Favorites: Broken Promises and 'Brief' Cancellations
March 2nd 2025: Ukraine shortchanged, House budget hits $19T in added debt, Musk desperate to rehire ATC staff, and GPT4.5 underwhelms
Here's a similar sentiment from Kasparov (cached). In WWII, the US effectively asked for various kinds of payment in return for help. In this case we’re asking them to hand over resources for nothing. But also, the US and Russia have made previous promises to Ukraine that we’re effectively breaking.
Seems like Rubio is aware how bad this is. He's given speeches about it even!
Unions are trying to stop self driving trucks by getting the government to require they put little triangular flags on the roadway if they break down rather than using bright flashers. If the US wants to actually reduce road accidents and lower the cost of transporting goods, hopefully the Department of Transportation will reverse these rules.
Believe it or not, RFK claimed he was 'not anti-vaccine' (cached) at his confirmation hearing.
The thread is great, but this picture really caught my eye.
Flotsam and Jetsam
– South Korean government seems to have hit upon effective strategies to encourage people to get married and have kids. Fertility rates went up there for the first time in almost a decade. (src)(cached)
– FDA meeting for this year’s flu shots is cancelled. Seems bad. Seems like that'll delay manufacturing (cached). (src)
– Apparently The Pitt was too similar to ER, and Michael Crichton estate is suing Warner Bros over it. Also I didn't know that Michael Crichton created ER. Also Katie Notopoulos argues there's a "created from the DNA and bones of the original" joke in there somewhere. (src)
– House Republicans just passed a budget that’ll increase the deficit by $19 trillion over the next decade. (src)(cached)
– Elon is putting the word out that they want to hire more air traffic controllers, after accidentally firing a bunch of them. Josh Barro comments (cached) that Musk's business experience is all with glamorous companies that have relatively few employees, making it easy to hire. The same techniques just don't work in the federal government. (src)(cached)
– Alex Tabarrok points out that while Trump has been targeting university funding to 'fight wokeness', the science programs are the least woke part of universities, making his plan even less effective. (src)(cached)
– Do you want to read about the status of the further Epstein file releases? No, you don’t. But if you must, here’s a thread. (src)(cached)
– Intro for The West Wing, except with Succession music. Pretty well done, but what a small niche. (src)(cached)
– Musk floated a DOGE dividend, distribute money saved to all Americans. But they're also planning to get rid of the penny, so how will they even pay this out, jokes Adam Ozimek (src)(cached)
– Dan Schwarz argues that OpenAI has clearly lost its mojo now that we see that GPT4.5 isn’t much of an improvement (src)(cached)
– Hawaiian rum company arguing that the Jones Act is unconstitutional. I hope they win! (src)(cached)
– Musk said DOGE accidentally canceled Ebola treatment contracts "very briefly". But no, they're just fully cancelled still as far as anyone can tell. (src)(cached)
– National Weather Service will be launching fewer weather balloons going forward due to staff cuts, this will impact weather forecast accuracy. (src)(cached)
– When people come forward and admit they made a mistake by voting for Trump, it's probably a bad idea to mock them. If you want to win elections you need to accept people into the fold who are switching sides. Many people are saying this (cached). (src)(cached)
– Study seems to indicate a connection between SSRIs and cognitive decline, but there are a some obvious confounders, I wouldn’t take just one study too seriously. (src)(cached)
– Pro housing / YIMBY article in the Atlantic from Grimes? Interesting. I trust the co-authors, who are both YIMBY policy wonks. (src)(cached)