REMINDER: A socialist act by a New Yorker was a major reason why polio was eliminated in the US.

It’s not lost on me that the people celebrating masked agents enforcing curfews and checkpoints were the same people losing their shit when they were asked to stay home and wear a mask for their own safety

Did I hear the researchers on NPR right? Fifty dollars a week bought 1.something more days of school attendance per semester. And this is big impact? I'm sure I missed something.

As for my favourite spoonerized business name, it will never not be this furniture showroom in New Zealand...

Yet another intellectual trying for a clever anti-AI take. And failing. Basic social science error: sampling on the dependent variable. Easy to find unimpressive examples if you hang out in spaces populated by folks not doing interesting stuff.

Well done.

Has the Trump administration started any prosecutions of the employers where these undocumented immigrants were working? 8 U.S.C. § 1324a Unlawful Employment of Aliens calls for civil fines, criminal penalties, or debarment from government contracts. Hallo, Pam Bondi.

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA): "I'm writing to the White House to demand who knew in advance that the President was going to, once again, flip flop on tariffs. And are people cashing in? There is just all too much opportunity for people in the White House and the administration to be insider trading"

Martha Stewart went to prison for far less than what Trump did today. And he did it out in the open. On social media. He's installed his own people at the head of all regulatory commissions. Nobody to hold him accountable. Laws no longer apply to him. Pisses me off.

If nobody in the house or SEC has the spine to call him out on this, we are doomed. Were I one of the many people currently in jail for insider trading and related crimes, I'd be pretty pissed off.

I was learning about bond market with Claude when I should have been insider trading with Don today. What I call "Play Lennon to my McCartney" style learning with LLMs is very powerful. Re-upped my very rusty appreciation of tensor math yesterday. innoeduvation.org/danryan/dev/...

Certainly seeing the argument that social security should be replaced by index fund accounts for all Americans. Then president could hold whole country hostage.

This is really unfair to everyone who just voted for him for the racism.

Well, Trump got some big crowds today.

I really wish Bluesky would figure out the interaction thing. Conversations here have so little back and forth AFAICT. Twitter remains superior for engagement. Is this hard to fix?

Senator Jim Banks (R) isn’t sorry he told a fired federal worker “he probably deserved it”. He went on to say the worker was “complaining about losing a left-wing woke job in the federal government that should have never been a job to begin with”. The job was helping people with disabilities.

In case you forgot, I’m reminding you with a link here and another link on the next attached post. search.app/sNdxLHShV1ca...

7 ft, 340 lb Giant Penguins are extinct; or so they will have us believe. Is it really worth it to take that chance? www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/f...

Substack and similar are basically just churches. Someone writes something that should appeal to people who share their beliefs and hope those people will put a few $ in the basket to support the effort. Mixed in is a belief that if nonbelievers would also listen it might change the world.

open.substack.com/pub/contrari... fabulous timely piece

Trump's nonsense about trading partners ripping us off is a bit like a rioter justifying looting a store by calling that the shopkeepers are ripping off the people.

Bill Kristol is doing it. You can do it too. You can stop writing false equivalence op-eds and donating to Third Way.

Trump just imposed, by executive order, the single largest tax increase on consumers in American history.

What if there were deep fake videos of Trump giving really good advice and extolling actual civic virtues. Could you get people to follow them? Would he and his team decry them?

🔑 under-discussed point — why they were on signal:

Weird to think that Jeffrey Goldberg is probably the most ethical and patriotic person on that group chat.

Swalwell: Hegseth is still the Secretary of Defense? This moron texts out our war plans, putting our soldiers at risk, and he’s not gone? Every one on that chat—they just fire off texts not knowing who is on the chat? They all should be fired if they don’t resign.

"law firm agrees to provide $40m in free services" is most perverse bit of news in a while. And it's to support causes Trump cares about. I think the democracy countdown clock has expired.

These are e most important #s for the Dems. They should be tracking all local media and influencers in these states and reposting it everywhere The economic pain tariffs can indlict on red states need to be talked about more than anything else right now. It will flip voters.

Finally s.o. who talks through the issue. I'm tired of breathless critical voices that fail to acknowledge (or appreciate) the strategic calculus needed. I've yet to read a reasoned take on the other alternative. Just the usual self certain claims that "you weren't as radical as I would have been."

Lots of vigorous position taking about Schumer. Almost no assessment of the argument about the tradeoffs that were involved.

One of the smartest COVID retrospectives I've read. Especially relevant in current political moment. TLDR: COVID response showed that public health was nearly dead. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/10/o...

Why do online newspapers offer me "$1 for 6 months" with fine print saying "$28/month after that"? It means I will never pay the $1. Surely conning a few folks into forgetting to cancel can't be worth all the foregone $1. I'm simply not going to have $200+ annual subscriptions to dozens of papers.

Ezra Klein's conversation with Gillian Tett is really worth 30 minutes of your day. Best explanation yet of what Trump team thinks it is doing. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/14/o...

The idea of being forced to have American style health is enough reason to die on the hill of Canada never becoming part of the US. US healthcare system is a fucking disaster compared to Canada.

Pleases accept our deepest apologies for the criminally sick old man who hijacked our country by orchestrating a coup…👇 He is an embarrassment to us all. Sorry. Signed, Blue America ✨

These folks bad mouth the universities but they still want their kids to go there. How about elite universities publish an open letter telling folks who join Trump's attack on universities that their kids and grandkids will not be getting in?

His whole lie, the belief that all people care about is money, when really they'd rather have a comfortable, happy life and not have to worry about struggling for the basics.

Just watched Liberal party convention and didn't see anyone I know. How could that be?

Democrats even *thinking* about joining Republicans to censure Al Green for having the courage to stand up while they sat down do not deserve to be able to generate a single fundraising dollar from a person of moral character ever again.

I'm not Bernie's biggest fan, but his response to Trump is on target. www.youtube.com/live/QlrQKv1...

Every Dem challenger in a GOP district should be hosting weekly Town Halls where they invite voters to come address a cardboard standee of their elected Republican congress person. Promote them as “your GOP rep is afraid to show their face, but that doesn’t mean you can’t speak out”

New: The S&P 500 erased its post-election gain, wiping out $3.4 trillion in value

I'm not a rich guy, by any measure, but I estimate that Donald Trump's stock market has cost me about circa $100k over the last month or so. You should check your situation.

Still waiting on the Kennedy assassination filed.

Asking for a friend: is the haberdashery litmus test going to apply to Elon and his minions?

No, sir, it wasn't great TV.