Tom

I wrote this several years ago. I look at the kid in the photograph and think about of all the things that he will go through over the next two decades. In the next few years, he’ll be severely injured at work with fractures to both femurs, along with fractures to the ulna, radius and humerus of his left arm and metacarpals in his right hand. He’ll live with chronic pain that will often cause restless nights and decisions made to forgo activities due to the discomfort and tenderness of his condition. One might say that he won’t be prepared for this to happen to him, but the truth is that he is as ready as anyone can be. We don’t get to choose what happens in our life, but we do get to choose how we react to it. One need not feel guilty for feeling overwhelmed and on the verge of collapse when facing such hardships. The consuming darkness of depression is something which I am intimately familiar. I turned to humor to get me through the gloominess. However, jokes only go so far. The thing that kept me going is that I pictured myself one day looking back at all that I had been through knowing that I had persevered. Back then, I could never contemplate being a husband and a father, but these aspects of my life are my greatest joys. Despite whatever pain and despair I’ve ever felt in my life, I am appreciative of all the people and lessons that have made me the person writing this to you today. From my wife to my son, my parents and the rest of my family and friends, I am the lucky one to have you in my life. Happy Thanksgiving!

"Hugo Chavez's vision and Nicolas Maduro's tenacity saved Venezuela, writes Joseph Stiglitz (probably)"

A guy goes to the Determinist Club and is asked why he wants to join. He says, “Because I chose to” and they kick him out. So then he visits the Free Will Club next door and is asked why he wants to join. He says, “I had no choice” and again is thrown out. wsj.com/opinion/free-e…

Bill Gates helped make personal computing mainstream. Sergey Brin dramatically expanded access to information. Jeff Bezos gave the world quick & cheap access to goods. AOC gets a taxpayer-funded salary to do political theater. Yes, it is possible to earn a billion dollars.

Whataboutism is always tempting. But it’s not just pointless. It’s counterproductive. We’d be in a much better place if people would focus more on keeping their side of the street clean. @cspan @cspanwj

And many of the specific points she makes are highly contested if not flat-out wrong, such as: 'The past half-century has brought us breathtaking inequality, accompanied by a sharp decline in social mobility.' See @swinshi, for instance:

Every ‘equal society’ in history ended the same way: with force. You cannot redistribute productivity without coercion. That’s the part radical socialism never admits. The more 'equality' you want, the more authoritarian it must become to enforce it.

This is just abjectly false from beginning to end. What she's doing here is trying to provide a moral justification for mass wealth confiscation, since in her view it is never earned legitimately.

This is medical malpractice. Anyone who reads this & still believes in "gender affirming care" please tell me how you justify it. There are now hundreds of cases like this, soon to be thousands, who were butchered for life in the name of trans ideology: thefp.com/p/i-de-transit…

Ken Griffin says he's scaling down in NYC: "What the mayor of New York has made clear to us, is that we need to double down on Miami."

Europeans: we have applied for a 10 billion EU grant to establish planning protocols for the new Eurotech Centre slated to open in 2047 Americans: back the fucking car out of the garage, I got an idea

Data centers are good

Incredible ad

There is a reason authoritarians censor first and justify it later. When words are treated as violence, actual violence starts to look like self-defense. And that’s just societal regression with better branding.

I'm starting to think this luxury beliefs idea is catching on: instagram.com/p/DX7AdaKOXxQ/

Finished reading @michaelshermer’s newest book. Really enjoyed it and appreciate the fact that I have read quite the majority of books he references in it. Today is my 50th birthday and I have followed Shermer’s career it seems for at least half of my life. I do subscribe and read Skeptic.

An example of how they cook the books to absolve the Left of violence in the WSJ today: A graph it published that seems to show near parity between Left and Right wing political violence is sourced to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, which by its own admission reclassified pro-Palestinian violence as "ethnonationalist". It classifies all antisemitism as Right-wing, and all pro-Palestinian "attacks on Jewish individuals or institutions" as "ethnonationalist." This is just nakedly partisan propaganda presented as "data" and then mainstreamed in the American press. More in my column below linked.

Douglas Murray: "There is no two-state solution on the table anymore. The Palestinians were given a de facto state in 2005 when every Jew was removed from Gaza. They had 18 years. What did they do with it? Rockets, war, October 7th." He's 100% correct.

Gunman's manifesto: "I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes." NYT: We may never know the motive of the gunman.

After Failed Assassination, Democrats Observe Customary 5-Minute Pause On Calling Trump 'Hitler' buff.ly/oE07zcn

This is a political arrest. There are NO MASS GRAVES of indigenous students. Questioning the narrative is heresy. Shut people up by arresting them for trespassing.