE and introducing massive surveillance risks:
Beeper Mini does not have these defects. The system encrypts and decrypts messages on the Android device itself, and directly communicates with Apple's servers. It gathers some telemetry for debugging, and this can be turned off in preferences. It sends a single SMS to Apple's servers during setup, which changes your device's bubble from green to blue, so that Apple users now correctly see your device as a secure endpoint for iMessage communications.
Now, this is a high-stakes business. Apple has a long history of threatening companies like Beeper over conduct like this. And Google has a long history deferring to those threats – as it did with OG App, a superior third-party Instagram app that it summarily yanked after Meta complained:
But while iMessage for Android is good for Android users, it's also very good for Apple customers, who can now get the privacy and security guarantees of iMessage for all their contacts, not just the ones who bought the same kind of phone as they did. The stakes for communications breaches have never been higher, and antitrust scrutiny on Big Tech companies has never been so intense.
Apple recently announced that it would add RCS support to iOS devices (RCS is a secure successor to SMS):
Early word from developers suggests that this support will have all kinds of boobytraps. That's par for the course with Apple, who love to announce splashy reversals of their worst policies – like their opposition to right to repair – while finding sneaky ways to go on abusing its customers:
The ball is in Apple's court, and, to a lesser extent, in Google's. As part of the mobile duopoly, Google has joined with Apple in facilitating the removal of comcom tools from its app store. But Google has also spent millions on an ad campaign shaming Apple for exposing its users to privacy risks when talking to Android users:
While we all wait for the other shoe to drop, Android users can get set up on Beeper Mini, and technologists can kick the tires on its code libraries and privacy guarantees.
"Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com
"Attack Surface": The third Little Brother novel, a standalone technothriller for adults. The Washington Post called it "a political cyberthriller, vigorous, bold and savvy about the limits of revolution and resistance." Order signed, personalized copies from Dark Delicacies https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1840/Available_Now%3A_Attack_Surface.html
The Bezzle: a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books, February 2024
Picks and Shovels: a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books, February 2025
Unauthorized Bread: a graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2025
This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net.
Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution.
20 years ago, I got in a (friendly) public spat with Chris Anderson, who was then the editor in chief of Wired. I'd publicly noted my disappointment with glowing Wired reviews of DRM-encumbered digital devices, prompting Anderson to call me unrealistic for expecting the magazine to condemn gadgets for their DRM:
I replied in public, telling him that he'd misunderstood. This wasn't an issue of ideological purity – it was about good reviewing practice. Wired was telling readers to buy a product because it had features x, y and z, but at any time in the future, without warning, without recourse, the vendor could switch off any of those features:
I proposed that all Wired endorsements for DRM-encumbered products should come with this disclaimer:
WARNING: THIS DEVICE’S FEATURES ARE SUBJECT TO REVOCATION WITHOUT NOTICE, ACCORDING TO TERMS SET OUT IN SECRET NEGOTIATIONS. YOUR INVESTMENT IS CONTINGENT ON THE GOODWILL OF THE WORLD’S MOST PARANOID, TECHNOPHOBIC ENTERTAINMENT EXECS. THIS DEVICE AND DEVICES LIKE IT ARE TYPICALLY USED TO CHARGE YOU FOR THINGS YOU USED TO GET FOR FREE — BE SURE TO FACTOR IN THE PRICE OF BUYING ALL YOUR MEDIA OVER AND OVER AGAIN. AT NO TIME IN HISTORY HAS ANY ENTERTAINMENT COMPANY GOTTEN A SWEET DEAL LIKE THIS FROM THE ELECTRONICS PEOPLE, BUT THIS TIME THEY’RE GETTING A TOTAL WALK. HERE, PUT THIS IN YOUR MOUTH, IT’LL MUFFLE YOUR WHIMPERS.
Wired didn't take me up on this suggestion.
But I was right. The ability to change features, prices, and availability of things you've already paid for is a powerful temptation to corporations. Inkjet printers were always a sleazy business, but once these printers got directly connected to the internet, companies like HP started pushing out "security updates" that modified your printer to make it reject the third-party ink you'd paid for:
Now, this scam wouldn't work if you could just put things back the way they were before the "update," which is where the DRM comes in. A thicket of IP laws make reverse-engineering DRM-encumbered products into a felony. Combine always-on network access with indiscriminate criminalization of user modification, and the enshittification will follow, as surely as night follows day.
This is the root of all the right to repair shenanigans. Sure, companies withhold access to diagnostic codes and parts, but codes can be extracted and parts can be cloned. The real teeth in blocking repair comes from the law, not the tech. The company that makes McDonald's wildly unreliable McFlurry machines makes a fortune charging franchisees to fix these eternally broken appliances. When a third party threatened this racket by reverse-engineering the DRM that blocked independent repair, they got buried in legal threats:
Everybody loves this racket. In Poland, a team of security researchers at the OhMyHack conference just presented their teardown of the anti-repair features in NEWAG Impuls locomotives. NEWAG boobytrapped their trains to try and detect if they've been independently serviced, and to respond to any unauthorized repairs by bricking themselves:
Poland is part of the EU, meaning that they are required to uphold the provisions of the 2001 EU Copyright Directive, including Article 6, which bans this kind of reverse-engineering. The researchers are planning to present their work again at the Chaos Communications Congress in Hamburg this month – Germany is also a party to the EUCD. The threat to researchers from presenting this work is real – but so is the threat to conferences that host them:
20 years ago, Chris Anderson told me that it was unrealistic to expect tech companies to refuse demands for DRM from the entertainment companies whose media they hoped to play. My argument – then and now – was that any tech company that sells you a gadget that can have its features revoked is defrauding you. You're paying for x, y and z – and if they are contractually required to remove x and y on demand, they are selling you something that you can't rely on, without making that clear to you.
But it's worse than that. When a tech company designs a device for remote, irreversible, nonconsensual downgrades, they invite both external and internal parties to demand those downgrades. Like Pavel Chekov says, a phaser on the bridge in Act I is going to go off by Act III. Selling a product that can be remotely, irreversibly, nonconsensually downgraded inevitably results in the worst person at the product-planning meeting proposing to do so. The fact that there are no penalties for doing so makes it impossible for the better people in that meeting to win the ensuing argument, leading to the moral injury of seeing a product you care about reduced to a pile of shit:
But even if everyone at that table is a swell egg who wouldn't dream of enshittifying the product, the existence of a remote, irreversible, nonconsensual downgrade feature makes the product vulnerable to external actors who will demand that it be used. Back in 2022, Adobe informed its customers that it had lost its deal to include Pantone colors in Photoshop, Illustrator and other "software as a service" packages. As a result, users would now have to start paying a monthly fee to see their own, completed images. Fail to pay the fee and all the Pantone-coded pixels in your artwork would just show up as black:
Adobe blamed this on Pantone, and there was lots of speculation about what had happened. Had Pantone jacked up its price to Adobe, so Adobe passed the price on to its users in the hopes of embarrassing Pantone? Who knows? Who can know? That's the point: you invested in Photoshop, you spent money and time creating images with it, but you have no way to know whether or how you'll be able to access those images in the future. Those terms can change at any time, and if you don't like it, you can go fuck yourself.
These companies are all run by CEOs who got their MBAs at Darth Vader University, where the first lesson is "I have altered the deal, pray I don't alter it further." Adobe chose to design its software so it would be vulnerable to this kind of demand, and then its customers paid for that choice. Sure, Pantone are dicks, but this is Adobe's fault. They stuck a KICK ME sign to your back, and Pantone obliged.
This keeps happening and it's gonna keep happening. Last week, Playstation owners who'd bought (or "bought") Warner TV shows got messages telling them that Warner had walked away from its deal to sell videos through the Playstation store, and so all the videos they'd paid for were going to be deleted forever. They wouldn't even get refunds (to be clear, refunds would also be bullshit – when I was a bookseller, I didn't get to break into your house and steal the books I'd sold you, not even if I left some cash on your kitchen table).
Sure, Warner is an unbelievably shitty company run by the single most guillotineable executive in all of Southern California, the loathsome David Zaslav, who oversaw the merger of Warner with Discovery. Zaslav is the creep who figured out that he could make more money cancelling completed movies and TV shows and taking a tax writeoff than he stood to make by releasing them:
Imagine putting years of your life into making a program – showing up on set at 5AM and leaving your kids to get their own breakfast, performing stunts that could maim or kill you, working 16-hour days during the acute phase of the covid pandemic and driving home in the night, only to have this absolute turd of a man delete the program before anyone could see it, forever, to get a minor tax advantage. Talk about moral injury!
But without Sony's complicity in designing a remote, irreversible, nonconsensual downgrade feature into the Playstation, Zaslav's war on art and creative workers would be limited to material that hadn't been released yet. Thanks to Sony's awful choices, David Zaslav can break into your house, steal your movies – and he doesn't even have to leave a twenty on your kitchen table.
The point here – the point I made 20 years ago to Chris Anderson – is that this is the foreseeable, inevitable result of designing devices for remote, irreversible, nonconsensual downgrades. Anyone who was paying attention should have figured that out in the GW Bush administration. Anyone who does this today? Absolute flaming garbage.
Sure, Zaslav deserves to be staked out over an anthill and slathered in high-fructose corn syrup. But save the next anthill for the Sony exec who shipped a product that would let Zaslav come into your home and rob you. That piece of shit knew what they were doing and they did it anyway. Fuck them. Sideways. With a brick.
Meanwhile, the studios keep making the case for stealing movies rather than paying for them. As Tyler James Hill wrote: "If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing":
"Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com
"Attack Surface": The third Little Brother novel, a standalone technothriller for adults. The Washington Post called it "a political cyberthriller, vigorous, bold and savvy about the limits of revolution and resistance." Order signed, personalized copies from Dark Delicacies https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1840/Available_Now%3A_Attack_Surface.html
The Bezzle: a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books, February 2024
Picks and Shovels: a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books, February 2025
Unauthorized Bread: a graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2025
This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net.
Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution.
Google is dealing with its second "lost data" fiasco in the past few months. This time, it's Google Drive, which has been mysteriously losing files for some people. Google acknowledged the issue on November 27, and a week later, it posted what it called a fix.
It doesn't feel like Google is describing this issue correctly; the company still calls it a "syncing issue" with the Drive desktop app versions 84.0.0.0 through 84.0.4.0. Syncing problems would only mean files don't make it to or from the cloud, and that doesn't explain why people are completely losing files. In the most popular issue thread on the Google Drive Community forums, severalusersdescribespreadsheets and documents going missing, which all would have been created and saved in the web interface, not the desktop app, and it's hard to see how the desktop app could affect that. Many users peg "May 2023" as the time documents stopped saving. Some say they've never used the desktop app.
Drive has multiple ways of syncing files, which complicates any explanation or diagnosis of what's going on. The most suspect mode in the whole fiasco is the default "file streaming," mode which is actually cloud-first. Files get removed from your computer and stored in the cloud, saving space and leaving only a web link in their place. Perhaps a "syncing" issue could remove files from your computer before uploading (that still doesn't explain the claims of missing web documents, though).
8:00 PM: The fourth and (hopefully) final primary debate opens by showcasing the GOP’s diversity with moderator Megyn Kelly, a blonde white woman, flanked by not one but two brunette white women. Kelly tells the candidates not to interrupt, to keep their answers brief, and to remember that Santa Claus is canonically white. She also asks the audience to keep their applause to a minimum, noting she can’t imagine there will be much to celebrate from this loser parade anyway.
8:03 PM: Kelly delivers the first question of the night to former baby and current big boy Ron DeSantis, explaining that while Trump has a large lead in the polls, we’ve all agreed tonight to pretend that one of the sad sacks on stage could still bungle their way into the executive office. So she asks, “Why do think you still have a shot?” DeSantis replies that he has been taking classes to learn how to not naturally repulse people when he speaks. His tongue darts out and licks his eyeball before he continues, explaining that he wants to let the voters, not the puny pundits, decide.
8:05 PM: Kelly addresses Nikki Haley by noting that the former UN ambassador is currently worth $8 million and has met with “Wall Street heavyweights and several billionaires.” Isn’t she too tight with the banks and billionaires to win over the GOP’s base? Haley responds, “Thanks, my donors have told me I’m allowed to say it’s great to be here, Ron DeSantis is a liar, and everyone up here is jealous of me.” Kelly then turns to Reddit user Vivek Ramaswamy, “You’re an asshole, how’s that been working out for you?” Ramaswamy responds by attacking Haley, “You were bankrupt when you left the UN, and after that, you joined the board of Boeing, and now you’re a multimillionaire. That math means you’re corrupt.” DeSantis chimes in, “I agree with the asshole man.” Kelly interjects, “Chris Christie is also here.” Christie enthusiastically replies, “I am.”
8:13 PM: Kelly mentions that Christie gave Trump an A for his first term. “But you’ve turned on him,” she says. “How could you become the nominee when the base doesn’t seem to like you very much?” Christie smiles, “I’m up here to tell the truth, and the truth is Donald Trump is a terrible person. He’s so terrible he makes me look like Santa Claus, and yes, WHITE Santa Claus, Megyn—don’t worry, I’m still as horrible as you are, but let’s be real for a minute. Everyone else on this stage is scared of Trump, but me. The only thing I’m scared of is having to share a public beach.”
8:23 PM: One of the brunette women moves the conversation to the topic of Israel, asking DeSantis how far he would go to secure the release of American hostages. DeSantis says he knows a man named Michael who told him he once played a video game that had hostages in it, and he told him, “Don’t worry, Michael, there’s a new sheriff in town.” Chris Christie leans back in his white Adirondack rocking chair: “This is the problem with these debates. Ron gets asked a question and doesn’t answer it. I’m not entirely sure he knows what words mean. Also, why does he stand like that? He looks like an electrocuted frog.” DeSantis postures angrily as he’s seen humans do on reality television shows, “I know stuff, questions are when your pitch goes up at the end, and you say my name, and then I say stuff like a sheriff would if he were new in town.” Christie puts his feet up on a footrest and pulls a large brimmed hat down over his eyes.
8:37 PM: Continuing with foreign policy, the other brunette asks Haley if she believes it is time to bomb Iran. Haley responds, “No—unless a defense contractor winks at me.” Ramaswamy interrupts, “Only Nikki and Joe Biden support the pointless war in Ukraine, and everyone on my Discord server agrees that Nikki is a corrupt doo-doo head.” Annoyed, Christie sets down his margarita and lashes out at him. “This is the fourth debate where, in the first twenty minutes, you would be voted the most obnoxious blowhard in America, so just shut up. You can disagree with Nikki Haley on issues, but I’ve colluded with her longer than you’ve been calling yourself a Republican, and you need to stop insulting her.” Ramaswamy, bursting with glee, like every troll who finally gets the attention they didn’t as a child, smiles and says, “What we’ve learned is Chris Christie and Nikki Haley are sitting in a tree K-I-L-L-I-N-G. They’re lying again like they lied about the WMDs in Iraq, and the aliens in Nevada, and how the earth goes around the sun. You can put lipstick on a Dick Cheney, but it’s still a fascist neocon, which are all words I learned from a meme, but it also had a crying Michael Jordan, so… hold on, I’ll draw it.” One of the brunette moderators nods, and says, “Thank you, shut up.”
8:41 PM: DeSantis is asked about his advocating for extrajudicial killing at the borders. DeSantis practices his concerned face, “I met a baby in Florida who crawled on the carpet, ingested fentanyl from the carpet, and died. Do you think the liberal elite care about my ghost baby friend? Of course not. I was in Afghanistan, and let me tell you, Al Qaeda didn’t wear uniforms. They all wore man dresses, and when I see a dress, I start shooting. Kill anyone wearing a dress, ask questions later—that’s what this sheriff who is me and is new in town says.”
8:58 PM: Haley is asked if the government should make home ownership easier for young Americans. She nods, “I watched my daughter and her husband struggle to buy their second beach home. It’s a real problem, and that problem is the debt. If we just stop our out-of-control spending by cutting all services so that no one can get any help at all, they’ll be more grateful about finding shade in the shadow of a billboard for fighter jets or the doorway of a luxury yacht showroom.” DeSantis says, “The ghost baby introduced me to a young man in Iowa. He has a job but can’t afford even the most basic protein enhancement alpha energy pills. The reason for this is student loan debt. I don’t want to do anything pansy like forgiving it, I want to eliminate college entirely and put people back to work in mines. And not those woke gender-study mines either—the dirty, gross penis-y ones!”
9:35 PM: Kelly, looking up from her phone, tells the candidates, “I’m bored, fight more.” Ramaswamy smiles and holds up a piece of paper on which he’s written NIKKI = DUHHHH. Haley walks over and takes his crayon box, unlocks her purse with face ID, and tosses it in. “I’M TELLING,” Ramaswamy cries. Startled, Christie wakes up, saying, “Can you guys cool it? I am so hungover right now.” DeSantis smirks or has gas. He pulls out a HELLO MY NAME IS sticker, writes NEW SHERIFF IN TOWN, on it, and affixes it to his jacket. He then stares into the camera, unblinking, for 120 seconds.
9:52 PM: Kelly rises from the moderator’s desk as if to leave but then turns back toward the candidates. “Oh yeah, just one more thing: Which former president would you draw inspiration from and why?”
CHRISTIE: I’d draw inspiration from Ronald Regan. I’ve been writing a book called What Would Regan Do, and honestly, this whole running for president thing is just my book tour.
HALEY: George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, one of the big ones, you know the guys.
DESANTIS: I’ve been told I do much better when I don’t talk at all, so Calvin Coolidge is my hero.
RAMASWAMY: I know they want you to think National Treasure is just a movie, but there’s a lot they got right, and Thomas Jefferson left us tons of clues about chemtrails and lesbian frogs, so I’m going to go with him.
9:58 PM: “Wrap it up,” Kelly says from the back of the auditorium while ordering herself an Uber.
CHRISTIE: On election day, everyone will vote except Trump, who will be in jail. I don’t care if you boo, you’re all idiots, goodnight.
RAMASWAMY: Climate change is a hoax, the election was stolen, they’re Weekend at Bernie’s-ing Soros, look it up, click that follow button, and Baba Booey.
HALEY: No socialism, no drama, no donations under 500K. Thanks so much, everyone!
Hovertext: I would find it really satisfying if you could turn a knob in the universe and diffraction fringes would go away.
Today's News:
Whew! Finally back on my update schedule. ICYMI a couple nice reviews have come in for the new book, and some glorious nerds built a wikipedia page for it.
This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.
It’s the Thursday “ask the readers” question. A reader writes:
I’d love to hear from you and/or your readers about how you handle the ubiquitous “holiday” activities every December that are invariably just Christmas celebrations.
I’m not Christian and I always find this time of year tiring. It doesn’t help that I’m an elementary teacher, so in addition to the general constant Christian normativity that abounds in this country, I get not just staff holiday parties, but a school-wide one and one for just about every individual classroom. Plus, of course, hallways full of “seasonal” crafts like Christmas trees, ornaments, Santa Clauses, et cetera. Student holiday concerts with nothing but Christmas carols. Christmas-themed projects and assignments all month long. And so on and so forth.
It’s a lot. It feels like it sidelines not just me, but much of our community. My school serves a lot of non-Christian students. That said, almost all of the staff is Christian and generally not responsive to any concerns regarding how Christmas-centric everything is. I’ll never forget a principal at a previous school informing me that, according to our district lawyers, Christmas trees are secular. Ironically, this happened only weeks after she told me I was not allowed to read students my picture book about kids at a Pesach gathering searching for the afikomen (among other books she took issue with). I guess some holiday traditions are more elementary school friendly than others.
I invariably feel pressured to attend and participate in Christmas celebrations. My current team is putting together a Secret Santa this month. I didn’t sign up and hoped that that would be that. A couple weeks later, they said that since not everyone signed up, they’re adding a cookie exchange to be “inclusive.” I explained I didn’t sign up for the Secret Santa because I’m not Christian, but hope they all have fun and look forward to future team bonding activities. I got a very strong response about how cookies are for everyone and we can all enjoy those. I just don’t want to go to a Secret Santa/cookie exchange/holiday party.
But I like my team, and I worry that by sitting out of these things I may alienate folks, come off as a stick in the mud, or miss valuable chances to connect with my coworkers. I feel like any attempt to push up against the Christmas overload each year takes way more capital than it ought to and maybe it’s just not worth it? I grow tired of hearing how each Christmas activity is really a “holiday” celebration and don’t I know there are multiple holidays celebrated in December. Yes, I’m well aware. I’m working during a holiday I celebrate right now because we don’t get multiple weeks off school for my holidays and nobody here has so much as acknowledged that it’s happening.
I know I’m not the only one in this boat, but I am the only one I know of among my coworkers. I’d love to hear how other folks navigate this type of thing. Have you found effective ways to encourage some change? Do you suck it up and go to the things for the professional connections? Do you try to enjoy it as a chance to experience other traditions? Am I feeling impacted more than I should? I feel like each year it bugs me a little bit more.
Yeah, I’m right there with you, and this year even more than others. Let’s throw this out to non-Christmas-celebrating readers to weigh in on. If you are Christian or celebrate Christmas, please hang back on this one.
SAN LEANDRO, CA—Deciding the infant was the last person anyone would ever suspect of carrying out a hit, local man Dennis Jeffries wired his baby $10,000 for killing his wife in childbirth. “Well, it was great working with you, kid—that’s $5,000 up front, plus $5,000 for a job well done,” said the 33-year-old father,…
WASHINGTON—Shining their flashlights to reveal the pajama-clad president with a wild look in his eye, the Secret Service reportedly found Joe Biden on the White House lawn Thursday attempting to dig his own grave. “It’s nearly four o’clock in the morning, Mr. President,” said an agent, who discovered the 81-year-old…
That was reverse psychology. Please buy this house. Did it work? Seriously, though, don’t buy this house. Open house Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Don’t come.
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Climate and Information Climate (Andrew Revkin)
