A parable: Psychopaths, Derek Parfit, Global Warming, and Discount Rates at 3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily...

In a low key and gentlemanly way Charles' speech was a repudiation of most of Trump's policies.

There is something to Nixon's "Madman Theory." It can be helpful if your enemies believe you to be irrational sometimes. It's also a very dangerous strategy that can easily backfire.

Threatening to commit a war crime, even if it's not executed, is itself a war crime. 25th Amendment!

@RahmEmanuel, Obama's Chief of Staff and former mayor of Chicago, has an interesting suggestion on Hormuz: Declare the Strait of Hormuz to be open to everyone or to no one, and to that end close the other end so Iran can't sell its oil and will this have more incentive to open the strait.

Now get out and vote in the midterms like your life depends on it, because it does. #NoKings

Good place for it. Hope it's being read. ;-)

On this 30th anniversary of David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest, I recall my old review of his smart, oxymoronically named "Everything and More, a Compact History of Infinity" (calculus, set theory, etc) in The American Scholar. I really liked it. drive.google.com/file/d/1Bomd...

Trump is suing the IRS for 10 billion dollars. This liar's version of the liar paradox: Trump (as a person) wins if and only if Trump (as the justice department) loses. Or perhaps something like a Godelian undecidability of the lawsuit. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/30/u...

This liar's version of the liar paradox: Trump (as a person) wins if and only if Trump (as the justice department) loses. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/30/u...

Trump, Miller, Noem: Who are you gonna believe, us or your lying eyes?

Maybe a little too cutely expressed, but in one year Trump has dragged the country from PAX AMERICANA  to POX AMERICANA.

Yet no ICE in Texas. What could the reason be? Estimates place Minnesota's unauthorized immigrant population around 100,000 to 130,000, while Texas has an unauthorized population estimated to be 1.6 to 2.1 million -- the Migration Policy Institute and Pew Research Center.

Trump Is a Poster Boy for Innumeracy, my piece in 3 Quarks Daily 3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily...

Sounds like a soulless Trumpian move. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/12/c...

Gracias, Inma.

Read some of Trump's 200! posts of deranged nonsense on Christmas. This demented clown has the nuclear codes. open.substack.com/pub/meidasto...

Trump just rated the performance of the economy as A+++++ (5+'s) in part because he's cutting the price of many items by 500% or more. He has an undergraduate degree from Wharton but won't release his grades, especially the one in arithmetic. I suspect they average around D-----.

A Klan rally without the hoods.

It is absolutely wild that the guy who won’t stop yelling about law and order is now personally stepping in to keep January 6 documents hidden from the police officers who were attacked that day. He knows exactly what’s in those files and he is terrified the country will see it.

The double attack on the boat is troubling. More so should be the single attacks on all the other boats. There doesn't seem to be a good rationale to call them anything but murders.

If the killing of the two survivors of the bombing of their boat is a war crime, and it is, then why isn't the killing (murdering) of those fishermen and other innocents on the various blown-up boats also a war crime?

Hannah Arendt expressed in first order logic: Give me A and then give me Not A and I'll prove anything you want. x.com/PhillfromPhi...

The 40 billion dollars cost of the USAID program (including food) is is about half of 1% of the US budget.

Trump, poster child for innumeracy. He has done vastly more to underline innumeracy's harmful effects on public policy (tariffs, the economy, healthcare, energy, climate, corruption, etc) than untold copies of my books on the subject. pbs.twimg.com/profile_bann...

What's with Baum is vintage Woody Allen - funny, neurotic, addictive, occasionally even thought-provoking. It's a fine whine. Loved it. a.co/d/7O5Q9iI

The ignoramus can't take any criticism even from abroad. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/23/u...

The problem isn’t only that he’s auto satirical, it’s that MAGA voters lap this (literal) nonsense up like candy. 🍭 To protect the American people from this long con we need Innumeracy by @ja-paulos.bsky.social incorporated into the standard curriculum. johnallenpaulos.com/innumeracy.h...

A suggestion for today's NO KINGS protest, Dancing in the Street by Martha and the Vandellas (1964). Not just in Portland and Chicago, but all around the USA. share.google/WPMO4srFBXAP...

A musical suggestion for tomorrow's No Kings protest, Dancing in the Street by Martha and the Vandellas (1964): youtu.be/CdvITn5cAVc?...

What a non-surprise www.nbcnews.com/business/con...