Wednesday, February 28, 2018
And Change
Hope Hicks, the White House communications director and one of President Trump’s longest-serving advisers, said Wednesday that she was resigning.
You Do It
Whenever people complain about greedy, lazy striking teachers or bus drivers because they earn SO MUCH MONEY (usually based on misleading press reports of total compensation rather than salaries), my response is: if it's such a great job, you do it. My local transit authority is always hiring bus drivers.
I wouldn't want either bus drivers or teachers to carry guns because while the ability to not lose your shit is a necessary skill for both jobs, the constant shit-losing provocations still make it pretty likely that people will occasionally. It's one thing to lose your shit when you're unarmed, and quite another to do it when you've got a death machine in your pocket.
Impossible Problems
Today will be full of hysterical gibberish from prominent Brexit supporters. They will insist that Brussels is trying to annex Northern Ireland, that a foreign power is now on the attack against the UK - intent on carving it up as some form of punishment for its decision to leave the EU.
It's rubbish. What we have seen today is the chickens coming home to roost for Brexiters. They have been warned over and over again during the last 18 months that it is not possible to leave the single market and customs union and still maintain an open border in Ireland. There is no solution to this problem. It is no more solveable than someone demanding you make a sports car with square wheels. It simply cannot be done.
Conservative London Tories see NI and even Ireland itself as colonies, nuisances that need to be subservient. Going to be interesting and even scary.
Shrug
Self-Driving Philadelphia
Lots of pedestrians (and jay walking). Lots of construction. Potholes. Cyclists. Narrow streets which functionally have about 1.75 lanes a lot of the time. Buses and bus stops. Double parking delivery vehicles. Detours. Etc.
Consider these recurring issues experienced by many of these companies’ vehicles:
Disengage for a recklessly behaving road user
Disengage for hardware discrepancy
Disengage for unwanted maneuver of the vehicle
Disengage for a perception discrepancy
Disengage for incorrect behavior prediction of other traffic participants
Heavy pedestrian traffic
Cyclist
Traffic light detection
Construction
Localization divergence
Poor lane markings
Vehicle cut in
Cyclist riding from sidewalk into crosswalk
Vehicle in cross-traffic ran red light
Software crash
Unexpected steering due to path change
Strong unexpected braking
Also rain, snow...
As I keep saying, I think "safety" is a bit of a red herring. You can program them not to bump into things. You can't necessarily program them to not be nightmare drivers for everyone around them.
Tuesday, February 27, 2018
The Only News Is That It's News
Officials in at least four countries have privately discussed ways they can manipulate Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, by taking advantage of his complex business arrangements, financial difficulties and lack of foreign policy experience, according to current and former U.S. officials familiar with intelligence reports on the matter.
Among those nations discussing ways to influence Kushner to their advantage were the United Arab Emirates, China, Israel and Mexico, the current and former officials said.
Tomorrow's Always 3 Years Away
IF YOU WORK on self-driving cars, the cocktail party question people always ask is probably: When will I get to interact with one? For two years now, Ford Motor Company has had an answer—in 2021. That year, Ford wants to launch a self-driving taxi service, and it wants to start making deliveries with driverless vehicles.
Gotta Give People Something To Be Intense About
The thing is that D politicians rarely try to inspire their own intense single issue voters who could be turned out on issues, including, yes, the gun issue. But you can't turn out single issue reproductive health voters (I mean those who don't necessarily vote all the time) on "safe, legal, and rare." You can't turn out anti-war voters on "kindler, gentler wars, mostly with your pal Droney." You can't turn out gun control voters on "um...more background checks and... [thinks hard] raise the age of legally buying a gun that shoots a round 45 times per minute to the Bud Light buying age?" And Dems tend to speak in pundit approved gibberish speak. "Let's close the gun show loophole." Um, sure, what the hell is that again? How about we just take away all the damn guns.
The problem with this is that conservative single issue gun nut voters are trained to think that any hint of more gun control is a threat to their penises, and so moderate proposals to castrate them just a bit bring them out to the polls in force. Gonna snip off just a bit, Jimbo. Lukewarm proposals inspire the opposition but not supporters.
Maybe these political calculations are correct. Maybe "an abortion cart on every corner" will turn off the totebagging moderates more than it will inspire intense single issue votes. But don't be surprised when common sense rhetoric about "common sense proposals" doesn't inspire your base to turn out at midterms. Also, too, stop blaming those voters for not voting for you. It's your job to get them to the polls. Most people have better things to do than think about politics all the time. They don't necessarily know that "slightly less evil than the other guys" is both true and important, and pundit-approved moderate language and policy isn't necessarily going to reach them. Nobody's going to vote to bend the cost curve. They'll vote if you promise them they can go to the damn doctor.
Intensity can be there, but it's gonna require leadership to maintain it.
But it may be time to retire this narrative, or at least ask whether things really are finally changing on this front, as a new CNN poll strongly suggests.
The poll finds that a majority of Americans strongly support action and vastly outnumber those who strongly oppose action. It finds that 69 percent of Americans favor “stricter gun control laws,” and 52 percent do so “strongly.” Meanwhile, only 26 percent oppose them, with only 14 percent doing so strongly.
James Bennet Is A Dumdum
If Bennet held his December meeting in an effort to win favor with the newsroom, it seems to have backfired, according to some people in the room.
“People were not satisfied with his answers,” one staffer who attended the meeting told HuffPost in a text message, “since his answers were equivocal bullshit that didn’t really address that the opinion section abuses fact and elevates white male conservative voices under the guise of ‘diversity of thought.’ And that he admits to making mistakes without any concern or even acknowledgement of what the consequences of those ‘mistakes’ actually are.”
As for what those consequences might be, the employee cited “erosion of trust in the rest of what the NYT does, people coming to conclusions based on incorrect facts and then never seeing the correction (if there is one), and choosing to pay money and give a platform to these white dudes instead of marginalized voices who wouldn’t otherwise get their story told (and marginalizing them even more by publishing their bad takes).” A Vanity Fair piece published on Monday quoted a senior newsroom figure who said, “The newsroom feels embarrassed.”
Just Part Of The Conservative Grift
The Trump administration on Friday released a long-awaited application for federal family planning funds that does not explicitly exclude Planned Parenthood but puts a new emphasis on conservative priorities such as abstinence and natural family planning.
Officials said the federal Title X program would provide $260 million to health care providers.
Monday, February 26, 2018
Hopey Changey
One of President Trump's closest political aides is slated to appear before the House Intelligence Committee to testify behind closed doors in its ongoing investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 election, multiple sources say. White House communications director Hope Hicks was supposed to appear before the committee in January, but her interview was abruptly postponed while counsel for the White House and committee sorted out the scope of her testimony.
I Guess I'm Overqualified For The Position Of NYT Opinion Page Editor
I've lost the capacity to gauge the opprobrium—what’s irrational versus what’s a reasonable amount of Internet outrage these days,” said James Bennet, editorial-page editor of The New York Times, and someone talked about as a future contender for the Times’s top newsroom job. “Look,” he went on, “we’re recruiting different types of writers than we have traditionally, and I’ll make some mistakes. It’s just gonna happen.”
Actually think he's lost his capacity entirely.
There was an episode last March when two prominent national security reporters at the Times took the unusual step of publicly disparaging a Times op-ed, written by the former British M.P.-turned-contentious Twitter phenom Louise Mensch, who has been criticized for fanning conspiracy theories pertaining to Russia. Another eruption involved an op-ed by Blackwater founder Erik Prince, which was alternately lambasted as a “pro-mercenary,” “advertorial,” and a “sales pitch for more mercenaries.” On the anniversary of Donald Trump’s inauguration, Bennet devoted the entire editorial page to letters from Trump supporters. And Bennet himself committed the sort of unforced journalistic blunder that can bruise careers at a place like the Times when he inserted an editing error that led to a lawsuit, later dismissed, by Sarah Palin.
Same, really. Erik Prince, a longtime left-leaning senator. Potato, potahto.
Cool, Bro
Tesla is widely known for periodically leaving lighthearted "Easter Eggs" in its automobiles, mostly taking the form of hidden surprise-and-delight features in their in-car electronics. First-day reservation holders of the new Tesla Model 3 waiting patiently for their car may be in for a different sort of surprise, however: A diecast model replica of their new EV.
As noted by Tesla fan-site Elektrek, CEO Elon Musk has been promising "something special" for early Model 3 hand-raisers for some time now. There had been speculation in Tesla forums that the mystery gift(s) could take the form of something like an exclusive paint color or complimentary Supercharger access, but for now, at least, a Mini-mM model version seems to be the most likely prize. (First-day reservationists previously also received a poster of Model 3 design renderings as well as a thank-you card).
A Nation Of Armchair Warriors
Not everyone needs to be a hero, but it seems like too many people really believe they would be if only.
President Donald Trump on Monday said that he would have personally run into a Parkland, Florida., school during the shooting there earlier this month, even if he were unarmed.
"I really believe I’d run in there even if I didn’t have a weapon," Trump told governors meeting at the White House to discuss school safety and other issues.
He wouldn't have (as if he can even run) and would have been stupid to if he had.
Outrage Of The Hour
More Cars
I've had to start using one of the services (not the really bad one) when I need a cab because they're driving the hailable cabs outs of business and you can't get one anymore. There's always a car within 3 minutes of picking me up (and many more swarming around) and it isn't as if I live in the hotel/business district.
BOSTON (AP) — One promise of ride-hailing companies like Uber and Lyft was fewer cars clogging city streets. But studies suggest the opposite: that ride-hailing companies are pulling riders off buses, subways, bicycles and their own feet and putting them in cars instead.
I never had any idea why people thought they'd mean "fewer cars." They aren't a substitute for car ownership, or for the kinds of car trips you make with personal cars, for most people. They're a substitute for walking, public transportation, and, yes, medallion cabs. There were restrictions on the number of medallion cabs.
Sunday, February 25, 2018
The Good Guy With A Gun Problem
In the time between when police were dispatched and when officers arrived, a handful of churchgoers wrestled Jones to the ground. One of the congregants was able to grab Jones' gun.
Officers entered the building and saw the churchgoer holding the gun and opened fire, according to the Amarillo Police Department. The churchgoer was hospitalized in stable condition.
And, of course, no matter what the laws say, being a brown person with a gun is an execution-without-trial offense.
The Penis Hat Brigade
We would laugh if the penis hats didn't kill people, anyway.
Games Kitties Play
Saturday, February 24, 2018
Finally Some Important Innovation
A patent application published Thursday from the self-driving arm of Google's parent company detailed an elaborate system to prevent motion sickness in its vehicles.
The method involves determining routes that could minimize motion sickness. For example, sensitive passengers would be given a relaxed ride on gentle roads. Those people who are more in a rush could select a faster but slightly rougher trip.
What Happened To Our Oakeshottian Burkean Purity?
One doesn't have to rehash the whole modern conservative party from Goldwater to Nixon and onward. Elite conservatives promoted Sarah Palin to be Vice President. OK, maybe this was just a little mistake. Once they did that of course they had pretend they wanted her to win. Fine. Then they (not all of them, but most) spent at least 2 years promoting her as the leader of their movement (it's sort of been memoryholed, but Politico was Sarah Palin Daily from 2009-2011 or so, and not simply because Politico writers were interested in her).
Morning Thread
h/t G
Friday, February 23, 2018
Friday Crass Commercialism
Leaving New York City
I don't know what the overall long term trend in the Bay Area is, but prices have certainly hit the point where even if you can afford to go live a few years, unless you're getting techbro VC money, at the moment it's impossible to envision being able to stick around longterm. And it isn't just SF, it's the entire very large area.
Rent a moving truck from Las Vegas to San Jose and you'll pay about $100. In the opposite direction, the same truck will cost you 16 times that, or nearly $2,000.
What accounts for the difference? The simple laws of supply and demand, says economist Mark J. Perry. With so many people leaving the Bay Area, there are not enough rental trucks to go around. Perry, a University of Michigan professor, published his findings in a new study with public policy think tank American Enterprise Institute (AEI).
CBS News reported recently that operators of a San Jose U-Haul business have trouble getting their rental vans back "because so many are on a one-way ticket out of town." The revelation inspired Perry to compare the costs of U-Haul rentals for trucks leaving San Jose versus those heading into the city.
Comparing moving truck rates isn't a new methodology, and these kinds of points always have a "nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded" element to them, but while supply and demand logic might work for some things - if there aren't enough people around to be supermarket cashiers, eventually they gotta raise the wages if they want to hire anyone - it doesn't work as well for jobs like teaching which have less flexibility.
The Battle Of Ideas
The incentives to lie are not identical, so even if none of us are pure, having Both Sides coverage of issues, where one side is The Committee On Feeding Your Children More Lead, and the other side is Save Our Children From Lead Poisoning, means you're going to get a bit more dishonesty from the former.
Related: newspapers really don't have to run PR pieces pushed by the lobbying firms of billion dollar companies. It's just information laundering.
To Plead Or Not To Plead
President Trump’s one-time campaign aide Richard Gates is expected to plead guilty in the special counsel’s criminal case against him, setting up the potential for Gates to become the latest well-informed Trump insider to assist in the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential contest, according to sources close to the matter.
Apparently Nazis Are Nazis
Late last month, ProPublica reported that the California man accused of killing a gay and Jewish University of Pennsylvania student was an avowed neo-Nazi and a member of Atomwaffen Division, one of the country’s most notorious extremist groups.
...
“I love this,” one member wrote of the killing, according to copies of the online chats obtained by ProPublica. Another called Woodward a “one man gay Jew wrecking crew.”
Car Washes Are A Metaphor
The most cutting-edge cars on the planet require an old-fashioned handwashing.
Car washes have been automated for decades, but companies developing fully autonomous vehicles must rely on a human touch to keep their cars and trucks in working condition.
Thursday, February 22, 2018
Grand Old Police Blotter
BREAKING: St. Louis prosecutor's office indicts @EricGreitens "on a Felony Invasion of Privacy charge." More to come on https://t.co/dOlpIcJGPk #moleg
— Bryan Lowry (@BryanLowry3) February 22, 2018
I just saw MO Gov. Eric Greitens being led away in the custody of the St. Louis Sheriff.
— Robert Patrick (@rxpatrick) February 22, 2018
,..book'em danno,
Walker, an early Greitens supporter, called for him to resign in the days after the allegations surfaced. He renewed those calls Thursday when asked whether the House should pursue impeachment.
“I called for him to step down three weeks ago because I thought this was going to happen. … My understanding was he was led off in handcuffs and that’s not a good sign for our executive of the state of Missouri,” Walker said. “He should resign.”
Legal Troubles
TLDR: Paul Manafort laundered millions of dollars in Russia-backed blood money to live a "lavish" lifestyle -- while working for "free" for the Trump campaign. https://t.co/L5qYTKaQJX pic.twitter.com/D1oqO1SNSr
— Tyler Hansen (@tjhansen) February 22, 2018
"Medicare Extra For All"
People forget how much ACA was sold not just as "best possible" but "ACTUALLY, good."* Much of this got lost in the "public option or not public option debate," but it wasn't just bad for reasons hippies like me thought, it was bad on their own described terms by failing to live up to its promises as they seemed to believe.
*yes, yes, it's ACTUALLY better than what came before. I know. No need to tell me.
150 Security Guards
Trump suggests "a little bit of a bonus" for trained teachers who are armed, throwing out 10%, 20% and 40% as possible percentages of teachers who might be qualified.
— Catherine Rampell (@crampell) February 22, 2018
Also: "You can't hire enough security guards... Your need 100, 150 security guards.”
I don't even know what to say.
Over There
This is an exciting time for journalism, because all week the main story in several newspapers has been the revelation that Jeremy Corbyn gave secrets to a Czech spy in 1986, despite there being no evidence whatsoever. So at last it seems that those publications are free to print stories without bothering with the old restriction that there had to be some inkling they might be slightly true in some way.
Gun Nuttery
The outcome of Heller (individual right in 2nd amendment) was supposed to open the door to sensible gun regulation. Fine, it's a right, so we can't take away all your guns, but that doesn't mean we can't have some reasonable regulations. That was a stupid view because that isn't how politics works (nor is it how conservative judges are likely to see Heller). But little things like "constitutionality as interpreted by the Supremos" never stop conservative activists.
Wednesday, February 21, 2018
Baby Steps
Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner said Wednesday that prosecutors would no longer seek cash bail for people accused of misdemeanors and some nonviolent felonies, a significant policy shift that could have a wide-ranging impact on the city’s criminal justice system.
Where We Fucked Up
The people who lead us - even the good ones- have fucked up a lot for decades. I don't get the sense that many of them realize it.
Such Fun
New sealed criminal charges have been filed in federal court in the criminal case brought by special counsel Robert Mueller against Donald Trump’s former campaign aides Paul Manafort and Rick Gates, a court record seen by Reuters on Wednesday showed.
Microtransit
Also, everybody loves to talk about the "last mile problem." The last mile is a 20 minute walk. The last half mile is a 10 minute walk. Unless your cheap cab is waiting for you at the station and whisks you home directly (which semi-flexible on demand routes will not), and the same to the station, you aren't going to save much time on that. Also, "the last mile problem" with car-sized vehicles faces the same problem as every other transit problem. We have a peak commute problem. It's called rush hour (or daily rush 4 hours, depending on where you live). Need a lot of microtransit at peak times specifically.
Sure robot cars will change all this. Well, some of this. The peak commute problem doesn't change. Let's talk when we have robot cars.
We'll Get Chucked Out Of Power Eventually
The British government is seeking an open-ended transition period after Brexit, according to a Whitehall position paper shared with EU member states, which is likely to inflame tensions in the Conservative party.
So It's A Bus
Express Pool will work like Uber Pool, in that drivers will pick up separate passengers and drop them off at different locations. The difference is that Express Pool will usually ask the riders to walk a few blocks to a pickup location, “dynamically located” to maximize trip efficiencies, said Ethan Stock, Uber Express Pool’s product lead, in a video-conference with reporters. Same goes for drop-offs: riders will be let out close to their destination, instead of directly in front of it.
Tuesday, February 20, 2018
Maybe Read Your Own Damn Newspaper
Maybe we won't see John Lott anymore, but they'll probably replace him with Mary Rosh.
Perfectly Aligned Incentives
Hospitals are increasingly offering “patient-financing” strategies, cooperating with banks and other financial institutions to provide on-the-spot loans to make sure patients pay their bills.
The Greatest Obstacle To Participation In Public Debate
Most people don't have the luxury of being able to "say what they want" without facing potential lifelong financial ruin, and I don't mean because of libel/defamation suits. I mean because most of us exist in a precarious at will employment existence. A few "idiotic"* college students yelling at Charles Murray, who will be paid quite nicely no matter what, don't qualify as anything worth remarking on.
As with the "pundit defense force" generally, which battles people choose says a lot about them. Even elite college students mostly have no power, and often the "idiots" doing these things are members of marginalized groups who have good reason to object to racists and homophobes and misogynists, who already get paid to write things for our elite publications, getting a stage and a microphone in their communities. The heckler's veto is still speech, and it's unclear why it's more offensive speech than "paying a racist a bunch of money out of your tuition fees." The man with the microphone has already been granted a disproportionate voice and you have to yell to be heard above the sound system. There is no "debate among equals" in these situations.
*I don't necessarily agree that they are "idiotic" (depends!) but I don't feel like arguing specific cases here. Just making the point that what a few college students at a few elite campuses do does not matter one bit unless you imagine you are one of those people who will be paid money to go talk at college students and might, also, too, be yelled at.
Nothing Is More Important Than The Lifetime Income Streams Of Elite Tenured Columnists
Blogging isn't much different, except for the lack of respect and lack of riches and, hopefully in my case at least, the understanding that I am not a member of a tiny club of truly elite people who are uniquely qualified to opine in public without fear of criticism. When political blogging became a thing a long time ago, there were two basic reactions: 1) Why are these people qualified to opine on things? 2) It isn't fair that they don't have editors and producers I can complain to so I can try to get them fired.
As for 1), well, I never had any idea what the expertise of most of the people who opine about everything for money was. Once upon a time it was a kind of golden watch at the end of a journalism career, but then after complaints from conservatives about the "liberal media" all of these idiot conservatives with no qualifications except usually nepotism were being pushed onto the opinion pages. And of course no one knows where cable news street meat really comes from.
And 2), well, yes, it's hard to get me fired. It's also hard to get David Brooks fired, so I guess we're even, except for the salary differential.
The clubby "columnist defense force" is always pretty funny, especially as it comes from the same people who are screaming about snowflake college students and their safe spaces. The price of being a rich public figure is now that people are mean to you on the internet in ways you can mostly easily ignore. Boo fucking hoo.
People tend to circle the wagons around their own kind. This is normal. It's also illuminating because it shows who people like Chait actually think "their people" are.
Everything I Needed To Know About Politics I Learned At The Applebees Salad Bar
Why should anyone pay for this? Don't.
So What You're Saying Is That It Will, Then
David Davis will tell business leaders in Austria that fears the Conservatives will plunge Britain into a “Mad Max-style world borrowed from dystopian fiction” after leaving the EU are unfounded.
The Brexit secretary will claim that Theresa May’s government wants to oversee a race to the top in global standards, listing workers’ rights, City regulation, animal welfare and the environment as areas for potential improvement.
Regarding the 2nd paragraph he means those things will all be worse.
Monday, February 19, 2018
New Map
"Commonsense Solutions"
Faux-centrism will destroy us all.
Meet George Jetson
But, of course, the “driver” of the I.D. Vizzion will be freed from the need to pay attention to the road, and so the importance of the performance specs is debatable. Instead, the driver will be able to join the passengers in enjoying the ride. They’ll be able to interact with the car’s “virtual host,” which can be done either by voice or gesture control. VW says this digital assistant will know “the personal preferences of the vehicle guests” — that’s my favorite new way to refer to passengers; can’t wait to use it myself someday — in a way that allows it to adapt the car’s “digital ecosystem” to each of them.
Shotgun, Rifle, Handgun, "Assault Weapon"
At some level it doesn't much matter what they like to spend their money on. Not much difference between 4 and 40 guns ultimately. But if you have 40 guns, I worry a bit about you.
Sunday, February 18, 2018
No You're The Mark
1/ I know most journalists believe that their own coverage is not easily manipulated by Russians or anybody... which is weird, considering that there are multiple multi-billion dollar industries dedicated to manipulating media coverage.
— Goldy (@GoldyHA) February 17, 2018
Along with this in the New Yorker.
The power of news illiteracy. At the heart of the Russian fraud is an essential, embarrassing insight into American life: large numbers of Americans are ill-equipped to assess the credibility of the things they read. The willingness to believe purported news stories, often riddled with typos or coming from unfamiliar outlets, is a liability of today’s fragmented media and polarized politics. Even the trolls themselves were surprised at what Americans would believe. According to the indictment, in September, 2017, once U.S. authorities had begun to crack down on the fraud, one of the defendants, Irina Viktorovna Kaverzina, e-mailed a family member, saying, “We had a slight crisis here at work: the FBI busted our activity (not a joke). So, I got preoccupied with covering tracks together with the colleagues.” She went on, “I created all these pictures and posts, and the Americans believed that it was written by their people.”
And a lot of them have highly paid positions in major media outlets, are members of Congress, or are even president of the United States! Some are even editors of the New Yorker who published the funniest post-9/11 thing I ever read by the guy who now edits The Atlantic!
All this "facebook is sapping our vital essences" and "fake news" stuff ignores the fact that the real fake news is often the "real" news, not some bullshit websites linked to on facebook. The New York Times partnered with Steve Bannon's crew during the election season (I do keep telling you to delete your subscriptions)! I don't mean fake news in the Trump sense of "news I don't like" or even understandable mistakes. I mean the designed to manipulate you bullshit, either directly by the "journalists" themselves or their editors, or because the journalists themselves are also easily manipulable (they know manipulation is part of the game, yet somehow they are impervious!).
To some degree, if "the Russians" were that successful at election manipulation, it just means that our professionals aren't good enough at it. They're doing the same job.
Saturday, February 17, 2018
Smaller and Cheaper
And Why Would He Do That
Kushner has been present at meetings with the president where classified information was discussed and has access to the President’s Daily Brief, a digest of intelligence updates based on information from spies, satellites, and surveillance technology, according to people with knowledge of his access.
And apart from staff on the National Security Council, he issues more requests for information to the intelligence community than any White House employee, according to a person with knowledge of the situation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private discussions.
My belief (what do I know) is that most of our intelligence apparatus is corporate espionage, broadly defined, in that it's about keeping the money flowing to our corporate titans. Can't really blame Jared for wanting to get a piece of that.
Knowns And Unknowns
Everybody wants to rule the world, but most people are way too stupid to get it right.
Morning Thread
Friday, February 16, 2018
It's A Dumb Design, Brent
Bloomberg reports that multiple employees have found themselves unexpectedly running into the glass walls that are the design hallmark of Apple Park. Some workers reportedly even put post-it notes on the walls to make their presence more obvious. But the visual warnings were removed because they detracted from the office's sleek design.
Not The Twist I Expected
Special Counsel Robert Mueller's office said Friday that a grand jury indicted 13 Russian nationals and three Russian entities for alleged interference in the 2016 presidential elections, during which they boosted the candidacy of Donald Trump.
...
Three defendants are charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud.
Five defendants are charged with aggravated identity theft.
Indictment at the link...skimming now...
What's It All About Then
When someone contacts you on the tincan-and-string device and gives you a tip, that's making it easy to catch the bad guys and Keep Us Safe. Easier than all the high tech toys and no knock warrants and whatever else.
The F.B.I. failed to act on a tip in January from a person close to Nikolas Cruz warning that he owned a gun and might conduct a school shooting, the bureau acknowledged on Friday, in its first admission that it might have been able to prevent the deadly attack at a Florida high school.
The tipster said Mr. Cruz had a “desire to kill people, erratic behavior, and disturbing social media posts” and advised the F.B.I of “the potential of him conducting a school shooting,” the agency said in a statement.
Sure
CLEVELAND, Ohio - Hyperloop Transportation Technologies announced it has signed agreements with the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency and the Illinois Department of Transportation to study several high-speed routes that would zoom between Cleveland and Chicago in as little as 28 minutes.
Even boosters (people who believe in the technology and who are likely overly optimistic about these things) put the capacity at <1000 per hour. I doubt - even if it works! - it's half that, but...
The work could take six to 12 months, and will examine potential routes for a Hyperloop line along with the cost, ridership, and possible station locations, she said. Public rights-of-way along I-80, I-90 and the Amtrak rail line will be explored.
"One of the things we want to do is go to Cedar Point," Gallucci said.
Sure, give away a right-of-way for a ridiculously expensive low capacity trip to the amusement park 60 miles from Cleveland. Everyone's gonna hop in their cars, drive to downtown Cleveland, get on the hyperloop, get off, take the shuttle bus to the amusement park..Or just drive there in an hour (less from the western suburbs of course).
28 minutes from Cleveland to Chicago implies an *average speed* of 730 mph. Adding a roller coaster stop isn't going to help that goal...
Someone pay to me to do consulting for this stuff. I can day drink and play video games for 6 months and then come up with my shocking findings.
Big, If True
RALEIGH
A North Carolina lawmaker says letting teachers bring guns to school would help save lives in situations like the school shooting that occurred in Florida on Wednesday – and a legislative committee wants to hear more about the idea.
There was an armed cop there, but oh never mind...
In a Facebook comment on another user’s post, Pittman speculated the Florida shooter was part of a conspiracy to “push for gun control so they can more easily take over the country.”
That user’s post later was deleted. Some people online had circulated this photo of a man who is not the suspected shooter, according to Snopes.
Pittman’s full comment: “Not surprising to see the people depicted on his T-shirt. So many of these shooters turn out to be communist democrats, that I suspect they are doing these things to push for gun control so they can more easily take over the country.”
Nobody Cares About The People Who Ride The Bus
Upswipz
If This Was A Democrat...
Trump and McDougal began an affair, which McDougal later memorialized in an eight-page, handwritten document provided to The New Yorker by John Crawford, a friend of McDougal’s. When I showed McDougal the document, she expressed surprise that I had obtained it but confirmed that the handwriting was her own.
Thursday, February 15, 2018
Obligatory Safe Space For The Snowflake Joke
The director of the EPA’s Office of Criminal Enforcement, Henry Barnet, told Politico that Pruitt was “approached in the airport numerous times” and had profanities “yelled at him” during his travels.
Barnet told the publication that one specific incident saw a person approach Pruitt and shout “Scott Pruitt, you’re f---ing up the environment” while recording it on a cellphone.
Getting the vapors. Take me to the fainting couch.
Something Is Wrong With The NYT
And not saying it would be less sad it there were poor kids, obviously. Just such a waste to see kids with so much opportunity before them wiped out.
— Eric Lipton (@EricLiptonNYT) February 15, 2018
Assholes
Did You Know Nazis Don't Like Jews Very Much?
After years of watching the modern conservative movement try to marginalize Leftists of any kind for being anti-Semitic, often through little more than tenuous guilt-by-barely-association links, and the "objective" media willing piling on, it's been a bit puzzling to watch. Admittedly often the "leftists are anti-Semites" charges were based on the ever-popular "the real racists are the ones who cry racism" because likening people to Nazis was somehow worse than people maybe being Nazis, so I guess things haven't changed that much, but still you'd think this would be less important than people who were loudly and proudly actual anti-Semites. And, you know, not just anti-Semites, but Nazis, who have a few ideas of what just should be done about the Jewish problem. These things are not hidden!
So all the dapper Nazi photo shoots and loving profiles of the "alt-right" really have shocked me. Explicit bigotry against most minority groups is tolerated and even perpetuated by our elite media outlets, but there was a line there which limited the promotion of Antisemitism. And then there wasn't.
What's It All For
To Use Them For What They Are For
But, OK, fine, hunting and self-protection. Remington is going bankrupt and the reason probably is that they make guns for hunting and self-protection (well, that and a little class action suit). They mostly don't make guns that are just designed to efficiently kill people for the lolz. I'm not saying REMINGTON IS GOOD. Just that their business mostly wasn't these.
Gun nuts collect lots of guns. I suppose there's a certain madness that affects collectors of just about anything, but Hummels aren't designed to kill people. The guns that gun nuts collect are (I specify "gun nuts" because I suppose you can collect revolutionary war rifles and not be a gun nut). That is their sole useful purpose. And not even in a "self-defense" kind of way. They are offensive weapons designed to slaughter people.
What's the point of this hobby if you aren't planning and hoping to use them for their clear intended purpose?
Death Cult
Wednesday, February 14, 2018
Stalemate
So when people like Kristof push this bullshit... well, fuck them. He knows better. He just can't bring himself to say "this is on the Republicans."
This breaks our hearts. If only it would also break our stalemate and lead to more sensible gun policies in America--like these https://t.co/avVvSu95nH https://t.co/LJNH5vWU3J
— Nicholas Kristof (@NickKristof) February 14, 2018
I don't think the tiny things Democrats would support (a lot of them aren't exactly into taking all your guns away as I am) would do all that much, but they're more than nothing. For Republicans it's nothing.
Lighting Money On Fire
Despite a turbulent year for the ride-hailing company, sales were $7.5 billion. But the company also posted a substantial loss of $4.5 billion. There are few historical precedents for the scale of its loss.
Nothing Really Matters, Anyone Can See...
I actually think it's super weird how people are blaming their diminished sense of well-being on the Trump administration. Personal events determine my quality of life; not who's in the WH.
— Paige W. Cunningham (@pw_cunningham) February 14, 2018
One could bring up many possibilities, but because she's a health care reporter...
The first year of the Trump administration was dominated by an attempt to repeal ACA and replace it with basically nothing. I can't even remember what was in the final bill before Saint McCain did the right thing for once, but at various times the ability for people with pre-existing conditions to obtain insurance, and therefore medical treatment for their possibly life-threatening ailments, was seriously threatened. I'd guess (I am making this up because I am not a health care reporter) close to a majority of Americans over 50 have a nontrivial medical condition that at the very least requires ongoing monitoring and medication, and of course many more of all ages plus we all have friends and family who could be in that situation even if we aren't personally.
Also, too, there's currently a flu epidemic.
Policy matters. How could you be a policy reporter and not know this?
Wednesday Belgian Endive Blogging
Endive has a unique story—it’s a youngster in the vegetable world, which is ironic considering that the root it’s grown from, called chicory, is one of the earliest plants cited in recorded literature. Endive, on the other hand, was a relatively recent discovery, thanks to a lucky accident. In 1830, a farmer named Jan Lammers in Brussels, Belgium, stored some chicory roots in his cellar because he was planning to dry and roast them for coffee (it was commonly used as an additive or coffee substitute). But then he left his farm for several months to serve in the Belgian War of Independence, and when he returned he discovered that his chicory roots had sprouted small, white leaves that were tender, crunchy, and delicious.
Likely merely a "local" discovery, but still.
The Best People
Veterans Affairs Secretary David J. Shulkin’s chief of staff doctored an email and made false statements to create a pretext for taxpayers to cover expenses for the secretary’s wife on a 10-day trip to Europe last summer, the agency’s inspector general has found.
Vivieca Wright Simpson, VA’s third-most senior official, altered language in an email from an aide coordinating the trip to make it appear that Shulkin was receiving an award from the Danish government — then used the award to justify paying for his wife’s travel, Inspector General Michael J. Missal said in a report released Wednesday. VA paid more than $4,300 for her airfare.
They'll Still Have Drivers
What also may have gone unnoticed was a January news item that Waymo had ordered "thousands" of Chrysler Pacifica minivans from Fiat Chrysler (NYSE:FCAU), which is the car Waymo used in the 100-vehicle early rider program. The order signals that Waymo is ready for widespread deployment, with Waymo CEO John Krafcik announcing, "with the world's first fleet of fully self-driving vehicles on the road, we've moved from research and development to operations and deployment."
...
Not only did Waymo score more miles, but its disengagement rate fell to 0.18 per thousand miles, down from 0.20 in 2016. For reference, a disengagement occurs when a human monitor has to assume control of the autonomous vehicle. Waymo's figure was also well below GM-Cruise, which scored a 0.8 disengagement rate, though GM claimed this was a huge 1400% improvement from 2016, which, admittedly, is also impressive.
These figures are kind of meaningless unless you know how much they're gaming the results by driving lots of "easy" miles. Also, I suspect (but don't know) they're obscuring first/last 100 feet problems. But even if you take it at face value that you can run an automated taxi service that only needs a driver once every 5 thousand miles, you still need a driver (I mean "human monitor") all the time if you need one once every 5 thousand. Neat if true! Still not good enough, and no way they work that well in my urban hellhole, which is pretty easy to drive in compared to, say, Boston.
Don't Shit Where You Eat
Philadelphia police asked the public for more help on Tuesday in finding revelers involved with multiple cases of vandalism in the aftermath of the Eagles' first Super Bowl win.
...
In the other clip, a man in a kelly green Eagles jersey is shown holding a crosswalk sign and talks to the camera, appearing to say, "We're gonna tear this whole city apart."
Again, this isn't "city people good, suburban people bad," it's about suburban people sometimes not seeing the city as a place where people actually live. Just an urban funhouse where The Purge rules occasionally apply.
The one arrest they made was of some young guy from the Main Line.
Tuesday, February 13, 2018
Abolish ICE
SEATTLE (AP) — The chief counsel for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Seattle has been charged with stealing immigrants’ identities.
Raphael A. Sanchez, who resigned from the agency effective Monday, faces one count of aggravated identity theft and another of wire fraud in a charging document filed Monday in U.S. District Court.
Prosecutors with the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section allege that Sanchez stole the identities of seven people “in various stages of immigration proceedings” to defraud credit card companies including American Express, Bank of America and Capital One.
Idiot could have robbed them all blind and probably even gotten a personal slave or two (they're all the rage now). Mistake was fucking with the credit card companies.
Cunning Plans
The worst thing about being wealthy in America is you just can't always abuse your personal servants as much as you can in some other countries. Time to fix that apparently.
The Internet Of Shit
Being able to update your car’s user interface over the air means better access to new features, with fewer trips to the dealer, and — ideally — a quick fix if something’s wrong. But there are inevitably going to be hiccups when a behemoth like, say, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles tries to update the infotainment system it pushes on many of its sub-brands and something breaks. This weekend, as Jalopnik noticed, FCA sent an over-the-air update to its Uconnect platform that is causing infotainment systems in cars to reboot every 45 seconds or so.
...
It’s not just the radio that these customers have lost access to. Uconnect also includes controls for heat and A/C, heated seats and steering wheels, rear-view cameras, and is needed to power things like the vehicle’s voice assistant and even the “SOS” feature. Even with redundant physical buttons — which are becoming rare in a screen-first world — not all of these controls will be available until FCA issues a fix.
This is only tangentially related, but generally I do not get the touch screen interfaces for cars. You have to look at them as there is no tactile feedback. Meaning it's hard to adjust the radio or the heat or whatever when you're actually driving. Knobs and buttons you can feel for, once you're used to them.
I Keep Telling You To Cancel Your Subscriptions
There is nothing conservatives can do to get off the op-ed circuit list.
Democracy Dies In McArglebargling
How could anyone react to it all? The easiest way to recover one’s bearings was to look away from Trump for a while. The worst piece of journalism of the year — or as bad a piece as any, and a failure defining our moment — didn’t even have to do with the United States. It was a think piece by Megan McArdle for Bloomberg View, dashed off immediately after the Grenfell Tower fire.
It didn’t really have to do with Grenfell. With less than half the eventual death toll on the books, McArdle felt the urge to warn, in abstract economist terms, against overvaluing the lost lives. “It’s possible that by allowing large residential buildings to operate without sprinkler systems,” McArdle wrote, “the British government has prevented untold thousands of people from being driven into homelessness by higher housing costs.”
The reall issue with Grenfell was the cladding material used on the building, which was not appropriately fireproof and which is banned for such uses in communist countries like the United States. Accepted figure seems to be that the added cost of fireproof cladding would have been about $450,000, or $3750 per unit. Figure a 20 year lifespan (I am making this up) and that's 15 bucks per month per unit (add financing, take away depreciation - I don't know how UK taxes work on this stuff).
Cost benefit analysis is very serious, especially when you don't even make a half-assed attempt to do it as I just did in 5 minutes or understand any of the issues involved. But, hey, the people died because capitalism is always good.
Owning The Libs
I Tried To Warn The Transit Nerds
Yet the $12.7 billion Gateway project did not even rate a mention in the much-ballyhooed blueprint for revamping American infrastructure that was unveiled Monday by President Donald Trump.
Trump's Fiscal Year 2019 budget, also released Monday, cuts funding for Amtrak's long-distance passenger trains and eliminates the very federal program through which the project was supposed to be funded.
Now the only real hope is that the powers that be were exaggerating, or were wrong about, the remaining lifespan of the existing tunnels. Clock is ticking...
(Of course Trump's budget isn't going to be enacted as is, but...)
Monday, February 12, 2018
Monday Night
This nonsense seems to repeat every 7 days. Maybe we're in a time loop.
I Keep Telling You To Cancel Your Subscriptions
Honestly stunned pic.twitter.com/mDHOhe3eYN
— David Klion (@DavidKlion) February 12, 2018
Bari Weiss is a NYT opinion editor and is always horrible.
..ugh twitter image embed never works right:
1)
2)
So Shocked
The White House had promised Collins, a moderate, that it would seek a vote before recess on guaranteeing payments to health insurers in order to stabilize Obamacare markets, a key issue for her. But under intense opposition from pro-life groups and from House conservatives, no such vote materialized.
Collins berated Short for reneging on the deal and then walked off after Short tried to explain, according to two people familiar with the exchange.
“I was disappointed the deadline slipped,” Collins told POLITICO in an interview.
I'm The Crazy One
Everyone seems to make money from being wrong about these things. I'm doing it wrong, obviously.
In Philly We Ride The Hoagiemobiles
The Hague (AFP) - Veteran US journalist Katie Couric is being mercilessly mocked on Twitter after claiming the Dutch success at Olympics speed-skating was because skating is an "important mode of transport" in their country.
...
But during Friday's opening ceremony as the Dutch team entered the stadium, Couric pondered "why are they so good, you may be asking yourselves?"
"Because skating is an important mode of transportation in a city like Amsterdam," she told audiences tuned into US broadcaster NBC television.
Type The Press Release
As Congress turns to the difficult topic of immigration — the Senate is expected to begin debate this week — some are wondering if Ms. Pelosi is the person to lead her party on an issue that goes to the heart of Democratic divisions in the era of President Trump.
Fair question. So, let's turn to, um...the Republican Chief Deputy Whip?
Ms. Pelosi “didn’t have any cohesive message,” Representative Patrick T. McHenry, Republican of North Carolina and the chief deputy whip, told reporters. “She negotiated the deal. Her team was in on it. She acknowledges it.”
“And at the end, her team broke,” he said. “So I see a fractured caucus on the other side.”
Sunday, February 11, 2018
It Is True That Multiple Sources Rhyming With Skyvanka Said This
Behind closed doors: The president has told multiple people that he believes the accusations about Porter, and finds him “sick.” https://t.co/tsLhL8VkKM
— Axios (@axios) February 11, 2018
Which is not the same as it being true, especially as:
Peoples lives are being shattered and destroyed by a mere allegation. Some are true and some are false. Some are old and some are new. There is no recovery for someone falsely accused - life and career are gone. Is there no such thing any longer as Due Process?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 10, 2018
shruggy.
Maybe It Was All... A Lie?
Saturday, February 10, 2018
We're Only All Going To Die If It's On The News
It's enough that there could be panicked newscasts nightly. Or, as we see, not! What is covered has such power to impact our perception of dangers.
Why Don't We Just Impeach Him?
We wouldn't have the daily drama with President Pence, but otherwise things would be just as bad. Maybe worse!
The Worst People
Friday, February 09, 2018
Where Did I Hear That Name
Several Trump confidantes reached by ABC News said the president is considering multiple names as possible Kelly replacements, among those, top economic adviser Gary Cohn, Office of Management and Budget director Mick Mulvaney and Rep. Mark Meadows.
Oh, right.
The House Committee on Ethics is still investigating Rep. Mark Meadows’ (R-NC) handling of sexual harassment complaints against his former chief of staff, numerous sources have confirmed to The Daily Beast.
And though the primary source of interest has been why Meadows, the Chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, continued to pay his former top aide Kenny West long after complaints were made about West’s behavior and even following West’s termination, another wrinkle has recently emerged. A former Meadows aide has testified to the committee that top staff and, perhaps, even Meadows himself were made aware of West’s behavior far earlier than has been publicly reported.
I'm not sure Cohn and Mulvaney can do every job? They're totally running out of people...
Why I'm Cranky
Montana Sen. Jon Tester didn’t have any specific ideas in mind, but offered some principles the party should look at. “It wouldn’t increase the debt on our kids by a trillion-four, and the middle-class tax breaks — what we have would be permanent,” he said.
He was, however, fairly pessimistic about any changes happening in the near future. “There are a lot of things that could be changed in that, but I don’t see any effort to do any of those things,” he conceded. “I think we’ve got what we’ve got for the next 30 years.”
For perspective, 30 years ago was 1988. Been stasis ever since.
Why Do You Get Arrested For Fare Jumping
I know the answer, but the powers that be need to be asked it more by journalists who are in touch with... haha I kid.
...oops, meant this link, but that one is good too, though different.
But That's All They Have
And yet, today, in the highest circles of Democratic party politics, resistance is waning. “This is normal enough,” many key Democrats seem to be saying. When Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer wrote in advance of Trump’s State of the Union several weeks ago, he focused on finding ways to “work with” the president, such as infrastructure.
Bipartisan rhetoric is nothing new from politicians, but Democrats appear to be slipping towards making substantive policy concessions to Trump. Particularly in the Senate, Democrats have, bit by bit, begun acceding to Trumpian demands. Their attempted shutdown failed after less than three days, as many in the party pushed for a more conciliatory approach.
And I'm not against cutting deals that are actually reasonable deals, but you can cut deals and still go for the throat. Republicans always do.
The General Is Just Not Wise To The Weird Morality Of DC
Friends and associates noted that with Mr. Kelly’s lack of experience in Washington politics, he may not have been attuned at first to how the domestic abuse allegations against Mr. Porter would be perceived.
The Crime Was Getting Caught
The president, for his part, was deeply displeased with how his staff had handled this latest self-inflicted crisis. According to two sources with direct knowledge, Trump began commenting in the West Wing about how awful press coverage had been of the Porter scandal and “how terrible” it looked that the White House was forced to back down and—in a jarringly uncharacteristic move from Trump-world—ultimately cop to a grave error.
No one there cared, they just didn't want it to make them look bad. That's Porter's "crime" (and now Kelly and Hicks).
Nobody Cares About The Deficit
Now can we stop pretending the Republicans care about the deficit? Haha the deficit scolds will be back as soon as Dems are in charge again. Only really stupid people can not see that Republicans run up the deficit, with tax cuts, wars, and occasionally some domestic spending, when they are in charge, and then the Democrats reduce it to win the love and adoration of