Most state legislatures have some really dumb bills introduced every session. This one is more interesting than many because it actually passed a committee vote. Also too, it banned mRNA for vaccines against infectious diseases, but allowed the tech for use against cancer or to correct gene-based problems.
The Supreme Court has announced it expects to release one or more opinions on Friday, Feb 21. As is customary, they did not give any indication about which cases.
And if that happens, it opens the possibility that the conflict expands to NATO countries which in turn forces us to decide whether mutual defense is real or a bluff.
Some days, I'm inclined to the position that the EU has 5x the population of Russia and 10x the GDP, so why does the EU need us for military assistance at all? (Note that the EU treaties include mutual military defense. If NATO were dissolved today, France and Germany and Poland and Italy would still have a mutual defense agreement.) My answer on some of those days is they regard the US nuclear umbrella, the US military-industrial manufacturing complex, and the US Navy's ability to keep the Atlantic open for a massive one-way military logistics flow, as a public good. Trump's position is fundamentally that they are not a public good, and the EU ought to be paying a bunch for those services.
Technically, so long as Ukraine claims sovereignty over the Donbas (or Crimea), but doesn't control those areas, Ukraine is not eligible for NATO membership. Basically, you can't join if you're already in a situation where you could make an Article V claim. No one should be surprised the treaty was written that way.
When I was working for the state legislature, Presidents Day was an official holiday. One session, on the Friday before, one of the committee members said to me on the way out of the building, "Anything special planned for the Monday off, Mike?" To which I replied, "Y'all didn't cancel any of the committee meetings for Tuesday, so I'll be here all day Monday getting everything ready for them. But since the office will be officially closed, I can wear jeans."
If we have enough time, maybe we can have it hit the moon and throw it out of orbit...
Run the relative masses, the velocities, the kinetic energy, the moon's elasticity, etc. Maybe we get some interesting meteor showers. Maybe not. Lunar escape velocity is 2.4 km/sec.
Worth adding is that state/local tax revenue is, in practice, 9-12% of state/local GDP. Rich states run at the top end of that, poor states at the low end. Treating that as a constraint, what we see at the state level is state funding for K-12 education and Medicaid are steadily displacing spending in other major areas. (Baumol's Cost Disease is relevant.) This trend has been clear in state general fund budgets since the mid-1990s. Speaking broadly, higher education has taken the biggest hit, followed by transportation.
I'm more interested in the angle the rock comes in at. Does it look like it comes straight in, or is it inclined at a significant angle? If the latter, from east-to-west or west-to-east? We had a bit of this discussion on a different post fairly recently. I argued that all of the drawings of the dinosaur-killer that showed it streaking across the sky were wrong; that the evidence suggested it came from the southeast but effectively straight in. At the velocities involved, the time from when the rock starts significantly interacting with the atmosphere and striking the ground (or air burst) is measured in seconds. Eg, 300 km at 17 km/sec is 17 sec and if you're looking the wrong way you might miss it.
I read this week that the people who worry about such things have decided the prior opinion that the big crater at the Moon's south pole was a glancing strike is wrong, that it was basically straight in.
I was thinking more inside than that (and more local, to be honest), like all the material science labs at NREL, or assorted labs at NIST in Boulder. Or the big supercomputers at multiple national labs.
Trump played mostly by the rules in 2017. This time they're playing a completely different game. The resistance looks much better when they sue, get an injunction, and the administration follows it. This time Trump's saying publicly that they're just not going to conform when the courts rule against them.
Next month we get to see what they do with the in-house science in the next continuing resolution...
Last Friday Boeing called an all-hands meeting for everyone working on the Space Launch System (SLS). The meeting was called on short notice -- hours, not days -- and lasted six minutes. The top manager told everyone there was a risk that the SLS would be canceled, some contracts as early as next month. NASA contractors have started stacking the SLS for the Artemis II mission, scheduled to launch no earlier than April 2026.
February along Colorado's Front Range is random. I remember sub-zero blizzards. I remember a week where I took three afternoons off from work to go play golf in shirt sleeves. My favorite recurring thing, actually, is when it's 10 °F when you go to bed and 50 °F when you wake up because the Chinook blew in.
Everything I read suggests everyone in the sport who has met Andy Reid likes him. I suspect that he's sort of "America's coach" ever since he did the State Farm commercials where he's stealing fast food from Mahomes and Jake. IIRC, after he coached his last game at Philly, where the owner said nothing bad about him, he went to the airport where other owners' private jets were lined for interviews.
One of my friends in college -- Larry -- had a gorgeous sister. Gorgeous as in when she was dolled up, she could walk into a room and conversations stopped. My 15 minutes of fame while I was living in the men's dorm was when she walked into the dining hall we shared with the girl's dorm where she lived, came right up to the table where I was sitting in an all-male group, and asked, "Mike, do you know where Larry is supposed to be tonight?" I did, and told her, and she smiled at me and said "Thank you." After she left, the first bit of conversation at the table was when someone whispered, "She spoke to you."
Today everyone worries about the Musk minions cutting off federal payments. When does the continuing resolution run out? That's the point where we can worry about the Musk minions keeping checks flowing for military, law enforcement, and select other federal organizations. And lord have mercy on anyone who doesn't accept those checks as valid.
It probably never occurred to the Congress critters that they should pass laws that made Congressional ID badges good for access to any executive branch building. And that there needed to be a large armed force that answered to Congress rather than to the executive to enforce such access. And that such a force should answer to a minority set of members of Congress.
This one is interesting in the sense that a hundred years on (roughly), it's more like the rest of the world worrying the US will be wiping out other countries...
A former pilot has pointed out that training as used by the military includes "maintain operational proficiency". Experienced pilots whose job includes flying that route at night practice by flying it at night on a regular basis.
I'd rephrase your question as why does so much military and commercial traffic all get routed through that twisty little corridor over the Potomac River? Ultimately the blame goes back to Congress, which hates making hard decisions. Do they give up their lovely little close-in airport used for the weekend commutes home? (See, eg, why there is a 60-seat direct flight between Wichita and National.) Do they relocate the military facilities? Do they insist that admirals and generals sit in DC ground traffic rather than taking a helicopter up and down the Potomac corridor?
Who wins in the case of tie? If another player also has four deuces on their first roll? If the other players have to roll four threes or better, that reduces the 20% somewhat.
So we now have Mama’s recipe for biscuits. Sadly, it calls for stuff like “bacon fat” which means that they’re no longer appropriate for modern audiences.
You can buy tubs of bacon grease at the store. Someone contemporary must still be using it :^)
Sometime in the last few years Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) was on one of the Sunday morning shows. He had a list of talking points about things that must be purged from state voting systems (vote by mail, online registration, others). I have wondered since if he got phone calls from the Republican majority leaders in the Utah legislature pointing out that they had only recently finished installing all of those things in Utah.
Medicaid funds have been interrupted before. Recall how Medicaid works. The client receives care. The provider bills the state. After some delay, the state pays the bill. The documented payments are aggregated and submitted to Washington. After some delay, the feds reimburse the state for a portion of their expenses. States have buffers and reserve funds built into their cash flows to handle an interruption.
Note that Trump attempted to stop disbursement of appropriated funds. He didn't change any of what we called "substantive legislation" when I worked for my state legislature. State Medicaid agencies are still on the hook to pay providers within certain performance guidelines. Failure to do so carries financial penalties of various sorts. I'm sure that all of the Governors have already called their Senators and screamed at them.
An administrative judge has stayed the EO until at least next Monday.
https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-pause-federal-grants-aid-f9948b9996c0ca971f0065fac85737ce
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Open Mic for the week of 2/17/2025”
Most state legislatures have some really dumb bills introduced every session. This one is more interesting than many because it actually passed a committee vote. Also too, it banned mRNA for vaccines against infectious diseases, but allowed the tech for use against cancer or to correct gene-based problems.
On “Open Mic for the week of 2/10/2025”
The Supreme Court has announced it expects to release one or more opinions on Friday, Feb 21. As is customary, they did not give any indication about which cases.
On “Beware: Promises Being Kept”
And if that happens, it opens the possibility that the conflict expands to NATO countries which in turn forces us to decide whether mutual defense is real or a bluff.
Some days, I'm inclined to the position that the EU has 5x the population of Russia and 10x the GDP, so why does the EU need us for military assistance at all? (Note that the EU treaties include mutual military defense. If NATO were dissolved today, France and Germany and Poland and Italy would still have a mutual defense agreement.) My answer on some of those days is they regard the US nuclear umbrella, the US military-industrial manufacturing complex, and the US Navy's ability to keep the Atlantic open for a massive one-way military logistics flow, as a public good. Trump's position is fundamentally that they are not a public good, and the EU ought to be paying a bunch for those services.
"
Technically, so long as Ukraine claims sovereignty over the Donbas (or Crimea), but doesn't control those areas, Ukraine is not eligible for NATO membership. Basically, you can't join if you're already in a situation where you could make an Article V claim. No one should be surprised the treaty was written that way.
On “Weekend Plans Post: The Tootsie Roll Pop Indian”
When I was working for the state legislature, Presidents Day was an official holiday. One session, on the Friday before, one of the committee members said to me on the way out of the building, "Anything special planned for the Monday off, Mike?" To which I replied, "Y'all didn't cancel any of the committee meetings for Tuesday, so I'll be here all day Monday getting everything ready for them. But since the office will be officially closed, I can wear jeans."
On “Thursday Throughput: Doomsday Rock Edition”
If we have enough time, maybe we can have it hit the moon and throw it out of orbit...
Run the relative masses, the velocities, the kinetic energy, the moon's elasticity, etc. Maybe we get some interesting meteor showers. Maybe not. Lunar escape velocity is 2.4 km/sec.
On “Deficits, Debt, and DOGE”
Worth adding is that state/local tax revenue is, in practice, 9-12% of state/local GDP. Rich states run at the top end of that, poor states at the low end. Treating that as a constraint, what we see at the state level is state funding for K-12 education and Medicaid are steadily displacing spending in other major areas. (Baumol's Cost Disease is relevant.) This trend has been clear in state general fund budgets since the mid-1990s. Speaking broadly, higher education has taken the biggest hit, followed by transportation.
On “Thursday Throughput: Doomsday Rock Edition”
I'm more interested in the angle the rock comes in at. Does it look like it comes straight in, or is it inclined at a significant angle? If the latter, from east-to-west or west-to-east? We had a bit of this discussion on a different post fairly recently. I argued that all of the drawings of the dinosaur-killer that showed it streaking across the sky were wrong; that the evidence suggested it came from the southeast but effectively straight in. At the velocities involved, the time from when the rock starts significantly interacting with the atmosphere and striking the ground (or air burst) is measured in seconds. Eg, 300 km at 17 km/sec is 17 sec and if you're looking the wrong way you might miss it.
I read this week that the people who worry about such things have decided the prior opinion that the big crater at the Moon's south pole was a glancing strike is wrong, that it was basically straight in.
On “Off With Their (Over)heads: Trump Administration at War with Public Health”
I was thinking more inside than that (and more local, to be honest), like all the material science labs at NREL, or assorted labs at NIST in Boulder. Or the big supercomputers at multiple national labs.
On “Open Mic for the week of 2/10/2025”
Trump played mostly by the rules in 2017. This time they're playing a completely different game. The resistance looks much better when they sue, get an injunction, and the administration follows it. This time Trump's saying publicly that they're just not going to conform when the courts rule against them.
On “Off With Their (Over)heads: Trump Administration at War with Public Health”
Next month we get to see what they do with the in-house science in the next continuing resolution...
Last Friday Boeing called an all-hands meeting for everyone working on the Space Launch System (SLS). The meeting was called on short notice -- hours, not days -- and lasted six minutes. The top manager told everyone there was a risk that the SLS would be canceled, some contracts as early as next month. NASA contractors have started stacking the SLS for the Artemis II mission, scheduled to launch no earlier than April 2026.
On “Weekend Plans Post: The Longest Month”
February along Colorado's Front Range is random. I remember sub-zero blizzards. I remember a week where I took three afternoons off from work to go play golf in shirt sleeves. My favorite recurring thing, actually, is when it's 10 °F when you go to bed and 50 °F when you wake up because the Chinook blew in.
On “Kansas City wants to Score the first Threepeat against the Philadelphia Eagles in New Orleans”
Everything I read suggests everyone in the sport who has met Andy Reid likes him. I suspect that he's sort of "America's coach" ever since he did the State Farm commercials where he's stealing fast food from Mahomes and Jake. IIRC, after he coached his last game at Philly, where the owner said nothing bad about him, he went to the airport where other owners' private jets were lined for interviews.
On “Valentine”
One of my friends in college -- Larry -- had a gorgeous sister. Gorgeous as in when she was dolled up, she could walk into a room and conversations stopped. My 15 minutes of fame while I was living in the men's dorm was when she walked into the dining hall we shared with the girl's dorm where she lived, came right up to the table where I was sitting in an all-male group, and asked, "Mike, do you know where Larry is supposed to be tonight?" I did, and told her, and she smiled at me and said "Thank you." After she left, the first bit of conversation at the table was when someone whispered, "She spoke to you."
On “Kansas City wants to Score the first Threepeat against the Philadelphia Eagles in New Orleans”
I'm obnoxious, so would propose secretly in advance, then tell Taylor to flash the giant diamond during the game.
On “Open Mic for the week of 2/3/2025”
The big ask seems to be staffing levels.
"
Today everyone worries about the Musk minions cutting off federal payments. When does the continuing resolution run out? That's the point where we can worry about the Musk minions keeping checks flowing for military, law enforcement, and select other federal organizations. And lord have mercy on anyone who doesn't accept those checks as valid.
"
It probably never occurred to the Congress critters that they should pass laws that made Congressional ID badges good for access to any executive branch building. And that there needed to be a large armed force that answered to Congress rather than to the executive to enforce such access. And that such a force should answer to a minority set of members of Congress.
On “Somebody is Always Taking the Joy Out of Life”
This one is interesting in the sense that a hundred years on (roughly), it's more like the rest of the world worrying the US will be wiping out other countries...
On “Terror On The Potomac: The DCA Collision”
A former pilot has pointed out that training as used by the military includes "maintain operational proficiency". Experienced pilots whose job includes flying that route at night practice by flying it at night on a regular basis.
I'd rephrase your question as why does so much military and commercial traffic all get routed through that twisty little corridor over the Potomac River? Ultimately the blame goes back to Congress, which hates making hard decisions. Do they give up their lovely little close-in airport used for the weekend commutes home? (See, eg, why there is a 60-seat direct flight between Wichita and National.) Do they relocate the military facilities? Do they insist that admirals and generals sit in DC ground traffic rather than taking a helicopter up and down the Potomac corridor?
On “Indian Dice — Four Deuces in One”
Who wins in the case of tie? If another player also has four deuces on their first roll? If the other players have to roll four threes or better, that reduces the 20% somewhat.
On “Fannie Farmer, Mickey Mouse, and the Virtues of Cheating”
So we now have Mama’s recipe for biscuits. Sadly, it calls for stuff like “bacon fat” which means that they’re no longer appropriate for modern audiences.
You can buy tubs of bacon grease at the store. Someone contemporary must still be using it :^)
On “Open Mic for the week of 1/27/2025”
Sometime in the last few years Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) was on one of the Sunday morning shows. He had a list of talking points about things that must be purged from state voting systems (vote by mail, online registration, others). I have wondered since if he got phone calls from the Republican majority leaders in the Utah legislature pointing out that they had only recently finished installing all of those things in Utah.
On “Memo: All Federal Grant, Loan, and Financial Assistance “Temporarily Paused””
Medicaid funds have been interrupted before. Recall how Medicaid works. The client receives care. The provider bills the state. After some delay, the state pays the bill. The documented payments are aggregated and submitted to Washington. After some delay, the feds reimburse the state for a portion of their expenses. States have buffers and reserve funds built into their cash flows to handle an interruption.
Note that Trump attempted to stop disbursement of appropriated funds. He didn't change any of what we called "substantive legislation" when I worked for my state legislature. State Medicaid agencies are still on the hook to pay providers within certain performance guidelines. Failure to do so carries financial penalties of various sorts. I'm sure that all of the Governors have already called their Senators and screamed at them.
"
An administrative judge has stayed the EO until at least next Monday.
https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-pause-federal-grants-aid-f9948b9996c0ca971f0065fac85737ce
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.