Favorites November 1st 2021

Haley Byrd Wilt @byrdinator

we had to do a costume that complemented his thigh rolls

Absolutely genius costume

Ryan Grim @ryangrim

The lawyer defending Texas’ abortion law just admitted under probing from (I think?) Breyer that a blue state could pass a bounty law getting around the second amendment with a $1 million bounty for anybody who sells an AR15

This was my first thought when they did this, it's such a dumb law. Also, apparently it's quite hard to tell the justices apart from audio: "like listening to a wiretap of a golf course bar in Georgetown"

Noah Smith 🐇 @Noahpinion

Hints at deeper economic problems in China than we're hearing of.

Bloomberg Economics @economics

China tells diners not to order more than they need and encourages consumers to report restaurants for wasting food, in its latest campaign to rein in excesses across all aspects of society https://t.co/apLdimDEJI

They're having problem with vegetable hoarding? What?

Noah Smith 🐇 @Noahpinion

The problem with great-power tensions is, war is the bad outcome, but you have to decide whether its best prevented with deterrence or appeasement. If you make the wrong choice, you end up with war.

Hal Brands @HalBrands

A US-China cold war is already underway. The question is whether America can deter a hot one. In @TheAtlantic Mike Beckley and I examine what China's history suggests about how and where a Sino-American war might begin. https://t.co/Knd7jBPKws

Noah Smith 🐇 @Noahpinion

The lesson of Cold War 1 was "deterrence works", while the lesson of WW2 was "appeasement fails". But are those lessons generalizable? How much is modern China like the USSR or Nazi Germany? The fate of the world could hang on us getting those answers right.

The good news is that in the Pre-WWI period, a detailed reading of the major players is that they had pretty foolish ideas about war. We may not have had any big ones recently, but I'm pretty sure we're still less confused about the outcome than they were.

Noah Smith 🐇 @Noahpinion

FYI, we joke about "defunding the police" with vaccine mandates, but the truth is that almost all of the threats to quit are empty threats.

Tristan Snell @TristanSnell

BREAKING - After threats that 10,000 NYPD officers could quit the force over the NYC vaccine mandate, the actual number going on unpaid leave today was 34.

At least it's proof that instituting a mandate won't lose you that many employees.

Antalya, Turkey, 2019