Five posts since the last Dispatch, organized as two arcs: Monday through Wednesday tracked the news in real time, Thursday and Friday returned to the methodological pieces those posts depended on. The tightest moment came Wednesday — the Iran prediction the April 17 post staked landed around 5pm, and the Virginia rule the Wednesday post … Read more
A dispatch from the road, later than usual. The week covered the launch of the junk drawer series, a USPS post whose central mechanism acquired a fuel surcharge while the post was still fresh, a Supreme Court case in which the drawer breaks, and a Friday post on Iran that staked a prediction now counting … Read more
A week that started with three posts on prediction markets and ended with a ceasefire that may or may not be one. Plus: a poll you took, a court hearing nobody is watching, and a new series beginning next week that Ed. did not see coming. In the News Total and Complete Victory (Fragile Truce … Read more
Three items this week — all of them, in one way or another, about instruments that outlived their justifications. In the News The Toll Booth That Replaced the Threat Last week I noted that Trump’s serial extensions of the Strait of Hormuz deadline were doing something structurally distinct from simply moving the goalposts: each revision … Read more
Four items from the news this week, plus two more on the horizon. It was that kind of week. In the News The Deadline That Wasn’t, Then Wasn’t Again Trump’s ultimatum to Iran — open the Strait of Hormuz or face renewed strikes on energy infrastructure — was due March 23. Then it was due … Read more
A new recurring feature, starting this week. A few items from the news — sometimes updates to arguments this blog has already made, sometimes new events the existing framework illuminates without quite rising to a full post — followed by a couple of things we’re watching that haven’t ripened yet. Everything here is shorter than … Read more