Third Thoughts 🏳️‍🌈

This is what a real leader looks like. You can tell even if you don't speak the language - look at how respectfully he stands, his thoughtful and honest expression, and the genuine the pleasure of the personnel.

Accurate take. Internationally-minded under-50s (even younger for most turbo-online ones) in the EU typically take their cues from the left fringe on US politics. It confirms their priors since at least W, and comforts them because "at least we aren't the Americans."

I mean, it seems like federal elected Ds are, in fact, acting like it?

I genuinely think a lot of this criticism is coming from priors that haven't been updated since May.

I call this The Trump Parodox.

Trump announces something dumb, Wall Street reacts, and then Trump chickens out. eventually TACO gets priced in and Wall Street ignores Trump, which Trump interprets as tacit approval.

the more TACO gets priced in, the less likely Trump is to actually chicken out

I did the same thing at first. But this was teacher's union shit where the concern should be accuracy in education and contracts, not I-P politics

Yeah. The really bad apples inside the leftist groups are spreading their shit around badly and taking up all the oxygen... and all the normal people are too paralyzed to take a firm moderation stand.

Speaking for the convocation of queer Forester owners... no, no it is not

It has gotten so bad that I heard a couple people - at my reform shul with a queer rabbi - say that as Jews they feel less worried about violence around conservatives than people in liberal/left strongholds.

Perception or reality - there is a deep sense of othering and alienation

Apparently at the most recent NEA meeting, there was a raft of diversity ed initiatives. They all passed overall, but a large majority of MA reps voted against the Jewish one and only the Jewish one. Similar issues for NJ, CA, etc.

Frankly, compared to what I heard today, that's pretty mild. Red triangle groups have often co-opted the phrase, so its a common misunderstanding, and depends on context.

I saw an Israeli flag with the star of David replaced by $$ signs shared by MTA admins, Jews being stomped on by boots, etc.

I don't know exactly what to do about this - but it starts with creating spaces for real knowledge sharing and *respectful* discussion. It doesn't involve dancing, screaming, or sloganeering.

6. By the same token, the lack of knowledge to have an informed opinion, and the extremist silencing pressure on both sides, leads to a knee-jerk "circle the wagons campism" in both Jewish and Palestinian spaces.

5. Jewish students and teachers have often self-silenced at school, while Palestinian students have found their voices. Sometimes, but not always, this has been due to outside agitation.

3. Memory of antisemitism and the holocaust has slowly eroded over time, and educational initiatives on diversifying genocide instruction have often watered down curriculums.

4. Neither teachers, nor students, have the knowledge base to properly assess colonialism, human rights, or antisemitism

2. The actual Jewish community is deeply conflicted - there is widespread disapproval of Israel's government and Greenblatt/ADL stuff but fear to speak up and use words like genocide or ethnic cleansing for fear of social repercussions at shul (and professional repercussions for rabbis) 2/?

Just had an educator meeting at my shul on sharing experiences about antisemitism and I-P issues. Takeaways for me:

1. Teacher unions in cities with large leftist movements are infected by militant DSA-adjacent rhetoric. Antisemitic memes shared by the MTA, omitting Jews from DEI motions, etc. 1/?

Same. I honestly considered them for presentstion backgrounds and such, but if it isn't workable vectors for Illustrator, there isn't really a point to it.

Image AI has just become a filter box to uncheck for me now.

Im assuming they exist, but since the free or Adobe promoted stuff I've seen isn't... are there good AI image gen models that spit out vector products, rather than raster?

Worrying 🧵 - the informality of how the administration operates leads to weaponizing the DoJ and DHS/ICE bureaucracy to obfuscate what is going on to the courts. Court oversight often relies on traceable paper trails. This is another tactic to gut it.

For those wondering about the data center construction - it entirely offsets the decline in office construction since COVID.

Thanks Joey, this is exactly what I was looking for

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Hey Do Something Folks, Dems are Doing The Thing You Wanted.

"But can an LLM replace Jeffrey Sachs?"

Gee, ya think this has something to do with Trump going full Russia on the BLS?

Trump take jobs

Have you seen good data on homebuilding costs disaggregated from the broader indices? Because without that... well, sure they are specialized but the broader construction costs havent returned to pre-covid trend. On your "non-fungilble labor" thesis they should have.

Again, you'd think this would push costs down, but nope. The data center boom continues to take all the oxygen away from commercial and residential construction

A graph showing US federal employment falling 84k since January 2025

Official federal employment has dropped 84k, or about 2.8%, since January amidst DOGE cuts

Keep in mind that workers on severance/paid leave are still counted as employed here, so this heavily undercounts the number of jobs lost

Any idea how much of the below is due to the data center boom?