Agree.

Also, I think the writer meant an albatross hanging from the country's neck, not an anchor "wrapped firmly."

But I can't say what I think it ought to be.

I confess, in 2020, I applied to serve on the redistricting commission. Lots of interesting people applied — applications were public — but they ultimately chose a Republican businessman.

I was bothered that even though the state is 45% Dem and 25% Rep, the commission is ~ 1/3;1/3;1/3.

I don't like having to take it on faith that this is the best possible shape for my district; I don't have the resources to interrogate motives. Though outcomes are pretty clear cut.

The 19th winds away from the Salinas Valley (berries and lettuce) and heads instead for southern California vineyards to counterbalance a chunk of liberal and progressive voters. I guess? IDK.

Better map here.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Califor...
What should one prioritize?

I don't understand what you are saying. Are there rules?

I can see lumping the Santa Cruz and Monterey coastlines together, and yet why even do that?
But then continuing all the way down a very thin, barely inhabited strip to a completely different part of the state, seems (to me) hard to justify.

aoc challenges rfk jr to run his car on essential oils

I did it for a while and my superpower was knowing where eucalyptus trees grow. However, I needed more and I got too busy. Beginner's luck.

Good luck with the bollards!

Map of House District 19. Runs along the coast of California from Santa Cruz south. Upon reaching Southern California, dives eastward to include a large swatch of agriculture land. It also includes a generous portion of Pacific Ocean and Monterey Bay that makes it look less skinny than it actually is. Jerrymandered or not? What are the rules?

Tell me why this House district is or is not gerrymandered.

What qualifies as gerrymandering?

We have finally overturned radical leftist, George Washington’s, tyrannical vaccine mandates for American service members www.nps.gov/articles/000...

It's hard to tell.

American combat deaths in World War I: 54,000.
American soldiers killed by flu in World War I: 45,000.
They would have given anything for a flu vaccine.

Also, the perennial.
Him: "Hi."

Do they really not realize they are putting all the work of starting and probably continuing a conversation on the woman they DM'd?

Somebody liked my comment above, which brought me back here. I actually have a young relative whose father forced him to go there, saying it was Hillsdale or no college. I don't have much influence, but I'm hopeful he'll survive it like you did. ❤️

Yeah, they chopped off everything down to zero. Also, there's no context. For example, what is spending on men's health?

truly at this point there is nothing more boring than another pitch about AI, it's like telling me your business uses electricity

CHAPTER TWO A Theory of Technology Evolution The Law of Accelerating Returns The further backward you look, the further forward you can see. -WINSTON CHURCHILL Two billion years ago, our ancestors were microbes; a half-billion years ago, fish; a hundred million years ago, something like mice; ten milion years ago, arboreal apes; and a million years ago, proto-humans puzzing out the taming of hire. Our evolutionary lineage is marked by mastery of change. In our time, the pace is quickening. -CARL SAGAN Our sole responsibility is to produce something smarter than we are; any Problems beyond that are not ours to solve.... _There are no hard prob-lems, only problems that are hard to a certain level of intelligence. Move the smallest bit upwards [in level of intelligence], and some problems will suddenly move from "impossible" to "obvious." Move a substantial degree bvious. ТУ, 1996

Chapter 2 is the intellectual core of the book, presenting the “law of accelerating returns.”

@adambecker.bsky.social already wrote the authoritative debunking of this idea in his book, More Everything Forever. (Which is excellent and you should purchase btw.)

Figure showing number of competitive grants mentioning women from 2015-2025. The number was rising until recently, with a precipitous drop in the last year.

At the end of 2024, the National Academies put out a report concluding the NIH has woefully underfunded women’s health research, and they suggested $15 B should be invested over the next 5 years.

Here’s what’s happened instead. Hard to study women’s health if you can’t say “women.”

wapo.st/4euUt1c

Same. My kids made me watch Klaus ~20 years ago.

Black and white landscape photo with desert scrub in the foreground, low hills in the distance, and a dramatic cloud-streaked sky.

Wishing for rain, settling for the view. Dramatic desert sky above an alluvial plain and Pliocene erosional remnant hills; a rift-bounding range of Precambrian metamorphic rocks in the far distance.

Trying to guess what nominally left wing might mean and going with The Atlantic.

Yee has dropped out of the governor's race.

"[She] garnered more support among the party faithful, including at the California Democratic Party Convention where she received 17 percent of the vote among delegates in February." — The Hill

She will endorse someone else soon.

Betty Yee says she will endorse someone soon.
I'm likely to vote for whoever that is because I respect her opinion so much. She would have made a great governor.

How does that compare to what they would pay in taxes at 1975 rates? That is, 70% marginal income tax rate.

I do. I have a bat house on the side of my garage and they talk to me when I go in and out of the garage. Currently not there. I think they migrated somewhere but they eventually come back.

No rabies so far.

They claim to want a "level playing field," but they don't. They want favoritism and another rescue, despite Deciding Not to Plan for this very thing.

China's move into electric cars has hardly been a secret. Yet, US automakers just went on building gas guzzlers like there was no tomorrow.

Thank you!
I guess I need to read this book!
So glad you brought it up.

"...women's labor began to appear as a natural resource, available to all, no less than the air we breathe and the water we drink."

Obviously, some of that comes from within. But also constant external requests for service.

And then, two days ago, a man I know and like casually alluded to me "serving the public good" and I practically bit his head off. He of course backed down.

Right off, "Women the New Commons" is exactly what I've been perseverating on lately. I suddenly realized that women are viewed as a public service, like clean water or an effective waste treatment system.

I've been actively trying to back away from the constant expectation that I serve.