The Darth Vader school of military efficiency

Playing "Where in the World is Justin Roczniak" and scanning my map for new calamitous infrastructure disasters.

California has had a drought of quality candidates statewide for decades.

It's a low bar to clear.

Gerrymander tha district inta da shape ah Harvard Yard

They're calling it Spanish Flu 2: Electric Boogalo

For local commuting, my 43 mile battery does 90% of my automotion.

I fill up my tank maybe once every three months, compared to my old Camry which guzzled a tank every two weeks.

The rapid economic decline he initiated then created the conditions for Yeltsin's coup and Putin's dictatorship.

This was fundamentally different from the Deng reforms, which maintained domestic ownership and focused primarily on export trade.

I don't think you can lay the collapse of the USSR on any single person.

But perestroika was a crime. Gorbachev oversaw the dismantling and forced sale of hundreds of billions in state assets at fire sale prices, effectively robbing the next generation of their capital.

Palantir @PalantirTech Because we get asked a lot. The Technological Republic, in brief. 1. Silicon Valley owes a moral debt to the country that made its rise possible. The engineering elite of Silicon Valley has an affirmative obligation to participate in the defense of the nation. 2. We must rebel against the tyranny of the apps. Is the iPhone our greatest creative if not crowning achievement as a civilization? The object has changed our lives, but it may also now be limiting and constraining our sense of the possible. 3. Free email is not enough. The decadence of a culture or civilization, and indeed its ruling class, will be forgiven only if that culture is capable of delivering economic growth and security for the public. 4. The limits of soft power, of soaring rhetoric alone, have been exposed. The ability of free and democratic societies to prevail requires something more than moral appeal. It requires hard power, and hard power in this century will be built on software. 5. The question is not whether A.I. weapons will be built; it is who will build them and for what purpose. Our adversaries will not pause to indulge in theatrical debates about the merits of developing technologies with critical military and national security applications. They will proceed.

6. National service should be a universal duty. We should, as a society, seriously consider moving away from an all-volunteer force and only fight the next war if everyone shares in the risk and the cost. 7. If a U.S. Marine asks for a better rifle, we should build it; and the same goes for software. We should as a country be capable of continuing a debate about the appropriateness of military action abroad while remaining unflinching in our commitment to those we have asked to step into harm’s way. 8. Public servants need not be our priests. Any business that compensated its employees in the way that the federal government compensates public servants would struggle to survive. 9. We should show far more grace towards those who have subjected themselves to public life. The eradication of any space for forgiveness—a jettisoning of any tolerance for the complexities and contradictions of the human psyche—may leave us with a cast of characters at the helm we will grow to regret. 10. The psychologization of modern politics is leading us astray. Those who look to the political arena to nourish their soul and sense of self, who rely too heavily on their internal life finding expression in people they may never meet, will be left disappointed.

11. Our society has grown too eager to hasten, and is often gleeful at, the demise of its enemies. The vanquishing of an opponent is a moment to pause, not rejoice. 12. The atomic age is ending. One age of deterrence, the atomic age, is ending, and a new era of deterrence built on A.I. is set to begin. 13. No other country in the history of the world has advanced progressive values more than this one. The United States is far from perfect. But it is easy to forget how much more opportunity exists in this country for those who are not hereditary elites than in any other nation on the planet. 14. American power has made possible an extraordinarily long peace. Too many have forgotten or perhaps take for granted that nearly a century of some version of peace has prevailed in the world without a great power military conflict. At least three generations — billions of people and their children and now grandchildren — have never known a world war. 15. The postwar neutering of Germany and Japan must be undone. The defanging of Germany was an overcorrection for which Europe is now paying a heavy price. A similar and highly theatrical commitment to Japanese pacifism will, if maintained, also threaten to shift the balance of power in Asia.

16. We should applaud those who attempt to build where the market has failed to act. The culture almost snickers at Musk’s interest in grand narrative, as if billionaires ought to simply stay in their lane of enriching themselves . . . . Any curiosity or genuine interest in the value of what he has created is essentially dismissed, or perhaps lurks from beneath a thinly veiled scorn. 17. Silicon Valley must play a role in addressing violent crime. Many politicians across the United States have essentially shrugged when it comes to violent crime, abandoning any serious efforts to address the problem or take on any risk with their constituencies or donors in coming up with solutions and experiments in what should be a desperate bid to save lives. 18. The ruthless exposure of the private lives of public figures drives far too much talent away from government service. The public arena—and the shallow and petty assaults against those who dare to do something other than enrich themselves—has become so unforgiving that the republic is left with a significant roster of ineffectual, empty vessels whose ambition one would forgive if there were any genuine belief structure lurking within. 19. The caution in public life that we unwittingly encourage is corrosive. Those who say nothing wrong often say nothing much at all. 20. The pervasive intolerance of religious belief in certain circles must be resisted. The elite’s intolerance of religious belief is perhaps one of the most telling signs that its political project constitutes a less open intellectual movement than many within it would claim. 21. Some cultures have produced vital advances; others remain dysfunctional and regressive. All cultures are now equal. Criticism and value judgments are forbidden. Yet this new dogma glosses over the fact that certain cultures and indeed subcultures . . . have produced wonders. Others have proven middling, and worse, regressive and harmful. 22. We must resist the shallow temptation…

This is a prescription for fascism espoused by one of the country's leading defense contractors.

Carlsonization

Wow, just like last time

Modern Corporate Keynesianism means numbers only go up.

Someone is buying it.

S&P is all the way back up again.

People like to pretend places like Portland and Milwaukee and Boston - absolutely overflowing with Boomer liberals and hippies - don't exist, never existed, don't count, whatever.

It's like folks want to believe leftism began ex nihilio in 1980. Nobody in the 50s was communist. Not even communists.

You do have to adjust that for inflation.

But even with inflation... zero trillionaires.

Liberals saying we need to reach out to the Trump Base if we want to win in 2028. Conservatives saying they won't vote for anyone who isn't a convicted serial killer and registered sex offender.

Idk, man. I feel like we need to Inglorious Bastards at least some number of them.

Caught local news on at a bar recently, and it was just two old crusty white guys effectively reading a police blotter.

Watching felt like a kind of self-inflicted abuse.

Something harsh has been going around.

Wish we still had a functioning CDC to look into it.

Everyone who loses was actually Al Gore.

But also, George Bush was great and we miss him

~ The Democrats

It was HER TURN!

You only voted for Trump because you hate women!

~~Kamala Harris~~ Hillary Clinton ran a perfect campaign!

Hillary Clinton called universal health care a pony and didn’t pay for one of her top staffers cancer treatment. They had to do a go fund me

Aren't Iran and Israel still in an active shooting war? I've yet to see any actual cease in this ceasefire.

> Paradox games excluded

🚩

It's hardly hubris when you see other people in your position getting away with it over and over again.

Very possible that he wins, these stories get shelved, and we don't hear about them again. It's a story as old as electoral politics. From Jefferson and Hamilton to Clinton and Trump.

I mean, you can accuse Jones and Tucker of a lot of shit, but "not being camera ready"?

Come on.

Like, the only redeeming quality of Megan Kelly is "looks good on television"

When the president says nobody is talking about them, you know they're irrelevant.

"Preparation H. Why is everyone laughing?"

Republicans and Fetterman shaped Democrats.

Unfortunately, primaries haven't rid us of nearly enough of the latter.