If political cycles are anything like market cycles, maybe we’re on the cusp of a legitimately populist cohort of Democratic politicians emerging in America. Or maybe the Dems will just keep speaking to the West Coast and New England and lose national elections over and over until I’m an old man. Both feel equally likely at this moment.

Something Bobby Kennedy said when being sworn in today: “There’s no such thing as Democrat children or Republican children”

Bobby

Matt Taibbi gave quite a statement to Congress today on the state of American journalism

My Statement to Congress

Opening remarks on John Kerry, European speech law, and USAID before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, February 12th, 2025

Gotta say it; Joy Division kinda sucks

GM Newsak? Nuzak? Neuzak? News equivalent of Muzak. Walter Kirn sure can turn a phrase

Hierarchies crumble, networks endure. Never seen it put so succinctly View quoted note →

There’s a reason it appeals to 20 year olds 😆 Source: I was one of those navel-gazing 20 y/o View quoted note →

GN awster

If Check’s hanging around more and drops some chess shitposts then Nostr has just 2x’d overnight View quoted note →

Gnawster

Nice time capsule from @Marty Bent https://medium.com/@martysbent/bitcoin-just-hit-a-new-all-time-high-now-what-2d316a708559 I think I got in when I supposed to get in. Not sure how I would have handled early cycles

Pattern recognition at the level of 6-12 months, let alone 2-4 years, would help a lot of people not get taken advantage of by politicians and our political system. I wonder if looking at longer term economic and financial charts helps train one’s mind to think and notice stuff along longer timeframes. There are no charts for politicians lying or media memory-holing or censorship, but maybe thinking about the big picture in one graphable realm helps you bring a similar lens to other, more opaque arenas like politics.

There has to be a significant number of people who, knowingly or not, pivot their investment decisions off headlines in Apple’s Stocks app

GM #dogstr

#dogstr

I would say this aged well, but it hasn’t even been 24 hours View quoted note →

Hand churned butter from France called Le Gaslonde My life is different after having it

I dropped X for Nostr a little over a month ago and since then: I’ve written and published five essays on Springsteen’s album Nebraska, five to go I’ve read Jim Webb’s Born Fighting as well as Churchill, Hitler and the Unnecessary War (recommend both) Put a dent in Atlas Shrugged My bandmates and I are gonna record an EP at the end of February and I’m playing way more guitar than any time since I was a teenager I’m upstairs reading in bed with my wife before she falls asleep way more often I get all the news I need from the Nostr report, to paraphrase Paul Simon. I’m not a technical person; I just enjoy writing, reading and playing music, so I’m indebted to the people who are making this thing happen: @fiatjaf @ODELL @calle and the ego death folks like @Lyn Alden and @Jeff Booth . There are a bunch more who I don’t know yet but I’m gonna zap you when I figure out who you are. You’re making my life even better, so thank you.

I used to know someone whose dad was this reactionary, red-faced guy who responded with anger to stuff all the time and was very easily perturbed by things not going his way. I could never figure out at the time (2015-2020) how this guy was such a die hard Democrat. Temperamentally he was like the bloviating conservatives that ruled the day when I was a kid. But the Dems have largely become the party for ossified thinking and reactionaries. I hope that changes and we get some real dynamism across the whole spectrum of American politics.