Sunday Night

Rock on.

Sunday Evening

They passed it!

(Shatner Voice) Get A Life!!!

Statement against interest, I guess, given what we do here at this very fine blog, but really most people don't have to be paying attention to the Senate on a Sunday morning, and in fact most people shouldn't be. Being informed enough about what is going on, who the heroes and villains are and how you should vote, don't require it!!!

Lunch Thread

Think we should make senators all wear wigs like English judges, to make it a bit more obvious how absurd they all are.

Social Compacts

Quick and unoriginal thoughts for a Sunday, but "we" do have a bit of a problem if there aren't enough teachers, and the people in charge have no interest in fixing the situation. Either because they want the public school system to collapse, or they just don't see why paying teachers more than they earned in 1983 makes any sense.

Things work a certain way, until they don't.

Morning

Sunday funday.

Saturday Night

Rock on.

DEBATE ME, YOU COWARD!!

Glad everyone gets to see how ridiculous Elon is, now. Was lonely for awhile.

I hereby challenge @paraga to a public debate about the Twitter bot percentage.

Let him prove to the public that Twitter has <5% fake or spam daily users!

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 6, 2022

Saturday Afternoon

Hot

Tort Reform

There seems to be some above-my-paygrade ambiguity about legal caps on punitive damages in Texas, but in any case we can see that this is what the "tort reform" movement was about. Not about protecting normal people from being sued by someone claiming to have fallen on their sidewalk, or whatever. Protecting bad rich actors from having to make payments they could afford to make.

I always have to explain to Europeans that the reason "everybody" is scared of lawsuits is because of our medical system. It's the medical costs.

Gun Nuttery

Actually curious how politicians in open carry states react to people showing up at their campaign rallies with them?

As much as our glorious national newspapers do "diner safaries," they don't actually try very hard to convey some of the nuances of political life in these places.

Morning

Slacker Saturday.

Friday Night

Rock on.

Happy Hour

Another week down!

Musky

I suppose my big hope for Musk/Twitter is maximum humiliation for Musk.

This probably does not surprise you.

I Thought He Was The Sasquatch

Playing the "secret elite" card against Fetterman is a pretty funny gambit.
Take the L on this one guys.

Let's Go Dark Brandon

OK after being informed about what the "let's go Brandon!" thing was about, my response was, ok that's cute? Saying, in essence, "fuck the president" with a cutesey catch phrase is about the most normal and inoffensive thing MAGAland has ever done.

Y'All

This tweet has been the perfect distillation of Trump era political journalism.

.@amychozick got her hands on that "Clinton Cash" book, y'all http://t.co/pgc20pgKgP

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) April 20, 2015

Clinton Cash was a Bannon (and others) production, as you know. Partnered with the WaPo and NYT for exclusives!

Lunch

Friday edition.

Another Fun Thing

Is that when the NYT announced this position it was widely believed by journalists to be an opportunity for POC, and instead was a within-the-bulding promotion of Michael Powell who has focused on nothing but conservative white male grievances about the Oberlin Student Council and the unfair problems facing racist sex pests on campus.

A fun thing to think about is that 2 years ago the NYT assigned a reporter to cover free speech and education and since then he has written three articles about tweets by the ACLU and one about the rightwing movement carrying out sweeping state censorship in schools & libraries

— Julia Carrie Wong (@juliacarriew) August 5, 2022

You Could Fire Him

Certain things about the Biden administration I dislike but at least understand. The failure to de-Trumpify the government is not one of them.

WHITEHOUSE: As you know, we are entering the fourth year of a frustrating saga [...] regarding the Kavanaugh supplemental background investigation, and I'd like to get that matter wrapped up. First, is it true that after Kavanaugh-related tips were separated from other tips, that they were forwarded to White House counsel without investigation?

WRAY: ... When it comes to the tip line, we wanted to make sure the White House had all the information we had, so when the hundreds of calls started coming it, we gathered those up, reviewed them and provided them to the White House—

WHITEHOUSE: Without investigation?

WRAY: We reviewed them and then provided them to the White House.

WHITEHOUSE: You reviewed them for the purposes of separating from tip line traffic but did not further investigate the ones that related to Kavanaugh, correct?

WRAY: Correct.

WHITEHOUSE: Is it also true that in that supplemental BI [background investigation], the FBI took direction from the White House as to whom the FBI would question and even what questions the FBI could ask?

WRAY: So it is true ... as to the who. I am not sure as I sit here whether it is true as to the what questions.

Metaversal

Land can be expensive because it is a scarce resource and because of transportation costs. As in, it is on/near something valuable (including lots of people and the value they bring in various ways) and the closer people live the easier/cheaper it is to access that value.

The only way to make this happen in the "metaverse" is add in transportation costs somehow, some benefit to "nearness" that doesn't make every spot on the infinite plane identical from this perspective.

The metaverse is in the midst of a real estate meltdown. Sales volumes and average prices for virtual land have plunged this year, part of a broader slide in crypto and non-fungible token prices.

You can add in such features, of course, and you can make it all like this, too: 

 Leaving aside the fact that the whole thing is dumb.