"That seems to be more of this 'stuff has agency' trend that is going on. I did not do it, the gun just went off."

Says Todd in the comments to the post that talks — the post that talks! — about using the expression "release weight" instead of "lose weight."

It is NEVER ever MY fault. Stuff just happens, bad stuff anyway. Everyone owns the good stuff but bad stuff just happens.

In this case if the weight doesn't leave, well "it" chose to stay and it is NOT your fault!

But this made me think about the virus. It's just a thing. It has no mind. But we're encouraged to think of it as stuff with agency. Here's Trump, yesterday:

I view the invisible enemy as a war.... Hey, it’s killed more people than Pearl Harbor, and it’s killed more people than the World Trade Center. World Trade Center was close to 3,000. Well, we’re going to beat that by many times, unfortunately, so yeah, we view it as a war. This is a mobilization against the war. In many ways, it’s a tougher enemy. We do very well against the visible enemies. It’s the invisible enemy. This is an invisible enemy, but we’re doing a good job.

Paying $508 a month to live in a box — a "pod" — tucked up against the wall in someone else's apartment.

In San Francisco.

Many people have apartments with the space/ capacity to house another person but choose not to because there isn't an attractive way to do so. Temporary partitions offer poor privacy, especially in terms of sound. They also tend to ruin whatever room they're in - you're less likely to use your living room if it doubles as a bedroom.

I think pods can provide a needed fix here. Yes the living room housing my pod is smaller - but it's by no means ruined. If pods can provide an attractive way to add a bedroom to an apartment, I think they could help a lot of people out. People with the extra space wanting to bring in more money by subletting, people looking for cheap and simple housing, or people wanting to add another bedroom so their friend can move in could all benefit.

What this all comes back to, though, is making a pod people would be willing to live in....

... pod people... hmmm.

Well, the tiny house/tiny housing movement marches on.

Presumably, he gets to use the bathroom. Does he also get the use of the kitchen and the living room during the day or is he supposed to stay in his box and only use the rooms as a path to get to his box?

IN THE COMMENTS: Todd said: "Those look like they could double-stack." That made me remember Kramer's chest of drawer:

Kirsten Gillibrand says the late Daniel Inouye was the Senator who told her she'd "lost too much weight" and "I like my girls chubby."

Under pressure to name names, Senator Gillibrand names a dead man.

It turns out the senator was the late Daniel K. Inouye of Hawaii, the decorated veteran and civil rights hero, according to people with knowledge of the incident.

With his deep baritone and courtly manner, Mr. Inouye was revered by his colleagues and was a powerhouse in both Hawaii and the Senate, where he was a reliable supporter of women’s rights.

Oh, those supporters of women's rights are the worst sort of sexists underneath it all, I bet.

Here's my post from last week speculating about why Gillibrand wouldn't name names. I thought of 5 reasons why not and polled readers, and by far the most popular guess was: "Maybe it didn't happen." That answer seems more apt now that the response to the pressure was to name a dead man.

Now, what do you think is more likely?

It never happened, and she's lying by naming Inouye.

It happened, and it was Inouye. She'd been protecting him.

It happened, it was Inouye, but she didn't name him because we wouldn't care if a dead man did it.

It happened, but someone else did it, and a dead man's name is convenient.

It happened, it was Inouye, but she'd look bad naming a dead man.

It happened, it was Inouye, and she wanted no names to focus us on the generality of sexism.

pollcode.com free polls

IN THE COMMENTS: EMD said: "You think she'd have enough smarts to name a dead Republican," and, really, that's the strongest evidence that she's not lying. If you're going to use death to insulate your lies, why not pick an opponent? One answer is: The Republican Party would fight back, call me a liar, etc. My party has its interest in me.

And Todd makes 2 important points. First, the linked article doesn't specify that Gillibrand divulged the name, only that "people with knowledge" did. I am assuming that the "people" are either Gillibrand herself or her agents, speaking for her. It's possible, though, that they acquired their knowledge through Gillibrand, but not as a consequence of the pressure she's felt to name names and that their decision to speak to the press was an independent choice, unconnected to any decision by Gillibrand to name names. I think that's unlikely, but the text of the NYT piece preserves that possibility. The NYT could clarify that. But I believe the NYT would tend to protect and help Gillibrand, so I don't think they'd publish this fact unless it was what Gillibrand wants.

Speaking of how the NYT phrases things to help Democrats, Todd's other observation is a discrepancy between the text I cut and pasted — "It turns out the senator was the late Daniel K. Inouye of Hawaii, the decorated veteran and civil rights hero, according to people with knowledge of the incident" — and the text that appears at the link now — "It turns out the senator was the late Daniel K. Inouye, Democrat of Hawaii, the decorated veteran and civil rights hero, according to people with knowledge of the incident."

The original text did something that's frequently seen, the omission of "Democrat" in a mainstream media report of something negative about a Democrat. I'm guessing that somebody criticized the omission — somebody usually does — and the NYT stuck the "Democrat" in there. I looked for a reference to a correction but found none.

I did, however, find that the page I was reading is a new NYT feature, beginning today, called "First Draft," which is "a ​continuously updated ​news feed." Does "continuously updated" mean that corrections don't need to be noted? If so, "First Draft" is a misnomer. I don't know what draft I'm reading.