Superlike this tweet by Matt, this needs to be said more often and without fear. And the tactics have to be way different than the very well calibrated civil disobedience of the Civil Rights Movement.
"One of my biggest skunk at the party takes is that 'activism' is systematically overrated in left of center circles as a way to make progress on issues — very few topics actually have the specific structure of the civil rights movement battling Jim Crow."
Isn't it also true that activism today is much less deliberately planned and structured than the most of what we think as the core effort of the Civil Rights Movement?
Shameless plug for a great recent book on the movement applying the lens of military history: "Waging a Good War: How the Civil Rights Movement Won Its Battles"
And my previous post on the subject, recommending it to David M:
Interesting - I think I shall have to read the book as it has been my frequent amateur historian (as undergrad diplo-military history before converting to econ & finance) to have some military campaign analogies to Lefty Proggy activism - which often to me have the character of bad generalship - insisting on actions that are the political equivelent of Charge of the Light Bridage or French generals insisting their troops charge 1860s style into the 1916 German machine guns because Spirit and We Have To Do It to show we can rather than a logical analysis that such assaults are preordained to moral draining failure and not achievable in constrast to more boring, slow (haha slow, boring) sapping and consolidating advances.
Actiststs seem to always be about launching Flying Columns to grab a point without any attention to can whatever point, if not ending in bloody failure, be held, or have you just actually both weakened your forces and actually made yourself strategically weaker.
Every day I thank God we are not as infected with "activism = 'stand around in a public space representing murdered cows or whatever' " in the Western European tradition, and every day I think God more for it.
I want to agree, but hasn't environmental activism made huge gains in the last 50 years? I don't agree with a lot of what they're doing, especially vis-a-vis party politics, but they do it because it has been working.
Lumping 50 years into an undifferentiated bucket is without any doubt an analytical error.
Clearly relative to the state of affaires up to say late 60s which too little attention was paid, the mode in the US that has flipped to complete paralysis is clearly one demonstrating that since say the 1990s there has not only been diminishing returns on effort, the effort probably has overall negative returns on effort.
Over-extrapolation of the pollution model is one fault point - climate change e.g. is not really amenable to that model - not successfuly economically at least, CO2 is not CFCs and the idea of many Green activists that the Montreal Protocol was the mode
and of course environmental activism is not-consciously but actively blocking Renewable energy expansion in blocking, delaying both PV and Wind installations (rather idiotically over micro-level supposed impacts that if one takes enviro actisists views on climate at their proper value are utterly swamped by the ecosystem threat impact of macro-climate change) and in expansion of the Transmisison & Distribution infrastructure (the wholesale and retail level grid) plus expansion of e-industry.
The model really stopped working at least since the late 1990s as it has hit negative returns and now we are seeing the backlash
The erstwhile struggle for same-sex marriage seems more similar than different. The overarching theme as I recall the latter (wasn't here for the former) was "mostly leave us alone and transparent in society, let us get along like you get along".
As with my reply nearby to TTF, the similarity, to the extent there is one, was the transformation of living as a homosexual as, basically, illegal, to the "let us get along like you get along" stage. The marriage thing was important, of course, but it seems to be like the small final step after a long slog of mostly even smaller ones. I didn't experience any of that first hand, however, so I am open to the idea that I am mistaken on the topic in ways big and small.
I suppose so, though the struggle was really for broader legal recognition, I think. There was a long stretch between Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the 1970s when people figured there really wasn't much point to the Equal Rights Amendment.
The border patrol did a raid on firefighters fighting a wilderness fire in the Olympics in Washington State. They said there were undocumented workers there so they stopped the firefighters to check all of their papers and arrest a couple.
That people is the length maga will go to. If the world is burning they will want to do an immigration check on the rescuers first.
I recently read an article about the problem of respiratory illnesses with wild-fire fighters. Basically no one gives them any safety equipment because it’s expensive. And so they deny it’s a problem to breathe smoke for a living. So maybe they were doing those guys a favor.
OTOH, I really don’t give a fuck about the legal status of people willing to do that job, and this is just exhibit infinity why this whole thing is stupid.
With few exceptions, undocumented, oh hell, ILLEGAL, immigrants are doing jobs that American citizens don’t want at their current wages, and don’t need when we have a healthy economy. They’re not taking our jobs, and they are net positive for both our economy and our culture, just like those dirty Irish paddies and stinkin’, thieving Wops, who came before them.
Made a reference the other day to the Nikolai Krylenko quote, "We must execute not only the guilty. Execution of the innocent will impress the masses even more." The logic behind this firefighter raid isn't the same but it's similar - i.e. I'm not sure it shows that maga despises illegal immigrants so intensely that they'll *even* do a raid on firefighters fighting a wilderness fire. Instead, it might be more like, maga did this raid precisely BECAUSE the targets were firefighters fighting a wilderness fire. The more sympathetic the targets of the raid are and the more they seem to have earned a little forbearance, the more powerful the message that it sends when you punish them. It shows that there is now zero tolerance for illegal immigrants and that none of them will ever be deemed to deserve leniency. If an undocumented immigrant pops up on the local news as a hero who risked his life to save babies from a burning building, you make it priority #1 to go to the hospital the next day and cuff him.
Sure but it's clearly all for show. I don't think trump is actually that good at deportations precisely because he's loud and crude in his approach. At the same time, it's a great time to do those home projects as labor has never been cheaper.
It is crazy. But I think we need to turn our thoughts and efforts towards rational legal immigration expansion. Anti-illegal immigration policy remains far too popular in this country to try to fight it - I believe it is still Trump's most favorable issue.
I'd start with guest worker or some other immigration status that is more palatable to the average voter (perhaps a path that ends at permanent residence instead of citizenship?)
One of my law clerks on a student visa had to end their clerkship early with us because they're self-deporting. Sucks when it hits so close to home. I really hope they're able to complete their law school education as they're extremely talented and would be a great addition to the legal profession.
“I can observe from my non-American friends that living here without a passport does not feel very free. International travel, attending protests, writing blogs, switching jobs—these activities are all now fraught with risk.”
Trump’s ideal that only a small elite of American citizens should enjoy freedom completely discredits America whenever we try to advocate for “freedom and will be rejected by the rest of world—the US is now almost as unpopular as Russia—and get them to form a balancing coalition against us.
Since you’re here, I have to ask, did your wife get out to sea last week in Erin? The local coasties seemed really stoked about getting in some heavy surf reps.
My most heterodox (probably) SBOpinion is that I'm not sure that de facto HOAs are a better "solution" to the "problem" than local zoning.
I'm sympathetic to the idea of letting the market win, but we don't do that with police, fire, or most major municipal services.
It's close to axiomatic that the wealthiest, most powerful people will finagle themselves into the best spots, and the poorest, weakest will end up with the worst.
Fire away, I've been feeling shit today and will turn in soon.
The overarching notion, and I'm not looking to get into deep specifics this evening, is that if a group of residents wants to protect their local flavor of neighborhood blah blah blah, I think it's better that they do that through actual elections and civic processes rather than form an exclusive club and decide quasi-outside the law who is allowed to belong to that club.
This is adjacent to, but not the same as, "if you let public parks deteriorate to the lowest common denominator, the rich will form their own private parks and leave the quote-unquote 'public' spaces to those who can afford nothing else".
Would a state law be able to do this? I guess HOAs are somehow baked into the deed so it seems impossible for the individual to opt out. Maybe the law would just say “anyone can opt out of an HOA”?
HOA's are, ultimately, enforced by State Courts so they are absolutely within the purview of State Law. A State government could simply pass a law saying HOAs are uneforceable in State Courts and *poof*, they all fall apart.
Likewise a State government can regulate HOAs by saying they are uneforceable unless they meet certain requirements.
I am skeptical that making formal things informal is better! Now you have the apocryphal (but perhaps true) story of some neighbor shitting on Bill Russell's bed.
I don't like my HOA, but it's basically just an organization that gets on my case if I don't weed my front bed before I take off on a long vacation. Construction is booming in my area, led by big construction companies, and the HOAs have no say in who moves into the neighborhood. No one's really tried to change their house in a way that's caused any HOA intervention. (Newish neighborhood, medium income--we just don't have super historic houses or lot sizes large enough to incentivize big changes.)
I just noticed that the California High Speed Rail authority _finally_ published their update on how it's going, and I am very sorry to report that it's.... not good.
They've abandoned the goal of connecting SF to LA; now service is planned to end at Palmdale, ~60mi outside of LA:
Palmdale is actually where existing rail service to Los Angeles starts. If the high speed project stops there and it runs on local tracks the rest of the way, that adds 30-45 minutes to travel time, but still lets you get straight through.
Oh, I was comparing it to a hypothetical continuation of the high-speed line - and I was apparently using the wrong baseline, since I was thinking it was more like 1:15 than 2:00 and comparing to a 0:30-0:45 high-speed connection.
If they were really serious, they'd hire some Swiss engineers to tunnel under the mountains. They built a 35 mile tunnel there for like $12B, and it's not as if Switzerland is a low cost place.
I'm not sure what you expect. If you have a project involving one hard task and a thousand fripperies, and you waste all your budget buying fripperies first, your replacement as project manager isn't going to be able to salvage the situation; too much money has already been spent for too little gain.
Getting across the mountains north of LA was the single key point of the CAHSR project; the rest of the route to the Bay could have been cobbled together from improved freight lines if they project ran out of money. But they didn't start with that, they're now out of money, and they're stuck.
Are we just not talking about Joni Ernst not running for reelection to the Senate, or Rebecca Bradley not running for reelection to the Wisconsin Supreme Court? Are we not doing politics this evening? ☹️
Rhetorical victory only; they'll stay in place pending appeal, and then the Supreme Court will say "Trump can do whatever he wants, because reasons" and that will be that.
Though in my more naive moments, I dream (and yes, it's likely just a fantasy) that Roberts and several others (not Alito and Thomas, of course) are being extra accommodating to the administration early on to mitigate the MAGA blowback when they render decisions on tariffs and birthright citizenship.
Brave, brave Senator Ernst. Another Republican who couldn’t actually stand up publicly against MAGA writ large, and will now slink away, safe in the knowledge that whoever else the jack booted thugs come for, they’ll never come for her.
Had to look up Bradley, she couldn’t quit soon enough, homophobic, racist piece of shit.
As an Iowan I'm cautiously optimistic about Joni stepping down. Unfortunately I imagine her replacement is going to be some creature from the IA-4th. That said, if the Dems put up a candidate that's not acting like they're running in a D+20 state (like they did in 2020/2022), they have a half ass chance.
Now, as a Packer fan, I'm more excited about the Micah Parsons trade. Joni stepping down was the icing on the cake.
I thought Theresa Greenfield was a pretty good candidate? All I remember was Greenfield knowing the break even price for a bushel of corn and Ernst flubbing the same question for soybeans.
She was an ok candidate, but I think her ads and the national environment in 2020 are what really sunk her. I remember one specifically mentioned things that Iowans care about like a $15 minimum wage. Her campaign on the ground focused on national issues.
As an Eagles fan I have mixed feelings about the Parsons trade. Anything bad for Dallas is good, any time Jerry Jones has his ass handed to him because he’s stupid is better, but I don’t want Green Bay getting more dangerous.
Tangentially related, Matt was saying recently that he hadn't heard anyone calling for abolishing property taxes, but, while this technically isn't "abolition" of property taxes, Vivek Ramaswamy *is* now campaigning on "putting a ceiling on" property taxes and "eventually bringing them down" to [checks notes] make housing more affordable for young people. Video here, in which Vivek also says that he would abolish the state capital gains and income taxes and try to finance Ohio state government primarily through taxes on tourists (so perhaps someone sent him Matt's piece about Maine?): https://x.com/VivekGRamaswamy/status/1960855452499267870
I think this should be the next attempt to modify prop 13 in ca- like prop 19 - incentivize old people to go for it by essentially making their prop taxes go to 0 by automatically creating liens against the property, use their votes to reduce prop 13 protections for corporations
Making the property taxes of older Californians "essentially go to zero" would create a massive revenue hole. In Massachusetts (I assume other states' programs are similar) it's just a forbearance, and, IIRC, it's only a 50% reduction. That other 50% continues to accrue, with interest. There are also rather strict income and liquid asset limits. Finally, it's a voluntary program: the state legislature enacted it, but its implementation is optional—not mandatory—for municipalities.
Thanks to prop 13 the actual revenue raised for people above say 75 are quite low, and it should be possible to raise bonds since the revenue will show up sooner or later
We'd all like to flee to the Cleve and club-hop down at the Flats and have lunch with Little Richard, but we fight those urges because we have responsibilities.
I did six years ago! Half of the trip was to enjoy some glorious football history and then baseball. But there's a quarter of something for you to like too, as I visited McKinley's presidential library, and his utterly massive grave. The other quarter was the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame.
I went to Cincinnati on a business trip back in like 2012 or so, and I liked it. Had some character, the food was pretty good, I like the whole post-industrial-city-with-a-hilly-landscape-on-a-river thing. I wouldn't get on a plane to go there for vacation, but it seemed like a decent town.
I did last weekend! My first ever visit to Ohio. Visited my sister, who moved there (Cleveland area) not too long ago. Houses are cheap! Lake Erie is big!
When I was in high school, I received literature from the College of Wooster literally once a week for MONTHS. I never even expressed interest in it; I have no idea how I got on their radar.
Except in the same clip Vivek said he'd shut that small college down! (OK, no, not precisely, but his major example of potential cost savings for Ohio state government was consolidating state-run colleges and universities.)
I need to tug my collar on that one, unfortunately.
I think it's only a mildly spicy hot take that if your state university campus can't keep attendance above (picking a number out of my butt) 1000 students, it's just not practical to keep in operation. And I know a number of Midwest four-year state-school campuses are not keeping up with that number.
I actually would say that it's quite plausible that there could be savings in consolidating various state-run colleges and universities, but I'm skeptical that the savings from any reasonable consolidation effort would dramatically change Ohio's need for tax revenue. (It appears from the data here that Ohio already has substantially lower per-student appropriations for higher education than the national average while simultaneously covering a much larger share of higher education expenses with tuition than the national average: https://shef.sheeo.org/state-profile/ohio/ )
As someone who lived in Ohio for 20+ years, I can tell you no one ever came to visit me because of the other things they could do in Ohio. But I often vacationed in Maine. A tax on Ohio’s tourism industry will not replace their property taxes, and is probably pretty damned price sensitive.
Relying on taxes on tourism is brilliant. I'm sure the wave of tourists flooding Ohio hasn't abated a bit since the movie "Stranger than Paradise" opened the floodgates: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaYEHeseLog
I wonder whether the popularity of cryptocurrency investing is what's driving the seeming increase of interest in abolishing state capital gains taxes?
A lot of posters are not ready for how big the Taylor Wedding is going to be for Millennials. It's like, a Royal Wedding, but for Millennials
I'll be standing there with Lisa C. who has calluses built up from years of admin law, but still just wants hug her wife while watching. I'll look at Ben while Taylor is walking down the aisle in the heavenly dress "it's a love story baby just say yes" and say "Shut up Ben you're the one who's crying, I'm not crying!": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xg3vE8Ie_E&list=RD8xg3vE8Ie_E&start_radio=1
I've heard tell of this a few times and while that song was the song that made me a Swiftie to a large extent and made me enjoy digging deep into her song writing the idea of playing a song about a horrible breakup at a wedding seems like an awful case of tempting fate.
Big if true (also, one of the only reasons I still visit Twitter):
"Shaiel Ben-Ephraim: An IDF source has confirmed to me that the army has lost contact with an unknown number of soldiers. Probably fewer than ten. IDF protocol to prevent hostage taking is being undertaken right now. Rescue attempts have come under extreme fire. The IDF has put a gag order on this operation, so do not expect to see it in the Israeli media until morning there.
One soldier said: A missing officer was contacted on his radio — but a Hamas fighter answered. My God, this is what Netanyahu’s policies have led us to."
"Everyone is asking me about the Hannibal Directive in these cases. Officially, Israel cancelled that in 2016 due to controversy over it. However, it remains unofficial policy to kill IDF soldiers rather than allow them to be captured, but only when it has been determined that the possibility of preventing the capture otherwise is entirely impossible. Usually, by that time, the whereabouts of the soldiers are unknown, so Hannibal is unlikely to be enacted directly. Having said that, the amount of bombing occurring in Zeitoun right now could easily kill missing IDF soldiers through friendly fire."
To be clear, I think the most likely outcome is that any captured Israeli soldiers are killed by the de-facto implementation of the Hannibal Directive.
I'm also interested to see if Western and/or Israeli media continue to use the term hostage to describe soldiers captured in combat (personally, I would be insulted if that term was ever applied me in the event I was captured while in uniform).
ETA: I confess that IDF leaders like MG Avi Bluth who openly advocate for and direct the ethnic cleansing and murder of Palestinians (in the West Bank, specifically) make me less than sympathetic to the actions of Israeli soldiers in general, even though I have no love for Hamas:
"Avi Bluth, the head of the army's Central Command...ordered "redesign operations" to be implemented so that "[Palestinians] will be deterred, any village that dares to raise a hand against any of the [settlers]." And of course he's talking about settlers who are regularly murdering Palestinian civilians (which is not surprising, because Bluth is one himself, and thus comfortable with the particularly violent and racist culture incubated there).
ETA2: It looks like these reports were incorrect, but I'm still curious what exactly happened. Hamas may have been attempting a capture, given that there were three separate and simultaneous attacks in Zeitoun.
Ah, yeah I looked it up. I can see some dire circumstances, like for humane reasons if you expect the captive to be tortured and killed anyway, or if they have critical strategic information that would lead to catastrophe, where it would make sense to do that, but it’s wild as a general policy
Not necessarily, but since that does suggest reciprocal rights and obligations, I think it would probably be most appropriate to just use the word captured, captive, etc which is almost universally how Bowe Bergdahl was described, both from my memory at the time as well as a quick Google search, despite our lack of recognition of the Taliban's legitimacy.
I certainly don't claim that SBE is a moral exemplar of any kind (and FWIW I started following him in Oct 2023 before I ever learned of the allegations you mention, and when his political orientation was very much a standard pro-Israel liberal Zionist), but he does seem to be a useful way to survey Hebrew media for this sort of breaking news, plus he monitors some of the most racist and bloodthirsty corners of Zionist Twitter, which I have neither the inclination nor (in some cases, i.e. Hebrew language) the ability to do myself. I'm open to suggestions for comparable accounts, or indeed for your recommendations about where to find above average I/P news and analysis.
Also, interestingly, it appears that part of why he's remained on Twitter is because he was hounded for those allegations on Bluesky.
ETA: I think a much more recent and concerning case involving Israeli Americans and sexual assault is the senior cyber official caught in a Las Vegas pedophile sting and then allowed to flee the country, likely to never return: https://archive.ph/kNYUo (Haaretz)
Interested to see how that Saratoga Springs development shapes up. I used to work as a home health aide for a guy who lived in one of SF's "so affordable you can only buy in via lottery" complexes, and several tenants were of the variety that needs...uh...supportive housing. (I don't know if they literally had specific units set aside for such, or it simply wasn't a disqualification.) It was a really weird place to work? Modern development, all new appliances, interior courtyard, amenities like rec hall and gym and laundry...but selection effects from the tenants made it feel constantly hair-raising anyway. And the property management did not inspire confidence in the feasibility of government-supplied public housing. Can't even remember the number of times I'd report for work and my guy would be like "meet me at $HOTEL instead, sewage pipe burst and entire floor is undergoing repairs" or some other calamity. So fundamentally not that much different from a classic slumlord apartment complex in vibe, except there it's almost refreshing cause the lipstick on the pig doesn't cause one to set unrealistic expectations. Given how "affordable" units tend to pencil out quite poorly once one properly accounts for all the indirect costs and subsidies, that chapter of my life made me predisposed towards market-rate housing even before encountering the YIMBY movement. Sure, still better than actual homelessness...but at what cost? Money is fungible, but by George, land is not...
Also, Labour Day plans: earn extra money. I don't know what y'all with regular 9-5 M-F jerbs do on federal holidays, but one does not simply close a grocery store, so for us that means holiday bonus pay as an incentive to labour on Labour Day.
People with antisocial behaviors are disproportionately poor. This is the reason normies oppose "affordable housing" projects in their neighborhoods. We'd be better off investing more money into police, the court system (woefully underfunded), parole officers and prisons rather than using public monies to fund these projects.
Then just allow more building to take place. The market will take care of the rest.
It's okay Halina, we do not like sports here at Slow Boring. MORE POLITICS!
Also: Something the comments on the morning post made me want to say is that Democrats have erred - there ARE enemies to the left, and they are just as dangerous as the enemies to the right. Democrats must punch Nazis with their right fist and hippies with their left fist.
EDIT: We also do not like economics here at Slow Boring. We demand Pure Political Punditry™!!
Halina surely understands that there is an unavoidable intersection of economics and politics in every policy realm. Especially global thermonuclear war.
Really? Econ takes are why I read Matt, though I don’t always agree with him. As someone who was fairly well educated in micro but never took macro, learning “macro for laymen” by reading Matt at Moneybox is what got me hooked
Sigh. I just want content about what sources at the DSCC think about Joni Ernst retiring. Who's in and who's out in the Senate Republican cloakroom? What is the chatter at the DNC about lackluster fundraising, or the primary calendar?
I'm not sure if it's SB but I've been on a Habsburg binge this year. I listened to like 4 Audiobooks about them while doing some minor home renovations.
Hate in sports is really underrated--channeling our innate tribal human instincts for hate in something that ultimately doesn't matter is good for us, so that we don't unleash that on things that really matter a lot.
Seinfeld didn't get it, though, goofy New Yorkers. That's the best part. Their big state laundry is our laundry. It's an intentionally-appropriated membership. GO BIG STATE U.
Also, fuck the entire SEC. Dumb rednecks love to pretend that they own the entire fucking sport just because they don’t have anything else going for them — looking at you, Mississippi and Alabama.
Also, y’know, the Confederacy never really died, so double fuck them.
Important counter-point to this, and I absolutely implore you all to watch this clip even if you don't give a hoot about sports at all. Stephen Fry at the Iron Bowl:
The only thing I envy about the South is their dogged dedication to hate. As a hater myself, I admire the depths of depravity they’ve been willing to go to.
But like Oregon’s state constitution barred black people from living in the state. Is that any better? I will say that Washington has a happier history in this regard, considering black men were basically state founding fathers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Bush_(pioneer)
I have never understood the fascination with minor league sports teams. If I'm visiting a place with one, then, why not? Barring downpours on the stands, a bad day at a ballpark is better than a good day at the office, yadda, yadda.
Once upon a time, the most defining characteristic of U Blank/Blank State's team is that come hell or high water, unlike trash carbetbagger pro sports teams, they never could or would EVER leave. Conceptually, it's nonsensical.
Unfortunately, the post-2020ish era of Name-Image-Likeness and unfettered transfer rules means major college teams are not practically more tethered to "home" than the Houston Oilers or the Oakland Athletics. Such a loss, such a shame.
A lot of baseball for me this weekend. The BoSox are surging. New starting pitcher was just called up and makes his MLB debut against Pittsburgh tonight. Fingers crossed.
I think college football has become pretty whack since the advent of the transfer portal and NIL, but I expect you’ll have a pretty awesome time at Michigan-Purdue. Being around that many people who care is a lot of fun.
The current NCAA landscape is akin to an idealized revolt by serfs against their feudal overlords. There were many places along the way where the NCAA aristocracy could have compromised with their underlings, but they were so adamant in their opposition to any freedom that they managed to lose almost all control over them. College athletes today are near pure free agents. They sign no contract binding them for more than the current season, and can every year freely sign with the highest bidder. They’re not even subject to a binding initial draft or the kind of salary cap that unionized professional sports players have to submit to.
The NCAA deserves every bad thing that happens to them now as a result of their unmitigated greed and power lust.
Bielema is one of the ugliest coaches I’ve ever seen but god damn has he just consistently improved our team almost every year. We’re almost respectable again.
As I don't do sports and certainly don't give a damn about them here in Chicago, I can only hope you are not insulting the WVU Mountaineers. I don't care about their sports either, but I will brook no disrespect of West "By G-d" Virginia.
Superlike this tweet by Matt, this needs to be said more often and without fear. And the tactics have to be way different than the very well calibrated civil disobedience of the Civil Rights Movement.
https://x.com/mattyglesias/status/1961386863362474099
"One of my biggest skunk at the party takes is that 'activism' is systematically overrated in left of center circles as a way to make progress on issues — very few topics actually have the specific structure of the civil rights movement battling Jim Crow."
Isn't it also true that activism today is much less deliberately planned and structured than the most of what we think as the core effort of the Civil Rights Movement?
Shameless plug for a great recent book on the movement applying the lens of military history: "Waging a Good War: How the Civil Rights Movement Won Its Battles"
And my previous post on the subject, recommending it to David M:
https://www.slowboring.com/p/monday-thread-593/comment/128767137
Interesting - I think I shall have to read the book as it has been my frequent amateur historian (as undergrad diplo-military history before converting to econ & finance) to have some military campaign analogies to Lefty Proggy activism - which often to me have the character of bad generalship - insisting on actions that are the political equivelent of Charge of the Light Bridage or French generals insisting their troops charge 1860s style into the 1916 German machine guns because Spirit and We Have To Do It to show we can rather than a logical analysis that such assaults are preordained to moral draining failure and not achievable in constrast to more boring, slow (haha slow, boring) sapping and consolidating advances.
Actiststs seem to always be about launching Flying Columns to grab a point without any attention to can whatever point, if not ending in bloody failure, be held, or have you just actually both weakened your forces and actually made yourself strategically weaker.
Excellent fucking book.
Every day I thank God we are not as infected with "activism = 'stand around in a public space representing murdered cows or whatever' " in the Western European tradition, and every day I think God more for it.
WOW, SO ORIGINAL
I want to agree, but hasn't environmental activism made huge gains in the last 50 years? I don't agree with a lot of what they're doing, especially vis-a-vis party politics, but they do it because it has been working.
“Huge gains” in blocking housing and infrastructure, mostly.
Lumping 50 years into an undifferentiated bucket is without any doubt an analytical error.
Clearly relative to the state of affaires up to say late 60s which too little attention was paid, the mode in the US that has flipped to complete paralysis is clearly one demonstrating that since say the 1990s there has not only been diminishing returns on effort, the effort probably has overall negative returns on effort.
Over-extrapolation of the pollution model is one fault point - climate change e.g. is not really amenable to that model - not successfuly economically at least, CO2 is not CFCs and the idea of many Green activists that the Montreal Protocol was the mode
and of course environmental activism is not-consciously but actively blocking Renewable energy expansion in blocking, delaying both PV and Wind installations (rather idiotically over micro-level supposed impacts that if one takes enviro actisists views on climate at their proper value are utterly swamped by the ecosystem threat impact of macro-climate change) and in expansion of the Transmisison & Distribution infrastructure (the wholesale and retail level grid) plus expansion of e-industry.
The model really stopped working at least since the late 1990s as it has hit negative returns and now we are seeing the backlash
"...very few topics actually have the specific structure of the civil rights movement battling Jim Crow."
That's asking the question: Can anyone think of one such topic?
The erstwhile struggle for same-sex marriage seems more similar than different. The overarching theme as I recall the latter (wasn't here for the former) was "mostly leave us alone and transparent in society, let us get along like you get along".
As with my reply nearby to TTF, the similarity, to the extent there is one, was the transformation of living as a homosexual as, basically, illegal, to the "let us get along like you get along" stage. The marriage thing was important, of course, but it seems to be like the small final step after a long slog of mostly even smaller ones. I didn't experience any of that first hand, however, so I am open to the idea that I am mistaken on the topic in ways big and small.
all of the low hanging fruit have been plucked, it seems
Suffrage movement maybe?
I suppose so, though the struggle was really for broader legal recognition, I think. There was a long stretch between Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the 1970s when people figured there really wasn't much point to the Equal Rights Amendment.
The border patrol did a raid on firefighters fighting a wilderness fire in the Olympics in Washington State. They said there were undocumented workers there so they stopped the firefighters to check all of their papers and arrest a couple.
That people is the length maga will go to. If the world is burning they will want to do an immigration check on the rescuers first.
I recently read an article about the problem of respiratory illnesses with wild-fire fighters. Basically no one gives them any safety equipment because it’s expensive. And so they deny it’s a problem to breathe smoke for a living. So maybe they were doing those guys a favor.
OTOH, I really don’t give a fuck about the legal status of people willing to do that job, and this is just exhibit infinity why this whole thing is stupid.
As people have famously said, "nobody writes songs saying Fuck the Fire Department."
Makes Trump's policy look really stupid.
With few exceptions, undocumented, oh hell, ILLEGAL, immigrants are doing jobs that American citizens don’t want at their current wages, and don’t need when we have a healthy economy. They’re not taking our jobs, and they are net positive for both our economy and our culture, just like those dirty Irish paddies and stinkin’, thieving Wops, who came before them.
Made a reference the other day to the Nikolai Krylenko quote, "We must execute not only the guilty. Execution of the innocent will impress the masses even more." The logic behind this firefighter raid isn't the same but it's similar - i.e. I'm not sure it shows that maga despises illegal immigrants so intensely that they'll *even* do a raid on firefighters fighting a wilderness fire. Instead, it might be more like, maga did this raid precisely BECAUSE the targets were firefighters fighting a wilderness fire. The more sympathetic the targets of the raid are and the more they seem to have earned a little forbearance, the more powerful the message that it sends when you punish them. It shows that there is now zero tolerance for illegal immigrants and that none of them will ever be deemed to deserve leniency. If an undocumented immigrant pops up on the local news as a hero who risked his life to save babies from a burning building, you make it priority #1 to go to the hospital the next day and cuff him.
Sure but it's clearly all for show. I don't think trump is actually that good at deportations precisely because he's loud and crude in his approach. At the same time, it's a great time to do those home projects as labor has never been cheaper.
It is crazy. But I think we need to turn our thoughts and efforts towards rational legal immigration expansion. Anti-illegal immigration policy remains far too popular in this country to try to fight it - I believe it is still Trump's most favorable issue.
I'd start with guest worker or some other immigration status that is more palatable to the average voter (perhaps a path that ends at permanent residence instead of citizenship?)
Matt wrote about that a couple of months ago. Well need a working system eventually
I'm new here and missed that. Thanks.
Welcome! It's worth a read.
https://www.slowboring.com/p/trump-rediscovers-comprehensive-immigration?utm_medium=web&triedRedirect=true
One of my law clerks on a student visa had to end their clerkship early with us because they're self-deporting. Sucks when it hits so close to home. I really hope they're able to complete their law school education as they're extremely talented and would be a great addition to the legal profession.
Ugh, I hate to hear that we're just letting great talent go for very dumb reasons.
Here’s an interesting article I read today: https://jasmi.news/p/china-2025
“I can observe from my non-American friends that living here without a passport does not feel very free. International travel, attending protests, writing blogs, switching jobs—these activities are all now fraught with risk.”
Trump’s ideal that only a small elite of American citizens should enjoy freedom completely discredits America whenever we try to advocate for “freedom and will be rejected by the rest of world—the US is now almost as unpopular as Russia—and get them to form a balancing coalition against us.
To where are they self deporting. And why?
The only foreign students I knew in law school were Canadians cross registered with a school in Windsor ( I was in Detroit).
China, not sure why. It’s not really my place to ask them now so I don’t have details.
Since you’re here, I have to ask, did your wife get out to sea last week in Erin? The local coasties seemed really stoked about getting in some heavy surf reps.
She did not! She’s apparently totally swamped working such a busy port doing inspections and enforcement. I’ll ask her what her thoughts are!
Wow, fascinating that they would choose your practice area to intern in.
We’ve actually had several Chinese nationals as clerks!
"Originally a supporter of the bill, Lamont’s veto came after he heard concerns about its intrusion into local zoning"
Local zoning needs to go, that's the whole point. Otherwise NIMBY will usually win
My most heterodox (probably) SBOpinion is that I'm not sure that de facto HOAs are a better "solution" to the "problem" than local zoning.
I'm sympathetic to the idea of letting the market win, but we don't do that with police, fire, or most major municipal services.
It's close to axiomatic that the wealthiest, most powerful people will finagle themselves into the best spots, and the poorest, weakest will end up with the worst.
Fire away, I've been feeling shit today and will turn in soon.
I don’t follow — what are “de facto HOAs” and who’s in favor of them?
The overarching notion, and I'm not looking to get into deep specifics this evening, is that if a group of residents wants to protect their local flavor of neighborhood blah blah blah, I think it's better that they do that through actual elections and civic processes rather than form an exclusive club and decide quasi-outside the law who is allowed to belong to that club.
This is adjacent to, but not the same as, "if you let public parks deteriorate to the lowest common denominator, the rich will form their own private parks and leave the quote-unquote 'public' spaces to those who can afford nothing else".
I’d just ban HOAs.
Would a state law be able to do this? I guess HOAs are somehow baked into the deed so it seems impossible for the individual to opt out. Maybe the law would just say “anyone can opt out of an HOA”?
HOA's are, ultimately, enforced by State Courts so they are absolutely within the purview of State Law. A State government could simply pass a law saying HOAs are uneforceable in State Courts and *poof*, they all fall apart.
Likewise a State government can regulate HOAs by saying they are uneforceable unless they meet certain requirements.
I think this is ultimately the solution. You can opt out, with the city assessing any common costs directly to you.
I am skeptical that making formal things informal is better! Now you have the apocryphal (but perhaps true) story of some neighbor shitting on Bill Russell's bed.
Shoot the neighbor.
I don't like my HOA, but it's basically just an organization that gets on my case if I don't weed my front bed before I take off on a long vacation. Construction is booming in my area, led by big construction companies, and the HOAs have no say in who moves into the neighborhood. No one's really tried to change their house in a way that's caused any HOA intervention. (Newish neighborhood, medium income--we just don't have super historic houses or lot sizes large enough to incentivize big changes.)
I don’t think anyone here is advocating for more HOAs?
I just noticed that the California High Speed Rail authority _finally_ published their update on how it's going, and I am very sorry to report that it's.... not good.
They've abandoned the goal of connecting SF to LA; now service is planned to end at Palmdale, ~60mi outside of LA:
https://hsr.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/2025-Project-Update-Report-SUP-FINAL-081925-A11Y.pdf#page=19
Interestingly enough, planned costs went up by $3B from last year, from ~$34B to ~$37B, too. Lots to dig in here.
Palmdale is actually where existing rail service to Los Angeles starts. If the high speed project stops there and it runs on local tracks the rest of the way, that adds 30-45 minutes to travel time, but still lets you get straight through.
You're talking about the Metrolink AV line right? isn't that two hours to downtown, not 30 minutes?
edit: I think I see what you're saying; it's interesting to me that plans for this used to be in the 2024 report but no longer appear in 2025.
Oh, I was comparing it to a hypothetical continuation of the high-speed line - and I was apparently using the wrong baseline, since I was thinking it was more like 1:15 than 2:00 and comparing to a 0:30-0:45 high-speed connection.
If they were really serious, they'd hire some Swiss engineers to tunnel under the mountains. They built a 35 mile tunnel there for like $12B, and it's not as if Switzerland is a low cost place.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotthard_Base_Tunnel
I'm not sure what you expect. If you have a project involving one hard task and a thousand fripperies, and you waste all your budget buying fripperies first, your replacement as project manager isn't going to be able to salvage the situation; too much money has already been spent for too little gain.
Getting across the mountains north of LA was the single key point of the CAHSR project; the rest of the route to the Bay could have been cobbled together from improved freight lines if they project ran out of money. But they didn't start with that, they're now out of money, and they're stuck.
Seems bad.
I would simply build it cheaper
Are we just not talking about Joni Ernst not running for reelection to the Senate, or Rebecca Bradley not running for reelection to the Wisconsin Supreme Court? Are we not doing politics this evening? ☹️
Trump's tariffs just got struck down by the appeals court lol. I just assumed that's all anyone would be talking about here
I'm really hoping the Supreme Court blunts most of his craziest ideas.
Not happening, they're too afraid of making their irrelevance official.
Everyone is talking about sports. It makes me want to cry. 😢
I only just found out about the tariffs!
SB, the place where very online people (who are not on Twitter) go to talk to people who are even more online than them.
I'd somehow also not heard about them!
Rhetorical victory only; they'll stay in place pending appeal, and then the Supreme Court will say "Trump can do whatever he wants, because reasons" and that will be that.
Probably.
Though in my more naive moments, I dream (and yes, it's likely just a fantasy) that Roberts and several others (not Alito and Thomas, of course) are being extra accommodating to the administration early on to mitigate the MAGA blowback when they render decisions on tariffs and birthright citizenship.
There’s no blowback to mitigate. They have lifetime tenure. Every decision every justice makes is because that justice believes in it.
I only just found out about rhe sports!
Brave, brave Senator Ernst. Another Republican who couldn’t actually stand up publicly against MAGA writ large, and will now slink away, safe in the knowledge that whoever else the jack booted thugs come for, they’ll never come for her.
Had to look up Bradley, she couldn’t quit soon enough, homophobic, racist piece of shit.
As an Iowan I'm cautiously optimistic about Joni stepping down. Unfortunately I imagine her replacement is going to be some creature from the IA-4th. That said, if the Dems put up a candidate that's not acting like they're running in a D+20 state (like they did in 2020/2022), they have a half ass chance.
Now, as a Packer fan, I'm more excited about the Micah Parsons trade. Joni stepping down was the icing on the cake.
Can Obama move to Iowa? Carpet bag like hillary 2000 idgaf, we need every seat we can get.
Excellent idea.
> not acting like they're running in a D+20 state
I thought Theresa Greenfield was a pretty good candidate? All I remember was Greenfield knowing the break even price for a bushel of corn and Ernst flubbing the same question for soybeans.
She was an ok candidate, but I think her ads and the national environment in 2020 are what really sunk her. I remember one specifically mentioned things that Iowans care about like a $15 minimum wage. Her campaign on the ground focused on national issues.
As an Eagles fan I have mixed feelings about the Parsons trade. Anything bad for Dallas is good, any time Jerry Jones has his ass handed to him because he’s stupid is better, but I don’t want Green Bay getting more dangerous.
I like 50 percent of your comment. 🙂
Lol I'll take it.
Tangentially related, Matt was saying recently that he hadn't heard anyone calling for abolishing property taxes, but, while this technically isn't "abolition" of property taxes, Vivek Ramaswamy *is* now campaigning on "putting a ceiling on" property taxes and "eventually bringing them down" to [checks notes] make housing more affordable for young people. Video here, in which Vivek also says that he would abolish the state capital gains and income taxes and try to finance Ohio state government primarily through taxes on tourists (so perhaps someone sent him Matt's piece about Maine?): https://x.com/VivekGRamaswamy/status/1960855452499267870
Vivek is Sanskrit for discernment.
Nominative determinism is false.
> abolish property taxes
So that we can replace them with land value taxes?
Press-X-To-Doubt.jpg
A few things are true:
1) Property taxes are very efficient
2) Property taxes are paid in cash, not property
3) Governments forcing people to sell their homes in order pay property taxes will never, ever be popular
So, property tax reform, or even abolishment in favor of income and sales taxes, may be politically necessary in some places.
But Vivek's plan to fund Ohio via non-Ohioans is bonkers.
Allow property taxes to be paid in promissory notes against said property.
Some jurisdictions more or less allow this for old people. A lien is placed on the property.
I think this should be the next attempt to modify prop 13 in ca- like prop 19 - incentivize old people to go for it by essentially making their prop taxes go to 0 by automatically creating liens against the property, use their votes to reduce prop 13 protections for corporations
Making the property taxes of older Californians "essentially go to zero" would create a massive revenue hole. In Massachusetts (I assume other states' programs are similar) it's just a forbearance, and, IIRC, it's only a 50% reduction. That other 50% continues to accrue, with interest. There are also rather strict income and liquid asset limits. Finally, it's a voluntary program: the state legislature enacted it, but its implementation is optional—not mandatory—for municipalities.
Thanks to prop 13 the actual revenue raised for people above say 75 are quite low, and it should be possible to raise bonds since the revenue will show up sooner or later
Not that Columbus isn't a nice city, but since when is Ohio any sort of tourist destination? It's almost as bad as Kentucky.
Well, there’s Cedar Point, and if you could get the Cayahoga river to catch on fire again that could become quite the attraction.
Isn't that just another Six Flags at this point?
We need to fund America via non-Americans
That's what Trump thinks his tariffs are doing
Better to tax, say, Paraguay, since they couldn’t really fight it
Who visits Ohio recreationally?
National Museum of the United States Air Force, yo
I said that! :)
I was elected to LEAD, not READ
Cedar Point exists
We'd all like to flee to the Cleve and club-hop down at the Flats and have lunch with Little Richard, but we fight those urges because we have responsibilities.
I did six years ago! Half of the trip was to enjoy some glorious football history and then baseball. But there's a quarter of something for you to like too, as I visited McKinley's presidential library, and his utterly massive grave. The other quarter was the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame.
I will accept the McKinley library. Also, the museum of the US Air Force is in Ohio!
I think James Garfield has an even bigger and more ridiculous grave to go visit there some day.
People doing "WKRP in Cincinnati" pilgrimages.
I know Cincinnati. I lived in Cincinnati. I would never make a pilgrimage to Cincinnati.
Never been, but I hear they have a nice train station and, I think, library
Emilio Estevez lives there by choice, and has become its #1 booster.
I went to Cincinnati on a business trip back in like 2012 or so, and I liked it. Had some character, the food was pretty good, I like the whole post-industrial-city-with-a-hilly-landscape-on-a-river thing. I wouldn't get on a plane to go there for vacation, but it seemed like a decent town.
I did last weekend! My first ever visit to Ohio. Visited my sister, who moved there (Cleveland area) not too long ago. Houses are cheap! Lake Erie is big!
Lake Michigan is the Greatest Lake, and it’s right here in Chicago.
Lake Superior conclusively answers the question right there in the name.
Well, I hate to give any credit whatsoever to Putinia, but Baikal has more water than all the Great Lakes COMBINED.
And Lake Baikal has freshwater seals!
You mean Gitche Gumee, you settler-colonialist.
Fake Name!
That's a good question. (Vivek claims in the same clip that Ohio needs to market itself better, as it should be "a summer tourism state.")
There are many pretty parts of Ohio. Wooster is a charming little town with a small college.
When I was in high school, I received literature from the College of Wooster literally once a week for MONTHS. I never even expressed interest in it; I have no idea how I got on their radar.
It me with Tulane. Given that this was shortly before 2005, I'm pretty glad I put it in the well-meaning-but-uninterested circular file.
Miami of Ohio did the same thing to me, and Washington in St Louis.
Me with Washington in St Louis lol
Except in the same clip Vivek said he'd shut that small college down! (OK, no, not precisely, but his major example of potential cost savings for Ohio state government was consolidating state-run colleges and universities.)
I need to tug my collar on that one, unfortunately.
I think it's only a mildly spicy hot take that if your state university campus can't keep attendance above (picking a number out of my butt) 1000 students, it's just not practical to keep in operation. And I know a number of Midwest four-year state-school campuses are not keeping up with that number.
I actually would say that it's quite plausible that there could be savings in consolidating various state-run colleges and universities, but I'm skeptical that the savings from any reasonable consolidation effort would dramatically change Ohio's need for tax revenue. (It appears from the data here that Ohio already has substantially lower per-student appropriations for higher education than the national average while simultaneously covering a much larger share of higher education expenses with tuition than the national average: https://shef.sheeo.org/state-profile/ohio/ )
But...College of Wooster is private.
Oh, it's probably safe then, at least as long as it doesn't need any property-tax-financed municipal services to operate!
As someone who lived in Ohio for 20+ years, I can tell you no one ever came to visit me because of the other things they could do in Ohio. But I often vacationed in Maine. A tax on Ohio’s tourism industry will not replace their property taxes, and is probably pretty damned price sensitive.
Relying on taxes on tourism is brilliant. I'm sure the wave of tourists flooding Ohio hasn't abated a bit since the movie "Stranger than Paradise" opened the floodgates: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaYEHeseLog
Taxes on tourists? Tourists to Ohio?
Missouri just eliminated capital gains taxes, I'm guessing this will run through all red states now.
I wonder whether the popularity of cryptocurrency investing is what's driving the seeming increase of interest in abolishing state capital gains taxes?
I’m pretty sure TN did a year or two ago, and MS may not be far behind. WA just recently implemented them but only for some crazy amount
Ohio has tourists?
A lot of posters are not ready for how big the Taylor Wedding is going to be for Millennials. It's like, a Royal Wedding, but for Millennials
I'll be standing there with Lisa C. who has calluses built up from years of admin law, but still just wants hug her wife while watching. I'll look at Ben while Taylor is walking down the aisle in the heavenly dress "it's a love story baby just say yes" and say "Shut up Ben you're the one who's crying, I'm not crying!": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xg3vE8Ie_E&list=RD8xg3vE8Ie_E&start_radio=1
I'm ready for this. Just went to a wedding where they played love story before the ceremony.
I just went to one where they played All Too Well (?!) as people walked down the aisle (not the couple)
I've heard tell of this a few times and while that song was the song that made me a Swiftie to a large extent and made me enjoy digging deep into her song writing the idea of playing a song about a horrible breakup at a wedding seems like an awful case of tempting fate.
In which me and Maya sing a duet at Ben's wedding: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztzfr1PjFCY&list=RDztzfr1PjFCY&start_radio=1
Is it a faux pas to play your own music at your wedding?
Big if true (also, one of the only reasons I still visit Twitter):
"Shaiel Ben-Ephraim: An IDF source has confirmed to me that the army has lost contact with an unknown number of soldiers. Probably fewer than ten. IDF protocol to prevent hostage taking is being undertaken right now. Rescue attempts have come under extreme fire. The IDF has put a gag order on this operation, so do not expect to see it in the Israeli media until morning there.
One soldier said: A missing officer was contacted on his radio — but a Hamas fighter answered. My God, this is what Netanyahu’s policies have led us to."
https://twitter.com/academic_la/status/1961570563346108914
"Everyone is asking me about the Hannibal Directive in these cases. Officially, Israel cancelled that in 2016 due to controversy over it. However, it remains unofficial policy to kill IDF soldiers rather than allow them to be captured, but only when it has been determined that the possibility of preventing the capture otherwise is entirely impossible. Usually, by that time, the whereabouts of the soldiers are unknown, so Hannibal is unlikely to be enacted directly. Having said that, the amount of bombing occurring in Zeitoun right now could easily kill missing IDF soldiers through friendly fire."
https://twitter.com/academic_la/status/1961573226192191738
**********
To be clear, I think the most likely outcome is that any captured Israeli soldiers are killed by the de-facto implementation of the Hannibal Directive.
I'm also interested to see if Western and/or Israeli media continue to use the term hostage to describe soldiers captured in combat (personally, I would be insulted if that term was ever applied me in the event I was captured while in uniform).
ETA: I confess that IDF leaders like MG Avi Bluth who openly advocate for and direct the ethnic cleansing and murder of Palestinians (in the West Bank, specifically) make me less than sympathetic to the actions of Israeli soldiers in general, even though I have no love for Hamas:
"Avi Bluth, the head of the army's Central Command...ordered "redesign operations" to be implemented so that "[Palestinians] will be deterred, any village that dares to raise a hand against any of the [settlers]." And of course he's talking about settlers who are regularly murdering Palestinian civilians (which is not surprising, because Bluth is one himself, and thus comfortable with the particularly violent and racist culture incubated there).
https://archive.ph/bfxWR (Haaretz)
ETA2: It looks like these reports were incorrect, but I'm still curious what exactly happened. Hamas may have been attempting a capture, given that there were three separate and simultaneous attacks in Zeitoun.
What is the Hannibal Directive?
Operational version of "shoot the hostage"
Ah, yeah I looked it up. I can see some dire circumstances, like for humane reasons if you expect the captive to be tortured and killed anyway, or if they have critical strategic information that would lead to catastrophe, where it would make sense to do that, but it’s wild as a general policy
Interesting question, would calling you a Prisoner of War validate the existence of the enemy as a legitimate combatant?
Not necessarily, but since that does suggest reciprocal rights and obligations, I think it would probably be most appropriate to just use the word captured, captive, etc which is almost universally how Bowe Bergdahl was described, both from my memory at the time as well as a quick Google search, despite our lack of recognition of the Taliban's legitimacy.
I certainly don't claim that SBE is a moral exemplar of any kind (and FWIW I started following him in Oct 2023 before I ever learned of the allegations you mention, and when his political orientation was very much a standard pro-Israel liberal Zionist), but he does seem to be a useful way to survey Hebrew media for this sort of breaking news, plus he monitors some of the most racist and bloodthirsty corners of Zionist Twitter, which I have neither the inclination nor (in some cases, i.e. Hebrew language) the ability to do myself. I'm open to suggestions for comparable accounts, or indeed for your recommendations about where to find above average I/P news and analysis.
Also, interestingly, it appears that part of why he's remained on Twitter is because he was hounded for those allegations on Bluesky.
ETA: I think a much more recent and concerning case involving Israeli Americans and sexual assault is the senior cyber official caught in a Las Vegas pedophile sting and then allowed to flee the country, likely to never return: https://archive.ph/kNYUo (Haaretz)
Interested to see how that Saratoga Springs development shapes up. I used to work as a home health aide for a guy who lived in one of SF's "so affordable you can only buy in via lottery" complexes, and several tenants were of the variety that needs...uh...supportive housing. (I don't know if they literally had specific units set aside for such, or it simply wasn't a disqualification.) It was a really weird place to work? Modern development, all new appliances, interior courtyard, amenities like rec hall and gym and laundry...but selection effects from the tenants made it feel constantly hair-raising anyway. And the property management did not inspire confidence in the feasibility of government-supplied public housing. Can't even remember the number of times I'd report for work and my guy would be like "meet me at $HOTEL instead, sewage pipe burst and entire floor is undergoing repairs" or some other calamity. So fundamentally not that much different from a classic slumlord apartment complex in vibe, except there it's almost refreshing cause the lipstick on the pig doesn't cause one to set unrealistic expectations. Given how "affordable" units tend to pencil out quite poorly once one properly accounts for all the indirect costs and subsidies, that chapter of my life made me predisposed towards market-rate housing even before encountering the YIMBY movement. Sure, still better than actual homelessness...but at what cost? Money is fungible, but by George, land is not...
Also, Labour Day plans: earn extra money. I don't know what y'all with regular 9-5 M-F jerbs do on federal holidays, but one does not simply close a grocery store, so for us that means holiday bonus pay as an incentive to labour on Labour Day.
People with antisocial behaviors are disproportionately poor. This is the reason normies oppose "affordable housing" projects in their neighborhoods. We'd be better off investing more money into police, the court system (woefully underfunded), parole officers and prisons rather than using public monies to fund these projects.
Then just allow more building to take place. The market will take care of the rest.
Yep, when looking for homes, we specifically excluded any places near poor areas/apartments
Yep, when looking for homes, we specifically excluded any places near poor areas/apartments
Yep, when looking for homes, we specifically excluded any places near poor areas/apartments
It's okay Halina, we do not like sports here at Slow Boring. MORE POLITICS!
Also: Something the comments on the morning post made me want to say is that Democrats have erred - there ARE enemies to the left, and they are just as dangerous as the enemies to the right. Democrats must punch Nazis with their right fist and hippies with their left fist.
EDIT: We also do not like economics here at Slow Boring. We demand Pure Political Punditry™!!
That first sentence is fake news!
I'm not Fake News, YOU'RE Fake News!
Your edit is even faker news, which can be demonstrated by voluminous Matt articles.
FAKE COMMENT!
"We also do not like economics..."
Speak for yourself. And you know you should take your economics like eating your [barely tolerated nutritious green vegetable].
Shh! I am trying to get more politics content!
Halina surely understands that there is an unavoidable intersection of economics and politics in every policy realm. Especially global thermonuclear war.
But do we have to TALK about it? I hate economics! Almost as much as I hate stupid old sports!
Really? Econ takes are why I read Matt, though I don’t always agree with him. As someone who was fairly well educated in micro but never took macro, learning “macro for laymen” by reading Matt at Moneybox is what got me hooked
If you'd prefer we can narrow the topic just to the H-Bombs.
Yes, we do.
Sigh. I just want content about what sources at the DSCC think about Joni Ernst retiring. Who's in and who's out in the Senate Republican cloakroom? What is the chatter at the DNC about lackluster fundraising, or the primary calendar?
"we do not like sports here at Slow Boring. MORE POLITICS"
Careful, don't say "sportsball" or you'll catch Hell!
Been there, done that.
Habsburg Empire erasure.
I'm not sure if it's SB but I've been on a Habsburg binge this year. I listened to like 4 Audiobooks about them while doing some minor home renovations.
Which was the best?
We can have Habsburg Empire. I'll even allow Dune maybe every six weeks. BUT NO SPORTS!
I can haz Hazburg Empire?
u can haz Habzburg Empire.
IM VRY HAPPEH WIF
"It's okay Halina, we do not like sports here at Slow Boring. MORE POLITICS!"
I approve!
"EDIT: We also do not like economics here at Slow Boring. We demand Pure Political Punditry™!!"
NOOOOOOOOOOOO economics is great! It's how to tell whether policy solutions will work or not (at least for non cultural war stuff)
Wait'll I start throwing out intersections of sports and economics, which is utter catnip for me.
Ask me how sports owners prove the merits of confiscatory estate taxes!
The fine citizens of Cleveland would definitely be on board with confiscating Jimmy Haslam's ownership of the Browns.
Well, he bought the team, so it wouldn't help that particular cause. It would have saved Cincinnati from Mike Brown, though.
My reading comprehension sucks as I start relaxing on this long weekend.
We should like sports more to be able to connect with the median voter more
the median voter should like politics more! 😁
You have to work with the voters you have, not the ones you wish you had.
In fact, I might even read some sort of explainer about sports and what’s interesting about the ones happening right now…
Fuck Michigan. Fuck Ohio State, too. I guess now I also need to clarify: fuck Oregon, UCLA, and Southern Cal. And those weirdos in Eastern Time.
Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
Hate in sports is really underrated--channeling our innate tribal human instincts for hate in something that ultimately doesn't matter is good for us, so that we don't unleash that on things that really matter a lot.
As I think Seinfeld once pointed out, the players come and go, you’re rooting for the uniforms - laundry!
Seinfeld didn't get it, though, goofy New Yorkers. That's the best part. Their big state laundry is our laundry. It's an intentionally-appropriated membership. GO BIG STATE U.
Many people keep saying
Also, fuck the entire SEC. Dumb rednecks love to pretend that they own the entire fucking sport just because they don’t have anything else going for them — looking at you, Mississippi and Alabama.
Also, y’know, the Confederacy never really died, so double fuck them.
For me, SEC will always mean the Securities & Exchange Commission.
Something something Tommy Tuberville
This is one of my best Slow Boring comments ever: https://www.slowboring.com/p/trumps-incredibly-dumb-economic-mistake/comment/70950230
Yes, yes it was.
Important counter-point to this, and I absolutely implore you all to watch this clip even if you don't give a hoot about sports at all. Stephen Fry at the Iron Bowl:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuPeGPwGKe8
A true cosmopolitan loves both Steven Fry and (SEC) college football. C'est moi.
I love how charmed he appeared to be by the phenomenon.
Good actor. I'm sure he knew what was coming.
But you go to a big game 20 times and it still gives you the same chills.
Next year I'd like to see him react to the Pop Tarts or Duke Mayo Bowl.
Still love that William T. Sherman shirt declaring him SEC champion 1864 or whatever year it was...
It's okay, David. We understand. Envy is a natural human emotion and nothing to be ashamed of.
The only thing I envy about the South is their dogged dedication to hate. As a hater myself, I admire the depths of depravity they’ve been willing to go to.
I just deplore their actual causes.
You think the North is any less racist? I think it’s just less honest about it
I hate the whole Lost Cause schtick. But fact is you’re just as likely to see a confederate flag in rural WA or PA as MS
Those flags came later, because the South was ALLOWED to spread their lies.
Sure. It was the worst export.
But like Oregon’s state constitution barred black people from living in the state. Is that any better? I will say that Washington has a happier history in this regard, considering black men were basically state founding fathers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Bush_(pioneer)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington_(Washington_pioneer)
We people from the South don't hate. We don't hate anyone. We seek to love everyone.
Unless you support Florida State. All I can say to an FSU fan is %^$^$!#$^@$&&!$%&($*)#^&@$%&@W*$
I believe you mean THE Ohio State University.
I believe I mean An Ohio State University.
I have never understood the fascination with minor league sports teams. If I'm visiting a place with one, then, why not? Barring downpours on the stands, a bad day at a ballpark is better than a good day at the office, yadda, yadda.
But to really care?!
Once upon a time, the most defining characteristic of U Blank/Blank State's team is that come hell or high water, unlike trash carbetbagger pro sports teams, they never could or would EVER leave. Conceptually, it's nonsensical.
Unfortunately, the post-2020ish era of Name-Image-Likeness and unfettered transfer rules means major college teams are not practically more tethered to "home" than the Houston Oilers or the Oakland Athletics. Such a loss, such a shame.
It's always nice to hear from another SEC fan. I feel you.
Wash your mouth out with soap. I don't give a shit about ANY SEC team. You hate your neighbors the most.
Especially when they deserve to be shot for being in an HOA.
Navy is my team, not because I like or watch sportsball, just like ships, officers, and angry sheep.
I have Liked this because you said "sportsball" and more people should say that.
A lot of baseball for me this weekend. The BoSox are surging. New starting pitcher was just called up and makes his MLB debut against Pittsburgh tonight. Fingers crossed.
Are we not going to give a shoutout to the Phillies for 18 runs, a hit by every starter, and four home runs by clear MVP Kyle Schwarber?
The World Series winner is pretty heavily favored to come out of the National League.
You may know: There is a revered tradition of the Red Sox only managing to get things sorted out in the back-half of the season.
Playing the Orioles doesn’t mean they’re surging.
True.
It's winning seven out of eight, going 8-1 against the Yankees, and having the best record in the majors since early July, that is pretty surgey.
I think college football has become pretty whack since the advent of the transfer portal and NIL, but I expect you’ll have a pretty awesome time at Michigan-Purdue. Being around that many people who care is a lot of fun.
The current NCAA landscape is akin to an idealized revolt by serfs against their feudal overlords. There were many places along the way where the NCAA aristocracy could have compromised with their underlings, but they were so adamant in their opposition to any freedom that they managed to lose almost all control over them. College athletes today are near pure free agents. They sign no contract binding them for more than the current season, and can every year freely sign with the highest bidder. They’re not even subject to a binding initial draft or the kind of salary cap that unionized professional sports players have to submit to.
The NCAA deserves every bad thing that happens to them now as a result of their unmitigated greed and power lust.
I-L-L
I-N-I
Gonna fuck some shit up this year. It’s nice to be a contender for surprise team of the year!
BERTMENTUM
Bielema is one of the ugliest coaches I’ve ever seen but god damn has he just consistently improved our team almost every year. We’re almost respectable again.
I am contractually obligated to have contempt for all things Urbana.
Currently whupping on this week’s designated chumps like we ought to.
Has nothing to do with sports and everything to do with budget share in the U of I System, haha.
Same could be said for your own heinous pack of losers.
As I don't do sports and certainly don't give a damn about them here in Chicago, I can only hope you are not insulting the WVU Mountaineers. I don't care about their sports either, but I will brook no disrespect of West "By G-d" Virginia.
Thought you were defending OSU?
I've been pretty happy with Pat Bryant so far in the preseason, hopefully he can keep bringing it in the regular season as a rookie.