* “The boomer supremacy: The dominance of baby boomers is becoming total,” although I think “old people vote” matters most here.

* The three party system:

There are three major political forces in contemporary politics in developed countries: tribalism, neoliberalism and leftism (defined in more detail below). Until recently, the party system involved competition between different versions of neoliberalism. Since the Global Financial Crisis, neoliberals have remained in power almost everywhere, but can no longer command the electoral support needed to marginalise both tribalists and leftists at the same time. So, we are seeing the emergence of a three-party system, which is inherently unstable because of the Condorcet problem and for other reasons.

I don’t buy the entire analysis, but the ideas are excellent.

* It’s not smart to post lots of shit to Facebook.

* The Second Avenue Subway is actually happening. Slowly, oh so slowly, but happening.

* Mathematician Timothy Gowers is bent on proving academic journals can and should cost nothing. This ought to be obvious by now.

* “Laura Wasser Is Hollywood’s Complete Divorce Solution,” hilarious (and depressing) throughout, with the real takeaway hidden at the end:

Wasser never remarried. Instead, she prefers long-term, live-in boyfriends. She’s no longer with either of her sons’ fathers, with whom she shares verbal custody agreements that she’s never felt the need to put on paper. “Is it a little bit of the cobbler’s son not wearing shoes? Maybe,” she says. “But I don’t want to get married. I don’t like the idea of entering into that contract.”

This is becoming the new normal, though laws and norms haven’t caught up.

* “Can NATO and the EU survive Donald Trump, French nationalists, and a Brexit?” A much scarier article than I imagined reading. We are our own worst enemies.

* Why public sector unions are poisonous; one can only hope that the Supreme Court limits this kind of folly in the future.

* “It’s time to give up the fight against grade inflation.” See also me, “What incentivizes professors to grade honestly? Nothing.”

* Amazing:

And it’s not just price — Mexican growers are facing pressure on quality, too. “The quality of marijuana produced in Mexico and the Caribbean is thought to be inferior to the marijuana produced domestically in the United States or in Canada,” the DEA wrote last year in its 2015 National Drug Threat Assessment. “Law enforcement reporting indicates that Mexican cartels are attempting to produce higher-quality marijuana to keep up with U.S. demand.”