I just really don't understand what the business community was thinking. We saw how crazy/incompetent he was the first time around and it was obvious that the adults that salvaged those situations weren't going to be around this time. This was all incredibly predictable.
Another example: the Trump came within 24 hours of letting one of the world's most important cybersecurity resources just die because its contract was up. I can guarantee your company's security team was shitting its pants about this one.
I very much appreciate your acknowledgment that USAID funded much nonsense. I can’t help but wonder if IES was similarly involved, as you list only positive things. The Biden Department of Education reportedly pursued many programs that are not specifically provided for by legislation and policies contrary to the current administration’s. I think my concerns are sensible, not cynical.
Matt is being very diplomatic here--likely because he has a reputation among entrepreneur-y and Wall Street-y guys as being "one of them sane liberals". He doesn't want to antagonize anyone in a position to make a difference, with inopportune words.
I, on the other hand, have no reputation at all, and do not give a fuck.
Trump business dudes, pull your head out of your groupthinking ass.
Listen to someone who doesn't golf with you or bitch about the "libs" over scotch, for once in your lives.
Matt is being nice here. Posterity will not be. Future versions of you will wonder what in God's name drugs you were on, when you decided to latch your wagon to this psychopath.
Believe it or not, I, too, am being too nice here.
The only way Congressional GOPpers will change is when they have to choose between their voters and Trump. The hope is that enough will choose keeping their jobs and give Trump the boot or at least some legislation to clip his wings.
Why is the response to immigration rarely "Let's increase the number of people we allow to legally immigrate to the United States!" How are the caps determined? Why isn't there a greater political upheaval to support Dreamers?
"Why is the response to immigration rarely 'Let's increase the number of people we allow to legally immigrate to the United States!""
While the median American isn't *anti*-immigration, I don't think there's even a large plurality, let alone majority, of voters who are eager for substantially increased immigration. (Note also that Trump is presently admitting substantially fewer people to the country -- i.e., zero -- than would be permitted under the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, which gives the President discretion to admit up to 125,000 people per year, so it's not clear what point authorizing more admissions would serve at this point.)
I have no sympathy for someone who confuses AI technology and A1 steak sauce. But I do find it really obnoxious that sans serif fonts make AI look the same as "You can call me Al."
Matt's calm explanation of these calamities cause me to focus on what it means to be impacted by actions that appear harmless in the short run but are poor supplements in the long term. Something as simple as our choice of language can come to fail us if we're not careful. In the past, I've used such vitriolic and on many occasions, crass language, that I've probably turned off more people than convinced. For that I apologize. I've encountered many collogues, friends and family who are exasperated because they can't find the words to succinctly express their disgust, fear and anger at Americans who are comfortable with this administrations actions. I can think of no other individual or movement in history where this amount of poor behavior and feckless leadership would be tolerated. What's more, there is nothing in this Presidents character recommending he be given the benefit of doubt. Nothing.
For a long time I thought it was a reference to the Israeli martial art "Krav Maga", that I had seen signs for in the previous decade. Those people must either be really annoyed that they can't use the name of their martial art any more, or really overjoyed, if their politics are wrong in the right way.
So, this is especially for those who say "Shhhh, don't talk about immigration, it's a losing issue for Democrats": Jennifer Sura, Kilmar Abrego Garcia's wife, has made a public statement:
"As we continue through Holy Week, my heart aches for my husband, who should have been here leading our Easter prayers... Our family is torn apart during this scary time and our children miss their dad so much."
A reminder that it's easy to get into strategizing and focus-group-brain and "will talking about Abrego Garcia help us win over a 29-year-old non-college-educated Rogan-pilled white man in suburban Arizona?" But we're talking about a real live human being who has suffered horrific injustice, who has a wife and children who miss him and must be terrified of what his happening to him. I think it's important to remember that.
"The foreign aid cuts are arguably even good politics, they’re just morally repulsive."
I'm staring at this quote and reflecting on what it says about the typical American voter, and I don't like what I'm seeing.
I'll talk with Husband about how much we can afford to increase our donations to UNICEF. Also the Fistula Foundation and Operation Smile, which provide free surgeries in poor countries to repair obstetric fistulas and cleft palates, respectively. Wonderful organizations!
Also, Matt Y, if you write three paragraphs on measuring K-12 education effectiveness, you'll summon Freddie, who will tell you that measuring education effectiveness is bullshit, because there is no known intervention that can narrow the inherent gaps between high-aptitude and low-aptitude kids.
First, I am also disheartened by the voters but have to remind myself that we are all just poor dumb sinners and normal folks don't have time (or inclination) to stay informed. Individually they are good people, they just have a hard time with understanding moral abstractions.
Second, I think it's preposterous to say that we can't measure educational outcomes. And we've learned many things that can potentially narrow the achievement gaps. The problem is that not every intervention scales very well, and we will need a lot more time to investigate different methods. Let's not give up on the Enlightenment just yet, I'm sure there's more we can learn about education techniques.
"I think it's preposterous to say that we can't measure educational outcomes"
I agree! I was making fun of Freddie, Frenemy-of-SB, who pops up here occasionally with incendiary comments and who has a major bug up his ass about how the educational system is useless (he does make some good and valid points, but takes some of them way too far).
"we are all just poor dumb sinners" - but some sinners are poorer and dumber than others.
Sorry, but "Should we abandon desperately poor sick/starving people to die so that we can save a fraction of a percentage point on our federal budget Y/N" is NOT a question that requires sophisticated intelligence or complex moral reasoning to answer, ESPECIALLY among people who consider themselves devout Christians, as many of Trump's supporters do.
I appreciate the effort to catalog all the harmful things this administration is doing. It’s hard to keep track of them all and it’s their flood the zone strategy.
OK You've vented. All over Berkeley I hear the same cries. I've seen worse than the cause of your pain. From WWII through identity politics. I'm just a scientist with some knowledge of sociobiology. The behavior you are shocked by is naturally based in our paleolithic genes. My experiences and study have led me to conclude two lessons of life. 1. If you want changes, you have to get involved materially. Work for and/or financially support practically-minded political candidates. 2. Keep in mind: This too shall pass.
So I finally listened to the "A1" thing and I'm fucking annoyed that every place I heard about it, including here at Slow Boring, said "HA HA LIKE THE STEAK SAUCE😂 😂😂😂."
She wasn't well-informed, but along the way someone wrote "A| education" and someone else in the chain thought it was "A1" and that got interpreted as the best-of-the-best and everyone further along the chain went along with it. Or it meant "A-level" work at grade 1. What, do you *not* want A1 education for our kids? Technology is good, you luddite.
Or maybe it's making sure you have the basics. Here is the common core A.1 for Algebra
If "I don't know what I'm talking about but I'm making education-supporting noises with my mouth" was a sin every one of us would be burning in hell now.
I completely missed this dustup, but will continue to condemn McMahon's selection to this position based entirely on the fact that she helped cover up for an employee who was an active pedophile, as well as taking note of her husband's credible accusations of sexual assault and saying, "Eh, whatever."
If people paid no attention to all the hideous things that Trump et al are doing to anything that's not related to the stock market, but the stock market crashing sent Trump's approval ratings down to 30%, that would be fine in my book. We need to be pragmatic: the entire goal is to undermine Trump's popular support and thus much of his strength.
One of the most tiresome things I hear is someone on a podcast or post saying "X thing is terrible. Why isn't everyone up in arms about this?" Sure, call out injustice and outrages. But what is your goal? Other than scoring victories in the courts or occasionally getting Trump to back down on something, the only overarching goal is to destroy his standing in the political system. If shouting about PEPFAR does that, great (probably not). If just pointing to the stock market does that (more likely), great.
I just really don't understand what the business community was thinking. We saw how crazy/incompetent he was the first time around and it was obvious that the adults that salvaged those situations weren't going to be around this time. This was all incredibly predictable.
Another example: the Trump came within 24 hours of letting one of the world's most important cybersecurity resources just die because its contract was up. I can guarantee your company's security team was shitting its pants about this one.
https://www.wired.com/story/cve-program-cisa-funding-chaos/
I very much appreciate your acknowledgment that USAID funded much nonsense. I can’t help but wonder if IES was similarly involved, as you list only positive things. The Biden Department of Education reportedly pursued many programs that are not specifically provided for by legislation and policies contrary to the current administration’s. I think my concerns are sensible, not cynical.
Matt is being very diplomatic here--likely because he has a reputation among entrepreneur-y and Wall Street-y guys as being "one of them sane liberals". He doesn't want to antagonize anyone in a position to make a difference, with inopportune words.
I, on the other hand, have no reputation at all, and do not give a fuck.
Trump business dudes, pull your head out of your groupthinking ass.
Listen to someone who doesn't golf with you or bitch about the "libs" over scotch, for once in your lives.
Matt is being nice here. Posterity will not be. Future versions of you will wonder what in God's name drugs you were on, when you decided to latch your wagon to this psychopath.
Believe it or not, I, too, am being too nice here.
The only way Congressional GOPpers will change is when they have to choose between their voters and Trump. The hope is that enough will choose keeping their jobs and give Trump the boot or at least some legislation to clip his wings.
Why is the response to immigration rarely "Let's increase the number of people we allow to legally immigrate to the United States!" How are the caps determined? Why isn't there a greater political upheaval to support Dreamers?
"Why is the response to immigration rarely 'Let's increase the number of people we allow to legally immigrate to the United States!""
While the median American isn't *anti*-immigration, I don't think there's even a large plurality, let alone majority, of voters who are eager for substantially increased immigration. (Note also that Trump is presently admitting substantially fewer people to the country -- i.e., zero -- than would be permitted under the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, which gives the President discretion to admit up to 125,000 people per year, so it's not clear what point authorizing more admissions would serve at this point.)
I have no sympathy for someone who confuses AI technology and A1 steak sauce. But I do find it really obnoxious that sans serif fonts make AI look the same as "You can call me Al."
Matt's calm explanation of these calamities cause me to focus on what it means to be impacted by actions that appear harmless in the short run but are poor supplements in the long term. Something as simple as our choice of language can come to fail us if we're not careful. In the past, I've used such vitriolic and on many occasions, crass language, that I've probably turned off more people than convinced. For that I apologize. I've encountered many collogues, friends and family who are exasperated because they can't find the words to succinctly express their disgust, fear and anger at Americans who are comfortable with this administrations actions. I can think of no other individual or movement in history where this amount of poor behavior and feckless leadership would be tolerated. What's more, there is nothing in this Presidents character recommending he be given the benefit of doubt. Nothing.
Very well said.
The sad thing is that the exact people who should be reading this, will have close to a 0% chance of actually reading it.
Good point about the vibe. MAGA never sounded right (in English 🇺🇸) as an adjective. Can we just call that faction the Banana Republicans?
For a long time I thought it was a reference to the Israeli martial art "Krav Maga", that I had seen signs for in the previous decade. Those people must either be really annoyed that they can't use the name of their martial art any more, or really overjoyed, if their politics are wrong in the right way.
"MAGA" is stupid and "Maga Republican" sounds stupid, so it fits pretty well IMO.
So, this is especially for those who say "Shhhh, don't talk about immigration, it's a losing issue for Democrats": Jennifer Sura, Kilmar Abrego Garcia's wife, has made a public statement:
"As we continue through Holy Week, my heart aches for my husband, who should have been here leading our Easter prayers... Our family is torn apart during this scary time and our children miss their dad so much."
A reminder that it's easy to get into strategizing and focus-group-brain and "will talking about Abrego Garcia help us win over a 29-year-old non-college-educated Rogan-pilled white man in suburban Arizona?" But we're talking about a real live human being who has suffered horrific injustice, who has a wife and children who miss him and must be terrified of what his happening to him. I think it's important to remember that.
"The foreign aid cuts are arguably even good politics, they’re just morally repulsive."
I'm staring at this quote and reflecting on what it says about the typical American voter, and I don't like what I'm seeing.
I'll talk with Husband about how much we can afford to increase our donations to UNICEF. Also the Fistula Foundation and Operation Smile, which provide free surgeries in poor countries to repair obstetric fistulas and cleft palates, respectively. Wonderful organizations!
Also, Matt Y, if you write three paragraphs on measuring K-12 education effectiveness, you'll summon Freddie, who will tell you that measuring education effectiveness is bullshit, because there is no known intervention that can narrow the inherent gaps between high-aptitude and low-aptitude kids.
First, I am also disheartened by the voters but have to remind myself that we are all just poor dumb sinners and normal folks don't have time (or inclination) to stay informed. Individually they are good people, they just have a hard time with understanding moral abstractions.
Second, I think it's preposterous to say that we can't measure educational outcomes. And we've learned many things that can potentially narrow the achievement gaps. The problem is that not every intervention scales very well, and we will need a lot more time to investigate different methods. Let's not give up on the Enlightenment just yet, I'm sure there's more we can learn about education techniques.
"I think it's preposterous to say that we can't measure educational outcomes"
I agree! I was making fun of Freddie, Frenemy-of-SB, who pops up here occasionally with incendiary comments and who has a major bug up his ass about how the educational system is useless (he does make some good and valid points, but takes some of them way too far).
"we are all just poor dumb sinners" - but some sinners are poorer and dumber than others.
Sorry, but "Should we abandon desperately poor sick/starving people to die so that we can save a fraction of a percentage point on our federal budget Y/N" is NOT a question that requires sophisticated intelligence or complex moral reasoning to answer, ESPECIALLY among people who consider themselves devout Christians, as many of Trump's supporters do.
I appreciate the effort to catalog all the harmful things this administration is doing. It’s hard to keep track of them all and it’s their flood the zone strategy.
OK You've vented. All over Berkeley I hear the same cries. I've seen worse than the cause of your pain. From WWII through identity politics. I'm just a scientist with some knowledge of sociobiology. The behavior you are shocked by is naturally based in our paleolithic genes. My experiences and study have led me to conclude two lessons of life. 1. If you want changes, you have to get involved materially. Work for and/or financially support practically-minded political candidates. 2. Keep in mind: This too shall pass.
So I finally listened to the "A1" thing and I'm fucking annoyed that every place I heard about it, including here at Slow Boring, said "HA HA LIKE THE STEAK SAUCE😂 😂😂😂."
She wasn't well-informed, but along the way someone wrote "A| education" and someone else in the chain thought it was "A1" and that got interpreted as the best-of-the-best and everyone further along the chain went along with it. Or it meant "A-level" work at grade 1. What, do you *not* want A1 education for our kids? Technology is good, you luddite.
Or maybe it's making sure you have the basics. Here is the common core A.1 for Algebra
https://www.shmoop.com/common-core-standards/ccss-hs-a-ced-1.html
If "I don't know what I'm talking about but I'm making education-supporting noises with my mouth" was a sin every one of us would be burning in hell now.
I completely missed this dustup, but will continue to condemn McMahon's selection to this position based entirely on the fact that she helped cover up for an employee who was an active pedophile, as well as taking note of her husband's credible accusations of sexual assault and saying, "Eh, whatever."
If people paid no attention to all the hideous things that Trump et al are doing to anything that's not related to the stock market, but the stock market crashing sent Trump's approval ratings down to 30%, that would be fine in my book. We need to be pragmatic: the entire goal is to undermine Trump's popular support and thus much of his strength.
One of the most tiresome things I hear is someone on a podcast or post saying "X thing is terrible. Why isn't everyone up in arms about this?" Sure, call out injustice and outrages. But what is your goal? Other than scoring victories in the courts or occasionally getting Trump to back down on something, the only overarching goal is to destroy his standing in the political system. If shouting about PEPFAR does that, great (probably not). If just pointing to the stock market does that (more likely), great.
But. Just. Take. This. Guy. Down.