History

The last Federal budget with 13 appropriations and authorization bills - not continuing resolution - passed by Congress was for fiscal year 1996.

That's 29 years ago.

2/2

— Trent Telenko (@TrentTelenko) June 18, 2025

 

An Insight

Brilliant point: Might Christianity have been selected for over time to implicitly convey to us deep sociopolitical truths that we’re terrible at thinking through? https://t.co/BABMTJtWgH

— Mark Changizi (@MarkChangizi) July 11, 2025

 

An Insight

Reading your piece today made me think that the people active in Dem donor/pundit circles largely just don’t approve of the consumption choices and lifestyles of the voters who have drifted away from Dems.

— Conor Sen (@conorsen) June 17, 2025

 

I see wonderful things

On the edge of the world in Norway, the spectacular Prekestolen, or 'Pulpit Rock', rises 604 metres (1,982 ft) above a fog-filled Lysefjorden.

📽: pilotviking/igpic.twitter.com/jPW1Dy1olS

— Wonder of Science (@wonderofscience) March 13, 2025

 

Offbeat Humor

Never leave your kids with men 🤣 pic.twitter.com/pdGEQmKU4s

— NO CONTEXT HUMANS (@HumansNoContext) June 18, 2025

 

Data Talks

Jeff Bezos recounts the time he called Amazon’s customer service number mid-meeting to prove a metric was wrong

In the clip below, Jeff tells a story from the early days of Amazon when their metrics said customers waited less than 60 seconds after calling customer service. Yet… pic.twitter.com/ae4hbBvuwG

— Startup Archive (@StartupArchive_) June 19, 2025

 

East River from the Shelton (East River No. 1), 1927 by Georgia O’Keeffe

East River from the Shelton (East River No. 1), 1927 by Georgia O’Keeffe (America, 1887-1986)

Click to enlarge.

A Notre Dame-SMU football game

From The Friars Club Encyclopedia of Jokes by H. Aaron Cohl.

An atheist is a guy who watches a Notre Dame-SMU football game and doesn't care who wins.   

-  Dwight D. Eisenhower

History

Portrait of a Poet, "The Arundel Head". Bronze and copper, 200-1 B.C., Greek pic.twitter.com/6xTQWq1Rmn

— Ghost of Hellas (@ghostofhellas) June 11, 2025

 

 

An Insight

Marc Andreessen: if you're the parents of a smart kid where I grew up [rural Wisconsin] and you think you're going to get them into a top university in this country, you're fooling yourself...

What level of untapped talent exists in this country that a combination of DEI and… pic.twitter.com/qEqtUR0SwS

— American Optimist (@AmOptimistShow) July 11, 2025

 

An Insight

“We know what a world without fossil fuels looks like; we used to live in it. It was cold, poor, dark, ignorant, starving and backwards.”

– Dr. @RossMcKitrick pic.twitter.com/Z3L6L9Q4YE

— Chris Martz (@ChrisMartzWX) June 16, 2025

 

I see wonderful things

For over a year we shared the same riverbank. Every day my male mute swan friend swam alone as I walked alongside him. Not a word was uttered, but much was said

I always hoped, as did he, that one day he would not swim alone. We are still friends, but he now keeps his distance pic.twitter.com/d4F6JyAU3O

— The English Oak Project (@TheKentAcorn) June 18, 2025

 

Children and pets and the substitution effect and Baumol effect

An interesting post from several perspectives.  From The Rising Cost of Child and Pet Day Care by Alex Tabarrok.  

Part of the discussion relates to the Baumol Effect.  

In economics, the Baumol effect, also known as Baumol's cost disease, first described by William J. Baumol and William G. Bowen in the 1960s, is the tendency for wages in jobs that have experienced little or no increase in labor productivity to rise in response to rising wages in other jobs that did experience high productivity growth. In turn, these sectors of the economy become more expensive over time, because the input costs increase while productivity does not. Typically, this affects services more than manufactured goods, and in particular health, education, arts and culture.

Like the idea of comparative advantage where "countries engage in international trade even when one country's workers are more efficient at producing every single good than workers in other countries", the Baumol Effect is somewhat counterintuitive.  

Tabarrok starts with:

Everyone talks about the soaring cost of child care (e.g. here, here and here), but have you looked at the soaring cost of pet care? On a recent trip, it cost me about $82 per day to board my dog (a bit less with multi-day discounts). And no, that is not high for northern VA and that price does not include any fancy options or treats! Doggie boarding costs about about the same as staying in a Motel 6.

He then compares the cost of child care and the cost of pet care, two radically different industries from a regulatory and market factor perspective. 

Pet care is less regulated than child care, but it too is subject to the Baumol effect. So how do price trends compare? Are they radically different or surprisingly similar? Here are the two raw price trends for pet services (CUUR0000SS62053) and for (child) Day care and preschool (CUUR0000SEEB03). Pet services covers boarding, daycare, pet sitting, walking, obedience training, grooming but veterinary care is excluded from this series so it is comparable to that for child care. 

Well, that's interesting.

Over 26 years, the real (relative) price of Day Care and Preschool has increased 36%, while Pet Services have risen 28%. If regulation doesn’t explain the rise in pet care costs–and it probably doesn’t–then regulation probably doesn’t explain the rise in child care costs either. After all, child and pet care are very similar goods!

If you are sensing the Baumol Effect vibrations, you aren't wrong.

The similar rise in the price of child day care and pet day care/boarding is consistent with Is American Pet Health Care (Also) Uniquely Inefficient? by Einav, Finkelstein and Gupta, who find that spending on veterinary care is rising at about the same rate as spending on human health care. Since the regulatory systems of pet and human health care are very different this suggests that the fundamental reason for rising health care isn’t regulation but rising relative prices and increasing incomes (fyi this is also an important reason why Americans spend more on health care than Europeans).

Thus, my explanation for rising prices in child care and pet care is that productivity is increasing in other industries more than in the care industries which means that over time we must give up more of other goods to get child and pet care. In short, if productivity in other sectors rises while child/pet care productivity stays flat, relative prices must rise. Another way to put this is that to retain workers, wages in stagnant-productivity sectors must rise to match those in (equally labor-skilled) high-productivity sectors. That means paying more for the same level of care, simply to keep the labor force from leaving

But rising productivity in other sectors is good! Thus, I always refer to the Baumol effect rather than the “cost disease” because higher prices are not bad when they reflect changes in relative prices. As with education and health care the rising price of child and pet care isn’t a problem for society as whole. We are richer and can afford more of all goods. It can be a problem, however, for people who consume more than the average quantities of the service-sector goods and people who have lower than average wage gains. 

Some interesting discussion follows as to whether this is even a problem, and if it is, what might be done about it.

And oddly, Tabarrok resists the urge to get into a conversation about the sociological substitution effects of children and pets ("fur babies").  If pets are a modern neat substitute for children among an increasing sector of society, then perhaps the parallel rise in pet care costs are not so surprising.  But that is a different post.

The Politics of Small Business Owners

From The Politics of Small Business Owners by Neil Malhotra, Yotam Margalit, and Saikun Shi.  From the Abstract.

Small business owners play a central role in all advanced economies. Nonetheless, they are an understudied occupational group politically, particularly compared to groups that represent smaller portions of the population (e.g., union members, manufacturing workers). We conduct a detailed investigation of the politics of small business owners and offer new insight into the evolving role of education, class, and occupation in electoral politics. Leveraging diverse sources of data – representative surveys from around the world, campaign finance records, voter files, and a first-of-its-kind, bespoke survey of small business owners – we find consistent evidence that small business owners are more likely to identify with and vote for right-wing parties. We find that this tendency cannot be fully explained by factors that cause people to select into being small business owners. Rather, we identify a key operational channel: the experience of being a small business owner leads people to adopt conservative views on government regulation.

Offbeat Humor

pic.twitter.com/PrE0qUKqNs

— Niccolò Machiavelli | The Prince ⚔️ (@NiccoloDaily) June 17, 2025

 

Data Talks

OK, not even sure where to begin with this one! But here's an attempt at a deeper dive at understanding why conservatives are so much happier than liberals. Mostly looking at how persistent the gap is in survey data rather than extrapolating too much. pic.twitter.com/qV59d3kxuJ

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) June 18, 2025

 

The Visible World, 1947 by René Magritte

The Visible World, 1947 by René Magritte (Belgium, 1898-1967)

Click to enlarge.

Why don't they just get taller girls?

From The Friars Club Encyclopedia of Jokes by H. Aaron Cohl.

You got to the ballet and you see girls dancing on their tiptoes.  Why don't they just get taller girls?

Evolution and the slow emergence of ovine aviation

Years ago, we were warned of the dangers of Harold, the clever sheep and the prospects of ovine aviation.

And now, the prophecy has come to pass.

Sheep gets stuck in tire swing pic.twitter.com/ezlwbuylJ0

— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) July 29, 2025

 

Cash isn't the missing ingredient.

From Study May Undercut Idea That Cash Payments to Poor Families Help Child Development by Jason DeParle.  The subheading is Rigorous new research appears to show that monthly checks intended to help disadvantaged children did little for their well-being, adding a new element to a dispute over expanded government aid.

If the government wants poor children to thrive, it should give their parents money. That simple idea has propelled an avid movement to send low-income families regular payments with no strings attached.

Significant but indirect evidence has suggested that unconditional cash aid would help children flourish. But now a rigorous experiment, in a more direct test, found that years of monthly payments did nothing to boost children’s well-being, a result that defied researchers’ predictions and could weaken the case for income guarantees.

After four years of payments, children whose parents received $333 a month from the experiment fared no better than similar children without that help, the study found. They were no more likely to develop language skills, avoid behavioral problems or developmental delays, demonstrate executive function or exhibit brain activity associated with cognitive development.

“I was very surprised — we were all very surprised,” said Greg J. Duncan, an economist at the University of California, Irvine and one of six researchers who led the study, called Baby’s First Years. “The money did not make a difference.”

Lots of substance in the reporting.  It does appear to be rigorously designed, 1,000 participants, randomly assigned treatments, pre-published measures, multiple locations (four, New York, New Orleans, greater Omaha and Minneapolis-St. Paul), etc.  

The general explanation in the reporting (and in the NYT comments) is that $333 a month was insufficient to make a difference.  DeParle does a good job, though, of conveying how perplexing these results are to both the researchers and to those involved in the issue.  

The researchers specified in advance seven measures on which they thought children in high-cash families would outperform the others. But after four years they found no group differences on any of the yardsticks, which aimed for a comprehensive look at child development.

Children in the families getting the higher cash payments did no better on tests of vocabulary, executive function, pre-literacy skills or spatial perception. Their mothers did not rank them more highly on assessments of social and emotional behavior. And they were no more likely than the children in the low-cash group to avoid chronic health conditions like asthma.

Mothers in the high-cash group did spend about 5 percent more time on learning and enrichment activities, such as reading or playing with their children. They also spent about $68 a month more than the low-cash mothers on child-related goods, like toys, books and clothing.

It is possible that with a longer time lens, after more time has elapsed, that later positive impacts will emerge which are not currently detectable.  "The payments continued for more than six years, and future analyses will examine the longer-range effect."  

What was striking to me is that this follows the pattern of so much social policy.  An idea makes intuitive sense, we start funding experimental projects, then deploy more broadly and only eventually start measuring impacts and results.  And only much later do we start designing rigorous reviews.  

And every time we get around to the rigorous review, the sought for benefits disappear.  They don't exist.  Think of Head Start and its variations.  Thirty or forty years now, widely deployed in many states, costing billions of dollars and with much support.  But after many years, we eventually discovered that in every variation in all states - Head Start made no difference to educational outcomes.  

Unrestricted cash support would seem like an obvious and easy solution.  And it appears not to work. 

Extra and earlier educational support would seem like an obvious and easy solution.  And it appears not to work. 

The more rigorous the review, the less evidence of benefit there is.  

Systemic constraints don't seem to be the root cause they have been made out to be, pushing the discussion more towards values, behaviors, and capabilities.  I wonder if anyone has ever looked at Gregory Clark's work as a source for ideas which might inform social policy today and which might have a demonstrable base of what works.  

History

The clicking of violet trams along the sea-front among the tatting of palm-fronds.

The very names of the tram stops echoed the poetry of these journeys: Chatby, Camp de César, Laurens, Mazarita, Glymenopoulos, Sidi Bishr. . . .

— Lawrence Durrell

Alexandria pic.twitter.com/YIEHp1S78H

— Durrell Society (@DurrellSociety) June 18, 2025

 

An Insight

Much like how Scott Gottlieb was often identified in the media as a former FDA Commissioner, but rarely as a Pfizer board member, Randi Weingarten was always listed as president of the AFT teachers union, but was rarely (if ever) identified as a powerful member of the DNC. https://t.co/xFl6YG6L3G

— Kelley K (@KelleyKga) June 16, 2025

 

I see wonderful things

BREAKING 🚨: Honda successfully launched and landed its own reusable rocket

It flew for almost a full minute and reached an altitude of 890 feet before landing within 14 inches of its target pic.twitter.com/gKpZlXODYh

— Latest in space (@latestinspace) June 18, 2025

 

Offbeat Humor

G.K. Chesterton on his upbringing, his father Edward and mother Marie. pic.twitter.com/8iuiqqhHnZ

— Wrath Of Gnon (@wrathofgnon) June 17, 2025

 

Data Talks

The U.S. Navy faces multiple global threats with an aging fleet. The Navy has been unable to build ships fast enough to replace retiring vessels. @brentdsadler #USNavy pic.twitter.com/CvrW1OpWtj

— Heritage DataViz (@HeritageDataViz) June 12, 2025

 

Dreaming figure in a boat, under a stormy sky, by Robert Knoebel

Dreaming figure in a boat, under a stormy sky, by Robert Knoebel (Germany, 1874-1924)

Click to enlarge.

My Sad Captains by Thom Gunn

My Sad Captains

by Thom Gunn

One by one they appear in

the darkness: a few friends, and

a few with historical

names. How late they start to shine!

but before they fade they stand

perfectly embodied, all

the past lapping them like a

cloak of chaos. They were men

who, I thought, lived only to

renew the wasteful force they

spent with each hot convulsion.

They remind me, distant now.

True, they are not at rest yet,

but now they are indeed

apart, winnowed from failures,

they withdraw to an orbit

and turn with disinterested

hard energy, like the stars.

I'd object too

From The Friars Club Encyclopedia of Jokes by H. Aaron Cohl.

I saw some things at the auction labeled, "Art Objects."  Considering what they looked like, I'd object too.

History

Mycenaean daggers/swords, 16th - 14th century BC. National Archaeological Museum, Athens-Greece pic.twitter.com/oxDkRmcp4F

— Ghost of Hellas (@ghostofhellas) June 14, 2025

 

An Insight

Secularism is a failure.

It failed to preserve Western traditions and culture.

It failed to protect reason from postmodernist relativism.

It failed to prevent the onslaught of Islamism within our own borders.

Time to get back to church.#SundayThought

— Alice Smith (@TheAliceSmith) June 15, 2025

 

I see wonderful things

Timelapse of a sea cucumber feeding.

📽: BBC/Blue Planet IIpic.twitter.com/HqjgG4RcwD

— Wonder of Science (@wonderofscience) March 12, 2025

 

Offbeat Humor

More than 100 economists warn electing Milei would spell "devastation" for their credibility https://t.co/bjcJxsDNpJ

— TracingWoodgrains (@tracewoodgrains) June 17, 2025

 

Near useless reporting

President Trump has been the necessary catalyst to disrupt and hopefully unseat the chattering class and their associated fancies (such as DEI, ESG, Social Justice Theory, Intersectionality, Critical Race Theory, etc.)   Thank goodness the journey has begun.  

The legacy mainstream media such as The New York Times is all in a flutter as their gravy train is disassembled.  They are adamantly opposed to everything the administration does, consistently bad-mouthing actions and denigrating outcomes.  Other outlets are far more supportive, such as the New York Post.  

What we as reading citizens want is some accurate reporting of events, regardless of party and opposition or support.

Today's example is the US-EU trade deal signed over the weekend.  The New York Post has:  

Trump strikes ‘biggest deal ever made’ with EU: Europeans will buy $750M in US energy, invest $600B after meeting with prez By Ryan King.  BTW - that is actually 750 billion of energy as the body of the article confirms.  

Very Ra Ra.  Seems like a major accomplishment with lots of upside.  Good for the US economy.

Or is it?  The New York Times is far more circumspect.

Europe Accepts a Trump Trade Deal With Other Worries in Mind by Jim Tankersley.  The subheading is even more downbeat:  The framework agreement will likely not do much for economic growth on either side. But it avoids new fissures on other foreign policy issues, particularly the war in Ukraine.

Should we be celebrating or ignoring the signed deal?  The Sun says celebrate and the Times says ignore.  Which is it?

I don't know but I am frustrated by the poor reporting by both outlets.   I am prepared to be believe that any one particular Trump deal may be more or less beneficial to the nation in the short term while in aggregate they are likely to be strategically important for long term growth.  

Is this a good deal?  Don't know.  But is useful to recall Thomas Sowell in this interview.  

I’ve often said there are three questions that would destroy most of the arguments on the left.

The first is: ‘Compared to what?’

The second is: ‘At what cost?’

And the third is: ‘What hard evidence do you have?’

Now there are very few ideas on the left that can pass all of those…”

Forget the left-right aspect.  For any proposed change, these are three critical questions.  To which I would add a fourth, Cui bono?

Compared to what?

At what cost?

What hard evidence do you have?

Cui bono?

In this instance,  $600 billion in investments and $750 billion in energy purchases, compared to what?  How much does Europe currently invest and how much does Europe currently buy?  $600 and $750 billion are meaningless without some sort of comparative basis and context.  Maybe this are meaningfully beneficial agreements, maybe not.  We don't know from the Post's reporting.

Meantime, over at the hangdog New York Times, there is all sorts of nuance and doubt and balance.  Instead of reporting on whether the deal is good for America (Post's approach) the Times is focused on whether the deal is good for Europe.  An interesting alternative.  And unlike the Post, there are no numbers in this reporting.  

Further down in the New York Times there is another article on the same trade deal.

Trump and the E.U. Have a Blueprint for a Giant Trade Deal. Is it Good for Europe? by Jeanna Smialek.  The subheading is Both sides hailed the agreement as the biggest ever. But it will come at a cost to the European Union, and many details have yet to be nailed down.

This also takes the European perspective.  They are reporting on the same trade deal and from the same perspective.  Why two articles?  

This one does actually have some numbers and does raise what I consider the most important concern.

Those are big headline numbers, even if they will be spread out over time. Ms. von der Leyen said that the energy purchases will occur over three years. In other words, $250 billion would be spent for each remaining year of Mr. Trump’s presidential term. That would amount to a substantial chunk of Europe’s energy spending.

For context, the European Union imported 375.9 billion euros ($442 billion) worth of liquefied natural gas, petroleum, and natural gas products in 2024. The new commitment would also include nuclear-related investments, which are not included in that figure.

But when it comes to both energy purchases and the broader investment pledges, spending would come from European member states. Such purchases are typically not something that the European Union as a bloc has power over. Given that, it is not clear how binding those pledges would be — or even how they would be tracked.

With so many uncertainties, business groups were hesitant to give the package an immediate endorsement.

At least the NYT raises what I think are important concerns.  Seems to me that this deal is more window-dressing than it is substantive.  But again, what do I know?  

I am left with what seems to be a large trade deal important to both the US and Europe without any real empirical or objective reporting of how and why it is important, particularly when considering the alternatives (compared to what?), how much it will cost and what evidence we have to believe that the commitments will eventuate.

Empty press release journalism on both sides of the partisan debate.  Near useless.

Data Talks

3 zones of the world without any flights, today. pic.twitter.com/LIxwJEL5w7

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) June 18, 2025

 

Preparing for the Bath, 1900 by John William Godward

Preparing for the Bath, 1900 by John William Godward (England, 1861-1922)

Click to enlarge.

The future arrives today

From The Friars Club Encyclopedia of Jokes by H. Aaron Cohl.

The penniless artist was cornered by her landlord, who demanded several months of back rent.

"Just think," the artist pleaded, "some day tourists will be pointing at this building and say, 'The great painter Susan Krechevsky used to live her.'"

The landlord shrugged.  "And if you don't pay up, they can come by tomorrow and say that."

History

Hathor ("mistress of the sky") is seen welcoming Seti I ('Lord of Eternity') to the beforelife with a protective menat
Click to expand pic.twitter.com/ggSlA4FvIw

— Nephthys (@EarthTime) June 16, 2025

 

An Insight

undisputed American cultural hegemony is European countries with kings having "no kings" protests bc the American left is upset with their president https://t.co/LnMyhp9xNU

— spor (@sporadicalia) June 14, 2025

 

I see wonderful things

Valley of the kings, Luxor, Egypt 🇪🇬 #ancientegypt pic.twitter.com/SH1TPLBhdy

— Ancient Egypt (@ancientegypteg) June 16, 2025

 

Offbeat Humor

lmaoooo this just gets better as it goes on https://t.co/ES4obgUJVD

— LB (@beyondreasdoubt) June 16, 2025

 

Data Talks

Innovation in the modern era—the Industrial and Scientific Revolutions—were products of a small region of geographic space. To this day, patent production remains concentrated in the same places in Europe.

The NW European offshoots, particularly the United States, continued… pic.twitter.com/HH9NvIfcP1

— JayMan (@JayMan471) December 19, 2024

 

Data Talks

Going from 10:1 to a 2:1 artillery ratio against the largest artillery force in the world is insanely impressive.

It’s impressive that Ukraine survived and improved, and impressive that eventually, NATO-suppliers began prioritizing artillery production for the first time in… https://t.co/Nsr0fulGYJ

— CJ (@CasualArtyFan) June 18, 2025

 

Manhattan in the Moonlight by Jenness Cortez

Manhattan in the Moonlight by Jenness Cortez (America)

Click to enlarge.

Wave in Backlight by Peter Witt

Wave in Backlight by Peter Witt (German, 1966 - )

Click to enlarge.

Someone who lies awake all night

From The Friars Club Encyclopedia of Jokes by H. Aaron Cohl.

What do you get when you cross an insomniac, an agnostic, and a dyslexic?

Someone who lies awake all night wondering if there really is a Dog.

12% of adults can read long and dense texts presented on multiple pages in order to complete tasks that involve access, understanding, evaluation and reflection about the text(s) contents

From College English majors can't read by Kitten.  The subheading is They have one job and they can't do it.

Most educational essays lamenting the decline or low standards of student capability often feel like they are working to establish a hierarchy and intellectual pecking order with the author above the subjects.  

But there are profound concerns about how well are our universities generating new knowledge, transmitting from one generation to another our accumulated body of knowledge and wisdom, and imparting to students the cognitive skills that will allow them to function well in an increasingly complex and changing set of systems.  

Kitten escapes being the old man complaining about these new generations of kids who aren't very good at what they do by focusing very empirically on the actual research and measures.  And it is indeed concerning.

The reality is that we, in our prosperity, have made a university education available to an ever greater percentage of the population than we were ever able to do in the past.  Where in the past perhaps 5% went off to college, and not infrequently the cognitively most capable 5%, nowadays 61% enroll in college.  Many attend subpar universities.  Or take unchallenging degrees.  Or fail out.  

But necessarily, the mean performance of 61% of the population will be lower than the performance of the prior reasonably top 5%.  Of course professors will be disappointed in the performance of students today.

And it isn't necessarily a bad thing.  We don't know whether 5% is the optimal attendance rate, or 10% or 20% or 30% or what.  Its more than 5% and probably less than 60%.  And certainly we should be doing a better job of channeling kids into programs and degrees which will allow them to achieve their greatest degree of productivity rather than indulging in feel good courses that cost them far more than they will ever be able to afford.

Kitten is reporting on some research and it is profoundly interesting.  Go to the source for all the supporting links.  

Last month, we were discussing what functional literacy means and how many of us qualify. The excerpt below is about the sliding literacy scale defined by the PIAAC, and what it means to score 4 out of 5.

At level 4, adults can read long and dense texts presented on multiple pages in order to complete tasks that involve access, understanding, evaluation and reflection about the text(s) contents … Successful task completion often requires the production of knowledge-based inferences. Texts and tasks at Level 4 may deal with abstract and unfamiliar situations. They often feature both lengthy contents and a large amount of distracting information, which is sometimes as prominent as the information required to complete the task. At this level, adults are able to reason based on intrinsically complex questions that share only indirect matches with the text contents, and/or require taking into consideration several pieces of information dispersed throughout the materials.

To me this pretty precisely captures the task of reading and discussing literature as one might reasonably be expected to do in a college course.

How many US adults score at literacy level 4 or higher? About 12%, or 1 in 8.

She then goes into the details of a recent study.

This is the subject of a recently released study making waves in the education world. Researchers decided to sit with current college English majors and see how much they understood of what they read. They chose a very challenging text for the modern student, Bleak House by Dickens. Specifically, the first seven paragraphs. 

The results are appalling.  

We placed the 85 subjects from both universities into three categories of readers: problematic, competent, and proficient. A summary of our major conclusions gives some basic data for our ensuing discussion:

* 58 percent (49 of 85 subjects) understood so little of the introduction to Bleak House that they would not be able to read the novel on their own. However, these same subjects (defined in the study as problematic readers) also believed they would have no problem reading the rest of the 900-page novel.

* 38 percent (or 32 of the 85 subjects) could understand more vocabulary and figures of speech than the problematic readers. These competent readers, however, could interpret only about half of the literal prose in the passage.

* Only 5 percent (4 of the 85 subjects) had a detailed, literal understanding of the first paragraphs of Bleak House.

The researchers go into detail which takes this above the "Kids today . . . " kind of criticism.

Here is one example of a problematic reader, an English major.

These are college students majoring in English. About half of them are English Education majors, which means they will be teaching books like Bleak House to high school students after graduating. But they themselves cannot understand the literal meaning of the sentences in the opening paragraphs.

What do we mean that they can’t understand the sentences? It’s best illustrated with an example.

Original Text:

As much mud in the streets, as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill.

Subject:

[Pause.] [Laughs.] So it’s like, um, [Pause.] the mud was all in the streets, and we were, no . . . [Pause.] so everything’s been like kind of washed around and we might find Megalosaurus bones but he’s says they’re waddling, um, all up the hill.

The subject cannot make the leap to figurative language. She first guesses that the dinosaur is just “bones” and then is stuck stating that the bones are “waddling, um, all up the hill” because she can see that Dickens has the dinosaur moving. Because she cannot logically tie the ideas together, she just leaves her interpretation as is and goes on to the next sentence. Like this subject, most of the problematic readers were not concerned if their literal translations of Bleak House were not coherent, so obvious logical errors never seemed to affect them. In fact, none of the readers in this category ever questioned their own interpretations of figures of speech, no matter how irrational the results. Worse, their inability to understand figurative language was constant, even though most of the subjects had spent at least two years in literature classes that discussed figures of speech.

OK.  We went from 5% to 60% and that is probably too many.  Or more accurately, we are not doing a good enough job of matching everyone so that their capability is appropriate to the course of study which allows them to be their most effective or productive selves.

But the more interesting aspect, to me, of Kitten's essay is the light it shines on the mismatch between people at different class levels.   Universities are no longer sending clear signals.  An average person who cannot comprehend what is being communicated in the first few paragraphs fo Bleak House is not especially concerning.  Dickens isn't everyones cup of tea, nor is fiction, nor is 19th century fiction.

But an English major not being able to comprehend?  Read the whole essay for the details.  It is fascinating what people miss in a text that most top notch cognitive people assume to be transparent.  

Old fashioned humor

Heh.

Picked up a copy of The Friars Club Encyclopedia of Jokes by H. Aaron Cohl.  It is exactly as described and the only distinguishing thing is that it was published in 1997, just as wokedom was rising.  It contains classes of jokes I haven't heard in years.  

What's a WASP's idea of open-mindedness?

Dating a Canadian.

Leafing through, a number of guffaw-worthy jokes.

If you don't go to people's funerals, they won't come to yours.

I think I am going to enjoy this.

History

#OTD in 1602, having explored and named Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, and the Elizabeth Islands on a bark named Concord, Bartholomew Gosnold set sail to return to England.https://t.co/wWXTYULzjn

— TheHistoryOfTheAmericans (@TheHistoryOfTh2) June 18, 2025

 

An Insight

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn gave the commencement speech at Harvard in 1978 titled “A World Split Apart” and said the following: pic.twitter.com/PYWqT9xNHo

— Kristin M. Collier, MD (@HSRdirector) June 14, 2025

 

I see wonderful things

These AI celebrity videos are a weirdly effective way to learn new concepts.

And insanely viral - this one has 5M views in two days 🤯 pic.twitter.com/Wx0vfZscAZ

— Justine Moore (@venturetwins) June 16, 2025

 

Offbeat Humor

What if Sisyphus was happy because he had one job and was really good at it?

— Cerebral Wisdom (@CerebralWisdom) June 16, 2025

 

Data Talks

I completely agree with the point that infant mortality was a huge contributor to the lower life expectancy in the past, but we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that mortality has greatly reduced at all ages.

Look at how many fewer die between ages 10 and 60 now. https://t.co/wY1Q5ISV1m pic.twitter.com/g2t6to6i0f

— Inquisitive Bird (@Scientific_Bird) June 17, 2025

 

On the Hill, 2021 by Mihail Zablodski

On the Hill, 2021 by Mihail Zablodski (Ukraine)

Click to enlarge.

History

Baboon figure carved from obsidian, originating from Egypt, Late Period, 664–332 BC. Currently in a private collection. pic.twitter.com/3xt6LxdDuC

— Archaeology & Art (@archaeologyart) July 4, 2025

 

An Insight

"Online misinformation can undermine democratic institutions."

World Economic Forum video features unelected EU head Ursula von der Leyen laying out her plans to censor social media platforms.

"We need to contain this immense power of the big digital companies... and defend our… pic.twitter.com/kKyLFUbvCQ

— Wide Awake Media (@wideawake_media) June 14, 2025

 

I see wonderful things

Spectacular ground-to-cloud lightning fills the sky over Burleigh Heads, Australia.

📽: haydenmilne/IGpic.twitter.com/dmSDPFz0Ah

— Wonder of Science (@wonderofscience) March 12, 2025

 

Offbeat Humor

what a time to be alive. pic.twitter.com/VLF1QlQK9v

— el gato malo (@boriquagato) June 15, 2025

 

Data Talks

🚨We didn’t need a graph to know this. But here it is anyway.
📈The data isn’t new—what’s new is that the New York Times actually published it! Eventually, the truth gets too big to hide. Even for the New York Times.
(Full Gift link in comments—no paywall) pic.twitter.com/LXCtqtB1NJ

— Jews Fight Back 🇺🇸🇮🇱 (@JewsFightBack) June 15, 2025

 

Great circle of incompetency

From Ben Watson interviews Frank Zappa, in MOJO magazine, October 1993.

Most rock journalism is people who can’t write, interviewing people who can’t talk, for people who can’t read.

Is it just rock journalism though?  Might it as accurately be:

Most journalism is people who can’t write, interviewing people who can’t talk, for people who can’t read.

Tall Ship, 1935 by Joseph Edward Southall

Tall Ship, 1935 by Joseph Edward Southall (England, 1861-1944)

Click to enlarge.

History

Roman marble gravestone for a small lapdog named Aminnaracus, 1st-2nd century AD pic.twitter.com/GJLKx83P7X

— Ghost of Hellas (@ghostofhellas) June 14, 2025

 

An Insight

LOL every crowd shot of this military parade is so much younger and multiethnic than the No Kings protests

— Magills (@magills_) June 14, 2025

 

The fact that the "No Kings" rally's are full of old white people and the #Army250 parade crowd is full of young mulit-ethnic families really tells you which way the arrow is pointing. pic.twitter.com/Tss6J9s56o

— Wokal Distance (@wokal_distance) June 15, 2025

I see wonderful things

Peek inside the crater of Geldingadalir Volcano, Icelandpic.twitter.com/kiMbFKiOMP

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) June 16, 2025

 

Offbeat Humor

pic.twitter.com/xo71hzNKU0

— Cat Atonic (@TheCatAtonic) June 15, 2025

 

Data Talks

Each new generation is hitting the traditional adult milestones at a later age than the last.

[Link below.] pic.twitter.com/DwM3z6zvNB

— Steve Stewart-Williams (@SteveStuWill) June 15, 2025

 

The Voyage of Life: Youth, 1840 by Thomas Cole

The Voyage of Life: Youth, 1840 by Thomas Cole, 1840 (England/America, 1801-1848)

Click to enlarge.

The friend of all our friendships And the foeman of our foes.

The Dog

by Don Marquis

When Adam quitted the Garden,

Along with his buxom wife,

For to delve and swink and swither

And earn his way in life,

The Animals sidled about him

To grunt and whine good-bye — |

But little enough their grief was,

However they piped the eye.

A tear from the rhino trickled,

But he did not really care.

The hippo mumbled politely,

Grumbled the hypocrite bear.

One hump of the camel quivered

As a chin that shakes with grief, 

But his other hump was perky

Like it really felt relief.

The walrus sniveled dankly

In a quite perfunctory way,

And the bull was patently anxious

To get back to his hay.

And the porcupine and narwhal,

The wallaby and giraffe,

Parodied sorrow so broadly

They made the penguin laugh.

“Which of you brutes so mournful,”

The watching Angel said,

“Will follow Man from Eden

To toil for daily bread?

And which of you beasts so tearful

Will give him more than tears,

Faithful to his footsteps

Through all his outcast years?

Come forward,” said the Angel,

“Before the barriers close,

You friend of all his friendships,

And foeman of his foes!’

The sly little seal, he sniggered,

Chuckled the kangaroo,

The chimpanzee pulled a razzberrie

And winked at the cockatoo,

His thumb on his proboscis

The mangy ape did place,

And flickered his ribald digits

Right in Adam’s face.

And they shuffled and lurched and ambled,

Each to his separate den —

And that was the honest measure

Of what they felt for men.

The Angel smiled in knowledge,

He permitted himself a tear,

And if he weren’t an Angel

I'd say that he sneered a sneer —

(They see so much, these Angels,

As they ramble here and there,

That we must try and forgive them

If now and again they wear

That manner of sad amusement,

That faintly cynical air).

But a pup there was that lingered

In most abject unease;

He lay too broken-hearted

Even to bite his fleas.

His tail swished desolation,

And its swish was his only sound;

A splay-foot pup with a belly

That grieved along the ground;

His ears were the dragging cypress

And his eyes were love profound.

He looked not at the Angel,

But of a sudden he rose

And he ran and nuzzled Adam,

And his soul was in his nose —

He scampered out of the Garden

Before the gates could close,

The friend of all our friendships

And the foeman of our foes.

History

Lisbon in 1598 pic.twitter.com/TEk9M5ZGpT

— Vintage Maps (@vintagemapstore) June 17, 2025

 

An Insight

Montesquieu pointing out that tyrants effeminise men to secure their power. pic.twitter.com/SBL6HGxIcK

— Carl Benjamin 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 (@Sargon_of_Akkad) June 14, 2025

 

I see wonderful things

Towering tornadoes of plasma the size of planets dance over the Sun's surface in this timelapse from the Solar Dynamics Observatory spacecraft.

📽: NASA GSFC/SDO pic.twitter.com/Mp8M117PcA

— Wonder of Science (@wonderofscience) June 15, 2025

 

Offbeat Humor

pic.twitter.com/63Ybt243PQ

— Florida Fren (@NotABotTrumpWon) June 14, 2025

 

Data Talks

As you can see there’s nothing in Sweden that almost mostly didn’t do anything unusual.
So the excess mortality elsewhere is all result of human overreaction in various forms.https://t.co/MFw14n0Swp

— Ben (@USMortality) June 15, 2025

 

Room With a View (When I Grow Up) by Rob Rowland

 Room With a View (When I Grow Up) by Rob Rowland (England, 1939 - )

Click to enlarge.

Hush and heed not for all things pass

Scythe Song

by Andrew Lang

Mowers, weary and brown and blithe,

What is the word methinks ye know —

Endless over-word that the scythe

Sings to the blades of the grass below?

Scythes that swing in the grass and clover,

Something, still, they say as they pass;

What is the word that, over and over,

Sings the scythe to the flowers and grass?

Hush, ah, hush, the scythes are saying,

Hush, and heed not, and fall asleep;

Hush, they say to the grasses swaying;

Hush, they sing to the clover deep!

Hush — ’tis the lullaby Time is singing —

Hush and heed not for all things pass,

Hush, ah, hush! and the scythes are swinging

Over the clover, over the grass!

History

Crab-shaped ceramic vessel with a double spout from the Ilama Period, Calima Region, Colombia, dated between 1500 BC and AD 100. Collection & Credit: LACMA | Los Angeles County Museum of Art. pic.twitter.com/Y8B7XbRpi5

— Archaeology & Art (@archaeologyart) June 17, 2025

 

An Insight

pic.twitter.com/bmfy3iHqIW

— Rothmus 🏴 (@Rothmus) June 13, 2025

 

I see wonderful things

Giant trevally in the Seychelles feed on terns by snatching them from the water surface, sometimes even making a dramatic aerial leap in an attempt to secure a meal.

📽: BBC Earthpic.twitter.com/INJ9QO0AwD

— Wonder of Science (@wonderofscience) March 11, 2025

 

Offbeat Humor

Jews in America- “We need all hands on deck to fight Iran in this war.”

White people in America- “We need mass deportations to get our country back.”

Black people in America- “Where are our reparations?”

Mexicans in America- “Viva la Raza” (as they are waving the Mexican…

— Uncommon Sense (@Uncommonsince76) June 14, 2025

 

Data Talks

Maths, the lead author of a new study says, is usually taught and tested competitively and under time pressure—conditions that girls have been taught to fear. Other studies back this up https://t.co/YXuY0fBInF

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) June 15, 2025

 

Naval Parade, Held in Honor of Commander George Dewey, 1898 by Fred Pansing

Naval Parade, Held in Honor of Commander George Dewey, 1898 by Fred Pansing (Germany/America, 1844-1912)

Click to enlarge.

Leisure by W. H. Davies

Leisure

by W. H. Davies

What is this life if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare?

No time to stand beneath the boughs

And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see when woods we pass,

Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,

Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,

And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can

Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

Their good becomes indistinguishable from the evil that they set out to destroy

From The Judgement of the Nations by Christopher Dawson, pp. 9-10.

As soon as men decide that all means are permitted to fight an evil, then their good becomes indistinguishable from the evil that they set out to destroy.

Feel especially pertinent as the totalitarianism and authoritarianism of Woke Social Justice, DEI, and ESG seem to have reached their high water mark. 

History

Cat paw prints in the medieval floor tiles of the 12th century CE St Peter Church in Wormleighton, England. pic.twitter.com/P0jMoxFg8x

— Historic Vids (@historyinmemes) June 25, 2025

 

An Insight

This should be obvious. https://t.co/xViqaFmqmL

— Per Bylund (@PerBylund) June 14, 2025

 

Numbers tell us about reality but numbers are always an estimate of reality

I am a numbers guy.  Intuition has its place and value but I always want to know what the numbers say.

The challenge being that there is the assumption that the numbers reflect the actual reality when in fact they are at best a proxy for reality.  Definitional precision is always an issue but so is the mere act of counting.  Numbers are indeed important but it is also important to always keep in mind how fragile they can be.  They are a representation, they are not real and the representation is more or less accurate.

For example, if I am a corporate safety person, I might want to know, "How many people work on this floor?"  Sounds straight forward and reasonable, but . . . 

Define people:  Employees based at this location or any employee who is using an office on this floor at this time?  What about visitors?  

Define work:  Are we including maintenance people, cleaners, equipment repair people, etc. who might be on the floor at any given time?

Define floor:  The entire footprint of the floor or only the portion we lease?  What about building common spaces such as stairwells and elevators?

Define workday:  9-5?  All 24 hours?  

What time of day?:  The number flexes 20% across normal business hours?  How do we treat people working after hours?

What day of the week?:  There are people here on weekends and holidays.  Are they included in the count?

What measure?"  Mean, median or modal?

Depending on the answers to each of these questions, the result might be anywhere between 10 (the minimum number of people on the floor at any given time) to 150 (the maximum number of people on the floor at any given time) or something in between (mean, median, mode.)  It is useful information but not especially precise nor as useful as it could be with better definitions and better counting.  

And that's for a straightforward question on a straight forward issue with a reasonable basis (I want to know how many people might need to be evacuated.)  

For numbers people there is an inclination to recognize all these challenges, but once we get our hands on a number we treat it as fact rather than the best estimate of fact that it is.  

Adam Zamoyski in his book, 1812:  Napoleon's Fatal March on Moscow, has a great example of this measurement challenge using Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812 as an example.  Over the years, I have seen numbers ranging from 400,000 to 700,000 in terms of the size of the Grande Armée.  Similarly, I have seen numbers ranging from 15,000 to 50,000 as to the number who survived and returned to France (the survivor numbers are especially shaky.)  

It is impossible to be precise about the numbers involved. On paper, the overall strength of the forces poised for invasion was 590,687 men and 157,878 horses, while the total number of French and allied troops in the whole theatre of operations, including Poland and Germany, was 678,000. But these figures beg many questions.

The strength of an army which has taken up positions, as the Russian had done over the months, can be established fairly accurately, as the units are concentrated in one place, and there is little reason or scope for anyone to absent themselves for more than the few hours it might take to report to headquarters or pick up some stores. But an army on the move is far more volatile.

Whatever the technical strength of any unit on campaign, it is never concentrated in a single place, or even area, at one time. It always leaves a skeleton force, sometimes a whole battalion, at its depot. It does not move, lock stock and barrel, from one place to another: its head races ahead, leaving its body and tail to catch up, which they occasionally do, only to be left behind once more, in the manner of a huge centipede. It is constantly leaving behind platoons or smaller clusters of men to hold, defend or police areas.  Numbers vary, almost always downwards, with every day.

[snip]

Numbers arrived at by means of adding up the paper strength of the units present in an army can therefore serve only as a rough guide to the situation on the ground. It is generally accepted that the strength of the Grande Armée as it invaded Russia was about 450,000, but this has been arrived at by computing theoretical data, and the reality was certainly very different.

On 14 June Napoleon issued a circular to the commanders of every corps insisting that they must provide honest figures on the numbers of the able-bodied, the sick and deserters, as well as the dead and  the wounded. ‘It has to be made clear to the individual corps that they must regard it as a duty towards the Emperor to provide him with the simple truth,’ ran the order.

This admonition was ignored. ‘He was led astray in the most outrageous way,’ wrote General Berthézène of the Young Guard. ‘From the marshal to the captain, it was as if everyone had come together to hide the truth from him, and, although it was tacit, this conspiracy really did exist; for it was bound together by self-interest.’ Napoleon was always angry when provided with dwindling figures, particularly if these could not be explained by battle casualties, so those responsible simply hid the losses from him. Berthézène went on to say that the Guard, which was usually written up as being nearly 50,000 strong, never exceeded 25,000 during the whole campaign; that the Bavarian contingent, given as 24,000, was never stronger than 11,000; and that the whole Grande Armée was no larger than 235,000 when it crossed the Niemen. One can quibble with his estimates, but not with his argument, which is supported by others.

Russian estimates of the French forces at this stage were much lower than the generally accepted figures (and intriguingly close to Berthézène’s), which has surprised historians and led them to believe that they must have had very poor intelligence. But it may simply be that while French figures were based on paper computations, the Russians based their estimates on reports from spies, and those reports may have been more accurate as to the numbers of troops actually present than the paper calculations.

It would be rash to try to be precise, but a sensible guess would be that no more than three-quarters and possibly as little as two-thirds of the 450,000 crossed the Niemen in the first wave, and that the remainder, if and when they caught up with the main body, were only plugging gaps left by men dropping away. 

James C. Scott in Seeing Like a State has a great discussion about legibility - the capacity of a state (or enterprise) to understand its world, environment and constraints.  Obviously, numbers come into play, but there are innumerable other issues which affect the quality of legibility.  Napoleon wanted accurate numbers but was angry with his subordinates who brought him accurate numbers he did not like.  His view of his Grande Armée was inflated because of their fear of him or their desire to tell him what they knew he wanted to hear.  They could count and the data existed, but it was not acceptable.