Favorites August 19th 2021

Justin Logan @JustinTLogan

"Israeli officials hope the Afghanistan crisis will make the Biden administration rethink potentially pulling US forces out of Iraq and Syria: 'The US wants to disengage from the Middle East but finds out the ME is running after it.'" Then RUN FASTER.

axios.comAxios from Tel Aviv

Nonproliferation is really the only reason we should be engaging militarily in the Middle East.

Wally Nowinski @Nowooski

I know we are all committed to believing that the airport was overrun by the taliban and Americans are being left behind, but in reality it seems like the evacuation from Kabul is going fine.

Axios @axios

About 6,000 people have arrived and been processed at the Kabul airport and will soon be evacuated by the U.S., according to the State Department. Pentagon officials announced that 7,000 people have already been evacuated — 2,000 in the past 24 hours. https://t.co/XZe5tYcYxB

At this point the only limit is how many Visas we're willing to issue. (For comparison: Vietnam: 125k refugees).

Will Jordan @williamjordann

A politician answered a yes or no question with a "no" followed by a frank explanation, and the news org removed the "no"

ABC News @ABC

EXCLUSIVE: @GStephanopoulos: “Do you believe the Taliban have changed?” Pres. Biden: “I think they’re going through sort of an existential crisis about do they want to be recognized by the int’l community as being a legitimate government.” https://t.co/zgMVDKleiv https://t.co/Bgxenaydap

I really don't understand why the media is so ridiculously pro-war. And is far from the only example.

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

Like importing English cooking or French Mechanics.

Jordan Weissmann 🗽 @JHWeissmann

Joe Biden is spitting truth right into the face of America's foreign policy blob, and I can't quite get over it. abcnews.go.com/Politics/full-…

There's really a lot of interesting quotes from that Stephanopoulos interview.

Noah Smith 🐇 @Noahpinion

One reason I hate taking the bus is that bus stops are just awful. Good to see pro-transit people finally recognizing this.

Bloomberg CityLab @CityLab

Bus stops with poor information displays, no seating, lack of shade and other less-than-welcoming aspects aren't superficial considerations. Waiting in an unpleasant and even hostile environments can deter transit ridership https://t.co/QSktyyk8HF

None of our buses run often enough, scrap half the lines and run the remaining ones twice as often and we'd get far more usage.

SFBART @SFBART

Don’t be traffic. Take BART.

I never found the measurement of the Bay Bridge's capacity back when it had rail, but this BART stat is plenty eye-opening.

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

Indeed when people say Spanish HSR spending was wasteful what they mean is that they got so good at building HSR lines that they started doing low-ridership routes to small cities.

sam deutsch @samdman95

@mattyglesias your daily reminder that Spain built an entire 2,000 mile high speed rail network for $70B, while Amtrak pretends they can’t do anything with $66B

Amtrak leadership should probably be replaced.

Eric Topol @EricTopol

Take notice of an effective defense against Delta. One of the highest per cent fully vaccinated cities in the US— 70% of the population (higher than Israel, UK, Canada) —achieves a turnaround 👏👏

Bob Wachter @Bob_Wachter

San Francisco has clearly turned the corner (not that it can't un-turn if we get careless). Cases/d in city now 192, down from peak of 289 last month (Fig L). Hospitalizations stable (# lags). @UCSFHospitals, asymptomatic test + rate, which peaked at 3%, now 1.3% (R). Keep it up! https://t.co/ACuaQKIjMQ

Good to see things improving, but it could turn around suddenly. the UK has plateaud at a relatively high case rate.

April 2019, San Francisco