SOCIAL MEDIA: Taking Twitter's Temperature: 2021-01-31 Su
Things I saw on Twitter that I want to remember... Twitter's aggregation and memory-search tools are so bad...
Julia Carrie Wong: Great reporting on Facebook Groups, Mark Zuckerberg’s most blatant effort at social engineering which has been supercharging extremism and hate for years
Facebook Knew Calls for Violence Plagued ‘Groups’, Now Plans Overhaul
James Fallows: This dispatch by @froomkin is full of *so* much important and crucial advice that my first instinct was to just screenshot it all. Instead, please read it all! https://presswatchers.org/2021/01/what-the-next-generation-of-editors-need-to-tell-their-political-reporters/… h/t @GRobLewis Two samples:
Eric Garland: The acting Secretary of Defense appears to have intentionally removed the authority of the D.C. National Guard to leave the Capitol undefended. Was this coup d'état Trump's plan all throughout the campaign in 2020? Open source evidence suggests it.
Trump Defense Secretary Disarmed D.C. National Guard Before Capitol Riot
Michael Bérubé: Sully gets very upset when people start decrying white supremacy. No one really knows why.
Gavriel Kay: Love this, and thinking about how it exists, that serene image, partly because people can’t approach.
Sunrise at Stonehenge today (31st January) was at 7.45am, sunset is at 4.55pm
Steve Vladeck: By insisting that his lawyers argue to the Senate that the election really *was* “stolen,” Trump isn’t just refusing to contest the *actual* ground on which he was impeached (that he incited the violence on January 6); he’s effectively arguing that the violence was *justified.*
Aaron: Jon Tester rules
Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) on holding senators accountable for election objection lies: "There needs to be accountability or it will happen again, and it will probably happen again by Cruz, Hawley and the other 11 that did it." "I saw the pictures of Josh Hawley out on the mall..."
Josh Marshall: Collins is off her game. If she wanted to Lucy this they'd come in just under $1.5T. Biden and Sen Ds would be tempted to engage at that number. (Number hardly matters. You pull the football regardless.) $600B makes it easy to say welp, no partner, reconciliation it is.
Paul Krugman: Why, exactly, is bipartisanship something to be valued right now? When a political party by and large still won't accept Biden's legitimacy and embraces Jewish space laser people, why is it a virtue to cooperate with
Paul Krugman: Also, the major items in the Biden proposal are very popular, generally with >60% approval. Why defer to a party that is lockstep opposed to what the public wants? 3/
Oeht Branson: Breaking News: This man needs to be prosecuted for the crimes he has committed, and for quitting on Americans. Donald Trump's entire legal team quits week before impeachment trial.
Donald Trump's entire legal team quits week before impeachment trial: Sources
Arindrajit Dube: The only useful thing about the GOP proposal is that it reminds us exactly how glad we should be that Dems won the GA Senate races allowing them to pass things using reconciliation.
Barely Accredited: Replying to @Noahpinion
You got a great shoutout from @kevin2kelly in the recomendo newsletter
Leah Marcal: Replying to @leah_boustan and @delong: The idea was so outrageously stupid that I forgot the hate underlying it. I’m so sorry.
Julian Zelizer: The “crisis” over Trump’s legal team quitting assumes that the substance of the impeachment case will sway Senate Republicans. Most already have their answer. Trump could offer no defense or he can go on the floor to read lines from the Joker movie—they would still vote to acquit
Marxist Soccer: Al Jazeera English vs Al Jazeera Arabic
The Lincoln Project’s legal response to the false and defamatory statements made by Rudy Giuliani.
Leah Boustan: I found all the Jewish space lasers jokes funny. Gallows humor helps with pain. But mostly I am just devastated that there are so many people in our country who would hate me without ever knowing me
Josh Marshall: GOPs are **not** in disarray. No party civil war. They are remarkably united in their total support of Trump, Q & the insurrection. The only commotion is punitive missions targeting a handful of stragglers who zigged for the constitution when they were supposed to zag for Trump.
David Frum: If you doubted that spending at the Trump hotel was intended as a bribe to the president and his family .. https://dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9199301/Donald-Trumps-D-C-hotel-dead-zone-presidents-exit-Washington.html…
Calvo Fairy Wrangler: Growing up means learning the solution space of “dystopian sci-fi futures” is much larger than you once thought.
Brad DeLong: 'Live long, & prosper!': Of all the science fictional ages that I wanted to order for myself when I was 10, the age of the killer robots would have been one of the last on the list
Noah Smith: The age of human dominance of the battlefield is not yet over, but the end is now in sight.
Drone Swarms Are Getting Too Fast For Humans To Fight, U.S. General Warns
Sabre: in a way, if you went to a Paleolithic hunter-gatherer and tell them that in a few millennia, they will spend all their labor taking care of some wheat for a guy because they have a copper spear, while suffering mistreatment and famine...isn't that a dystopian future for them?
someone help us all: Unlike the NYT, Vanity Fair once again tells the truth
Lucrezia Borgia: “Not completely virtuous“* is not the same thing as “a threat to my personal safety“ which is why the statement below is disingenuous. * If I insist upon complete virtue, then the only person I can work with is Jesus
tin Sandefur: Does the new fiscal consensus apply to emerging markets? Really looking forward to this: http://webcast.streaminglive.in/ashokauniversity/signup.php…
Christian Vanderbrouk: “it’s not anti-Semitism it’s just an insane conspiracy theory about the Rothschilds”
bigsurkate: As of 7 am, photo by Heath Johnston, Rat Creek, MM 30
Zeddy: She will certainly try to capitalize on all of it but we are right now enjoying a less-than-month-old example of the immediate, tangible benefits of deplatforming.
Jason Karsh: I’m getting more convinced by the day that MTG wants to be expelled from the House. It will just mean more money and less work—and potentially set her up for higher office in the future. twitter.com/coribush/statu…
Erik Wade: Have I got a *wild* medieval story for you. A woman sleeps with someone in exchange for presents, and her husband gets mad. So she sets out to prove that her husband would ALSO allow a man to have sex with him in exchange for presents. #MedievalTwitter
David Wessel: Louise Sheiner & @WendyEdelberg estimate the effect of Biden's $1.9 trillion fiscal package on GDP: Would raise level of GDP by 4% at end of 2021, 2% by end of 2022. thttps://brook.gs/3ce4gc2 via @BrookingsEcon
Dan Davies: in 2008 it was when Sean Keane (laconic Kiwi guy responsible for Credit Suisse's short term funding desk) started a daily email that we all clamored to be on, in my memory opening with the line "I thought I would see my career out without anyone ever caring what I do ..."
(((Frances *Cassandra* Coppola))): can anyone join in this pile-on, or is it a private party?
Sean Tuffy: Ooh, are we piling on mandatory OTC clearing and the creation of a new breed of systemic risk?
Dan Davies: (as Paul Purcell says, it's always the fixed income assholes who spoil the party)
Dan Davies: not sure at this stage; whichever one made the collateral call on Robinhood which caused them to restrict accounts. Settlements guys On Here seem to be talking about DTCC. I am not a plumber by trade so I don't do detail on this!
Dan Davies: that would surely suck, but I'd expect the market to take its licking and keep ticking; clearing members have failed in the past. the secret is that everyone knows equities are risky, so people don't usually lever them up like bonds.
James Meadway: “The purpose of studying economics is not to acquire a set of ready-made answers to economic questions, but to learn how to avoid being deceived by economists.” (Robinson, rather than Robbins)
Scott cunningham: Professors of economics. What definition of economics do you give on day one? I usually use the lionel Robbins one about unlimited wants and limited resources with a second definition emphasizing allocations.
Scott Greenberg: Downsides of remote learning: * Much harder to pay attention * Professors are unable to read the room * Classroom interaction is more awkward * You're on your screen all day * Impossible to know if professor is looking at you * You don't see friends in the hallway between classes