• Company sites: DJ Gongol & Associates and Heartland Generator
• Podcast: Updated weekly in the wee hours of Sunday night/Monday morning. Subscribe on Stitcher, Spreaker, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or iHeartRadio
• Twitter: @briangongol
February 29, 2020
The astonishing economic consequences of coronavirus
The Financial Times reports: "Based on migration data, ANZ said the Chinese economy was operating at 20 per cent capacity". That's a truly unbelievable figure. Manufacturing has collapsed, and everyone knows that's the lifeblood of China's economy.
What's the best way to get fast-food fish?
Filet-O-Fish? LJS? Culver's? Arby's? It's the existential question posed every Lent.
If tasked to assign a belated playwright to the writers' room of a television show, never hesitate to send in James Joyce. He'd be amazing as a contributor to "Curb Your Enthusiasm".
Surgeon General: Fight coronavirus by getting the flu shot
Worried about coronavirus? Then get the flu shot. Keeps your immune system strong enough to fight back if you need, and reduces the burden that might otherwise fall on the health system around you. The authorities don't want you hoarding masks, they want you washing your hands. The need for health-care workers to get priority on good-quality masks is obvious, but you know who else is going to need masks if this disease breaks through? Wastewater collection and treatment operators. Don't take infrastructure for granted.
Netflix now shares daily ratings
But where, oh where, did the five-star scale go? The company nixed it a long time ago, citing the behavior of most users, but for those who saw value in rating a "3" differently from a "5", the loss still seems pointless.
February 28, 2020
Christopher Balding is a China-watcher to watch, and his assessment of the situation is grim. It's not that the powers that rule China deserve to do so, it's that there's so little clarity about how they might peacefully be replaced.
From Dayton, Ohio: "While executing another search warrant at his home in October 2015, agents discovered an AN/AAR-47 Missile Warning System"
Night-owl Catholics follow Lenten rules from midnight to midnight
So says the result of a completely unscientific poll
"Occupied" remains must-watch television
This is without a doubt one of the most riveting and suspenseful television programs ever made. And the aesthetics are phenomenal. Through three seasons, the writers have told a tale, much too close to reality, of what would happen if Russia invaded Norway -- but did it in such a way that a wounded European Union failed to come to the rescue.
Keeping your head when others lose theirs
The stock market is in panic mode over the likely economic consequences of coronavirus, but there's no obligation on the part of any investor to go along with the madness. If your time horizon is any greater than about 5 years, then it should be self-evident that any kind of correction big enough to really shock the stock market is really just an opportunity to buy shares at a discount.
February 22, 2020
Nominating Bernie Sanders means re-electing Donald Trump
Contempt for the mainstream is an animal cry, not a path to winning a decisive victory in November. And at this point, Trump has hijacked too much of the "mainstream", and Sanders is still trying to sell a "revolution". It's a colossal mistake.
Charlie Munger: "I think there are lots of troubles coming"
If you won't listen to Charlie Munger, then you need to show your work and give overwhelming evidence that you're right. He's seen too much and thought too hard about it to make big mistakes. Emphatically one of the wisest people in America today, most especially on financial matters.
Credit where due: "Ford vs. Ferrari" is quite good
For a movie about auto racing, "Ford vs. Ferrari" deserves a mountain of credit for the careful understatement of its writing. Just an excellent job of using the right words and no more of them than necessary. Great work by Jez Butterworth, John-Henry Butterworth, and Jason Keller.
February 21, 2020
Grieving mother: "I think I brainwashed myself with the internet"
Internet-driven self-radicalization isn't just a problem in our politics -- it's a problem in our health and our culture and probably every other facet of life, too. This story of a woman losing her baby is wrenching -- but it's only one of altogether too many stories of this kind of radicalization.
Clean water supplies are routinely regulated by "environmental" agencies and treated like matters of protecting Mother Nature. That's a colossal misjudgment. Water, wastewater, and stormwater infrastructure is an urgent matter of public health, and nothing less.
Five half-court shots in a row
(Video) Doesn't matter whether or not basketball is your sport...this is really impressive
Now the left-populists are attacking the free press, too
Sen. Bernie Sanders wants to spin reporting on foreign influence campaigns (including efforts to support him) as though the Washington Post is somehow out to get him. Don't take potshots at the messenger, Sen. Sanders. We already get far too much of that.
Worth watching: "Tom Papa: You're Doing Great!"
Laugh-out-loud funny throughout. Highly recommended.
California's governor has strange ideas about housing
Gavin Newsom tweets, "Doctors should be able to write prescriptions for housing the same way they do for insulin or antibiotics." This sentiment would make a lot more sense if prescriptions could be filled by municipal zoning authorities. Is housing a universal need? Absolutely. Is it a human right? Not in the proper sense of the phrase: A human right is something that a person possesses by nature of birth, of which others can deprive her or him by force -- like the right to speak freely, or the right to practice a religious faith. In a well-governed society, others may not prohibit you from exercising your human rights. Universal needs -- like health care or housing -- are different: Everyone needs them, but someone has to produce them. Houses and prescription drugs do not automatically exist merely because you exist -- which is what separates them from the intrinsic human rights. Mis-labeling a "universal need" as a "human right" leads directly to the kind of wild claim that Governor Newsom makes in supposing that housing can simply be "prescribed" out of thin air. If a shortage of housing exists, it is because of some kind of a market failure -- and identifying the cause of that failure is essential. Why does San Francisco have a housing shortage? In large part because of local zoning challenges. That's a solvable problem -- but it's not solvable by conjuring up out of thin air a "prescription" for an apartment.
On the new Acting Director of National Intelligence
A distressing story about an important figure, from a highly credible source. Lane Greene, a writer for The Economist, says Richard Grenell "once accused me of inventing my father's (fatal) cancer so I could sneak a colleague (whom he disliked) into an interview with John Bolton". Wow.
Influenza has killed more than 100 American kids this season
Don't just let the number roll past you. This is an immeasurable tragedy, and it's happened 105 times over. Maybe we can't stop every one of those tragedies, but the public at large plays a role. You play a role. Get the flu shot. A crucial point from the CNN story: "Schaffner also said everyone should get vaccinated, especially since the flu can strike a perfectly healthy individual and cause severe illness. At least half of the children who die from the flu were otherwise healthy, he said."
If you're going to share a link...
...strip out the tracking portion of the URL when you can
February 16, 2020
China's President Xi knew that coronavirus was a problem long before making it public
The cover-up is often what gets politicians -- not necessarily the crime. In this case, the Chinese authorities deserve whatever punishment comes their way. Governments officials who lie don't deserve the responsibilities of power.
You can't recycle much bigger than recycling a whole house
Isn't that really what house-moving is all about?
Flu season is back, and it's bad
If you are capable, get the flu shot. Your immunity helps protect others. It's not like the old days; there are plenty of doses to go around. Get the flu shot.
Major League Baseball gets a female hitting coach
You don't have to be a fan of the Yankees, baseball, or even sports to appreciate Dirk Chatelain's profile of Rachel Balkovec, the new full-time hitting coach for minor-league players in the Yankees' system. It's just a great story of grit -- something we need to teach our girls and boys alike.
February 15, 2020
The Sandhill crane migration begins
It really is one of the craziest natural phenomena you'll ever see. It's a little shy of the Northern Lights from a high latitude, but the sheer quantity and density of these birds is really a sight to behold.
Just you wait: Between the plague of crooked robocalls and the unbearable persistence of email scammers, soon we're going to have to revive telegrams as a means of delivering important news. If it's really good news, a singing telegram.
Don't get mad that primary voting is different from state to state
It's due to Federalism -- and don't scoff at it. Do you really want a Presidential appointee ordering all 50 states how to conduct their own elections?
February 14, 2020
Is China's behavior really a priority or not?
American national-security leaders in the region say the right things, but what does the proposed Federal budget say? James Madison wrote, "[A] right implies a remedy; and where else could the remedy be deposited, than where it is deposited by the Constitution?" In parallel fashion: A priority implies a commitment of resources, and where else are those found but in the budget?
The peculiar side effects of zoning
A set of photos from Los Angeles shows just how differently land gets used from one lot to the next under the zoning ordinances set by government. One might conclude that the radical difference between a tower of more than 20 stories and a single-family residence immediately next door reflects some kind of artificial restriction (zoning) rather than a difference in the natural market value of the land.
Austin restaurant sign: "A taco is a beef love letter in a corn envelope that you mail to your stomach"
Mayo accidentally told 360 prospects they had been admitted to med school -- but they weren't
Whoever you are and whatever you did, you probably didn't screw up quite this badly this week, so you've got that going for you. Which is nice.
February 13, 2020
The fire service in New South Wales says "for the first time this season all bush and grass fires in NSW are now contained."
McClatchy files for bankruptcy
The company will "operate as usual throughout this process", says the board chair. What even is "normal" for the metropolitan daily newspaper market anymore? Isn't "operating as normal" itself a tremendous risk factor?
The former Presidential Chief of Staff second-guesses a long list of President Trump's behaviors -- with good reason
School district had massive warning about bus driver who crashed
If you've ever wondered whether you should say something -- whether you should speak up about something that looked unsafe or someone who seemed unable to discharge a job -- read this.
February 12, 2020
Sen. Michael Bennet quits Presidential race
Sen. Bennet deserves credit for bringing a touch of Coolidgean humility to the 2020 race, while he was in it
Could Sinn Fein really have a place in the middle of Irish government?
In case you thought the horse-trading, coalition-building, and general electoral madness of things in the United States was wild, the coalition-building games being played in Ireland right now are something to behold
Is Sen. Bernie Sanders the Trump of Democratic Party politics?
Worth reading from Reason: "The old model of two-party politics, with its indifference to individual political idiosyncrasies, left out many people and worldviews...Yet it's far from clear that the emerging model, with its bias toward fringe populism, is an improvement; indeed, it may be worse."
3% of American adults think science has a "mostly negative" effect on society
And yet those 3% who say it's "mostly negative" still get to fly on airplanes, view weather forecasts, get prescription drugs, and type on the Internet, just like the rest of us. Freeloading jerks.
Sizeable inflation in China in January
There's no predicting the timing or triggers behind a recession. This kind of out-of-the-blue circumstance is a great example why. While it doesn't mean China is inevitably going to have a recession, it is a valid reminder that tough times can come out of nowhere.
How to increase electoral diversity in a winner-take-all system
We really ought to consider adopting fusion voting in more places than we already do. There's no reason to use the law to preserve a two-party duospony on "purchasing" viable candidates.
An Iowa House bill "prohibits an employer from requiring that an employee have a microchip or other device implanted or inserted in the employee's body." It probably deserves a real shot at becoming law.
What are the odds coronavirus topples China's Xi?
The odds are definitely non-zero. Some signs have appeared already that the economic impact is more than just a blip, and that's the aspect that seems most likely to trigger a big turn of events. Promises are being made and strange experiments are being tried to stop the disease from spreading. But who trusts the government there? Who could?
February 11, 2020
Federal buildings don't need to be "classical" in style
Reportedly making the rounds in the White House is a draft executive order to mandate "classical" architecture as the default style for new Federal buildings. Prescribing the style puts the cart before the horse. The real question that should come first is: "Does the presence of this building add value to the community where it will go?" That's a holistic question, and architectural style is only part of the answer. Government buildings can be modern and beautiful or classical and ugly or all over the map. The important question isn't which style is used, but whether the design fits the community and adds value to it. Some do. Some don't.
Someone inside the MLB hates baseball
A proposal for the postseason would change the first round to best-of-three, give byes to the top seeds in each league, and let some of the teams pick their opponents. This proposal is idiotic. The wild card play-in ought to go to a best-of-three series (because any single game in baseball could be the result of chance) -- and leave the rest of the postseason alone. It's as if MLB hates baseball.
Expectations of the Iowa Caucuses shouldn't be precise
The Iowa caucuses are, by nature, a little fuzzy around the edges. It's inherently an imprecise venture, not the College of Cardinals meeting to elect the Pope.
If her momentum continues, is it a "Klobucharge"?
A strong performance in the New Hampshire primary has people looking for a name for what's up with Sen. Amy Klobuchar. Klobusurge and Amymentum have both been suggested, but clearly the one requiring the least contortion is best. Klobucharge it is.
February 10, 2020
Podcast: Who's afraid of a little Korean cinema?
The people who are chicken about facing competition from "foreign" films are really no different from the people who want to "build a wall". Money, ideas, goods, and people ought to move with the maximum practicable freedom.
February 7, 2020
Governors tackle broadband shortages in rural areas
More often than not, it seems like state and local governments work on the truly interesting stuff.
Setbacks make tall buildings more beautiful
Taller buildings might well help raise population densities in large cities -- which in turn may have a long list of economic and possibly environmental benefits. But it would be nice if we could have them take humane forms along the way.
Red Cross donations aren't making their way to fight coronavirus in China
It would be nice to believe that great revolutions for freedom are begun because people recognize their inherent dignity and their inalienable rights. But if it's ordinary bureaucratic incompetence that topples authoritarians, as it might well be in China, then we would probably take that, too.
Life is about more than just a series of transactions
Nothing seems to mystify the unprincipled person quite so much as watching someone do the right thing because and only because it's the right thing to do.
February 6, 2020
90% of Americans are satisfied with their personal lives
So says the Gallup Poll, and it's grand news. It's a record high. The business titan David Sokol used the phrase "Pleased but not satisfied" (it's even the title of his book. Maybe the average American is "Satisfied but not (always) pleased".
After blasting Iowa, DNC chair backtracks on "Rachel Maddow Show"
And yet Tom Perez's original tweet slamming the caucuses -- making no distinction whatsoever about "individual precincts" and generally throwing Iowa under the bus -- remains up and unmodified. You don't fix this by clarifying yourself just to Rachel Maddow. Correct your own record.
Why is Cedar Rapids only as warm as Des Moines during May and June?
Cedar Rapids is ever-so-slightly north of Des Moines, so it's no surprise that the daily highs in Des Moines would typically be higher than those in Cedar Rapids. But something happens in the April-to-June period that eats up Des Moines's southern advantage. Maybe it's Crunchberry Day more often during that time of year. Or maybe it's just a difference in land cover.
The USDA is looking for "citizen scientists" to help them figure out how to cook beans
Why would you leave a caucus before your vote is counted?
Iowa's Democratic caucus rules are a little arcane, but the idea of realignment actually gives some useful power to those who backed candidates who fell short. Once you're in the room, the marginal cost of sticking around to go with your second choice is a few minutes. At that point, it's crazy to just walk out -- at just the point when your vote has increased marginal value to whomever can win you over.
A many-layered snapshot of dystopia
A propaganda banner strung out for all to see, someplace in China where the people are in lockdown over the coronavirus outbreak. The banner, says an interpreter, suggests that making babies is a perfectly good thing to do since China's one family, one child rule is no longer in effect.
February 5, 2020
Could the United States sustain an American version of En Marche? Are the two major parties at just such a crisis point that a permanent centrist third party could take root?
Fox News Channel is using 8-year-old B-roll of the Iowa Caucuses
A warning: Don't wear ironic hats or trendy haircuts when the news cameras are going to be around
If you're going to tear a sheet of paper, go the long way down the page. That's usually the direction of the grain.
Teen cancer survivor is now 20-year-old nursing student and hospital fundraiser
Three cheers for Iowa's Hannah Bormann
There's no weakness in Sen. Mitt Romney's vote
There are memes circulating trying to denigrate Romney's masculinity, as though that somehow might diminish the strength of his choice. Anyone who uses motherhood as a metaphor for weakness is an idiot. Full stop.
February 4, 2020
People are confusing a predictable app failure with a conspiracy
The delay in getting results from the Iowa Caucuses is the fault of a technology disruption, pure and simple. Matt Tait puts it extremely well: "It is not sufficient to *be* secure, it must be *seen* to be secure, and robust against even false conspiracies". Digital security may seem like an esoteric matter of bits and bytes, but it's ultimately a matter of institutional trust and human expectation-setting. Those are very real flesh-and-blood things. In the meantime, though, a message from Iowa to the nation: Anything else you'd like us to beta-test for you? Quite seriously, that's part of the problem: Test users find bugs much faster than developers can anticipate them.
We overreact to little things and underreact to big things
Perspective is hard to learn
Iowa isn't a small state: It's almost dead-center in the rankings
Iowa is the #31 state by population. "Small"? By comparison with California or Texas or New York, sure, but we're actually nearly the median overall. There aren't even ten states with 10 million people.
Make money, have fun, clean up after yourself, and mind your business.
"Why Flip a Coin?" is a great exploration of the science of decision-making -- which includes a very useful section on why there is absolutely no method of counting a vote that will satisfy everybody's sense of "fairness". It is literally impossible.
Predicting vertebrate lifespans from DNA
Bowhead whales are thought to have natural lifespans of nearly 270 years. What kind of thoughts go through the mind of a bowhead whale around, say, age 230? One has to imagine they're at least somewhat sentient, right?
February 3, 2020
If they can fire you, then you're not their boss
At the State of the Union Address, the spotlight may be on the President, but it's Congress that's supposed to be in the first chair.
It's Caucus Eve in Iowa, and we've already celebrated with our traditional dinner of pork chops and corn syrup. This is going to be a big week for news. But is it going to be a good one for the Constitution?
Illinois sells $40 million in first month of legalized marijuana
In a state of about 13 million people, that's a little over $3 per capita. So, definitely not teetotalers -- but not quite Cheech and Chong, either. In-staters bought 78% of the weed -- out-of-staters purchased the other 22%.
Macau's casinos to close for half a month
You don't shut down a critical industry for weeks at a time unless the situation is dire. Yet that's what China is doing in response to the spread of coronoavirus. Revealed preferences writ not just large, but huge.
Who's eligible to vote in the Iowa caucuses?
Iowa's caucuses are closed, but voters can change registration on-site -- which explains the big drop in independent voters around big Presidential contests. From 2000 to the present, independents have been the biggest voter bloc, with the Republican and Democratic parties each having taken turns in second place. One interesting data point: There were slightly fewer active voters in Iowa registered as of Feb. 2nd than as of Jan. 2nd.
George Will: "A rights-centered society, must, however, take seriously the fact that duties are not natural. They must be taught. Self-interest is common and steady; virtue is rare and unpredictable."
February 1, 2020
Pew study says Facebook users don't know much about how the news feed is created
The problem is less about understanding how the news feed is created and more about understanding that it shouldn't be trusted as a news source
China's problem with trust and doctors is making coronavirus worse
An estimate published by The Lancet suggests that tens of thousands of people have been infected in Wuhan, China. A trade is not a profession unless its practitioners sacrifice some of their self-interest in exchange for the trust placed in them to do what's right for the client. If you don't have that trust, you're just plying a trade like anybody else and deserve no special social status.
January 31, 2020
How big are the Iowa Caucuses?
So big that even C-SPAN is advertising on a downtown billboard visible from I-235
The world's snake-oil supplies remain inexhaustible
The British edition of "Vogue" contains some astonishingly loony suggestions for feeling better about the coronavirus outbreak. Nobody's expecting them to be The Lancet or the Journal of the American Medical Association, but in the process of trying to be topical, there's no reason for them to be dangerously flaky.
In from the cold, in a manner of speaking
Last year's temperatures were 55°F lower in Des Moines than they are today. The swing is just crazy.
What was Sen. Lamar Alexander saying?
In announcing his decision to vote against hearing witnesses at the President's impeachment trial, Sen. Alexander argued that "the Constitution does not give the Senate the power to remove the president from office and ban him from this year's ballot simply for actions that are inappropriate." Who said anything about banning him from the ballot? Is there any Constitutional clause, law, or interpretation that says a President couldn't be removed from office on February 1st, then elected to the office again on November 3rd? Wouldn't that be a valid way to let the voters decide? Doesn't framing the wrong consequence as a reason for making the decision itself cast doubt on the decision?
For whom should a moderate crossover voter support in the Democratic caucuses?
The three palatable options most likely to meet the "viability" threshold are Biden, Buttigieg, and Klobuchar. But which one, and why?
Still no Popeye's chicken sandwich in Des Moines
One of the national reporters in Iowa for the caucuses really ought to look into this scandal
Which is the more important gathering?
New Year's Eve or the Super Bowl?
January 30, 2020
Light rail, streetcars, subways, and more
Wacky idea: Urban rail systems should primarily be designed around sets of interlocking circles, like Olympic rings. Linear transportation systems tend to encourage higher density close to the central city alone, with lower densities farther afield. If raising density overall is considered to be a "good" for metropolitan design, then interlocking circular paths would seem to be a better way of discouraging light density at the "end of the line". If you don't want sprawl, then you should program anti-sprawl into the design.
Coronavirus "will help to accelerate the return of jobs to North America", says Sec. Wilbur Ross
This is the equivalent of saying "The hurricane is going to give a real boost to construction spending". It's not helpful to sound like you're trying to put a positive spin on something that remains a disaster.
"Dramatic footage as Australian firefighters escape seconds before wildfire engulfs area"
(Video) Somehow, the sensational headline isn't even quite sensational enough to capture what happens in the video. The first-hand look at a firestorm is utterly heart-stopping.
BBC Radio 4 claims an 11% audience share in the UK
Interesting: It's virtually all programming based on people talking ("speech programming"), but it's nothing much like "talk radio" in the same sense as we have in America. And yet it's #2 in the UK's ratings.
The pink (magenta?) color emanating from a T-Mobile store at night makes it look like the store is doused in radiation...and all passersby, too.
Fly-by-wire meets takeoff-by-AI
Airbus says they tested an autonomous jet takeoff in December. Human pilots sat in the seats, but the computers did all the work.
January 29, 2020
What should worry the Democratic Party today
Democrats should worry about just how much their condition today looks like the Republicans' circumstances in 2016.
China's government has earned no trust
Without a reservoir of trust that could make them credible, it's going to be much harder to fight the menace of coronavirus. Ideally, government is both democratically accountable and legitimate in the eyes of the people. Legitimacy is earned by getting the job done. When a crisis occurs and a government is found to be neither...buckle up.
What if AM radio goes all-digital?
One opponent observes: "Analog AM receivers are among the most simple of devices to build. In a major disaster a person with the knowledge of how to do so, can build a receiver literally out of debris, and remain in contact with the outside world."
Kids (and let's admit it: most adults) don't usually like the end slices of a loaf of bread. But if you invert them and use the internal faces as the outside faces of a sandwich, you can heal the heel.
Olive oil: It's just a type of fruit juice
Bet you hadn't thought of it that way before
Some things are just too aesthetically pleasing not to share
Like Art Deco lighting
January 28, 2020
A parallel argument: We should admire the Founders without deifying them. We all need to be fully accountable for high-minded traits like duty and civic responsibility. Self-government depends upon it.
New extended-stay hotel brands coming to market
Interesting factoid: "The demand for hotel stays of seven-plus nights is nearly 20 percent of all room nights sold"
The strangest police-chase story of the day
A Nebraska state snowplow driver ended up with his truck in the Platte River after a chase conducted by US Marshals
January 10, 2020
Should single-family housing be a zone?
A bill introduced in the Nebraska legislature would prohibit zoning ordinances in cities of 5,000 people or larger from restricting any residential zone to single-family houses. Most interesting. A well-varied housing stock seems to be one of the essential answers to making sure housing is generally affordable. It's probably good for the character of most communities, too.
Twitter's advice: "Don't drink and Tweet"
As though sobriety were a hallmark of Twitter content
Finnish herders put reflective paint on reindeer antlers
Makes them easier for motorists to see at night. Now come to Iowa and paint the deer. Please?
Evolution really dropped the ball when it gave us back hair that keeps growing instead of teeth that could regenerate.
When the popular press screams "No stopping the stock market now"...
...you should probably assume it's a bubble about to burst. When the echo chamber gets going on a narrative that "You won't believe how much the stock market is ready to explode", it's probably on the verge of a correction.
To the outsider, Maclean's has long seemed like a sort of de facto voice of what Canada as a whole is thinking. That's probably an exaggeration of its role, but it's a little weird that we don't have similar editorial voices in the US -- especially regional ones. Why isn't there a strong "Centralist" magazine? Why are even the super-regional newspapers still massively provincial?
January 9, 2020
Patrick Chovanec: "By the age of 50, one thing you learn is that you can only be one person, and live one life. It's a tougher lesson than one might think." One of the most important life lessons is that "integrity" and "integral" share the same root. It's what's wrong with discussing ideas like "business ethics" as though they are distinct from other ethics: Either all of life is lived with integrity, or there is no integrity at all.
Forecasts show troubling weather ahead
Computer models of weather events are pretty amazing. We shouldn't take for granted that we now get the kind of advance notice that tells the public about a major severe-weather outbreak more than 24 hours in advance, with the affected areas pinpointed probably within 50 or 100 miles.
Many things really are getting better
Metrics on issues like crime really are showing improvement decade-by-decade. And Ice-T ended up on "Law & Order"...as a cop.
They have a kid now. And that madhouse of a monarchy is no place to raise a child. Imagine being born into a combination family business, reality TV show, and Internet comment section. You'd probably want out, too.
The President asked Twitter "How are your 409k's doing?" The Formula 409 bottle may say "Economy Size" on the label, but that's now what it means
January 8, 2020
Drone mystery grips Nebraskans
Someone had better come forward quickly to explain what's going on. People can shrug off a night or two of this, but pretty soon the authorities will have to consider the possibility of malevolent intent in the absence of clear information. And the authorities are asking for public help in the identification process.
After blowback, Ragbrai to become more financially transparent
A notable passage from the Cedar Rapids Gazette: "Despite years of promoting that all profits after expenses went to Iowa charities, RAGBRAI was generating millions of dollars a year while Iowa communities that helped make the event happen absorbed much of the risk and received little support."
Resistance to a new shelter for women who are homeless in Des Moines
Housing supply and affordability is clearly a concern all across the country, but still a concern affected more than anything else by local conditions. Not an issue that lends itself to top-down mandates from DC.
Twitter plans to offer four-tiered control over replies
Not that the replies alone are what repel some people from the platform, but they definitely have an effect
Someone buy the Chicago Tribune editors a round of drinks
Headline announcing that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle will spend more time in North America and back out of royal duties: "Northwestern graduate moving closer to home after spending time abroad"
Canada suffered a tremendous loss
Flags ordered to half-mast over the deaths of dozens of Canadians in Tehran plane crash
January 6, 2020
"Why do we need rules telling us how to fight a war?"
The Law of Armed Conflict isn't an obstacle to keep the United States from winning wars. It's a set of rules for "minimizing the damage we cause during a war, avoiding unnecessary suffering, protecting human rights, and easing the transition from war back to peace." ■ What is proportionality? "[W]e use no greater force than need[ed] to obtain our military objective. A military target or a place occupied by a combatant force can be attacked. However, the attack or shelling by any means whatsoever of undefended towns, villages, dwellings, or buildings is prohibited." And it makes sense -- at least to anyone who sees war as a fearsome thing to be used only as a last resort.
What do you call a collection of economists?
A handful, obviously. And they always come in pairs.
Man arrested for putting gun to 9-year-old son's head over drinking a pop
How do people turn to monstrous behavior like this?
Like a missile installation on the White House lawn
Urban legend during the Cold War said there were mines in the White House lawn. This is a bit more intense than that: "South Korea has moved a Patriot missile unit from a southeastern region to central Seoul [...] to a former military installation at Mount Bukak behind the presidential office compound earlier this month, according to the sources."
January 5, 2020
Boring competence: That's where it's at!
Calvin Coolidge: "It is not sufficient to entrust details to someone else. They must be entrusted to someone who is competent."
What's wrong with slideshows in place of papers
We still expect the Supreme Court to issue written opinions, not PowerPoint decks. And for good reason. Slides alone are never an adequate substitute for a live presentation. But a well-written, carefully-edited piece of writing can beat any other format.
January 4, 2020
"Don't be evil" needs an upgrade
Washington Post: "But for Google, the debate around China was also existential. The Chinese market represents not just Google's best chance at another billion users, but also the future of innovation, talent and artificial intelligence." ■ At some point, it must be acknowledged that the right thing to do may not achieve a majority vote. If we expect individuals to do the right thing even when it might cost them something (and we most certainly should expect that), then we have to hold people in large businesses to the same standard. This is different from a debate about a company's "corporate social responsibility"; it's instead a claim that people do not leave their ethical standards at the workplace door. Ethics held only some of the time, when satisfactory conditions prevail and the consequences are cheap, are no real ethics at all.
January 3, 2020
Removing a dastardly figure from Iran's military chain of command may be in America's first-order interests. But what happens next? As Margaret Thatcher admonished: "How do you see the process from where you are now to where you want to be? Because, whatever you want to do, it's not only what you want to do, but how -- the practical way you see it coming about." What is the end goal? How is that to come about? Iran has 83 million people: The size of California, Texas, and New York combined. ■ It is never enough to say that the old policy wasn't working. There must always be an effort to answer the question: And then what happens next? ■ There are those who say things along the lines of "If you don't have a solution, you can't complain about the problem". That's untrue, and it's bad advice. Problems have to be named before they can be solved. But what is true is that things can almost always get worse, and they often get much worse much faster than we would care to believe. So whether staying the course or changing it, reasonable adults have to ask, "What happens next? How might things get worse? How will we know if we've gone wrong? Is this particular cure worse than the disease?" There may, in fact, be no easy or good answers to some problems. That doesn't change the need to carefully weigh what might go wrong.
Our political opponents in America aren't the enemy
They just aren't. But, regrettably, the President is feeding on the notion of rivals as malicious enemies. It's just not appropriate to compare Sen. Chuck Schumer to the Iranian government. It just isn't. As Dwight Eisenhower said about the Allied effort in WWII: "Nothing creates trouble between allies so often or so easily as unnecessary talk -- particularly when it belittles one of them. A family squabble is always exaggerated beyond its true importance."
National Weather Service forecasters in Las Vegas were embedded with other organizations for New Year's Eve, since the city is a huge destination for NYE events. The weather itself was pleasant, but the forecasters spent their time modeling things like what might have happened if a road crash caused a chemical spill. What a smart use of highly-skilled people. Even when the weather is nice, there's something useful for meteorologists to do around big events.
A century since Estonia's War of Independence
European history classes could stand to spend less time on obscure English kings and more time on the last two centuries in the Baltics.
More radio stations flipped to a religious format than any other in 2019
"Religious" might be the closest thing most markets have to the classic "full-service" format. And that's a point worth some pondering, particularly given the apparent strength of the religious format.
Iowans continue a love affair with Black Velvet
The Canadian whiskey is the state's biggest seller. There are parts of the state where the local water supply could probably be converted to a BV supply, and a majority of residents might actually approve.
January 2, 2020
Tornado researchers captured "groundbreaking" data in 2019
Using brand-new, state-of-the-art tools like drones that flew into tornadic storms and specialized portable radar systems, they got right up on top of the action with several tornadoes this past season and will be
Police catch I-80 driver with 1,500 lbs. of marijuana in back of a rental truck
In case you wondered what they're going to be giggling about on every radio morning show tomorrow...
Yes, it's 2020. No, you don't have to make puns about "vision".
It's like the original dot-com boom, when everyone just slapped the letter "e" on things to the point of inducing nausea.
January 1, 2020
"Let every new year find you a better man." - Benjamin Franklin
Ben Franklin inadvertently proves the value in non-sexist language and its ability to clear up ambiguity. But more importantly, it's good advice.
End civil asset forfeiture in 2020
Astonishing fire disaster in Australia
ABC News: "Roads remain cut off around the coastal town, in the far east of Victoria, where about 4,000 locals and holidaymakers have been stuck since the fire tore through on New Year's Eve." Australia's navy has sent a rescue ship.
New Year's under the fireworks
If you zoom in really close on this picture of a Chicago L train going under the fireworks, you'll see that all of the passengers are staring at their phones.
Father pleads for peace after 14-year-old son is murdered
This is just gut-wrenching; his sense of loss must be unfathomable, yet he admirably chooses to use the unbearable grief as a platform to try to reach the broader community of metro Des Moines.
Spending 20% of his days on the golf course
Calvin Coolidge once noted that "Everything that the President does potentially at least is of such great importance that he must be constantly on guard [...] Not only in all his official actions, but in all his social intercourse, and even in his recreation and repose, he is constantly watched". The President would be well-advised to heed that advice today.
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