Skeptical Optimist

Asian-American living every minority’s dream of living off the back of a hard-working white man.

[Skeptical Optimist @skepoptimist2]

@seanonolennon I think worth seeing it in IMAX.

[Skeptical Optimist @skepoptimist2]

@Im_goodthanks @ianmSC Agree that the sound was amazing.

[Skeptical Optimist @skepoptimist2]

@HRaleighspeaks Enjoyed the film overall, but wished they did not speak with American English accents.

[Skeptical Optimist @skepoptimist2]

@AGHamilton29 Deserves MVP for that game.

[Skeptical Optimist @skepoptimist2]

@maxlugavere @RubinReport It’s worth watching in IMax.

[Skeptical Optimist @skepoptimist2]

@wil_da_beast630 Matt Damon is a good actor, but they should have cast someone else as Odysseus.

[Andrew D. Huberman, Ph.D. @hubermanlab]

Lots of people asking about the shift to permanent daylight savings. The data clearly show locking to standard is best. For mental and physical health. That am sunlight is key, But if not, then locking to daylight savings second best. Shifting back-and-forth is the worst choice.

[Skeptical Optimist @skepoptimist2]

@5NEWS Standard Time!

[Alex Berenson @AlexBerenson]

This may get very ugly for @nytimes

A victim of sexual misconduct (at a minimum) by Graham Platner explains in detail how she provided the Times the evidence it could have used to corroborate her story - and how the Times ignored it

This is deep journalistic malfeasance

[Skeptical Optimist @skepoptimist2]

@SarahTheHaider Yup. My husband and I just did an all-inclusive and understood the appeal of lounging around the resort the whole time.

[Greg Lukianoff @glukianoff]

Disappointed to see this using the “conservative pounce” formulation.

I’m Gen X. All of us, including liberals like me, were there when we watched a nation filled with brilliant people put its best minds to making socialism work. It was an unparalleled disaster — not just economically, but environmentally, and certainly from a human rights perspective as well.

The fact that we now have people on both the right and the left who think Lenin was on to something, or that “real socialism has never been tried,” is mind-blowing. It represents a massive generational failure of our K–PhD system. They didn’t learn the history, philosophy, or economics that would have prevented them from falling for the same midwittery that too many of our grandparents fell for.

Sure, it sounds nice. Utopia always does. But it was a colossal disaster that we must not repeat.

So no, Axios. The news isn’t that the GOP is sounding the alarm. It’s that more genuine liberals aren’t.

[Skeptical Optimist @skepoptimist2]

@SlowToWrite The worst way out. 😩

[Chamath Palihapitiya @chamath]

California’s Property Seizure Act - called “The Billionaire Tax” to fool voters is now on the ballot. @HooverInst has a short 4min video breaking it down.

https://t.co/A7jqSTnbcH

You should vote for this if you are comfortable handing over 5%, in cash, of all your tangible and intangible property every year. You should vote no if you don’t want to do that.

If it passes, the remaining Billionaires will sue. This will take a decade to meander through the courts and will find its way to the Supreme Court where the odds it survives are low.

But in that intervening decade, far fewer business builders will want to bet on California and will focus on building in other states.

This will drive a large loss of revenue that will make California’s budget hole even worse. The only solution there is more borrowing and higher taxes on EVERYONE including those that voted NO. This will particularly impact the middle class who are Californias largest revenue source.

The only path out of an avoidable budget spiral is a hard landing and structural reset. Sadly, a hard landing will mean a near-miss with California bankruptcy and, more punitively, a reset/retrade of state pensions with California lenders to not come collect.

If you aren’t sure or don’t believe me, vote YES and bookmark this post. A decade from now you can tell me I was wrong or give me the opportunity to lord over your stupidity, jealousy and gullibility for voting YES when I am proven right.

[Katharine Birbalsingh @Miss_Snuffy]

White people are terrified of being seen as racist.

If white guilt permeates the online world and our schools, then our adults will feel guilty too.

This helps neither whites nor ethnics.

My ARC speech:

[Ethical Skeptic ☀ @EthicalSkeptic]

CDC Wonder Mortality
SEER Incidence Rates per 100K
Social Chatter Index
PPI-Expenses
Drug Volumes

ALL show Cancer on the rise and inflecting with the Covid-Vaccine and only the Covid-Vaccine.

It is no longer a matter of stupidity or fear, but malicious wilful blindness.

[Marc Thiessen @marcthiessen]

AI is indoctrinating Americans

[Alex Berenson @AlexBerenson]

Cannot make this up, either.

@nytimes opinion has had four recent pieces about fatherhood and masculinity, with six authors:

Three women
A trans "man"
Two childless men

Not one father. The cultural elite contempt for dads runs so deep we don't even get to speak for ourselves.

[NOBUNAGA🇯🇵🏯_夏樹蒼依 @japan_nobunaga]

USA. A Mexican restaurant. We had not yet ordered anything, and the food was already arriving.

Chips. Salsa. Unrequested. Free.

I stopped the waiter. "We have not earned these."

"They just come with the table, man."

They come with the TABLE. In my land, hospitality is a debt. Every gift creates an obligation, weighed carefully, returned in the proper season with interest of feeling. Here, the gift arrives before you have even proven you can pay for dinner.

This is not an appetizer. This is a declaration: we trust you. Eat.

I ate with the gravity the moment deserved. And then — I must report this calmly — the basket emptied, and a new one appeared.

"Did we…?"

"Refill," the waiter said. "It's bottomless."

Bottomless. They have wells of salsa. The supply lines of this nation are beyond anything my ancestors imagined.

My friend warned me. "Don't fill up on chips, dude."

Too late. I had accepted three baskets. Honor demanded each one be finished — an unfinished gift is an insult. By the time my actual food arrived, I was a ruined man.

I was not hungry. I was not comfortable. I had been defeated by a courtesy.

Generosity that arrives before the request cannot be repaid. It can only be survived.

I know the rule now. I have made my peace with the basket. One basket. Two at the most.

Who am I deceiving. There is no number of baskets I would refuse. The trust of a nation is in that salsa, and I intend to honor all of it.