Doomed to repeat

Happy Wednesday. It’s a birthday for Amos Tversky and Jerry Lewis.

We could send a man to the moon but we couldn’t make a good rideable robotic mountain goatuntil now. (So much to enjoy here, from the frenetic music to the woman waving to the crowd of photographers.)

Ed Markey, among others, submitted a bill to make Daylight Savings Time permanent year round. The Senate passed it. I’m on the fence. At the very least I’d miss the seasonal ritual. This idea was tried before, back during the energy crisis of the 1970’s. It was a popular idea then, too. Almost 80% of Americans were in favor of year-round DST at the time. Nixon signed it into law and in 1974 it went into effect. But within 4 months the country turned against it and by the end of the year the law was reversed and we went back to seasonal time.

Lingling Wei takes a look at China‘s economic position, both domestically and internationally, and how alignment with Russia complicates things for Xi Jinping. Europe is also taking notice.

Russia has responded to US sanctions by sanctioning a number of current and former US officials. The list of former officials that they’re going after seems to be narrowly selected. Apparently they’re targeting their enemies and sparing their allies.

And now the robots are making robots. This is how it begins.

Throwing out the baby with the bathwater

Wednesday. The sun struggles up another beautiful day.

Brazil is teetering.

Adrian Walker tamps down the rhetoric on defunding the police in Boston. It’s actually more about reallocating some money out of the police budget and into community development than defunding the police. But here in Boston, money in the police budget is already being applied to community efforts. Why put money from the police budget into community development? Because initiatives like the Youth Development Fund are long-term crime prevention and they link the police with community development, which helps to bolster police legitimacy, an important ingredient for a healthy self-governing society. In the heat of the moment we shouldn’t rush to eliminate a strategic civic model that works. We should, instead, enhance and reinforce it.

Wow, that is one clean subway train.

Young Kennedy is getting schooled by old man Markey in this season’s least watched reality show. Scott Lehigh covers the senatorial debates. Michael Jonas weighs in as well.

And in China, it’s raining men. They’re coming out of the woodwork. So there’s a proposal afoot to allow each woman to have two husbands.

The year of the rat

Happy Sunday. Happy New Year. Happy 春节.

How do all-you-can-eat buffets turn a profit? It’s not easy but with a few tricks it’s possible.

This is impressive reporting from inside Iran, by Farnaz Fassihi, on the attempted coverup of the airliner shot down by the Iranian military.

There are indications that the Coronavirus is more highly contagious than even SARS and that it can be spread by those without symptoms.

Coming soon: pop-up nuclear reactors.

And last year more people went to the library than the movies. This probably says more about the quality of movies than anything about surging literacy, but it’s a good thing nonetheless.