Favorite Rejects 2022-02-20

Darrell CHA-ching Owens @IDoTheThinking

Damn is Berkeley better than ever or what? Never thought my whole life our electeds would call this out this strongly and accurately.

East Bay YIMBY @yimbyeastbay

"Denying education to thousands of young people to satisfy a malthusian, suburbanite fantasy is nothing short of inimical to Civil Rights and runs afoul of the progressive values so readily espoused by the Council and City of Berkeley." - @TaplinTerry #berkmtg

Timothy B. Lee @binarybits

I think the fundamental problem here is the founders' whole concept of having Congress and the president be separate, co-equal branches of government. This only works if members of Congress feel more loyalty to Congress than their party. They no longer do.

Timothy B. Lee @binarybits

What we need is an executive that's subservient to the legislature. E.g. a parliamentary system. Any reform short of that is going to fail. Obviously we are not going to re-write the Constitution any time soon, but it's still important to understand what the problem is.

CZEdwards @CZEdwards

Masking may have put one of the 4 major flu lines into EXTINCTION. That’s how effective masking is. B/Yamagata has not been detected in circulation since May-June of 2020. Almost 2 years now. nature.com/articles/s4157… https://t.co/jelO2OPJCs

Alyssa Long 🥄 ♿️🥄 @MeasuredAndSlow

I will forever be salty that masking dramatically reduced flu season for two years running and the message is still somehow that saving people from deadly/disabling disease just isn’t worth not seeing people’s mouths.

Tim Urban @waitbutwhy

Hidreley Diao uses AI to capture what historical figures would look like if they were modern people. George Washington:

Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani

The problem was solved in 1932 with the construction of the Dnieper Hydroelectric Dam. Who stands in front of it? Its Chief Engineer Hugh Lincoln Cooper, a Colonel of the US Army Corps of Engineers. Stalin's industrialisation would be impossible without massive American support

Timothy B. Lee @binarybits

This is exactly right. Even if someone created an unhackable online voting system (which probably isn’t possible) it would be impossible to convince the public that the system was unhackable.

💸💸💸🇺🇸🌐 @rnoyfb

@binarybits An election where most people can’t understand the means of by which they indicate their vote, deposit it, and by which it will be counted is not transparent. The social implications, especially where distrust of institutions is high, are even worse than the technical reasons

David Sanger @SangerNYT

JUST POSTED: The intelligence is clear, Putin intends to invade. The debate has now shifted to how: in one massive attack; a series of bites that dismantle the country piece by piece; or a cobra-like squeeze. It makes a difference in how world reacts.

nytimes.comBlitzkrieg or Minor Incursion? Putin’s Choice Could Determine World Reaction.President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia may be looking for fissures in the Western alliance, which so far has been united against him.

Noah Smith 🌐+🧦=🐇 @Noahpinion

This sounds like hyperbole, doesn't it? Except it's very hard to disagree.

2% Milk is a fair compromise @2percentisfair

@Noahpinion The 2009 stimulus had 9 billion for high speed rail…..nothing has been built yet. High speed rail costs infinity dollars in the US.

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

We could all be living like this if the Nuclear Regulatory Commission applied a normal cost-benefit analysis to nuclear safety.

financial wizard in training ✝️🇺🇸 @wiz_train

The Simpsons own this home on a single salary from a husband who didn't go to college This was considered normal in the 90s when the show began https://t.co/s6mD94vFAA

Kai Ryssdal @kairyssdal

theatlantic.comThe Reason Putin Would Risk WarHe is threatening to invade Ukraine because he wants democracy to fail—and not just in that country.