Terminus Est

@joshlbrooks @StatModeling I’m not debating the process followed. I’m objecting to the idea that a health economist (or two) don’t have the academic authority to discount a methodology unless a statistician agrees.

@TerminusEst24 @StatModeling Jay squashed a paper that used a fairly standard methodology, passed through the CDC's stringent, established publishing protocol. He did so w/o offering a substantive critique. Does he think the public can't evaluate the science without him managing the info they get to see?

Two Health Economists Walk into a Bar: What bothered me in that conversation of Jay Bhattacharya and Emily Oster statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2026/04/28/wha…

My favorite memory of Powell will be ordering his staff to shut the fucking door on these climate protesters , it’s been an honour sir

Free on Substack! open.substack.com/pub/representa…

The most endumbening pair of sentences that you will read today: "Animal Farm, classically, is a story without a happy ending. But Serkis' interpretation gives viewers closure." usatoday.com/story/entertai…

@HistoryBoomer This can’t be real

You don’t hate Gollum enough.

There’s one important factor that’s been missing from the discourse: this is not a symmetric vote. Voting red has an immediate beneficial consequence of ensuring your life, regardless of the overall outcome of the vote, so your red vote matters in a direct way. Voting blue, like all votes, has an (effectively) zero chance of determining the outcome, so there’s no benefit to voting blue.

It's actually kind of fascinating how much the blue button vs red button discourse captures the pitfalls of human reasoning. Both blue button pushers and red button pushers think theirs is the obvious choice. But each fails miserably to explain the other side’s view.

@ijbailey I wish this were true, but few seem to care about naked partisanship as long as it’s in their favor.

Take note of everyone trying to defend the absurd Comey indictment. Never take them seriously again. Ever.

@lugaricano @florianederer Despite all this, does the approach yield more revenue for FIFA than the alternatives?

Has FIFA screwed itself (as well as the fans) with their pricing model? FIFA has created a ticketing mechanism in which it competes with itself. When tickets are sold in phases and prices can change later, fans not only compare today’s price with their value of attending. They compare today’s price with the price FIFA may offer tomorrow. That creates a waiting game. This is not Taylor Swift, where everyone anticipates all seats will be sold: it is buy now, or never. For some not-so-great WC game, if fans expect unsold inventory to appear later at lower prices, even eager fans prefer to delay their purchase. Weak early demand then makes later discounts more likely, confirming the original expectation. This is the classic commitment problem: FIFA wants high early prices, but cannot fully convince buyers that it will not undercut those prices later. The result is a market where the monopolist competes with itself.

Remember when JD Vance preened at the Munich Security Conference about the Trump administration’s passion for free speech: “So I come here today not just with an observation, but with an offer. And just as the Biden administration seemed desperate to silence people for speaking their minds, so the Trump administration will do precisely the opposite, and I hope that we can work together on that. In Washington, there is a new sheriff in town. And under Donald Trump’s leadership, we may disagree with your views, but we will fight to defend your right to offer them in the public square.”

Brendan Carr’s FCC subjecting Disney-owned and-operated television stations to an early license renewal proceeding because of jokes in a late-night monologue is viewpoint retaliation. The FCC may claim these actions are based on DEI policies and have nothing to do with Jimmy Kimmel, but its timing makes it clear these justifications are a fig leaf. This campaign against a disfavored broadcaster violates the First Amendment, pure and simple. The First Amendment requires those in government to be strong enough to take a joke—including ones that President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump consider to be in bad taste.

4/ The idea that Comey's picture of seashells conveyed a serious intent to harm the president is ridiculous. The administration should abandon this transparent and unconstitutional attempt to punish a critic. foxnews.com/politics/james…

Getting déjà vu? The White House is demanding that @jimmykimmel be fired for a joke he told. Again. The government has no authority to police the speech of networks or late-night hosts, nor can it flex its power to pressure them to do so. ✍🏻: @StrangelEdweird 🖥️: @unherd

Trump’s DOJ just filed what may be the most deranged written Motion ever. It reads more like a Truth Social post dictated by Trump himself. What an embarrassment. The Motion is filled with inappropriate personal insults. It literally calls the National Trust for Historic Preservation name “FAKE” and says the group is “very bad for our Country.” It accuses them of suffering from “Trump Derangement Syndrome” and frames their lawyer as “the lawyer for Barack Hussein Obama.” This is an actual line from the filing: “because it is DONALD J. TRUMP, a highly successful real estate developer, who has abilities that others don't, especially those who assume the Office of President, this frivolous and meritless lawsuit was filed.” This is how the Department of Justice is writing now? Then comes the opportunism. The filing leans heavily on the White House Correspondents’ Dinner incident and uses it to push Trump’s long-standing obsession with building a ballroom. Instead of addressing what went wrong, it argues that none of this would have happened if Trump’s project already existed. They claim “bipartisan support” because of support from…John Fetterman. The lawsuit also claims at multiple points the ballroom won’t cost taxpayers anything—something we now know to be false. Every DOJ lawyer who put their name on this should be ashamed. And it should be a major scandal that it appears that Donald Trump is the one who actually wrote this. So much for DOJ independence.

The Department of Justice is now a joke. This is an official filing signed by its top leadership.

OVERNIGHT: Trump Admin files latest court motion in support of White House ballroom It reads like a Trump Truth Social post, with random capitalization, accusations the plaintiffs are "very bad for our country", suffer "Trump Derangement Syndrome", etc storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…

BREAKING: The United Arab Emirates said it quit OPEC and OPEC+, dealing a heavy blow to the oil exporting groups and their de facto leader, Saudi Arabia, at a time when the Iran war has caused a historic energy shock and unsettled the global economy reut.rs/4vXsBJy

He never had the money to pay for the ballroom. It was always a scam. We were always going to have to pay for it. They were just waiting for the right moment to hit us with the bill. This is now the time.

@PAHoyeck If you believe humans are accidental outcomes in this universe, aren’t you kind of forced into a view like this?

“The sources of morality rest squarely in human beings and the claims that we make on each other, rather than in something like ontological facts about the good. I think of morality more as a practice than as a body of knowledge.” —Christine Korsgaard on ethics

@azure_octopus @RyanJones @Delta Possibly because he interacted with the family first. I meant speak with the flight attendant first.

@TerminusEst24 @RyanJones @Delta He said the flight attendant yelled at him.

First world problem: I’m boarding my @Delta flight. Family with kids boarded ahead of me. They’re sitting in the back. I’m 1A. They put 3 bags in the first class overhead. I say excuse me I’m in 1A can you leave me room for my bags and take yours to your seat please? Flight attendant yelled at me and made me put my bag in the middle of the plane. I know it’s petty but If you’re in first class that should be your space.