The biggest news of the day should once again be about DOGE.
A new Executive Order was passed a few minutes ago.
It empowers DOGE to spearhead the complete reorganization of the federal governmentđź§µ
The first part of this Order is simple:
The OMB will put out a plan to make the federal workforce smaller and more efficient, including a stipulation that agencies must remove four existing employees for each new hire, with some exceptions.
The second part is meatier.
New hires have to be approved by newly-installed DOGE Team Leads in each agency. These Team Leads will report what goes on in the agency they're assigned to on a monthly basis.
But that's not even the big part yet.
Third, agency heads will prepare for a massive reduction in the federal workforce.
This workforce reduction will apply to employees not performing necessary and statutorily mandated functions, so if Congress isn't protecting your job, you're likely leaving.
Fourth, suitability judgments about the excepted service will be expanded.
People who do not meet certain legal obligations, people who do not certify NDA compliance, and people who steal or misuse government resources are deemed no longer suitable for employment in it.
Here's the really big part of this order. It's kind of buried down deep, but it's very important:
Agencies are ordered to develop a comprehensive reorganization plan that identifies offices that can be purged because they lack statutory protections, and offices to consolidate.
Putting this all together, what the Order entails is a massive reorganization of the federal workforce and the streamlining of the civil service to make its operation line up with the goals of DOGE.
Not only that, but it empowers DOGE by embedding Team Leads for oversight.
Couple this with the February 4 OPM memo on CIOs, and what we have is staggering:
The federal government will be centralized, stripped down, and more intimately controlled by the President and his delegates, with control enhanced via DOGE.
This is the biggest news of the day, and it's hard to overstate just how big it is.
Because the federal government has grown so unwieldy that no one can provide you with a semblance of an outline of it, measures like this may just be needed to tame the beast.
So, at least in this propensity score- or age-matched data, there's no reason to chalk the benefit up to the weight loss effects.
This is a hint though, not definitive. Another hint is that benefits were observed in short trials, meaning likely before significant weight loss.
We can be doubly certain about that last hint because diabetics tend to lose less weight than non-diabetics, and all of the observed benefit has so far been observed in diabetic cohorts, not non-diabetic ones (though those directionally show benefits).
The reason why should teach us something about commitment
The government there has previously attempted crackdowns twice in the form of mano dura—hard hand—, but they failed because they didn't hit criminals hard enough
Then Bukele really did
In fact, previous attempts backfired compared to periods in which the government made truces with the gangs.
The government cracking down a little bit actually appeared to make gangs angrier!
You'd have been in your right to conclude 'tough on crime fails', but you'd be wrong.
You have to *actually* enforce the law or policy won't work. Same story with three-strike laws, or any other measure
Incidentally, when did the gang problems begin for El Salvador? When the U.S. exported gang members to it
Diets that restrict carbohydrate consumption lead to improved blood sugar and insulin levels, as well as reduced insulin resistance.
Additionally, they're good or neutral for the liver and kidneys, and they don't affect the metabolic rate.
Carbohydrate isn't the only thing that affects glycemic parameters.
So does fat!
So, for example, if you replace 5% of dietary calories from saturated fat with PUFA, that somewhat improves fasting glucose levels (shown), and directionally improves fasting insulin:
Dietary composition may not be useful for improving the rate of weight loss ceteris paribus, but it can definitely make it easier given what else it changes.
Those non-metabolism details may be why so many people find low-carb diets so easy!
There's a popular belief that family wealth is gone in three generations.
The first earns it, the second stewards it, and the third spends it away: from shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations!
But how true is this belief?
Gregory Clark has new evidenceđź§µ
The first thing to note is that family wealth is correlated across many generations. For example, in medieval England, this is how wealth at death correlates across six generations.
It correlates substantially enough to persist for twelve generations at observed rates of decay:
But why?
The dominant theory among laypeople is social: that the wealth is directly transmitted.
This is testable, and the Malthusian era provides us with lots of data for testing.
The Catholic Church helped to modernize the West due to its ban on cousin marriage and its disdain for adoption, but also by way of its opposition to polygyny.
The origin of this disdain arguably lies with Church Fathers like Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and Tertullianđź§µ
Justin Martyr, in his Dialogue with Trypho argues with a Jew that Christians are the ones living in continuity with God's true intentions.
Justin sees Genesis 2 ("the two shall become one flesh") as normative.
In his apologetic world, Christians are supposed to transcend lust.
Irenaeus, in Against Heresies, is attacking Gnostics (Basilides, Carpocrates), whose sexual practices he finds scandalous.
To him, "temperance dwells, self-restraint is practiced, monogamy is observed"—polygyny is a doctrinal and moral deviation from creation affirmation.