FACT CHECK: Donald Trump is not actually a sanitation worker. This is staged. (MSNBC soon)

have your AI bot get in touch with my AI bot...

I love the love and humor here. For the wedding speech: “Every day, Twitter has one main character, and your goal is to not be that person.” Merry Christmas to the six year old, mom and dad… and him!

Good test of your filter bubble: The definitive cause of the January Washington DC helicopter/plane collision that killed 67 people has been determined. Do you know what it was found to be?

"We can't endorse the lab leak hypothesis, because the wrong people have been saying it might be true" "We cannot call for Claudine Gay to step down because the wrong people are pointing out her plagiarism" "We cannot acknowledge closing schools for more than a year was wrong, because the wrong people were saying that all along" I have never seen so much knowingly harmful, willfully ignorant petulance in my life. New Years Resolution: Publicly state where you were wrong and your political opponents were correct. It's liberating. What matters is getting to the CORRECT IDEA, not who said it first.

If you think you know when the FIRST time was that “Scientific” American endorsed a candidate, you’re right. What a joke this publication has become. Just sell to Mother Jones and be done with it already.

“The New York Times no longer exists to report the news, but to signal to its liberal audience when it is safe to acknowledge a truth known long ago.” - @AbigailShrier (paraphrasing)

Glad you guys are having fun and getting connected! Lots and lots of K-12 kids at schools still have to eat like this in schools. They look thrilled too, don’t you think?

“But officer, it is O(log n)!”

The complete absence of COVID as a topic from the 2024 election is pretty stunning. There are enormous policy questions around response, origin, lab safety, censorship, learning recovery for kids, institutional reform and more. Not a single question at the debates. The candidates aren’t really talking about it. And even voters don’t seem to rank these issues particularly highly, other than the major after-effect of inflation.

Not enough info. Depends upon cost of goods sold, and whether they reported it to their insurance company. Profit = Revenue minus costs Assuming the perp walked out with the $70 item and the $30, ostensibly it’s $100. But the $70 item didn’t actually -cost- the store $70, presumably. So they lost $30 plus whatever cost basis they had for the $70 item. Add in net present value of insurance rate hike.

It was NOT a hard call journalistically, nor ethically. Twitter locked the nation's 4th largest circulation newspaper out of its account for weeks. NPR called it "not a story." That utterly blows up already thin public trust, which will long outlast any presidency.

It was pilot error. The pilot happened to be female. The pilot ignored an explicit warning to fly lower, even from her co-pilot, who had more flying hours. Look closely at which news outlets are reporting this accurately, and which are not.

I see you're the Editor in Chief of Scientific American. Do you have any magazines you can recommend that discuss science?

The recent NPR blowup, from the @uberliner piece to the hiring of the CEO, gets at something I've been thinking about for some time: the growing recognition that Liberalism and Progressivism are not the same things, and do not even have the same objectives. Progressivism is not just "extremely liberal." Liberalism favors Individualism and the Bill of Rights values, such as freedom of expression and property rights. Modern American Progressivism on the other hand seeks collectivism, uses collective judgment based on “identity”, pushes racial essentialism, favors censorship, pushes against property rights and the institutions which protect them like the police and prosecutors, and pushes for compulsory redistribution. It favors “equity,” as opposed to elimination of discrimination. In these and other ways, Progressives stand against Individualism, colorblind ideals and even freedom of movement and expression; these are subordinate to “higher” Progressive goals. Berliner’s criticism isn’t primarily about NPR becoming too liberal (he is in fact liberal); it’s primarily about it having become far too Progressive/leftist, and so deep in its own ideological echo chamber that it is unwilling to honestly contend with anything which may run counter to Progressive/leftist dogma. The recent hire of the new CEO, who is an utter parody of affluent Progressivism and luxury belief, is the capstone. As a Get Out the Vote canvasser for Biden in 2020, she joins a “diverse” group: of the 87 NPR executives with political declaration, 87 are Democrats and 0 are Republicans. She’s on record saying the first amendment is problematic. Progressivism and Liberalism are not the same things. The sooner we all recognize it, the quicker we can have a constructive conversation about just what kind of nation want to be, and how to get there.

While nothing can be inferred at all about competence based on sex, it is reasonable to question whether the promotion/training paths were tight enough in the 2018-2022 era that she became a pilot. That’s a valid area of inquiry and we should not shy away from it. 67 people died.

Debt is not "canceled," only shifted to others. In this case, plumbers and truck drivers will have increased cost (inflation) to pay for the arts major's degree they voluntarily signed up for.

Has anyone checked in on the New York Times’ lead COVID health reporter? What an utter failure of journalism. Is this someone who should be following the science for the world’s formerly most-credible paper?

They didn't just ignore the story. Important platforms of communication actively blocked discussion of it. They even locked the account (briefly) of the Press Secretary of the United States. It was an appalling, egregious error done solely for political goals.

extremely rude and inconsiderate 👎

It's a start, @Stanford. Feels like the "administrator" who egged this on and led the struggle session with a prepared speech needs to be shown the door. (Stanford MSCS '87)

Wasn’t it the hospital itself, both on the website and via two apparent operators on the phone “falsely” said this? Why are these “pounce” stories always framed around people noticing the thing, rather than the thing itself? Shouldn’t journalists notice the thing?

“The New York Times no longer exists to report the news, but to signal to its readers when it is acceptable to discuss a truth known long ago.” - @AbigailShrier (paraphrased)

The helicopter pilot, specifically. The passenger jet pilots did nothing wrong.

To be clear, you: _____ Think this text is fine in public schools _____ Think this text is problematic in public schools because that's what the issue is about. He's reading from a book that's been in public schools.

With the atrocities in Israel and the various responses to it, we are seeing yet again in full color that Liberalism and modern Progressivism are NOT the same thing. Since 2010, Progressives have become increasingly illiberal, in multiple foundational ways: freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, censorship, civil liberties, “colorblindness” and much more. They do not have the same goals as Liberals. They once shared common cause, but it should be crystal clear they no longer do.

Unpopular view: We'd be better off with LESS cultural emphasis on celebrity opinion, not more.

I’m convinced that “Dad Jokes” are simply a lifelong attempt to maintain and rekindle this silliness. Good job, Dad.

Another good advertisement for owning the classics in print, not digital form

Harvard’s slogan is “Veritas.” Not “Veritas Mea.”

Look. You're a terrific actor. And your decision to leave Twitter is of course something anyone can do, at any time! But this seems connected to termination of a -free- benefit, and availability to others of what used to be an exclusive club. Can't help but think:

Jomboy fans probably already know the rule but I had to remind myself; sharing it here:

wait you mean Rachel Maddow was exaggerating?

<pause> “What do YOU think was the best segment?” <pause> “What other answers have you heard?”

NY Times Editorial Board tackles the affirmative action decision. Mentions: White: 3 times Latino: 6 times Black: 10 times and yet Asian: 0 times. Asian Americans were the plaintiffs in the case, and clearly showed harm. nytimes.com/2023/06/30/opini…

Just left a "Twitter Spaces" room in which a BBC reporter interviewed @elonmusk. 3,000,000 people tuned in. 3 million -- unedited. In contrast, in a typical night in February of this year, CNN draws about 587,000 during all of prime-time -- an audience 1/5th the size.

That’s crazy. Crew should be paid from showing up at airport to departure from airport (to home or hotel), at a minimum.

We did it! Washington State now ranks as the most expensive state for dining out. Not Hawaii. Not NY or MA. Progressive policies… are inflationary. You can argue that all the local inflation is worth it, but please show your work. What additional things do we get for it that we otherwise wouldn’t have? fox13seattle.com/video/17375…

Teleprompter and short edits do wonders. If only that were what the Presidency entailed.

Meanwhile, Chapman’s ACTUAL reaction doesn’t seem that complicated: billboard.com/music/country/…

Our mayor here in Seattle is making national news with this statement, but it’s just expressing a tenet of Progressivism. What’s scariest for us residents is that he’s the MODERATE choice. His opponent is considerably to his left, and may well win.

Have you visited? I have. The people are friendly but freedoms are quite limited. Like speaking against the government? You can’t. Want to choose your own career? Better know someone in government. The poverty is pretty immense. Everywhere there’s a sense of being monitored. In 2021, over 374,000 Cubans—about 3% of the population—have been intercepted at the U.S. border, the biggest exodus since the 1980s.

If you have a teen or young adult who is on social media, encourage them to consider following @AuschwitzMuseum. These stories must be remembered.

So is caviar. Should this be something taxpayers subsidize? What is the purpose of SNAP?

In some senses not a bad statement. But was freedom of speech, including voicing dissenting viewpoints, backed heavily for members of Penn’s women’s swim team over the past couple of years? I feel like I’ve read that precisely the opposite was true.

The Constitution is, BY DESIGN, a power limiting document, not a power expanding document. Progressives hate this aspect of it, and the institution which is tasked with upholding it.

List allegedly committed these murders because he grew despondent over the family finances. One of the tragic epilogues to this story is that after the fire that burned down the List home a couple years after the murders, police discovered that the skylight in the ballroom was an original, Tiffany stained glass window. Had he just sold that stained glass skylight, and put the very large home on the market, his current financial problems would have been solved.

Nonsense. Living in France, I was asked this question often; it was polite. At college, I was asked it often. Stop looking for offense in everything. Yes, it can SOMETIMES, RARELY come with negative overtone or intent, but your assertion that it’s “never polite” is ridiculous.

Why do you think it’s no big deal that federal power is for sale to the highest bidder and/or foreign rivals?

No need to ask He’s a Boom Operataaaah Booooom Operataaah Coast to coast LA to Chicago

Late. You know, I looked at my @Harvard t-shirt in my drawer this morning, which I bought at the Coop a couple years ago on an alumni visit, and asked: When I wear this, what fraction of people will now assume I too think there's "necessary historical context" which must first be discussed and fully understood before we assess whether beheading babies should be roundly denounced?

President of the American Psychological Association

It’s the one idea most economists agree upon: it harms new entrants, limits maintenance improvements, and reduces new construction.

Twitter knew, for five years, that “Russian bots are amplifying hashtags” (like #ReleaseTheMemo) was utterly false. They saw piece after piece in the news about it. And they said nothing. Would we have known any of this had Musk not purchased Twitter? stevemurch.com/wait-twitter-…

wait so the "extreme actions" taken to respond to this were to... continue to employ this individual?

He was taken in by a man in a yellow hat, then returned to Manhattan, getting into all kinds of troublesome hijinx

One of the hallmarks of progressivism is completely imagined human behavior. If only humans behaved like that. But we don’t, often for reasons which won’t change. No, that boy wouldn’t be “drowning in prom invites.” He’d be bullied by his peers and mocked by many girls.

Why is enrollment declining in Seattle Public Schools? Reasons pondered in this Seattle Times piece: - low birthrates - migration - "just fewer kids in Seattle" - high housing costs in Seattle NOT mentioned in this Seattle Times piece: - closing the district to in-person learning longer than any district in the world except SF, which "beat" SPS by a couple weeks - decision to tear down advanced/accelerated cohorts - a focus on "equity" over helping each child become their very best - pedagogy gone crazy, with a proposed woke math curriculum so bizarre it made national news - a school board so dysfunctional its director sued the district - a five-year strategic plan in 2019 whose goals focused pretty much exclusively on black males (I'm not joking, look at the SPS's "Strategic Plan" website) - safety concerns, with shootings in recent years near school grounds - ignoring repeated calls by Broadview-Thompson parents to intervene in an encampment near school grounds - a teachers union so intransigent that 70%+ of members voted NOT to return to work during the pandemic even after given vaccination prioritization in February of 2021, and one which went on strike in September 2022

“man, he got rizz” - 1865 partisans, on John Wilkes Booth

The Gallup numbers on race relations in the US are striking. They make a very good case that we are NOT on the right track with a racial essentialism approach, which is the underlying theme in too many DEI initiatives. Let's look at some data and see if you agree. 🧵

I’m pro choice. But what’s the total number? I’ve seen anywhere from 400,000-900,000 US abortion annually. So aren’t we talking about 5,000-12,000 annually? That’s about 10x-60x the number of 0-18 year olds who died with COVID annually. I’ve seen 1.3% as the number frequently cited as post 20 weeks, not the rounded 1%.

Yes if you exclude a lot of the essential things which went way up in price, inflation really isn’t that bad

No, SCOTUS didn't shift it FROM Congress, they shifted it FROM Executive Branch unelected bureaucrats back TO Congress, or to States, or to individuals. Kind of like what the Constitution explicitly say, in Article I and in the 10th Amendment.

Was a major turning point for sure. When Twitter 1.0 silenced the laptop story, when they locked the account of the newspaper reporting on it, when “50 national intelligence experts” suggested Russian disinformation, it was a clarion moment. So many institutions tossed their brand in the trash to protect a political team.

1994

To be fair I’ve been doing this with Chevy salesmen for at least a decade

I’m heartened by two great examples of character and class this week. Tracy Chapman and Novak Djokovic. 1) Chapman had this to say about a country cover of her hit song, “Fast Car”:

later, she revealed the Nanotainer(TM)

Former daily listener. I don’t hate NPR, but it’s clearly ideologically biased. That bias was pointed out to them years ago, and they’ve done nothing meaningful to address or rectify it. I don’t hate NPR but it should not enjoy federal subsidy if it so clearly biased.

Man. You guys really are the worst fan base in pro sports.

They’re simply signaling they’ve abandoned the debate on facts, logic and persuasion. It’s an over-learned gimmick. It was effective from about 2005-2021. It no longer is.

Are you considering a move from WA? I’m getting more serious about it, and have compared tax consequences of WA to NH, NV, TX, and FL. Link follows.

Hey Bob, five people were stabbed over the past few hours in our largest city here. You're the Governor-elect. Care to comment? king5.com/article/news/local…

What actually undermines NPR’s credibility is NPR’s own reporting and story-burying.

Me? I think it's problematic. Just as public schools generally don't stock the Kama Sutra or "Anarchist Cookbook", or "Best of Hustler Magazine," they probably shouldn't stock some publications. That's not a "ban" -- it's simply saying that the curation process should leave some books out.

Has there ever been an utterance of “my truth” that isn’t surrounded by hogwash?

Hunter Biden shows clear signs of influencing peddling, drug abuse, illegal firearm possession, failing to register as a foreign agent, monetizing federal power and Republicans… notice? No way!

WA citizens pay a very high tax on energy for the so-called “Climate Commitment Act,” which ostensibly is trying to lower CO2 levels. But WA State hasn’t released official CO2 numbers for more than two years now! Not just one but two lawsuits have been filed to try to get WA Department of Ecology to release the numbers. Other docs seem to support that 70%+ of the revenue raised by this “cap and trade” scheme goes to administration and bureaucrats.

Okay, West Coast Progressives, it's time to show your work. How's it going? By that I mean, how are empirical OUTCOMES of the programs you advocate doing in terms of metrics. In Portland, Seattle, and San Francisco, we've spun up programs. We've spent hundreds of millions. We've adopted well-intentioned policies like harm reduction, housing first, diversion from incarceration, decriminalization, and much more. No, these shifts were very likely not at the scale you'd like to see -- you want to see much more -- but we've done it more than enough to at least get a sense of the DIRECTION when in the field. Not in the lab. So, directionally, which things getting better? What's improving? By how much?

Washington State tax receipts have risen about 20% on a population-adjusted, inflation-adjusted basis since 2019. Can anyone name a single service that's gotten 20% better? By what metrics? Has public education improved 20%? Have roads improved 20%? Has public safety improved 20%? On average they should ALL have improved at least 20%.

I disagree with Ron DeSantis on pro-life and abortion, but I think he’s the best of the GOP candidates, and he’d be far, far better than Biden/Harris/Newsom. I do not understand the Trumpers in the GOP; he’s old, he’s got so, so many liabilities, he’s going to be in criminal proceedings, and he’s all about Trump. He demands loyalty but doesn’t reciprocate it. Nikki Haley would also get my vote against Biden, for sure, but I’m less convinced she has the right sense of just how much our federal three letter agencies need a reset.

This dialogue that your piece sparked is just as needed, and constructive, as your excellent TED Talk. Thanks @coldxman for exposing and pushing forward. From Scientific American to TED to colleges to the AMA, so many institutions of thought that we used to trust have some serious cleanup to do.

I wouldn’t say he was incurious. I would say he actively shamed people raising the matter.

“Hands Up, Don’t Shoot,” in Ferguson was a lie perpetuated for weeks by numerous media outlets, particularly CNN. It stoked racial tension, anti-police sentiment and division, and caused an enormous amount of harm and loss of property. politico.com/story/2015/12/h…

This month's Harvard Business Review

Why don’t we know anything about the driver?

"Lived experience." "Experience" is sufficient; there are no experiences people have which are not "lived" in some way.

Just because Vance still won even though CBS failed to moderate fairly doesn’t mean CBS shouldn’t be roundly criticized. No questions on COVID response? Walz’ handling of the George Floyd protests? Making Vance defend his running mate’s crazy statements but not doing the same to Walz? “Fact checking” when the rules were that they wouldn’t? Cutting off their mics when Vance explained how their “fact check” was misleading? Come on.

Hot-takers on today's SCOTUS ruling: Please be aware that President Obama deliberately targeted an American abroad for killing by drone without any due process of law in any federal or state court. That's not a hypothetical. It happened. Should he be criminally liable for prosecution for homicide? I say no. You? If you say no also, you will likely find your logic requires connection to his official act as President. brookings.edu/articles/holde…

hard to beat Grace Kelly in “Rear Window,” tbh

The New York Times no longer exists to report the news, but to signal to its audience when it is socially acceptable to acknowledge a truth known long ago. - Abigail Shrier (paraphrased)

King County has the most retail theft of any Nordstrom location. - Erik Nordstrom, CEO "During a summit on retail crime, Nordstrom, based in Seattle, claimed the stores located in King County are responsible for approximately 10% of its companywide losses due to theft, despite being just 3% of the luxury department store retailer’s entire global footprint, according to The Puget Sound Business Journal."

Seattle's current budget, without doing any of this, is about $8.5 billion per year. (That includes Seattle City Light, which is part of the city budget; but it's still something people pay for.) Dividing by 800,000 residents, that's about $10,625 per person -- adult and child -- per year. You can do the math on a household of 5. That doesn't include any of these items: "Universal" childcare, "Free" K-8 summer care, "Social housing" for thousands, and things like city-run grocery stores, or "Free" transit, which she's also dangled as a possiblity. These are fantasy ideas; the math doesn't math. Capital has never been more mobile, and there is no reason anyone being taxed heavily to pay for it needs to stay.

I see political punditry, but what is her Constititional and legal argument here?

I mean this is right around the corner from you guys. If the hospital is not, in fact, doing these procedures, it is the hospital itself — both its website (now updated apparently) and not one but two phone operators who confirmed “falsely” that they are. Maybe that’s the story?

What a moronic statement. No system has lifted more people out of poverty than capitalism.

lol no. It’s unconstitutional, and also would be rife with fraud. Nearly all European efforts to tax overall wealth have been repealed. stevemurch.com/wealth-tax-re…

Things Seattle Progressives Were Mostly Right About - Bike lanes - Road diets Things Seattle Progressives Were Mostly Wrong About - Homelessness policy - Public education policy - Vax mandates - Allowing CHOP/CHAZ - Permissive approach to repeat offenders - Harm reduction: handing out needles and even smoking pipes - Housing first, “low-barrier”, not mandating that residents get or remain substance free - Allowing encampment in public parks and playgrounds - Closing in-person education at public schools, and keeping them closed for a year and a half - Embracing BLM, the organization, without vetting them in any way, with brand elevation and endorsement - Tearing down high achievement programs for public schoolchildren - Handing out millions to activist organizations without much supervision or expectation for transparency