SO WILL AL GORE BE ATTENDING, I GUESS? Trump’s Inauguration Moving Indoors Because of Freezing Weather.
Author Archive: Glenn Reynolds
January 18, 2025
HMM: A chain reaction: HIV vaccines can lead to antibodies against antibodies. “When they carried out the experiments on blood from animals that had received multiple doses of an experimental HIV vaccine, they discovered something surprising: some of the antibodies were not binding directly to the HIV viral antigen, but to immune molecules on its surface. . . . In a series of follow-up experiments on HIV-vaccinated animals, Brown, Ward, and their colleagues showed that these kinds of anti-immune complex antibodies often emerge between the second and third administrations of a vaccine.”
OH, FINE, CONTROLLING THE BORDERS NOW: Incursion of non-native fruit flies requires $129M in emergency funding.
MAKE AMERICA SLIM AGAIN: Latest Medicare price drug negotiations includes Ozempic, Wegovy.
LOL, STANFORD LAW: Stanford Law Prof Fires Meta As Client, Citing Platform’s ‘Descent Into Toxic Masculinity.’
If Zuck is too masculine for you, the problem isn’t with Zuck.
THEY THINK IT’S STILL 2020: Yale course asks: Can science ‘be made queer.’
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Wellesley College offers ‘Queer Bible’ course to examine ‘varieties of gender in the ancient world’ and ‘queerness of gender.’ “The professor is also offering a course on ‘Decolonizing the Bible.’”
MY LATEST SUBSTACK COLUMN: Happy DJT Day.
CHANGE:
Multiple restaurants shifting to beef tallow within hours of a new administration is near parodic levels of "culture is downstream of politics"
— The American Sun (@NewAtlantisSun) January 17, 2025
WHOEVER HIRED THIS GUY SHOULD BE INVESTIGATED, TOO:
Betraying your country should result in a lot more than 6.5 years. The even bigger question is what this says about the CIA’s vetting of analysts that this guy had access to those plans in the first place. https://t.co/5VuFvb6Hqc
— AG (@AGHamilton29) January 17, 2025
RED VS. BLUE GOVERNANCE: A Tale of Two State Insurance Markets: Florida fixed its market with reforms. California didn’t. See the results.
The 1945 McCarran-Ferguson Act enshrines state regulatory authority over insurance. This system has worked relatively well over 80 years. But some states have done a better job of managing their markets than others. California and Florida provide an illustrative contrast.
Democratic insurance commissioners in the Golden State have for years suppressed rates. Until recently, California was the only state that prohibited carriers from using catastrophe models to project disaster risk and pricing reinsurance costs into their premiums.
Wildfires—exacerbated by the state’s poor land mismanagement—have swelled insurer claims and liabilities. Insurers are paying out $1.09 in expenses and claims for every $1 they collect in premiums. They’ve curbed their exposure in part by dropping policy holders in high-risk areas and leaving the market.
The liabilities of the state’s insurer of last resort, FAIR, have exploded to $458 billion from $153 billion in 2020, with $5.9 billion in exposure in the Pacific Palisades. Yet Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara rejected FAIR’s proposed rate increases while requiring it to cover homes worth up to $3 million.
FAIR President Victoria Roach told the state Assembly last year that the insurer in 2021 requested a 48.8% rate increase—less than the 70% it needed—but was approved for 15.7%. FAIR is under-capitalized and had only $700 million in cash on hand as of last year to pay claims.
To prevent more insurers from leaving the state, Mr. Lara last month finally let carriers price in their reinsurance costs and use catastrophe models. But he also capped the reinsurance costs that carriers can pass along. Rates are set to rise 20% to 40% this year, though this still may not be enough to cover insurer liabilities.
Unable to raise rates, many insurers have increased deductibles and capped maximum payments. That means insurers might not cover all of the fire damage, and some homeowners will face hefty rebuilding costs. Lucky for them the Federal Emergency Management Agency covers losses if homeowners are “under-insured.”
This means taxpayers in Houston and Little Rock may pay for rebuilding multi-million-dollar homes in California. If FAIR becomes insolvent, all insurers in California—meaning their customers—are on the hook for its claims. Homeowners could see rates rise by thousands of dollars a year.
Typical.
HE BRINGS HOPE IN SO MANY WAYS: Trump brings hope for shoring up the steel industry.
TURNS OUT, MILTON FRIEDMAN WAS RUNNING THE SHOW:
🚨🇦🇷 ARGENTINA HITS RECORD TRADE SURPLUS IN MILEI’S FIRST YEAR
Under Milei’s leadership, Argentina turned a $7.94B trade deficit in 2023 into a record-smashing $18-19B surplus in 2024, surpassing the previous high of $16.89B in 2009.
His push to boost energy exports from the… pic.twitter.com/wmU8QXtUoE
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) January 17, 2025
The thing is, all that regulatory/tax/interest group superstructure isn’t really there to make the country stronger, better, safer, or richer. It’s mostly just there to bleed off revenue and influence for the parasite class.
LEFTISTS RUIN EVERYTHING. THAT’S NOT AN UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCE, THAT’S THE WHOLE POINT:
Wonderful clarity from Royal Bank of Canada describing the absurdity and nihilism of Britain's policies of deliberately destroying the North Sea oil and gas economy. Why are we doing this to ourselves? https://t.co/EoKtF48pa7 pic.twitter.com/XQHZKAwOEr
— Fred de Fossard (@defossardf) January 17, 2025
January 17, 2025
PROBABLY TOO SUSPICIOUS. BUT I HOPE SECURITY IS EXTRA TIGHT.
Exactly what I was thinking. What do they know that we don't?
— Starr (@starrpainter) January 17, 2025
OPEN THREAD: Ring in the weekend.
FRED HOYLE SMILES: What if life on Venus is just life from Earth?
IS THAT GOOD OR BAD? Dietary Supplement Shown to Reduce Aggression by Up to 28%.
LOOKING ON THE BRIGHT SIDE:
When you think about it, it’s nice to live in a system where the commander of the armed forces declares that the founding legal charter is permanently amended and we all just laugh at him and nothing happens.
— Noah Rothman (@NoahCRothman) January 17, 2025
ABOLISH THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, A PARTISAN SLOUGH:
Sounds like the DC judges held quite the banger in court today–partisan hacks until the very end.
Per Politico:
Tanya Chutkan before sentencing a J6er to 10 days in prison on misdemeanor: “I only wish the rest of the country could see some of the things I see. This may be,…
— Julie Kelly 🇺🇸 (@julie_kelly2) January 17, 2025
HAHA:
*RECORD SCRATCH*
"Yup, that's my wife ratioing the president of the United States. You're probably wondering how I ended up here, well…" https://t.co/9S9UUt70O5
— Mark Hemingway (@Heminator) January 17, 2025
HEH:
Gen Z Upset About TikTok Ban For 4.3 Seconds, Which Is The Maximum Amount Of Time They Can Focus On Something Thanks To TikTok https://t.co/FbU9QeHluM pic.twitter.com/fuRF1Axc6P
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) January 17, 2025
CHANGE: End the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
If you want to defund them, cutting off federal funding isn’t enough. You need to stop state-run affiliate stations from buying NPR and PBS programming.