So gutting the IRS is a massive efficiency maneuver, but only if the system you are trying to optimize is the further redistribution of wealth from the poorest to the richest of the American people.
But wealth inequality in America is extremely high -- 1% of Americans control 21% of the wealth (Madison Trust). The IRS collects taxes and investigates tax fraud. Who is most likely to commit tax fraud ? Not the person pulling minimum wage, that's for sure.
Take the IRS. A core MAGA argument is that the government, and not the inequitable distribution of wealth, is what’s keeping the common person down. Taxes take our money, and spend it on people we don’t care about. (Who are those people we don’t care about, by the way, if not our neighbors?).
“More efficient” means better; as in works better. This *can* result in savings. But if you measure efficiency only by cost, not function, you actually render the system more inefficient. In fact, it may no longer work at all. This may be the real point of the DOGE.
I see lots of people protesting the current administration, but promising common ground on the point that the government needs to be smaller and more efficient. I think this is a mistake. Here's why :
Potatoes, lettuce, beets, Choi, kale, peas. Soil temp is 50 degrees, let’s do this!
And if dreams were thunder…
My kid: if I wasn’t radicalized before, I sure as hell am now.
Me: WORD.
My 85 yr old dad : “I know it’s terrible, but what can we do. [kid] is just gonna have to grow a thicker skin.”
RN.
Just cancelled my subscription to the WAPost and switched my primary credit card away from Amazon. On the hunt for more ways to stop financing the steal.
Please tell me what happens
IG just convinced me that I need to rewatch the west wing for my (fantasy) mental health.
Just set up a recurring donation to... the Internet Archive. The Wayback machine will soon be the only source of CDC information. It won't be updated -- but it's still there.
So Kruegman is leaving the NYT because... unlike the WP which openly caved to pressure, the NYT has apparently been diluting the special sauce for the last six months. And here I thought I knew which one I respected. contrarian.substack.com?r=22n80&utm_...
I updated my operating system and now my computer is trying to AI every single damn thing I do. It's like auto-complete on steroids, not sure I'm a fan.
I’m still feeling out what it is, not liking it 100% yet.
You might set up a rotation schedule for some routes — you often go at the same time of day and you often take photos. That could result in a sort of time lapse portrait of place, with only a very small diff from what you already do.
PSS- a student asked me “but.. how would you use that in a sentence?” Response : “Mais comment est-ce qu’on va faire pour défucker tout ça?” Universal adoption.
PS—Note that really, “fuckage” should be feminine, according to convention. Work in progress.
But then I pointed out that these same structures and patterns are what we use when we borrow from another language. So…
So I ditched the book for a hot minute and we started with an old standard. Merde. La merde. Merder. Emmerder. Emmerdeur, and the feminine form of course, emmerdeuse. Merdique.
Teaching a class under the new regime on nominalisation — how to turn a verb into a noun, a noun into a verb, etc. How the fuckety do you talk about grammar when the sky is burning?
It never did stop. I locked it in my office until the battery ran down. My students were delighted with my vocabulary. Fortunately, I teach at university level, and I can say those words if I want.
It was alerting, flashing, beeping, all the drama. The message: “ You appear to have suffered a severe fall. Should I call 911? Enter YOUR CODE to cancel.” 🙄.
… when I was teaching a class on Improv theater. We did a warm up exercise that involved dying dramatically. Which I did. Very dramatically. And my watch completely lost its shit.
I was gifted an Apple Watch, and hey, why not, I set it up… and promptly forgot my code. No problem — it unlocks when my phone is nearby, and when is THAT not true? Until yesterday …
