Daniel Farina

It is occasionally uncomplicated.

I don’t mean to belabor the obvious, but the Trump administration launched a surprise attack today on a nation with which it was in the midst of negotiations it had requested.

At an earlier time, Americans took great and enduring offense at such apparent treachery. It’s a different country now.

Good Point Economist Stephen

Before I left the country in June 2004, I asked dozens of Iraqis what the United States had done well and what it had done wrong. Almost all of them told me that looting and lawlessness had set the tone for a transitional period in which no entity was deemed authoritative. A few weeks after Saddam's removal, I clutched my seat while riding with an Iraqi colleague who sped over a highway divide and through an intersection, oblivious to a dangling traffic light. "When did Iraqis stop obeying traffic lights?" I asked. "The day Saddam fled, |" he replied, matter-of-factly.

How Venezuela Becomes a Quagmire Washington Is Repeating Mistakes It Made in Iraq

Whenever regime change comes up lately, I think about this article, which contains reflections on Iraq. People under the boot understandably are desperate to get out, but simultaneously have higher expectations than the United States can deliver. reader.foreignaffairs.com/2026/01/16/h...

There probably exists at least some TikTok content that caters to people very incurious about the practical structure of society. Perhaps even more than one or two videos.

I’m a bit puzzled by how people are not puzzled by the tax situation. Do people not wonder: “huh, okay, but I see some public goods in the video, how does that happen?”

secretaryrofdefenserock.substack.com/subscribe?si...

Unmasking Academe’s Gilded Boys’ Club The Epstein files reveal an elite, chummy, and venal scholarly network.

"The distribution of power and privilege was not random, so the notion of the meritocracy is completely revealed to be gendered bullshit." www.chronicle.com/article/unma...

If only they were so bold with the erratic, drug using CEO of a major defense contractor.

But like, from a sum of at least three terms, correct?

The Washington Post's description of the bodycam video of his arrest last year, and the translation of Mr. Shah Alam's comments, is gutting. Remember, he was entirely blind in one eye and could only see three feet in the other, and he spoke virtually no English.

He spent a year in jail for this.

Well at least unlike many people they seem to spot the contradiction between “affordable” and “retain high value/appreciation.” Can’t say that about everyone.

Breaking: IPost has obtained CCTV footage showing a Border Patrol van dropping off Nurul Shah Alam at a closed Tim Hortons last Thursday.

Shah Alam, nearly-blind & unable to enter the shop, then wandered the city for days. He was found dead Tuesday.

www.investigativepost.org/2026/02/26/t...

A data series showing San Francisco voter participation in presidential general elections. It tends to hover at about 80% going back to 1912. A smooth increase in mail ballots can be seen, starting in 1964.

I always thought SF elections was very accommodating, turnout bounces around 80%. But this goes back a really long time, I can only vouch for the last fifteen years or so… not sure why. A city where you can walk to vote?

Glancing at the data, I think you can see some ease of voting in the data for “safe” states: Oregon and Washington 70%, California 63%. CA is a late to the mailed ballot streamlining game compared to those two.

Overnight this aircraft completed its deportation trip to India. The migrant passengers were likely shackled for at least 59 hours.

Oh hello Californian median voter

A review and reconsideration of US foreign aid efforts could have been conducted without burning tons of food and throwing out tons of medicine, directly resulting in people's deaths. But that's how Musk and Rubio chose to go about it.

A really important look at a woefully undercovered issue. However, I take qualms with some of the proposed solutions. Specifically regarding FAIR plans.

The report notes that it is not sustainable to just have FAIR plans house uninsurable properties but does little to actually address the liability

“Always has been”

Painful to read this and think about the 2021 coup attempt, which was as blatant as it gets. An utter failure of US elites to seize the moment when everybody saw the threat right in front of their eyes.

If we have history books in the future, they will be unkind.

Spend 9 years building an engineering company: feh. Memes? Now there’s the memes of production.

Tesla stock chart, showing “normal” company behavior until right after 2020.

I think it’s more becoming a meme right? The guy definitely knows where his bread is buttered. The “is a car company dependent on credits” is somewhere on that left side, the flat region.

Would anybody like to read one of my long threads about a 2.5bn year old rock, bacteria that could produce oxygen but not consume it, and tank production in wwii

Well. In such a situation I’m just glad nobody is speeding.

I’ve done that in San Francisco. It only happens when there’s nobody there, thankfully, such is the only time it’s ambiguous.

It’s a shade lower spec than optimal for us but fits their market segment, mostly in the network. Still quite good.

Hetzner is well run. We use them at Ubicloud extensively to add cloud features like overlay network and block device encryption. The R&D comes at a price, of course. We should have some interesting stuff to make the platform much more usable in the coming year based on github.com/ubicloud/ubi...

The hidden ICE blueprint that should horrify every American | Will Bunch An internal Department of Homeland Security document shows how ICE plans to cram thousands of detained human beings inside a Georgia warehouse.

What's more shocking than ICE's plan to cram as many 8,500 humans into massive, soul-crushing warehouses?

Seeing the actual DHS floor plan that echoes slavery ships and history's worst gulags with no rec space but a gun range for guards

My new column on the camps www.inquirer.com/opinion/ice-...