Favorites February 16th 2022

Noah Smith 🌐+🧦=🐇 @Noahpinion

The fundamental problem for Putin in Ukraine is that his goals (make Ukrainians want to be Russians) are completely incompatible with his means (military force).

To be clear, Smith is specifically talking about what Putin has been saying in speaches, he wants Ukrainians to consider themselves Russian. That's very hard to do with tanks.

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

This is a really fantastic piece making a really simple point: — The greatest vulnerability is among the elderly. — The best intervention is vaccines. — But we still haven't really seen a focused, determined effort to vax and boost old people.

theatlantic.comThe COVID Strategy America Hasn’t Really TriedThe clearest way to reduce deaths is to push to vaccinate more of the elderly—yes, still!

The even point to some ways to do it, mostly around using Medicare. They also point to ways that we encourage pneumococcal vaccination that could be effective for covid boosters.

Noah Smith 🌐+🧦=🐇 @Noahpinion

Part of fixing our police is just to shift funding from beat cops to detectives. We need to solve crimes in order to give citizens the feeling that they're being protected by the state -- which takes away their urge to protect themselves with violence.

Ames Grawert ☃️ @AmesCG

Stunning stat from the latest issue of @TheEconomist: Chicago police clear (roughly, "solve") around 45% of murders. By comparison, London police solve around 98% of murders.

So, one of the things I think I've learned over the last few years is that it's important to compare our institutions to those of other countries. It's not always possible to replicate others successes, but it can sometimes at least point in the right direction. Anyway, holy crap, 98% clearance rate!

Chris Hayes @chrislhayes

So are Democrats really going to just let a $500 billion climate package that the entire Senate caucus has agreed to and the House has passed...die on the vine? I'm going to lose my mind.

As always, it's because of Manchin.

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

Immigration is popular among immigrants (who are mostly non-citizens who can't vote) and among highly educated people (who are mostly not Hispanic), so it's not actually a great means to appeal to the population of Latin voters.

(((David Shor))) @davidshor

@Wasps_n_Moths @SecPerkinsStan @MercurySchroepp @_sarah_rose_22 @JonTesterFan2 The big disconnect I've seen between Democratic political professionals, Hispanic or not, and the data is that Dem political professionals generally think that immigration messaging is the most effective way to appeal to Hispanic voters while RCTs generally show that is not true.

Immigration is good, but it's so hard to sell to voters.

Ars Technica @arstechnica

Latest success from Google’s AI group: Controlling a fusion reactor arstechnica.com/science/2022/0… by @j_timmer

arstechnica.comLatest success from Google’s AI group: Controlling a fusion reactorThe AI was trained on a simulator to shape the plasma held within a tokamak.

Look, nuclear fusion is now too late to really help with global warming, but in the longer term it's exciting to see progress on this. It's also cool to see advances in AI helping with concrete energy needs.

Barcelona, 2016

If you can spot why I have always been unhappy with this photo, let me know. I’m curious if others notice what I do.