Gongol.com Archives: January 2019
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January 2, 2019
Stop with the Senate-abolition nonsense
The Senate, with two seats per state, is a non-negotiable fundamental of the Federal model. We need capable state governments, a strong Senate, and a national government with a little bit of humility about it.
In a sane world, the rules would be:
1. Decide what you want from government.
2. Limit those wants as much as you can.
3. Pay for it all.
And while it is entirely valid to point out that empathy should play a role in determining what those "wants" should be, the decision has to originate out of principle. Resources are limited. More importantly, government power itself must be limited -- even if it does something that is cost-free. Thus we decide these things in imperfect but representative bodies.
For instance: A lot of people think the Mueller investigation should be shut down because it costs money. Others say it should stay open because it has actually turned a profit.
The principled answer is that a complete investigation is absolutely necessary, utterly regardless of cost, because government power is inherently dangerous, so it must be controlled by the rule of law. When we have credible suspicions about its use, the principle of limiting that power comes before considerations of cost.
Thus, if we want limits on government (including investigations of bad behavior), then we need to be willing to pay for them before we start looking at the tab.
A story worth reading about Saudi dissidents
Freedom isn't protected everywhere
What happened to Sen. Rand Paul?
Reagan was in many ways a great President, but the hagiography has gotten out of control. Once you surrender critical thinking to one cult of personality, you pave the way for later cults of personality -- as Senator Paul is doing now with his inexplicable embrace of Trumpism.
High minimum wages don't necessarily have the intended consequences
Note to the $15-an-hour crowd: It's not that we disagree with your objectives. It's that the means you propose to use just aren't as effective as they need to be.
If you're surprised that Joe Biden commands $100,000 a speech, take a look at who else gets that princely sum
"A poor person never gave anyone a job" -- false.
Lots of jobs are created by people who bootstrap their own companies or otherwise start from scratch. Jobs are not gifts that are handed out charitably by the wealthy to the non-wealthy. The perverted defense that Jerry Falwell, Jr., gives to Donald Trump isn't even sound logic.
Trade deficit worsens as tariffs go up
Remember this next time someone offers a ham-fisted proposal as though it's a magic bullet that everyone before them was just too dumb to realize.
The game theory embedded in submarine-chase films
They invariably focus on extended engagements between two actors with limited information, making them excellent examples to use when teaching game theory.
"In 2019, Canada is positioned to start down a path towards leading the world"
If they're bringing poutine and Labatt Blue, maybe we can do business. But seriously, there is actually room on the global stage for Canada to take a more prominent role -- particularly as a weathly, productive liberal democracy with an interest in at least some claim to moral authority.
A vegan challenge from Beyonce and Jay-Z
Guess they won't be headliners at the Iowa State Fair this year.
January 3, 2019
China's "social credit" system will permit the government to grade everyone
They say it's because people need to trust one another. And it is absolutely true that a society needs mutual trust among its people in order to function. It is absolutely false to think that government can evaluate, measure, score, or impose that trust from above. If the trust doesn't emerge organically, it doesn't really exist.
Game theory and the Oval Office
The President frames everything like a Manhattan real-estate transaction (two parties, one round). In reality, the world is vastly more complex than that -- most importantly, almost nothing is excluded to two parties, and almost every interaction is part of a long chain of events (and people have memories). Deep down, it's less an ideological problem and more a game-theory problem.
When people turn to social media to shout their lack of interest in other people through a megaphone, it whacks civilization in the kneecaps.
On the European Union, the United Kingdom isn't so unified
Scotland voted 62% to remain in the EU. Northern Ireland voted 55.8% to remain. Such a strange consequence of history that they're being dragged out of the EU effectively against their national wills.
Evidence mounts that China's campaign against the Uighurs is as bad as can be imagined
If a state puts all of the writers, artists, and intellectuals of a minority group in prison, you can be sure they are seeking to grind their culture right out of existence. This is a much, much bigger deal than whether the US sold China a few million more or fewer iPhones. How China's government not only aggregates but executes its power is massively important.
Substantially shorter than the average non-fiction book of the present day, that's for sure. But it turns out that data about our reading (and reviewing) habits now collected via the Internet gives some useful feedback on the relationship between length and quality. Or, at least, it suggests that people tend to over-rate long books...probably to make ourselves feel better about finishing books with too many pages.
January 4, 2019
And Rep. Thomas Massie, a member of Congress from Kentucky, gets it completely right: "[W]e swear an oath to the Constitution of the United States, not to the government, not to the flag, not to any party, and not to the President." It's good that he gets that. And it would be terrific if that would rub off on some of his colleagues. Rep. Steve Cohen of Tennessee has proposed a Constitutional amendment to abolish the Electoral College. It's perfectly understandable that people might find incongruity in a process that doesn't award the Presidency to the winner of the popular vote. But that complaint is a superficial one: People who don't understand the Electoral College don't understand Federalism. Right at the center of the Constitution is the idea that the individual states have meaning and importance and stature. The Senate isn't supposed to be proportional to population because the national government isn't supposed to be the end-all, be-all of our public life. As Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist Paper No. 9, "The proposed Constitution, so far from implying an abolition of the State governments, makes them constituent parts of the national sovereignty, by allowing them a direct representation in the Senate, and leaves in their possession certain exclusive and very important portions of sovereign power." The Electoral College is an extension of the disproportionality of the Senate. There's nothing wrong with considering means for diminishing the disproportionality (for instance, by expanding the House of Representatives, which is an idea with considerable merits of its own), but a form of disproportionality is inevitable. And at the extremes, the numbers are attention-getting: Wyoming has about 578,000 people and three Electoral College votes; California has 39,557,000 people and 55 votes. That's 192,579 Wyomingites versus 719,218 Californians per EC vote. But that matters a lot if one thinks that the President is the most important person in America, with the power and the responsibility to impose policies on the country at large. But that's not a Constitutional orientation. The Constitution puts the legislative branch in Article I and the executive branch in Article II, and not by accident. The Constitutional sensibility perceives that anything worthy of national rule-making should begin either with a majority of the population (in the House) or a majority of the states' interests (in the Senate). Things are supposed to start in Congress and be carried out by the White House -- unless they're stupid ideas, in which case the President is supposed to use the veto power to stop them. The sickness in the system isn't the disproportionality of the Electoral College or the supposedly "undemocratic" nature of the Senate. Those exist by design. No, the sickness in the system is the Imperial Presidency. There are occasional acknowledgments of this problem -- as when Republicans talk about rolling back administrative regulations that never went through Congressional approval, or when Democrats insist that the White House be subject to investigation and other forms of accountability. But in the broadest sense, the notions that we should overhaul the Senate or toss out the Electoral College are tacit displays of fealty to a national government that grows too large for the health of the governments closer to the people. The states aren't subsidiaries of the government in Washington, DC. They exist before and prior to the national government -- both in the literal sense (recall that we had thirteen states and the Articles of Confederation before we had the Constitution) and in the figurative one (the very name of the country is "United States of America", in which the noun is "states"). The nation obtains its legitimacy from the authority granted to it by the citizens and by the states. It takes both forms of authority to make the country. Chipping away at the foundations of that relationship makes the country more volatile and makes the states weaker. And weak states cannot forever prop up a functioning Federal government.
Back-to-back triple-organ transplants
Two 29-year-olds have undergone triple transplants at the University of Chicago Medical Center: Heart, liver, and kidney. May we see (soon) the day when bioengineering permits us to generate our own organs in the lab, so we don't have to leave people waiting for donor organs.
Iowa records first flu-related fatality of 2019
"[A] middle aged (41-60 years of age) Eastern Iowa man, who had underlying conditions or contributing factors" -- which is a reminder why it's useful for healthy people to get flu vaccinations, especially if you come into contact with the very old, very young, or very sick.
Nothing grows faster than bamboo
Which seems to account for its reputation as an eco-friendly building material. Use the thing that grows fast and captures carbon quickly.
John Dickerson shares photos of a gorgeous personal library setup
One of the best phrases that has crossed over from Judaism into secular popular culture. Now, if only "mitzvah" (in the sense of doing a good deed, not the coming-of-age ritual) would make the same leap. It's a great word.
The President dismisses Syria as "sand and death"
But that definition is superficial and unfair. We don't have to know all the answers to all of the world's problems. But we have to at least try to frame the problems like decent human beings.
Federal Reserve independence: Planting the flag
At the American Economic Association conference, Jerome Powell said he wouldn't resign if the President asked. An insufficient number of people understand just how important central-bank independence is. If you want to trace most inflationary disasters back to their source, you'll find they start when politicians take direct control of the money supply.
January 5, 2019
Show notes - Brian Gongol Show on WHO Radio - January 5, 2019
Live on WHO Radio at 2:00 pm Central Time
For-profit college to forgo half a billion dollars in student debt
Virtually all of the nation's attorneys general have reached an agreement with Career Education Corp. to settle a dispute over practices that may have pressured or misled students into enrolling in programs both online and at physical campuses using what the AG offices deemed "unfair and deceptive practices". The company will write off about half a billion dollars in student debts as a result.
January 6, 2019
One-paragraph book review: "The World Until Yesterday", by Jared Diamond
The very good points of the book (which are summarized surprisingly concisely and well in the 14-page epilogue) drown in a sea of minutiae about the !Kung people and birdwatching in New Guinea.
January 7, 2019
It's really not hard: Never claim powers for yourself that you wouldn't happily place in the hands of your opponents. Anyone who can't abide by that kind of regulation shouldn't come within fifteen city blocks of a position of political power in America.
January 8, 2019
The overarching problem is that the President frames everything like a Manhattan real-estate transaction (two parties interacting in a deal lasting just one round, perhaps never to speak with one another again). In reality, the world is vastly more complex than that -- most importantly, almost nothing is excluded to two parties, and almost every interaction is part of a long chain of events (and people have memories). Deep down, it's less an ideological problem and more a game-theory problem.
When standing still takes the same effort as standing on top of a car going down a two-lane highway.
Life hack for finding better friends
Anyone new in your orbit must have the immediate and adoring approval of at least one dog or one child under the age of 4. Both are better judges of character than most adults.
January 9, 2019
Realistic foreign policy demands a foundation in some kind of principle
Sen. Ben Sasse: "Our single greatest asset for realist foreign policy is the idealistic underpinnings and core of the fact that we are a nation that believes in universal human dignity."
The Chrysler Building is up for sale
It's the best-looking building in Manhattan. Period. That doesn't make it a good or bad investment, per se, but it's a fact: The Chrysler Building radiates Art Deco from every square inch, and there's just nothing better in a tall building than that.
Enforcing the laws already on the books
When people use the phrase "enforce the laws that are already on the books", they probably aren't thinking of some of the awful laws that are...already on the books. An example: The portion of Nebraska's state constitution that continues to permit slavery. That needs to be removed from the books, and it's a good example why we should pay better attention to the value of sunset provisions.
Liquor industry group surprised that legal marijuana hasn't hurt sales
Seems more like a beer-and-pretzels relationship than a guns-and-butter one. It's unclear why anyone really thought booze and weed were going to be competitors.
January 10, 2019
The President seems fixated on the idea that (border) walls and wheels are of similar vintage, which somehow imbues them in his mind with a sort of co-validity. Of course, defensive walls weren't used around every ancient city. Maybe that's because they were peaceful. Maybe it's because walls failed the cost/benefit test. A wall is a pretty expensive investment for something that can't be moved, can't adapt to changing threats, and can't do much to protect you once it's been breached. We shouldn't assume that the people who lived many generations before us didn't know how to do things (like cost/benefit analysis) just because they didn't always have our modern words to describe them.
The "Belt and Road" battle ahead
David Rennie: "It's a contest of models, and the liberal, democratic world is too tired and inward-looking to compete". An utterly depressing conclusion -- but not without merit. We're making choices right now (deliberately or by inaction) that are going to have consequences for the shape of our world in the next quarter- to half-century.
Attentive Milwaukee bus driver rescues lost toddler from imminent danger
Most people are basically decent
January 11, 2019
In light of the latest insulting, degrading, and plainly stupid remarks on race and civilization from Rep. Steve King, a reminder from nearly two years ago (in response to previous stupidity from the Congressman): Civilization isn't genetic; it's earned and kept through hard work. If you think civilization is all in the genes, you'll neglect the important work of its maintenance. America works because we work at it. Rep. King wants to pretend like his comments are just a "mistake", but not a "mistake" when you keep doing something over and over: It's a bad decision. The good to come out of "Western Civilization" is mainly a result of its commitment to getting better -- to self-examination and improvement. Rep. King is long overdue to make himself a better person.
Individual income taxes pay for about half of the Federal government
Add in the taxes taken out for entitlement spending, and it's more than three quarters
Michael Bloomberg doesn't do fair fights
He says he would fund his own campaign if he were to run for President in 2020. And that's consistent with a line from his autobiography: "[T]he likelihood that we will prevail five times in a row in a fair fight is only about 3 percent. We don't want fair fights. We want to go into contests with an advantage."
Sounds a bit like finding the Golden Ticket to see Willy Wonka
January 12, 2019
FBI opened counterintelligence investigation into President Trump
Once in a while, a truly stunning story breaks. This one requires multiple readings. And not because it sounds like overreach -- but because the threat sounds so plausible. And the President's incapacity to plainly deny the risk is astonishing.
"Don't sign a petition. Buy a subscription."
Maine newspaper converts comments from author Stephen King into a subscription drive
Kindle app on Android phones now scrolls books like web pages
On the hierarchy of media, paper books or e-ink (like the Kindle) are still better than reading from a smartphone screen. But this is a big new advantage in favor of the phone. And whatever makes it easier to read more books is surely a good thing, no?
"Western civilization's greatness lies [...] in the universality of its message."
A well-worded commentary from John Podhoretz. Civilization isn't something you're born with; it's something you learn. Anyone who thinks it's an entitlement of birth or genes doesn't understand civilization at all.
January 13, 2019
Kori Schake: "The good news is that America’s problems are largely within its ability to fix; the bad news is there is little sign Americans are interested in fixing them."
UCLA gymnast Katelyn Ohashi puts on a spectacular display of athleticism
January 14, 2019
Looking out over the (Berlin) Wall
The Communist world built walls to keep people in against their will
Deep Constitutional nerdery meets one of the most vexing problems of the present political day in a piece from Jay Cost, who rightly notes that the Article I branch of the government comes first for a reason -- since it's the wellspring of government by the consent of the governed
What to eat in Des Moines? Anything, really.
A profile in "Food and Wine" illustrates a pleasurable fact of life in Des Moines: If you can't find more restaurants to love here than any reasonable person could patronize, you're just not paying attention.
January 15, 2019
UK Parliament rejects Brexit deal
The whole Brexit affair seems like a perfect example of the problem of deciding "We hate this; let's get rid of it" without also deciding "When we get rid of this, what comes after it?" Sure, it's clear that among the English (not so much among the Scots or the Northern Irish), there was substantial public disappointment with the EU. But as it was put in Federalist 49, "The danger of disturbing the public tranquility by interesting too strongly the public passions, is a still more serious objection against a frequent reference of constitutional questions to the decision of the whole society."
New York Times: "Trump discussed pulling U.S. from NATO, aides say"
Absent any other evidence of his behavior, this alone would represent a serious national security threat. As Margaret Thatcher said, "A nation can be free but it will not stay free for long if it has no friends and no alliances." But it's even more alarming considering the President's other displays of reckless talk and action, erratic decision-making, and suspiciously docile behavior in the presence of Vladimir Putin. Deterrence and alliances depend on psychology as much as on treaties.
The President deserves a primary challenger
A look at five people who could contest the Republican Presidential nomination for 2020: Senator Mitt Romney, Secretary Jim Mattis, Governor John Kasich, Ambassador Nikki Haley, and Senator Jeff Flake. He also deserves a challenge from people like Senator Bob Corker or Senator Ben Sasse. The nomination should not be handed again to President Trump. It should be vigorously contested by someone with character and a sense of honor. Stephen F. Hayes offers a robust argument on behalf of a primary challenge, on the grounds that without it, "the 2020 presidential election will almost certainly pass without voters hearing a coherent case for limited government."
Someone shared a mockup of an "Amy Klobuchar for President 2020" logo, and social media ran away with it. But the materials include some allusions to mountains, which Klobuchar's home state of Minnesota doesn't have. In fact, if you'd gotten in your car in Minneapolis and started driving west, in seven hours you STILL wouldn't even have made it to Wall Drug, much less to a mountain.
January 16, 2019
Rudy Giuliani is taking to television to defend (?) the President, and nothing he says inspires serious confidence. People keep saying that reality is too much like "Veep", but it seems more like we're just watching a nefarious real-life version of "Arrested Development".
Rap artist Cardi B has a very not-safe-for-work rant about the government shutdown, viewed millions of times in less than a single day. It's unlikely that the same number of people will read, say, the Federalist Papers this year -- so what does that say about our self-government? Should we expect more nose-in-the-books behavior, or are off-the-cuff celebrity video rants the new standard?
A German commuter knitted a scarf to illustrate how often her travels were delayed -- two rows of yarn per day. It's a tremendously clever idea.
Here's a test: Judge politicians and candidates by how much their speeches differ from the typical laundry list of utterly unfulfillable promises made by kids campaigning for student council. A whole lot of them fail by that yardstick. Then don't hesitate to hold them accountable for the "good behavior" that James Madison wrote about.
Someone found Joe Biden's dream board
A fake edition of the Washington Post is apparently floating around DC
January 17, 2019
President Trump denies use of military aircraft to Speaker Pelosi
Pelosi was scheduled to go to Afghanistan, but the President (almost certainly in retaliation for the dispute over whether he will be permitted to give the State of the Union address during the Federal government shutdown) has denied her the use of military aircraft to go there. This is a particularly sticky situation, because the Department of Defense is fully budgeted and isn't shut down. Moreover, there's a big Constitutional problem with the Article II branch of government denying access to government resources to the Article I branch...for basically any reason whatsoever. Congress is the wellspring of all further legitimacy in national government -- remember, they can fire the President but the President can't fire them. The tools of the government, then, ultimately "belong" to Congress first -- including the military. They not only have the power to set the budget (Article I, Section 7), but they also have sole power to declare war (Article I, Section 8). In other words, Congress isn't just equal, in many important regards, it is supreme. Whether you like the Speaker of the House or not, the interests of that entire branch of government are very much the interests of the American public. As Calvin Coolidge put it, "[The Founders] placed all their public officers under constitutional limitations. [...] They were very apprehensive that the executive might seek to exercise arbitrary powers."
If true (and it's an exclusive report for now), it's a spectacularly big story. The story says that "two sources have told BuzzFeed News that Cohen also told the special counsel that after the election, the president personally instructed him to lie". That would be to suborn perjury, which is a massively bad thing to do (and the kind of thing that brought down Richard Nixon).
Jack Bogle was the real capitalist revolutionary
Forget Che Guevara. Put the face of Jack Bogle on your t-shirt instead.
Omaha Public Schools face $771 million pension shortfall
And they're not even close to being alone on this. Probably no one truly understands the scope and scale of public-sector pension shortfalls in America today. They're all over the country, and they're huge. They are not just contractual obligations, either: They are tied to enormous political risk, too, since public-sector workers (and especially their unions) are extremely powerful in politics.
Should cities clear snow-covered sidewalks instead of property owners?
If the sidewalk is considered a part of the broader transportation system, then perhaps it should become a municipal responsibility. Otherwise, the results may be simply too haphazard for the safety of anyone who needs to travel by foot.
Getting the right perspective on risk
We live in an age when stores offer "extended warranty protection" on a $14 computer mouse, but meanwhile, the Medicare Hospital Insurance trust fund is just seven years away from total depletion.
A few notes on vestigial structures
There are some weird things left over in the human body that we don't use anymore, and it's not just the appendix
January 18, 2019
"I am now convinced that only a real crisis can cure this 21st-century fantasy of crisis."
Disaster without a plan isn't a good thing. Ever.
A New York Times columnist, noting the city's new $15-an-hour minimum-wage law, suggests that the self-sustaining wage in the city is more like $33 an hour. The essence of the problem is that even if true, that number can hardly be imposed by law without consequence. German has a lot of great words for complex matters. Can we find and co-opt into English their word for "I am sympathetic to what you want, but the way you want to get there is complete lunacy and will never achieve that goal"?
Starting with the man in the mirror
There really is nothing less threatening to anyone with a healthy self-image than Gillette's new commercial focusing on a theme of rejecting toxic behavior by males. It appears they're tacitly acknowledging that their longstanding "The Best a Man Can Get" campaigns may have sometimes lapsed into reinforcing stereotypes that needed to go. Nothing wrong with a little voluntary corporate responsibility. It's reminiscent of the Michael Jackson song "Man in the Mirror": When a man shaves, he literally faces the man in the mirror, and it is to Gillette's credit that they're willing to make something of that moment in a way that isn't universally popular.
Supreme Court justices in the off-season
Justice Clarence Thomas "will co-teach a two-week Supreme Court class with Creighton law professor Michael Fenner" in Omaha in the next several days. One might kid that the shutdown has gotten so bad, Supreme Court justices are having to pick up adjunct teaching jobs.
"I've got to just do the right thing"
How House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy decided to punish Rep. Steve King. Rep. King remains obstinately unrepentant, even though his antics -- part of a long pattern of behavior -- cost Iowa a literal seat at the table due to his removal from the Agriculture Committee (fortunately an absence rectified by the appointment of Rep. Cindy Axne to the committee).
One-paragraph book review: "The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up"
Discount the prescriptions, but consider the overall diagnosis
Putting luxury chairs, Wi-Fi, and a TV in a van as a high-end transportation service
Prince Philip flipped his Land Rover
He's 97 years old. Every family seems, sooner or later, to be forced into a conversation about when it's finally time to take the keys away from a senior family member. And all too often, it doesn't happen until a serious crash.
January 21, 2019
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on education
He spoke often on the value of education. We usually don't talk about it explicitly (like we do about the freedoms of religion and speech), but it's hard to think of anyone who has ever been truly free without the freedom to obtain an education.
January 22, 2019
Is "authenticity" the real matter for politicians?
It's pretty easy to talk about "authenticity" as though it's the hot new thing, but in reality, it's been an issue for a century. Take, for instance, what Calvin Coolidge wrote: "In public life it is sometimes necessary in order to appear really natural to be actually artificial." With a roster of what feels like thousands now running for President, there will be a lot of effort put into "appearing really natural". But there are going to be a whole lot of ways for people to get tripped up on the way to doing that, and the embarrassments will hurt more than the efforts at authenticity may help. It's really hard to fake a tweet in one's own voice -- when Senator Ben Sasse tweets about things that really animate him, like America's relationship with the world or Nebraska college athletics, you know it's him being himself. And the same goes for when Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez uses a phrase like "all your base". Like them or not, agree with them or not, they both use first-person language in a way that can't be faked.
A thought-provoking interview on contemporary anti-semitism
Very well worthwhile listening, particularly because Anne McElvoy of The Economist is an extraordinary interviewer
An entirely unscientific poll finds that people would rather pay a little more in local taxes and not have to shovel snow instead of saving the tax money and shoveling for themselves.
January 23, 2019
How about a little demand shock to education?
A potentially unpopular but highly necessary idea, in an age of accelerating economic churn: Make continuing education compulsory for adults. Require everyone to complete three credit hours per year from an accredited source. No restrictions on the delivery method or the subject. If you want to study household electricity, great. Medieval religious texts, fine. Monetarist economic theory, fantastic. As a consequence of imposing a big demand-side shock, you'd quite likely see big innovations in educational delivery, as well as a stimulus to career teaching jobs.
Should the State of the Union speech be cancelled...forever?
A reasonable case for doing away with the annual spectacle altogether. Even better, perhaps we ought to really buttress the spirit of democracy and make the President face questions like the British do to their Prime Minister. Make Article II (literally) answer to Article I.
Twitter ought to have two buttons to retweet: "Retweet with endorsement" and "Retweet because it's interesting".
January 24, 2019
Some branches of government are more equal than others
There is a reason why Congress can fire the President through the impeachment process, but the President can't dissolve Congress.
And it's likely to have a bigger effect on certain geographic areas and demographic groups than on others. A new Brookings study says Midwestern states, rural communities, young people, and Hispanic and black workers all may experience disproportionate displacement. We shouldn't try to run away from technological change; after all, the automobile put a lot of stablehands and blacksmiths out of business. But it's wise to pay attention to the effects of change and to disaggregate data where it may tell the story behind the story.
The oldest Millennials could actually be having grandchildren now
What's the best definition for separating a Millennial from a Gen-Xer? Perhaps the easiest cultural milepost on this is whether your age cohort had Facebook accounts during college. (It emerged in colleges in 2004 and 2005, before opening to the greater public in 2006. If yes, then Millennial. If no, then Gen X. And if you got it partway through, then choose your own adventure. Pew says they're defining "Millennial" as those born between 1981 and 1996 -- which means "Generation Z" is now entering the workforce in earnest.
Text-to-911 continues to expand
Now it's available in Lincoln, Nebraska, as well as many of the nearby counties. A great option for people who need emergency help, but who can't use the normal 911 service -- if, for instance, they're hiding from an intruder or a domestic abuser.
One's Twitter experience can easily turn into a dumpster fire if one only ever reads the main feed. But if you curate a few lists and put some thought into deliberately plumbing the thoughts on those lists, it can be a marvelous resource. Deliberate, intentional media consumption is a skill worth cultivating.
$8,000 transfusions of "young blood"
Being offered in Omaha and a few select other locations now. For the same efficacy, at the right time of night, you can find a guy in a trenchcoat hanging around the Leahy Mall who will spit into your eye for five bucks. Your results may vary.
For one day only, reports one Mark DiStefano, Sky News will put more than 30 cameras in its newsroom and stream the whole behind-the-scenes thing live. Without a 7-second delay, this could be the most NSFW program on television.
January 25, 2019
Roger Stone arrested on criminal charges
His purported "style" column is about to take a highly monochromatic turn. The charges: lying, obstruction, and witness tampering. The special counsel's office isn't messing around.
Was the Coast Guard commandant right to criticize the government shutdown?
This raises important questions. The public -- through Congress, especially -- needs feedback on how decisions, policies, and funding affect the mission. We don't want undue military influence on politics, but we also can't afford military policy without honest feedback.
Newseum sells its iconic building
The Newseum -- one of the best museum institutions in museum-saturated Washington, DC -- is selling its building on Pennsylvania Avenue to Johns Hopkins University and will move out at the end of 2019. They say they're going to look for "a new home in the Washington, DC area", but it's hard not to be concerned that any new location will diminish the status of the institution. Right now, a visitor to DC can't miss it.
When companies commute to their talent
Pella Corp. is opening an office in Des Moines to make it easier to recruit and retain workers who would rather live in the metro than in the company's namesake town.
January 26, 2019
Should the draft be modernized? Can it be?
The National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service has released an interim report saying that they're examining a giant menu of options -- which could include requiring women to sign up for Selective Service, imposing a one-year public-service requirement on all Americans, and/or having government agencies share information with one another about prospects for "service opportunities". Even for an interim report, it seems exceptionally broad and vague.
Roger Stone becomes sixth associate of Trump campaign to be indicted
Stone has a long history of association with the now-President.
Federal shutdown ends (temporarily) after 35 days
The longest shutdown in history really just means that a bunch of Federal workers are going to be paid (late) for not working for a month. There are better ways to resolve political disagreements. The President continues to try to lay the groundwork to call a border wall a "national emergency", and that's not a healthy direction for things to go, either.
Sen. Joni Ernst's personal story goes quite public
News related to her divorce filings put her into the spotlight as a victim of sexual assault. In an interview with Bloomberg News, she repeated a common refrain: "The problem is now I've been outed when I was not ready to talk about it. But now maybe it forces me to talk about it."
Can we stop antibiotic resistance?
The UK's National Health Service is going to try a model to pay drug manufacturers for the value of their medications to the system, rather than the quantity produced and sold. (Tn economic terms, that's an effort to bring the price in line with the true social utility.) They're also going to try to reduce the use of the drugs overall.
January 27, 2019
A reminder that genocides haven't been vanquished, and that indifference to the suffering of other people is never benign.
Dear Unicode: We need a NATO flag emoji
As symbolic displays go, this is one a person can definitely get behind.
Peggy Noonan laments the decline of local newspapers
The loss of a permanent sense of local "place" is an important point, and it's a big part of Ben Sasse's valuable book "Them". For 85 years, we Americans have been teaching ourselves to think that everything important is done at the national level, and that's had unintended consequences -- not least of which is a hollowing-out of our interest and investment in how we manage ourselves close to home.
Children's television programs, ranked
(1) Sesame Street; (2) Super Why; (3) Curious George; (4) Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood; (5) Little Baby Bum. And basically everything else is just miserable garbage designed to sell junk or induce vomiting in adults.
Cold-weather safety tip: Check your CO monitors
Carbon-monoxide detection is a must wherever anything is combusted indoors (or near indoors) -- natural gas, LP, wood, gasoline, diesel, or otherwise
Winter brings a snow/freezing rain combo to Des Moines
It's like seven-layer salad, but for winter precipitation. Iowa's frequently-appalling weather is our secret weapon in keeping out the riffraff.
January 28, 2019
New CBO outlook has Federal debt on dreadful path
With no changes to current policies, we're looking at a debt as big as the entire GDP in a decade. And that's just debt held by the public. Add in the intragovernmental holdings in trust funds, and we're pretty well at the 100% ratio already. The mass delusion that we can ignore this problem without consequences is astonishing. This isn't an imaginary monster hiding under the bed. In accounting, debt is usually the one thing that is always very, very real.
What we read when everyone is watching
It's interesting to watch answers to questions like "What are seven books you love?" from high-profile people who are supposed to be highly knowledgeable about current events, but scrupulously non-partisan -- like Jeff Glor, anchor of the CBS Evening News. His picks include a classic on Theodore Roosevelt and a David Halberstam work. But it's almost predictable that he chose a Lincoln-centric piece first. Picks like Glor's really tell us which are the safest parts of the American consensus. Lincoln? Extremely safe.
January 29, 2019
Why it's so hard for the Defense Department to get into cyber
It's hard not to become convinced that the Defense Department ought to stand up a full-fledged branch dedicated to cyber, complete with its own laws of combat, mission accountability, and a service academy.
Better on someone's shoulders than on your coat hanger
As Midwesterners rifle through their closets for winter gear, we ought to consider giving under-used garments to our local shelters, where they might do some good.
Free technology repair may be the next big library mission
Despair, if you must, about the condition of national politics. But know that the really interesting stuff is happening at the state and municipal levels, where people's problems are visible up-close.
-40° -- where metric meets standard
If this is what it takes to get America on the metric system, then it's a bridge too far. On the bright side, though, cold winters are a pretty significant deterrent to scorpions, deadly spiders, and rattlesnakes.
Twins born at 22 weeks and one day of gestation
That's an incredible 18 weeks early, and their survival is a testament to the absolutely superhuman work of the people working at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics.
How swearing in type might just help some people feel better about themselves
Super-cold temperatures could kill a lot of emerald ash borer larvae
At least some good might come of the cold snap
In testimony to Congress, the Director of National Intelligence offers this decidedly uncheery report: "We assess that foreign actors will view the 2020 US elections as an opportunity to advance their interests. We expect them to refine their capabilities and add new tactics as they learn from each other's experiences and efforts in previous elections."
January 30, 2019
The President dismisses his entire intelligence community
If a foreign head of state insulted American intelligence agencies like this, we would them a likely adversary. The President's temperament and lack of even a shred of humility makes him profoundly ill-suited to his job. As Calvin Coolidge suggested, "Any man who has been placed in the White House cannot feel that it is the result of his own exertions or his own merit. Some power outside and beyond him becomes manifest through him."
Low-temperature records are falling. Schools are closed. Even US Mail delivery has been suspended. But public utilities are still open. Never a day off.
Ice quakes go boom in the night
Subsurface moisture is freezing in the extraordinary cold, causing the ground to "boom". Though you could be forgiven for thinking a pterodactyl had crashed into your house.
True conservatives aren't reactionary
A thoughtful column by Avi Woolf: "Conservatives are supposed to be the immovable rock in the storm, the adult in the room, the stubborn, obstinate but level-headed individuals who stand for the things that matter long after fads and fashions have passed..."
Some kind of wacky recursive art thing has emerged on Reddit
Harmlessly silly fun like this ought to come with reasonably high confidence that artificial intelligence will never see the humor, which may be what keeps us human after all.
January 31, 2019
The number killed in Syria's civil war last year. Fewer than in 2017 (2,109) or in 2016 (2,372). Yet still 1,437 too many.
Facebook is a main cyberwarfare battleground
The company says it "removed 783 pages, groups, and accounts that were being used in a coordinated disinformation campaign "directed from Iran". And here's why Iran would do such a thing: Asymmetry of results. The Facebook report says they found "Less than $30,000 in spending for ads", but the pages reached more than 2 million users.
The Airbus A380 may be among the walking dead
Emirates Airline may be reconsidering an order for the super-jumbo jets, which could mean the whole program is doomed
Principal Financial warns of likely layoffs ahead
The financial-services sector isn't hot right now, and that meant net income for 2018 was a lot lower than in 2017.
Apple and Facebook go to digital war
Apple is seeking to punish Facebook in a visible way for violating Apple's terms for applications. Facebook was using the "Facebook Research" app (according to impressive reporting by TechCrunch) to gather data on everything users did with their phones. It paid those users to give up their privacy -- apparently to the tune of $20 a month -- which is an interesting market price signal. (The number seems terribly low, given the amount of intrusion. But in reality, users routinely give up a lot of privacy for free without even acknowledging or realizing it.) But the PR nightmare here is that the users Facebook solicited were ages 13 to 35, and that means the headline becomes "Facebook paid teens $20 a month to give up their privacy". It's worth repeating: Facebook isn't your friend.
Cable median barriers prevent head-on crash
(Video) Iowa DOT footage shows a car skidding out on icy I-380, crashing into police cars in the median, and being stopped by a cable barrier in the median -- almost certainly preventing an even more serious head-on crash with oncoming traffic.
Des Moines needs a good winter festival
The metro needs some kind of mid-winter event so we can look forward to something fun when it's apocalyptically cold outside. Like, when it's gas-station-wiper-fluid-still-frozen degrees out. And you can't count the Iowa caucuses, because that's just a once-every-four-years open-mic night.