The Cubs Just Ended Baseball’s Analytics War

The Cubs Just Ended Baseball’s Analytics War:

If you’re a Cubs fan, it’s time to party like you’ve never partied before. But if you’re a baseball fan, and a fan of smart front offices doing smart things and pushing the envelope and trying new strategies in a never-ending quest to secure a competitive advantage, you should be rejoicing, too. A deeper understanding of the game of baseball not only makes for a better front office, but for a better fan experience. Cubs fans, and Red Sox fans before them, may owe Epstein a particular debt of gratitude, but we’re all indebted to him for helping make the game of baseball more rewarding to follow in 2016 than it’s ever been before.

Maybe they’ll put that on his Hall of Fame plaque, too.

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The ruthlessly effective rebranding of Europe’s new far right | World news | The Guardian

The ruthlessly effective rebranding of Europe’s new far right | World news | The Guardian:

These parties have built a coherent ideology and steadily chipped away at the establishment parties’ hold on power by pursuing a new and devastatingly effective electoral strategy. They have made a very public break with the symbols of the old right’s past, distancing themselves from skinheads, neo-Nazis and homophobes. They have also deftly co-opted the causes, policies and rhetoric of their opponents. They have sought to outflank the left when it comes to defending a strong welfare state and protecting social benefits that they claim are threatened by an influx of freeloading migrants.

They have effectively claimed the progressive causes of the left – from gay rights to women’s equality and protecting Jews from antisemitism – as their own, by depicting Muslim immigrants as the primary threat to all three groups. As fear of Islam has spread, with their encouragement, they have presented themselves as the only true defenders of western identity and western liberties – the last bulwark protecting a besieged Judeo-Christian civilisation from the barbarians at the gates.

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This Lifetime GOP Voter Is With Her | Foreign Policy

This Lifetime GOP Voter Is With Her | Foreign Policy: "I got to spend a little time with Clinton when she was a U.S. senator and we both served on an advisory board at the now-defunct U.S. Joint Forces Command. Given the harsh logic of the alphabet — C comes after B — I found myself seated next to her on several occasions. I found her to be a charming conversationalist with a lot of interest in learning about defense issues. I did not detect her peddling any ideological agenda; she simply wanted to figure out the best course of action. The Hillary I met doesn’t match the ogre of Republican myth."



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‘I’m With Her’: The Strengths of Hillary Clinton - The New York Times

‘I’m With Her’: The Strengths of Hillary Clinton - The New York Times: "First, she knows the world exceptionally well and is essentially a very bright, disciplined nerd who traveled to more countries as secretary of state than any of her predecessors.



 Second, Clinton had a history of playing well with Republicans when she was in the Senate and secretary of state, so there’s some small hope that we could inch back to governing.

Third, Clinton cares deeply about impoverished children and others who are voiceless. In Arkansas, she started an early childhood program. In Washington, she helped establish CHIP, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which supports more than eight million needy American kids.

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The New Evangelical Moral Minority - The New Yorker

The New Evangelical Moral Minority - The New Yorker: "Southern Baptists had always tolerated a surprising degree of heterogeneity. In an old PBS news special, Bill Moyers, a former Southern Baptist pastor, fondly remembered the open-minded atmosphere at his childhood congregation, in Texas. “There was no creed, and no coercion,” he said. “We chose our leaders, developed our own programs, without interference from any ecclesiastical organization.” By the nineteen-sixties, S.B.C. seminaries were starting to embrace the kind of liberal theology that was ascendant in mainline Protestant denominations. One graduate of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary reported hearing his professor begin class with an anti-patriarchal prayer: “Our Mother, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name.” Land remembers studying under professors who rejected central tenets of Christian faith, like the existence of Hell, or the reality of Christ’s resurrection. “You’d have preachers who wouldn’t talk about homosexuality,” Land says. “Said that Jesus never mentioned it, so it couldn’t be that important.” America’s first Southern Baptist President—Jimmy Carter, elected in 1976—was a liberal."



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The New Evangelical Moral Minority - The New Yorker

The New Evangelical Moral Minority - The New Yorker: "During this election season, Moore has sometimes appeared out of place in his own denomination—a Trump detractor leading a church largely peopled by Trump supporters. But he seemed comfortable in this uncomfortable position, perhaps because he has learned to accept the limits of his ability to change the world, or even to understand it. Moore thinks that the idea of a moral majority is wrong, and was probably wrong when it was created: he suspects that earnest, orthodox Christians have always been outnumbered. Like any believer, he wants his church to grow, but he doesn’t seem particularly threatened by the thought that it might not. He says that Christians in America must learn to think of themselves as a marginal community, struggling to survive in an increasingly hostile secular culture. In such a context, Muslims might seem less like enemies and more like allies in the fight for religious freedom.

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Facebook is harming our democracy, and Mark Zuckerberg needs to do something about it - Vox

Facebook is harming our democracy, and Mark Zuckerberg needs to do something about it - Vox:

Reporters have come under increasing pressure to write “clickbait” articles that pander to readers’ worst impulses. Too-good-to-check stories gain more traction online than stories that are balanced and thoroughly reported. That has worsened the nation’s political polarization and lowered the quality of democratic discourse.

The fundamental problem here is that Facebook’s leadership is in denial about the kind of organization it has become. “We are a tech company, not a media company,” Zuckerberg has said repeatedly over the last few years. In the mind of the Facebook CEO, Facebook is just a “platform,” a neutral conduit for helping users share information with one another.

But that’s wrong. Facebook makes billions of editorial decisions every day. And often they are bad editorial decisions — steering people to sensational, one-sided, or just plain inaccurate stories. The fact that these decisions are being made by algorithms rather than human editors doesn’t make Facebook any less responsible for the harmful effect on its users and the broader society.

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Democracy’s Majesty and 2016’s Indignity - WSJ

Democracy’s Majesty and 2016’s Indignity - WSJ: "
A closing thought: God is in charge of history. He asks us to work, to try, to pour ourselves out to make things better. But he is an actor in history also. He chastises and rescues, he intervenes in ways seen and unseen. Or chooses not to.



 Twenty sixteen looks to me like a chastisement. He’s trying to get our attention. We have candidates we can’t be proud of. We must choose among the embarrassments. What might we be doing as a nation and a people that would have earned this moment?"



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An open letter to my Republican friends in 2016: Why I cannot support Trump | Joseph Kopser: Thoughts, Ideas and Opinions

An open letter to my Republican friends in 2016: Why I cannot support Trump | Joseph Kopser: Thoughts, Ideas and Opinions: "As someone who grew up a Ronald Reagan Republican, this last 18 months have been hard to watch as the party I admired growing up is in shambles.  After 20 years in the Army, it was hard to stomach his comments about McCain being a loser, his Gold Star family fight, or mostly his outright call to ban Muslims and impose a religious test.   He comments and allegations surrounding women are just proof in my point.  He is unfit to be Command in Chief.  
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A popular FB comment of mine

Source post: "It actually goes back to Lyndon Johnson and the Civil Rights Act. Johnson was a senator from Texas and a close ally of the phalanx of southern senators that used their immense seniority to protect their states' oppression of black folks at the national level. In these states, for example, the benefits of the GI Bill were available to whites (like my grandfather, who didn't fight and used it to get a bachelor's degree on his way to becoming a "Rev. Dr.") but systematically denied to blacks, who had fought in war. However, when he became President, he supported civil rights through landmark bills such and the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act. Per Randall B. Woods:

"LBJ wrapped white America in a moral straight jacket. How could individuals who fervently, continuously, and overwhelmingly identified themselves with a merciful and just God continue to condone racial discrimination, police brutality, and segregation? Where in the Judeo-Christian ethic was there justification for killing young girls in a church in Alabama, denying an equal education to black children, barring fathers and mothers from competing for jobs that would feed and clothe their families? Was Jim Crow to be America's response to "Godless Communism"?"

When Johnson signed the bill, he noted that he had "lost the South for a generation," and that was true. Southern white gradually shifted from democratic to republican politics as the parties realigned themselves, and the "Southern Strategy" employed by the GOP used racism to win the southern states by spreading imagery like the black "welfare queen," though that image wasn't supported by the literature. Of the two parties, democrats pushed against racism more and won the support of black americans. The Congressional Black Caucus is overwhelmingly democratic.

Is that permanent? No. No party is "owed" the vote of any group, but as long as the GOP shelters and supports racism I don't think there will be much support for it from communities of color. This election feels kind of like the hysteria before the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" where people thought the military would fall apart because of homophobia - likewise, we white people need to get over ourselves and realize that immigration and changing demographics are part of the genius of America (all recent American nobel prize winners were immigrants) and that our country's diversity and efforts for inclusion make us the shining city on a hill that we want to be.

It's that racism, that "we want our country back" feeling, that has in part led to Trump. Analysis of voters have found that Trump support is more about race than it is about economics - Trump supporters make more money than groups that supported other GOP candidates. What unites them, or at least some of them, is this narrative from Arlie Russell Hochschild:

"You are patiently standing in the middle of a long line stretching toward the horizon, where the American Dream awaits. But as you wait, you see people cutting in line ahead of you. Many of these line-cutters are black—beneficiaries of affirmative action or welfare. Some are career-driven women pushing into jobs they never had before. Then you see immigrants, Mexicans, Somalis, the Syrian refugees yet to come. As you wait in this unmoving line, you're being asked to feel sorry for them all. You have a good heart. But who is deciding who you should feel compassion for? Then you see President Barack Hussein Obama waving the line-cutters forward. He's on their side. In fact, isn't he a line-cutter too? How did this fatherless black guy pay for Harvard? As you wait your turn, Obama is using the money in your pocket to help the line-cutters. He and his liberal backers have removed the shame from taking. The government has become an instrument for redistributing your money to the undeserving. It's not your government anymore; it's theirs."

The GOP won white votes in large majorities (enough to win in 2000 and 2004) in part through an idea of the American Dream that got most americans to support huge tax cuts that weren't for their benefit (which drove some foolish dem political consultants crazy). Racism is a large force in American political life, especially for older white Americans, and Trump tapped into that. His developments were found to be discriminatory by the Justice Department, multiple times, and he advocated for the death penalty for some young black men who were innocent, the "Central Park Five."

People of color are "saving the republic" because older white America is more comfortable with Trump's fascist tendencies than a (somewhat problematic) woman who supports rights for all Americans, and who respects the constitution. Apparently, some portion of the US has taken in so much hatred and nonsense from talk radio that they believed (or wanted to believe) conspiracies like the birth certificate, because that was more convenient than the idea of a qualified black president. The older white woman that cut my hair last night talked about the birth certificate, even.

Trump is grossly unfit for office (my reasons here:http://willslack.blogspot.com/.../why-i-am-nevertrump...) but white people, as a block, would rather put him in power, and the constitution at risk. That's bananas.

Thanks for reading; I hope this was helpful."



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Trump protester: I was beaten for holding a 'Republicans against Trump' sign | US news | The Guardian

Trump protester: I was beaten for holding a 'Republicans against Trump' sign | US news | The Guardian: "Crites said when he was on the ground he heard someone yell “something about a gun” and he kept telling those on top of him that he had merely been holding a sign.

He was unaware, until the Guardian told him, that Trump had been ushered from the stage amid the mayhem.



 For his part, Crites said he felt relieved when police arrived and placed him in handcuffs, but said officers had to fend off Trump supporters who continued to attack him. “As I was taken from the room, people are just looking at me like I’m a demon,” he said."



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The Post-Familial Election - The New York Times

The Post-Familial Election - The New York Times: "Human beings imagine and encounter the future most intensely through our own progeny, our flesh and blood. The Constitution speaks of “our posterity” for a reason: We are a nation of immigrants, but when people think about the undiscovered America of the future, its strongest claim on them is one their own descendants make.

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Tom Nichols: What Trump has already cost America - NY Daily News

Tom Nichols: What Trump has already cost America - NY Daily News:

This fall, I had the chance to talk with ordinary citizens, students, journalists, and others in cities and towns in Central Europe. Almost all of them expressed the same fear: that America was going to elect Donald Trump and abandon them — our NATO allies — to the same fate Russia has inflicted on Ukraine, Georgia, and especially Syria.

They found it incomprehensible that the United States of America could even think of electing a man so obviously enamored of Putin, whom they fear for good reason. They were mystified at the rise of right-wing nationalism, a problem they assumed was localized to Europe but to which America, at least at the level of presidential politics, seemed immune.

Worst of all, they were disappointed and scared. These are people who once lived behind the Iron Curtain. They hoped in us, believed in us, and admired our system of government. It's partly why they bound their fate to ours. Even if Trump loses, they will never look at us the same way, because they know what we're capable of tolerating in a presidential candidate.

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Putin, Assange, and Comey are doing Donald Trump’s work for him - Vox

Putin, Assange, and Comey are doing Donald Trump’s work for him - Vox: "The upshot is that the last phase of the campaign is being shaped by outside forces stretching from Moscow to the FBI’s headquarters in downtown Washington — not by the strength or weakness of the two candidates’ policy ideas.

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WikiLeaks Isn’t Whistleblowing - The New York Times

WikiLeaks Isn’t Whistleblowing - The New York Times:

All campaigns need to have internal discussions. Taking one campaign manager’s email account and releasing it with zero curation in the last month of an election needs to be treated as what it is: political sabotage, not whistle-blowing.

These hacks also function as a form of censorship. Once, censorship worked by blocking crucial pieces of information. In this era of information overload, censorship works by drowning us in too much undifferentiated information, crippling our ability to focus. These dumps, combined with the news media’s obsession with campaign trivia and gossip, have resulted in whistle-drowning, rather than whistle-blowing: In a sea of so many whistles blowing so loud, we cannot hear a single one.

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One final election plea, on the behalf of U.S. ideals - The Washington Post

One final election plea, on the behalf of U.S. ideals - The Washington Post: "I never imagined that Republican leaders — many of whom I know and have respected — would fall in line with such dangerous delusions, on the theory that anything is better than Hillary Clinton. Most options are better than Clinton. But not all. And not this. The GOP has largely accommodated itself to a candidate with no respect for, or knowledge of, the constitutional order. Every constitutional conservative should be revolted. Those who are complicit have adopted a particularly dangerous form of power-loving hypocrisy.

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The Media Never Raised the Bar for Donald Trump | New Republic

The Media Never Raised the Bar for Donald Trump | New Republic: "Everything we’ve seen over the past several months points to the fact that Clinton is at her strongest when she’s disintermediated, while Trump unvarnished is a walking murder-suicide. By leaving this contrast unstated, and saying nothing at all about its implications for the presidency, the media is failing those Americans who have a choice to make by November 8.

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How Macedonia Became A Global Hub For Pro-Trump Misinformation - BuzzFeed News

How Macedonia Became A Global Hub For Pro-Trump Misinformation - BuzzFeed News:

The young Macedonians who run these sites don’t care about Donald Trump. They are responding to straightforward economic incentives: As Facebook regularly reveals in earnings reports, a US Facebook user is worth about four times a user outside the US. The fraction-of-a-penny-per-click of U.S. display advertising — a declining market for American publishers — goes a long way in Veles. Several teens and young men who run these sites told BuzzFeed News that they learned the best way to generate traffic is to get their politics stories to spread on Facebook — and the best way to generate shares on Facebook is to publish sensationalist and often false content that caters to Trump supporters.

As a result, this strange hub of pro-Trump sites in Macedonia is now playing a significant role in propagating the kind of false and misleading content that was identified in a recent BuzzFeed News analysis of hyperpartisan Facebook pages. These sites open a window into the economic incentives behind producing misinformation specifically for the wealthiest advertising markets and specifically for Facebook, the world’s largest social network, as well as within online advertising networks such as Google AdSense.

“Yes, the info in the blogs is bad, false, and misleading but the rationale is that ‘if it gets the people to click on it and engage, then use it,’” said a university student in Veles who started a US politics site, and who agreed to speak on the condition that BuzzFeed News not use his name.

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Andrew Sullivan: Trump, America, and the Abyss

Andrew Sullivan: Trump, America, and the Abyss: "The most frustrating aspect of the last 12 months has been the notion that we have been in a normal, if truly ugly, election cycle, with one extremely colorful and unpredictable figure leading the Republican Party in an otherwise conventional political struggle over policy. It has been clear for months now, it seems to me, that this is a delusion. A far more accurate account of the past year is that an openly proto-fascist cult leader has emerged to forge a popular movement that has taken over one of the major political parties, eroded central norms of democratic life, undermined American democratic institutions, and now stands on the brink of seizing power in Washington. I made this argument at length in April, when Donald Trump was on the brink of securing the nomination. Everything that has happened since has only made my fears more pressing.

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World Series: Here’s How the Chicago Cubs Won Game 7 - The New York Times

World Series: Here’s How the Chicago Cubs Won Game 7 - The New York Times:

But 2016 was the 108th year after their last title, and a baseball is sewn together with 108 stitches. This had to be the year.

It was.

On Wednesday night the Cubs beat the Cleveland Indians, 8-7, in a Game 7 for the ages. With that victory — yes, the following words are really true — the Chicago Cubs won the World Series.

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The Dangers of Donald Trump - The New York Times

The Dangers of Donald Trump - The New York Times: "But I think that reluctant Trump supporters are overestimating the systemic durability of the American-led order, and underestimating the extent to which a basic level of presidential competence and self-control is itself a matter of life and death — for Americans, and for human beings the world over.

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I come from the land of Trump, and I know why he’s winning in rural communities; it’s not why you… – Medium

I come from the land of Trump, and I know why he’s winning in rural communities; it’s not why you… – Medium: "I know why you’re voting for Trump, friends. We’re all afraid, I assure you. My fears are amplified by the threat of Trump winning, but at the end of the day, I don’t want to be against you.I know we are more similar than we are different. I know we can find common ground. I know we can overcome our fear, and start sorting out how we work to rebuild our place, together."



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Donald Trump Used Legally Dubious Method to Avoid Paying Taxes - The New York Times

Donald Trump Used Legally Dubious Method to Avoid Paying Taxes - The New York Times: "It is unclear whether the I.R.S. ever challenged Mr. Trump’s use of this specific tax maneuver. According to a financial disclosure statement prepared by Mr. Trump’s accountants, he was under audit by the tax authorities as of 1993, only a year after he avoided reporting hundreds of millions of dollars in taxable income because of this legally suspect tactic. But the results of that audit are unknown, and the agency declined to comment on Monday.

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U-2 Incident . Eisenhower . WGBH American Experience | PBS

U-2 Incident . Eisenhower . WGBH American Experience | PBS:

These activities have their own rules and methods of concealment, which seek to mislead and obscure - just as in the Soviet allegations there are many discrepancies. For example, there is some reason to believe that the plane in question was not shot down at high altitude. The normal agencies of our Government are unaware of these specific activities or of the special efforts to conceal them.

Third point: How should we view all of this activity?

It is a distasteful but vital necessity.

We prefer and work for a different kind of world -- and a different way of obtaining the information essential to confidence and effective deterrence. Open societies, in the day of present weapons, are the only answer.

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The Next President’s Headaches, According to America’s Top Spy - Defense One

The Next President’s Headaches, According to America’s Top Spy - Defense One:

ROSE: So what do you think is driving Putin?

CLAPPER: I think he’s somewhat of a throwback, not so much to the—throwback to the tsar era. I think he has this vision of a great Russia, as a great power. It’s extremely important to him that Russia be treated and respected as a global power on a par with the United States. And I think that has a lot to do with impelling his behavior.

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Thanks to Trump, we can better understand how Hitler was possible - U.S. Election 2016 - Haaretz - Israel News | Haaretz.com

Thanks to Trump, we can better understand how Hitler was possible - U.S. Election 2016 - Haaretz - Israel News | Haaretz.com: "But while Hitler was becoming the darling of the masses nonetheless, he never considered himself one of them. As historian Yaakov Talmon wrote in Myth of the Nation and Vision of Revolution, Hitler was contemptuous of the slow-witted German masses. “Denying them rational understanding, judgment, willpower, and mental balance, he composed an astonishingly shrewd vade-mecum (handbook, CS): how to bamboozle them with hysteria and incitement, oversimplification and repetition, stunts and tricks, parades and ceremonials. Brooding morbidly over its lost glory and wallowing in an ecstasy of self-pity, a defeated Germany offered a uniquely propitious target for the possessed demagogue to cast his spell and hypnotize its masses: he and they shared the same resentment of defeat and foreign dictation.”
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My Halloween email led to a campus firestorm — and a troubling lesson about self-censorship - The Washington Post

My Halloween email led to a campus firestorm — and a troubling lesson about self-censorship - The Washington Post: "It takes more than Yale’s admirable free speech code to ensure a healthy habitat for learning. My fear is that students will eventually give up trying to engage with each other, a development that will echo in our wider culture for decades. My critics have reminded me that there are consequences to my exercise of free speech. Now it’s Yale’s turn to examine the consequences of its own stance: the shadow on its magnificent motto, “Light and truth.”

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Study: GOP defense officials confident in Clinton | TheHill

Study: GOP defense officials confident in Clinton | TheHill:



Data provided to The Hill by Capital Point, a Washington-based research firm, finds that top military experts — Republicans and Democrats alike — are alarmed by the prospect of Trump handling the nation’s foreign affairs from the White House.

Capital Point interviewed 100 high-ranking former military officials and national security experts, selecting 50 Republicans and 50 Democrats.

On the question of which candidate is more qualified to deal with foreign policy issues, all 100 chose Clinton. 

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NoahsArcade84 comments on Texas House Candidate: Don’t Vote for My Opponent Because She’s a “Self-Proclaimed Atheist”

NoahsArcade84 comments on Texas House Candidate: Don’t Vote for My Opponent Because She’s a “Self-Proclaimed Atheist”: "Basically the premise is that these people do everything with the church. For most of these people, they've never experienced anything negative associated with the church. For a lot of towns, the church is the only thing everyone has in common, and EVERYONE has it in common. Most of these people were married at the church, got couple's counseling at the church, held funerals for their grand parents, parents, siblings and friends at the church, and, from their perspective, associate a lot of strong emotions and positive experiences with the church.



And then people like us come along and sneer and say "lol your religion is stupid because it makes you hate gay people. stop believing in fairy tales, idiot"."



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At Least 6 Women Accuse University of Wisconsin Student of Assault - The New York Times

At Least 6 Women Accuse University of Wisconsin Student of Assault - The New York Times: "One by one, at least six women have come forward to accuse Alec Cook, a 20-year-old student at the University of Wisconsin, of sexual assault. The charges have roiled this campus, while also revealing the continued reluctance of some women to come forward with sexual assault complaints, even amid national and campus conversations about the problem.

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Obama Brought Silicon Valley to Washington - The New York Times

Obama Brought Silicon Valley to Washington - The New York Times: "The White House can’t be as freewheeling as a start-up, he said, because “by definition, democracy is messy. And part of government’s job is dealing with problems that nobody else wants to deal with.” But he added that he didn’t want people to become “discouraged and say, ‘I’m just not going to deal with government.’ ” Obama was the first American president to see technology as an engine to improve lives and accelerate society more quickly than any government body could. That lesson was apparent on the lawn. While I still don’t believe that technology is a panacea for society’s problems, I will always appreciate the first president who tried to bring what's best about Silicon Valley to Washington, even if some of the bad came with it."



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Obama Brought Silicon Valley to Washington - The New York Times

Obama Brought Silicon Valley to Washington - The New York Times: "The White House can’t be as freewheeling as a start-up, he said, because “by definition, democracy is messy. And part of government’s job is dealing with problems that nobody else wants to deal with.” But he added that he didn’t want people to become “discouraged and say, ‘I’m just not going to deal with government.’ ” Obama was the first American president to see technology as an engine to improve lives and accelerate society more quickly than any government body could. That lesson was apparent on the lawn. While I still don’t believe that technology is a panacea for society’s problems, I will always appreciate the first president who tried to bring what's best about Silicon Valley to Washington, even if some of the bad came with it."



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What the Right’s Intellectuals Did Wrong - The New York Times

What the Right’s Intellectuals Did Wrong - The New York Times: "The second failure was a failure of recognition and self-critique, in which the right’s best minds deceived themselves about (or made excuses for) the toxic tendencies of populism, which were manifest in various hysterias long before Sean Hannity swooned for Donald Trump. What the intellectuals did not see clearly enough was that Fox News and talk radio and the internet had made right-wing populism more powerful, relative to conservatism’s small elite, than it had been during the Nixon or Reagan eras, without necessarily making it more serious or sober than its Bircher-era antecedents.

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Chipotle Eats Itself | Fast Company | Business + Innovation

Chipotle Eats Itself | Fast Company | Business + Innovation: "Chipotle has said it won’t be satisfied until it’s regained all of its lost sales and resumed its momentum. It has pledged to continue to refashion the food system. As a longtime customer, I want to believe them. Everyone wants to believe them. But as I learned, what’s ailing Chipotle is more pervasive and insidious than any foodborne illness. For Chipotle to win back all it has lost will require a soul-cleansing broader than perhaps even Ells and Moran realize.

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Is the Self-Driving Car Un-American?

Is the Self-Driving Car Un-American?: "But these are just slivers of the vast changes that will take place — culturally, politically, economically, and experientially — in the world of the driverless car. Stop for a moment to consider the magnitude of this transformation: Our republic of drivers is poised to become a nation of passengers.


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The romance delusion | Prospect Magazine

The romance delusion | Prospect Magazine: "All of which should lead us to conclude: if you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with. Because let’s face it, the one you love is just that: the one—the impossibly unique individual, who is nevertheless moulded entirely to the lineaments of your very particular desire. While as for the one you’re with, well, I’m sure you agree—you may not love them that much, but they’re entirely deserving of your charity.


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Imagine a Sane Donald Trump - WSJ

Imagine a Sane Donald Trump - WSJ:

Sane Donald Trump would not treat the political process of the world’s greatest democracy as if it were, as somebody said, the next-to-last episode of a reality-TV series. That’s the episode that leaves you wondering how the season will end—who will scream, who will leave the drunken party in a huff, who will accuse whom of being a whore. I guess that’s what “I’ll keep you in suspense” as to whether he’ll accept the election result was about. We’re being teed up. The explosive season finale is Nov. 8. Maybe he’ll leave in a huff. Maybe he’ll call everyone whores.

Does he know he’s playing with fire? No. Because he’s a nut.

Sane Donald Trump for president. Too bad he doesn’t exist.

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Why we shouldn’t forgive the Republicans who sold their souls - The Washington Post

Why we shouldn’t forgive the Republicans who sold their souls - The Washington Post:

Maybe when those who caved to Trump in 2016 begin their campaigns for 2020, some voters will recall that at a moment of national crisis, those politicians promising strong leadership were too weak, too obsessed with winning elections, too afraid of Trump’s angry faithful to have the steady moral compass, the calmness under fire, the vision in the fog of battle that real leadership demands. And maybe voters at that point will look away from those who self-servingly tried to foist Trump on the nation and will turn instead to the handful of Republican officeholders who had the courage of their convictions and tried to stop him from the beginning. Maybe there will be enough voters willing to reward that kind of genuine political courage, enough to make a difference. When that day comes, the party’s reformation and renewal can begin.



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FromYourHomePhone comments on WikiLeaks' Collateral Murder: U.S. Soldier Ethan McCord (2010)

FromYourHomePhone comments on WikiLeaks' Collateral Murder: U.S. Soldier Ethan McCord (2010):

This is a strategic vs tactical argument:

Tactically, it's better to shoot first, sort out the details later;

Strategically, the occupying force's credibility as a "liberating force" evaporates in a heartbeat.

People who aren't "in the shit" determine the ROE with a perspective beyond the war itself, which is balanced against an operational assessment that the mission can still succeed with such restrictions in place. This is the difficulty of claiming a moral high ground when conducting war: tactical risks must be taken to maintain it. The enemy knows this and will take advantage of it.

To me, this is one of the more insidious sacrifices armed forces personnel must make: you are consciously sacrificing your own self-preservation based on someone else's decision. You sit there in the turret of your HMMWV, knowingthere's a very good chance an approaching vehicle is a VBIED but not being able to engage because it might cost your country a whole lot more if you do.

To most people, this is insane, but for nation-states and their militaries, it is necessary.

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Carter Center Statement on the Integrity of U.S. Elections

Carter Center Statement on the Integrity of U.S. Elections: "ATLANTA – Recent claims about rigging of U.S. elections are unfounded and irresponsible.  Based on our knowledge of the electoral system in the United States and of the many independent analyses of U.S. polling processes, The Carter Center has great confidence in the overall administrative integrity of U.S. elections. Checks and balances within our electoral system exist to protect it against manipulation.  These include processes and checks before and after election day to ensure the integrity of the election process, such as pre-election testing of voting technology and postelection audits that take place in some states; the widespread presence of agents from both parties in polling stations; and the broad access to election results given to the media and the public, enabling transparent reviews of the election results. The American electoral process also benefits from the hard work and dedication of hundreds of thousands of poll workers and election officials, who represent both parties and ensure the integrity of the voting and counting process.

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Trump couldn't overturn election, but could undermine it - POLITICO

Trump couldn't overturn election, but could undermine it - POLITICO: "But a refusal to concede, while rallying his followers through social media, would violate a deeply ingrained tradition of candidates peacefully accepting election results, which most people in politics consider a sacred affirmation of faith in the American system.

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On the wikileak-ed emails between Tanden and... | LESSIG Blog, v2

On the wikileak-ed emails between Tanden and... | LESSIG Blog, v2: "But I can’t for the life of me see the public good in a leak like this — at least one that reveals no crime or violation of any important public policy. 

We all deserve privacy. The burdens of public service are insane enough without the perpetual threat that every thought shared with a friend becomes Twitter fodder. Neera has only ever served in the public (and public interest) sector. Her work has always and only been devoted to advancing her vision of the public good. It is not right that she should bear the burden of this sort of breach."



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Two Days With Donald Trump’s Staunchest Supporters

Two Days With Donald Trump’s Staunchest Supporters:

The two sides continue like this, chanting and counterchanting, pausing to shuffle around among themselves or to hurl scattered insults back at each other. Finally, as the protesters begin another round of anti-Trump chants, the Republican nominee’s supporters shift tracks.

“USA! USA! USA! USA!”

As soon as it starts it spreads, grabbing lingerers and bystanders. All across the plaza, more and more mouths open and fists raise to the sky. As the chant spreads, the anti-Trump protesters go silent for just a second. They gather themselves, as if figuring out what to do next. Finally, they join.

“USA! USA! USA! USA!”

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Economic Anxiety and the Limits of Data Journalism | The Baseline Scenario

Economic Anxiety and the Limits of Data Journalism | The Baseline Scenario: "The other problem with the Rothwell paper, which I discuss at length here, is multicollinearity. It is true that Rothwell found that income was a positive and significant predictor of Trump support, at least in the full sample. But his “controls” included employment status, “works in blue collar occupation,” union member, highest degree, share of college graduates in the region, and median income in the region, all of which are correlated with household income. For example, if blue-collar workers make less money and are more likely to support Trump, that effect could be attached to the blue-collar variable (which it was) and not to the income variable (which it wasn’t). Multicollinearity doesn’t bias your results, but it makes them much more fragile.



 The general problem with arguments of the form Trump-supporters-are-actually-rich is this: compared to what? If you want to answer the question of how well Trump is doing with working-class voters, you need a baseline. You can’t expect him to poll evenly with Clinton among any group of poor people: as Matthews acknowledges, “Lower-income whites are always likelier to support Democrats than other whites.” So saying that Trump supporters are richer than Clinton supporters, or that some group of poor people favors Clinton, doesn’t prove much. And as we’ve seen, Trump voters are not rich compared to other Republican primary voters.

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On Behalf Of The Amherst Men's Soccer Team | Huffington Post

On Behalf Of The Amherst Men's Soccer Team | Huffington Post:

Donald Trump defended his comments by saying, “I’m not proud of my locker room talk. But this world has serious problems. We need serious leaders.”

Serious leaders take the issue of sexual assault seriously. Sexual assault is a crime. Bragging about sexual assault can never be excused as being what boys and men talk about behind closed doors. To excuse such behavior is to perpetuate a culture of abuse of power that has no place in 21st-century America.

If Donald Trump wants to know what actually is said in real locker rooms, he is welcome to visit ours to understand how real men speak about and treat women.

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In February, I subscribed to all the presidential candidates’ email lists. – Medium

In February, I subscribed to all the presidential candidates’ email lists. – Medium: "But what Trump’s saying when he says “We’re gonna build a wall” is just “We have advanced our extraction technology to stabilize more of the active plant compounds and essential oils without oxidation.”
It’s just marketing babble designed to sell us something that is not truly intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.
It’s just junk mail."



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Panama: The Hidden Trillions | by Alan Rusbridger | The New York Review of Books

Panama: The Hidden Trillions | by Alan Rusbridger | The New York Review of Books: "Gradually, a picture emerges of how the substantial mechanisms of offshore tax avoidance work. The rich person with money to hide would generally contact Mossfon via an intermediary—a bank, a lawyer, or an asset manager. These were Mossfon’s “clients,” the ones who ordered up an off-the-peg offshore company in the British Virgin Islands, Bermuda, the Bahamas, or elsewhere. Mossfon would then appoint directors to look after this company. These directors, uniquely in the world of high finance, appeared to have few qualifications for the job.

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Even if Trump loses big, the anger will remain. Here’s how the left can address it. - The Washington Post

Even if Trump loses big, the anger will remain. Here’s how the left can address it. - The Washington Post:

This should be an aspiration for all of us. And it means that those who live cosmopolitan lives must go about “taking an interest in the practices and beliefs” of those whom the late Rev. Andrew Greeley called “neighborhood people.” Being “citizens of the world” is not high on their priority list. They love the particular patch where they were raised or that they have adopted as their own.

I suspect that many of Trump’s backers are neighborhood people. Economic change, including globalization, is very hard on them. It can disrupt and empty out the places they revere, driving young people away and undermining the economic base a community needs to survive.

Liberals and conservatives alike insufficiently appreciate what makes neighborhood people tick and why they deserve our respect. Liberals are instinctive cosmopolitans in the citizens-of-the-world sense. They often long for the freedom of big metropolitan areas. Free-market conservatives typically say that if a place can’t survive the rigors of market competition, if the factories close, the people left behind are best off if they find somewhere else to live.

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How Did Walmart Get Cleaner Stores and Higher Sales? It Paid Its People More - The New York Times

How Did Walmart Get Cleaner Stores and Higher Sales? It Paid Its People More - The New York Times:

Walmart’s announcement of what it refers to as “the investments,” made during the all-staff videoconference in 2015, became something of a Rorschach test. To macroeconomists, it suggested that a falling unemployment rate was finally creating the response that theory suggests it should: employers raising wages to attract the workers they need.

To labor activists, it was a sign that political campaigns to raise the minimum wage were paying off. To Wall Street analysts, it was the company owning up to the weaknesses long apparent in customer surveys and sales numbers.

And in the company’s own framing, it was about doing the right thing. “It’s clear to me that one of the highest priorities today must be an investment in you, our associates,” Mr. McMillon said in the video.

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The white flight of Derek Black - The Washington Post

The white flight of Derek Black - The Washington Post: "He learned that Western Europe had begun not as a great society of genetically superior people but as a technologically backward place that lagged behind Islamic culture. He studied the 8th century to the 12th century, trying to trace back the modern concepts of race and whiteness, but he couldn’t find them anywhere. “We basically just invented it,” he concluded."



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Brushing Off the Bro Talk – Medium

Brushing Off the Bro Talk – Medium:

I currently work as an educator at La Casa de las Madres, a domestic violence agency based in San Francisco. I spend a lot of time thinking and talking about the impact of the degrading language that men often chalk up as “locker room talk” or “bro talk”. Domestic violence agencies across the country are acutely aware of the mental and physical impact of this language. We see how it reinforces learned behaviors of power and control.

Many of us hear the term domestic violence and think of one partner physically beating the other. It is easy to identify such physical violence as wrong, as criminal. We struggle a bit more to identify and hold batterers accountable when they commit acts of financial, emotional, or psychological abuse.

Perhaps what is hardest though, is to identify the link between sexist, hypersexual, objectifying language directed at women, and the many different forms of coercive behavior batterers use to control their partners. Or, the link between sexist, hypersexual, objectifying language directed at women and the rate of rape and sexual assault on campuses. I believe that while it may be hard, it is necessary for each of us to make this connection and to change our behaviors to mitigate the harmful impacts.

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The Thing All Women Do That You Don't Know About | Huffington Post

The Thing All Women Do That You Don't Know About | Huffington Post:

They don’t know.

They don’t know about de-escalation. Minimizing. Quietly acquiescing.

Hell, even though women live it, we are not always aware of it. But we have all done it.

We have all learned, either by instinct or by trial and error, how to minimize a situation that makes us uncomfortable. How to avoid angering a man or endangering ourselves. We have all, on many occasions, ignored an offensive comment. We’ve all laughed off an inappropriate come-on. We’ve all swallowed our anger when being belittled or condescended to.

It doesn’t feel good. It feels icky. Dirty. But we do it because to not do it could put us in danger or get us fired or labeled a bitch. So we usually take the path of least precariousness.

It’s not something we talk about every day. We don’t tell our boyfriends and husbands and friends every time it happens. Because it is so frequent, so pervasive, that it has become something we just deal with.

So maybe they don’t know.

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Bottle-Flipping Craze Is Fun for Children but Torture for Parents - The New York Times

Bottle-Flipping Craze Is Fun for Children but Torture for Parents - The New York Times:

Gurgle. Thud. Crunch.

Gurgle. Thud. Crunch.

That is the noise of water bottle flipping — the compulsion promoted through online videos to toss a partly filled plastic bottle and try to get it to land upright — which has captivated children across the country.

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Crash: how computers are setting us up for disaster | Tim Harford | Technology | The Guardian

Crash: how computers are setting us up for disaster | Tim Harford | Technology | The Guardian: "The paradox of automation, then, has three strands to it. First, automatic systems accommodate incompetence by being easy to operate and by automatically correcting mistakes. Because of this, an inexpert operator can function for a long time before his lack of skill becomes apparent – his incompetence is a hidden weakness that can persist almost indefinitely. Second, even if operators are expert, automatic systems erode their skills by removing the need for practice. Third, automatic systems tend to fail either in unusual situations or in ways that produce unusual situations, requiring a particularly skilful response. A more capable and reliable automatic system makes the situation worse.

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If we don't act now, all future wars may be as horrific as Aleppo | Paul Mason | Opinion | The Guardian

If we don't act now, all future wars may be as horrific as Aleppo | Paul Mason | Opinion | The Guardian:

The danger should be obvious. If we do not stop and punish the targeting of hospitals in the asymmetric wars, then the next big war – should it occur – will see the Geneva conventions go out of the window. Guernica showed a generation what the second world war would be like; Aleppo shows you what any future conventional conflict will descend to, if we don’t act.

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Dangerous idiots: how the liberal media elite failed working-class Americans | Media | The Guardian

Dangerous idiots: how the liberal media elite failed working-class Americans | Media | The Guardian:

The two-fold myth about the white working class – that they are to blame for Trump’s rise, and that those among them who support him for the worst reasons exemplify the rest – takes flight on the wings of moral superiority affluent Americans often pin upon themselves.

I have never seen them flap so insistently as in today’s election commentary, where notions of poor whiteness and poor character are routinely conflated.

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Donald Trump’s art of war: His campaign’s plan for dropping political ‘thermo nukes’ and suppressing votes

Donald Trump’s art of war: His campaign’s plan for dropping political ‘thermo nukes’ and suppressing votes:

Trump’s all-out offensive is not just designed to defend against the groping allegations or to serve red meat to what the source described as his “populist” and “nationalist base.” According to the source, who requested anonymity to discuss high-level strategy candidly, the attacks on the Clintons are also aimed at the “suppression of votes” from millennial women, African-Americans and the “idealistic Bernie Sanders supporter.”

“Principally, we’re trying to drive them to a third party or just have them not vote,” the source said.

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We May Be Leaving the Ken Bone Zone - The New York Times

We May Be Leaving the Ken Bone Zone - The New York Times: "Now that he is the opposite of anonymous, Mr. Bone would like everyone to know something: “My message has been one about elevating the level of conversation, and if I want to hold our leaders accountable for their words then I must be accountable for mine.”"



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Trump's refusal to accept intelligence briefing on Russia stuns experts - Chicago Tribune

Trump's refusal to accept intelligence briefing on Russia stuns experts - Chicago Tribune: "Trump has consistently adopted positions likely to find favor with the Kremlin. He has, for instance, criticized NATO allies for not paying their fair share and defended Russian President Vladimir Putin's human rights record.



 "It's remarkable that he's refused to say an unkind syllable about Vladimir Putin," Hayden said. "He contorts himself not to criticize Putin.""



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How Half Of America Lost Its F**king Mind | Cracked.com

How Half Of America Lost Its F**king Mind | Cracked.com:

See, rural jobs used to be based around one big local business -- a factory, a coal mine, etc. When it dies, the town dies. Where I grew up, it was an oil refinery closing that did us in. I was raised in the hollowed-out shell of what the town had once been. The roof of our high school leaked when it rained. Cities can make up for the loss of manufacturing jobs with service jobs -- small towns cannot. That model doesn't work below a certain population density.

If you don't live in one of these small towns, you can't understand the hopelessness.

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Barack Obama on Artificial Intelligence, Autonomous Cars, and the Future of Humanity | WIRED

Barack Obama on Artificial Intelligence, Autonomous Cars, and the Future of Humanity | WIRED:

The gap between the talent in the federal government and the private sector is actually not wide at all. The technology gap, though, is massive. When I first got here I always imagined the Situation Room would be this supercool thing, like Tom Cruise inMinority Report, where he’d be moving around stuff. It’s not like that, at all. [Laughs.] Particularly when it comes to hunting down terrorists on the other side of the globe, the movies display this omniscience that we possess somehow, and it’s—it’s just not there yet, and it has been drastically underfunded and not properly designed.



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The Republican Inferno - The New York Times

The Republican Inferno - The New York Times: "The party’s leaders were afraid Trump would rage against them if they denied him the nomination; instead, he is raging against them for refusing to go to the mat for his caught-on-tape misogyny and pornographic boasts. They were afraid of infuriating his core voters by opposing him at the convention; instead, they are infuriating his core voters by keeping him at arm’s length in the election’s final stretch. They feared a war of Republican against Republican, conservative against conservative; they have one. They feared a turnout collapse, an inevitable defeat; they will most likely get both.

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Former Bush DOJer John Yoo: Trump 'Reminds Me A Lot Of Early Mussolini'

Former Bush DOJer John Yoo: Trump 'Reminds Me A Lot Of Early Mussolini': "Donald Trump's "only I can fix it" rhetoric is giving off authoritarian vibes, some conservatives are admitting, including John Yoo, the George W. Bush administration lawyer who authored the so-called "torture memos."

Yoo told the Washington Post that Trump "reminds me a lot of early Mussolini," calling the comparison "very disturbingly similar.”"



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Ann Coulter - October 12, 2016 - CASTING CALL FOR ANOTHER ANITA HILL

Ann Coulter - October 12, 2016 - CASTING CALL FOR ANOTHER ANITA HILL: "
Going way, way, way back to a few weeks ago, the same media gasping in horror at "p*ssy" sure didn't mind my being called a c*nt repeatedly on a Comedy Central broadcast. And when I say "didn't mind," I mean they thought it was awesome.

But saying "p*ssy" 11 years ago is over the line.


Cut the crap, media.
"



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Tyler McNally on Twitter: "To all politico journos who follow me: This is the first official statement for Liberty United Against Trump. https://t.co/fBJfV41N3o"

Tyler McNally on Twitter: "To all politico journos who follow me: This is the first official statement for Liberty United Against Trump. https://t.co/fBJfV41N3o": "This is the first official statement for Liberty United Against Trump."



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Two Women Say Donald Trump Touched Them Inappropriately - The New York Times

Two Women Say Donald Trump Touched Them Inappropriately - The New York Times:

Ms. Leeds has told the story to at least four people close to her, who also spoke with The New York Times.

Mr. Trump’s claim that his crude words had never turned into actions was similarly infuriating to a woman watching on Sunday night in Ohio: Rachel Crooks.

Ms. Crooks was a 22-year-old receptionist at Bayrock Group, a real estate investment and development company in Trump Tower in Manhattan, when she encountered Mr. Trump outside an elevator in the building one morning in 2005.

Aware that her company did business with Mr. Trump, she turned and introduced herself. They shook hands, but Mr. Trump would not let go, she said. Instead, he began kissing her cheeks. Then, she said, he “kissed me directly on the mouth.”

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Maine Gov. Paul LePage: Maybe the country needs Trump to show 'authoritarian power' - CNNPolitics.com

Maine Gov. Paul LePage: Maybe the country needs Trump to show 'authoritarian power' - CNNPolitics.com: ""Sometimes, I wonder that our Constitution is not only broken, but we need a Donald Trump to show some authoritarian power in our country and bring back the rule of law because we've had eight years of a president, he's an autocrat, he just does it on his own, he ignores Congress and every single day, we're slipping into anarchy," "



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