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. Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound masterpiece. And that 1960s choreography! I just love it.

Our 18th most-read article of 2023.

Originally published March 24, 2023.

Josh, I can’t believe that our big day is finally here. Today, I’m the luckiest woman in the world, because I get to marry you, Josh, my best friend.

To be clear, the five women to my left aren’t my best friends. Even though they’ve spent a cumulative total of sixty-seven years supporting me from elementary school until right now. They have been with me through thick and thin, including those six years when you refused to be exclusive, which really messed with my self-esteem. Yes, these ladies did all that and so much more, but ever since we became official last June, I’ve known that it’s you, Josh. You’re my best friend.

In today's BCTV Daily Dispatch: Echo, Taylor Swift/Skip Bayless, CM Punk/WWE, Superman: Legacy, Halo, Smiling Friends, Doctor Who, and more!

Blog posts on topics including inflation, wage growth, banks, U.S. debt and population growth were among the most popular for two of our blogs in 2023.

Wolfgang Schäuble was the embodiment of the political project of buttressing a monetary union in which he himself did not believe. To do so he had to impose violent austerity even in Germany and to dismantle democratic institutions in countries like Greece. In other words, Schäuble personified the explosive contradiction that gave birth both to […]

The post Wolfgang Schäuble (1942-2023) appeared first on Yanis Varoufakis.

Ο Βόλφγκανγκ Σόιμπλε ήταν η προσωποποίηση της πολιτικής στήριξης (με μέσα βίαιης λιτότητας και κατάλυσης των δημοκρατικών θεσμών) μιας νομισματικής ένωσης στην οποία ο ίδιος δεν πίστευε. Προσωποποιούσε δηλαδή την εκρηκτική αντίφαση που γέννησε την Κρίση του Ευρώ και τις (αναπόφευκτα αποτυχημένες) πολιτικές αντιμετώπισής της που οδήγησαν, από τη μία μεριά, στην φτωχοποίηση της Ελλάδας […]

The post Βόλφγκανγκ Σόιμπλε 1942-2023 appeared first on Yanis Varoufakis.

As I often do, I made a poll on the fediverse about two concepts I am interested in: Big Fedi versus Small Fedi. Although I think these are interesting topics, I couldn’t come up with exact summations of what the “Big Fedi” and “Small Fedi” positions are. So, I wanted to write down what I … Continue reading Big Fedi, Small Fedi →

The Daily Mail released a poll showing that Trump is up 4 points from Biden (with a margin of error at 3.5, which is undoubtedly very generous.) They also did one of those questions asking “what word do you associate with Trump and Biden.” He’s apparently very proud of the word cloud they made of it: He likes it! I assume he thinks all this is a huge compliment. And I think we can be sure that he’s going to give them more of what they want. Here’s the Biden word cloud which he didn’t post: When I went looking for this I fully expected that the biggest word in that cloud was going to be “old.” “Nothing” is actually a happy surprise. It’s not even particularly negative, it’s just … neutral. People aren’t thinking much about him one way or the other. We can work with that. The rest of the words are largely positive. Trump’s fascism, on the other hand is making a huge impact. And it appears that a whole lot of people think his fascism is just great. They want this orange make-up wearing, yellow cotton-candy haired, imbecilic monster to be their dictator.

Source - Patreon

Source - Patreon

Source - Patreon

Ron DeSantis’ epic failure Here’s a Christmas present for all of you who don’t have subscriptions to the NY Times: a free link to this delightful bit of holiday schadenfreude: the story of Ron DeSantis’ precipitous fall. Grab an egg nog and add a double shot. It’s just so much fun: Boxed in by a base enamored with Mr. Trump that has instinctively rallied to the former president’s defense, Mr. DeSantis has struggled for months to match the hype that followed his landslide 2022 re-election. Now, with the first votes in the Iowa caucuses only weeks away on Jan. 15, Mr. DeSantis has slipped in some polls into third place, behind Nikki Haley, and has had to downsize his once-grand national ambitions to the simple hopes that a strong showing in a single state — Iowa — could vault him back into contention. For a candidate who talks at length about his own disinterest in “managing America’s decline,” people around Mr. DeSantis are increasingly talking about managing his. Ryan Tyson, Mr.

We’re at $8,700, unlocking three more chapters. The next milestone is $10,500, which unlocks the final chapters, and the full fundraising goals is $12,500, in which case there’ll be an article on the medieval university bubble and what it tells us about ours, including some commentary on the idea of elite overproduction.

I appreciate everyone who’s given so far. Times keep getting harder for most of us. This is a reader supported blog. Everyone reads for free, but the work and food and so on aren’t free. If you value my writing and you aren’t in money trouble, I’d appreciate it if you give. Could be I’m wrong, but it seems to me that this blog and my writing is right a lot more often than wrong (way more than most establishment pundits or big influencers) and I hope you consider it worth keeping around.

Babies dig the beat, a new study shows, offering a cool insight into the origin of music.

The post We Were Born to Groove appeared first on Nautilus.

All the most hopeful political strategists I read have one big caveat as they contemplate the upcoming election: the third party threat. That could throw a monkey wrench into everything and usher in another Trump flukey win. I’ve written before about No Labels, which is nothing more than a grift of dumb big donors. But this one is something else and it’s kind of terrifying: The super PAC supporting Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s presidential bid is narrowing its ballot access campaign focus to seven states — including crucial battlegrounds that will determine the outcome of the presidential election. American Values 2024 will now prioritize helping to get Kennedy on the ballot in Arizona, California, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan, New York and Texas, according to plans first shared with POLITICO. Half of these target states were decisive in the 2020 race, and won by now-President Joe Biden by narrow margins. The promotion of a third-party candidate in these battlegrounds could change the pathways for victory for the major parties’ nominees — even if Kennedy only garners single-digit support next November.

Maybe it’s going to work out after all? There’s a lot of economic news this holiday week. The media is slowly but surely beginning the turn although they give Biden no credit even as Trump is out there saying we’re in a recession and acting as if he presided over Camelot or something. But really, the news is good. Here’s one little data point from the professionals who have no reason at all to blow smoke. (After all, they can make money either way…) Here’s the Goldman Sachs projection for 2024: Unemployment to stay low, 3.6%. Wage growth of 3.5% with inflation at 2%, meaning real wage growth of 1.5%. Overall growth of 2%. FRB starts cutting interest rates throughout 2024. — Our most out-of-consensus call for 2024 is our growth forecast. Our 2% forecast for 2024 Q4/Q4 GDP growth is well above consensus of 0.9% and the FOMC’s 1.4% forecast. This reflects our view that the growth impulses from changes in financial conditions and changes in fiscal policy should be modest and roughly neutral on net next year. It also reflects our forecast that consumer spending will easily beat expectations—we expect 2% growth vs.

Our 19th most-read article of 2023.

Originally published November 14, 2023.

Hi there!

Thank you for your message. I am currently in the office with email access. Due to the volume of distractions, I will not get any work done. Please expect a reply between 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. when I am home from the office trying to squeeze an entire workday into a few uninterrupted evening hours.

Hello!

Because my employer overextended on corporate real estate, I am working a hybrid schedule. I am in the office today, technically able to respond to email, but unlikely to do so. The pressure to support the urban ecosystem is overwhelming, and if I do not spend seventeen dollars a day at Sweetgreen, the economy will collapse, and the concept of downtown will go the way of the dinosaurs.

Greetings!

The first step in fixing any problem is acknowledging it. And for Australia on climate change, that means admitting we are a petrostate. The paradox is glaring: while the UAE and Saudi Arabia are readily acknowledged and seemingly proud to be petrostates, Australia’s similar status is unspoken. It’s time to confront this uncomfortable truth – Continue reading »

How long will it take for the many Jewish Israelis who support the current destruction of Gaza to see that what is unspeakable about the Holocaust lurks in their government and state’s actions there? Whatever valley-flower of moral cause it might put before the world, always of its own choosing, this is the fact we Continue reading »