Bryce

I belong to Christ. I like numbers and board games. Compassionate Conservative / Christian Democrat. Pro-life, Pro-UBI, Pro-Racial Justice. Avid #CF97 fan.

[Bryce @redeemedmonkey1]

@USMNTTAKES Chris Brady

[Bryce @redeemedmonkey1]

@FavianRenkel Here in Kansas City it does!

[Bryce @redeemedmonkey1]

@LynnMoore0321 @Joelmpetlin I understand what you mean, you just are wrong.

The reason the SAVE act hasn't gone to a vote in the Senate is because she has said she will vote against it, and it will not pass. Thune doesn't allow votes to happen where Collins could be the deciding vote against.

[Bryce @redeemedmonkey1]

@LynnMoore0321 @Joelmpetlin That's because typically if the majority party doesn't have the votes, they don't bring it to a vote

[Bryce @redeemedmonkey1]

@aelfred_D My first European vacation with my wife will be primarily region F - Greece + Cyprus, before a couple days in Rome. But if it hadn't been for the war, we'd probably have done Jerusalem (also region F).

[Senator John Cornyn @JohnCornyn]

An old, but apt fable:

A scorpion wants to cross a river but cannot swim, so it asks a frog to carry it across. The frog hesitates, afraid that the scorpion might sting it, but the scorpion promises not to, pointing out that it would drown if it killed the frog in the middle of the river. The frog considers this argument sensible and agrees to transport the scorpion. Midway across the river, the scorpion stings the frog anyway, dooming them both. The dying frog asks the scorpion why it stung despite knowing the consequence, to which the scorpion replies: "I am sorry, but I couldn't help myself. It's my character." @Wikipedia

[Jonathon Van Maren @JVanMaren]

My extremely unpopular theory is that none of the current religious discourse can be understood without recognizing that the vast majority of people are regularly consuming pornography.

Digital porn is currently the invisible hand behind much of culture, and most people are “porn-brained” in the way they debate. For someone weaned on porn—and millions of young men were essentially digitally abused by the internet—terms like “submission” etc. mean something very different; for a generation of women who saw the question “What is a woman?” defined by Pornhub, suspicion about such terms (and the men shouting about them) is instinctive. As the father of daughters, I’d also say it is wise.

Churches are getting better at recognizing that ministries that help people get free from pornography are essential. But what most have not recognized yet is that former users also need to be deprogrammed from the stories pornography taught them, and reprogrammed with the Christian view of sex and intimacy. Somebody might not look at porn, but still be porn-brained. The story pornography tells is visceral and powerful.

[Bryce @redeemedmonkey1]

@BamaExpat On my mom's side, I've seen pictures and heard stories of Great Grandma [last name] and Great Grandpa [last name], but their first names were rarely spoken.

[Nate Silver @NateSilver538]

BTW, I approached ABC about buying back the former FiveThirtyEight IP*, and they said they wouldn't sell at any price because I'd criticized their management of the brand. Costing Disney shareholders $$ b/c of their vindictiveness.

* I own the models but the trademarks, etc.

[Casey Mattox @CaseyMattox_]

This old building once housed the legislative branch of government before it was just folded into the executive branch.

[tmuxvim @tmuxvim]

I put a prompt injection into my LinkedIn bio and recruiters are messaging me in Old English and calling me Lord.

[Robert P. George @McCormickProf]

The longer I live, the clearer it becomes to me that people will have a religion, or something that plays the role in their lives played by religion in the lives of people of faith. The only question is what religion (or pseudo-religion) they will have, and whether it will be a good one or a bad one--one that upholds human dignity and teaches genuine virtue, or one that does not.

[Patrick T. Brown @PTBwrites]

My stance on phone bans in schools is that even if they have absolutely zero measurable effect on outcomes they are still worth doing because we want to habituate students into having real-life conversations and not withdrawing into digital life during lunch periods.

[Casey Mattox @CaseyMattox_]

I think of this a lot while on this website.

[Bryce @redeemedmonkey1]

The failure of Spirit should give you hope. In market after market, we see race-to-the-bottom, as customers choose worse quality instead of paying more.
Spirit failed because customers drew a line.

[Bryce @redeemedmonkey1]

@billybinion If you hate this, then you hate capitalism. Capitalism entails the failure of low-performing businesses (like Spirit, who treated customers like trash).

[Bryce @redeemedmonkey1]

@_Jason_Dean_ @SwannMarcus89 This is exactly right.

[Jessica Riedl 🧀 🇺🇦 @JessicaBRiedl]

This Texas Senate primary is exhibit A for "why don't Republicans elect thoughtful conservatives like Ben Sasse any more."

Ken Paxton's entire appeal is that he's wildly corrupt, nasty, cruel, and hyper-partisan - which to GOP primary voters means "tough" and "owns the libs."

Cornyn is certainly no Ben Sasse, but he is a very conservative, effective, pro-Trump senator who is nonetheless being abandoned by GOP primary voters because he's insufficiently willing to be a corrupt, performative, blowhard - which makes him "squishy" (although Cornyn is now dabbling in it to keep up with Paxton, alas).

The problem is not that GOP primary voters do not care about competence, ethics, morality or Christian grace - it’s that so many of them actively distrust those traits as "weak" and "squishy.” After all, someone with a conscience may limit their Trump sycophancy, like Ben Sasse did. And that’s how good people like Sasse get chased out of GOP politics.

[Kaeley Triller @KaeleyT]

Two things can be true at once. For example:

1. Men have every right to express their views on abortion. Human rights are everyone’s’ business, and it’s their offspring, too. If something is a moral wrong, it’s everyone’s job to say so.

2. Since pregnancy disproportionately affects women, wise men should foster enough humility to know when to speak and when to listen in abortion discussions. Women are often going to have insight men lack.

Rights don’t disappear because an issue impacts someone else more directly, but neither does perspective. A man doesn’t need to be silent to be respectful, but he doesn’t need to dominate the conversation to be heard, nor should he when someone has more expertise than he does.

[Reihan Salam @reihan]

It takes discipline and self-assurance to live "below your means," to resist interpersonal comparison, etc. It helps to have your identity anchored outside of consumption, whether in religion, close-knit community, or a family culture that treats frugality as a virtue rather than a source of shame or deprivation. This is very much a countercultural ethic.

The natural tendency is to sneer at the (clearly very fortunate) cohort referenced below, but a few quick thoughts as to what's going on.

The $200-300k sweet spot is real: only 16 percent report paycheck-to-paycheck living, versus 40 percent+ above and below. This cohort earns enough to be comfortable but hasn't (yet) entered the positional goods arms race.

Geographic concentration of high earners: $500k+ households are disproportionately located in New York, San Francisco, and a handful of other high-cost metros where housing, private school, and childcare costs are dramatically higher, and where the reference class for "doing well" is perpetually out of reach. A $500k household in Manhattan considers itself to be upper-middle class, not wealthy.

Lifestyle creep as ratchet, not choice: Goldman frames this as luxuries becoming perceived necessities. Once private school, a second home, or business-class travel enters the budget, it's psychologically very hard to remove.

Liquidity vs. wealth illusion: many $500k+ earners are compensation-rich but cash-poor, with income concentrated in bonuses and equity. They may be genuinely paycheck-dependent even as net worth grows.

Private school/childcare trap: this cohort pays full freight for expenses that the truly wealthy absorb easily and the merely affluent don't face.

Credit access masks the problem: Goldman specifically flags that high earners qualify for more credit and carry debt longer before noticing, enabling lifestyle financing that feels like cash flow.

The tax bracket shock: a $500k W-2 earner in New York faces a marginal rate north of 50% combining federal, state, and city taxes. The gross income sounds extraordinary; the take-home is considerably less so — and many in this cohort budget against the gross figure until reality arrives.

Self-report bias: "paycheck to paycheck" likely means something entirely different at $500k than at $50k, which may inflate the figures at the top end.

So yes, no one is crying for this population, but their psychological unease reflects a larger cultural challenge.