Happy Fourth!
Slope of Hope Blog Posts
Slope initially began as a blog, so this is where most of the website’s content resides. Here we have tens of thousands of posts dating back over a decade. These are listed in reverse chronological order. Click on any category icon below to see posts tagged with that particular subject, or click on a word in the category cloud on the right side of the screen for more specific choices.
Relax
We’ve got a very long weekend ahead of us. I’m sure I’ll manage to come up with some posts over the course of the holiday, but let’s just take a breath, relax, and take it easy for a change. Have a hot dog. Light up a sparkler. Read the Declaration of Independence. Something besides charts, for once. See ya.
Daddy Issues
My prediction last year of a Musk/Trump hate-fest seems to have come true yet again. In spite of a brief detente, the two of them are at each other’s throats again, with the Pre-zi-dent musing about deporting the world’s richest man out loud to reporters. Musk’s one public company, Tesla (TSLA), is feeling the heat from its conditions within our banana republic.
Public Service
In the map below, the yellow portion is Washington, D.C. The red parts are areas in which the GDP per capita is lower. As for the parts in which GDP is higher, there are none, since – – well – – public employee unions, lobbyists, and other hardworking public servants.
The Shape of Government
I found this kind of fascinating: there are several standard arrangements for how legislative bodies are organized. You can see them color-coded here, based on the seating arrangement they use:
