quicklime

I expect it to be (more or less) permanent

Constituent pressure? How frustrating!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Regan

Why were they making a movie about Donald Regan?

Thing is, yeah they're fucking stupid but they're also voters who the Dems could have persuaded and hardly tried. Repeatedly spamming "vote for us or you get Trumped again" doesn't count as persuasion.

it's not even remotely close to half of the city burning down. But given the damage estimates are running somewhere around $150 billion, it's bad enough

Can I fully agree with you about them doing that, while also maintaining that in the long run insurance of all kinds will be unsustainable in light of the ongoing (and really just beginning at this point) climate catastrophe, not to mention the whole rest of the polycrisis facing humanity

I can't help feeling that the real bad news is not that online platforms have been ruined, but that people have been and remain dependent on them.

I suspect the answer to that might be the same as to the classic question, "Can the markets stay completely insane and irrational longer than I can remain solvent?"

no, he'll block federal aid and claim that Palisades residents didn't rake their yards well enough.

something something Melon Husk and Rare-Earth Mining

Yes -- surely the eligible pool is tiny at best. And the pull to use skills of deception for profit instead is widespread.