Favorite Rejects 2022-01-13

Noah Smith 🐇 @Noahpinion

My new position is that the U.S. should simply give away all its obsolete-on-arrival boondoggle weapons platforms to a random country, e.g. Botswana, and focus on making cheap things that actually work

David B. Larter @DavidLarter

Wow. Wanted: New missions for the littoral combat ship https://t.co/2jBQJw3IgO https://t.co/ZWMHxmNWu6

Noah Smith 🐇 @Noahpinion

More of our military budget should go toward making explicitly gay Chinese-language video games which we then beam into China via Starlink, in order to make Xi so mad his head explodes

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

Two things can be (and indeed are) true: (1) Manchin's stance on the work requirements is bad (2) If the pivotal senator represents West Virginia and will vote for strong climate provisions, you just give him whatever he wants on the rest

George Callas @George_A_Callas

This article reports Dem befuddlement that Manchin still won’t agree to give up one of his demands (work requirement) in return for… wait for it… Manchin agreeing to go the *opposite direction* from his other demand (permanence). The befuddlement is befuddling. https://t.co/6YffCiZUAv

Colin McMillen @mcmillen

my immediate thought (open a teahouse) isn't feasible due to the pandemic, so i'm going with "put me in charge of the CDC, you fucks"

meghan b. kelly @meghanbkelly

if you were to switch careers, and money was no object, what would you do? I would open a bookstore/cafe.

Benjy Sarlin @BenjySarlin

That we don't all have a perfect agreed-upon term for "President tries to overthrow democracy via procedural loopholes while also fomenting a riot to overtake the Capitol during the official count" kind of speaks to how insane the situation is rather than the level of severity

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

You love to see it https://t.co/9SvjiSxGIQ

San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria @MayorToddGloria

I’m also excited to announce tonight that the City of San Diego will officially opt-in to Senate Bill 10, which will make it far easier to build apartments close to mass transit. #SDSOTC22

Swear Trek @swear_trek

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

So if you're a Democratic Party senator who thinks the way the country should be governed is with a lot of executive branch unilateralism tempered by whatever Brett Kavanaugh's interns come up with, then making it hard to pass laws is smart. But if not, then not.

Noah Smith 🐇 @Noahpinion

More and more folks are realizing that owner-occupied housing is capital!

Darrell Owens @IDoTheThinking

Why is a homeowner who sells their home for profit any less bad than a landlord? Both realized profit by doing nothing other than providing a home that people needed. The only difference is the higher rate of liquid transactions for landlords.

Noah Smith 🐇 @Noahpinion

Unbelievable

Timothy B. Lee @binarybits

It’s amazing how much work you can get done when you aren’t supervising children at the same time.

Noah Smith 🐇 @Noahpinion

After years of wondering what caused the crime wave of 1966-1993 and the crime decline of 1994-2014, I'm now leaning toward a "general social unrest" theory of crime.

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

We are living through an extremely broad-based uptick in anti-social behavior, of which the increase in shootings is just the most extreme manifestation. https://t.co/zzjPE4TueI

Noah Smith 🐇 @Noahpinion

The lead-crime hypothesis is fun, but a meta-analysis shows that it only explains 0 to 36% of the changes...