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Celerity's Journal
April 19, 2024
https://prospect.org/justice/2024-04-19-judges-letting-trump-run-amok/
Former President Donald Trump, flanked by attorneys Todd Blanche and Emil Bove, appears at Manhattan criminal court during jury selection in New York, April 18, 2024.
The multiple ongoing criminal and civil cases against former President Donald Trump have been a stress test of the fundamental structures and principles of our legal system. So far, the answer to one basic question—whether the rules apply equally to everyone—seems pretty clear, and discouraging. The former president and current Republican candidate has demonstrated in each case that he is, as a practical matter, largely immune from much of the supposed authority that our law enforcement and court systems have over him—while thumbing his nose at every official and private citizen involved along the way. The issue of whether courts should sanction Trump for his behavior as a defendant, for example, has been muddied by a related question about whether he might benefit politically if he faces such consequences. Trump himself has made the comical suggestion that he would be seen as a martyr in the mold of Nelson Mandela were he to be jailed for a gag order violation.
The fact that Trump will be one of this year’s two presidential nominees is too significant of a political reality to ignore, as is the constant, looming threat of real violence from his base. Still, the problem isn’t that prosecutors and judges are in some unsolvable bind; it’s that they’re going so far to appear unbiased that they’re now simply allowing Trump to bend and flout the laws and rules they’re responsible for enforcing. In fact, the judges overseeing Trump’s cases have more than enough discretion to respond to his violations of court orders and rules (and his apparent violations of witness intimidation laws) short of jailing him, and without providing opportunity for Trump to cast himself as a victim. And it’s high past time, in most if not all cases, for those judges to meaningfully punish Trump’s relentless line-stepping and rule-breaking. Robert Katzberg, a former federal prosecutor in New York, told me he can’t recall another defendant flaunting this much disrespect toward the court process.
Take the hush money case, for example, which became the first to go to trial this week, and likely the only one that will begin before the November election. Its charges are based on allegations that Trump ordered his lawyer to pay off adult film actress Stormy Daniels to prevent her from publicizing a sexual encounter with Trump, and concealed the transactions via false business records. In this case, Trump has shown a level of disrespect and disdain for the entire process and the rule of law that’s almost shocking, and mostly without facing consequences from Justice Juan Merchan. The same is true in the three other criminal cases against him, all of which have now been unduly delayed by his team’s deliberate strategy of disruption. In the case that went to trial this week, Trump and his lawyers have already been reprimanded and were issued an initial, very limited gag order due to Trump’s behavior in and out of court, and for making frivolous arguments. Before the trial even began, Trump had falsely accused the judge’s daughter of posting a photo depicting him behind bars.
The gag order restricts Trump from continuing to disparage or intimidate witnesses and others in relation to their participation in the case. And it still affords him broad leeway to campaign and make political comments, and to speak freely about witnesses, court staff, and others, contrary to his legal team’s representations. He just can’t focus on things like expected testimony or witnesses’ cooperation with the authorities, for example. Trump’s team rushed to challenge the gag order nonetheless, but the appeals court upheld it. Yet Trump has continued to flout the order with zero interruption. He openly violated the gag order on social media the very day after losing the appeal, and continued to do so until two days before his court date. Then, on Monday, Trump continued to violate the judge’s orders inside the courtroom as well. He initially indicated to Merchan that he understood that the law and court rules allow for his ejection from the court, or time in jail, if he interrupted the proceedings, according to reporters who were in court on April 15.
snip
Judges Are Letting Trump Run Amok In and Around Court
https://prospect.org/justice/2024-04-19-judges-letting-trump-run-amok/
Former President Donald Trump, flanked by attorneys Todd Blanche and Emil Bove, appears at Manhattan criminal court during jury selection in New York, April 18, 2024.
The multiple ongoing criminal and civil cases against former President Donald Trump have been a stress test of the fundamental structures and principles of our legal system. So far, the answer to one basic question—whether the rules apply equally to everyone—seems pretty clear, and discouraging. The former president and current Republican candidate has demonstrated in each case that he is, as a practical matter, largely immune from much of the supposed authority that our law enforcement and court systems have over him—while thumbing his nose at every official and private citizen involved along the way. The issue of whether courts should sanction Trump for his behavior as a defendant, for example, has been muddied by a related question about whether he might benefit politically if he faces such consequences. Trump himself has made the comical suggestion that he would be seen as a martyr in the mold of Nelson Mandela were he to be jailed for a gag order violation.
The fact that Trump will be one of this year’s two presidential nominees is too significant of a political reality to ignore, as is the constant, looming threat of real violence from his base. Still, the problem isn’t that prosecutors and judges are in some unsolvable bind; it’s that they’re going so far to appear unbiased that they’re now simply allowing Trump to bend and flout the laws and rules they’re responsible for enforcing. In fact, the judges overseeing Trump’s cases have more than enough discretion to respond to his violations of court orders and rules (and his apparent violations of witness intimidation laws) short of jailing him, and without providing opportunity for Trump to cast himself as a victim. And it’s high past time, in most if not all cases, for those judges to meaningfully punish Trump’s relentless line-stepping and rule-breaking. Robert Katzberg, a former federal prosecutor in New York, told me he can’t recall another defendant flaunting this much disrespect toward the court process.
Take the hush money case, for example, which became the first to go to trial this week, and likely the only one that will begin before the November election. Its charges are based on allegations that Trump ordered his lawyer to pay off adult film actress Stormy Daniels to prevent her from publicizing a sexual encounter with Trump, and concealed the transactions via false business records. In this case, Trump has shown a level of disrespect and disdain for the entire process and the rule of law that’s almost shocking, and mostly without facing consequences from Justice Juan Merchan. The same is true in the three other criminal cases against him, all of which have now been unduly delayed by his team’s deliberate strategy of disruption. In the case that went to trial this week, Trump and his lawyers have already been reprimanded and were issued an initial, very limited gag order due to Trump’s behavior in and out of court, and for making frivolous arguments. Before the trial even began, Trump had falsely accused the judge’s daughter of posting a photo depicting him behind bars.
The gag order restricts Trump from continuing to disparage or intimidate witnesses and others in relation to their participation in the case. And it still affords him broad leeway to campaign and make political comments, and to speak freely about witnesses, court staff, and others, contrary to his legal team’s representations. He just can’t focus on things like expected testimony or witnesses’ cooperation with the authorities, for example. Trump’s team rushed to challenge the gag order nonetheless, but the appeals court upheld it. Yet Trump has continued to flout the order with zero interruption. He openly violated the gag order on social media the very day after losing the appeal, and continued to do so until two days before his court date. Then, on Monday, Trump continued to violate the judge’s orders inside the courtroom as well. He initially indicated to Merchan that he understood that the law and court rules allow for his ejection from the court, or time in jail, if he interrupted the proceedings, according to reporters who were in court on April 15.
snip
April 19, 2024
https://prospect.org/health/2024-04-19-where-does-medicare-go-from-here/
President Joe Biden arrives to speak about his administration’s plans to protect Social Security and Medicare and lower health care costs, February 9, 2023, at the University of Tampa.
Medicare, the country’s largest and arguably most successful health care program, is under duress, weakened by decades of relentless efforts by insurance companies to privatize it. A rapidly growing Medicare Advantage market—now 52% of Medicare beneficiaries, up from 37% in 2018—controlled by some of the largest and most powerful corporations in the world, threatens to both drain the trust fund and eliminate Medicare’s most important and controversial component: its ability to set prices. It is not an overstatement to call it a heist of historic proportions, endangering the health not only of the more than 65 million seniors and people with disabilities who depend on Medicare but all Americans who benefit from the powerful role that Medicare has historically played in reining in health care costs. The giant corporations that dominate Medicare Advantage have rigged the system to maximize payments from our government to the point that they are now being overpaid between $88 billion and $140 billion a year. The overpayments could soar to new heights if the insurers get their way and eliminate traditional Medicare.
All of America’s seniors and disabled people who depend on Medicare could soon be moved to a managed care model of ever-tightening networks, relentless prior authorization requirements and limited drug formularies. The promise of a humane health care system for all would be sacrificed at the altar of the almighty insurer dollar. The Medicare Payments Advisory Commission (MedPAC), the independent congressional agency tasked with overseeing Medicare, last month released a searing report which found that Medicare spends 22% more per beneficiary in Medicare Advantage plans than if those beneficiaries had been enrolled in traditional fee-for-service Medicare. That’s up from a 6% estimate in the prior year. A similar cost trend exists for diagnosis coding. Medicare Advantage plans and their affiliated providers increasingly upcode diagnoses to get higher reimbursements. In 2024, overpayments due to upcoding could total $50 billion, according to MedPAC, up from $23 billion in 2023. These enormous overpayments drive up the cost of premiums—MedPAC’s conservative estimate is that the premiums paid to Medicare out of seniors’ Social Security checks will be $13 billion higher in 2024 because of those overpayments.
There is evidence that Americans and lawmakers are starting to wake up. Medicare Advantage enrollment growth slowed considerably in 2023. Support within the Democratic Party for Medicare Advantage is cratering. In 2022, 147 House Democrats signed an industry-backed letter supporting Medicare Advantage. This year, just 24 House Democrats signed the letter. Earlier this month, the Biden administration cut Medicare Advantage base payments for the second year in a row (while still increasing payments overall), over the fierce opposition of the insurance lobby. The investment bank Stephens called Biden’s decision a “highly adverse” outcome for insurers. Wall Street has taken note, punishing the stock price of the largest Medicare Advantage insurers, with Barron’s noting that Wall Street’s “love affair” with Humana is “ending in tears.” The cargo ship is turning. It is up to us to determine if that will be enough.
We can’t attack a problem if we don’t know how to diagnose it. I spoke with some of the most knowledgeable critics of Medicare Advantage about the danger the rapid expansion of Medicare privatization presents to the American public. Rick Gilfillan is a medical doctor who in 2010 became the first director of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI). He would go on to serve as CEO of Trinity Health from 2013 to 2019. In 2021 he launched an effort to halt the involuntary privatization of Medicare benefits. “Right now, all investigations are finding tremendous overpayments,” Gilfillan said. “The overpayments are based on medical diagnoses that may or may not be meaningful from a patient care standpoint. Insurers are using chart reviews, nurse home visits and AI software to find as many diagnoses as possible and thereby inflate the health risks of the patients and the premium they get from Medicare. The overpayments are just outrageous,” he said. The problem could get worse if the Supreme Court curtails the powers of regulatory agencies, as it may do this year. “It would make a huge difference in what CMS would be able to do,” Gilfillan said.
snip
Where Does Medicare Go From Here: Profit-Driven Chaos or Patient-Centered Community?
https://prospect.org/health/2024-04-19-where-does-medicare-go-from-here/
President Joe Biden arrives to speak about his administration’s plans to protect Social Security and Medicare and lower health care costs, February 9, 2023, at the University of Tampa.
Medicare, the country’s largest and arguably most successful health care program, is under duress, weakened by decades of relentless efforts by insurance companies to privatize it. A rapidly growing Medicare Advantage market—now 52% of Medicare beneficiaries, up from 37% in 2018—controlled by some of the largest and most powerful corporations in the world, threatens to both drain the trust fund and eliminate Medicare’s most important and controversial component: its ability to set prices. It is not an overstatement to call it a heist of historic proportions, endangering the health not only of the more than 65 million seniors and people with disabilities who depend on Medicare but all Americans who benefit from the powerful role that Medicare has historically played in reining in health care costs. The giant corporations that dominate Medicare Advantage have rigged the system to maximize payments from our government to the point that they are now being overpaid between $88 billion and $140 billion a year. The overpayments could soar to new heights if the insurers get their way and eliminate traditional Medicare.
All of America’s seniors and disabled people who depend on Medicare could soon be moved to a managed care model of ever-tightening networks, relentless prior authorization requirements and limited drug formularies. The promise of a humane health care system for all would be sacrificed at the altar of the almighty insurer dollar. The Medicare Payments Advisory Commission (MedPAC), the independent congressional agency tasked with overseeing Medicare, last month released a searing report which found that Medicare spends 22% more per beneficiary in Medicare Advantage plans than if those beneficiaries had been enrolled in traditional fee-for-service Medicare. That’s up from a 6% estimate in the prior year. A similar cost trend exists for diagnosis coding. Medicare Advantage plans and their affiliated providers increasingly upcode diagnoses to get higher reimbursements. In 2024, overpayments due to upcoding could total $50 billion, according to MedPAC, up from $23 billion in 2023. These enormous overpayments drive up the cost of premiums—MedPAC’s conservative estimate is that the premiums paid to Medicare out of seniors’ Social Security checks will be $13 billion higher in 2024 because of those overpayments.
There is evidence that Americans and lawmakers are starting to wake up. Medicare Advantage enrollment growth slowed considerably in 2023. Support within the Democratic Party for Medicare Advantage is cratering. In 2022, 147 House Democrats signed an industry-backed letter supporting Medicare Advantage. This year, just 24 House Democrats signed the letter. Earlier this month, the Biden administration cut Medicare Advantage base payments for the second year in a row (while still increasing payments overall), over the fierce opposition of the insurance lobby. The investment bank Stephens called Biden’s decision a “highly adverse” outcome for insurers. Wall Street has taken note, punishing the stock price of the largest Medicare Advantage insurers, with Barron’s noting that Wall Street’s “love affair” with Humana is “ending in tears.” The cargo ship is turning. It is up to us to determine if that will be enough.
We can’t attack a problem if we don’t know how to diagnose it. I spoke with some of the most knowledgeable critics of Medicare Advantage about the danger the rapid expansion of Medicare privatization presents to the American public. Rick Gilfillan is a medical doctor who in 2010 became the first director of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI). He would go on to serve as CEO of Trinity Health from 2013 to 2019. In 2021 he launched an effort to halt the involuntary privatization of Medicare benefits. “Right now, all investigations are finding tremendous overpayments,” Gilfillan said. “The overpayments are based on medical diagnoses that may or may not be meaningful from a patient care standpoint. Insurers are using chart reviews, nurse home visits and AI software to find as many diagnoses as possible and thereby inflate the health risks of the patients and the premium they get from Medicare. The overpayments are just outrageous,” he said. The problem could get worse if the Supreme Court curtails the powers of regulatory agencies, as it may do this year. “It would make a huge difference in what CMS would be able to do,” Gilfillan said.
snip
April 19, 2024
https://www.thelocal.se/20240418/today-in-sweden-a-roundup-of-the-latest-news-on-thursday-144/
https://archive.ph/mQ6Yt
Swedish vocabulary: könstillhörighetslagen - gender recognition law
Swedish parliament votes yes to gender recognition law
The Swedish parliament voted yes to the controversial law which will make it easier for people in Sweden to change legal gender, with 234 in favour and 94 against.https://www.thelocal.se/20240418/today-in-sweden-a-roundup-of-the-latest-news-on-thursday-144/
https://archive.ph/mQ6Yt
The vote took place after a six-hour long debate, where the Sweden Democrats and Christian Democrats were accused of filibustering in order to delay the vote until a later date, which they denied.
Under the new rules, people will be able to change their legal gender starting at the age of 16, though those under 18 will need the approval of their parents, a doctor, and the National Board of Health and Welfare.
A diagnosis of "gender dysphoria" - where a person may experience distress as a result of a mismatch between their biological sex and the gender they identify as - will no longer be required.
Surgical procedures to transition would, like now, be allowed from the age of 18, but would no longer require the Board of Health and Welfare's approval. The removal of ovaries or testes would however only be allowed from the age of 23, unchanged from today.
Under the new rules, people will be able to change their legal gender starting at the age of 16, though those under 18 will need the approval of their parents, a doctor, and the National Board of Health and Welfare.
A diagnosis of "gender dysphoria" - where a person may experience distress as a result of a mismatch between their biological sex and the gender they identify as - will no longer be required.
Surgical procedures to transition would, like now, be allowed from the age of 18, but would no longer require the Board of Health and Welfare's approval. The removal of ovaries or testes would however only be allowed from the age of 23, unchanged from today.
Swedish vocabulary: könstillhörighetslagen - gender recognition law
April 19, 2024
https://www.socialeurope.eu/ukraine-is-losing-and-the-west-faces-a-stark-choice
A Ukrainian soldier in a trench in Donetsk in February—Russia’s next goal will be to secure control over the whole region (Drop of Light / shutterstock.com)
Ukraine is experiencing a level of existential threat comparable only to the situation immediately after the full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022. But in contrast to then, improvements are unlikely—at least any time soon. Not only have conditions along the frontline significantly worsened, according to the Ukrainian commander-in-chief, Oleksandr Syrsky, but the very possibility of a Ukrainian defeat is now discussed in public by people like the former commander of the UK’s Joint Forces Command, General Sir Richard Barrons. Barrons told the BBC on April 13th that Ukraine could lose the war in 2024 ‘because Ukraine may come to feel it can’t win … And when it gets to that point, why will people want to fight and die any longer, just to defend the indefensible?’
This may be his way of trying to push the west to provide more military aid to Ukraine more quickly. Yet the fact that the secretary general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Jens Stoltenberg, publicly accepts that to end the war Ukraine will have to negotiate with Russia, and decide ‘what kind of compromises they’re willing to do’, is a clear indication that things are not going well for Ukraine. There are several reasons for what appears to be an increasingly defeatist narrative. First is the worsening situation at the front, where Ukraine lacks the manpower and the equipment and ammunition to hold the line against Russia. This will not change any time soon. The new Ukrainian mobilisation law has only just been approved. It will take time to train, deploy and integrate new troops at the front.
At the same time, Russia’s economy has been resilient to western sanctions and seen growth driven by the war. On top of deliveries from Iran and North Korea, dual-use technology, including electrical components and machine tools for arms manufacture, has been supplied by China. Moscow has also managed to produce a lot of its own equipment and ammunition. Much of this is being made in facilities beyond the reach of Ukrainian weapons. This is not to say that all is well with Russian resupplies but they are superior to what Ukraine can manage on its own in the absence of western support.
Bleak outlook
This changing balance of capabilities to sustain the war effort, which increasingly favours Russia, has enabled the Kremlin to adopt a strategy of grinding down Ukrainian defences along long stretches of the front, especially in Donbas in the east, where Russian pressure has been applied in recent months. There is also a large concentration of Russian troops across the border from Kharkiv at the moment. Ukraine’s second-largest city has come under increased Russian attacks over the past several weeks, which has led to mandatory evacuations from three districts in the region. The approximately 100,000 to 120,000 Russian troops would not be sufficient for another successful Russian cross-border offensive. But they are enough to tie down large numbers of Ukrainian forces which, therefore, cannot be used in other potentially more vulnerable areas of the frontline.
The state of the conflict in Ukraine as of April 16th. Institute for the Study of War
snip
Ukraine is losing the war. If the west does not help now, it will face a resurgent and aggressive Russia.
https://www.socialeurope.eu/ukraine-is-losing-and-the-west-faces-a-stark-choice
A Ukrainian soldier in a trench in Donetsk in February—Russia’s next goal will be to secure control over the whole region (Drop of Light / shutterstock.com)
Ukraine is experiencing a level of existential threat comparable only to the situation immediately after the full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022. But in contrast to then, improvements are unlikely—at least any time soon. Not only have conditions along the frontline significantly worsened, according to the Ukrainian commander-in-chief, Oleksandr Syrsky, but the very possibility of a Ukrainian defeat is now discussed in public by people like the former commander of the UK’s Joint Forces Command, General Sir Richard Barrons. Barrons told the BBC on April 13th that Ukraine could lose the war in 2024 ‘because Ukraine may come to feel it can’t win … And when it gets to that point, why will people want to fight and die any longer, just to defend the indefensible?’
This may be his way of trying to push the west to provide more military aid to Ukraine more quickly. Yet the fact that the secretary general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Jens Stoltenberg, publicly accepts that to end the war Ukraine will have to negotiate with Russia, and decide ‘what kind of compromises they’re willing to do’, is a clear indication that things are not going well for Ukraine. There are several reasons for what appears to be an increasingly defeatist narrative. First is the worsening situation at the front, where Ukraine lacks the manpower and the equipment and ammunition to hold the line against Russia. This will not change any time soon. The new Ukrainian mobilisation law has only just been approved. It will take time to train, deploy and integrate new troops at the front.
At the same time, Russia’s economy has been resilient to western sanctions and seen growth driven by the war. On top of deliveries from Iran and North Korea, dual-use technology, including electrical components and machine tools for arms manufacture, has been supplied by China. Moscow has also managed to produce a lot of its own equipment and ammunition. Much of this is being made in facilities beyond the reach of Ukrainian weapons. This is not to say that all is well with Russian resupplies but they are superior to what Ukraine can manage on its own in the absence of western support.
Bleak outlook
This changing balance of capabilities to sustain the war effort, which increasingly favours Russia, has enabled the Kremlin to adopt a strategy of grinding down Ukrainian defences along long stretches of the front, especially in Donbas in the east, where Russian pressure has been applied in recent months. There is also a large concentration of Russian troops across the border from Kharkiv at the moment. Ukraine’s second-largest city has come under increased Russian attacks over the past several weeks, which has led to mandatory evacuations from three districts in the region. The approximately 100,000 to 120,000 Russian troops would not be sufficient for another successful Russian cross-border offensive. But they are enough to tie down large numbers of Ukrainian forces which, therefore, cannot be used in other potentially more vulnerable areas of the frontline.
The state of the conflict in Ukraine as of April 16th. Institute for the Study of War
snip
April 19, 2024
here is enough of a slice to see he is deranged:
snip
Max Azzarello, who set himself on fire in NYC, was a CT loon, obsessed with crypto being part of a fascist global coup
I will not post a link to his Substack, sorryhere is enough of a slice to see he is deranged:
snip
more lunacy
April 19, 2024
On MSNBC right now (or was)
Lol, Jared Moskowitz just called Empty G one of the 3 Little Pigs (along with Gosar and Massey) and a Russia Firster
On MSNBC right now (or was)
April 19, 2024
https://slman.com/life/food-drink/recipes/best-salmon-recipe
snip
9 Ways With Salmon
https://slman.com/life/food-drink/recipes/best-salmon-recipe
Tray Baked Moroccan Salmon & Rice
Ingredients
2 Cooks&Co Green Frenk Chillies
1 large courgette
250g of basmati rice
2 Cooks&Co Roasted Red Peppers, finely sliced
1 preserved lemon, skin & pith finely chopped
12-14 pitted green olives, halved
½ tsp of ground turmeric
½ tsp of ground cinnamon
1 tsp of ground cumin
500ml of hot vegetable stock
3 tsp of harissa paste (less if it’s a very spicy one)
3 tbsp of natural yoghurt
4 salmon fillets, skin on
Olive oil for drizzling
Small handful pistachio nuts, roughly chopped
½ lemon
Flaked sea salt & freshly ground black pepper
Method
STEP 1
Heat the oven to 200°C / 180°C Fan / Gas Mark 6.
STEP 2
Roughly chop 2 of the Cooks&Co Green Frenk chillies and put them in a large roasting tray, approximately 25cm x 35cm. Cut the courgette in half lengthways and then cut into half-moon slices. Add to the tray along with the rice, Cooks&Co Roasted Pepper strips, preserved lemon, olives, dried spices and pour over the stock. Briefly stir everything together. Cover the tray with a piece of foil, wrapping tightly to prevent any steam escaping. Put it in the oven for 20 minutes.
STEP 3
Meanwhile, combine and mix the harissa, yoghurt and a pinch of salt and use this to coat the salmon all over.
STEP 4
Remove the tray from the oven, take off the foil, taking care as the hot steam escapes and sit the salmon on top, spreading excess yoghurt on top of the fillets. Season with salt and black pepper and drizzle the whole thing with a little olive oil. Return to the oven and cook for a further 20 minutes.
STEP 5
Lift the salmon onto serving plates. Run a fork through the rice to separate the grains and serve scattered with pistachio nuts, a squeeze of lemon juice and extra chillies.
Ingredients
2 Cooks&Co Green Frenk Chillies
1 large courgette
250g of basmati rice
2 Cooks&Co Roasted Red Peppers, finely sliced
1 preserved lemon, skin & pith finely chopped
12-14 pitted green olives, halved
½ tsp of ground turmeric
½ tsp of ground cinnamon
1 tsp of ground cumin
500ml of hot vegetable stock
3 tsp of harissa paste (less if it’s a very spicy one)
3 tbsp of natural yoghurt
4 salmon fillets, skin on
Olive oil for drizzling
Small handful pistachio nuts, roughly chopped
½ lemon
Flaked sea salt & freshly ground black pepper
Method
STEP 1
Heat the oven to 200°C / 180°C Fan / Gas Mark 6.
STEP 2
Roughly chop 2 of the Cooks&Co Green Frenk chillies and put them in a large roasting tray, approximately 25cm x 35cm. Cut the courgette in half lengthways and then cut into half-moon slices. Add to the tray along with the rice, Cooks&Co Roasted Pepper strips, preserved lemon, olives, dried spices and pour over the stock. Briefly stir everything together. Cover the tray with a piece of foil, wrapping tightly to prevent any steam escaping. Put it in the oven for 20 minutes.
STEP 3
Meanwhile, combine and mix the harissa, yoghurt and a pinch of salt and use this to coat the salmon all over.
STEP 4
Remove the tray from the oven, take off the foil, taking care as the hot steam escapes and sit the salmon on top, spreading excess yoghurt on top of the fillets. Season with salt and black pepper and drizzle the whole thing with a little olive oil. Return to the oven and cook for a further 20 minutes.
STEP 5
Lift the salmon onto serving plates. Run a fork through the rice to separate the grains and serve scattered with pistachio nuts, a squeeze of lemon juice and extra chillies.
snip
April 19, 2024
What are the big takeaways from Swift’s new album? She’s refining her sound, confronting elements of her fanbase and done with romantic idealisation
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/apr/19/taylor-swift-album-the-tortured-poets-department-lyrics
She’s rebuking the public for the first time
Swift named an entire album after the concept of her reputation and has been engaging with public perceptions of her as far back as 2010’s Speak Now; songs such as Mean, Blank Space and the gothic half of Reputation lash out directly at critics. But she’s never openly condemned her listeners before her new album The Tortured Poets Department, in songs that constitute some of its most daring moments. Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me? feels like a deservedly bitter, barbed update of the cutesier and more cloying Anti-Hero that suggests Swift is the way she is because of the twisted culture she grew up in and had to contort herself to fit into: “You taught me, you caged me, and then you called me crazy,” she seethes, sounding quite high on the fearsome power commentators have ascribed to her.
Most thrilling is But Daddy I Love Him, named after a line that astute listeners will recognise from The Little Mermaid as Ariel protests to King Triton that she’s in love with landlubbing human Eric. It’s very clearly about the pearl-clutching that transpired when Swift started dating Matty Healy of the 1975 last spring. She was fresh out of a six-year relationship with actor Joe Alwyn; Healy was in trouble for laughing at racist jokes on a podcast, an incident that led concerned Swift fans to dig up his previous controversies and pen (pathetic) open letters petitioning her to break up with him. The song hints that even her management and family tried to get her to end it (“soon enough the elders had convened down at the city hall”). But Healy’s notoriety, the song makes clear, was partially the point: “He was chaos / he was revelry,” she sings ecstatically, then directs her ire to the “Sarahs and Hannahs in their Sunday best” and the “wine moms” castigating her choices:
There’s something quite seditious about the stadium-sized euphoria of the song – that she can criticise elements of her audience and make them sing along with those criticisms – as well as the subtle country musicianship that blossoms towards the end, gesturing at the precocious and scrupulously behaved country star that Swift once was and that many expect her to still be. The punchline is great – “I’m having his baby / No I’m not but you should see your faces” – but the sentiment about who gets to decide what’s right for her, as a 34-year-old woman who’s been working for 20 years, is even better. Later, on Guilty as Sin?, she details the boredom she seemed to feel in her previous relationship and questions “if long-suffering propriety is what they want from me”. Swift has questioned the contract of likability that female pop stars are expected to uphold with the public before, and has been untangling the concept of the “good girl” she was raised to be for several years, but has never made quite so plain that she has no intention of living up to it any more.
She’s rejecting idealisation
As well as trouncing expectations that she should uphold some level of respectability, Swift also reckons with the limits of romantic idealisation, as seen from both sides. She makes very clear that the thought of Healy captivated her while her relationship with Alwyn was foundering – to the degree that Guilty as Sin? documents her fantasies about Healy, prompting categorically the first allusion to masturbation in her catalogue: “These fatal fantasies / Giving way to laboured breath / Taking all of me / We’ve already done it in my head.” Once they got together, she sings, they both told friends that they’d die without one another; she swears she can reform his bad habits. But the fantasies turn out to be just that: The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived is a Dear John/All Too Well-level evisceration of how he “hung me on your wall / Stabbed me with your push pins / In public showed me off / Then sank in stoned oblivion”, and ultimately ghosted her. The sheen dulls to black: “I’ll say good riddance,” she sings, “cos it wasn’t sexy once it wasn’t forbidden.”
It’s her funniest album …
snip
Breakups, fantasies and her most cutting lyrics: inside Taylor's Swift's The Tortured Poets Department
What are the big takeaways from Swift’s new album? She’s refining her sound, confronting elements of her fanbase and done with romantic idealisation
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/apr/19/taylor-swift-album-the-tortured-poets-department-lyrics
She’s rebuking the public for the first time
Swift named an entire album after the concept of her reputation and has been engaging with public perceptions of her as far back as 2010’s Speak Now; songs such as Mean, Blank Space and the gothic half of Reputation lash out directly at critics. But she’s never openly condemned her listeners before her new album The Tortured Poets Department, in songs that constitute some of its most daring moments. Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me? feels like a deservedly bitter, barbed update of the cutesier and more cloying Anti-Hero that suggests Swift is the way she is because of the twisted culture she grew up in and had to contort herself to fit into: “You taught me, you caged me, and then you called me crazy,” she seethes, sounding quite high on the fearsome power commentators have ascribed to her.
Most thrilling is But Daddy I Love Him, named after a line that astute listeners will recognise from The Little Mermaid as Ariel protests to King Triton that she’s in love with landlubbing human Eric. It’s very clearly about the pearl-clutching that transpired when Swift started dating Matty Healy of the 1975 last spring. She was fresh out of a six-year relationship with actor Joe Alwyn; Healy was in trouble for laughing at racist jokes on a podcast, an incident that led concerned Swift fans to dig up his previous controversies and pen (pathetic) open letters petitioning her to break up with him. The song hints that even her management and family tried to get her to end it (“soon enough the elders had convened down at the city hall”). But Healy’s notoriety, the song makes clear, was partially the point: “He was chaos / he was revelry,” she sings ecstatically, then directs her ire to the “Sarahs and Hannahs in their Sunday best” and the “wine moms” castigating her choices:
There’s something quite seditious about the stadium-sized euphoria of the song – that she can criticise elements of her audience and make them sing along with those criticisms – as well as the subtle country musicianship that blossoms towards the end, gesturing at the precocious and scrupulously behaved country star that Swift once was and that many expect her to still be. The punchline is great – “I’m having his baby / No I’m not but you should see your faces” – but the sentiment about who gets to decide what’s right for her, as a 34-year-old woman who’s been working for 20 years, is even better. Later, on Guilty as Sin?, she details the boredom she seemed to feel in her previous relationship and questions “if long-suffering propriety is what they want from me”. Swift has questioned the contract of likability that female pop stars are expected to uphold with the public before, and has been untangling the concept of the “good girl” she was raised to be for several years, but has never made quite so plain that she has no intention of living up to it any more.
She’s rejecting idealisation
As well as trouncing expectations that she should uphold some level of respectability, Swift also reckons with the limits of romantic idealisation, as seen from both sides. She makes very clear that the thought of Healy captivated her while her relationship with Alwyn was foundering – to the degree that Guilty as Sin? documents her fantasies about Healy, prompting categorically the first allusion to masturbation in her catalogue: “These fatal fantasies / Giving way to laboured breath / Taking all of me / We’ve already done it in my head.” Once they got together, she sings, they both told friends that they’d die without one another; she swears she can reform his bad habits. But the fantasies turn out to be just that: The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived is a Dear John/All Too Well-level evisceration of how he “hung me on your wall / Stabbed me with your push pins / In public showed me off / Then sank in stoned oblivion”, and ultimately ghosted her. The sheen dulls to black: “I’ll say good riddance,” she sings, “cos it wasn’t sexy once it wasn’t forbidden.”
It’s her funniest album …
snip
April 19, 2024
https://aeon.co/videos/tiny-entangled-universes-that-form-or-fizzle-out-a-theory-of-the-quantum-multiverse
In recent decades, cosmic inflation theory has largely settled the once-daunting existential question of ‘How did the Universe begin?’ for most physicists. That is to say that, from a singular hot, dense and small starting point, the just-right conditions for the emergence of the Universe were met. This set the stage for the unfathomably rapid expansion of the Big Bang and the emergent laws of physics that we observe today.
However, as the Albanian American cosmologist Laura Mersini-Houghton explains to the American host Robert Lawrence Kuhn in this instalment of his series Closer to Truth, the first fraction of a second of the Universe, just before the Big Bang, is still a wide-open scientific frontier. Exploring the fertile ground where observation meets theory, Mersini-Houghton explains why she believes the improbable existence of our Universe suggests a quantum multiverse in which some potential universes fizzle into oblivion, and others form classical universes like our own.
Video by Closer to Truth
It’s among the oldest questions because we humans are rightly obsessed by ultimate origins. Cosmologists can now explain back to the first 10-36 second of our universe - with the theory of “cosmic inflation”, which is what put the “bang” into the Big Bang. What is recent thinking on the beginning of the universe?
Tiny, entangled universes that form or fizzle out - a theory of the quantum multiverse
https://aeon.co/videos/tiny-entangled-universes-that-form-or-fizzle-out-a-theory-of-the-quantum-multiverse
In recent decades, cosmic inflation theory has largely settled the once-daunting existential question of ‘How did the Universe begin?’ for most physicists. That is to say that, from a singular hot, dense and small starting point, the just-right conditions for the emergence of the Universe were met. This set the stage for the unfathomably rapid expansion of the Big Bang and the emergent laws of physics that we observe today.
However, as the Albanian American cosmologist Laura Mersini-Houghton explains to the American host Robert Lawrence Kuhn in this instalment of his series Closer to Truth, the first fraction of a second of the Universe, just before the Big Bang, is still a wide-open scientific frontier. Exploring the fertile ground where observation meets theory, Mersini-Houghton explains why she believes the improbable existence of our Universe suggests a quantum multiverse in which some potential universes fizzle into oblivion, and others form classical universes like our own.
Video by Closer to Truth
It’s among the oldest questions because we humans are rightly obsessed by ultimate origins. Cosmologists can now explain back to the first 10-36 second of our universe - with the theory of “cosmic inflation”, which is what put the “bang” into the Big Bang. What is recent thinking on the beginning of the universe?
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