Founder of RealityChek - a blog covering economics, national security, tech, & their intersections. Also checking in regularly on the general human condition.

Joined August 2012
101 Photos and videos
Oft-vilified Knicks owner Dolan: "NY! I'm sorry it took so long!"
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This Jalen Brunson game - I think it was even better than the 1970 Walt Frazier game. And Clyde has been my favorite Knick.
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Another miracle Knicks comeback!!!!! Despite all those missed FTs!!!!!
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This Knicks fan hates complaining about the officiating, but two flagrant fouls by the Spurs missed in like two minutes????? Including one by Wemby that would have gotten him a suspension?????
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"...45% of tickets for the pivotal Game 5 [in the NBA Finals have been] snatched up by New York and New Jersey basketball buffs. Nearly half of Frost Bank Center [in San Antonio] will be blue and orange...." SMH
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.@NatashaRSarin of @The_Budget_Lab claims that "Net migration to the U.S. dropped by more than half in 2025 [y/y] spelling an upcoming drop in...productivity." Cites findings that "Lower immigration changes the...population in ways [including age] that reduce entrepreneurship."
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But @ApolloGlobal has just released data indicating exactly the opposite - & continuing into early this year.
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Graham Platner's latest defender: Hunter Biden. What could go wrong?
BREAKING: Hunter Biden charges into battle to defend Graham Platner against the bad faith smear campaign — and Republicans are furious. This is an absolute must-read… “To everyone so eager to cancel someone for a tattoo they got at age 22, a drunk text, a selfie they took in the middle of a mental health crisis: Show us your laptop. Show us your iCloud,” Biden wrote on X. “Open your entire digital life to your worst enemy. No context. No filter. No explanation. You won’t,” he added. The tattoo in question was a skull that Platner got done while in the military only to later discover it was associated with Nazism. He promptly got it covered it up by a new, benign tattoo. Platner has also come under fire for past erratic behavior brought on by the PTSD he incurred fighting in wars started by a Republican administration. “You won’t because you know what I know. Any one of us, frozen at our worst moment, photographed in our lowest hour, looks like a monster,” Hunter continued. “Looks like a stranger. Looks like someone who deserves to be cast out. That is not who we are.” Hunter, of course, has personal experience with this kind of invasive humiliation because right-wingers gleefully disseminated photographs of him at his lowest, in the grips of drug and alcohol addiction, in an effort to politically harm his father. He is now clean, sober, and living proof that people can change. “My mom and baby sister were killed in a car accident when I was just a kid. Cancer took my brother Beau, my best friend and my rock,” he wrote. “I battled alcoholism. I battled addiction. I chose the coward’s way out more times than I can count. For years I believed the defining chapters of my life were written by tragedy, loss, and shame.” “I no longer believe that.” “Pain can shape us. Loss can humble us. Failures can leave scars that never fully fade. But none of them have the authority to define us.” “And it sure as hell ain’t the critic that counts. That authority belongs to us alone-the person in the arena. Every setback presents a choice. Play the victim, or cut the bullshit and take ownership for who we become next.” “Life does not determine our character. It reveals it.” “Again and again we are asked the same question. When shit happens, what next.” “We are not defined by what happened to us. We are not defined by the worst photo, the worst text, the worst tattoo, the worst night. We are defined by the person we choose to become. And by the courage to choose that person, every single day.” “So before you reach for the gavel - show us your laptop.” “You won’t.” “The whole world saw mine. And I am still here. Still becoming. Still choosing. Still standing.” “That is the only definition that matters,” he concluded. Republicans predictably responded to the thoughtful, empathetic message with their usual psychopathy. The comments are littered with MAGA cultists attacking Hunter for his past drug use and his father’s imagined crimes. But it doesn’t matter, Biden is undeterred. He’s proud of the man he’s become and ready to fight for what’s right. Please ❤️ and share if you stand with Graham Platner!
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New US government evidence that covid lockdowns haven't been the only recent problem ailing US schools: "With the exception of 9-year-old reading, which is about the same, scores for all age groups & subjects are lower than in 2012—including by 15 pts in math for 13-year-olds."
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Awfully interesting from a genuine stock market expert: The market "has always been concentrated...." Its overall "generous 10% investment returns over the past 100 years have been generated by less than 4% of all stocks."
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