Should Twitter have a friends and family option for tweet distribution?

by philg

Aside from the removal of misinformation, such as anything that Donald Trump might have to say or anything regarding Hunter Biden and how he earns enough to pay off a $2.5 million child support plaintiff, it strikes me that the main advantage of Facebook over Twitter is that one can have two classes of post: public and friends/family. One can write about how great Dr. Biden’s husband and Dr. Fauci are for public consumption and the next post can be some kid pictures that would be of interest only to friends/family (and/or that the author might want to keep slightly private).

What if Twitter had a “friends” connection option between accounts, similar to Facebook’s, rather than only “follow”? Would that help Twitter gain market share against Facebook? Currently, Twitter has a “protected” option in which tweets are shared only with followers, but most or all of those followers might not be friends/family.

Full post, including comments

Is Joe Biden fighting an undeclared war against Russia?

by philg

According to the Constitution, it is Congress’s job to decide when to declare and wage war on a foreign country.

What is the Biden administration doing?

“U.S. Intelligence Is Helping Ukraine Kill Russian Generals, Officials Say” (NYT, May 4, 2022):

The United States has provided intelligence about Russian units that has allowed Ukrainians to target and kill many of the Russian generals who have died in action in the Ukraine war, according to senior American officials.

Ukrainian officials said they have killed approximately 12 generals on the front lines, a number that has astonished military analysts.

The targeting help is part of a classified effort by the Biden administration to provide real-time battlefield intelligence to Ukraine. That intelligence also includes anticipated Russian troop movements gleaned from recent American assessments of Moscow’s secret battle plan for the fighting in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, the officials said. Officials declined to specify how many generals had been killed as a result of U.S. assistance.

The United States has focused on providing the location and other details about the Russian military’s mobile headquarters, which relocate frequently.

If a country did that to the U.S., would we call it an “act of war” and flatten their capital in retaliation?

“U.S. Intelligence Helped Ukraine Strike Russian Flagship, Officials Say” (NYT, May 5, 2022):

The United States provided intelligence that helped Ukrainian forces locate and strike the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet last month, another sign that the administration is easing its self-imposed limitations on how far it will go in helping Ukraine fight Russia, U.S. officials said.

The targeting help, which contributed to the eventual sinking of the flagship, the Moskva, is part of a continuing classified effort by the Biden administration to provide real-time battlefield intelligence to Ukraine.

What if a country helped some jihadists conduct an operation similar to the USS Cole bombing, e.g., by letting the attackers know exactly where one of our ships was?

What about funding? One way to figure out if a country is at war is if its taxpayers are funding a war. From a May 4 NYT article in which the President actually does run a proposal by Congress:

This week, the Senate will take up a request from President Biden to send $33 billion in aid to Ukraine, mostly in the form of artillery, antitank weapons and other military and security assistance. If the measure goes through, the United States will have authorized a total of $46.6 billion for the war, equal to more than two-thirds of Russia’s entire annual defense budget.

The request comes just weeks after President Vladimir Putin of Russia called on the Biden administration in a formal diplomatic letter to stop supplying advanced weapons to Ukrainian forces. If it didn’t, Putin warned there would be “unpredictable consequences.”

It sounds like Americans been doing everything on the Ukrainian side except the final trigger pull. We are funding the entire Ukrainian military, just as we fund our own military. We are directly running the Ukrainian military’s electronic and satellite intelligence branch. With some assistance from NATO allies, we are designing and building the weapons that the Ukrainian military uses in combat.

The above should not be intended as an opinion regarding the Russia-Ukraine war. (I don’t understand the languages, the history, etc.) The topic for this post is the process of governing the U.S. If the Constitution says “Congress shall have Power . . . To declare War” (Article I, Section 8, Clause 11), how is Joe Biden allowed to do all of the stuff that he is apparently doing without specific Congressional authorization?

Related:

Full post, including comments

How is Berkshire Hathaway an example of investment genius if it holds cash while inflation rages?

by philg

Berkshire Hathaway has been holding roughly $140 billion during a period of raging inflation (source):

This is about 20 percent of the company’s market cap (about $700 billion). The standard explanation for this is that it gives Berkshire Hathaway the ability to pounce on great deals, but Elon Musk is managing to buy Twitter without having had to let inflation erode a substantial percentage of his portfolio for 2+ years. The company’s annualized operating earnings right now are about $22 billion (CNBC). Inflation has been 8.5 percent. So the company is losing $12 billion to inflation annually, more than half as much as its headline “earnings”.

Admittedly the S&P 500 is flat compared to a year ago as well, so if Warren Buffett had done the obvious thing of parking money in the S&P it wouldn’t have done significantly better. Gold didn’t rise smoothly as the dollar fell in purchasing power. Bitcoin is about 32 percent lower today in nominal dollars than it was a year ago. But isn’t there something better to do with all $140 billion rather than leave it for exposed to the depredations of the government’s money-printing operation?

Full post, including comments

Anti-hate reeducation at a Maskachusetts public school

by philg

I won’t put this one in quote style because the italics will make it harder to read…

Prior to the April break I wrote to let you know that I was concerned about hateful language that had been found in a bathroom and that we would be following up with an outside speaker. Today Mr. Mark Liddell came to talk with our students. Mr. Liddell is the High School Coordinator for the METCO program [busing children, based on skin color, from City of Boston schools to suburban districts, thus relieving the foreign owners of downtown real estate from having to pay for these kids’ education] in the Wayland Public Schools. Mr. Liddell has done at least six presentations with our parent groups through the generosity of the Lincoln METCO Parent Board who has brought him as a speaker over the last two years around many topics of race and history.

We spent an hour together first with 5th and 6th grade and then with 7th and 8th grade talking about language, historical context, and how we should respond when we hear hate speech. As Mr. Liddell is a high school teacher, there were pieces of his talk that might have felt difficult for some students to understand. There were other parts that were uncomfortable to sit through as they showed unfortunate pieces of our history. Students were given the opportunity to stay with Mr. Liddell and teachers at school to continue to talk and ask questions after the assembly.

This afternoon the faculty will further conversations on how to talk with our students as issues continue to surface. Mr. Liddell ended his time with our students sharing the following pledge:

Full post, including comments

Twitter’s Ministry of Medical Truth fact-checked by a medical school professor

by philg

If you love Internet and love medical school, what’s not to love about this page in which a med school professor fact checks the folks at Twitter who suspended a user for posting “misinformation”:

(Note that I think the most harmful misinformation ever distributed regarding COVID-19 came from the CDC and similar enterprises, i.e., that cloth masks protected humans from an aerosol virus. I have been ridiculing that advice here since March 2020, e.g., by reference to “saliva-soaked face rag” or “use a bandana as PPE” but I never questioned whether the Covidcrats had the right to say what they said.)

Speaking of misinformation, the headline writers at Politico deserve a Pulitzer for this one:

Full post, including comments

Report on some masketology in Washington, D.C. and Bethesda, Maryland

by philg

This is a report on the coronapanic level during a late April trip to Washington, D.C. and Bethesda, Maryland (see previous post regarding the flight itself).

First, if coronapanic ever does end, the government invites you to think about all of the other bad things that could happen and “Make an Emergency Plan”:

But coronapanic hasn’t ended. In Northeast D.C., where shootings are a daily occurrence, faith in masks remains strong (nobody has read “Correlation Between Mask Compliance and COVID-19 Outcomes in Europe”?):

Here’s an establishment serving healthful beer, wine, and mixed drinks in an environment that is perfect for spreading SARS-CoV-2 variants. They explain that they enjoyed checking vaccine papers so much that they’re going to continue doing it (“Gotta give the Freedom Fighting Anti Vaxxers Something to Whine About”) even though it is no longer required by mayoral order.

Folks in DC and suburban Maryland have so many masks that they had trouble keeping track of them. Masks were some of the most common street litter in various locales.

What about in Northwest D.C.? Here are some photos from the Mt. Pleasant neighborhood (houses: $1-3 million). First, a street dining venue that is technically “outdoors” but also reminded customers that masks are required (between bites?):

The typical shop front door had signs in both English and Spanish, often referring to a government order from July 31, 2021. Here a worker cleaning the front door wears a mask in the outdoor heat (over 80 degrees):

Some miscellaneous images from the same neighborhood.

Despite the love of mask-wearing, COVID-19 seems to be raging among the Followers of Science right now. A cousin who is a clinical psychologist in D.C. restricted her practice to Zoom more than two years ago and has barely left her house. She explained that she couldn’t meet us because… she has COVID-19 right now. Her symptoms are similar in nature and severity to what unvaccinated friends suffered in 2020, but she attributes her survival to having been vaccinated. She would share the mystification of the following tweet:

https://twitter.com/SamPogono/status/1517986960786309122

My mom (nearly 88) and I attended what was supposed to be a 100-person Bat Mitzvah celebration. The hostesses put “vaccination required” prominently on the invitation. Nonetheless, multiple D.C.-area people guests failed to show up at the last minute because they were sick with COVID. Masks were not required at the gathering, but roughly half of the invulnerable teenagers attending wore masks (for four hours straight, while dancing, etc.) while only one or two of the older people, all enthusiastic Democrats (and therefore voters for politicians who order mask-wearing), wore masks. For privacy’s sake, I don’t want to show the kids, but here’s an adult with a rainbow mask:

My favorite photo from the trip is this Toyota Sienna with a “MINIVAN” vanity plate:

Related:

  • now that everyone in D.C. has COVID-19, the public health experts who live there are willing to think the unthinkable: “What Sweden Got Right About COVID” (Washington Monthly, 4/19/2022)
  • from the same date, “Correlation Between Mask Compliance and COVID-19 Outcomes in Europe”: Surprisingly, weak positive correlations were observed when mask compliance was plotted against morbidity (cases/million) or mortality (deaths/million) in each country (Figure 3). … While no cause-effect conclusions could be inferred from this observational analysis, the lack of negative correlations between mask usage and COVID-19 cases and deaths suggest that the widespread use of masks at a time when an effective intervention was most needed, i.e., during the strong 2020-2021 autumn-winter peak, was not able to reduce COVID-19 transmission. Moreover, the moderate positive correlation between mask usage and deaths in Western Europe also suggests that the universal use of masks may have had harmful unintended consequences.

D.C.’s most powerful politician says “everyone encouraged to wear a mask all the time”:

#MissionAccomplished! (at least in D.C./MD)

Full post, including comments

I’ve been using the Pregnant Man Emoji

by philg

“A pregnant man emoji is here and it’s about damn time” (Today’s Parent):

Apple is set to release 37 new emojis, including two that are pregnancy-related. One features a pregnant man and the other features a pregnant person, both created to recognize that not all people who get pregnant are women—some are trans men and non-binary folk.

Others have viewed the new emoji as an important step for trans folks who have been hoping to see themselves represented. “We’ve been crying out for a pregnant man emoji for years so thank you for finally listening!” wrote another Twitter user.

I haven’t had the opportunity to use the emoji to celebrate a male-identifying friend’s pregnancy. This is not because men can’t be pregnant people, of course, but because most of my friends are older than is conventional for becoming a pregnant person.

The emoji, however, turns out to be the perfect response when middle-aged male-identifying friends send food pictures. Two friends recently sent me pictures from a dim sum house, for example. Both guys were sporting their “Lockdown 15” look, so the pregnant man emoji response made sense. One good thing about the Signal messaging app (so thoroughly encrypted that even President Harris won’t be able to incarcerate you for thoughtcrime) is that it allows you to react to a message with any emoji, not just the small handful that Facebook offers. So you don’t even have to respond with this emoji, but can simply use it as a reaction.

And then the emoji’s value was turbocharged last night due to the leak of a draft Supreme Court opinion. When people on Facebook or Twitter write about how they believe the decision would affect women, one can respond with “Why is this about “women”? 🫃” (the emoji does not render on my Windows 10 desktop machine; Microsoft is denying Science?)

Readers: What are you doing with this emoji?

Related content from Twitter:

Full post, including comments

City of Boston spent taxpayer funds on the legal defense of a policy that 9 out of 9 Supreme Court justices found unconstitutional

by philg

Back in January: City of Boston happy to fly rainbow and Islamic flags, but not a Christian group’s flag

Today in the NYT… “Supreme Court Rules Against Boston in Case on Christian Flag”:

The Supreme Court unanimously ruled on Monday that the city of Boston had violated the First Amendment when it refused to let a private group raise a Christian flag in front of its City Hall.

One of the three flagpoles in front of the building, which ordinarily flies the flag of Boston, is occasionally made available to groups seeking to celebrate their backgrounds or to promote causes like gay pride. In a 12-year period, the city approved 284 requests for the third flag.

It rejected only one, from Camp Constitution, which says it seeks “to enhance understanding of our Judeo-Christian moral heritage.” The group’s application said it sought to raise a “Christian flag” for one hour at an event that would include “short speeches by some local clergy focusing on Boston’s history.” The flag bore the Latin cross.

The Appeals court decision says that the lawsuit was originally filed in 2018. Thus, to avoid the horror of a Christian-themed flag blocking a billboard for one of the city’s “essential” marijuana dispensaries, the City of Boston paid lawyers for years to defend a policy that not even a single Supreme Court justice found constitutional.

The Appeals court document is also interesting for the list of organizations who hate seeing a Christian flag so much that they’re happy to toss out the U.S. Constitution. Examples of folks who filed amicus briefs in support of the city’s unconstitutional behavior:

  • Anti-Defamation League
  • Central Conference of American Rabbis
  • Hindu American Foundation
  • Maine Conference, United Church of Christ (they also hate Jews in Israel)
  • Men of Reform Judaism
  • National Council of Jewish Women
  • Christ; People for the American Way Foundation (it is not “the American Way” to follow the American Constitution?)
  • Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association
  • The Sikh Coalition
  • Southern New England Conference, United Church of Christ (again with the Israel-haters; I’m not sure that this name is accurate because I never heard anyone in New England who attended a UCC church mention either “Jesus” or “Christ”)
  • Union for Reform Judaism
  • Women of Reform Judaism

Not strictly related, but why do we Jews have so many different organizations? And why isn’t there a Reform Judaism-related group for those who do identify neither as “Men” nor “Women”? Also, what happens when a member of Men of Reform Judaism becomes a “woman” (as the term is defined by Ketanji’s panel of biologists)? Does she have to switch to the “Women of Reform Judaism” group?

The Person of Color (identified as such by the media) who is the current Boston mayor gets into the spirit of Islam today:

See also “Boston City Council approves protest restrictions proposed by Mayor Wu” (Boston Globe, March 30, 2022) for how Mx. Wu has enhanced freedom of speech.

Full post, including comments

Twitter should have a range of reactions?

by philg

In the pre-Elon days, Twitter’s only option for reacting to a tweet was/is a heart (“I love it”).

It doesn’t make sense to “love” a tweet about a person suffering a pulse oxygen decline to 79 (“If it’s below 90, you’re reading your IQ” is the aviation standard). Could Musk give Twitter a usage lift by adding the ability to respond with a range of emotions (Facebook) or a limited-only-by-Unicode range of emojis (Signal)?

Another example, a teacher in Australia fired for refusing the Sacrament of Fauci:

Presumably 7,700+ people didn’t actually “love” that she was fired and is unhappy about it. But there is no other way for users to show support.

Full post, including comments

Design meets human beings: the light bulb 10′ above the ground

by philg

The Covidcrats designed all kinds of systems for humans 2 and up to follow, e.g., Wash Hands, Stay Home, Mask On, Mask Off, Mask On, etc. As evidenced by the rate of plague in countries that applied these systems compared to Sweden, which didn’t bother, either the design was so badly flawed that it wouldn’t have worked even if humans followed the complex instructions perfectly or the designers got an education in human nature.

This came home to me the other day when investigating why there was a light fixture on a closet ceiling (10′ high), but no light was coming out of it. I got up on a ladder and found that the bulb was a burned-out incandescent (i.e., pre-LED age). It is possible that nobody had changed the bulb since the closet was built in 2003. An architect obviously thought that humans would be diligent about maintaining the system (otherwise, put a fluorescent light much lower), but he/she/ze/they was wrong.

Is it human nature to overestimate humans?

Full post, including comments