Read it.

A new national poll finds that 40% of Americans say illegal immigrants should be deported even if they have not committed any offense beyond entering the country illegally — a sign of firm public backing as President Donald Trump fulfills his border policy promises.

At least in the text they specify “beyond entering the country illegally” WHICH IS A CRIME. But you wouldn’t know that from just the headline. That’s how far the mind-rot has spread.

A new survey by The Economist and YouGov shows that immigration remains one of the most divisive issues among voters.

The poll found that 38% said illegal immigrants should be allowed to stay only if they meet certain requirements, while 14% said they should be allowed to stay without conditions; 8% were unsure.

Associated Press, a Voice of the Crust.

When the Deep State is wounded, the Narrative Media squeal.

The essence of democracy, as Jonah Goldberg once said, is that 51% of the people get to pee in the soup of 49% of the people, without recourse. The chief drawback to letting the people’s representatives vote on stuff is that sometimes they will vote in ways that the Smartest People In The Room think are stupid.

Read it.

Legal documents are notoriously difficult to understand, even for lawyers. This raises the question: Why are these documents written in a style that makes them so impenetrable?

MIT cognitive scientists believe they have uncovered the answer to that question. Just as “magic spells” use special rhymes and archaic terms to signal their power, the convoluted language of legalese acts to convey a sense of authority, they conclude.

In a study appearing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers found that even non-lawyers use this type of language when asked to write laws.

“People seem to understand that there’s an implicit rule that this is how laws should sound, and they write them that way,” says Edward Gibson, an MIT professor of brain and cognitive sciences and the senior author of the study.

Eric Martinez Ph.D. is the lead author of the study. Francis Mollica, a lecturer at the University of Melbourne, is also an author of the paper.

Good catch. What they call “center-embedding” may stem from the fact that in European countries many had laws that originated in Roman legal codes that were written in Latin. Latin can say many things more concisely and unambiguously than English (and Greek has the same advantage over Latin)(and Syriac has the same advantage over Greek),

Many fantasy stories that use magic require that magical incantations be uttered in a foreign (preferably ancient) language. Jim Butcher’s Harry Dresden novels have a lot of fun with this.

Richard Hanania.

Ideally, one would like to think that if someone has written a 300-page book, it means that they have 300 pages worth of things to say. My experience is that is rarely the case. People generally have an idea that can be expressed in terms much shorter than that, but extending your idea into a book looks impressive on a CV and gets you invited on TV shows and podcasts.

To take one example, the last book I finished was David Sinclair’s Lifespan. It has three parts, and the last of them is nothing but two chapters about his political and social views, where he addresses issues that are ancillary to conquering aging like what’s going to happen to social security and the impact of a growing population on global warming. He also comes out for universal healthcare, legalized euthanasia, and more income equality.

There is no particular reason that the world’s foremost expert on aging should be expected to have anything new or interesting to say on these topics, and he doesn’t. I would’ve skipped these chapters, except for the fact that I was planning on writing a book review and felt obligated to slog through them. It’s not that a professor at Harvard Medical School can’t have interesting political views, it’s that Sinclair’s opinions are a boring mélange of what one would find across Atlantic think pieces. But for some reason he feels the need to pontificate on various topics that have nothing to do with his area of expertise.

Why? Most likely, he’s simply filling up space. Either he thought the book needed some padding, or maybe he felt the urge to preach about single-payer healthcare and decided to trap readers into hearing his views after he lured them in with the anti-aging stuff.

Read it.

Finally! I’ve been talking about molten salt nuclear reactors for 10 years at least. They burn waste, and they can’t melt down. The small amount of waste they produce turns to lead in decades, not centuries. Operating at low pressure makes for a simpler system. They can be small and modular or city size. Makes so much sense, and we are finally building them in the USA. Spend money on this, not stupid things like wind “farms.”

The Foundry.

The plight of corporate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) jobs is only getting worse as the Trump administration’s crackdown takes hold, new employment research shows.

As of September, job postings for diversity roles have plunged roughly 50% from pre-pandemic levels, falling to about 1,500 this year, according to Revelio Labs data reported by Bloomberg. By comparison, DEI-related postings nearly quadrupled in 2022, reaching approximately 10,000.

When President Donald Trump took office in January, DEI job postings were about 6% above 2019 levels, according to the outlet.

The New York Times, a Voice of the Crust.

He was drawn to times and places where the status rules were shifting. His book “The Right Stuff,” about the U.S. space program, takes place at such a moment. Before, the combat pilots were the tippy-top alpha males in the world of flight, but then along came the astronauts to knock them off their perch. In “Radical Chic,” you can catch glimpses of the old blue-blood Protestant elite — the Astors, the Whitneys, the Rockefellers. But this is 1970. A new crowd is beginning to displace them: the Bernsteins, Barbara Walters. The members of this rising elite have often made their money in culture and the media, and include the formerly unthinkables — Catholics, Jews, Black people.

The old aristocrats had it so easy, those stately bankers in the J.P. Morgan mold. They may have been frequently bewildered about why the masses didn’t like them, but their own place in the social aristocracy was secure. It was right there in their bloodlines — the generations of grandees stretching back centuries. The status rules were simple. All you had to do was live like an English earl and collect European culture by the boatload, and you could cruise through Manhattan amid the sound of others bowing and scraping.

The members of the new cultural elite could never be so secure. Their status — their very reason for being — was based on their own superior sensibility. They lived by their wits and their public attitudes. These media-age aristocrats had to excel at tasks that members of the beau monde have always excelled at — being rich, thin and well connected; keeping the duplexes adorned with the design trends. But they had to do so much more. They had to be morally avant-garde, able to articulate the luxury opinions du jour. They had to perform all these inversions — rising to the social stratosphere by ostentatiously demonstrating their solidarity with the oppressed, assuring their place atop the structures of power by striking radical poses and pretending to support tearing those structures down. Wolfe was there at the dawn of 20th-century one-downmanship, when you could rise to the social stratosphere by donning peasant and revolutionary garb.

David Brooks, when he’s not engaged in his Pet Conservative dog-and-pony show, is actually a pretty good writer.

Not as good as Tom Wolfe, of coures … nobody is … but still pretty good.

Read it.

By the time you read this essay, no matter the hour of the day, you will likely have already made some kind of choice: coffee with skimmed milk, whole milk, cream, or black? Sugar or no sugar? Tea instead? Personalised, preference-based choice is, at present, a deeply familiar aspect of life in much of the world, though perhaps most markedly so in the United States, where I live and work. It is also something people don’t generally spend a lot of time discussing, in part because it feels so ordinary. People around the globe shop for everything from housing to vacations to, yes, caffeinated drinks. They pick what they want to read, what they want to listen to, and what they want to believe. They vote for favourite candidates for office. They select friends and lovers, fields to study, professions and jobs, places to live, even insurance plans to hedge their bets when something they cannot choose occurs.

Perusing a menu of options to decide what best matches individual desires and values – which is what we generally mean today by making a choice – is a key feature of modern democratic and consumer culture alike. It is also an exalted one. People may disagree about what the possibilities should be, but rarely about the principle of maximising arenas for choice-making or the options themselves. For many of the world’s citizens, this is simply what freedom feels like.

Yet, as you may have also felt at various moments, abundant choice isn’t always so straightforward. Behavioural economists point out that most people are actually pretty bad at making decisions of this kind (which explains the appeal of return departments and divorces for when things don’t go as hoped). Philosophers and political theorists say it promotes selfish individualism and discourages collective action around issues that affect us all. And sociologists add that societies that prize choice too much tend to blame those with only poor or limited options for their own misfortunes. So much for choice as consistently synonymous with freedom.

Read it.

My, what a surprise.

Read it.

The Europe that the monk Raoul Glaber saw with pride at the dawn of the year 1000, covered with “a white mantle of churches,” has entered a dark era of de-Christianisation. Church towers gave way to minarets, and city churches, gradually falling into disuse, were at best converted into trendy bars or contemporary art exhibition halls—when they were not destroyed once and for all. And what of the monasteries, those spacious buildings that once housed cohorts of monks whose prayers, recited from dawn to dusk, set the rhythm of the days and seasons in the countryside?

Today, many of them are real estate complexes that have become useless. The monks are ageing and are going to end their days in medical care facilities that have only a very distant relationship with stained glass windows and ribbed vaults.

And yet, there are still communities in France that continue to speak to young people and are capable not only of erecting walls and building new monasteries, but also of restoring ancient walls threatened with abandonment.

Read it.

Today is the day that the forces of goodness and righteousness and correct pronouns take our country back from the twisted fascist psychopath who is exerting his despotic rule over us.

To demonstrate how widespread and deep the support for the No Kings movement is, it’s worth noting that today’s event in Minneapolis is sponsored by the local chapter of the U.S. Communist Party.

Based on the previous iteration of the event back in June, the occasion will largely be a Boomer affair, staffed by geezers in my age group doddering (or riding their mobility scooters) down the street carrying signs.

However, in major leftist citadels such as Portland, Antifa is urging the cadres to infiltrate the No Kings rallies and “show them what antifascism really looks like.” So the day may turn sporky in some zip codes.

Read it.

Though much may separate Thucydides, Xenophon, Ephorus, Plato, and Aristotle from one another, on this fundamental point they and those who subsequently followed their lead were agreed: that to come to understand a polity, one must be willing to entertain two propositions.

First, one must presume that the form of government, the constitution, the rules defining membership in the políteuma or ruling order is the chief determinant of a political community’s character. Second, one must assume that pa?deía, which is to say, education and moral formation in the broadest and most comprehensive sense, is more important than anything else in deciding the character of a particular pol?teía. In one passage of The Politics, Aristotle suggests that it is the provision of a common pa?deía—and nothing else—that turns a multitude into a unit and constitutes it as a pól?s; in another, he indicates that it is the pol?teía which defines the pól?s as such. Though apparently in contradiction, these two statements are in fact equivalent—for, as the peripatetic recognized, man is an imitative animal, the example we set is far more influential than what we say, and it is the “distribution and disposition of offices and honors [táx?s t?ˆn arch?ˆn]” constituting the políteuma of a given polity that is the most effective educator therein.

For anyone interested in information technology, a study of the classics (Latin, Greek, and their associated cultures) would be very rewarding. It certainly worked for me.

Bloomberg,  a Voice of the Crust.

Vanderbilt University is asking local Florida officials to approve its proposal to build a $520 million campus in the wealthy Palm Beach area, tapping into a growing region transformed by new outposts of financial firms.

Follow the money!

The Nashville-based school envisions buildings totaling 300,000 square feet for 1,000 students and more than 100 faculty. The site in West Palm Beach was previously targeted by the University of Florida for a similar project that ultimately failed.

After all, who wouldn’t rather have a degree from Vanderbilt than from the University of Florida?

The first step took place this week. Vanderbilt officials asked West Palm Beach to donate city and county land for the campus. West Palm Beach is located on the mainland, directly across the Intracoastal Waterway from mansion-lined Palm Beach.

Very convenient for Children of the Crust.

A shortage of elite school options — from kindergarten to college — has been a major sticking point for a wave of younger wealthy families who’ve moved to South Florida from New York, California and elsewhere to work at firms such as Ken Griffin’s Citadel, Blackstone Inc. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. And there’s a dearth of top-tier universities to build up talent to feed those firms.

What a drag!

Read it.

Have you ever heard the saying, “Slow is smooth, smooth is fast?” It’s a mantra deeply ingrained in Navy SEALs operations. A counterintuitive concept that flips our usual understanding of speed and efficiency on its head.

Picture this: you’re part of an elite team executing high-stakes missions under extreme pressure. There’s no room for error, but there’s also urgency – every second counts. You feel the urge to rush. But what if running only leads to mistakes?

This phrase isn’t just about being slow or fast; it’s about finding a rhythm that balances precision and pace, ultimately leading to swifter progress. The SEALs swear by it… but how can we apply it beyond military contexts?

I got your attention, didn’t I? Let’s dive deeper into the roots of this idea and understand why taking it slow can be critical.

It is an elementary principle of most martial arts that one starts out practicing move slowly to get correct form, and then gradually increases speed once the muscle-brain connection is firm.

Read it.

Prices for housing are already at a record high, because of a pervasive long-term structural housing shortage in America. Since 2022, interest rates have increased, so homeowners with a locked in low mortgage rate don’t want to sell their homes and move, the result being fewer existing homes on the market. One would think that the response would simply be to build more housing, especially on the cheap end. And yet, that’s not happening. The traditional “starter home” for a young family just doesn’t exist anymore.

Technology exacerbates many problems. Just as in the current age all hot-looking girls leave their hometowns to move Las Vegas, Los Angeles, or Miami, local housing markets are being more and more subsumed into regional or even national markets, as this article relates.

Ars Technica.

Lead exposure sounds like a modern problem, at least if you define “modern” the way a paleoanthropologist might: a time that started a few thousand years ago with ancient Roman silver smelting and lead pipes. According to a recent study, however, lead is a much more ancient nemesis, one that predates not just the Romans but the existence of our genus Homo. Paleoanthropologist Renaud Joannes-Boyau of Australia’s Southern Cross University and his colleagues found evidence of exposure to dangerous amounts of lead in the teeth of fossil apes and hominins dating back almost 2 million years. And somewhat controversially, they suggest that the toxic element’s pervasiveness may have helped shape our evolutionary history.

Read it.

conquered. The storylines may change, from “this time it’s different” to “the Fed has our back,” but the psychology does not. When markets rise steadily and volatility remains low, investors confuse stability with safety. That’s precisely the illusion forming in markets today. The S&P 500’s relentless climb, paired with suppressed volatility and ample liquidity, has given the impression that downside risk has somehow been engineered out of the system.

This is where the trap begins. Behavioral finance tells us that people respond more to “how” risk feels than to what the data shows. When investors no longer feel anxious, they begin to take risks they wouldn’t otherwise tolerate. Rising prices reinforce optimism, optimism drives more buying, and the cycle continues until the most minor shock shatters the illusion. Low volatility environments create the psychology for instability by suppressing the healthy corrections that usually reset investor expectations. The longer the calm lasts, the more fragile the market becomes beneath the surface.

Read it.

A new round of tariff announcements from the Trump administration sent markets reeling, with gold dropping briefly only to soar back to new record highs above $4300 today, signaling collective doubt in the system itself as investors rush to protect themselves with hard assets.

Collectively, markets are reaffirming gold’s role at the center of sovereignty, monetary stability, and global reserve strategy, even as it has become a favorite target of Keyneseian ridicule as everything from a “barbarous relic” to a waste of physical and financial space in investment portfolios and balance sheets.

Yet, confidence in US debt continues to decline, with the “safe” status of Treasuries increasingly being questioned. That’s why now, for the first time in decades, collective central bank gold holdings have surpassed the value of their Treasuries. Central banks now hold 20% of all gold ever mined, protecting themselves from the effects of currency debasement even as they, ironically, cause it. Instead of earning yield by holding Treasuries, they continue stocking up on gold, which is a powerful statement against the results of their own monetary experiments.

“Who cares about money? It’s just dirty pieces of paper.” — Bugsy Siegel

Read it.

After 10 years and nearly $1 billion in total project costs, the Barack Obama Presidential Center is finally nearing completion and has been opened for limited public tours. The facility is set to officially go into operation in the spring of 2026, however, at least $230 million in construction costs still remain and the Obama Foundation simply doesn’t have it. Total reserve funds are $116 million and this does not take into account the cost of paying staff to maintain the center.

Not only is the future of the site in limbo, the building is also being called “the tomb” by many locals in the South Side of Chicago where it is located. Though the media frequently refers to the design as “warm and inviting”, it looks more like a concrete bunker nightmare that one might find in Soviet era Russia.

The center’s notably harsh aesthetics are oddly similar to many pieces of architecture constructed in Russia during the height of communism using methods that seem to suck the life out of the surrounding environment. One cannot help but notice the dystopian similarities. Some might ague that buildings can’t really be “political”, but these are people that don’t understand architecture.

Watch it.

Skip the first half, which is all about how great the program is (an a Catholic ad for a way of earning a ‘plenary indulgence’), and hit the second half, which actually explains the system.

The secret: High standards, rigorously enforced. No ‘social promotion’, no ‘equitable grading’, no educational fads. Holding teachers responsible for their ‘product’. Training teachers on phonics and other traditional, reliable methods.

Read it.

Donald Trump is the master of memes — and of the media. No modern political figure understands better how to energize the long-humiliated conservative-patriotic soul that has been crushed for decades by a left-liberal media zeitgeist. His Gaza performance is the latest chapter in the ongoing media revolution of our time.

Peace in Gaza. The guns have fallen silent between Israel Defense Forces and Hamas. What was unthinkable for decades has happened: a historic breakthrough. Hostage and POW exchanges — all brokered by U.S. President Donald Trump.

The achievement alone commands extraordinary respect. But with Trump now mediating in Armenia-Azerbaijan, between Israel and Iran, and pressing ahead with unfinished work in Ukraine, a Nobel Peace Prize would seem almost inevitable.

And Trump, ever the media virtuoso, translated this geopolitical power move into the perfect, iconic imagery.

The Foundry.

on Wednesday. While Democrats are clinging to their $1.5 trillion demands—and Republicans, for once, are refusing to capitulate—there has been a palpable shift in the government shutdown state of play in favor of Republicans. This week, Rep. Mike Haridopolos, R-Fla., joins “The Signal Sitdown” to discuss the evolving dynamics of shutdown politics and how Trump is leading the GOP to a win not seen in decades.

“Historically, it should be a surprise” that Democrats have opted to shut down the government, Haridopolos told The Daily Signal. “The Democrats historically have always got along with a clean [continuing resolution],” he added. That’s especially the case in recent history, as Democrats have voted upward of a dozen times for a nearly identical continuing resolution that kept the government open and running on spending levels set during former President Joe Biden’s administration.

To add insult to injury, the continuing resolution that would last through Nov. 21 was negotiated by Republican and Democrat appropriators. “We negotiated this ahead of time,” Haridopolos told The Daily Signal. “[House Appropriations Chairman] Tom Cole sat down, of course, with the House appropriators and Democrat appropriators, and said, ‘We’re going to have a clean [continuing resolution], what else do you need? We want to do it till January.’”

Democrats, however, wanted the continuing resolution to expire in November. “We acquiesced and said, ‘OK, fine, November 21,’” Haridopolos continued. “We negotiated. So, this drama about ‘They never had a seat at the table’ is wrong.”

Democrats went on to reject the continuing resolution because, in Haridopolos’ telling, “the modern Democrat Party is clearly being held hostage by the more left-wing, if not super left-wing, part of their party.”

Read it.

Texas is famous for its wide-open land, its independence, and its promise of freedom. Yet the truth is that Texans pay some of the highest property tax rates in the country. The state itself doesn’t collect property tax, but local governments make up for it many times over. Even with agricultural and wildlife exemptions, the real burden still falls on commercial buildings, apartment complexes, and single-family homes—the very places where most people live and work.

Better than an income tax.

Every year, I write a check for twenty-four thousand dollars in property taxes. In Texas, over half of that typically goes toward public education—sometimes up to 70 percent in certain counties. The irony is that none of it goes toward educating my own children.

I pay about the same, and I don’t even have any children. At least property taxes are under local control, unlike a state income tax.

That means I never truly own my home. The government can raise taxes whenever it wants, and if I can’t pay, it can take the property away.

That applies to your labor as well. The government can,  at any time, take the majority of your earnings as a tax of some kind, and they can put you in prison if you don’t pay. Does that mean you don’t truly own your own body? Some have argued so.

Read The Whole Thing.

Apparently ‘capitalism’ refers to anything that isn’t socialism. *sigh* Maybe I’m just being too picky….

ScienceAlert.

In the middle of the night, the world can sometimes feel like a dark place. Under the cover of darkness, negative thoughts have a way of drifting through your mind, and as you lie awake, staring at the ceiling, you might start craving guilty pleasures, like a cigarette or a carb-heavy meal.

Plenty of evidence suggests the human mind functions differently if awake at nighttime. Past midnight, negative emotions tend to draw our attention more than positive ones, dangerous ideas grow in appeal, and inhibitions fall away.

Some researchers think the human circadian rhythm is heavily involved in these critical changes in function, as they outline in a 2022 paper summarizing the evidence of how brain systems function differently after dark.

Read it.

British anti-Islam activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, also known as Tommy Robinson, went on trial on Monday accused of refusing to give police his phone PIN when stopped under counter-terrorism laws, and said billionaire Elon Musk was funding his defense.

Yaxley-Lennon, better known by his pseudonym Tommy Robinson, has become a flag-bearer for some British nationalists and one of Britain’s most high-profile anti-migration campaigners, recently organizing a large rally in London attended by about 150,000 people.

He said in a video posted on social media before his trial at London’s Westminster Magistrates’ Court that Musk, who often reposts his messages on X and appeared at the rally by videolink, had “picked up the legal bill for this absolute state persecution.”

Musk keeps doing things that I would do if I had his money. (He also keeps doing things that I wouldn’t do if I had his money, but there it is.)

Read it.

Defense attorneys representing the man accused of assassinating conservative commentator Charlie Kirk last month filed a court motion on Thursday asking a judge to allow him to attend in-person court hearings wearing plain clothes and without shackles.

During his first court appearance, Robinson was seen wearing jail clothing and what appeared to be an anti-suicide smock. He made his first court appearance virtually.

In the motion submitted to Judge Tony Graf, his attorneys argued that the change in clothes is needed to ensure that potential jurors are not impacted by seeing Robinson in jail garb and with shackles. They cited interest in the case, including 18,000 search results for his first court appearance.

Read it.

Barack Obama shared a post expressing relief that the conflict between Israel and Hamas is coming to an end, but left out one vital detail.

Couldn’t find space for President Trump’s name?

Read it.

The body clears medicines within hours to weeks. However, a recent study suggests that drugs you took years ago may continue to affect your gut—and the more frequently and the longer they’re used, the greater their effect.

Nearly nine out of 10 commonly used medications leave permanent changes in gut bacteria – including drugs never before linked to digestive effects, according to the study.

This holds true not only for antibiotics but also for drugs used to manage high blood pressure, anxiety, and stomach hyperacidity.

Watch it.

Carl Benjamin (“Sargon of Akkad”) does a great takedown of Tony Blair and the “digital ID” proposal in Britain.

This has obvious relevance to the U.S., because Britain has a habit of adopting every stupid idea about five years ahead of when the U.S. (read: Democrats) undergoes a push to adopt that same stupid idea.

I highly recommend watching the video series PERSON OF INTEREST. My public library had a set of the discs; check your public library. If they don’t have it, recommend that they purchase it.

Read it.

Given the chaos that has engulfed France for weeks, if not months, everyone is looking for a way out. But what way? The pretender to the French throne, Louis XX, Duke of Anjou and head of the elder branch of the Bourbons, and as such, king of France de jure, seized the opportunity to publish an op-ed in the French press. An alternative to the crisis of the regime?

This is not the first time that Louis has spoken out in the French press. He likes to remind the French people of his existence from time to time, especially when they are going through periods of crisis. At the time of the yellow vest crisis in 2018, he publicly expressed his support for the movement, and a delegation of yellow vests visited the Expiatory Chapel, built in memory of Louis XVI, where a mass is held every year in the presence of the heir to the throne to remember the martyred king of the Revolution—to thank him and, in a way, to pay homage to him.

Since then, he has been heard to take a stand during the pension reform crisis and the mobilisation of angry farmers. He is particularly interested in social debates, such as the inclusion of abortion in the constitution and the introduction of euthanasia in France. On these occasions, he defends a vision of humanity based on the traditional teachings of the Catholic Church, which is committed to the dignity of human life from its beginning to its natural death.

It’s all in the hypergamy….

Read it.

Just over a week into the Oct. 1 government shutdown, Yosemite National Park has seen a surge of illegal activity — from BASE jumping off El Capitan to unpermitted ascents of Half Dome’s cables, according to SF Gate.

“It’s like the Wild Wild West,” said John DeGrazio, founder of YExplore Yosemite Adventures. While he has long encountered permit violators on Half Dome, he said the shutdown has emboldened visitors: “These people are counting on no enforcement because of the shutdown.”

With rangers furloughed, enforcement is scarce. A park employee told SFGATE only one wilderness ranger — actually a volunteer — is currently patrolling. “There are lots of squatters in the campgrounds,” the employee said. “There are lots of people that truly believe they can do whatever they want because of the lack of rangers. They’ve told us.”

People doing things without government permission! The horror! The horror!

I’m imagining the purr….

Read it.

One more time: There is no such thing as free lunch. Government has no money. It acquires the money used to pay for things one of three ways: taxing, borrowing or printing.

Democrat senators, with three exceptions, voted against keeping the federal government fully running because they want to add back spending reduced under the so-called Big Beautiful Bill; they want to spend even more; and they want to extend the expiring Obamacare subsidies.

Democrats call Republicans “liars” for accusing Democrats of seeking government-provided health care for illegal aliens. But when asked whether she supports health care for illegal aliens, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) said, “Democrats are demanding health care for everybody.”

At a 2020 Democratic presidential candidates’ debate, the moderator said, “Raise your hand if your government (health care) plan would provide coverage for undocumented immigrants.” All 10 candidates put up their hands.

As for Obamacare, Democrats designed it knowing some subsidies would expire. That way they could downplay its true cost. Their expectation was simple. If Republicans refuse to extend the subsidies, Democrats would accuse Republicans of cruelty, no matter the cost to taxpayers.

In America, you note, they’re all Blue cities in Blue states.

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The Single-Family Rental (SFR) space has become the de facto middle-class housing market across America. With elevated 30-year mortgage rates and high home prices, affordability has collapsed, sidelining multiple generations of Americans from homeownership.

Thus making us more like Europe. Whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing is an exercise left for the reader.

For expanded visibility into the SFR market, as well as homeownership affordability, demand fundamentals, supply dynamics, rental growth expectations, and the transaction environment, Goldman analysts hosted a private webinar on Tuesday with executives from several of the largest owners of single-family homes in the U.S, including David Todd (Managing Director in Brookfield’s Real Estate group as well as CEO of Maymont Homes, Brookfield’s SFR business), Chris Avallone (Amherst’s CFO & Head of Merchant Banking), and Dave Feldman (Co-President of Progress Residential).

One of the key takeaways from the webinar is that the SFR market remains resilient, driven by high homeownership costs that continue to fuel strong rental demand, particularly in the Midwest and interior Southeast, while softer conditions persist in Florida, Texas, and Phoenix.

Read it.

One of the classic tropes of science fiction is terraforming Mars: warming up our cold neighbor so it could support human civilization. The idea might not be so far-fetched, research published today in Science Advances suggests.

Injecting tiny particles into Mars’s atmosphere could warm the planet by more than 10°C in a matter of months, researchers find—enough to sustain liquid water. Although the scheme would require about 2 million tons of particles per year, they could be manufactured from readily available ingredients found in martian dust.

“It’s not that often you get some really quite new, innovative idea for terraforming,” says Colin McInnes, a space engineer at the University of Glasgow not involved with the work. “The gap between where Mars is and where Mars could be for habitability is narrower than we might think.”

Check it out.

HURDY GURDYS, LUTES, GREGORIAN CHANTS, THUNDERING DRUMS
AND PUNISHING PERCUSSIVE FOLEY FX. THE EP-1320 IS THE FIRST OF ITS KIND:
FEATURING A LARGE LIBRARY OF PHRASES, PLAY READY INSTRUMENTS
AND ONE-SHOT SAMPLES FROM AN AGE WHERE DARKNESS REIGNED SUPREME,
THE INSTRUMENTALIS ELECTRONICUM IS THE ULTIMATE,
AND ONLY, MEDIEVAL BEAT MACHINE.

Read it.

There’s more than one way to animate a film. And one of the most innovative, albeit time-consuming, ways to bring a movie to life is through rotoscoping. But what is rotoscope animation? While it’s typically associated with modern works like the 2006 film A Scanner Darkly and the recent Amazon Prime series Undone, the technique has roots dating back decades. Let’s take a look at some movies that use rotoscoping to see how it can be utilized for future filmmakers.

I’ve seen this technique used quite often in commervials on TV.

Niel Gorsuch and Janie Nitze.

Our country has always been a nation of laws, but something has changed dramatically in recent decades. Contrary to the narrative that Congress is racked by an inability to pass bills, the number of laws in our country has simply exploded. Less than 100 years ago, all of the federal government’s statutes fit into a single volume. By 2018, the U.S. Code encompassed 54 volumes and approximately 60,000 pages. Over the past decade, Congress has adopted an average of 344 new pieces of legislation each session. That amounts to 2 million to 3 million words of new federal law each year. Even the length of bills has grown—from an average of about two pages in the 1950s to 18 today.