Beer, inner tubes and tacos
shawn antonio, tx
Joined April 2019
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ShawnTrooper retweeted
Yes, confirmed. The digits and place-value system (including zero) originated in India from Brahmi numerals, fully developed by the 7th century. Arab scholars adopted them in the 8th-9th centuries and passed them to Europe, which is why they became known as Arabic numerals in the West.
ShawnTrooper retweeted
Republicans will spend time and treasure, likely years and millions of dollars, for consultants and experts and pundits to find out what went wrong and how this happened. Save your money and don’t waste your time. The answer came 10 years ago by a Senator from South Carolina who didn’t live to see his prophetic words come to pass. “If we nominate Donald Trump we will get destroyed…and we will deserve it.” Republicans blew up their party, their values, their dignity and decency for a man who wasn’t even a Republican. Unilateral tariffs on our allies by executive orders isn’t conservative. Siding with Vladimir Putin’s murderous war in Ukraine isn’t conservative. Accepting a bribe from a foreign country in the form of an airplane that costs hundreds of millions of dollars isn’t conservative. Turning untrained thugs in masks loose in our communities to murder American citizens in cold blood isn’t conservative. Threatening to invade and conquer a sovereign country, an ally, isn’t conservative. Pardoning people who assaulted law enforcement officers isn’t conservative. The list is too long and too exhausting to contemplate. Republican law makers lit themselves on fire for a thrice married, sociopathic, mentally unstable reality tv personality who bragged about acing a test to check for dementia and spoke about the asses of male candidates for the US Senate. There was a time when I believed we should welcome any of them who finally spoke up back into polite society. But that ship has sailed. These people should live in shame for the rest of their days, shunned and repudiated in history books, never to hold a position that requires the public trust ever again.
ShawnTrooper retweeted
Takes on the election
1. To a first approximation, Republicans lost this hard because voters lost confidence in the Trump administration, not because of a positive agenda from the Democrats. Favorability of the Democratic Party was negative (-5). But Trump told voters to “vote like he was on the ballot”, and they did. The NBC exit poll found that 37% of voters approved of Trump, and 63% disapproved (-26). There’s just no winning the national environment with these margins.
2. There were essentially two major issues that voters cared about: 1) cost of living and 2) government corruption, both of which ~90% of voters said were “crucial or a major factor”. AI was not *that* big of a deal in this election - 56% said it was “crucial or a major factor”, but it’s really hard to disambiguate what voters feel about AGI and catastrophic risks (if anything) from ordinary median-voter NIMBYism around data centers. (It will, however, likely be a huge deal in the 2028 election when the impacts of AI become much more visible). Immigration was also not that big of a deal. Voters actually slightly favored Rs on immigration (+2), probably thanks to lasting backlash from the Biden administration’s laxity on border enforcement. It's unclear to what extent the war with Iran contributed aside from it raising the price of gas.
3. Data centers are probably not over. In fact data center ETF $DTCR was up nearly 2.5% today! It’s hard to understand why this is the case, but one hypothesis is that markets think ultimately, elites’ recognition of the immense economic and national security importance of data centers will override voters’ desire not to build them.
4. On cost of living in particular: one of the most important questions now is to what extent Dems will embrace economic slopulism (think rent control, broad asset taxes, and subsidizing demand) vs. “abundance liberal” policies like building more housing, cutting regulations, and embracing economic growth.
5. Thermostatic backlash is real. Voters hate incumbents. Political majorities shift constantly. The blue wave of 2008 was immediately followed by the red wave of 2010. Anyone predicting a durable multi-decade supermajority for Democrats will likely end up being wrong.
6. “Woke is back” is exactly the wrong lesson for Democrats to take from this, and Ro Khanna posting “DEI is back” doesn’t help. Using transgender issues as a proxy for “woke”, 52% of voters said trans rights have gone too far, compared to just 26% who said they haven’t gone far enough. Deep-blue Washington voted to ban trans athletes in girls’ sports, and Colorado voted to ban trans surgery for minors. Successful Democrats mostly avoided culture war issues.
7. Similarly, a lot of moderate or even right-leaning downballot measures passed, even in blue states. Eight states voted to require voter ID. North Carolina voted to cap state income taxes. California’s billionaire tax is on track to fail by nearly 11 points. Wisconsin voted to ban DEI in state government. Voters largely do not like left-wing ideas.
8. On the other side, “Demographics is destiny” (i.e. America needs to be a white nationalist/nativist country and heavily restrict immigration) is the wrong lesson for Republicans. White voters shifted 13 points to the left. Whites under 30 shifted 30 points to the left. Hispanics and other non-white groups shifted massively towards the right in 2024, and can be encouraged to do so again.
9. Moderates outperformed; radicals underperformed. Dems won by 13 points nationwide. Roy Cooper won by 19.6 in North Carolina (where Trump won by 3.2 in 2024). Jon Ossoff won by 18 in Georgia, where Trump won by 2.2. Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan and Troy Jackson in Maine, both Bernie-backed supporters of Medicare for All, abolishing ICE, and wealth taxes, both underperformed the national margin. In fact, Maine shifted slightly rightward. Dems were able to win deep red states like Iowa, Kansas, and Mississippi by running moderate, Republican-presenting, pro-border-security candidates. I suspect this is the main reason markets are up today. (For some intuition on how insane it is for a Dem candidate to win in Mississippi, Trump won Mississippi in 2024 by a larger margin than Harris won California!)
10. One of last night’s biggest winners was Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis. Under his tenure, Florida has gone from slightly red-leaning to reliably red. Republicans swept every statewide office, kept every House seat, and kept their majority in the State House and supermajority in the State Senate. In January, Florida will be the only one of America’s ten most populous states to have a Republican governor. DeSantis is genuinely smart and nuanced, lacks the baggage of figures like Vance and Rubio who are associated with the Trump administration, and did a great job as an administrator running Florida (see its high rate of domestic migration, zero state income tax, very low debt per capita, high education rankings, state budget surplus, etc). I would be unsurprised if he decided to run for President in 2028.
11. The other biggest winner was Jon Ossoff. Ossoff is a young, handsome, charismatic, moderate white male who won by 18 points in a state that went +2.2 for Trump in 2024. He achieved this in large part by focusing relentlessly on the two issues that mattered: the Trump admin’s corruption and the cost of living. He may very well be the Democratic frontrunner in 2028 (although, of course, it's far too early to make confident predictions about these things).
12. The biggest loser of all last night was Israel and the US-Israel relationship. Israel’s popularity in the United States has been in a steep, secular decline for years. Just 13% of Democrats and 54% of Republicans have positive views on Israel, and this is heavily skewed by age - younger voters are much more likely to oppose Israel. With Democrats taking both houses, it’s unlikely America’s level of political and military support for Israel will last for very long.
13. Gerrymandering doesn’t work under sufficiently strong margins for the opposing party. In political science, this is known as “dummymandering”. Dems are on track to flip 7 of North Carolina’s 14 House seats, shifting the balance of power from 10-4 Republican to 11-3 Democratic.
14. Trump quickly conceded that his party lost and he would be open to working with the Democrats. This was a positive update on Trump’s tendency toward authoritarianism. Many mainstream Republican figures, like JD Vance and Ted Cruz, quickly posted somewhat genuine mea culpas. There was a lot less coping than I expected. It’s possible that the loss had to be very painful for them to learn from it, and we wouldn’t have seen the same if Dems had won only 51 Senate seats.
15. Elections are truly a ton of fun to monitor live. There’s nothing like it. And prediction markets beat mainstream media in terms of timeliness and accuracy by FAR.
16. There’s a good chance none of this matters that much. Trump is still the president and still has veto power. Voters might turn on the incumbent Democrats in 2028. And historically, real GDP growth isn’t that different during eras where Ds controlled Congress vs Rs. Much of your probability mass should go towards “nothing ever happens”.
ShawnTrooper retweeted
I have been holding my tongue about something that happened during the Ohio gubernatorial race. I refused to speak while the election was underway because I did not want my words mistaken for an attempt to influence anyone’s vote.
But now that the election is over, I have something to say.
For nearly twenty years, my ministry has taken me among the homeless, the abused, the exploited, and the forgotten. I have sat with victims of sexual violence and witnessed the lifelong wounds of childhood trauma.
What Vivek Ramaswamy’s campaign did to Amy Acton was among the most morally repulsive things I have witnessed in American politics.
They took a woman whose stepfather was indicted for raping her when she was twelve years old and featured her mother, from whom she had been estranged for nearly fifty years, in a political advertisement attacking her credibility.
The advertisement challenged Acton’s account of her childhood without mentioning the sexual abuse allegations or the circumstances of that estrangement. When people expressed their horror, the campaign defended it.
Imagine examining another person’s childhood suffering and fractured family relationships, then deciding those wounds might help win an election.
Anyone who has worked with survivors of childhood sexual abuse understands the painful realities of denial, betrayal, shame, and estrangement. A child growing into a successful adult does not erase what happened. Nor does a parent’s denial make that suffering disappear.
I find it equally disturbing that an elderly mother, whom Acton herself described as unwell, was brought into this spectacle. Whatever her own struggles or responsibility for the past, exploiting that fractured relationship was grotesque.
To everyone who defended this, consider the message you sent to survivors. To the young woman whose family refuses to believe her. To the man who has carried the shame of childhood abuse for forty years. To the frightened child who has yet to tell anyone.
What did you teach them about the value of their suffering?
I am a priest. I believe in repentance, forgiveness, and redemption. But none of those things requires me to pretend that deliberate cruelty is anything less than a grave moral failure.
Your political allegiance does not absolve you of moral responsibility. You do not get to set aside your conscience during an election and retrieve it afterward.
If your loyalty requires you to defend the exploitation of a childhood sexual abuse survivor, your loyalty has become an idol. And if your conscience cannot recognize the wrong here, examine what political tribalism has done to it.
This is not about Republicans or Democrats. We have a choice as a people: continue excusing cruelty from our preferred political camp, or summon the courage to condemn it wherever it appears.
Amy Acton deserved better. Every survivor who watched this unfold deserved better.
And God help us if we have reached the point where winning an election matters more than protecting the dignity of a wounded human being.
ShawnTrooper retweeted
Instead of correcting course, the GOP chose to shoot the messenger and double down on stupid. (This tweet is one year old tomorrow.)
ShawnTrooper retweeted
Writing this in my personal capacity, but I have been flying these types of aircraft for more than 20 years, with over 8,000 hours, and have reasonable familiarity with how the charter world operates. I feel compelled to post after seeing commentary about the Lear 60 crash, from missile strikes to DEI to critiquing this poor woman’s final radio calls.
That last part is what I find most troubling. She was the second-in-command (SIC), and while she was empowered to point out mistakes as part of good crew resource management, she was doing her job, communicating with ATC right to the end in a terrifying situation. She likely knew before many of those calls that she was going to die. I have heard final calls from friends, from military pilots with thousands of hours in fighter aircraft, and they are just as heartbreaking because they know the end is approaching.
I understand the public interest given the footage and audio. But you do not know the aircraft’s maintenance history, whether there was a structural failure, if any failure was induced by turbulence, overspeed, or overcontrol, or everything happening in that cockpit. I am sure weather will be part of the investigation, but beyond that, it is speculation. The charter industry routinely hires commercial pilots very early in their careers to gain experience alongside an ATP-qualified captain before they move up to the airlines. She would still have the appropriate training, qualifications, and checkouts by an FAA examiner or designee.
Let people investigate, learn, and share the facts. Be respectful to those who perished and the families who carry their memories. God bless them and their loved ones.
ShawnTrooper retweeted
A joint statement from the families of Adam Robinson, Helen Sharp, Emma and Charlie Robinson, Rachael Reed, Charmi Fehr and Anita Maria Cetina all lost in yesterday’s plane crash.
With broken hearts, our families share that Adam Robinson and Helen Sharp, their children Emma and Charlie, Rachael Reed and Charmi Fehr, and Anita Maria Cetina were among those lost aboard the flight that went down near Greenacres, Florida, on November 1.
Adam and Helen were devoted parents, and Emma, 4, and Charlie, 2, were the light of their lives. Helen and Adam were the love affair that will last forever. Their warmth, generosity and gift for making people feel welcome touched so many lives. Their loss will be felt deeply by all those who loved them and who they loved in return.
Charmi and Rachel were full of joy and adventure. They loved their people fiercely, fully and without hesitation. From the moment they met, they were all in on each other and the life they were building. They are deeply loved, and we will miss them endlessly.
Anita Maria cared for Emma and Charlie with tenderness and devotion, and she was truly part of the family. She showed us a legacy of unconditional love and devotion.
We are deeply grateful to the first responders, investigators, and the Palm Beach County community for their care, and to everyone who has reached out with love. Our hearts are also with the families of the pilots, who are grieving alongside us.
We ask for privacy as we grieve. Details about memorial services will be shared once arrangements are made.
With love,
The Robinson, Sharp, Reed, Fehr, and Cetina families
ShawnTrooper retweeted
In our pop culture, Star Trek is probably the most influential document on the importance of scientific and technological progress, grounded in a humanism that recognizes the inherent worth of all beings.
Patrick Stewart did as much as anyone else to bring that vision to life, and imbue it with the dramatic and moral seriousness it deserved. RIP.
ShawnTrooper retweeted
We mourn the passing of Patrick Stewart, who inspired countless individuals at NASA (and beyond) to boldly go where no one has gone before.
ALT Image description: A packed, sparkling starfield captured by our Hubble telescope — with strange new worlds potentially awaiting. Credit: ESA/Hubble and NASA, R. Cohen
ShawnTrooper retweeted
Jean-Luc Picard remains the single most compelling vision of progressive politics I am familiar with — secular, rational, compassionate, egalitarian; a believer in progress & abundance but also duty, hard work, and a constant battle for self-improvement and improving the world.
ShawnTrooper retweeted
SIR PATRICK STEWART (1940-2026)
Before everything else, Patrick was defined by being born and bred in Yorkshire, the proud county in the north of England which he loved to the end. You could hear it in his accented voice and in the stern honesty with which he told you what he thought and felt. Yorkshiremen have no truck with half-truths or avoidance of big issues. He wore his heart on his sleeve, which made him a man to rely on, to admire and in my case, love.
We first met as ambitious young actors with the Royal Shakespeare Company half a century ago but we weren’t in the same productions. My first strong memory was a few years later, meeting him in the street in central London when he told me about an offer to take over a leading part in 'Star Trek'. “But Patrick think of your stage career in the UK. Do you really want to risk—getting lost in Hollywood for years and years?”. Well, he took the risk and thank goodness for us all that he did for not just his devoted Trekkies but film and theatre audiences, who marvelled at his using international celebrity to star in a string of cinema successes ('X-Men' of course) and in great classical plays by Shakespeare, Ibsen, Arthur Miller, Peter Shaffer, Pinter and Beckett at Stratford-upon-Avon, in London’s West End and on Broadway.
America was his adopted home, where he met his adored Sunny who has cared for him through sickness and health, through thick and thin. But he never forsook his origins: and the proudest achievement of the most respected and beloved actor of his generation on either side of the Atlantic, was his appointment as Chancellor of Huddersfield University in Yorkshire.
His farewell performance in 'Avengers: Doomsday' is yet to be seen.
Ian McKellen 29 October 2026
Photo: University of Huddersfield
ShawnTrooper retweeted
This one hurts really bad for me.
I grew up with Patrick Stewart. I’m not exaggerating when I say that TNG is the reason I am who I am and why I have the values and morals that I do. Captain Picard taught me everything I know about being a good, decent, empathetic person
ShawnTrooper retweeted
What a heartbreaking week it has been. Sir Patrick Stewart was a friend, a colleague, and a magnificent actor. From the stage to the bridge of the Enterprise, he brought intelligence, grace, and a deep sense of humanity to everything he did. Captain Picard stood for the best of us, and so did the man who played him. I was filled with affection and admiration for him and his work.
My heart goes out to Sunny and his family. He will be deeply missed.
ShawnTrooper retweeted
“I always have been optimistic about humanity's future. Always. Even at the most dismaying of times.”
- Sir Patrick Stewart
ShawnTrooper retweeted
A replica of the 1960s Batmobile driving through the streets of São Paulo, Brazil
teapawt.net/fluxfolio_/status/2008…