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Happy 68th, Sputnik!
I’ve saluted Sputnik many times, focusing on a different topic each time. Today is the 68th birthday. I’ll repeat the 2021 version, which seems most appropriate now. = = = = = Browsing through more of the ACM magazine. From Nov 1957, a remarkably sane and objective IMMEDIATE response to Sputnik. Author Edmund Berkeley gets…
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Bezos vs civilization
The Post Office is in direct competition with FedEx, UPS, Amazon, etc. Now the competition has turned violent in Everett, part of the Seattle metro. National “news” garbles the story as usual. Here’s a more direct report from Everett. The postman was delivering to a set of boxes for an apartment building. Following rules, he…
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If they really wanted….
NiemanLab cites a new survey that accurately pins down what people want from local news. We want LOCAL reporting of WHAT’S HAPPENING HERE. Crime, troubles, power outages, fires. We do not want “investigative pieces” that always just happen to “investigate” Repooflicans while celebrating Democrats who commit exactly the same crimes. This pattern is constant from…
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Streetpecker
Last night’s big rain must have pushed some bugs and critters to the surface. Squirrels and birds are busy on the soil today. One bird seemed unusual. It was brown with a chevron marking on its chest, and its beak was long and straight. It was pecking FAST in the crack between the curb and…
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Big switch
You know the world has flipped when the default assumption, the side that doesn’t need explaining, has turned upside down. From an article about a young reporter who has abandoned print for TikTok: But besides that, I kind of let the conversation evolve. There are a lot of people who love to comment on TikTok.…
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He also recognizes
Continuing the theme of State-Owned Enterprises, the latest Post Office podcast is an interview with new Postmaster General Steiner. The first part of the interview is the usual biography and corporate buzztalk about logistics and execution. The salient part starts around 20 minutes, where Steiner points out the unique qualities of a regulated monopoly or…
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Rererereprint on real value
Reprinting this for the thousandth time after mentioning the Soviet reliance on REAL VALUE in previous item. This one piece encompasses everything I know and believe. = = = = = START EVERYTHING: Robert Shiller is arguing that economics pays too much attention to theories and numbers. Perfectly correct. He’s also arguing that real economies…
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Hard currency?
The ex-Soviet auto history podcaster often mentions that trade between the US side of the world and the Soviet side was difficult because the ruble wasn’t a ‘hard currency’. I used to hear that phrase in the news and didn’t question it at the time. The news told us Soviet money wasn’t hard, so it…
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Coal is back!
Via Shepstone, Trump’s Dept of Energy is taking a huge number of general and specialized actions to stop the abandonment of coal and restore some recently closed coal power plants. The actions also reinforce a secondary use of coal in the processing of steel. If the coking plants are gone, we can’t reshore steel. Trump…
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Do they recognize their advantage?
Responding to the Repooflican crusade against the Post Office, I’ve been trying to point out that the PO is NOT funded by taxpayers. It’s a business like other freight carriers, depending on income from stamps and shipments. If Repooflicans were serious about opposing government overreach, they would be CHEERING for the PO instead of trying…
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Instant Machiavelli, just add symbols
Abstract people are dividers. From the start in the 80s, the web divided us into two teams. On every subject, religion, politics, cars, electronics, software, sex…. every forum quickly divided into Team A and Team B. If you weren’t on either team you were shunned. Non-abstract people who live in a world of physical things…
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From an extremely different era 23
Still thinking about sanctions and blockades, zooming out to a broader timeline. Wilson played the blockade game ferociously. After he was gone we turned against it, remaining firmly impartial and non-interventionist until we were ACTUALLY ATTACKED BY AN ACTUAL FOREIGN NATION on 12/7/41. Harding didn’t quite start the rebellion but he did lead it. Coolidge,…
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Too much adaptation
Press release at Spokane News: (Condensed) On Tuesday, September 16th, 2025, after a months-long investigation, DEA, ATF, local police seized 50,208 pills from a defendant at a Centralia gas station. … Lab tests revealed the pills did not contain fentanyl, instead they were carfentanil and acetaminophen. Carfentanil is a synthetic opioid originally developed to tranquilize…
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When was the line?
Listening to these auto history podcasts adds a new dimension to one of my standard themes. I’ve often hammered the Big Point that our blockades and sanctions help the target country to develop its own skills. Blockades hurt ordinary Americans by depriving our industries of export revenue, and raising the prices of needed imports like…
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Great talk, not much action
Speaking of honest and dishonest… Bernie is rigorously honest in this speech. He pulls us away from all the Machiavellian fake disputes and nonsense and gossip that politicians and journalists deluge us with. He gets down to plain facts in a way that FDR and Henry Wallace would understand and appreciate. Unfortunately Bernie failed to…
Polistra's Mill
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Polistra's Mill 