Thus far democratic peace is holding up pretty well. Trump has threatened to invade democracies (Canada and Denmark) but so far his rabid foreign policy has been restrained to authoritarian regimes (Venezuela, Iran, and Cuba)

This is why I’m not clapping my hands with excitement that Paxton will make it easier to win a Texas senate seat. That would require Republican voters to conclude that there is a level of corrupt/crazy that is less desirable than a Dem in office. We have never, not once, observed that happen.

A+

A truism since Reagan is that the private sector could do some things better/cheaper. When we finally shake this off, I hope it becomes a core of liberal democracy (like separation of church and state) that we don’t rely on the private sector for public goods. In the long run it twists/harms both.

Went down a rabbit hole on Inverse Probability Weighting last night...and realized I'm in over my head on the math. Help? Please?

You know with all the issues related to LLMs hallucinating I bet you all feel pretty sorry for mocking “Verrit” off the internet. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verrit

I’ve been using Claude to brainstorm anecdotes/examples for my book project. (Nothing load bearing). Got a great quote from Jimmy Carter. Went digging in the cited source (autobiography). Example is correct but the quote was 100% AI hallucination. Always verify everything!!!

I have a copy of the extended (through 1992) world event interaction survey (WEIS) data. It circulates among academics but was never formally published. I picked up a copy from Phil Schrodt in 2008 and the best I can muster as validation/authentication is “chain of custody”

If this role goes to anyone other than Ryan Reynolds it will be a crime against history.

Remember when the fed chair was facing criminal investigation allegedly for cost overruns on a remodeling project. I do.

Just watched the Grand Budapest hotel and it was a near perfect movie. It also made me love the Phoenician scheme all the more

Blazing hot takes 70 years too late: Agatha Christie novels are not good. Her mysteries do not hold together. Is there resolution? Yes. Is it internally coherent or supported? Never. Not once.

Spent the past week working to build AI agents in Claude, Copilot, and Gemini/NotebookLM Pros: I’ve done a lot of reflection on my workflow and how to improve note taking and storage Cons: ran a proof of concept test today …and it was not good.

Spent the past week working to build AI agents in Claude, Copilot, and Gemini/NotebookLM Pros: I’ve done a lot of reflection on my workflow and how to improve note taking and storage Cons: ran a proof of concept test today …and it was not good.

Is this really from Freud? Unclear. Is this advice that some people might give and some people might emulate? Yes.

To be clear I have no memory of my days on the rodeo circuit. But my assumption is that heavy drinking, hard drug use, and multiple concussions would have eliminated any memories of that time, so there’s a pretty good chance I spent some time on the circuit.

Yeah…this hurts in ways that were probably not the point but magnify 40 years worth of trauma. Hash tag spelling does not equal intelligence.

So “women and children fist” discourse is heating up for reasons, and I will share I’ve actually been in one of these situations. March 2011 there was a blizzard in North Dakota. -50, wind, rolled in fast, went all night. It was bad. I was fully expecting to freeze to death on the interstate.

"There's no substitute for the love of language, for the beauty of an English sentence. There's no substitute for struggling, if a struggle is needed, to make an English sentence as beautiful as it should be." Harper Lee, born on this day in 1926

As I get older, I’m increasingly aware that a lot of what “young people are into” is probably just an ironic joke that I don’t get and may be the target of.

Wow, people must really hate their insurance companies.

Back again for the third time this year. Good to see you again my old friend.

Cities ranked by dinner breakfasts First: New Orleans . . . . Last: Chicago Sorry, Chicago. I love you but learn to cook an egg.

In Chicago for the worlds fastest MPSA conference. If you see me between the hours of 8 and 12 on Thursday please say hi. That is your window because I’m bouncing back to MSP for a different event. It has been a week!

Something I did not anticipate when I moved into an associate dean role is how much eating is part of the job. Not only is my time less flexible so it is harder to cook, but there is a lot of travel and ceremonial events and it adds up!

I generally enjoy flying and the airport experience but MSP needs to turn on the air conditioning. It has been 3 months of cooking in the world’s largest easy bake oven.

Absolutely incredible. NASA Astronaut Reid Wiseman, who commanded Artemis II, took this footage from the far side of the Moon with his iPhone. Watch with sound on.

So if it feels like MAGA has gone to war with Catholicism this week you would be right. Also Arendt hit on the core of this in origins of totalitarianism. The rabid core needs to constantly add enemies as a purity test and fealty demonstration.

So knowing that the DoD (DoW?) threatened the Vatican puts a new spin on Catholics being excluded from the Easter service. I’m long lapsed but my recollection is that the Catholic Church is well positioned for this fight.

In my foreign policy class I have a side by side table of issues major approaches to foreign policy throughout US history. The only constant across all administrations (including Trump I) was a commitment to freedom of navigation. Looks like I need to update those slides.

If you want some investment advice (and who doesn't). Buy 3 months after a Dem becomes president and sell/short 6 months into a GOP president's term. Ignore the economy. The "market" really wants Dems to suck and the GOP to be awesome but in the long run their policies don't bear that out.

We don’t talk enough about how Yoda’s distinctive way of talking suggests that he learned the tongue of the galactic republic in his teens or in adulthood (not as a child), which means that like Luke he was too old to begin training as a Jedi in the conventional manner. Makes you think.

So Im on a 15 hour Amtrak run across the center of America and I’m on hour 6 of listening to Epic…it is going to be really hard to keep sub vocalizing banger after banger when I want to belt this musical with my full voice! I wont but it is taking all of my self control!

This is a totally shit attack line. Stop trying to use shame to attack people who have none. People who vote for Collins (or any Republican) do so because they want to put a Republican in office no matter what. No. Matter. What. “Oh you are being inconsistent” is not a meaningful argument.

One thing I’ve observed is that Americans hate education and educated people. When students explain their studies to non-university affiliated folks, invariably the reaction is mockery or some snarky attack implying the student is making a mistake. There is no ”right” answer. People just suck.

A young couple next to me at a restaurant are discussing flying dreams and they both agree that fairy wings are not good wings because they are not well suited for battle. Honestly that is a good take.

If he’s really ill, watch the betting lines.

I’ve played along with the BlueSky is dying game because it is fun. And you have too. We played the same game every day when on Twitter (and honestly keep playing it in a different way). We are a species that needs to soil the nest to feel at home.

Imagine how a 1 trillion dollar investment in shifting the US economy over to renewables would have upended the global order and collapsed petro dictatorships around the world. Instead we get this shit.

Me (a dude): so I don’t want to read too much into [literally anything] but do you think maybe there is a gender component at play. Her (and literally every woman I have ever interacted with): Yes.

Oh Christ! It is even worse than you imagine. Over half of the BlueSky “survivors” didn’t even march on Moscow but joined the retreat from a column that was dispatched to Polotsk early in the campaign!

I love Chicago. But I also love fantasy of a fresh start. Right now those two things are feeling in sync

Oh you think BlueSky is dying. Are there other places on the internet where I can see cats, because … … so I’m just hearing this now… … Yes there are apparently other places on the internet one can see cats. Sorry ya’ll. You had an ok run.

If BlueSky doesn’t make it I’m going to open a text file for my posts and put it on a Dropbox shared folder with a public link. My engagement will probably be the same. #ControlYourData #FederatedSocialMedia

I don’t believe BlueSky actually dying. We have a vibrant community of desirable, interesting people. It is possible it will be gobbled up by a more successful social media platform…like Yahoo dating…but that would increase our numbers by a factor of 10 and simplify my login situation.

If you want to know why BlueSky is dying it is because no one (literally no one) wants to see sexy Alf drop trou. Stop trying to make it a thing and go back to what the people really want—being yelled at for not doing alt text right like they do on Mastodon.

So I obviously don’t want BlueSky to die…but have we considered that people come here for fun and community. But it has been a year of non stop trauma bonding. I love you all but I am not liking your post on American war crimes and I might need some time in a quiet room. So yeah, the stats are down

So we meme/vaporize this asshole who read the constitution and is going to speak truth to power about how zoning for a new community pool is treading on his rights. Time to switch it up. Dude just read Fanon, or Orwell, or Baldwin, or Arendt, or Foucault or Said…and he is righteously pissed!

I’m in chicago and ai always make a point to hit Untitled supper club. The results are always spectacular.

Man. Sometimes BlueSky just gets the moment we are in.