Tonight, I did 300 push-ups across three sets, 100 per set.
That’s a personal record. Even in the army I could not do 100 push-ups three times back to back.
Day: March 16, 2026, 11:28 PM
Aide de Cramp
Shit, I didn’t realize this was a common experience.
In kindergarten, because my teacher really didn’t like me, she attempted to get me put in special ed classes. And no, I do not mean gifted. I mean where the lead-paint-eaters and droolers were housed.
In one of the few times my mom had anything to do with my education, she found out I was to be placed in special ed and was outraged. She went to the school and had me read from adult books in front of the principal and guidance counselor (that they picked, so no way I could have memorized them)1. And she had me talk about current events in the news and some other parlor tricks — stuff that a normal five-year-old would not have been able to do.
Luckily, as a result of the intervention, I did not get placed in special ed. But neither that kindergarten teacher nor her aide spoke a word to me the entire rest of the year.
I loved public school.
Sub-Opt
The choices are certainly sub-optimal.
Not So Illusory
The Grand Illusion: The U.S.-Europe Growth Gap.
So claim Ackerman and Baker.
But this contention is wrong. It is a bad paper and a flawed piece. First, since the GFC, a lot of people who got it right then seem to have gone absolutely nuts since. Ian Welsh, Dean Baker, Paul Krugman, to some extent Barry Ritholtz, and others. They just diverged from any sort of wisdom or probity. Not sure why but they have but it’s a real phenomenon.
This piece and the associated paper is a good example.
The primary mistake the Baker piece and the paper make is that it confuses level comparisons with growth comparisons and then frames that as an issue. However, current-PPP is for comparing countries in the same year, while constant/chained is for comparing real output across countries over time. You can’t just mix them up like that. I mean, you can I guess, if you want to look like a dumbass.
In other words, current-price series use each year’s prices, while constant-price series are used to measure true volume growth. That’s not any sort of contradiction, as the paper that Baker is discussing claims. That’s how they fucking work. FUCK.
There are numerous other bits of clownery like that, but the basic mistake dooms the paper from the get-go.
Now that I’ve toasted that POS paper, I’ll work on the not-quite-as-moronic Krugman claim.
So, Krugie, you mean to tell me that very large states with a high concentration of tech have higher productivity growth? OMG SO SHOCKING.
BLS says that California represents 14% of national output and ~20% of US productivity growth. Meanwhile, Washington state actually had the highest productivity growth 2007-2024, not California. It’s just a lot smaller.
The other problem with the Krugman boo-shit is conceptual. Composition effects are real economic effects, and are not artificial, nor are they a measurement issue. If the US has more highly productive digital clusters, that is part of US performance in toto and can’t just be broken off as some “fake area.” It’s all one country, baby, no matter if Dog Turd, Mississippi, isn’t benefiting much quite yet from what is happening in California (or Washington).
So much failure and clownery from people who should be smarter.
Not Buffaloing You
Since I’m now nearly as strong and as muscular I was in the army back in the day, I’m thinking I should change my legal to name to Bison Hammerfist.
Hey, it’s a…name. 😉
Paradox of Tolerance
That’s right. At some point, you have to choose what you embrace and protect and what you disallow and defend against. “Progressive” ideals do not work when one side is intent on destroying you and will use any means to do so. Allowing prog suicidal empathy to metastasize where their own destruction seems a good outcome to them was a mistake. Now, we might be too late to prevent the worst; most of Western Europe has already fallen de facto.
Perhaps the US can be saved. Perhaps not. But recognizing the problem is a first step at trying.
Symbology
They probably aren’t going to get hired. Not only do people not realize what is about to happen, they deny it’s already happening.
How an unappetizing shrub became dozens of different vegetables.
Earth’s first major extinction was worse than we thought.
The moralization of artificial intelligence.
TESS discovers a super-Earth exoplanet orbiting nearby star.
Microsoft has lost the plot: 5 Windows "features" nobody asked for.
He was a perfect hire — until a U.S. company exposed him as a likely North Korean operative.
From Kyiv to Taipei: Three Theatres, Much to Learn. The Big Five, 15 March edition.