Brad Todd

As Matt Yglesias rightly says, this is a worrying signal of declining state legitimacy: even the centre-left parties don’t believe they can make the case for the state raising taxes and spending them on public goods

“Ms. Tully was on an income-based repayment plan, which allows many borrowers to have their remaining debt forgiven after 20 years … She was paying $60 per month when she defaulted. This amount, to many, may seem manageable. But for her, it remained psychologically burdensome”

I’ve driven on roads in Thailand, Mexico, Italy, even Florida. The menace that Maryland drivers pose is truly unique

🔴 Red states spend $14.0k per pupil. 🔵 Blue states spend $21.2k. NAEP composite (math + reading 4 and 8): 🔴 244.9 🔵 245.3 Correlations w/ NAEP composite across 50 states and DC. Raw spend: r = +0.07 and Income-adjusted: r = −0.14.

To all Virginians observing Good Friday, I am wishing you and your loved ones a reflective and meaningful day.

NASA pays $100M for Microsoft 365 licensing across the agency. They standardized every system on Microsoft. They put Microsoft Surfaces on the Orion spacecraft as the crew's personal computing devices. And the first technical crisis of humanity's return to the Moon was Reid Wiseman radioing Houston to say he has two Microsoft Outlooks and neither one works. Mission Control's response? "With your go, we can remote in and take a look." The same exact workflow your company's IT helpdesk uses when you submit a ticket on a Monday morning. Except the user is traveling at 4,275 mph, 30,000 miles from Earth, and the Wi-Fi situation is considerably worse. This spacecraft survived hydrogen leaks, helium leaks, a faulty heat shield, and a broken toilet. Outlook broke anyway. The toilet actually got fixed faster. The real story here is that Microsoft has achieved something no other software company in history can claim: a support ticket from lunar transit. Their enterprise sales team should frame this. "Battle-tested in space" is a positioning statement most B2B companies would mass murder for, and Microsoft accidentally earned it because Outlook crashes everywhere, including orbit. Outlook remains the only software in human history that performs identically whether you're in a cubicle in Redmond or aboard a spacecraft bound for the Moon. Universally, reliably broken. And we keep buying it anyway.

Nashville is fine and I’m not a NBA star, but I have always enjoyed visiting Memphis more. Great city.

NYC’s Hottest New Club Is Catholic Mass There's a new hot-spot taking over, and there’s no cover charge or VIP section in sight. Walk into any traditional adjacent Catholic church this Easter from Old St. Patrick’s Cathedral to St. Joseph's Church in Greenwich Village, and the scene might surprise you. Packed pews. Standing room only. 20-and-30-somethings in their prettiest spring dresses and young men in pressed collared shirts and button-downs, lingering long after the service ends to talk, laugh, and swap Instagram handles. It’s an energy that's warm and intoxicating… even without the bottomless mimosas. One viral tweet recently described a packed Sunday Mass in Manhattan as "the hottest club in NYC right now," and she wasn't exaggerating. Something major is happening across the country: young people are going to church. Gen Z, once labeled a godless generation—atheist at worst, agnostic at best—have come rushing back, fueled by their fire for the Church’s framework of femininity and masculinity, for truth, and for God.

Konnor Griffin gets a nine-year, $140 million deal from the Pirates. That shatters the record for largest contract before making an MLB debut

Let’s give credit to MLB for all the ways they have made the game better Pitch clock Bigger bases ABS challenges Shift ban Pickoff limits Mound visit limits One foot in batter’s box Three batter minimum Pitchcom Extra innings ghost runner Impressive list 👏

It would behoove our NATO allies to appreciate that this sentiment is *very* widely shared, including amongst erstwhile boosters of trans-Atlantic relations.

I find the whining about Justice Barrett to be ridiculous. She regularly sides with you, but not in the precise way you want, and may actually not give you everything you want, so you cry. Put on your big boy britches, please.