Favorite Rejects 2021-08-16

Kate Carruthers 😷🧤🦠💉 @kcarruthers

Jesus H. Christ. ⁦@johnrobb⁩

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

Rather than understand Afghanistan on its own terms everyone wants to use it as a proxy in domestic culture wars — which of course proves me right about domestic culture wars.

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

So do Afghanistan-knowers think the Taliban will be able to impose a stable centralized regime or will the underlying linguistic diversity, rough terrain, etc also bedevil them? Do they have some kind of solution to the usually cited difficulties of governing Afghanistan?

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

These “pentagon papers” stories have never gotten the attention they deserved imo

Craig Whitlock @CraigMWhitlock

The Pentagon promised 10 years ago it had straightened out the Afghan security forces. “They only continue to get better with time,” General Caldwell said. It was all nonsense. The latest from the Afghanistan Papers: https://t.co/abZwgrBVCV

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

Sixteen months of environmental review for congestion pricing. Sit with that for a while.

Market Urbanism @MarketUrbanism

Huge delays for NYC congestion pricing: Kathy Hochul is wavering (“the pace and timing is something she will need to evaluate further”), and the MTA is about to announce that environmental review will take 16 months. Sam Schwartz thinks Albany is stalling https://t.co/pQQEzHKLwF

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

Carbon capture opponents are clearly wrong, but also the list of groups here opposing CCS is actually pretty puny and I think we should maybe just ignore them. This isn't like nuclear where major organizations are on the wrong side.

huffpost.comActivists Call It A ‘False Solution.’ But UN Scientists Say We Need To Suck Up CO2.The latest global climate report makes clear we need to suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, and “planting trees” won’t be enough.

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

Like I fired up this letter eager to dunk on Sunrise (because I love dunking on Sunrise) but the national organization didn't sign it, just three random local chapters. I don't think Sunrise Knoxville has a ton of clout.

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

"Leaving Afghanistan sends a bad message to allies" is in particular a terrible take. The Trump/Biden policy in fact sends the excellent message that the United States will do a lot more than nothing for its allies (20 years!) but a lot less than infinity.

Josh Barro @jbarro

A lot of these theoretically-straight-news articles openly take the view we ought to have continued the occupation of Afghanistan. https://t.co/4uQUXYjDca

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

I think GW Bush’s fault

Noah Smith 🐇 @Noahpinion

If you never spend a day walking around feeling sad because you realized too late that you wish last night had meant something more, how will you ever know you made the right choice once you decide to settle down?

💘Sophia💘 @Richard_Vixen

I think casual sex is decidedly very bad but its a major conservative cope to pretend like people who engage in it are doomed to never find meaningful love. People who make bad choices find happiness all the time and this case is no different.

David Whitley @mrdavidwhitley

UK Prime Minister @10DowningStreet

Today at 11am the Prime Minister observed a minute's silence for the victims of the mass shooting in Plymouth last Thursday. https://t.co/ET5Vu926Y0

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

Well step two is to cut Medicaid and then maybe Social Security & Medicare but they (wisely!) do not like to talk about that.

Noah Smith 🐇 @Noahpinion

Conservatives really need some economic ideas besides "cut off immigration and maybe wages will go up, hurr hurr".

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

The way I would qualify this is that abstract humanitarianism is in fact laudable, but prolonged military engagements abroad are a terrible way to pursue abstract humanitarianism. Use the military for its purpose.

Josh Barro @jbarro

Joe Biden gets what Trump claimed to get -- American foreign policy should be foremost about American strategic interests, not abstract ideals or nation building or human rights abroad.

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

On any given day there are any number of people saying ignorant things on every subject under the sun on https://t.co/3K8qPkQWjV but on this particular topic we have lots of well-informed people deliberately obscuring context they know all about.