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Musk’s tunnel drilling company, The Boring Company, has announced a privately funded plan to build a 10-mile underground people-mover connecting the convention center and downtown to the airport. Take that to the bank? Not so fast. “ Musk also claimed during the first Trump administration that The Boring Company had received “verbal govt approval” to dig tunnels from New York City to Washington, D.C. that, leveraging hyperloop technology, could make the trip in just 29 minutes. “None of that ever happened. The Boring Company abandoned plans to dig a major tunnel system underneath the greater Los Angeles area   after pushback from locals. A similar thing happened in Chicago.  And the Boring Company has essentially ghosted many other cities around the country. ” But people are happy to have these jobs, right? “Last year, Fortune’s Jessica Mathews reported that a Boring Company employee told his then-safety manager: “I have watched my friends get injured due to the fast pace we’v...

Like commercial fusion power, Tesla’s robotaxis are always just around the corner but never quite here. In the case of Tesla, it doesn’t really matter because the marketing  is  the product. “There's an old adage in the auto industry that if you want to move a product you have to "show the car." Tesla is clearly following its own version of this wisdom in the Bay Area, as it doesn't currently have any capacity to legally deliver an autonomous ride-hailing service. So what Californians are likely to see is a modest fleet of Tesla Model Y's zipping around with "Robotaxi" branding, just without the "robo" part actually engaged. It's good advertising, but anyone looking closely would notice the human in the driver's seat.” In other words, regular taxis.   https://www.jalopnik.com/1923966/tesla-robotaxi-service-just-regular-taxi/  

My dad always scoffed at the idea of rescuing cats from trees. His reaction was “if it was a problem, how come there aren’t cat bones in trees?” Using the same logic, if vaccines were deadly, how come we aren’t seeing hundreds of millions of vaccines deaths? Vaccines have been used for decades. Where are the bodies? How can that many people die without being noticed? I’m reading that anti-vaxxers are outraged that RFK Jr. hasn’t outlawed all COVID vaccines. Ostensibly in the name of protecting public health.  Look, if you don’t want the vaccine, don’t take it. You’ll be a public health menace by (a) increasing the likelihood of your contracting and transmitting the virus and (b) by making of yourself a laboratory for a potentially more virulent virus. But you have no right to weaponize government to prevent me from protecting myself. I already placed my bet with the vaccine by volunteering for the Moderna Phase III trial (and I was in the vaccine arm, not the placebo arm). I’ve had...

I see where Russia is turning to cryptocurrency to avoid sanctions.  Seems like there’s a new cryptocurrency every day. Scam? Ponzi scheme? Part of your retirement portfolio? To answer this question for myself, I have to compare crypto to its alternatives. I’ll focus on Bitcoin because it’s been around awhile and seems to have a recognizable community of investors outside of the criminal users who imagine—wrongly—that Bitcoin transaction cannot be hacked. Is Bitcoin a store of value? A casual examination of Bitcoin’s history says no, it’s far too volatile. It’s driven by speculation, not investing.  Is it comparable to gold as an investment because both are scarce? No. Gold has utility in electronics and jewelry, for example. Bitcoin is stored electrons. To me, Bitcoin and all other crypto really belong to the greater fool theory of investing—you make money by finding a greater fool willing to pay more for it than you did. As an investment, it is too risky. It belongs in the “...

Climate change is already doing a lot of harm. One of the harms is the drying of land masses. The people who live on these land masses depend on fresh water not only to drink but to grow crops for food. As surface water disappears, humanity is dipping into the corpus of its geological endowment, groundwater.     “ Groundwater is ubiquitous across the globe, but its quality and depth vary, as does its potential to be replenished by rainfall. Major groundwater basins — the deep and often high-quality aquifers — underlie roughly one-third of the planet, including roughly half of Africa, Europe and South America. But many of those aquifers took millions of years to form and might take thousands of years to refill. Instead, a significant portion of the water taken from underground flows off the land through rivers and on to the oceans.   “The researchers were surprised to find that the loss of water on the continents has grown so dramatically that it has become one of the larg...

Looking back, I realize that I came of age near the end of the golden age for universities. As an undergrad at UT-Knoxville, tuition* was ca. $160/quarter for a full load. As a grad student, I got 36 months of stipend from an NIH training grant, and my mentor’s grant paid my stipend for the other 24 months. Most of my postdoc support was from an NIH NRSA award. I was able to get a tenure-track faculty position doing basic science research, and six years later was promoted with tenure. But the wheels were already starting to fall off by 1990, as federal research grant funding started to tighten. I was able to keep my lab funded most of the time, and the department had a substantial endowment that bridged it between grants. Now, with the Trump and GOP attacks on higher ed, jobs are disappearing, the layoffs are increasing, and small colleges are closing at an increasing clip. I personally know people at Harvard and Brandeis in untenured faculty positions who lost their jobs because of fi...

You don’t have to be looking to buy or sell a home to know there’s a nationwide problem with the housing market. Of course, some locations are stressed more than others. And the stress spills over into the rental market.   I’m certainly no expert. We lived in our first house for 35 years. That was the only house we’ve sold. And both that house and the one we replaced it with were purchased without ever going on the market. The first we bought directly from the seller, without an agent. The second we bought with the help of buyer’s agents who worked for the same company as the seller’s agent. When we sold the first house, the buyer wanted us to take $25K off the asking price because the 95-year-old house had live knob-and-tube wiring. We haggled him down to $17K, but we’d already bought the replacement and needed the cash. We paid cash for the second home without getting an inspection and ended up making about $25K worth of repairs after moving in. Home prices are way up from the pa...

When I started my faculty position at the age of 32, the university had a defined benefit plan. They would contribute 6% of my salary to my retirement investment, pre-tax. I could contribute up to 60% from my salary pre-tax, but to get the university contribution, I had to contribute at least 4%. Such a deal! And yet I knew of people who refused to make the minimum withholding and so didn’t get the free money from the university. Eventually, the university raised its contribution to 10%, and I maxed out my contribution at 10%. The government gets its share as we start taking payments, and soon we’ll have to take mandatory minimum distributions, to make sure it does. The best way to save for retirement is to start as young as possible. Small amounts of monthly savings over 35-40 year and invested with compound interest is way easier than waiting until age 50 or later to begin. But not everyone can do that. For most retiring Americans, Social Security is most or all their retirement inco...

Jonathan Last has an excellent piece at The Bulwark on the clusterf*** that is the Bezos WaPo and what it says about the business model of journalism in America. “The internet revolution was about lowering to zero the marginal cost of distributing content. The AI revolution is about lowering to zero the marginal cost of   creating   content. That is going to transform media all over again—probably in ways that are deleterious.   “No one knows exactly how it will shake out, but in the broadest sense a few things seem inevitable:   ·                  Commoditized content will be overwhelming, indistinguishable, and free.  ·                  There will be   so much more   content generated that discovery becomes difficult to impossible. ·           ...

Recently, Trump said he   was “thinking about” ending capital gains taxes on home sales. Who benefits?   “ The biggest beneficiaries of such a change will likely be longtime homeowners in the country’s more expensive housing markets. “Removing or increasing the capital gains limit — currently $250,000 for single homeowners or $500,000 for married couples — on home sales has been a longtime priority for the real estate industry, which argues that steep tax bills are keeping some homeowners who wish to relocate or downsize stuck in homes that no longer fit their needs.” Sounds like a good idea to promote greater liquidity in the housing market, right? Maybe for larger homes in rich neighborhoods, but what about folks who want to downsize? “This will primarily affect people in affluent towns and those who have owned their homes for a long time,” [Alex Caswell, founder of Wealth Script Advisors in San Francisco] said. “We have experienced a significant price increase since the low...

House Republicans apparently plan to rename the Kennedy Center Opera House in honor of First Lady Melania Trump.   From the paywalled Washington Post: “ A Republican proposal would rename the second-largest theater in the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts after the first lady, if legislation considered Tuesday by the House Appropriations Committee becomes law.” The Bolsheviks re-named St. Petersburg as Leningrad. They re-named Tsaritsyn as Stalingrad. Will Washington DC become Trump DC? 

So Trump is suing Rupert Murdoch for defamation because of the release of a salacious doodle. Nothing remarkable about Donald J. Trump weaponizing the legal system against his opponents, I know. But there are some things that do bear remark here: “ . . . he's suing Rupert Murdoch personally. But you know who he's not suing? Lachlan Murdoch, who's actually the chairperson of News Corp and Fox, who's actually the decision-maker. Rupert Murdoch has no official role there anymore. He's an adviser.   “So, I thought that was revealing in a lot of ways, because it isn't just about going after the entity. It's sort of this expansion spillover, trying to send as much of a message as you possibly can. He's sort of hitting every potential lever, not just against Murdoch and that empire, but then all the other media properties in the future. It's also about sending an example.” “HAYES: Yeah. That, to me, is the point here, is that these lawsuits are not lawsuits...

“ The Department of Homeland Security found no evidence that Tufts PhD student   Rümeysa Öztürk   engaged in antisemitic activity or made public statements that showed support for a terrorist organization, according to a State Department memo discussed in federal court in Boston Friday. The contents of the memo came out during the last day of witness testimony in a lawsuit brought by higher education organizations, including the American Association of University Professors, over the Trump administration’s policies of arresting and detaining international students and others engaged in pro-Palestinian activism.   Rümeysa Öztürk was arrested in late March on a street in Massachusetts. Federal authorities are seeking her deportation. Her attorneys argue she was targeted solely for an op-ed she co-wrote in support of Palestinians in the Tufts student newspaper.  There is no evidence that she is violent, advocates violence or otherwise was a threat to America or American...

Trump was recently in the news promoting a switch from high fructose corn syrup to cane sugar in Coca-Cola, which he’s claiming credit for. Look, I’m not the world’s best biochemist, but this looked like marketing hype to me.  Why is high fructose corn syrup problematic but cane sugar—which is a disaccharide of glucose and fructose—isn’t?   The most common type used in soft drinks is HFCS-55, which is 55% fructose and 45% glucose. By definition, sucrose is 50% fructose and 50% glucose. I put this question to a young assistant professor in my department whose research specialty is metabolism. Here’s his response: “ I would say your hunch is correct, in that replacing HFCS with cane sugar (yes, 50% fructose) is still likely just as bad. Studies and meta-analyses have found pretty similar effects weight gain between the two.   “Overall, I would say that the Coke stuff in the news Thanks to Trump is merely trying to wash the bad name of HFCS…   “The only halfway logical ...

Look, if you were serious about making America healthy, here is a short list of things Congress and the Administration can do: • restore and expand Medicaid benefits; • restore and expand SNAP; • eliminate the Medicare Advantage plans; • support and expand childhood vaccinations; • replace our current nightmare of private insurance with single-payer, like all the other industrialized nations on the planet; • stop vilifying artificial fluoridation of water. Eliminating food dyes and replacing high fructose corn syrup with cane sugar are mostly just fake news gimmicks. Meaningful improvement in public health costs money. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/coca-cola-says-it-appreciates-trumps-enthusiasm-after-president-says-company-will-use-real-sugar-in-drinks-131812311.html

I n the immediate wake of US bombing of Iran (an act of war), Trump fist-pumped a total victory: • He declared the strikes a "spectacular military success," stating that Iran's key enrichment facilities had been "completely and totally obliterated;” • He asserted that "Operation Midnight Hammer totally obliterated Iran's nuclear capabilities;”   • He wrote on Truth Social that "Monumental Damage was done to all Nuclear sites in Iran, as shown by satellite images. Obliteration is an accurate term!"; • He claimed that the bombing had taken "the 'bomb' right out of their hands". But as we all know by now, reality has a well-known liberal bias: “WASHINGTON — One of the three nuclear enrichment sites in Iran struck by the United States last month was mostly destroyed, setting work there back significantly. But the two others were not as badly damaged and may have been degraded only to a point where nuclear enrichment could resume in th...

Donald Trump  delivered a rambling speech in Pittsburgh,  Pennsylvania , where he made several improbable claims and appeared to forget names.    Trump falsely asserted that his late uncle, Dr. John Trump, taught Theodore Kaczynski, the Unabomber, at MIT, despite Kaczynski never attending the institution.    He also claimed to have discussed Kaczynski with his uncle, which is highly unlikely as his uncle died in 1985, years before Kaczynski was identified as the Unabomber.    During the event, Trump forgot the names of aides and made an unsubstantiated claim about securing $16 trillion in US investment.    The speech raised concerns about Trump's age and capacity, as he is the oldest person to ever be sworn in as  president . https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-ted-kaczynski-pittsburgh-b2789670.html  

Recently, I heard a podcast on Planet Money about commodity traders and their role in world economics. The podcast interviewed the authors of “The World for Sale: Money, Power, and the traders who barter the earth’s resources.” It was an eye-opener for me, so I decided to read the book.   The commodity trading business has historically been driven by just a few major players, with deals done in person and traders jetting all over the globe. Marc Rich was the only name familiar to me. Rich was one of the pioneers of commodity trading. Major commodity trading houses include familiar names like Cargill, Archer-Daniels-Midland and Bunge. When China opened up after Mao’s death, commodity traders were there to exploit the new markets for energy (coal, gas, oil), metals (zinc, copper, aluminum, cobalt) and food (grain, rice, sugar). When the Soviet Union collapsed, commodity traders partnered with oligarchs to sell Russian oil and gas to the west, paving Putin’s path to power. “For many y...

One anti-vaxxer conspiracy theory holds that thimerosal, an ethylmercury preservative once used in childhood vaccines, caused the dramatic increase in autism diagnoses in the past 20 years. In addition to the fact that the amount of ethylmercury in vaccines is miniscule and rapidly cleared from the body, thimerosal was discontinued in childhood vaccines back in 2001. If thimerosal caused autism, ASD diagnoses would have fallen since then, but the opposite happened. Another anti-vaxxer conspiracy theory is that aluminum-based adjuvants, which enhance immune response, are responsible for autism. Now, that’s been debunked as well: “ Researchers at the Statens Serum Institut in Copenhagen led the nationwide study, which used registry data on childhood vaccinations and aluminum content, outcomes, and potential confounding factors in the first 2 years of life among more than 1.2 million children born in Denmark from 1997 to 2018. Median age at the end of the 2-year follow-up period was 5 yea...

The death knell for creationism was sounded in the 19 th   century, with the recognition of an ancient earth and Darwin’s Origin of Species showing that all life on earth is related by descent. A particular obsession of creationists is the idea that humans and apes descended from a common ancestor. With the advent of protein sequencing and, later, DNA sequencing, the claim was that humans share ca. 99% of their genomic information.   The creationist community is now greeting with much ballyhoo the recent studies suggesting that the number could be closer to 85%. I’m not sure why 85% sequence identity proves the separate creation hypothesis. At best, it just says that the last common ancestor could have been farther back in time. But it’s actually more complicated—and for creationists, more awkward—than that. I’ll quote selectively to stay within fair use guidelines, but you can read the whole thing in the link at the bottom. “ At first glance, the recent figures suggesting a g...

Trump is counting on his base not understanding that tariffs are a consumption tax. They make imported goods more expensive and allow domestic producers to jack up their prices by relieving competition.  “[Douglas Holtz-Eakin] added that Trump was using the letters to demand attention, but, “In the end, these are letters to other countries about taxes he’s going to levy on his citizens.” Of course, these bellicose announcements have so far been followed by (1) stock market declines, which are followed by (2) Trump retreats and (3) stock market rallies. The winners are the TACO traders. https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/07/12/nation/trump-tariffs-european-union-mexico/  

I’m pale skinned and blue eyed, so UV-A and -B aren’t my friends. Back when I was in high school and college, I didn’t worry about that, even though the frequent sunburns were uncomfortable. By the time I was in my mid-20s, though, I was a user of sunscreen, and gradually, I avoided beaches and wore hats and long-sleeved shirts. Still, I’ve been plagued with actinic keratoses and had two Mohs surgeries for basal cell carcinomas. Of course, now we’re in the 21 st  century. There’s no excuse for the Secretary of HHS to use a skin cancer generator for personal vanity.  “HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been spotted leaving a Washington, D.C., tanning salon in recent weeks, drawing scrutiny for participating in an activity with well-known health risks, including skin cancer.   “In fact, the National Toxicology Program, which falls under Kennedy's purview at HHS, has determined that UV radiation, from the sun or artificial devices like sunbeds and sunlamps, is a kn...

Looks like if you want to set up a Ponzi scheme, you just have to call it “anti-woke.” Of course, the opposite of woke is asleep. “The complaint alleges that First Liberty founder Brant Frost IV misappropriated investor funds, making payments to himself and relatives of more than $5 million and used other funds for operations of several affiliated companies, which were also named as defendants in the suit. The SEC said Frost used investor money to make more than $2.4 million in credit card payments, another $335,000 to a rare coin dealer, $230,000 on family vacations at a rental home in Maine and $20,800 for a Patek Philippe watch. “Frost also allegedly used investor money to make more than $570,000 in political donations, the SEC alleges.” Couldn’t happen to a more deserving bunch. https://www.ajc.com/politics/2025/07/sec-accuses-gop-linked-georgia-lender-of-140m-ponzi-scheme/  

Until this January, you might have thought that a gift for diplomacy would be high on the list of qualifications for an ambassadorship, even if it’s the US Ambassador to Malaysia. You’d be wrong. “ Coverage of his nomination has largely focused on his openly misogynistic content and internet boasts about having “the body of a Greek God” and hanging out at “Hooters.” Adams has also posted extensive racial commentary online. He’s argued   many ,   many ,   many   times   that “straight white alpha males” are the most oppressed and persecuted group in America today. While he has accused the left   of being   “obsessed with race,” Adams has used his own platform   to muse   about making an unbeatable “all white NBA team” and to bizarrely,   repeatedly   assert white people   no longer   appear   in   television commercials . His rhetoric on race has also included the   use   of the racist term   “Chine...