Jonathan

Professional experiment confederate and obituary ghostwriter. Blurry like Bigfoot. Winner of attrition warfare.

[Jonathan @jaschwa2]

I feel like sneeze guards are primed for a resurgence in popularity.

[Jonathan @jaschwa2]

@SoFriPRJockey @MaineDems The July 27 deadline is established by Maine election law. The Maine Legislature would have to pass a new law quickly, then that would have to withstand legal scrutiny, given that election rules generally aren't supposed to change in the middle of a cycle. Unlikely.

[Jonathan @jaschwa2]

@SoFriPRJockey @MaineDems How would you propose doing this?

[Aakash Gupta @aakashgupta]

Taiwan solved tax evasion in 1951 with a trick so cheap it should embarrass every tax authority on the planet.

The problem was an all-cash economy full of small shops. A merchant pockets the cash, skips the receipt, and the sale never existed. Auditors can't catch what was never recorded, and hiring enough of them to watch every noodle stand costs more than the missing tax.

So finance chief Ren Xianqun flipped the incentive. Print a lottery number on every receipt. Draw winners every two months on live TV. Top prize today: NT$10 million, about $310K.

Suddenly the customer and the shopkeeper want opposite things. The merchant wants the sale off the books. The customer wants the ticket. And there are millions more customers than merchants. Every transaction now carries a built-in witness demanding the paper trail.

Year one, reported tax revenue jumped 75%, from NT$29 million to NT$51 million. Seventy-five years later, roughly 70% of Taiwanese still play. Convenience stores redeem the smallest NT$200 prizes at the register, so even a coffee receipt feels like a scratch card.

The elegant part is what the audit force costs. The prize pool runs about NT$7 billion a year, roughly $20 million. In exchange, the government gets 23 million unpaid auditors working every checkout line in the country, forever. No inspector general on earth delivers that coverage at that price.

Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Slovakia all copied it. The most effective compliance tool ever built looks like a game, and that's exactly why it works.

[Jonathan @jaschwa2]

@blacksmith_cx @PodSaveAmerica @Scott_Wiener Because they weren't outwardly antisemitic against every single Jew in the park...? Is that your logic?

[Jonathan @jaschwa2]

@TeamYouTube Completely unhelpful response

[Jonathan @jaschwa2]

@YouTubeTV can we get the 4K feed of the Mexico-Ecuador game back?

[Jonathan @jaschwa2]

@blacksmith_cx @PodSaveAmerica umm, not everyone in Dolores Park attended the Trans shabbat service.

[Jonathan @jaschwa2]

@joelengel And he posted his own video of it, somehow thinking it made him look like the hero.

[Abril Zucchi @abrilzucchi]

it’s over

[NBA @NBA]

WEMBY WAS IN DISBELIEF 😲

WHAT A DUNK FROM CASTLE!

[Tatum Turn Up @tatumturnup]

This is the greatest video I’ve ever seen. No notes. The lifeless clanker carcass just laying there. No crowd reaction, anything. Just Billie Jean. Until its lifeless shell is shamefully dragged off. Purely amazing.

[sasha na copa @lobotosasha]

HAHAHHAHAHAHAHA O FINAL

[Jonathan @jaschwa2]

“Deeply reported opinion journalism” sounds like a way to borrow the credibility of news reporting without submitting to its standards. If it clears that bar, publish it as news. If not, don’t dress opinion up as reporting.

[Fusilli Spock @awstar11]

If this article was so "deeply reported," "corroborated," "fact-checked," "cross-referenced with independent research," with the oversight of "independent experts," why did you put the story on the opinion page and not the news section of the @nytimes? @NYTimesPR ?

[Jonathan @jaschwa2]

@cajun_exile @LAGovJeffLandry @60Minutes Nah he accomplished that all by himself

[Jonathan @jaschwa2]

Btw, I got this letter in the mail today. Unfortunately it is 100% inaccurate; the default profile is still messed up.

What do I have to do to get this fixed?

[Jonathan @jaschwa2]

@ChaseSupport a year or so ago you migrated your Chase Travel customer database. During that migration, my first name became "MR" and the gender field became empty. This nearly resulted in me missing a couple of flights.

[Jonathan @jaschwa2]

I've called numerous times to fix this and have waited on hold for hours. A lovely and experienced CS agent told me that I should save my breath because it's impossible to get fixed. I think that's BS.

[Jonathan @jaschwa2]

@hblethh__ Glorifying playing hurt is stupid, imo.

[Jonathan @jaschwa2]

@hblethh__ @BadChoiceBurner @loganhorner41 You mean like KD returning too quickly from a calf injury in the finals only to rupture his Achilles?

[Jonathan @jaschwa2]

@shaesharpeshow Cliff "Uncle Spiffy" Robinson