Indeed, the whole of our social arrangements may be likened to a perpetual comedy; and this is why a man who is worth anything finds society so insipid, while a blockhead is quite at home in it. — Schopenhauer
All the High School Sweethearts
All the high school sweethearts
from this year and last yearand every other year are gathered
in the gym. You remember her.You remember him. The band
plays every couple’s honor songbut nobody takes the floor
except the King and Queenof Memory. Maybe a few
sweethearts are still in lovewith each other but everybody
else is just sipping nostalgiafrom a plastic cup. Funny
how beautiful our scarsbecome. After the band plays
one last ballad, a few stragglerslinger at the door, wanting
more, please, a little more,but everybody else will say
goodbye to their favorite ghostand travel home, fast or slow,
to whom they treasure most.
Thomas Jefferson on Oligarchies
My fellow Americans –
It’s the oligarchy guy again (video below). I don’t remember his principled denunciation of George Soros receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Or Mark Zuckerberg serving as Biden’s personal censor. Or Google for rigging search results to the Biden admin narratives. Or Reid Hoffman, Michael Bloomberg, Howard Schultz, Tom Steyer . . .
Oh, he means REPUBLICAN oligarchs . . .
Oligarchy is the enemy of democracy.
As Louis Brandeis said, “America has a choice. We can either have great wealth in the hands of a few, or we can have a democracy. But we cannot have both.”https://t.co/wvSxNhYrKc pic.twitter.com/kYMni0HDZM
— Robert Reich (@RBReich) January 18, 2025
2024: The Year in Books
These are the books I read in 2024, roughly in the order listed. The ratings are mine. They don’t represent a consensus of opinion.
It wasn’t a great year. I didn’t read enough and what I did read wasn’t as good as I would have liked.
That said, Bluets, by Maggie Nelson, is one of the most exceptional books I’ve read.
You Gotta Have Faith
No, I don’t really agree. WFH has tradeoffs like everything else although LI posters tend to gloss over those.
For example, it’s easier for me to communicate with someone who works 10 feet away from me than if I’m at home and they’re at some distant point in time and space. Synchronous vs. asynchronous.
I also glean a lot of valuable project information from conversations floating around if my team members are in close proximity. I can’t do that from the South Pole.
There are other tradeoffs. Cybersecurity, that’s an easy one. WFH is not just trust people and everything will be okay.
Thus spoke The Programmer
Half a Life
Do not live half a life
and do not die a half death
If you choose silence, then be silent
When you speak, do so until you are finished
If you accept, then express it bluntly
Do not mask it
If you refuse then be clear about it
for an ambiguous refusal is but a weak acceptance
Do not accept half a solution
Do not believe half truths
Do not dream half a dream
Do not fantasize about half hopes
Half the way will get you no where
You are a whole that exists to live a life
not half a life.
Budget Cuts Are a Diversion from the Real LA Fire Incompetence
The budget cuts are a total diversion from policies that emphasize everything except competence and results.
The cuts were $17.6 million. I've seen countless news stories on this, some of which describe the cuts as "slashing" the budget, but none of them mention what the annual…
— Paul Epps (@paulepps) January 11, 2025
Political Fallout from LA Fires?
Adam Carolla predicts the political fallout from the LA fires:
You guys all voted for Karen Bass, the mayor of Los Angeles. You all voted for Gavin Newsom, and now you fucking get what you get, now that your house is on fire. So here’s what’s going to happen. All these people who are deep blue Democrats are now going to have to pull a permit to rebuild, and they’re going to get the 28-year-old bitch from the Coastal Commission telling them to go fuck off, and then they’re going to vote for Trump or whoever’s Trumpian next.
Parent vs. School Board
Catholic Abortionists
This Catholic thing irks me. If you don't believe in the teachings of the Church, find a new religion.
If you don't believe in God at all — and if you feel like you can flout Church doctrine with no consequences, you probably don't — be an atheist.
You can't be a successful…
— Paul Epps (@paulepps) January 4, 2025
The Most Delicious of Moral Treats
The surest way to work up a crusade in favor of some good cause is to promise people they will have a chance of maltreating someone. To be able to destroy with good conscience, to be able to behave badly and call your bad behavior “righteous indignation” — this is the height of psychological luxury, the most delicious of moral treats.
The New York Post is the Paper of Record
— Paul Epps (@paulepps) January 3, 2025
The article contains photos of Joe Biden meeting with Hunter Biden’s Chinese business associates, as well as Biden’s multiple denials that those meetings ever took place.
The New York Post remains the paper of record in my opinion.
Why the National Archives couldn’t have released these photos before they became totally irrelevant, I do not know.
I’m Anti-Incompetence
"A $42 billion expansion of broadband internet service has yet to connect a single household.
"Bureaucratic haggling, equipment shortages and logistical challenges mean a $7.5 billion effort to install electric vehicle chargers from coast to coast has so far yielded just 47…
— Paul Epps (@paulepps) January 3, 2025
Lie of the Year 2024
PolitiFact’s ‘Lie of the Year’ and its impact on the Ohio town caught in the middle | PBS News https://t.co/ICRRswZ3DE
— Paul Epps (@paulepps) December 31, 2024
According to PolitiFact, the Lie of the Year is that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, OH, were eating dogs and cats.
First of all, I’d like to see someone convince me that statement is a lie. I can’t prove that it’s true, but I have seen videos of Springfield citizens at city council meetings saying that it’s true.
How can PolitiFact say definitively that it’s a lie? There aren’t any missing cats or dogs in Springfield? What happened to them?
And secondly, even if it’s false, it’s trivial.
Here are some candidates for Lie of the Year, selected by me.
- “I will not pardon my son.” This was said by Joe Biden, then propagated by other Democrats and the media to exemplify that Biden is a true American who believes in democracy, not like Donald Trump. And then Biden pardoned his son anyway.
- Joe Biden’s decision to step aside as a presidential candidate was an act of selfless patriotism. Actually, party elites and mega-donors took him behind the barn and shot him.
But by far the biggest lie of the year, and perhaps the most ambitious coverup in the history of the country, was the lie that Joe Biden was mentally competent to be president, to fulfill the duties of the office, to serve and protect the American people.
Who’s been running the country?!
Who’s been making decisions to send tens or hundreds of billions of dollars to fund shooting wars in Ukraine and the Middle East? Who’s been handing out record numbers of presidential pardons?
I now feel my use of the word “coverup” to describe this scandal was inadequate. Everyone saw the daily videos of the president falling down, mumbling incoherently, wandering around lost and confused. We were told that those videos were fakes, posted by far-right conspiracy nuts. Behind closed doors, out of camera range, Biden was sharp as a tack, can’t keep up with him.
Maintaining this web of lies required the active cooperation of countless government officials and media members. As Matt Taibbi has said, “Is there even a word for fraud on that scale?”
PolitiFact also has a readers’ poll for Lie of the Year. The winner of the readers’ poll? Also the dogs and cats story, with 54 percent of the vote.
Of the three options I’ve listed here, the only one in the readers’ Top Ten is the “I will not pardon” lie, with 6 percent of the vote.
I Could Do It Then But I Can’t Do It Now
Is There Even a Word for Fraud on that Scale?
America has seen incredible political deceptions in its past, from the Gulf of Tonkin to WMDs, but this real-world Dave script involves someone not named Biden steering presidential authority to approve billions for shooting wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, while handing out pardons in record numbers, among God knows how many other things. Is there even a word for fraud on that scale? A lot of people need to go to jail behind this caper.
Arraignment or Runway Event?
Here’s how Women’s Wear Daily covered the arraignment of Luigi Mangione, accused of killing United Health Care CEO Brian Thompson:
At first, videos on TikTok identified Mangione’s crewneck top as Maison Margiela’s burgundy washed lambswool sweater, which was available for sale at $1,000 on ssense.com — the piece is now sold out… Users [later] determined he was wearing the “washable Merino crewneck sweater” from Nordstrom. The style is available for $62.65 in six other colors. However, the burgundy color that matched Mangione’s outfit is now sold out… Levi’s, Peak Design, Tommy Hilfiger and Monopoly were previously referenced in news stories…
“What we see with Mangione is he has quickly become a folk hero and a fashion folk hero. It’s almost like the movie The Joker, where people dressed like him,” Diana Rickard, a criminal justice professor at the City University of New York, previously told WWD…
As Everyone Knows by Now, the Pediatric Cancer Story is Phony
Jasmine Crockett: Trump wanted $90M for inauguration while cutting $190M from cancer research
Absolutely Mind Blowing
Drop a ? for Jasmine pic.twitter.com/f1I1Gk80Fb
— A (@bluhue123) December 28, 2024
The author and Crockett are a little late to the party. Thanks in large part to X, everyone knows that the pediatric cancer story is phony.
That bill passed the (Republican) house with virtually zero “no” votes in March, then went to the Senate, where it was never brought up for a vote and was eventually jammed in to a 1,500-page CR, along with a big raise for Congress and god knows what else.
It should have been voted on nine months ago as a standalone bill but wasn’t, so that if Republicans objected to a 1,500-page CR, Democrats could pull out that one thing and say “Republicans hate kids with cancer.”
What’s Going On in Delaware?
BREAKING: A former Delaware teachers union president cut off his friends and family because they voted for Trump.
He wrote them a letter right before Christmas and published it in the state's largest news outlet
He was forced to resign as union president in 2018
Buckle up ??
— Corey A. DeAngelis, school choice evangelist (@DeAngelisCorey) December 26, 2024
This may be the thread of the year.
As noted, the teacher was forced to resign in 2018, the reason being the discovery of some of his past tweets, including one calling then-Delaware Gov. Ruth Ann Minner a “Butch Bitch” and wondering whether a video of “chocolate, caramel and vanilla brothas” gang-raping Minner would boost her poll numbers, another suggesting that “blowing all the Muslims up” perhaps isn’t such a bad idea, and one suggesting a child molester is justified if his wife is a “stank-ugly ho.”
There’s a lot more where that came from, so if that piques your interest, read the whole thread.
Remember as you’re reading it that this is the kind of thinking that gets you elected teachers’ union president. The teacher, Mike Matthews, is still a teacher in the district.
Matthews’s husband, Jose Matthews, is the current school board president.
Monkeys and Pedestals
Imagine that you’re trying to train a monkey to juggle flaming torches while standing on a pedestal in a public park. If you can achieve such an impressive spectacle, you’ve got a moneymaking act on your hands.
[Recognize] that there are two pieces to becoming successful at this endeavor: training the monkey and building the pedestal. One piece of the puzzle presents a possibly intractable obstacle in the way of success. And the other is building the pedestal. People have been building pedestals since ancient Greece and probably before. Over two-plus millennia, pedestals have been thoroughly figured out. You can buy one at a furniture store or a hardware store, or turn a milk crate upside down.
The bottleneck, the hard thing, is training a monkey to juggle flaming torches.
The point of this mental model is to remind you that there is no point building the pedestal if you can’t train the monkey.
In other words, you ought to tackle the hardest part of the problem first.
