Tuesday, August 6, 2024

Muslim Riots in Britain

 









They never mention the fact that the riots were a Pakistani/African thing. It was a "man problem".

Incredible. 

Monday, August 5, 2024

Killing time



 Hi. Killing time while waiting for the Irani attack.


היא: ממתי אתה רואה קפיצה במוט?
אני: ממתי? אני גדלתי על קפיצה במוט. אצלנו בחולון כולם קפצו במוט. זה מה שהיה

Saturday, August 3, 2024

J.D.Vance Dixit


 Childless People Don’t Have a Stake here.

I'd moderate it by saying they have a limited stake here and none in the future. 

Ill.: with Chief of Staff Jacob Reses

The Gods vs Astronomy


 The Gods won. After decades of mounting tension between scientists and Native Hawaiians, Caltech has completed its removal of a telescope from the summit of Mauna Kea, a dormant volcano that is revered by the island’s Indigenous population.
The decommissioning of the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory in July follows the removal of a University of Hawaii observatory a month earlier and comes amid a cultural resurgence (superstition?) among Native Hawaiians.

Friday, August 2, 2024

War Premonition


 Our enemies in Iran Lebanon Yemen and Turkiye publicly warned of unpleasant retaliation in the coming days. Here we are preparing for harm. In Tel Aviv, the anti-atomic refuges have been opened. Just in case.

Thursday, August 1, 2024

The macuahuitl


 The macuahuitl, an Aztec weapon, combined the force of a club with the precision of a sword. Made of sturdy wood and embedded with razor-sharp obsidian. It is much mentioned in the Spanish conquest of Mexico, but I had never seen one. It appear heavier than I imagined. Some of Cortes's soldiers replaced their swords with this native weapon, for being more effective.

On Local Regulatory Approval


We provide credible estimates of the effect of duration and uncertainty in local regulatory approval times on the rate of housing production. The analysis derives from a novel dataset of development timelines for all multifamily housing projects permitted in the City of Los Angeles between 2010 and 2022. As a lower bound, simply by pulling forward in time the completion of already started projects, we estimate that reductions of 25% in approval time duration and uncertainty would increase the rate of housing production by 11.9%. If we also account for the role of approval times in incentivizing new development, we estimate that the 25% reduction in approval time would increase the rate of housing production by a full 33.0%. Both the expected value and the uncertainty in approval times are salient to incentivizing new development. The results provide new evidence that local approval processes are a significant driver of housing supply and reinforce the notion that municipal regulatory reform is an important component of housing reform.

How true! Describes a situation similar to the Israeli approval regime. If California, the most advanced state in the world, cannot solve this problem, what can we do?  

אם בַּאֲרָזִים נָפְלָה שַׁלְהֶבֶת – מַה יַּעֲשׂוּ אֲזוֹבֵי קִיר?

Illustration:  Israel - a partial list of forms to be submitted for a municipal approval.