Great stuff
Brought a tear to my eye:
People keep asking why I won’t give up on my obsession with Trump. Here’s Matt Yglesias:
And if you want to know why Yglesias is one of the best tweeters, these 4 tweets also appeared right before the one I cited.
Tags:
10. February 2021 at 17:32
Huh – never expected to see the DC high school I attended mentioned here.
I think Matt Yglesias is off-base here on that last tweet. There is no one “exam high school” in DC, there is one ‘overwhelmingly Black’ school and one exam school that is plurality white.
Woodrow Wilson, by contrast, is majority Black (at least when I last checked). Parents that were afraid of having their child go to school with Black kids usually would have pulled their kid out for private school already, or would send them to the plurality white “exam high school,” not to the open-admission Wilson.
To me, there is no reason why there should be *two* exam schools with wildly different racial compositions. Just implement a lottery policy like Cambridge, MA’s very successful one, which still allows for testing.
10. February 2021 at 22:17
The lab leak hypothesis reflects much more poorly on the party than the animal trade hypothesis. That is because the lab is tied up with the state, and the animal trade is more like illegal activity that isn’t important enough to devote resources to stamp out. Also, the lab leak hypothesis implies a coverup starting way back in fall of 2019, and much more culpability for the authorities who should have known both who was patient 0 and how serious the situation was.
11. February 2021 at 01:55
Matthew Iglesias’ statement about lab leak vs. animal market seems to please Scott a lot. He has brought it up on this blog at least three times now, maybe four.
This constant repetition of nonsense reminds me of the firehose of falsehood strategy in Putin’s Russia. You just repeat nonsense over and over again, it’s supposed to be imprinted in people’s minds by repetition alone. Well in this case it only leads to ridiculousness. But it is talked about and that is already part of the strategy. If you have to talk about such nonsense because Scott keeps repeating it, you can’t talk about other things.
It also reminds of the captivating logic of the Putin trolls during and after the Nawalny poisoning: The poisoning of Nawalny reflects poorly on Putin, so he couldn’t possibly have done it. There is no argument in this at all, but once again the firehose of falsehoods was carried out and people argue about it on the Internet.
11. February 2021 at 04:53
When I read Iglesias lately I can tell right away he writes for readers who vote 90% dem. He can’t criticize anything of the left too hard. And even the writing style tone feels leftish. Then in between he will mix in some economics and logic.
I believe it was Iglesias who recently wrote pro giant stimulus and just wrote off monetary offset t and summers arguments of existing big cash balances.
Something seems bad when reading a center left writer feels like reading half propaganda and half interesting thinking. Journalism has gone down hill.
11. February 2021 at 14:29
Lizard, I’d argue just the opposite. Many civilized countries have labs where this sort of accident was equally likely to happen; they don’t have those animal markets.
Christian. Ha! Resentful that a smart guy like Yglesias agrees with me? Don’t be so petty.
Sean, Yes, it’s obvious that his audience is mostly on the left. But a Straussian reading of his stuff indicates he harbors some doubts about political correctness in a number of areas.
Plus he’s a very interesting thinker, whether you agree with him or not. At least you feel you’re reading someone who is highly intelligent, even if wrong on a few economic issues.
11. February 2021 at 15:39
Scott,
I am happy for your success with all my heart and that you are so happy about it. I’m also not too surprised that Yglesias thinks similarly whacky.
I just don’t think readers relate to it. For example, of all the linked posts this Twitter entry has the fewest hearts.
Most readers probably won’t understand why a planned Chinese government secret operation (which most likely didn’t happen) should be treated similar as an accident at an animal market (which also didn’t happen). It’s not the same poor reflection by a mile, in any world that is not autistic.
And it might have been enough if you had referred to it once, or maybe twice. But go on.
Maybe soon we can celebrate birthdays of this great memory. Birthday 1, 2, 3, 5, 10, where Scott and Matt once again had the same whacky idea.
12. February 2021 at 12:29
Christian, If it was from a lab it was an accident. Hard hard is that to understand?