Caffeine

And biology, and math, and team sports, and probably foreign languages. And anything involving basic reasoning. What *do* they study anyway?

As long as they also don't mind if Puerto Rico declares independence.

Trump says he will sue new Fed nominee Kevin Warsh if the Fed doesn't lower interest rates.

Trump is out to kill the dollar. It's hard to imagine a different monetary order, The Fed not being the world's central bank.

And yet, the Arabs invented Algebra and were once the world's premier scientists. "Algorithm" is mispronounced "Al-Khwarizmi," the guy who developed computational math.

This is a weird strategy, whereby by winning, they are actually losing.

At its heart, the white Christian nationalist myth is a justification of theft, getting to steal from people and getting to feel superior and good about themselves.

It's also a justification of accepting their place in the hierarchy, being ok with subjugation as long as it's to other white people.

The white Christian nationalist myth has decline and destruction built in to it. If white supremacists manage to take over, this, right here, right now, is the strongest they will ever be. This story only has one ending, even if it takes a long time to play out. 5/

Compare the 3000-year-old Vietnamese creation myth to the white Christian nationalist myth emerging in the US in the 21st century. One is about nation building. The other is about one group claiming (stealing?) their piece of pie from the others, even as the whole pie gets smaller. 4/

Vietnam is a tiny country that to this day has 54 ethnic groups with distinct cultures and languages. It's striking that as a French speaker, I understand a bit of Italian. But as a Vietnamese speaker, I don't understand any of the minority languages spoken in Vietnam, at all. 3/

I got suspended in 2nd grade for pointing out the weird details, e.g. the eggs, the divorce.

As an adult, I find this myth to be even more striking, for its sensibility, for something made up a few thousand years ago. For the message of brotherhood and love and tolerance and building together. 2/

In the Vietnamese creation myth, a dragon prince met a bird princess on a land already inhabited by people. They got married and gave birth to a hundred eggs that hatched into a hundred sons. Eventually they parted, amicably, and the sons became leaders of the Vietnamese tribes. 1/

The ICU episode was in 2017, when Epstein was already a known child rapist and trafficker.

Attia's month-old son had stopped breathing, his heart had stopped beating. Attia stayed in NYC and let his wife care for their son alone for 11 days.

One of the many small fish in the Epstein files.

Peter Attia stayed in NYC to socialize with Epstein when his wife and child were in ICU. Issued a non-apology, "I accept that reality and the humiliation that comes with it."

In other words, I'm not sorry for what I did, I'm sorry it came out.

It makes me sick how many people were part of Epstein's circus, and how many more would have wanted to be. I'm sick that I probably interact with many who self-present as upstanding, not knowing how gross they really are.

Russia says it is ‘no longer bound’ by nuclear arms limits as treaty with US ends Russia on Wednesday said it was no longer bound by limits on the number of nuclear warheads under the bilateral New START treaty, which is set to end Thursday after the Trump administration failed to…

"Art of the Deal"

And that was not the first time.

Other people's tastes are truly a mystery.

Tear gas is a known abortifacient. There's just zero reason to ever use it. And criminal for them to drench a whole neighborhood in it like they are doing. Every person who's calling their elected representatives needs to add "outlaw tear gas" to their list of requests.

CS and the chemicals it breaks down into can cause acute and permanent lung, eye, and skin injury. It's a known abortifacient.

Those are known issues. We don't know about the unknown issues because it's unethical to subject people to it for studies. Absolutely criminal to use teargas on bystanders.

I am, what they would call, terror.

"We need truth, someone to inform us, never a lie from a spinosaurus."

YouTube video by THE_ ANTI_MEME dinosaur for president

Haha

Sounds like smoke grenades. The colored ones are less bad than the white ones, but still very bad and not safe to inhale.

Tear gas is so bad, it's prohibited by the Geneva Convention. The US military is not allowed to deploy it against enemy combatants in actual warfare.

But somehow it's legal in the US. Congress and states need to legislate this now.

A Bad Heir Day at the Fed No, Kevin Warsh isn’t qualified

I wrote yesterday about Kevin Warsh, saying what everyone who really follows monetary debates knows: he's a bullshitter who uses big words to make incoherent arguments that always amount to stimulus for Republicans, austerity for Dems 1/

paulkrugman.substack.com/p/a-bad-heir...

So, impeach, yes?

Over 36,500 killed in Iran's deadliest massacre, documents reveal More than 36,500 Iranians were killed by security forces during the January 8-9 crackdown on nationwide protests, making it the deadliest two-day protest massacre in history, according to documents re...

36,500

It used to be that journalists would have to travel all the way to Iraq to get kidnapped and sentenced for their profession. And government were the people who deployed hostage negotiators to get them back.

Trump loots $10b directly from US taxpayers in his first year. That's equivalent to drawing a salary of $40 million every single work day, whether he works or golfs.

To whoever removed Will, if you read this.

Getting a majority to vote with you is gonna be so hard, since you're trying to get 51% out of 73%. There are only so many people you can persuade to side with you on anything.

Seems like you could focus on the core issue and build a broader church.

I'm sorry, dude.

Earlier today I saw that 27% of Americans still support *all* or *most* of Trump's policies.

It seems like human nature, that we can never get 100% of people to agree with us. If only 27% think we're wrong, when we're right, it's as good as it's ever going to get.