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Jacobtldr's Authors
STEALTH JEFF
STEALTH JEFF (20)
@drawandstrike
Noah Smith \U0001f407
Noah Smith 🐇... (19)
@Noahpinion
Seth Abramson
Seth Abramson (18)
@SethAbramson
John Hayward
John Hayward (10)
@Doc_0
Pulp Librarian
Pulp Librarian (10)
@PulpLibrarian
Larry Schweikart
Larry Schweikart (9)
@LarrySchweikart
Cory Doctorow #BLM
Cory Doctorow #BLM (8)
@doctorow
foone
Foone (7)
@Foone
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Latest Saves

Jeb Kinnison
Jeb Kinnison
@JebKinnison
1/ As $tsla melts down, a response to the bulls who accuse all critics of “not caring for the planet,” working for big oil, or not supporting EVs. I bought a Prius in 2006, and drove it for ten years. I replace it with a new 2016 Prius...

2/ Toyota knew the charging time issue would derail widespread use of EVs. Plug-in hybrids are the best solution for the next decade, since there’s no range issue and a single car for commuting (entirely battery) and ad hoc trips cross country (with easy and fast refill.)

3/ Most early adapters I know bought Tesla Model S as a second car to be the coolest on the block. They are moving on to shiny new models at the higher price point. Question some and they will admit they’re tired of the downsides of EVs.

4/ For those it was never about “saving the planet,” but about having the shiny new status object. Those may migrate to new ICE SUVs at even higher price points. $tsla parlayed one hit into enough funding to try for a second and third.

5/ But while there’s always room for niche products, going mass market is very dangerous for a niche brand. The Mod3 is soiling the service image and quality issues are reducing interest in Teslas in general.
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Noah Smith
Noah Smith
@Noahpinion
1/Lately I've been reading a ton of books about immigration and diversity. The most recent one is "Americanism in the Twenty-First Century", by @debbiejsr.

https://t.co/neqzyYVaYS

What did I learn?

2/This book is not very "pop". It's a dry political science book that's basically a concatenation of several research papers, all based on one big survey that was done in 2004.

3/The survey, the 21-CAS, asks people about how they define their own identity - race, national origin, and/or "American".

It also asks them about what they think being an "American" entails.

4/Basically, the survey asks people about 5 types of "Americanism":
1. Feeling like an American
2. Believing traditional American values like freedom
3. Civic participation (voting, etc.)
4. Multiculturalism vs. blending in
5. Being white and/or Christian

5/I edited out a few others (e.g. being born in America, being a citizen, speaking English). Anyway.

The upshot is that except for being white/Christian, most of these definitions of "American" get broad endorsement from all groups of people surveyed.
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Antonio Garc\xeda Mart\xednez
Antonio GarcĂ­a MartĂ­ne...
@antoniogm
Some math on SF's Prop C:

Current SF spending on homelessness: $380M
Projected revenue from Prop C: $300M
Number of SF homeless: 7,500

Post-C, that means SF will be spending $90k/homeless person.

That's $30K per year *more* than the median SF teacher salary.

I don't get SF.

Note that despite that massive spending, SF has one of the lowest 'sheltered rate' among big US cities. SF homeless isn't particularly high, per capita, but more of them are on the street than elsewhere (which is why the problem looks bad).

Within that context, Prop C is a vote to spend even more, to the point the city is paying (per homeless person) just under what Google pays (in cash) to new college hires. And yet these people are on the street somehow.

I don't claim to understand the dizzyingly complex urban policy issues around homelessness. But neither do most SF taxpayers, and I think they'd like to know just how we got here.

For some coverage on Prop C (where I got the spend numbers
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Seth Abramson
Seth Abramson
@SethAbramson
About a month ago, I said to Jeffrey Toobin that it was Mike Flynn—not Paul Manafort—who had the *most* to offer Robert Mueller on the collusion question, underscoring that Flynn's December 2017 plea deal gave Mueller far more than we ever realized. Now here we are, 10 months on.


2/ Trump had two opportunities to formally name Flynn and his co-conspirator Erik Prince to his NatSec team during the 2016 campaign—he declined to do so *both times*. In the criminal justice system this is evidence of consciousness of guilt. Trump knew what these men were doing.

3/ That Trump sought out Flynn—not the other way around—in August '15, and began using him as his chief NatSec adviser right away, but never put him on his National Security Advisory Committee is critical evidence that Flynn was working on projects that had to be "off the books."
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Greg Olear
Greg Olear
@gregolear
Let's do another thread about Kushner/Khashoggi/MbS/Trump.

[THREAD]


1/ Overview
The 30something Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) became heir apparent in 2016. Although he began his regime with a series of modest if widely-publicized reforms, these were designed to disguise his true despotic aims.

2/ Jamal Khashoggi was a Saudi journalist critical of MbS, who portrayed him as the tyrant he is at heart. For this, MbS had Khashoggi brutally murdered.

Jared Kushner is chummy with MbS. Donald Trump is a staunch supporter. Both men have ulterior motives for siding w/MbS.

3/ TIMELINE

April 2017
Charles Kushner, father of Jared Kushner, asks Qatar for a loan to bail out the troubled property at 666 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. The Qataris turn him down.

4/
June 2017
Saudi Arabia organizes a blockade of Qatar, a country where the US has a major military base. Kushner leads the extreme minority view in the West Wing to support the blockade. To the consternation of the State Department, Donald Trump praises the move.
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\u015eamil Karahisar
ƞamil Karahisar
@samilkarahisar
[THREAD] About my @ProductHunt launch.

Yesterday(October 17th) I launched my first project ever on PH, and my project has been on the front page in top 15 for 24 hours. I had a total of 114 upvotes. Pretty satisfied about it, although I will aim for top 5 my next project.


This thread will be about what I went through as a rookie and what I have learnt from this first experience.

First things first. I think launching a product on PH is stressful for everyone, but i had a whole another stress because of two things:

I am a student and I live in France, so when I posted on PH just after midnight for San Francisco time, it was early in the morning here.
So I was in class using my school computer, refreshing time to time to see how @makertask is doing 😅
Let me show:


It was important for me to be online and aware of whats going on around my product, for a few reasons all first timers should be careful about:

1)Our products as indies can almost never be perfect at launch, so it mat crash, server can go down, someone could attack your website.

About that last one by the way. Although yeah most people are awesome and are willing to try your project peacefully, give feedback and help you out. Some people are just bad, and will try SQL injections, spam your contact forms..
For example, my email forms were attacked via jS:
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ESA Science
ESA Science
@esascience
Greetings from @ESA's operations centre in Germany, where we're following the launch of #BepiColombo together with mission experts. The spacecraft are on the launch pad at Europe's #Spaceport in Kourou & in just over 1 hour will blast off into space. Destination: planet #Mercury


#BepiColombo is a collaboration between @ESA and @JAXA_en to explore the innermost planet in our Solar System. For a primer on #Mercury and the mission, here's a useful thread 👇


And for a unique "first-person" account, follow the three spacecraft accounts: @ESA_Bepi, @JAXA_MMO & @ESA_MTM


https://t.co/Qek2GqelXp


NOW! Join us for #live coverage of the #BepiColombo launch, from Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. Liftoff with an #Ariane5 rocket is set for 01:45 GMT (03:45 CEST)

đŸ“ș https://t.co/Z1mcQc6u1U
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Robert Colvile
Robert Colvile
@rcolvile
What is startling about Brexit is that even at this late stage - especially at this late stage - literally no one knows what is going to happen. But have bashed out a few rough thoughts on where we are, and what happens next.

At the moment, the likely outcomes seem to be polarising between two extremes, each with its own army of hashtagged usernames on Twitter - effectively no deal or no Brexit.

There is no perfect solution on offer, but if we are going to get a deal which delivers the Brexit mandate (while acknowledging its 52/48 nature), avoids excessive trauma, and satisfies the EU, it requires a leap of imagination - on the EU side above all.

In the macro, it shouldn’t be impossible to get a realistic deal. Britain suffers significant but not crippling impairment to its access to the EU market (eg keeping it in goods but not services), there is free movement for workers not all-comers...

...Britain accepts some but not all of the EU’s regulatory corpus, can sign its own trade deals, and pays in for areas of continued close cooperation. (You can nudge the sliders on each element up or down according to taste.)
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Sara Danner Dukic
Sara Danner Dukic
@saradannerdukic
Here it is, spelled out in black and white. A hostile foreign nation working in concert with operatives on the ground here in America, working all angles (aka #horseshoe).
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libertyandjusticeforall
libertyandjusticeforal...
@Mark923to25
1. #Qanon told us that Saudi Arabia is a central piece of the puzzle in taking out the Deep State...we are watching the Deep State attempt to remove Crown Prince MBS and disrupt Pres Trump's administration's ties with MBS and the "new" Saudi/US coalition. Early in his admin,


2....@Potus sent Jared Kushner (JK) to SA on an undisclosed trip and told King Salman that business as usual was over, and if he wanted Pres Trump's support, Prince Alwaleed would have to be divested of $ and power; Alwaleed is one of top Deep State $ men and was tied to HRC.


3. @Potus knew that before he could begin cleansing the US and the rest of the world of the DS, he would have to cut one of the financial head's off the snake (Alwaleed). After JK met w/ King Salman, Alwaleed was arrested and divested of billions; MBS became leader of SA.


4. SA loves Pres Trump because he's a man of his word; SA could not trust Hussein or Clintons because they use SA for oil and leverage; SA has many factions, but essentially you have the new and upcoming SA that is attempting to modernize through Crown Prince MBS, and then you


5...have the old guard represented by Alwaleed who was one of the Deep State financial heads and loyal to the DS more than SA; SA knew Hussein was financing Iran to hold western world hostage, and SA was caught in middle of Deep State black mail; this is why @Potus was celebrated
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Jeffrey Sachs
Jeffrey Sachs
@JeffreyASachs
I have to say, of all the responses to my defense of the Feminist Glaciology piece, this one (and the others along the same lines) is not what I was expecting.


The core complaint is that the original article doesn't supply any evidence to back up its claims -- claims about colonialism, about public attitudes toward scientific expertise, about mountaineering and expeditions. That lack of evidence strikes this critic as surprising.

It shouldn't. As I noted in the original thread, the article is explicitly NOT an empirical piece. It is a review article designed to link together the empirical work of others. And there's no shame in that. On the


Review articles like this are both very valuable and extremely common. Common in all fields and disciplines, including in the hard sciences. I mean, there's an entire series in the social sciences devoted to just this: reviews. And it

Here's a review article just published earlier this month. Not a whiff of original empirical evidence in it, but the authors (no doubt handsome and brilliant chaps the both of them) certainly seem confident they have something valuable to
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Venture Capital
Venture Capital
@kelly2277
đŸ€”I can’t help it. Everytime Trump mentions the #Mob I think about his ties to organized crime, the Russian Mafia, Semion Mogilevich, Sex trafficking, money laundering, RICO.. It’s like he can’t help “projecting” his crimes. #MuellerFriday đŸ”„đŸ”„đŸ”„


đŸ’„See, Mogilevich sent Ivankov to buy a condo in Trump Tower for a reason- so he could launder money thru his casinos & real estate. But he never trusts anybody, so he plants ‘bugs’ to keep track of his money. Putin does it too. It’s future


đŸ’„đŸ™đŸ’„Saudia Arabia owns the entire 45th floor of Trump Tower. Imagine what they can hear and what they could see... It’s likely they thought it was a perfect vantage point to watch their pilots fly into the WTC. They bought it just 3 months before 9/11


đŸ€”Trump watched planes fly into the WTC “Because I had a view. I have a window in my apartment ‘specifically aimed’ at the WTC. And I watched as people jumped and I watched the second plane come in. I saw the 2nd plane come in. I said, Wow that's unbelievable." Did he knowâ‰ïžđŸ€”


đŸ’„âœˆïžđŸ’„If Trump could watch the planes hit the WTC, the Saudi diplomats on the 45th floor COULD TOO.
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Chris Vickery
Chris Vickery
@VickerySec
I am currently 34 years old. Candidates for the presidency of the United States must be 35. Here is what to expect when people like me, from my generation, decide the time has come to push out the dinosaurs for the good of all:

1. The death penalty, as it is both cruel and has undeniably become unusual, will be abolished in accordance with the Eighth Amendment to the US Constitution. The piles of money saved by no longer having to pay for related costs will be used to pay prison guards a decent wage.

2. Everybody gets health insurance. Live with it, you fucks.
3. If >10% of the constituency of a member of the House or Senate do not have reasonable health insurance coverage, that member of the House or Senate shall be ineligible for any health insurance policy (even private).

4. Term limits are coming to the House of Congress and Senate. It's happening, deal with it.
5. No more privately run, for-profit prisons. If you are a decent human being, you agree with this.

6. Presidential pardons? Yeah, those will not exist. Gone.
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LeAhhhhhh! \U0001f631 McElrath
LeAhhhhhh! đŸ˜± McElrath...
@leahmcelrath
Saudi scapegoats general for assassination of #Khashoggi:

By royal decree, Ahmed Assiri has been removed from his post as a deputy intelligence chief.


This is insane.

The Saudis brought a BONE SAW with


“He got in a fight with 18 of our guys and accidentally died so then we totes had to cut up his body so we could transport his remains more easily.”

(KSA has not addressed the whereabouts of #Khashoggi in revealing the results of its


Crown Prince MbS is using this to consolidate power.

(There were hopeful rumors the King would rein him in.)

This feels very Kushner-like,


This thread is really what they’re going with. All in.

I anticipate the WH will accept this version that offers (barely) plausible deniability to MbS and celebrates his and the Kingdom’s “transparency” and “swift action,” or something to that
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STEALTH JEFF
STEALTH JEFF
@drawandstrike
One thing that makes this #Khashoggi story difficult to assess when it comes to who's responsible is that there are different factions within Saudi Arabia constantly jockeying for power. It's not one monolithic thing.

Bin Salman heads only one faction.

Mohammad Bin Salman [MbS] not only has to deal with states in the region that want to thwart his plans for Saudi Arabia [SA} & the Middle East [ME] such as Iran, Turkey, Syria, Russia, Quatar...he also has people inside SA itself that don't like his reforms or agenda.

So when the narrative gets presented that "The only way Khashoggi could end up dead is on the direct orders of MbS" you might want to keep this in mind.

There are SEVERAL ways Khashoggi could end up meeting his demise at the hands of Saudis not working on the orders of MbS.

Powerful factions within SA, several of whom do not like the Crown Prince's reforms or the fact he was promoted to his current position ahead of others in the royal family, could have done this in the hopes of pinning it on MbS.

Too many false/fake news stories came out of Turkey in the past week to say anything further. This latest news comes just after it was reported Pompeo heard an audio of the killing that was quickly walked back in less than a day.

/end
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Lindsay Ellis
Lindsay Ellis
@thelindsayellis
for money #WhyIWrite

this is also true of pretty much everything because hey it's 2018 you can monetize everything. your apartment is a hotel. your car is a cab. your identity is a brand. oh, the things you can monetize.
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VICE News
VICE News
@vicenews
NEW: "We are going to stay there until he opens them. Until God touches the heart of Donald Trump.”

Things are getting desperate. The migrants broke out into sporadic chants of “si se puede.” Those who rushed the gate were greeted by tear gas canisters thrown by the Mexican Federal Police

“With so many people, the authorities can’t do anything. They have to let us pass.”
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STEALTH JEFF
STEALTH JEFF
@drawandstrike
Yes, Trump and his team had seen this stunt before. THIS time they have the Mexican gov't on our side to protect the new trade agreement.


How many got through the last time they pulled this stunt? Did they get the huge photo op of the kids being separated from their parents that they wanted?

Would people STOP PRETENDING they don't know Trump is ready for this?

Sheer panic in my mentions. 'OMG THEY GOT THROUGH A FENCE NOTHING'S GONNA STOP THEM NOW ARGLE BARGLE BARF!"

Grow the hell up.

Some of them are still coming, you say? Well my goodness, I guess that means there's nothing Trump can do now.

He's finished, isn't he? đŸ€”

I'm reminded again why Thomas Wictor had to frequently tell people DON'T BRING ME YOUR FEAR, I'm not interested in it. Take it somewhere else.

If this caravan actually DOES make it our border, Trump will have measures ready to deal with it.

Stop the hysteria.
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Cas Mudde \u270a
Cas Mudde ✊
@CasMudde
This is an absolutely excellent article by @TobiasBuckFT on the decline of the German Social Democrats with ramifications for SD parties throughout Western Europe. Some quick thought. #thread

1. I still think it buys a little bit too much into the packaging excuse. In essence, it is not about "charismatic leader" or "we didn't tell our story well enough", it is about not having a convincing story!

2. What is making Social Democratic parties irrelevant throughout Europe is not a lack of personnel or policies, but of ideology!

3. Only after Social Democrats have reinvented social democracy for the 21st century, as a modern(ized) left-wing ideology), not a blitzy packaged collection of slogans or a weak verion of right-wing policies, can they win voters (back).

4. But even then it has to accept that it lives in a different time, in which true social democratic values are no longer obvious or even popular.
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Logic
Logic
@OnWithLogic
1) I admit it. I'm completely obsessed with the NPC meme.

The reason why is because I think it's won us the Meme Wars. It's over, folks.

There is no way back from the NPC meme, because it's perfection.

#NPC #NPCmeme #NPCLivesMatter #Qanon


2) What makes it so successful that Twitter banned accounts, and is magical at destabilizing the left?

Because it destroys the power of social affirmation via group think. A person who once repeated talking points in unison, is now this guy, insert the caption:

#NPC #NPCmeme


3) When a leftist sees that image they get triggered because its true.

The left's contrived world view is in danger. The power of group think is dying, the MSM is losing it's power. Look at the memes scattered in this thread, and recognize the power and truth in it.

#NPC #Qanon


4) NPC identifies leftist activists as "non-playable" or soulless, programmed.

NPC stands for "non-playable character" and describes a character in a video game controlled by the computer and the programming to contribute to the game's plot.

#NPC #NPCmeme #NPCLivesMatter #Qanon


5) What a bunch of trolls did to piss off twitter is create a bunch of accounts to pose as leftist activists and chirp meaningless mantra talking points.

It's hilarious. And Twitter understood it.

#NPC #NPCmeme #NPCLivesMatter #Qanon
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