https://twitter.com/jonathanvswan/st...05545718800388

Make sure to listen until the end

That was hilarious.

Are we sure that's not J.K. Simmons?

Something that I didn't notice originally - nothing on high-speed rail in Biden's Infrastructure/Jobs plan. Article says because of Biden/Amtrack's close relationship and can see airlines lobbying here also.

How high speed trains got railroaded in Biden's infrastructure plan - POLITICO

I think something like Atlanta to Miami with stops in Orlando. Atlanta going north to New York would be fantastic. DFW to Houston etc.

I'm assuming that Biden approved this but debatable they should have. I guess a pro is it shines Biden in a good, positive, fatherly light. But it brings the focus back on the black sheep Hunter. And don't think Hunter needs money so why publish a memoir.

Someone that cheats on his wife with dead brother's wife shows that he is scum. (Dead brother's wife also but can maybe excuse her for being taken advantaged of). Losing a laptop with sensitive materials ain't good.

So my best guess is Biden wants to get all the bad news out of the way right now which would be forgotten/overshadowed by 3 years of good, recovery news.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hunter-...ention-memoir/

I’m sure all the tolerant evangelicals on the right will practice what they preach and totally forgive him for his sins.

Interesting editorial in the WaPost about how the plan's focus on increasing EV fast charging stations may be chasing an outdated technology.

Instead, it argues for focus on battery swapping. You just pull into the station, and they take out your drained battery and swap in a fully charged one.

I think that makes sense. Even an hour to charge on a long roadtrip can be a lot for people. Yeah, you can try and time it to match up with a lunch break, etc. but it adds a complexity that you don't have when you can fill up with gas in 5 minutes.

If, however, you could swap out the battery in 15 minutes, and that's reliable and ubiquitous, then you are really starting to make EVs attractive.

The preempted coup arrests in Jordan are wild. Apparently, the crown prince has been arrested and his mother is implicated as well. There are also reports of a Gulf nation being implicated, so UAE or the Saudis?

If I was driving a Tesla, I don't know if I want to trust someone to swap out a possibly non-Tesla-approved battery for me.

I'm good with plenty of charging stations everywhere, at every third exit or so. Get charging down to 20 min for 80+% and I'm all in.

Didn't expect sports, corporations, and the military to be too liberal.

Article that has polling on some of the GA legislation.

Americans Oppose Many Voting Restrictions — But Not Voter ID Laws | FiveThirtyEight


Guess I am in the minority on this one.


I'm part of the 44% (but drop off boxes in a secured location).


Yay, part of the mainstream.

The food and drink thing was so stupid, is so stupid. I think it literally exposed the true intent to all of it and I just don't understand why the GOP (who wants to feign that this really isn't jim crow) would put that in. It's just so evil IMO. Old women that would stand in line potentially for hours to vote in foreign countries we view as patriots for standing up to vote (especially if it's a fledgling democracy) but in Georgia they're like "good luck!" muwahahahaha "hope you don't need food or water!" muwahahahaha

assholes.

The worst parts of that law are the ones that give control of local elections processes to the legislature. Hardly anyone is talking about them.

The food and water thing is bad not simply because of what it does, but the fact that it even exists at all - it's a recognition that lines are going to be so long in certain places that people would actually need food or water. There's absolutely no explanation for it that could justify it from that perspective.

So can these laws be challenged to the Supreme Court, or no since states control their elections?

Either way, I think this backfires big on the GOP. It is the classic the tighter they squeeze the more things slip through their fingers.

I also look forward to the media coverage the first time someone is actuality arrested for providing water to thirsty people.

$ Trillion on public transport and none for high speed trains? Is that right?

Agreed. Edward's point is well-taken, but my (limited) understanding is that we aren't likely to get down to what most people would consider a reasonable recharge time anytime soon. I don't think it matters how good that option is if we can't get there - but I'm not certain that's the case.

Right now at least ...


Googling says there are 4 different types of electric car batteries. No idea how "compatible" the chargers are between those 4.

I do see the concern about investing in a nationwide network of chargers that are not compatible (good old early era with DOS and Windows 3.1) or have to "upgrade" every few years (e.g. early days of PCs & Laptops where it seems software forced a hardware upgrade every 2 years).

All in all, would prefer a 20 min charge time for 80% vs swappable batteries (Tesla batteries weigh 540kg or about 1,200lbs).

On one hand, I can see gas stations jumping on this because that is 20 min people have to spend into their stores (where they make the real money). On the other hand, I can see WalMart and other big box stores putting in charging stations to attract the same captive audience.

Yes, nobody is there with their VOTE OBAMA shirts passing out food and water, that is already illegal. Volunteer groups go to the poor neighborhoods where people wait in lime 4+ hours to vote and give them food and water. I've also seen port-a-pottys set up around those areas. People are not waiting 4 hours in Gilmer, or Bibb (or any of these other redneck counties). They are literally waiting in lines for hours in Fulton. They are closing DMVs in those counties as well, making it harder to get IDs. If they coupled this with a law allowing mobile DMVs to set up and give people free IDs in the poor neighborhoods (where people may take MARTA and not drive), then that is one thing. But they are quite literally targeting the areas they want to reduce voting, desite the fact that the only cases of voter fraud are some republican voters and the shady ones in FL where the GOP donors apparently funded the campaigns of challengers with the same name of democrat incumbents.

$1.7T is the number below but I thought the $ was more like $700-$800B. $1.7T is essentially the Jobs plan minus some pork. Compared to other priorities, I do hope Biden sticks to no or $10K and continue 0% interest for the foreseeable future.

I'm all for helping out but pure forgiveness doesn't sit well with me. Have these folks work off part of the student loans by doing weekend work on infrastructure projects.

Student loan forgiveness: What Biden is considering for student debt

I kinda view student debt forgiveness the way I view immigration - I'm fine, in theory, with helping those who are stuck in the moment, but without wholesale changes to the way things work going forward, it's nothing more than a temporary fix for what will continue to be an ongoing problem. So, if we're going to half-ass it, I think we'd be better off doing nothing, or providing partial assistance.

There are a lot of things about the 50's "American dream" path that need to be re-thought given where we are as a society. Should everyone really be pushing for a college degree and home ownership, for example? Should there be more focus on trades, and less stigma to skipping the college experience for direct work experience or targeted post-HS programs? I don't know what the answer is, but college is not worth what it costs in a lot of situations. It feels like a college degree is required for many jobs because that's just what everyone requires.

Does this include older people who got cheap college back in the day through taxpayer funds?

Going forward, I'd be fine telling colleges/universities "Hey, if you want your students to be eligible for federally subsidized loans and grants, then you cannot increase costs more than [some inflation metric] - 0.5% a year."

It would take a while, but it would make college more affordable over the long term.

The problem for public schools is that states cut budgets to such a degree that they could never meet that obligation without massive cut backs.

Feel free to provide your link(s) so we can all be better educated and make sure we are comparing apples-to-apples.

Previous generations paid significantly less for their college education. This was due to massive investment in education by our government (both state and federal).

So if your solution is that people should have to work off any help they received from the government to afford school, why wouldn't it apply to older generations that received far more help than anyone today is asking? Only seems fair.

Because as it stands, our situation is what it is because that older generation gutted higher education the minute they no longer needed it for themselves.

I'll wait for your link(s) with some facts, $ and context.

What facts are you looking for? That school is much more expensive today?

Average Cost of College Has Jumped an Incredible 3,009% in 50 Years

Yeah but that article isn't an actual receipt, RainMaker! You gotta bring first-person proof from someone who was in school in 1971!

(As well as paystubs for the bootstraps part of the equation.)

Nvm, I see you were trolling. Let's continue ignoring each other.

I think this is the same flawed approach to thinking about education that we often have in healthcare. The world simply isn't the same as it was. Using your 50-year timeline, we spend more as a % of GDP on education now than we did in 1970, at which time it was sharply on the rise from previous levels.

Specialization of labor, training, overdependence on college education as compared to vocational skills as I've talked about in the past, all of these have had an impact. It simply isn't true to frame it as 'too bad we won't invest like we did in the past'. To do free college for everyone or whatever you have to be willing to invest several orders of magnitude more than has been done before.

There's definitely an argument to be made for that, but this isn't it. Some aspects of life cost more now largely because of the advances we've made - there are possibilities available that simply weren't there a half-century ago at *any* price.

This. In the internet age, there's no reason for education to be gated behind a formal university in most fields. Education should be a lifetime process and valued based on the demonstrable skills, abilities, and knowledge that come from it. Diplomas are dinosaurs.

I know westerners will criticize this move but I lean to being okay with this. He remains pretty popular with Russians, is somewhat of a benevolent dictator (just don't threaten him personally or politically), and has stabilized Russia (or arguably brought Russian back) from the disastrous Yeltsin era.

I'm from the camp that western democracy/republic doesn't work for many countries.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/vladimi...dential-terms/

I'm a hard no on that. It's wrong for a leader to change the law to keep themselves in power longer on a fundamental level. Doesn't matter how good or bad they are otherwhise. Putin is obviously trying to destabilize other countries, and is in general a hostile actor to US interests.

It's weird to me that someone concerned with the threat from China would want someone like Putin to stay in power.

He literally had the leader of the opposition poisoned, then when he survived sent him to a prison labor camp. Benevolent is not a word I would use to describe him.

Biden has come a long way since May 2019 with the below quote.


Really hope he's got his head on straight now. China is the #1 long term threat. I'm hoping he really believes this vs China being a convenient scapegoat to help sell his bill.

https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden...20a0e308943ade

Agreed. At least China doesn't really give a shit to interfere in US elections. China plays by some rules, whereas Putin doesn't play by any.

You are speaking from a western centric POV. And your opposition is understandable. If I was a regular Russian, I would prefer Putin over Yeltsin and Gorby. There's a lot of good and bad from the regular Russian POV, but more good than bad I think.


Yes, Russia is still a threat. But a waning threat. Russia can be controlled and deflected much easier than China. China is a growing threat.

I qualified it with


Also, the opposition leader is an idiot. He was home free and purposely went back to the lion's den with a miscalculated sense of self-worth. You play in the big leagues, you make a poor bet, you pay for it.

Thats like saying John Wilkes Booth was a great guy and amazing actor, except for the whole Lincoln assassination thing.

You can't just dismiss it as some minor character flaw.

Have we proved E64 isn't a regular Russian?

(Just looking for facts, you know.)

I'm not arguing that Putin isn't a bad guy. I'm arguing that he has done more good than bad for the regular Russian, and he has done well for his country since the Yeltsin/Gorby days.

FWIW, some insights.

Putin’s Russia, 20 years on – POLITICO
The below quote is interesting. I don't know what trust rating means but his popularity rating has remained about 59%.

I am very not comfortable that people are fine with "political freedoms were being curtailed" as long as the trains are running on time. It sounds very familiar somehow.

Was he dressing provocatively too?

Sounds like propaganda trying to wear us down, to me.

Putin's great as long as you have no windows.

This was the exact thought I had, talk about victim blaming....

Except they're not. So long as employers require degrees and diplomas as a proxy for skill, they're going to be highly desired. That's not on the people wanting to get degrees - if you tell everyone that you need a degree to get even the most menial office job* then there will be a huge market for them. That's on the hiring companies requiring degrees for people to get a job. Why wouldn't people put a premium on getting that piece of paper if the piece of paper is required in so many fields where it shouldn't be?

SI

*Yes, you can get a well paying job as a plumber, contractor, etc - but, unless you own the business, there's a limit to how high you can go - whereas I think the path to advancement in the white collar world is more clear (even if some of it is a farce). And, in general, white collar work has better working conditions - no one's out in 100 degree sun or slogging through literal poop. And it's not as if these fields are devoid of their own low paid internship/apprenticeship phase. That said - this isn't about "blue collar" vs "white collar" so much as it's stupid how many jobs these days require college degrees and that's like 90% on the employers and 10% on the employees not the other way around.

It's weird to think of Putin to Mussolini as the latter is now like history's stooge second banana to history's greatest monster. But, hm...

SI

I agree with you that a lot of this is on those doing the hiring - that's the point, that society overvalues that piece of paper. As to the why, this is hardly the only aspect of life where we haven't progressed with changes in the world fast enough, wouldn't you say? People have a different list as far as that's concerned, but I would chalk most of it up to tradition/reflexive thinking. There are all sorts of examples of successful entreprenuers who were college dropouts. It is often a stand-in for a low-grade background check; i.e. if you have a degree we know you aren't a total screwup.