Stephen Bean

[Walter Masterson @waltermasterson]

Name a better take than this on the Iran war, I’ll wait.

[NOBUNAGA🇯🇵🏯_夏樹蒼依 @japan_nobunaga]

In America, a warehouse store. A fully roasted chicken costs five dollars, the raw chicken beside it costs seven, and I stood between them like a man between two truths.

Golden. Hot. Seasoned. Spinning in glory under the lights, in a line of its brothers. Four dollars and ninety-nine cents.

I checked the raw birds. Seven dollars. Pale. Cold. You must do everything yourself.

This is not commerce. Commerce does not move backward. Somewhere in this building, mathematics lies defeated.

I asked the man at the counter. "How is the cooked bird cheaper than the raw bird?"

"Been five bucks forever. They keep it that way."

"But the store loses."

"Yep. On purpose."

On purpose. I held my receipt with both hands.

In my land, a lord who lowered the price of rice in a hard winter was remembered for generations. They built him a small shrine. This store does it every day, with chicken, and tells no one.

A woman behind me grew tired of my reverence. "It's just a chicken, sir."

It is not just a chicken. It is a wound the merchant takes on purpose, so that anyone, on any day, with five dollars, eats like a lord. The bird is the message. The price is the vow.

I will confess: I bought two. I did not need two. The second was not hunger. It was gratitude, and it was delicious.

Some prices are not prices. They are promises.

I return every week now. I take one bird. I bow toward the deli, briefly, so as not to alarm the staff. They have begun nodding back.

The vow holds. The bird turns. Five dollars.

Long may it spin.

[Matthew Segal @segalmr]

CLIENT: These federal charges seem serious. What kind of sentence could I get?

LAWYER: Depending on the next presidential election, you're looking at somewhere between life imprisonment and becoming a millionaire.

[Derek Thompson @DKThomp]

Within one 24 hour period, Trump:

- got out of a $100 million IRS fine
- secured "immunity" from all future tax investigations for his family and friends
- created a $1.8 billion slush fund for lawbreaking supporters
- was reported for likely insider trading worth nearly $1 billion

All of the obvious things to say about this are true. It's bad. Nobody even tries to defend it. The closest thing to a defense you get is something about how "but Democrats suck" and "woke was also bad," which is not a defense, but rather a kind of moral blank check made out to the administration to give them the right to do anything.

But what I'm most curious about is whether this sort of lurid corruption creates a countermovement that successfully returns government to rule of law or whether it's establishing a norm of executive imperialism that every future administration will use to achieve its ends, which can always be justified by the moral blank check of "the other side is worse, so let us do whatever we want."

[Stephen Bean @sbean799]

@PeteHegseth @DeptofWar Information can't be false and classified at the same time.

[Alex Luck @AlexLuck9]

Right, I am off work (yes some of us "soldiered" on during Christmas), so got some time to put down coherent thoughts on a range of events. First of all, the Trumpian battleship. Which as part of Trump's "Golden Fleet" even got its (her) own website. 🧵

https://t.co/YQHtYVVvjV

[Mike Nelson @mikenelson586]

I don't think those janky Houthi F5 pilots have any idea how many LTJGs are looking up what a Yemeni flag looks like in hopes of painting it on the side of their plane.

[Visegrád 24 @visegrad24]

Harvard

[Dani Buller @askdani__real]

Difficulty level: Palestine.

(Don't forget to watch the previous episode)

[Three Year Letterman @3YearLetterman]

Enjoying Labor Day? You need to thank our greatest living president, Gerald Ford, who literally invented Labor Day to give his employees at Ford Motor Co. a day off after the first football weekend.

That’s why he invented the car and won the biggest landslide ever. Thank you sir

[Timothy Keller (1950-2023) @timkellernyc]

If the resurrection is true, then everything’s going to be alright.

[Matt Fuller @MEPFuller]

Saudi Arabia: Hey PGA golfers! We have a bunch of money to offer you for our new league.

PGA Tour: You’re ruining the game and sportswashing your reputation of human rights abuses.

SA: OK but what if we offered *you* a lot of money?

PGA: Today, we’d like to announce a merger w

[David Cassidy @DPCassidyTKC]

Easter is a frightening prospect. At first, only thing more terrifying than a world with Jesus dead was one in which he was alive. The women who came to the tomb were confused by what they found and frightened by what they saw.

The women did not go to the tomb looking for hope. They were searching for a place to grieve. They wanted to be left alone in despair. Life broke in in the grief and fear.

The terrifying prospect of Easter is that God called these women to return to the same world that crucified Jesus with a very dangerous gift: hope in the power of God, the unending reservoir of forgiveness and an abundance of love. It would make them seem like fools. Who could believe such a thing?

Let us hear them. Let us join them.

[reason @reason]

Fact: It is a federal crime to leave the Carolinas with raw peanuts in shells.

[reason @reason]

Fact: It is a federal crime to call a frozen cherry pie a frozen cherry tart if its diameter is more than 4 inches.

[Paul Fairie @paulisci]

A Brief History of Kids Today Are Too Soft

🧵

[Dr Emma Salisbury @salisbot]

"The beacons are lit! Gondor calls for aid!"

"Well, Osgiliath has historically been within Mordor's sphere of influence, no reason to think Sauron will go beyond the Anduin"

[Steve Schmidt @SteveSchmidtSES]

The ignorance of history has become so great in the United States that even in this moment, where the last hours of European peace fade and we pass through a portal from one era to another, there is barely a ripple in American life.

[Thomas Chatterton Williams @thomaschattwill]

The halftime show was one of the most convincing examples I have ever seen of the degree to which America, warts and all, is ultimately a singularly successful multiethnic society. It was triumphant in a startling way.