2021

largely apropos of nothing given the state of things these days. the article is primarily interesting to me given the author author and the candor. Having been cosseted by self-validating coverage for so long, many Americans now consider any news that might suggest that they are in error or that their side has been defeated as an attack on them personally. The lie that Trump won the 2020 election wasn’t nearly as much aimed at the opposing party as it was at the news outlets that stated the obvious, incontrovertible fact....

so many gems in this piece. And make no mistake, I hate war. Sure, all the people responsible for the millions of deaths get tormented with Ben Shapiro’s audiobook version of Lolita on full volume for all of time. But you know what happens to the millions of innocent people? They go UP, not DOWN. … Donald Trump is refusing to pay Rudy Giuliani’s legal fees? I mean, I’m not surprised....

it’s no secret, i was really disappointed with the results of the 2016 election, but i honestly didn’t think things would end up here. one could reasonably be forgiven for thinking that there would be practical limits to the damage that could be wrought in 4 years. i was incredibly naive. to be fair, i think a lot of us were. oh the things i’ve learned over the past 4 years....

“A U.S. Department of Justice lawyer argued Monday that the United States can kill its own citizens without judicial review when litigation would reveal state secrets. … The argument drew alarm among judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Courthouse News Service reports. … US can kill its own citizens without review when state secrets are involved, DOJ lawyer argues … – https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/doj-lawyer-argues-us-can-kill-its-own-citizens-without-review-when-state-secrets-are-involved...

20231221 update: tweet link removed, account locked. snippet below. I wrote about some key takeaways from @nntaleb’s new technical book, Statistical Consequences of Thick Tails (https://t.co/Qj5ab0WtpJ) It’s a short review on fat tails in plain english, including the relationship between moments, tail indices, and pseudo-convergence (https://pic.twitter.com/X5Zbmc088J) — F Y Isaac (@gelmanisaac) December 23, 2020 source link a surprisingly readable rundown on fat tails that will force you to brush up on some old stats stuff....