real talk @BradMBradford, you ran a hell of a race. it’s prob hard to not have really dark thoughts but please know you are alone and you should give into them

hearing for the first time that novelist Patrick O'Brian (of _Master & Commander_ fame) invented much of his own biography, didn't know how to sail & had no practical experience doing it, wasn't Anglo-Irish gentry but rather English working class, barely educated, concealed his early marriage... Everything he learned about sailing & the 19th c was from obsessive research & reading books. O'Brian comes out to be a far more puzzling, eccentric, twisted, anachronistic figure who lived in isolation on a small hobby farm in France, deeply secretive, insecure, brooding, exiled, aloof, yet TOTALLY COMMITTED TO THE BIT. I like him even more now (am currently reading Master & Commander)

Counter-take: The logic of international solidarity - that what happens in Brazil (from Amazon protection to viral pandemics) matters for what happens in the United States - has never in history been more plainly important.

Benjamin Moser, author of Anti-Zionism: A Jewish History, told Rashid Khalidi that his 80-year-old mother, who had all but called him a Hamas member, apologized after reading his book: “I’m ashamed I ever said I was a Zionist.” His book traces Jewish opposition to Zionism over the past century and challenges their exclusion in discussions over Palestine. “No, you don’t get to set the rules anymore. We’re setting the rules now,” Moser said. Khalidi added that he had never seen so many people change their views so rapidly, noting that major publishers are now embracing books on Palestine that would have been virtually unpublishable just three or four years ago.

I ate so much brisket last night at the Texas game that I couldn't drive home. Ordered a Robotaxi and I have to say that it's just a surreal experience. The future is here and it's awesome.

I must say that I’m more invested in the success of the incoming Doerkson government than I’ve been in any goverment in nearly a decade. What interests me most is the potential fecundity of the premier-elect’s back-to-basics, normie conservatism. Doerkson isn’t offering political dopamine. His whole pitch is about competent government, economic growth, and public institutions that fulfill their basic purposes. The magnitude of his victory is a sign of how broadly that proposition can appeal. The story, in a nutshell, is a guy from Williams Lake offered a recognizable conservatism that could win in Vancouver-Yaletown. His temperament helped bring together rural communities, suburban families, and urban voters around some straightforward expectations about how their province should work. Schools should teach. The justice system should protect the public. Hospitals should treat patients. The civil service should deliver services competently and impartially. These institutions have important yet bounded missions. They should discharge them effectively and resist the temptation to become vehicles for every passing political or ideological cause. The same practical instinct should guide economic policy: make it possible to build homes, grow businesses, develop resources, and attract investment. Give people reasons to believe that hard work and initiative can produce a better life here. This is the politics of normalcy in practice. And even if its rhetoric is moderate, its ambitions are considerable. Restoring focus and competence to institutions that have lost them will require conviction, persistence, and capable people. That’s another reason for optimism: the quality of the candidates and potential front bench, along with the talented people Doerkson’s leadership drew to the campaign. @gavindew is someone to watch in particular. His interest in both economic growth and making government more productive—including through AI—could make him an important contributor to this governing agenda. The test now is governing. There will be hard choices and inevitable disappointments along the way. But this is a conservatism that I want to see succeed—and an unusually promising opportunity to show what it can accomplish.

BREAKING: anthropic announces verified solutions to 482 open problems in philosophy in advance of IPO

Canada will struggle to find another stock-market success story like Shopify as the country grapples with a public-listing drought and a delisting trend, according to Daniel Nowlan at National Bank Capital Markets bloomberg.com/news/articles/…