‘Virtual power plants’ will launch soon in Virginia. Here’s what that means.
The White House UFC fights showed us the America we needed to see: I guess this is what we’re doing now. - "What do we make of any of this other than that this is America? Bring me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses advertising Bud Light and trucks. 'In Loud We Trust.' Bring me your ring girls dressed skimpily in sequined stars and stripes, and your men with cauliflower ears, and a bunch of sailors dancing to 'YMCA.'"
Public financing meets ‘dark money’ in D.C. mayoral election: Super PAC-style groups with no donation caps have worked alongside the public campaign financing system to raise millions in support of candidates. - "Apart from [Maryland businessman Emmanuel] Bailey, the sports betting industry has spent more than $400,000 to boost preferred candidates in council races, according to representatives of American Future, an independent expenditure committee backed by DraftKings, FanDuel and Fanatics. The bulk of that money — nearly $300,000 — has been spent on mailers backing Doni Crawford, who is running against Elissa Silverman and Jacque Patterson in the special election to fill the at-large council seat vacated by McDuffie. The group has also spent money on materials supporting Council Chairman Phil Mendelson, who is running for reelection unopposed, and council members Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5) and Charles Allen (D-Ward 6)."
Soccer is truly spectacular, in spite of itself: The world's greatest sport isn't that great of a sport - "The more general issue with soccer, to me, is that it’s structurally a continuous sport but often functionally operates like the discrete sports. It’s sort of caught in the middle, and in my view ends up with the worst of both worlds. The core continuous team sports—like hockey, basketball, and rugby—are entertaining because the exciting action is so non-stop you barely have time to think. The discrete team sports—like baseball and American football—are objectively boring 95% of the literal time you are watching, but build their tension and excitement on the contemplative expectation of the next action."
Israelis denounce Trump’s deal with Iran: Prime Minister Netanyahu did not issue an immediate statement, but other Israelis disparaged the peace deal and said the fight against Hezbollah would go on. - "In the end, it was those who are close to Netanyahu who lashed out with a bitterness and sense of betrayal rarely seen directed by Israelis toward Trump. In a stunning social media tirade early Monday, Yinon Magal, a former lawmaker and anchor on Channel 14 television who is often described as Netanyahu’s most prominent mouthpiece, lashed out at Trump as a 'loser,' Vance as a 'lowlife,' and Trump’s special envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff as 'two little Jews … whom Qatar bought for a lot of money and who sold out their brothers in Israel.'"
A ‘forgotten world war’ helped forge America: The Revolutionary War succeeded because of allies at home and abroad. - "America’s improbable victory over British forces is full of stories of bravery from her allies. Victory at Yorktown was aided by the gallantry and tenacity of the French and Spanish fleets — the largest sea battle of the Revolutionary War, the Battle of the Capes, didn’t involve any American ships. Irish-born naval captain John Barry commanded the first ship commissioned by the Continental Congress. The Haitian-born Chasseurs Volontaires de Saint-Domingue, under French command, participated in numerous campaigns in the South, including the ill-fated Siege of Savannah in 1779." [ed. note: and on and on - Cuban silver, American Indians, the Kingdom of Mysore in India, etc.]
The DOGE Bros Want Another Shot: Two former staffers have created a new, perplexing company. - "It's worth pausing here to examine the fundamental premise of Special as DOGE for the private sector. You might have a few questions, including but not limited to: Wait, I thought DOGE was supposed to be about taking private-sector business acumen and bringing it to the bloated public sector? Isn't the private sector already run like the private sector? How is Special going to run the DOGE playbook inside these companies? Isn't this essentially just what a consulting firm does? Or private equity? And then, of course: Wasn't DOGE a deeply unpopular, failed experiment that saved a small fraction of its claimed savings while cutting more than 10,000 government contracts, including lifesaving international aid?
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"It's not just that DOGE was a failure or that its participants refuse to reckon with their role. It's that the DOGE "builder" ethos is built on a foundational lie. DOGE was not a generative project; it was a destructive one - a smash-and-grab attempt, led by an unelected official who happened to be the world's richest man, to seize control and precious data, and to turn the federal government into a political weapon. But for all its turmoil, DOGE helpfully illustrated how the term building can also be a euphemism for something else entirely: extraction."
American Christians Face a Choice: The faithful can still repair the wreckage they have wrought. - "But this needs to be acknowledged too: Christianity has often betrayed its commitment to the Imago Dei, the belief that people are made in the image of God and therefore have inherent, equal dignity and worth. The moral failures of Christianity make for a long and horrifying list: the Inquisition, the Crusades, and the witch trials; the persecution of Jews, Indigenous peoples, and gay people; the defense of slavery on biblical grounds by major figures such as Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield; the role of the Reich Church in Nazi Germany and the Dutch Reformed Church in apartheid South Africa; the complicity of Christian churches in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda; the role of the Russian Orthodox Church under Patriarch Kirill, who has called Vladimir Putin's leadership 'a miracle of God'; and the cover-up of sexual abuse by the Catholic Church and Protestant denominations. Christianity has an awful lot to answer for, lament over, and learn from."
Americans Are Already Paying Dearly for the National Debt: A spendthrift government is raising borrowing costs for everyone. - "Politicians respond to electoral consequences. Right now there is nothing stopping them from doling out tax cuts and spending promises while also driving up interest rates. Voters may complain that their lives are becoming unaffordable, but hardly anyone seems to appreciate that federal deficits are partly to blame. If we want to see lawmakers actually address this problem, economists need to do a better job explaining the stakes. This means that instead of talking about the fact that our national debt could fill all 32 NFL stadiums with two tiers of construction pallets filled with $100 bills, we should be talking about how deficit spending is making it harder to pay our own bills."
