there would be a lot less rationing relative to medical need if what was rationed was inexpensive and abundant.

which is why, while rationing in some form of course is everywhere, it is much less contentious, less big a deal, everywhere else.

really a fascinating meditation on the freedoms and burdens fragmented political spheres vs centralist attempts to order and rationalize them and then decentralist romanticizations in reaction. balance it strikes me is the thing, but balance so often is just a nice name for conflict. https://lateralthinkingtechnology.wordpress.com/2024/06/19/the-cult-of-the-patchwork-chinese-modernity-1978-2012-and-the-holy-roman-empire/ ht @guan

if we were better at housing, they would welcome us as liberators.

one way to describe donald trump is he likes to be a dick to friends and a friend to dicks.

the career paths now are health insurance ceo, only fans, and uber driver.

"voters" are not a coherent agent, have radically diverse interests, no means of being held accountable in common. constituted as "voters" we are a phenomenon, not an agent, no more constructive to blame than a lightning strike. if our behavior should change, then our institutions must.

if luigi had been convicted some time ago and was on federal death row, would biden have commuted his sentence today?

tired: peace through strength

wired: peace through conquest

are there no rare earths in Antarctica?

“I cannot escape the sense that those pundits who really believed that Donald Trump was going to embrace restraint in foreign policy have been played for fools.” @dandrezner https://danieldrezner.substack.com/p/donald-trump-american-imperialist

a panama thing, let alone some greenland / canada / mexico thing, would instantly justify in retrospect russia’s ukraine thing and in prospect china’s taiwan thing. kind of what a russian-asset american president might attempt.

“We become one of the most dangerous kinds of people — a cruel person with a clean conscience.” @davidfrenchjag https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/22/opinion/christmas-jesus-power-humility.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

it's not that remunerative jobs are boring. it's that they are mostly unethical.

i have lefty friends who voted for Trump entirely on the theory that he'd challenge the "blob" and US security state, be a force for international peace. maybe so! maybe he's just speaking loudly and carrying a tiny stick. but the case is looking weaker than it did (and it never looked so strong).

remarkable deference. https://x.com/mattyglesias/status/1870897966552322506

maybe it's just his way of retaliating against Jimmy Carter for voting Kamala.

call me old-fashioned, but i still think the norm against territorial expansion by military force is worth adhering to and enforcing.

a lot of crowing about the US’ “amazing” economy leaving Europe in the dust, but one doesn’t see a lot of mass protest by states looking to draw closer to America, while what’s going on in Georgia and Serbia is remarkable.

so, are centrist Democrats for or against at this point some combination of wealth tax / progressive income tax that would render accumulations of wealth at Musk, Bezos, or even Gates levels unachievable and unsustainable?