writeon1

Maybe being informed costs too much. Under my Reduction of Ignorance Act, every American would receive a $300 income tax deduction or subsidy credit for subscriptions to news and scientific publications. Participating publications would have to keep their price < $10/mo. Better suggestions welcome.

"The solar panel is the new peace symbol," sums it up nicely. It amazes me that so may politicians are all-in for ending the use of fossil fuel, right up until faced with a decision about a pipeline or a drilling lease. But if we want peace we have to cut the ties that bind us to oil and gas.

What they say is noise. The signal is the "R" after their names. When noses are counted at the beginning of each session to decide which Party runs the House & Senate, it won't matter what they've said about legislation or policy, or even if they've cursed Trump as the spawn of Satan. "R" = Trump.

To be Young, Black and Gifted yall… Shout out to the students at North Carolina A&T University. They were stripped of their polling station on campus so they all marched together the nearest one to vote early. They are the future that gives me hope. 👏🏾🤩✨🇺🇸

Since WWII, dependence on fossil fuels has resulted in our being us stuck in Middle East conflict. If it weren't for gas and oil, most of us wouldn't be able to find Iran on a map, and would think of Saudi Arabia as "that place with the camels. Or is that Egypt?"

Sometimes I think about how we would be criticizing Kamala right now if she were President, for the kind of ordinary mistakes every President makes, or maybe because her shoes didn't go with her dress. And we would have no idea what she had saved us from. No matter how hard we tried to imagine it.

Every political ad needs to be clearly labeled with the names of super donors. And I'm not talking about small print flashed on the screen for a half-second. The details of an ad's content are often a lot less important than the broad message and who paid for it.

I want to thank President Trump for the $90 he sent me. I'll forward it to Democratic candidates tomorrow. Every little bit helps.

Public executions? Televised? The right is so obsessed by ancient Rome, they want to bring back bread and circuses. Only this time without the bread.

It's not only about jobs. Prof. Jeff Schneider at Carnegie Mellon U writes in The Economist about a "physical singularity... in the next decade or two, human labor will no longer be a major constraint on how quickly industrial capacity grows." What does that mean for resources & the environment?

"Several Chinese providers have recently stopped updating previously open AI models, which could indicate companies are moving development behind closed doors," per Claudia Plattner, president of Germany’s Federal Office for Information Security. Politico.

“They can take out a city,” Trump said in Grand Island. “Let them take out Los Angeles. Let them take out San Diego.” The crowd applauded. (Guardian article). This should be the lead headline in every US newspaper and site from the NYT to the local shopper.

Whenevery you see an (R) on the ballot, it's like a scratch-off lottery ticket. Underneath it is a (T). If you in the little circle next to it, that's what you really get.

@lastweektonight.com -- John Oliver -- This voucher business really needs your special treatment. Start a private school with taxpayer dollars and earn $7000 per kid in Arkansas. Cost $45 to start (saying that they weren't teachers)...🙈 @propublica.org

I happened to be looking at a guidebook page for a museum in Amsterdam and noticed that it was situated on President Kennedylaan. It would be nice to return to a time when a US president would be spontaneously honored in a foreign country.

Mars University, Tharsis Region:, Star Date 2653-817 A panel has been added to the annual History of Earth Conference. Entitled "Trump: Was he Evil or was he Stupid - The unending controversy", it is inspired by well-preserved social media printouts uncovered during the "Natalie dig" of 2651.

I'm less worried about Trump stealing the election than I am about what he will do when he loses. Starting with declaring that all Democratic wins were rigged. And that could lead to declaring the House and Senate illegitimate, leading to L'État, c'est moi.

You thought Poll Taxes had been made unconstitutional by the 24th Amendment? If you need to order a birth certificate or a marriage certificate to vote, the cost is a poll tax by another name. If you fail to calculate the lead time, you lose the right to vote. It's a Poll Tax+. That's no accident.

Even if Democrats clean up in November, getting the votes to both impeach and convict Trump seems unlikely. But I bet some of his cabinet members, like Hegseth and RFK Jr., are a lot more vulnerable.

Is it a coincidence that every* appointment and policy initiative by Trump contributes to making the USA weaker, poorer, sicker, more divided, and/or friendless? Nobody could be this consistent by accident or through simple stupidity. Is this his revenge for 2020? * Did I miss an exception?

Taxpayers: If you're currently dropping coins in old coffee cans & kitchen drawers to pay for, say, gas or something you hope is actually beef, don't forget to add enough to pay your share of the $6 million Trump is spending on gold leaf for the vulgar ballroom he's thinking about instead of you.

"With Boats Getting Bigger, Money Is Flowing Into Marinas The private equity firm Blackstone now owns more marinas than anyone in the world." nyt But we definitely can't afford Medicare for All. Right?

The US was on the winning side in WWII because it had superior industrial capacity and was allied with the Soviet Union and the British Empire. China has superior industrial capacity; we are low on ammunition stockpiles, and Trump is destroying our alliances. Steam catapults won't save us.

Dems need a unified platform that warns that any deregulation Trump offers includes a poison pill. Execs & stockholders need to know that changes he persuades them to make that damage the environment will cost them dearly when Republicans are out of power. Short-term gains, massive long-term losses.

Trump is outraged that Justices he appointed didn't hand him the ruling he wanted on voting by mail. "These are not the people I interviewed to serve on the United States Supreme Court", he says. Now he knows how tens of millions of Trump voters feel. Also, Dems who voted for Fetterman.

Vote in a way that puts your ballot into the hands of the people who count ballots as soon as possible, using whatever means minimizes the number of middlemen between you and the vote counters.

Slow down AI development. Stop AI development. How? It's being done all over the world. There are desktop computers capable of running serious AI models. There is no trust. Would we trust that China had halted development if we did? They are betting their future on AI & robotics.

"E.P.A. Expected to Erase Limits on Climate Pollution From Power Plants" NYT Trump expands his war on the human race.* *And every other species besides cockroaches and mosquitos.

A maxed-out Apple Mac Studio M5 Ultra will cost ~$20,000 when it ships in October. You'll be able to lease one for $400 (?) a month. For a brief moment, it will be the best of the best machines for developing AI on a desktop. Anyone still think laws and agreements can stop AI? Not me.

Xi et. al. claim that the reunification of Taiwan with the mainland is of the highest importance. Yet they create in Hong Kong a model of what the people of Taiwan would suffer if that were to happen. One nation, two systems. Ha!

"The assessments [that Vance gathered] made clear the extraordinary amount of pain the Iranian government was prepared to endure in its fight for survival" NYT It's not how much the government is willing to endure. It's how much suffering they're willing to let their people endure. #Vance #Iran

His $5K pitch makes perfect sense as a way to encourage apathetic, low-information Trump voters to come out to vote. An unenforceable promise costs nothing. The rest of us already know who he is, like him or hate him, and a single absurd statement won't affect our votes. Trump knows his base.

Last night, Donald Trump invoked his inner Harry Potter and promised to conjure a $5,000 bribe for every American Citizen if Republicans keep control of Congress with . I'm eagerly awaiting Scott Bessent's explanation of how this fiscal magic will work.

A question no one I know of is asking, least of all, Republicans. Assume Trump succeeds. What happens if the majority of US citizens come to believe that the elections were stolen, that their government is no longer legitimate, that the laws it passes are invalid?

Has anyone been using Alexa's drop-in function lately? For me, it works as well as the Maxwell Smart's Cone of Silence.

I've just reviewed PM Carney's education nd work history, compared to Trump's. It is to cry. (If you're a US citizen.

The climate crisis is starting to bite hard. We need radical, not incremental, change. In 1940 the US was a military midget. That changed with blinding speed. We need a similar level of response today. Hopefully, without the climatic equivalent of Pearl Harbor to trigger it.

All Democratic candidates should wear tan suits. We need to remind the voters what a Democratic scandal looked like.

I'm an elderly agnostic and an AOC fan. So it's not any affection for Trump that makes me say I'm disgusted by the sexist attacks on Natalie Harp and the ageist attacks on Trump. The evil that he does is sufficient to provide all the targets we need for criticism and ridicule.

It should be political suicide for any politician to advocate for fossil-fuel infrastructure or drilling. Maybe heat waves, droughts, violent storms, and floods can accomplish what reason and evidence could not - make fossil fuels political cyanide. #climate

Weather and Climate. I really like the idea of more trees in cities. Assuming that we can keep them watered. Otherwise, we are growing a fire hazard.

Looking at the gamer population to fill controller spots isn't a stupid idea, but a controller has to be highly responsible & able to stay focused for long periods while playing the same "game" for years. Also, do I want my life in the hands of someone addicted to a thing called "DOOM Eternal"?

Free association. ICE electric gloves reminded me of a scene in Omega Man, in which Charlton Heston is holed up in a building during a zombie apocalypse, protected by electric fences. Then the generator runs out of gas.

Every major decision by Trump makes the US weaker, poorer, sicker, and more divided. We see it happening over and over. Yet we refuse to consider the obvious. That it is deliberate. If it were just incompetence, he would occasionally make the right decision on the stopped clock principle.

Heatwave number ... (we've lost count at this point) is developing this week, primarily across England and Wales But it won't be hanging around, as cooler air looks likely to arrive towards the weekend

If Iran comes out of this more powerful than when they started, we're going to have to redefine "Near-peer adversary," at least where the USA is concerned.

We succeeded in WWII for two reasons. Strong alliances & massive productive capacity. Trump has ditched our primary alliances. We're exhausting stockpiles in a short fight with an inferior opponent. Now think about China as an adversary in a war over Taiwan, or a Russian excursion into Europe.

We are running low on munitions after a brief war against Iran? How would we fare against China if we got into a fight over Taiwan? We won WWII because we had allies and because we outproduced the Axis. Could we outproduce China? I don't think so. And Trump has alienated our allies.

It seems we have been using up ammunition, including the million-dollar, two-year lead-time weapons, at an unsustainable rate. And this is against a country that is by no means a near-peer. What if we got into a conflict with China over Taiwan, given China's enormous manufacturing capability?

It should be easy for a Christian, Ross.. Read Matthew 25:35. For the hungry, the left wants cheap groceries, the right wants to end SNAP; the left not only wants to visit the sick but heal them; the right would cut their Medicaid. What Christ recommends, the left supports & the right opposes.