Thiel is a complete asshole's idea of a smart person. Someday we might be bummed that our elites have been chosen more or less by the neato! lottery.

I'm going to vomit https://t.co/UOTJEvZpih pic.twitter.com/g2Hr3uLxcC

— Ashley Feinberg (@ashleyfeinberg) January 11, 2017

Guns don't kill people, irresponsible sites that reveal your relatives and current address do.

Jesus McQueen is in NYC and free to do something tonight. I have an early-evening engagement, but am available afterwards, so I was thinking dinner at the Oyster Bar at eight. On the other hand, if any other NYers are around and free to be someplace earlier, I can show up wherever when I'm free.

I know it seems like the end times what with the inauguration looming and Exxon's CEO set to become Secretary of State and Russian state television hijacking C-SPAN and all, but it isn't all bad news. In two weeks, Taco Bell will start serving chalupas in a shell made of fried chicken.

JP Stormcrow will be in DC for the march, and is throwing out a query for a meet-up.

Plan here!

FWIW, I think I'm going to go to the Austin version.

ACA repeal is sort of creating a civil war within me. The mature side of me wants as much as possible preserved for the sake of the people over the next 5+ years. The vindictive side of me wants them to burn the entire thing to the ground and turn it into a maximized clusterfuck and make everyone hate the GOP. The vindictive side of me does not learn any lessons about the GOP's ability to start wars and wreck people's lives without consequence.

I keep trying to create a narrative that somehow the contradictions are heightened all the way to a single payer system down the road, because we'll all agree that the Heritage Foundation version of health care has now been tried and found inadequate, but it requires some major pollyanna talent.

I am so sick of having warm, muggy days in January. I just want to wear my sweaters. This is admittedly probably the least bad consequence of global warming, but still.

It's exasperating argument day! I myself argued that Clinton was fundamentally willing to be pushed in a more progressive bent and would govern left, because the country was trending left. This leaked cabinet list is pretty rich and centrist and lame. Clinton's counterfactual presidency might have been a disaster, in the context of the counterfactual world where we compared her with ordinary presidents. "Kill and eat you" is a different scale altogether.

via

Maybe we can not spend 300 comments wondering what "black martyrs" are (or we can! up to you!) but overall this seems like a solid high-level analysis.

Bruce Sterling on the Big 5 tech giants https://t.co/flV1wrV7TO /cc @fmanjoo pic.twitter.com/oFgcZQGqdm

— Cory Doctorow (@doctorow) January 5, 2017

Is this a big deal or are there easy work-arounds?

In 2015, [Governmental Accounting Standards Board] issued Statement No. 77 on Tax Abatement Disclosures, using "abatements" as an umbrella term for all kinds of corporate tax breaks granted for economic development (property, income or sales tax). Costly giveaways like property tax abatements and many other tax breaks granted in the name of jobs or other community benefits will now show up in government spending reports.

Statement No. 77 took effect starting in calendar 2016, so that as governments close their books on either calendar 2016 budgets or fiscal 2017 budgets, they will have to report how much revenue they lost to each economic development tax abatement program.

All the details of what they have to report are at the link. If this is a big deal, how long until it is repealed?

Mossy Character writes: Because all Trump all the time is no fun at all. I think there was consensus for Thinking Fast and Slow last time.

Heebie's take: I think that TF&S also got the most votes, and also it is a good choice because:
1. it's pretty light reading
2. you can dip in and out of it without missing much - it's not cumulative.
3. We love to talk about ourselves and we love to argue and it's easy to do both on the topic of mental processes because we can all just ramble on about our personal experiences.
4. I've already read it.

The first thing we need is a designated pinch hitter who will commit to covering any unassigned sections or dropped balls. Aside from that, we need people to pipe up now, while they're feeling refreshed and not overcommitted, and overcommit themselves to covering a section TBD. Then I'll work out the pacing and scheduling with the volunteers.

I was at my PT appointment just now. They had me go from station to station, where a different assistant (all in their early twenties) would show me a stretch or exercise, and then give me a handout to take home.

At one station, the assistant was a black guy. He gave me the xerox handout at the end, and I looked down at it, and saw the assistant was pictured in the photos, and I said, "Hey, that's you!"

He glanced over and said, "No, it's that guy," and gestured over to a black doctor standing a few feet away.

I laughed out loud and exclaimed, "How embarrassing!" (but the photo was super washed out.) Then a beat later, he said, "No, no, I'm just playing, that's me," and I laughed again.

I just wanted you to know that that is a thing that can happen in Texas: a young black man can tease a middle aged white woman that he just met a few minutes ago that she is racist. It was really well executed.

Paul Richardson's other catch, where he one-handed the ball because the defender grabbed his arm, was awesome, but this one, from the same game, is the best catch I've ever seen (even if it was a penalty).

Paul Richardson! pic.twitter.com/lefP2NPUnt

— The Sports Quotient (@SportsQuotient) January 8, 2017