Philly Libertarian

Robots and AI Are Already Remaking the Chinese Economy China’s factories and ports are learning to make and export more goods faster, cheaper and with fewer workers.

“Yang Jiemin, VP of the state-owned company behind the port, said its highly automated operations require 60% fewer workers than traditional ports. It underscores one advantage Chinese companies have in deploying AI versus the U.S.: no independent labor unions.” www.wsj.com/tech/ai/ai-r... (🎁🔗)

We all have our own private Idahos...

Can't forget the seashells from Demolition Man (1993)

The Warriors (1979)

Georgia taxpayers lose $160,000 for every job created by film tax credits The program generates just 19 cents for every dollar spent.

Film tax credits don't pencil. Georgia recognized this after losing a billion dollars per year. We don't need to go there. reason.com/2023/12/18/g...

From what I hear, the new handgun is still pervious to switches.

Got mine too. Will probably bring the more transit ones to synagogue.

Pre-AI AI-slop recreation

@cmthomasphl.bsky.social, you and your colleagues are free to run for Congress. You must simply resign.

Okay, I will be watching PHA with a lot of interest. A leader who expressly bucks unions and employment bloat? I'm impressed.

Woah. Brave words:

Why don't you act like a real political party and send a candidate into the general election?

Note that WFP is *primarying* Fetterman. They don't have the balls to act like a real third party and send a candidate into the general election. They aren't a real third party. They are an intramural Democratic group.

Don't expect them to ever act like an opposition.

We used to be a real city proud about our free plumbing

(Contrast this with educational affirmative action that was premised for decades on an independent interest in "diversity" as an educational goal. Contractor procurement has no such independent justification.)

Unfortunately, with the shift to "local and small", the Mayor might want to maintain those aspects, but at least it won't expressly be based on express state discrimination whose basis falls apart under any serious scrutiny.

The freewheeling nature of the program that gets to operate without any scrutiny inordinately leads to misuse of the program to satisfy political constituents and to give personal discretion to political actors.

Based on that report, whose results never change and their movement never matters, the city can get a constitutional hook to operate an elaborate scheme that expressly discriminates based on race, sex, and disability.

The conceit ever since has been that contractor-ownership representation should be one-to-one to the general local population, which was always a dubious proposition. So every year the city issues a report with these very simple statistics.

In City of Richmond v. J. A. Croson Co., 488 U.S. 469 (1989), SCOTUS said cities could racially discriminate with contractor procurement affirmative action schemes as long as they were remedial for past discrimination.

Philadelphia is halting the use of some diversity targets in city contracts as national DEI backlash grows The changes made by Mayor Cherelle L. Parker's administration represent a major shift in the city’s diversity initiatives and come as such programs are under attack nationwide.

Honestly, props to the Mayor for being proactive about this. The race and sex-based discrimination Philly has been engaging in for 40 years (to no avail by its own data) was arguably always unconstitutional, but clearly now it is. www.inquirer.com/politics/phi...

Yes

Agenda for Weekly Long-Term Message Planning Meeting - WikiLeaks From: kofferdahl@hillaryclinton.com To: ahornbrook@hillaryclinton.com, arenteria@hillaryclinton.com, anson.kaye@gmmb.com, bfallon@hillaryclinton.com, caitlin@grunwald-communications.com, creynolds@hil...

WikiLeaks - The Podesta Emails share.google/KFZSr5j61E3F...

The key thing here is that the timing was during the primary. It was specifically Hillary's goal to have Trump win the Republican primary, as perceived him to be the easiest to win against. So maybe that was animating the NY Times...

The key thing here is that the timing was during the primary. It was specifically Hillary's goal to have Trump win the Republican primary, as perceived him to be the easiest to win against.

This is the ratchet effect I'm most concerned about.

The increased demand for nickels, by the way, is an unaccounted for aspect of the penny transition. It currently costs almost 14 cents to mint a nickel. So making retailers resort to hoarding nickels hurts us all.

I think this refers to Philadelphia Code § 9-1132, which prohibits retailers from charging more to cash users. That would prohibit a retailer from rounding up. Rounding down would be pretty inconvenient as it would require a ton of nickels on hand.

The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia | CNN Business The American penny will pass away later today after a prolonged illness. It was 238 years old.

This article mentions that Philly requires merchants to provide "exact change." Do you think Philadelphia City Council will do anything to help businesses transition by relaxing the requirement? Fat chance! www.cnn.com/2025/11/12/b...

In 2018, then-Mayor Ada Colau called Barcelona’s new 30% inclusionary housing requirement for projects over 600m^2 a “paradigm shift,” making housing “a right and not a commodity.” It was supposed to produce 330 affordable units a year. The reality: just 31 affordable apartments in all these years.