I find Israel's policy of "we don't do civil marriage" interesting.

Hosts should take special note of this. Don’t badger your guests about food and drink. Just because someone is choosing not to partake doesn’t mean they aren’t enjoying themselves, or you are somehow a bad host.

Or you know… we could fully fund our public institutions so they could provide competitive compensation to all of their employees.

Today I did see some guy in a debadged BMW cruise in to one of the McDonald's curbside pickup spots, and walk in putting his uniform apron on.

Not entirely sure what was going on there…

Wonder how the State Dept. comms people and the Secretary of State ended up in opposite camps on this.

I read the Mercury article and it made my brain hurt. Corrupt people seem to have lots of different schemes going on simultaneously. As far as I can tell, Bonta was the victim of a pretty weak attempt at political extortion by someone who was also involved in the Oakland recycling scandal.

More "protect the environment from people". In general there was a "there are too many people" and "the earth can't sustain such a large population" nihilistic ethos going on.

Mostly informed by this book:

Absent specific human intervention (e.g. the soviet experiments with silver foxes), raccoons are probably one of the best candidates for it happening naturally over time. After all, dogs and cats were both domesticated via feeding on our trash (and associated vermin).

It’s kind of crazy that the airfare prices have decreased almost exactly in line with inflation. The price of an economy round trip ticket to London from Los Angeles is still approximately $600.

The crazy thing here is that a political appointee can change a scientific opinion on whim. It is like if the USGS were told to say the world is flat.

Colleague can include people you work with within the same profession, not just within the same organization.

I have abundant faith in America's ability to assimilate and incorporate new immigrants. We have done it time and again and can do it now to provide the foundation of future prosperity, if only we keep the faith in our New Colossus.

Though from my time in non-profit land… this direct mail campaign probably has a fairly favorable “return on investment”, compared with some other fundraising strategies.