Wrestleknownothing

Just read that the next round of votes will not begin until this afternoon at the earliest. I guess that means I will have to do some work in the meantime.

How long did you stretch that shoulder before patting yourself on the back? If you're not careful, this is how injuries happen.

Directly correlated to the number of times the facts change.

Love it. I forgot about Cliff Diving from Acapulco.

Oh, I agree, but like I said, ya gotta do the right thing.

They used to show it on WW of S when I was little. Had a chance to go to Ireland as an adult for family vaca and the ONLY thing I wanted was to see hurling at Croke Park. Of course, it was the off season.

While I wasn't really looking for a homework assignment, I kinda knew we would wind up here: The president said the humanitarian aid would be delivered via U.N. agencies and international NGOs, and he warned Hamas not to commandeer the supplies, a common occurrence in Gaza. Supplies typically refer to food, water, and medicine. Not dollars. Of course there is massive risk of the supplies being stolen, but you can't let that stop you from doing the right thing. And none of this happens without Egypt and Israel's participation given their absolute and complete control over access to Gaza and the West Bank.

Fantastic idea. Bring on the hurling too.

That is just false.

Sounds hard: Classical breeding relies largely on homologous recombination between chromosomes to generate genetic diversity. The classical plant breeder may also make use of a number of in vitro techniques such as protoplast fusion, embryo rescue or mutagenesis (see below) to generate diversity and produce hybrid plants that would not exist in nature.

Why do the monkeys always get it after tons of attempts? If it is random why not on the first attempt? I think it is time to acquire some monkeys and some typewriters. I worry that it may be harder to get the typewriters.

Indeed. Very niche. But that is how it starts. Define a single problem to solve. Fail a whole bunch of times, before you finally succeed (if you succeed). Take what you learn there and apply to another problem. Do it with enough problems and you might have more generalized solutions, too.

Historically, I have been of the same view. Less action from the government costs me less money. The new dynamic now, though, is the silliness that is very serious of the debt limit and voting to fund the government. All it does is create unnecessary drama and cost tax payers money. It is all very Dwight Schrute Doomsday Device-y.

Congressional Republicans seem hell bent on demonstrating their inability to complete the most basic administrative functions of government, never mind competently doing the people's business. Will their teen-like addiction to drama cost them with voters? Is there and unintended consequence at the ballot box causing moderate voters to walk away from Republican candidates?

I worry about Stanford BECAUSE they landed in the ACC. Their travel expenses will skyrocket at the same time their income will dwindle given the TV rights deal they got with the ACC.

The Athletic has a story today about AI and football that is worth a read.

I wasn't sure if McCarthy ever went backward though, so I looked it up. And he did. He started with 19 no votes, stayed there for three more rounds before it grew to 21 no votes. That lasted at least through round eight. By round twelve he was down to 7 no votes. Round fourteen got him one shy.

22 no votes, up from 20 in spite of gaining 2. Bit of a gut punch for Jordan. Clearly, whatever tactics he employed overnight and into this morning were counter-productive. He has not appeared to be someone who can adjust his tactics in the past. He found something that worked for him and he stuck with it. I do not think he has the ability to zig when zagging does not work.

Let's talk about the deficit and whether it is a bi-partisan issue, a Democrat issue, or a Republican issue. Trigger warning: @Offthemat this will require some nuance. I know that is not your safe place. Only 4 of the last 14 Presidents have run a surplus in a given year. Harry Truman (D) did it in 4 of 8 years. Dwight Eisenhower (R) did it in 3 of 8 years. Lyndon Johnson (D) did it in 2 of 6 years. Bill Clinton (D) did it in 4 of 8 years. Only Harry Truman (D) and Bill Clinton (D) have run a net surplus over the entire term of their presidency. Harry Truman did it by cutting taxes and slashing spending. Bill Clinton did it by raising taxes and cutting spending. Our last two Presidents, Donald Trump (R) and Joe Biden (D) have run the largest deficits in recent history. No one can look at that first chart and argue that our current level of federal spending is appropriate. It really needs to be under 18% of GDP. It is currently at 24.5% of GDP. That is a substantial gap. Taxes at 18.9% of GDP are high enough to balance a budget and do not need to go any higher. There are no clean hands here, but it is true that the Republicans have historically run larger deficits than Democrats. Caveat: my data does not include Roosevelt's New Deal, but that only increases the Democrat deficit to -3.7% of GDP. And removing both Trump and Biden only closes the gap (-3.0% for D, -3.5% for R). The issue is bi-partisan. They are all over-spending my money. Aligning yourself so hard right makes you blind to how Republicans do it. Aligning yourself so hard left blinds you blind to how Democrats do it. But make no mistake, they both do it.

On the plus side Jordan moved one of yesterdays no votes to yes, and one absent to yes. On the minus side he appears on pace for more than 20 no votes.

Up to 17 defections with vote still ongoing Lee Zeldin is gaining momentum. Up to 3 votes.

Looks like we are getting round 3 as there are already 5 GOP defections. I blame the Democrats.