Daniel Svitek

Personally I think it would be a perfectly reasonable part of a sensible long-term lunar plan coming from an agency that was focused and functional and that had good leadership and stable funding.

Patriots: "Its services will be free to those looking to push back on Trump’s use of executive power... Zelinsky told CNN in a phone call that their group stand[s] out because of the number of people who have come out of retirement to work for the firm."

Lol at the 😲 reaction to this. Thoughts:

1. This is not crazy as it sounds, but

2. Unsurprising given admin's bad / missing mesaging

3. This is why it's useful to have agency heads with credibility

1/

They will declare the Golden Dome test a success because they closed the Pentagon office charged with assessing the validity of weapons tests.

Google’s healthcare AI made up a body part — what happens when doctors don’t notice? The basilar ganglia does not exist.

www.theverge.com/health/71804...

"Buria, using Hegseth’s personal phone, shared sensitive information about the operation on the chat and another with Jennifer Hegseth and Parlatore, The Wall Street Journal previously reported."
This guy was allowed to retire as an O6 with only 1 year time in grade? JFC!

John Singer Sargent, Boboli

CAVALLO: “.. Tariffs are already driving up prices — especially for furniture and household goods.”

www.pricinglab.org/files/Tracki...

BLS: so I know we said no farm payrolls were actually 159,700,000 but they were actually 159,600,000 :(

Republicans: you have committed treason

Articles keep ignoring this point - yes, gerrymandering happens. Yes, mid-cycle gerrymandering has happened.

This is different. Rs drew the maps. They want to draw them again. This sets a precedent for those in power to consistently redraw lines to maximize power. Politicians picking voters.

And yeah, I think that the DOGE folks at agencies kind of had unilateral decision making authority in a way that's kind of scary because they both had the we should come into government and do common sense things mindset without realizing that the most common sense things are actually the hardest to accomplish for very specific reasons.

Coding interviews from people who left government earlier this year, and this is a fantastic quote in response to a question about what DOGE tech folk don't understand.

How Weather Shaped the Vikings' World - Medievalists.net In a world where weather dictated nearly every aspect of life, how did the Northmen's culture evolve in response to their harsh climate?

How Weather Shaped the Vikings’ World www.medievalists.net/2024/08/weat... #Vikings

right. i mean, basically, that's what we're going to have to do.

YouTube video by Kyiv Independent Inside the Battle of Kostiantynivka under drone-infested sky

Another example, one of the drone pilots interviewed in this video stated they had to use 5 drones, FIVE, to take out one guy hiding in some bushes…

99% of the time, anyone telling you that drones will replace traditional ground and air fires has a directly fiduciary interest in that outcome and there ain’t more to it than that

NATO Should Not Replace Traditional Firepower with ‘Drones’ Over-reliance on uncrewed aerial systems or ‘drones’ is leading to significant problems for the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and is not something Western militaries should attempt to replicate

Just published via RUSI... I suspect this one may generate some strong opinions but I think it's an important set of factors for military planners especially in the Land domain to engage with:

NATO Should Not Replace Traditional Firepower with ‘Drones’

www.rusi.org/explore-our-...

I've mentioned this before but commanders in ukraine will tell you they want more 155 and tubes if given the choice between that and more drones

drones of many types clearly are useful on the battlefield but as a complement to heavy metal, not a replacement for it

Meanwhile, your extremely successful expansionist polities - Persians, Macedonians, Romans, Mongols etc. - became successful because they incorporate outsiders.

The biggest winners (Rome, Mongols) do so the most intensely.

Diversity *is* strength, it turns out.

They want an America that is less connected, less culturally rich, even less economically rich.

They also specifically hate college towns as blue islands in red states.

Trump firing of BLS head imperils trust in economic data Economists of all stripes fear a chilling impact.

Trump's firing of the BLS head "presents risks to the conduct of monetary policy, to financial stability, and to the economic outlook," wrote JPMorgan's chief U.S. economist.

Applebaum on Autocracy Anne Applebaum warns that Sudan’s descent into chaos shows what happens when institutions fail—and why a free press is essential to prevent America from following the same path.

Anne Applebaum: "If American media can’t convey how dangerous this behavior is—for our prosperity, for our health, for our democracy—then American media will eventually cease to exist."

More from our convo in @status.news: www.status.news/p/anne-apple...

Sunflowers (2023)
by Ara Ghevondyan

Sand Dunes, Ambleteuse by Charles Conder, 1901

British, 1868-1909

Oil on canvas

A Fight Over a West Point Job Reveals Two Visions of America Under Trump

On the one hand, a patriot with decades of experience defending America. On the other hand, a conspiracy theorist who hates Americans and American institutions. Presented here as "two visions of America under Trump"

www.nytimes.com/2025/08/03/u...

Rakesh Raj

From a director at the … American Enterprise Institute

Imagine a group of 5-year-olds playing a board game. The rules are clear, the goal is fair, and one child edges ahead — until, suddenly, another child starts losing. That’s when the trouble begins. “He cheated!” the losing child yells. “I’m the winner anyway!” he declares. And then, like clockwork, he flips the board. In the world of kindergarten conflict resolution, we expect this kind of behavior. We chalk it up to development. We teach better sportsmanship. What do we do when the president of the United States behaves this way? On Friday, President Trump fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics — the nation’s workaday scorekeeper of employment, wages and productivity. Why? Because the data didn’t make Mr. Trump look good. The statistics were inconvenient. So the president didn’t just challenge the findings; he fired the statistician. That’s not governing. That’s board flipping.

Janet Yellen's husband & Econ Nobel Laureate George Akerlof:

"...when presidents flip the board, it’s not just a game that ends. It’s the pieces of democracy that get scattered to the floor."
www.nytimes.com/2025/08/03/o...

A painting from 2020.

Home Again.
Ltd edition print.
30x40cm.

'Singer Building at Night.' (c1910) Charles Vezin worked at a dry-goods firm for the first part of his career then began painting, dedicating himself to art for the remainder of his life. He's known for his Impressionistic scenes of the New York skyline, such as this work.

Trump Fired America’s Economic Data Collector. History Shows the Perils.

President Trump didn't like the jobs numbers, so he fired the person responsible for producing them.
It's a move that has been tried before, by leaders of countries from Argentina to Greece to the Soviet Union. It rarely ends well.
www.nytimes.com/2025/08/03/b... #EconSky