Trying to explain St Augustine to the pope, the former head of the Augustinian order, who wrote his doctoral thesis on Augustine, on his way back from celebrating mass at the Basilica of St Augustine in Annaba, Algeria, overlooking the site where Augustine lived is peak Adult Catholic Convert.

Well you truly live up to your handle when it comes to arguments. Ta!

You are bringing cars into a conversation about hikers and bikers because of your own fixation on cars. You could have said nothing. Instead you try to invalidate the concerns of others. Yay you.

Your observation makes no sense and in no way excuses poor behavior on the part of cyclists if they endanger hikers.

Doesn’t a pardon require a description of what conduct is being pardoned?

Appreciate your participation, but I don’t want to make assumptions: do you keep this agent employee? Is any of that code in production for any length of time?

So here’s a thought experiment about AI coding that I haven’t seen posed: if you think of the best current coding agent as an employee, would you keep that employee after having had to live with code, fixing the bugs and security vulnerabilities?

Anyone else notice the irony of WAPO (owned by Bezos) commenting on anxiety at CNN (owned by the Ellisons)?

No Such Thing As A Fish | Nosuchthingasafish nosuchthingasafish.com | A weekly podcast about interesting facts from the makers of QI.

Do you also enjoy the “No Such Thing as a Fish” podcast?

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Is that emotion really worry? 😉

Or single-parent families later in life.

If the population is going up, and there are more households, then more people are living in expensive situations that make them feel poorer. Don’t know if it’s true, just something I hadn’t contemplated before.

Maintaining a household is expensive, and can make people feel poorer even if their wages are going up. I think there’s more to it than nostalgia.

Delayed Milestones: The median age for first marriage has increased significantly (from ~20 for women in the 60s to 27–29 today), delaying the formation of multi-person households.
Declining Fertility: Women are having fewer children on average compared to the 1970s

Primary Drivers of Decline
Rise of Solo Living: One-person households jumped from 19% in 1974 to 29% in 2024.
Smaller Families: The average family size (related persons living together) fell from 3.58 in 1970 to 3.15 in 2023.

I think that’s at be simplistic and incomplete. For example: The average U.S. household size has significantly declined over the last 50 years, dropping from 3.14 people in 1970 to approximately 2.51 people in 2023.

Yes my quick googling revealed the same, but it still feels like something is missing.

Are you sure about that? With wealth concentration, *median* purchasing power can go down while the average goes up. Politically speaking, the median matters much more than the average. I need to dig into this. See: The Gini coefficient.

BREAKING: Donald Trump meets privately with Kash Patel and Pete Hegseth to assure them their jobs are secure, amidst swirling rumors that they may be the next cabinet members to be fired.

#KashPatel #PeteHegseth

And regardless of his understanding, given his role, it is a war crime to make those statements.

Completely agree, especially since writing is thinking.

But also recall the AI* booster who claimed that no one likes making music?

futurism.com/suno-ai-ceo-....

Hard to know, but one theory, if you can believe it, is the Kid Rock helicopter incident, where the army was going to investigate but was then overruled by Hegseth.

After the White House complained about an unflattering photo of Karoline Leavitt, it was removed from AFP and Getty’s systems. This is the photo in question. Please do not repost it. 👇

Whether it’s Kristi Noem getting Mar A Lago face or it’s Bryon Noem wearing enormous fake breasts, the Noems have emerged as unexpected practitioners of gender affirming interventions.

Powerful

Cartoon depicting a "history" factory, with the quote: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" from George Santayana. A student thinks: "Why does this look familiar?" while thinking about the Palmer Raids and Japanese-American Incarcerations, and the cogs of "Bureaucracy" and "Loopholes" stand next to an "ICE" conveyor belt with "Unidentified Agents," "Detentions Without Charge," "Militarized PResence," and "Limited Transparency" on the assembly line. Beneath the conveyor belt, spilled water from a pipe, labeled: "the cracks are showing", and a graph showing "public trust" in the red.

Officials at an Omaha-area high school ordered the student newspaper to remove this editorial cartoon criticizing ICE, then demanded prior review of articles about their censorship. Via @splc.org, which is advocating for the students: splc.org/2026/03/nebr...

Text from a Rick Steves post on Facebook: "A Millionaires Tax? Let’s Try Shared Prosperity! A new tax on fat paychecks like mine was just signed into law in my home state — and I like it. In 2029, Washington state will start collecting a 9.9% tax on income over $1 million. The 8,000,000 Washingtonians whose households make less than a million dollars a year will pay zero under this new tax and enjoy all the benefits of a better-funded state. And for the wealthy (like me and an estimated 30,000 others), every million dollars in taxable income that our households earn after the first million will cost us about $100,000. It takes a lot of money to run a state that’s as livable as ours. Yet Washington is one of only nine states that don’t currently levy a traditional income tax. Our state is still funded by consumption taxes, such as sales and excise taxes, giving us the second-most regressive tax code in the country. (Only Florida has us beat.) And it’s time for Washington millionaires to pay our fair share. Right about now, Republicans reading this are queuing up in the comments to holler their well-worn excuses: A state income tax will penalize, and therefore demoralize, Washington state’s job creators! Letting the rich get richer results in more wealth trickling down! Wealthy people will flee your state for those with more regressive taxation! (Since California and Oregon already have a comparable tax, that would be distant lands like Texas, Tennessee, and Nevada.) As a wealthy person myself, I see this tax as essentially free money for all Washingtonians. Everybody in my state gains. And speaking from personal experience, I know that anyone who earns enough to be subject to this tax is beyond the point where consuming more adds to their security, their well-being, or even, arguably, their happiness — meaning there will be basically zero human cost."

Text from Rick Steves Facebook post: "If you disagree, consider the minuscule impact this tax will have on my state’s millionaires. Now, contrast that with the value of close to $4 billion a year in tax revenue once it’s smartly invested in programs that will help the roughly one-third of Washington households living paycheck to paycheck. For those who still aren’t convinced, here’s a lesson I’ve learned in my travels: Even if you’re motivated only by greed, if you know what’s good for you, you don’t want to be filthy rich in a society with a huge gap between rich and poor. It’s just not a nice place to raise your kids. And remember: Shrouds have no pockets…especially if you’re a multimillionaire with no heart for your neighbors. Plus, helping build a better community for you and your neighbors just…feels good. I learned this firsthand back in 2011, when — after years of receiving a Bush-era tax break for the wealthy that I didn’t need — I noticed that to pay for that tax cut, public funding for community programs and institutions was being decimated. Recognizing the practical value of investing my tax savings in my community, I’ve donated $100,000 a year to our local arts center and symphony ever since, covering concert hall rental costs for our volunteer orchestra and much more. Paying a “self-imposed wealth tax” and knowing I’m helping my entire community has brought me great joy for 15 years and counting. It’s far from heroic…but it is a little lonely."

Text from Rick Steves Facebook post: "The “millionaires tax” that Governor Bob Ferguson signed into law today will make our state better than ever — not just for the working class and poor, but for everyone who values a healthy and sustainable future. And for us millionaires who are enlightened enough to realize that we’ve reached a point where consuming more won’t make us genuinely happier, it just feels right to pay a little extra. For me, it’s biblical (“To whom much is given, much will be required”)… It’s European (after all, societies that are equitably funded are much more “content” than ours)… And — for those of us with a heart for the public good — it’s simply common sense. Sign me up!"

Travel writer Rick Steves on Washington's newly signed "Millionaires Tax"

Walking thru the “Ultra Normie” No Kings rally in my extremely rural, white town and there are Patagonia wearing moms carrying signs that say “DEAD PEDOPHILES DONT REOFFEND” and “ICE GETS THE WALL” and I hi fived an old guy with a sign that said MY DADDY FOUGHT NAZIS AND SO WILL I” this is wild

Honest question: what is the theory of the case for this being a federal issue? Zoning and permitting are local city and county issues, perhaps state, but federal?

You people must be stopped! I can only imagine what your desk must look like…😂