BC TRUMP
Saved by @Mollyycolllinss

Ulysses S. Grant would like a WORD

 Or Teddy Roosevelt. Or Dwight Eisenhower. Or Andrew Jackson. Or Abraham Lincoln. Or George Washington. Or Zachary Taylor. Or any of numerous presidents who were honest-to-goodness battle-hardened warriors.
James Monroe fought the Hessians at Trenton and nearly died of wounds sustained there, then wintered in Valley Forge, then fought until Monmouth, then repeatedly tried to raise new regiments for the war until he went bankrupt doing it.
James Monroe, of the Era of Good Feelings, longest serving president of all time.... was in the boats crossing the icy Delaware.
Andrew Jackson was in a duel. He was shot in the chest right by his heart.

But he didn't go down. He stood there and, while bleeding out, steadily took aim and killed the dude who shot him.

Stone cold.
A guy tried to kill Jackson, shooting at hime twice, but the guns misfired. Jackson retaliated by beating the man nearly to death with his cane. Davy Crockett (!!!) had to intervene to save the assassin's life.
Also James Monroe was not the longest serving president dunno how I got that in my head.
I mean look even *James Buchanan* got combat experience in 1812.
Probably the best analog for Trump is Grover Cleveland.

Grover Cleveland hired a substitute to take his place in the Civil War.
Herbert Hoover spent 55 days under siege in Beijing during the Boxer Rebellion. Not quite the same but still kind of a thing.
FDR to his credit *attempted* to join WWI but his resignation from the Navy department was denied; his services as a higher-up were deemed too useful to let him go.
Zacharly Taylor was basically the American Genghis Khan. The dude repeatedly won field promotions on account of personal bravery, excellence as a field commander, and generally having a reputation for charging headlong into danger.
He was accomplished in unconventional (i.e. brutal and inhumane) wars against native Americans.

And then he was the guy Polk chose to start a war with Mexico. He did so. And then he conquered Mexico.
He was known for not wearing any marker that he was an officer in battle because he disliked lording it over his men. And when 16,000 MExican troops under Santa Ana attacked his 4,000 at Buena Vista, he stood and won.
Also he was a Kentuckian so that means he was definitionally a cut above the average American.
Teddy Roosevelt, I mean, that guy

One time he was on a hill in Cuba, and he got to watch it get taken by the innovative use of gatling guns supporting regiment of black cavalrymen!
TR was so manly that he could tell you all about how manly he was.
I'm joking of course his actual insanely tough story is when he got shot while giving a speech and then decided to just keep going and finish the speech.

The dude was DETERMINED TO POAST.
Numerous presidents had front-line experience in the Civil War, WWI, or WWII. HW Bush was shot down in WWII. Even W was at least a guardsman.
HW Bush getting shot down makes it sound like I'm being down on him; I'm not. He was promoted for his excellence beforehand, got shot down in a harrowing battle (captured aviators in that battle were *cannibalized* by the Japanese)... and then returned to service!
Anyways.

Trump is not the manliest president ever.
He is probably the richest president ever, even in inflation-adjusted terms, although what basis you choose for land valuation and valuation of enslaved people held as property gets a bit tricky there.
Certainly, Trump is NOT the wealthiest U.S. president in terms of "wealth as a share of total national wealth." That is almost certainly George Washington.
Trump is also not the most physically imposing president. Three presidents were taller and 5 (including Clinton and HW bush) are the same height.

He is the third HEAVIEST president, of course, after Grover Cleveland (remember him from above?) and Taft, of stuck-in-the-tub fame.
Trump does have the 4th highest BMI of any president, after Taft, Cleveland, and McKinley. He is obese.

Bet he doesn't even lift, bruh
Now, look. I have no military service. I have not killed a man in a duel. I have not been shot while speechifying. In a ranking of most manly presidents, I also would not rank very highly.

But I'm not a president riding on a tough-guy brand for my rapidly-diminishing popularity.

More from Lyman Stone 石來民

Lyman Stone \u77f3\u4f86\u6c11
Lyman Stone 石來民...
@lymanstoneky
After a couple years of ads telling men to do laundry turned out, weirdly, to not boost fertility, Korea is back to financial incentives, which prior research has shown do work but at a very high price.

Korea is adding a $275/month allowance for the first year of a baby's life, increasing the pregnancy medical benefit by $400 or so, and providing an $1800 baby bonus. There's also some unspecified benefits related to leave and high-parity families.

The thing to understand is that these efforts are not *actually* huge. Quoting things in won gives you big numbers so it's easy to lose sight of the fact that we're not talking about enough money to actually offset a large share of wages.

I'm a fan of baby bonuses and first-year benefits. They're probably the most bang for the buck.

But this isn't actually all that many bucks!

These benefits add up to about $5,500 in benefits. A similar program compared to average incomes in the US would be about $8,700.
FINANCE
Lyman Stone \u77f3\u4f86\u6c11
Lyman Stone 石來民...
@lymanstoneky
Conservatives love to complain about the media.

But there's an inside baseball media that reveals how destructive the conservative media criticism environment can be to the conservative movement.

Enter, Fox News:

The story is pretty simple.

On election night, Fox News called Arizona very early. This surprised pretty much everyone. The Fox News team had improved their election model in 2020, and was confident their call was correct, even if unconventional.

Controversially, however, they called it for Joe Biden. Arizona has historically been a red state, and the polls (and final result) were close there. Nobody had a really strong expectation it was gonna go for Biden until Fox News just.... called it.

This hurled Trump surrogates into a desperate place. If they lost *Arizona*, that was a bad sign for the night. More importantly, it happened before midnight: it humiliated the President while millions were still watching.

The Trump campaign immediately turned on a dime. They pivoted from "Look, we're crushing it with Hispanics! Massive turnout! Incredible performance!" to "The election was stolen."

Who stole the election changed over time. Fox News. Some rando in Atlanta. Poll workers. China.
POLITICS
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Lyman Stone \u77f3\u4f86\u6c11
Lyman Stone 石來民...
@lymanstoneky
So a few days back I was tweeting about SSRIs. The big question with these drugs is: why do controlled trials routinely show such small effects when practitioners and patients report life-changingly-large effects?

So first off, at this point the evidence is pretty clear that SSRIs and other anti-anxiety/anti-depression drugs truly don't do very much. Their average effects are beneath clinical significance, as I tweeted about here:


Basically, the problem these drugs face is that while they actually see relatively LARGE effects.... but that placebos in those trials ALSO see large effects (and most untreated depression improves within a year anyways).

So basically you have this problem where:
1. The condition tends to improve on its own in a majority of cases
2. Placebo effects for the condition are unusually large

Which means the large crude effects of SSRIs get swamped.

So that raises two new questions.
1. (Not my focus here) Are we treating these conditions appropriately given their untreated prognosis is usually (though certainly not always!!) "goes away in a few months"?

2. Why are placebo effects so unusually large?
DRUGS
Lyman Stone \u77f3\u4f86\u6c11
Lyman Stone 石來民...
@lymanstoneky
Possibly the greatest NBER abstract ever written.

The Great Man theory of history.... turns out to have some pretty strong statistical support.

School closures had NO EFFECT (precise null!) on socioeconomic outcomes and future schooling behavior during the 1918 pandemic.

The authors note that school closures were not as long back then.

But also school calendars were far shorter. So idk how it shakes out.

Informing men about the odds their wife will die in childbirth reduces fertility, increases marital satisfaction, and reduces mismatch in fertility preferences within couples (in Zambia).
TRADING , FINANCE
Lyman Stone \u77f3\u4f86\u6c11
Lyman Stone 石來民...
@lymanstoneky
reading the self-important and vaguely-cultish textbooks by bayesians makes me want to go out and kill a sufficiently large number of bayesians that i can estimate the mean pitch of their screams

"when we have multiple models, we should choose one using Bayesian statistics"

no

you should do both and publish an appendix showing robustness tests, you cultist

"but my bayesian model takes 4 weeks to process i can't run 1,397 robustness tests"

yes

exactly

"it's #Actually impossible to use predictive accuracy to test model validity because we can't observe future values!!!"

omg

this is a real critically acclaimed textbook im barely even paraphrasing here

i don't trust quantitative methods where people say, "this method has been in use for centuries!"

that is a solid argument for perhaps a theological proposition

it is not highly compelling for code
CULTURE

More from Trump

\U0001f1fa\U0001f1f8I Support Our Military & Law Enforcement\U0001f1fa\U0001f1f8
🇺🇸I Support Our Milita...
@TheWiseOwl_AZ
1. Ten Days of Darkness have begun – & would end Inauguration Day 20 Jan.

Since 6 Jan. Washington DC has been under lockdown. President Trump has mobilized the Military & they were collecting evidence of political elite conspiring with foreign nations to take over the
U.S.
GOVERNMENT , TRUMP
Small + Mighty \u2122\ufe0f
Small + Mighty ™️...
@Gr33nEyedSara
A THREAD ENTITLED: HE KNEW.


2.


3.


4.


5.
TRUMP
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Hayes Brown
Hayes Brown
@HayesBrown
You’d think that if Pence could overturn the election like Trump claimed then Biden surely would’ve taken up that chance


Also this is such a small thing but one thing I noticed in that Trump campaign ad the defense just ran, there were no citations, unlike every clip that the impeachment managers showed

Michael Van Der Veen is giving us the full Fox News Primetime Defense.

PROCESS ARGUMENT.

DRINK.

Lol my guy this is the chance to rebut the evidence that they’ve presented against Trump.
TRUMP
emptywheel
emptywheel
@emptywheel
Oh huh. Trump's defense isn't going to address the impeachment case (and seems to ignore his demands of Mike Pence again).

Michael Van der Veen pretending that 61 losses is normal.

And, again, note that he didn't address Trump's unconstitutional request of Mike Pence.

Van der Veen lies about who asked for recounts in 2016.

And lies about Hillary's claims about Russia.

Trump's video is made in the style of propaganda, taken out of context.

Van der Veen now trying to make much of tweets Trump didn't send until hours too late.
TRUMP
Martyn McLaughlin
Martyn McLaughlin
@MartynMcL
NEW: Before he left office, Trump filed his final financial disclosures with @OfficeGovEthics. I’ve had a read through them. The income he is claiming in respect of his Scottish resorts is entirely divorced from the reality set out in black in white in his UK accounts. Thread 👇

Firstly, Trump lists his income from ‘golf related revenue’ at Turnberry as $9.8m. Which is interesting, given the latest UK accounts for Turnberry's parent company registered losses of £2.3m ($3.1m) for the 12 months to 31 Dec 2019.


Even the turnover in the UK accounts - listed as £19.6m ($26.8m) is a country mile off that income figure listed in Trump's OGE filings. Comparing like for like, even accounting for that weird 'golf related revenue' descriptor, it's not even close.

If you drill down in more detail, and subtract the administrative expenses at Turnberry's parent firm from its turnover in order to get closer to whatever that 'income' figure entails, the number is still £12.5m ($17.2m).

And if you go deeper, and account for the gains the company made in foreign exchanges, and deduct depreciation and amortisation costs, the figure is £9.9m ($13.6m). Still a way off the OGE number.
TRUMP , TRUMP OGE FILING

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I'm gonna do my other star wars thread tomorrow, which will primarily be me yelling at a @RowanKaiser-shaped strawman for calling the First Order and The Resistance "cosplayers who the rest of the galaxy has to deal with"

the deal w/the New Republic, the First Order, and the Resistance is very weird and complex and I actually take issue with how Story Group frames the actual conflict.

pre-TFA stuff is presented as a "cold war" between the New Republic and the remnants of the Empire that form the First Order, which 100% makes sense.

But they frame the First Order's attack on the Hosnian system and the subsequent battle that takes place across TFA and TLJ as a full on war when it's very clearly a coup. A war implies at least equal standing, but the First Order completely wrecks shop and takes over the galaxy.

ok never mind I'm fucking doing this now.

The First Order fleet we see in TLJ is *not* the entire fleet of the First Order (I don't even think Starkiller Base was their main base of operations honestly, it couldn't have been considering they were operating out of Wild Space)
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RadioChinar
@RadioChinar
Demystifying Ghazwa-e-Hind. A #thread.

A recent video of Shoaid Akhter surfaced in social media creating a lot of controversy where the #Pakistani Cricketer can be seen suggesting invasion of India by using the term Ghazwa-e-Hind.
Radicalization of sportsmen seen off late
(1/10)


Some radical Islamic preachers believes that Ghazwa-e-Hind means a “Holy War against India”. As per this irrational & profane concept, there will be a fierce battle to secure victory over #India.
#Kashmir
(2/10)


#Pakistan-based terror groups, like JeM have been using Ghazwa-e-Hind as a Hadith to recruit, fund and justify its terror strikes as a religious holy war against #India.
#Kashmir
(3/10)


Some machiavellian people claim it is a prophecy that Muslim warriors will wage war against the #India.
Jaish & others falsely propagate that Jihad against India is considered holy in Islam & that those participating in it will be granted an easy entry into paradise.
(4/10)


However prolific scholars says that this is a made-up interpretation of some verse in The Holy Quran to mislead the gullible youth of #Pakistan into picking up arms and fighting its Army's personal battle against #India.
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(5/10)
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Patrick Chovanec
Patrick Chovanec
@prchovanec
I'm going to do two history threads on Ethiopia, one on its ancient history, one on its modern story (1800 to today). 🇪🇹

I'll begin with the ancient history ... and it goes way back. Because modern humans - and before that, the ancestors of humans - almost certainly originated in Ethiopia. 🇪🇹 (sub-thread):


The first likely historical reference to Ethiopia is ancient Egyptian records of trade expeditions to the "Land of Punt" in search of gold, ebony, ivory, incense, and wild animals, starting in c 2500 BC 🇪🇹


Ethiopians themselves believe that the Queen of Sheba, who visited Israel's King Solomon in the Bible (c 950 BC), came from Ethiopia (not Yemen, as others believe). Here she is meeting Solomon in a stain-glassed window in Addis Ababa's Holy Trinity Church. 🇪🇹


References to the Queen of Sheba are everywhere in Ethiopia. The national airline's frequent flier miles are even called "ShebaMiles". 🇪🇹
CULTURE
Anu Satheesh \U0001f1ee\U0001f1f3
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Chennimalai Murugan Kovil
#Erode
#TamilNaduTemples 🚩

Chennimalai Murugan Temple is located  near Perunthurai in Erode District. Murugan is worshipped here as Dandayudapani. Temple is situated on the banks of Noyyal river also called Kanchima Nadhi. Temple is situated in a hill


Sthala Puranam says that, there lived a Landlord who had many cows in his farm. One among them was a Black Cow, which didn't give milk. Land lord observed that evening time, when all the cows came back after grazing, this cow used to go to a particular spot and gave all  the milk


by itself. He decided to dig the spot where the cow gave its milk

On digging a beautiful Vigraham of Murugan was found, but lower portion was very rough. So he called a great sculptor to soften it. Everyone was shocked to see that on the first chisel the vigraham bleeded.


Land lord realized that Murugan wanted the Vigraham the way it was.

Thus Prathishta was done on Chennimalai hill. It is believed that Sivalaya Chola got relieved from his Brahmahatti Dosha here. Kanda Shasti Kavacham was first offered here.

Muruganukku Haro Hara
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Patrick McKenzie
Patrick McKenzie
@patio11
Some people really benefit from hearing advice that everyone knows, for the same reason we keep schools open despite every subject in them having been taught before.

In that spirit, here's some quick Things Many People Find Too Obvious To Have Told You Already.

Your idea is not valuable, at all. All value is in the execution. You think you are an exception; you are not. You should not insist on an NDA to talk about it; nobody serious will engage in contract review over an idea, and this will mark you as clueless.

Technologists tend to severely underestimate the difficulty and expense of creating software, especially at companies which do not have fully staffed industry leading engineering teams ("because software is so easy there, amirite guys?")

Charge more. Charge more still. Go on.

The press is a lossy and biased compression of events in the actual world, and is singularly consumed with its own rituals, status games, and incentives. The news necessarily fails to capture almost everything which happened yesterday. What it says is important usually isn't.

Companies find it incredibly hard to reliably staff positions with hard-working generalists who operate autonomously and have high risk tolerances. This is not the modal employee, including at places which are justifiably proud of the skill/diligence/etc of their employees.
TECH