Son of Hamas
I went to an event last night where Mosab Hassan Yousef, the son of a founder of Hamas, was the guest speaker. It was remarkable: Son of Hamas - A Gripping Account of Terror, Betrayal, Political Intrigue, and Unthinkable Choices: Yousef, Mosab Hassan
His father was a founder of Hamas. He saw the evil of their ways and has become absolutely committed to ending Hamas.
A few of his key points:
- Hamas specifically, and too many Palestinians generally, live in a "7th-century death-cult mindset."
- When his father had to choose between sacrificing Mosab, his own son, and furthering the hateful ideology of Hamas, the father chose Hamas. Which fits perfectly with the decades-old willingness of all Islamofascist groups to "sacrifice children for political and financial gain."
- There is not and never was such a thing as a Palestinian state. The Palestinians are the colonizers, contrary to the left-wing anti-Semitic narrative that Jews (who have been on that land for thousands of years) are the colonizers.
- Mosab had long ago turned against Hamas. (His book is 13 years old, after all). But he still had a little bit of "compassion" for his father just because it's his father. October 7 changed all that and immediately after
Just One Thing: Elon vs Sharks
Elon Musk told a story the other day about getting government permission to have his Starship rockets return to earth and in the early versions they went into the ocean rather than coming back to land. Here’s what he said: “SpaceX had to do this study to see if Starship would hit a shark. And I'm like... it's a big ocean. There are a lot of sharks! It’s not impossible, but it’s very unlikely. So we said, 'Fine, we’ll do the analysis. Can you give us the shark data?' They were like, 'No, we can’t give you the shark data.' Eventually, we got the data and could run the analysis to say, 'Yeah, the sharks are going to be fine.' And then they said “How about whales”? I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
My Bad Political Analogy of the Day
Today's Guests
Colin Larson is a former state representative. I'd call him a moderate Republican. I was interested to see him in a TV ad for Proposition 131 and invited him on the show to talk about it.
Michael Fields is President of Advance Colorado and sponsor of Amendment 80 which would create a state constitutional right to school choice.
Promoting School Choice - Advance Colorado
Colorado Amendment 80, Constitutional Right to School Choice Initiative (2024) - Ballotpedia
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Leland Vittert is the host of On Balance on News Nation. It airs weekdays at 5 PM Mountain Time and is my and Kristen's most-often-watched cable news show.
Leland Vittert | NewsNation (newsnationnow.com)
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Other Stuff
Wisdom: Show forbearance to others because this election is tough - Washington Examiner
The momentum toward Trump over the past few weeks is small but definite: Trump overtakes Harris in DDHQ/The Hill election forecast
Over at Nate Silver's Substack, he tracks polling average changes in the national vote count and a bunch of swing states, and every single one of them has had moves toward Trump in the past month and the past week (except for MN which was unchanged in the past week.) Silver Bulletin 2024 presidential election forecast
An average of odds at election betting sites is roughly at 60% for Trump, 40% for Harris: Election Betting Odds by Maxim Lott and John Stossel
The biggest betting site, Polymarket is even more leaning toward Trump. I think Trump is likely to win but I don't think he's 2/3 to win. If I had to bet with the odds, I'd bet on Harris if I could get about 2-to-1, and it's not too far from that. But if I were not using odds, and just betting straight-up, I'd bet on Trump...but I wouldn't bet a lot.
It will be much harder now for members of Congress to challenge the presidential election results and for a VP to abet such a challenge if a VP were so inclined: ‘We addressed it’: Why this election will be harder to stop on Jan. 6, 2025 | Semafor
And here we go: Introducing computer use, a new Claude 3.5 Sonnet, and Claude 3.5 Haiku \ Anthropic
Anthropic's Latest Claude Lets AI Take Control of Your Entire PC
This could be one of the best ways for Walmart to get folks to sign up for their Walmart+ membership program that I suspect surprisingly few people know about: Walmart to offer same-day prescription drug delivery
A disgusting fake video attacking Tim Walz appears not to be a "deepfake" but a more standard fake: Viral attack on Walz features fake former student making false claim
And now you know why that company had all the ads of shirtless young men: Ex-Abercrombie CEO charged with running sex trafficking ring
How will they vote today? Striking Boeing workers set to vote on new contract offer. Will they approve it? - ABC News
Boeing braces for union vote on wage deal that could end costly strike | Reuters
Offered without comment: Scientists Revived a Pig's Brain Nearly a Whole Hour After It Died : ScienceAlert
This is bad even though I support cutting taxes: 93 million Americans could be exempt from income taxes under Trump (pressrundown.com)
This is nuts (I mean the fact that those algorithms existed if they weren't actually based on good data.): Philadelphia hospitals drop race-based algorithms
Too bad about the phone tho: Australia woman rescued after getting stuck between boulders
I owe you this from yesterday: Who knew? (Well, I guess LOTS of people knew!) Costco Has a Magazine and It’s Thriving - The New York Times (nytimes.com)
The award to the victims was way way too much…but it’s right that Giuliani should have had to pay these women a lot of money. He knowingly lied about them and put their lives at risk. Especially unacceptable for a lawyer to do. And others must be deterred from doing the same. The pain of losing that car and that watch…I can’t imagine Rudy thinks it was worth it. I suspect he regrets ever having gotten involved with Trump, a man without ethics or loyalty. Judge Orders Giuliani to Forfeit Millions in Assets to Election Workers He Defamed - The New York Times
Politically interesting: Endangered Democrats brag about Trump ties in final stretch
One example:
Seems bad, but a felony? Montana man gets 6 months in prison for cloning giant sheep, breeding it | OUT WEST ROUNDUP | News | coloradopolitics.com
The cost savings are insane: Anti-drone drone developed by Ukraine to take out Iranian-designed kamikazes (telegraph.co.uk)
Today's Videos
Wait, did I just get whale poopwater all over me?
I need a baby to test this on