Links from months ago

Charlie Munger, a billionaire investor who is also associated with Warren Buffett, is 97 years old and throwing money into a social experiment in student housing. His idea: students don't need windows to the outside in their dorm rooms. The results aren't good, but he's on his second project in this dream. The first was a dorm for 600 grad students at U Michigan. The second is for 4500 students at UC Santa Barbara. 

A NYT article about how the Biden administration can fight misinformation.. 

The president of Belarus is weaponizing migrants--flying them into Belarus, then dumping them across the borders at the neighbors he doesn't like. 

Ethnic studies will be required for graduation in California high schools. Sounds like a good idea! Not so different from having mandatory health education.

The fast, unorganized withdrawal from Afghanistan happened in part because the Taliban weren't going to extend the ceasefire into September. 

A different kind of misinformation. An anti-BLM claim that Irish slaves were treated worse than African slaves. The story is tracked down, debunked, and shown as the propaganda it is. 

Image: youtube/kobeissi

The future of the GOP

(I've been neglectful of my blog. Catching up with some posts I wrote. This one is from early November 2021.)

I asked what Qanon is going to do. I have to ask the same about the GOP. Not that most of the GOP is as crazy as Qanon folks, but they are in a bind. Trump said the election was stolen from him, but the evidence is so paltry that the claims are frankly embarrassing. So what will the GOP do? In Virginia, the winning governor candidate went along with the charade during the primary, and has now pivoted away from it. 

There's also the problem of the Jan. 6 riots/attempted coup/insurrection/tourist visit to the Capitol. Will Congress be able to set up a commission to investigate and report on it? Uh, it's certainly past time when the commission should have been formed. However, Republicans want to block it without being caught blocking it. Lots of them are in this bind, but probably none more than Kevin McCarthy, the minority leader in the House. He was on the phone with Trump on Jan. 6, so his testimony is extremely important, and perhaps extremely embarrassing. Yes, what a bind. 

Politico: Headaches of Trump running again. The Politico article is over 6 months old, but so much of it still applies. Trump did squander a lot of political capital, and other senior GOP leaders don't know what to do about him. They are flailing in their response because Trump is frankly more popular than the established leadership. There is no old dean or statesman who has the stature to talk sense to the party base. So the situation is frozen until primaries show which view is stronger. 

Image: businessinsider.com