MrTate

This isn't hard... "2+2=5" can be SAID and it's protected and free speech. "2+2=5" can not be TAUGHT and it's not free speech or protected, because it has not basis in science.

@tszzl How do you watch an event where the best athletes win and where small countries with little foreign representation in sports dominate and come up with this take?

Olympics makes it immediately obvious that diversity is actually a strength

@SaintVanHalen Expect literally nothing like the movie. There are no big underdog stories, cheating to help your team mate is not only severely punished but simply doesn't happen almost ever. I love F1 but the movie is basically sci-fi

The F1 movie and the Rush movie (Hemsworth) made me want to get into F1, but where to start?

@CompanyHooch Otoh, the US would have a different medal count if we removed all "running/swimming from A to B" sports

@virtualhistoria @chriswithans No objections there, this is an issue with a number of sports for the Summer Olympics too

@MrTate @chriswithans Sure, but figure skating is one gold, cross-country is like 10.

This is of course insane because the U.S. will have won gold in the most prestigious event, women's figure skating, and gold in the team skating event; plus gold in women's hockey and either silver or gold in men's hockey. But Norway wins 25-odd medals in Long Walks with Skis and they get the top spot. Like hey, I won the Secretary-Treasurer position for all the clubs I created in high school. I am therefore a better politician than Clinton, Bush, Obama, and Trump combined!

@Mike59244447 @chriswithans This is an argument I've always been behind: Summer or Winter Olympics feature sports where 2-3 great athletes can net you 10-15 medals vs only 1 for other sports.

@MrTate @chriswithans The difference is figure skating is like 5 total events. Hockey is worth a total of 2 possible medals—men’s and women’s. Long walks with skis have like 20 individual events. That’s 60 medals in play. Swimming has a similar effect for the United States in the Summer Olympics.

@chriswithans Sure, why not. Twirling around, zooming here and there. As long as hitting a 2 inch target 50+ yard away after having sprinted on skis for 7 miles or going 30 miles in the snow is "long walks with skis", I think it's pretty accurate.

@MrTate “Casually”?

@varadmehta I can't recall a single conservative who ever hated a kid born through surrogacy...

Conservatives are cheering Alysa Liu today because of her origin story as an athlete representing the US. But will they turn on her once more of them discover her literal origin story?

@emzanotti One day somebody will explain to me in reasonable terms how Asiago got to be so famous in the US

Asiago mushroom risotto, skillet roasted lemon chicken, and…laundry

@pudgenet Oh yeah! We were rooting for penalties but last minuti goal by the most represented fan base in the arena will do!

@MrTate Another fun OT ending!

@pudgenet would appreciate

@pudgenet Plenty of Canada and US fans already in the building

@MrTate USA! (later today)

@WesternLensman This is the tip-toeing reaction of someone who is addressing her own PR branch, not an adversarial network who decided to shut her out...

Crockett is essentially calling Talarico and Colbert liars now. Says the federal government had nothing to do with shutting the interview down, and that Colbert could’ve had her on to resolve the issue, but didn’t want to. Jasmine looks like she's slowly coming to the realization that her own party doesn’t want her to win the primary.

@TonyOrtega94 Wait a second, we can make news if our significant other sends us stuff we don't want? I didn't know you could do that, this changes everything

Since our story that a reader asked for help after Lemonheads frontman Evan Dando sent his wife unwanted explicit videos, Dando has gone into rehab, the Lemonheads canceled a tour, and now 2 more women say Dando was sending them unwanted images for years. tonyortega.substack.com/p/evan-dando-i…

@varadmehta @ArthurBoreman Absolutely. But I think movies like Citizen Kane are almost impossible to full understand without a bit of context (and in a different way Network too, since most of the stuff it presented is almost commonplace today), and that is true regardless of the medium

One thing to bear in mind is that many of these movies play very differently in a theater. People would appreciate Citizen Kane a lot more if they could see what Welles was doing the way he would've seen it. I liked Sunset Boulevard a lot more seeing it in a theater.

Is it just me or have the slates gotten weaker since TCM stopped sponsoring this? I mean, Fried Green Tomatoes? A Beautiful Mind is an intriguing choice. I'll probably see that since I've only seen it on video. But overall, not the most enticing group. x.com/Variety/status…

@PpollingNumbers No way people who aren't billionnaires think billionnaires should give them more money

Taxes for billionaires are Too low - 62% Too high - 8% YouGov #A - RV - 2/9

@MsMelChen Too many people don't understand that every bureaucratic step introduced to any system is one more opportunity for bribery

One of these countries is not like the others 🇸🇬 Unlike the European stalwarts and Nordic powerhouses, it didn't get to evolve a high trust culture and proper institutions organically over generations, through homogenous societies. This low corruption outcome for Singapore was entirely engineered, top-down. Lee Kuan Yew inherited a tiny, resource-poor Asian city state that was rife with ethnic tensions and rampant graft. Bribery was a survival tool. But the man studied Thomas Hobbes and knew that it could be done. One need only understand human nature and possess the will to power to pull it off. What LKY did: > Beefed up laws and enforcement: Defined bribery in the legal code and empowered harsh penalties. Revamped the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) into an independent agency, reporting straight to the PM, with resources to investigate anyone > Paid civil servants as well as private sector does to kill the incentive to take bribes. Singapore's ministers are among the world's highest-paid (also allows the government to attract top talent) > Streamlined bureaucracy: Cut red tape, simplified procedures, and made government efficient and transparent. No need to bribe when things just... works > Cultural shift: Fines for littering, caning for vandalism - LKY's strict penal code, inspired by Japanese occupation discipline, built a society where rule-following became the norm. Sure, it's mostly because people are brow-beaten and cowered into it. But it worked. He also promoted meritocracy which forged trust in a multiracial, diverse population. There are lessons here for European countries that have found themselves dealing with increasingly diverse and low trust societies.

@kensethology There's also that minor thing of Winter sports being a very local thing and foreign population isn't equally distributed around a country. And also sports culture. Money is a good third to those 2.

You should look at this picture and understand the only problem here is that winter sports are not financially accessible to most normal people

@jbillinson I was at the venue, it was brutal

Well how do you expect the Swiss to play good offense or defense when they can’t leave the neutral zone