Newsletter 73. Change you can believe in is change you can understand, merry Christmas to booksellers, how to stump ChatGPT, plus three people to follow and three books to read. How change feels There are two kinds of change: change in what you do, and change in who you are. Both create uncertainty. But the…
Two things are true. One: that many of our most important decisions depend on data generated by the government. And two: regarding the people who produce the government data, president-elect Trump has promised that “As many as 100,000 government positions can be moved out — and I mean immediately — of Washington.” Here’s why that…
All of us who watched the ABC News presidential debate this week shared an experience: a whole bunch of “What the fuck?” moments. These were statements made by the candidates that seemed, not just odd, but completely incendiary, implausible, and out of left field. So let’s evaluate what they said and just as important, was…
You already know what you think today. There’s no point in my attempting to share some witty insight. And there’s no point in competing with news this pervasive. Talk amongst yourselves. See you Monday.
Multiple people on my timeline recently shared the photo of Donald Trump and famous pedophile Jeffrey Epstein on a plane, shown below, which is a fake: How do I know it’s fake? As soon as I saw this, I was suspicious. Why? Because while I’ve seen other photos of Trump and Epstein together — as…
For years now, it’s been hard to be a citizen. Cynical and corrupt people appeared to be succeeding in using modern media tools to bamboozle and subvert the political desires of normal, rational folks. In short, it has seemed as if there’s no penalty for lying, deception, and outright lawbreaking. I have wanted to believe…
We’re not paying enough attention to the financing of Elon Musk’s Twitter purchase. It explains why he’s flailing now, and points to a shocking future for the social network. Where did Musk get the money to buy Twitter, and why does it matter? Of the $44 billion it took to buy Twitter, about $24 billion…
You may have thought the results of yesterday’s midterm elections were about the candidates who were running and the voters who were voting. Nope. They were about former President Donald Trump, who has decided this is his moment to return to the spotlight. In an interview with a new news organization, NewsNation, on Election Day,…
The U.S. Department of Justice filed a response to a recent Donald Trump request regarding the raid of Mar-a-Lago. Its filing is full of passive voice, a means of expression I’ve continually railed against. Why is it passive, and should the DOJ be writing in the active voice instead? Here’s a passage from the DOJ’s…