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During the height of the COVID pandemic, serious-sounding people were advocating herd immunity as an alternative to vaccination, masking and social distancing. Seriously. Probably the most devastating example of herd immunity in humans was the Black Plague. A third to a half of the human population in Europe (25-50 million) died from plague, but the survivors had herd immunity. Of course, a generation later, another cycle of plague killing was visited on the unexposed generation. Measles isn’t as deadly as the plague or even COVID, but it is far more contagious. There is a vaccine for measles, but the herd immunity boffins are frightening parents away. “Measles is back. Children are dying of diseases the United States once eliminated, not because medicine failed, but because ideology did. Under the banner of “Make America Healthy Again,” anti-vaccine politics have rebranded preventable death as freedom and neglect as nature. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has said no vaccine is “safe and effect...

But we seem to have decided this is just how AI works: the technology is so amazing that it requires this kind of mutual leverage with no floor beneath it.     I’m reminded of some old Bugs Bunny or maybe Roadrunner cartoon where Bugs gets to the last rung at the top of his ladder. But he needs to go higher. So he grabs a rung from the bottom of the ladder and puts it on the top and keeps doing that and now he can just climb up without limit. As we know this only works with cartoon physics.    ~Josh Marshall

The current GOP is trying to reanimate the corpse of “Tail Gunner” Joe McCarthy. Trump is conflating Democratic Socialism with Communism and believes his base won’t understand the difference.   I’ve known people who grew up in the Soviet Union, mainland China, East Germany and Communist Poland. They all laugh out loud at the idea that there’s any significant communist party in America. Trump and his cult (the GOP, Fox News, Newsmax, etc) refer to all Democrats as “leftists,” “left wing,” “socialists” and “Marxists” as well as communists. They’re using these words as epithets, not according to any useful definition of the terms. The reality is that the Democratic Party is a bog ordinary center-right party. “The actual operational Democratic Party is a specific set of people. Its Senate leadership, its House leadership, its state-level executives, its mayors, its policy shops, its think tanks, its legislative directors, its floor managers, its committee staff, its campaign apparatus,...

Taxpayer subsidy of American business isn’t new. And although the GOP is bleating about socialism/communism, they’re conspicuously unbothered by flagrant federal subsidies to the means of production. “Amazon and Walmart are two of the largest and most profitable companies in the country —   collectively   generating   $100 billion in profits in 2025 — but many of their employees still qualify for Medicaid because their take-home pay hovers around (or below) the poverty line.   “As taxpayers keep their workers afloat, the wealth of the two companies’ largest shareholders is increasing exponentially. The Walton family, the largest shareholders of Walmart, saw their collective wealth increase from   $238 billion   in 2021 to   $513 billion   at the end of 2025. Meanwhile, Amazon founder and current executive chairman Jeff Bezos saw his net worth increase from   $187 billion   to   $255 billion   over roughly the same time period.”...

So what does Trump really have to lose by acquiescing to this reality and walking away? Americans chose this reality when they re-elected Donald Trump. Abdication from the war Trump chose would merely be the ratification of a reality everyone can see, but most nations are trying not to speak aloud.   Everyone knows the American order is over. Walking away would just formalize the unspoken consensus.   ~Jonathan V.  Last

Trump's presidency is an affront to Darwin.

“The approach discourages the use of any type of contraception and instead focuses on fertility awareness methods, usually in the context of couples trying to get pregnant without medical intervention such as in vitro fertilization or other treatments. That typically means not using any birth control and instead tracking indicators such as cervical mucus, body temperature and other physical symptoms to monitor the menstrual cycle.    “Academic studies have   repeatedly shown  that abstinence-only approaches result in higher rates of teen pregnancy and births, even after adjusting for other socioeconomic factors.”   The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/the-trump-admins-new-teen-pregnancy-prevention-plan-hinges-on-maha-and-abstinence?fbclid=IwY2xjawTUXNZleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETFuaU41UGhUOGpxOU5pZEZwc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHvh72i8nMKm8Qsh4ruTrRys-fbX3CGJv...

A couple days ago, Trump promised a devastating escalation of his war of choice in Iran. He threatened to blow up a bridge or power plant for every ship attacked by Iran or their Houthi clients. Hasn’t happened. In fact, Trump has paused attacks on Iran for the past couple of days. “ President Trump has set aside, at least for now, plans to sharply escalate the American military assault against Iran, with particular concern that intensifying the war could dangerously drain the Pentagon’s already diminished stockpile of Patriot antimissile interceptors and other air defense munitions in the Middle East.   “The threat to interceptor stockpiles is one of many considerations that have made a return to major combat operations a hugely risky endeavor, administration officials say. Mr. Trump and his top aides are also uneasy about the prospect of a widening war in the Middle East, the alienation of key Gulf allies who are vulnerable to Iranian attack, a global economic crunch, and growing...

Carlson was pro-Trump before his current pivot to anti-Trump. But he was anti-Trump before he was pro-Trump: “During Wednesday’s episode of the  “Straight Shooter”  show, Smith questioned why people should believe that Carlson, a once staunch Trump supporter, is actually serious about the breakup. Smith noted some people could just view it as “another pivot” politically for Carlson. “Smith asked the question after bringing up that Carlson used to hate Trump “passionately” in 2021, referring to a series of  private text messages  Carlson sent to a Fox News producer expressing contempt for Trump that were publicly exposed — only later to become a loyalist to Trump.   “How do you answer that?” Smith pressed.   “Noting he’s been “wrong a lot” about “big things,” Carlson specifically admitted to being wrong about Trump.   “I was wrong on the Iraq war and I’m sure a million other things,” he continued. “But anyway, I don’t know what to say. People can judge ...

But rather than taking advantage of this opportunity to craft an economic alliance that would maximize leverage over China, the Trump administration has gone in the opposite direction. It has levied high tariffs on its own allies, many of which were also pressured into committing to huge investments in the United States. Washington tightened the screws on its allies rather than on Beijing, sapping the United States of economic leverage and forcing it to confront China alone. ~Ben Vagle and Stephen Brooks  

I’ve never paid much attention to cars, but the Ford Edsel was already a punchline when I was a kid. I don’t know if I ever saw one, but any reference to it seemed to be accompanied by a smirk. “The Edsel is one of the greatest and most infamous flops in automotive history, but it's in trouble. It's perilously close to being dethroned by a newcomer: the Tesla Cybertruck. Despite the fact that their debuts are separated by over 65 years, they bear some striking similarities. Both were predicted to sell over 200,000 units in their first year on the market, both have — uh — unusual design languages, both have suffered sales drops every year they've been on sale and both have become the punchlines of their respective eras.” The first time I saw a cybertruck was when we were on vacation in Yellowstone. Someone had parked it outside the restaurant we were dining in. The kitchen and waitstaff were gawking from the window at the front of the restaurant. I’ve always thought the cybe...

When I ran track for Oak Ridge High School in the spring of 1973., my best mile time was 4:54. The following summer, I was living on frat row and taking summer classes at UT-Knoxpatch. By the end of that summer, I got my time down to 4:28. My daughter can testify that when she was in high school, I beat her in a mile run. Soon after, I abandoned running for biking. I’m certain I couldn’t run a mile at any speed now. The record time for the mile was broken last weekend: “ If you represent your school, or your club in athletics, then perhaps you could be following in Josh Kerr's very speedy footsteps one day. “The Scottish athlete broke a 27-year-old world record at a Diamond League event at the London Stadium on Saturday.   “He ran one mile (1.6 kilometres) in a lightning-quick three minutes 42.66 seconds, breaking the previous record by half a second.” Ah, to be young again! https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/articles/clyvg2q1np6o  

During the Cold War, the US and Soviet Union supported proxy wars in which their client states did the dirty work. Of course, the USSR is no more, but proxy wars continue. While the current war in Iran began with joint strikes by the US and Israel, Israel now acknowledges that the US is its client. “ Israel’s   far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, has described the renewed   US   war on   Iran   as the ideal outcome for Israel, provided Israelis do not have to fight it themselves.   "Israel has no interest in joining the campaign - the current situation is the best for us," Smotrich said on Tuesday in comments carried by   Kan news .” *snip* “ Israel and the US started the war with coordinated attacks on Iran on 28 February, after Israel lobbied Washington into the conflict, prompting Tehran to retaliate against US military assets across the region. “ The war was renewed earlier this month with the US striking Iranian targets and Iran hitting ...

“We are holding Canada responsible for the fact that they are not properly maintaining their Forests, and Brush therein, and the United States is being unnecessarily invaded by filthy, polluted, and unhealthy air, the quality of which is dangerous, and totally unacceptable!” Trump wrote on his social media platform, saying he would call Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney about the issue.” For decades, Canada was unnecessarily invaded by carbon dioxide from US cars and electric power generation, the quality of which is dangerous and totally unacceptable. That invasion is far more egregious and consequential than forest fire smoke in Canada. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/bernie-moreno-sanction-canadian-officials-wildfires-climate-change_n_6a5a7953e4b0dbc765870247?origin=home-latest-news-unit

I’ve been reading and thinking about the idea of wealth taxes. In principle, it’s an idea I could support. Too much wealth is controlled by too few in America today.   The chief argument I see made against wealth taxes is that they’re impractical. In a literal sense, this is easily falsified. We already have some targeted wealth taxes. Most of us pay them. The most obvious wealth tax is real estate taxes. Homeowners pay them every year, and much of the money is used to fund local schools. The problem with real estate taxes is that they are highly regressive. For homeowners, property taxes are based on an assessment of the home’s value. But if you have a mortgage, you pay the full tax even though your equity in the house is less than the full value. And renters pay property taxes—your landlord passes their taxes on to you in your rent, even though you gain no equity through rent payments. You may also pay personal property taxes on, e.g., your car, which is also a wealth tax, since ...

I recently read a history and a biography that are both centered on the American Revolution. It reminded me that for the founding fathers, the ineluctable reality was that they were risking their lives for their beliefs.   Josh Marshall has a piece up at TPM about Trump’s effort to extort control over the 2026 elections, notwithstanding that the Constitution explicitly gives control of elections to state. He argues that state officials may face existential pressure from Trump to cede that control to him. “It is incumbent on those state officials not simply to “resist” but to refuse, to lean into the full power of their state sovereignty under the federal constitution. States have just as much authority to defend the integrity of the federal constitution and obedience to it as the White House or, for that matter, the Supreme Court. Not every question of what the U.S. Constitution means is up for genuine debate. This one, for example, is not. States are not only entitled to insist on...

I taught medical students for over 30 years. The bar to admission at Saint Louis University Medical School was pretty high for metrics like GPA and MCAT scores. But as a professor, I realized that crossing those bars was no guarantee of sound judgement.   Erica Schwartz, Trump’s CDC director nominee, wasn’t a SLUSOM grad*, but she is a case study supporting my contention that, in humans, the traits of high intelligence and good judgement are unlinked. “As the hearing proceeded, I began to hear rumblings in my public health group chats. The hearing was not going well. Schwartz was failing to give straightforward answers to lay-ups. Clips began appearing on my social media feeds.  It was not good . Before long, it looked like a complete implosion.    “Schwartz would not give clear statements debunking links between vaccines and autism.  Ouch.   “She did not know that the CDC's Office on Smoking and Health is, for all practical purposes,  closed . (This i...

It’s another example of how we are in this weird and uncanny political moment in which Trump’s politics have broken free of the constraints of public opinion. (It’s reminiscent of a mob bust-out where you rapidly strip a business of its value with no concern for the future because you’re just going to burn it down and collect the insurance pay out.) Presidents often pursue some policies in which they are on the wrong side of public opinion. That’s in the nature of politics. What we’re seeing today is in a different category, a president acting as though there are no limits on his power even as those limits gather round him. While people really do use AI, AI data centers rate in popularity terms down with child molesters. And yes, perhaps that’s an indicator when it comes to Trump. What we’re seeing here and elsewhere is a presidency in YOLO mode, freed even from medium-term strategies and warnings and focused on cashing in, both politically and financially, in the short term.   ~Jo...

Whenever you read the conspiracy theories about fluoridated water, it’s a good idea to remember that much of the world’s water is naturally fluoridated. Indeed, the correlation between natural fluoridation and lower incidence of dental caries is what lead to artificial water fluoridation.   There are plenty of other things to fret about if that’s how you want to spend the years that remain to you. One is dietary arsenic.  “All over the world, people eat rice, and lots of it. From congee and risotto to arroz con frijoles and biryani, it’s an essential ingredient in dishes integral to a variety of cuisines. But while this universal crop plays a foundational role in many diets, eating too much rice comes with a downside: It’s a significant source of the heavy metal arsenic.   “CR  first tested rice  for arsenic in 2012, and released  follow-up testing  in 2014. We recently conducted new tests to see if levels of inorganic arsenic, the more dangerous ...

By now, we all know the Cliff Notes version of American’s founding: Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, the colonists defeated the British at Yorktown and Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, Adams and Franklin wrote the Constitution, which the 13 colonies/states ratified enthusiastically. As an antidote to those cliché histories, I read a couple of good books on the period, a history and a biography.   The history book was “ Freedom around the globe: A world history of the American Revolution” by Sarah M.S Pearsall. The through-line of this book is that the “American Revolution” was one theater of a global war that also involved British colonies in Canadian North America, the Caribbean, South America Gibraltar and South Asia. And the combatants also included France and Spain. As Pearsall makes clear, Britain lost the American Revolution for reasons familiar to historians of empire—they simply exhausted their resources. By the battle of Yorktown, Cornwallis was fielding a wea...

Had he passed away in 2016, the mourning for him would have been universal. Someone might have named an airport, or a building, for him.   But the last decade  did  happen. And we can’t look past that. We can’t pretend that the “real” Lindsey Graham was the guy before 2016 and everything that’s happened since is just an unfortunate unpleasantness from which polite people should avert their eyes.   The Trump-era Lindsey Graham was the real Lindsey Graham, too. And that matters.   ~Jonathan V. Last

For the last eight years we lived in St. Louis, we had rooftop solar. Ameren paid half the cost, and we got a 30% tax write-off on the rest. The 22 panels only exceeded consumption for a couple months a year. The total savings didn’t pay off the investment. No matter, we did our part to combat global warming in a state where >70% of electricity was generated from coal. Solar options have proliferated since we got involved: “ Plug-in solar , also called balcony or DIY solar, has taken off in Europe, especially in Germany, where perhaps   4 million households  have installed systems that can be   purchased from places like Ikea . Customers buy small panels, typically about the size of half a ping-pong table, then plug them into an electrical outlet. Energy flows from the panels into the home to power up appliances.   Set up   can be measured in minutes. “The units, which come with an inverter, range in capacity, typically between 200 and 1,200 watts, supplying ...

Americans, once members of a proudly literate society, read much less than they used to. According to the National Endowment for the Arts, which conducts the most comprehensive survey of the nation’s reading habits,  fewer than half of all adults reported having read a book of any kind in 2022 . Only 38 percent read a novel or short story. A study analyzing 236,000 responses to the American Time Use Survey found that the  proportion of Americans who read for pleasure on any given day fell from 28 percent in 2004 to 16 percent in 2023 . (The study looked at people who had read a book, magazine, or newspaper; listened to an audiobook; or read an e-book.) Gambling has become a more common leisure activity than reading a book: Last year, 57 percent of Americans placed a bet. The decline in reading cuts across age groups, gender, and education levels. Even the demographics that traditionally read the most—retirees, women, and college graduates—have seen a collapse.   ~  R...

You probably have read about increasing reports of violent and potentially life-threatening diarrhea caused by cyclospora in multiple states. Cyclospora isn’t new, but the Trump administration stopped tracking it. “As of July 1, the Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network (FoodNet) program has reduced surveillance to just two pathogens: salmonella and Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC), a spokesperson for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told NBC News. “Before July, the program had been tracking infections caused by six additional pathogens: campylobacter, cyclospora, listeria, shigella, vibrio and Yersinia. Some of them can lead to severe or life-threatening illnesses, particularly for newborns and people who are pregnant or have weakened immune systems. “Monitoring for the six pathogens is no longer required for the 10 states that participate in the program, though those states aren’t precluded from conducting surveillance on their own.” In what sense does blin...

Green Mountain College in Poultney VT closed in 2019 due to insufficient funds. Now, a traveling Pentecostal preacher from Florida has announced on Facebook (from Disneyland) that he’s gonna make it into a Christian fundamentalist college in the least religious state in the nation. The whiskey magnate Raj Bhakta bought the campus in 2020 and has donated it to Tommie Zito, a Florida evangelist who plans to turn the campus into the gospel-preaching Z University. “While the deal may be a good one for Zito and his team of fellow evangelists ,   Bhakta estimated in previous reports that it would cost   $200 million   to restore the campus — which includes dormitories and dining spaces, athletic fields, a gymnasium, and a pool — along with at least $1 million annually in operating costs.” What’s the business model? “ Asked how he would pay to keep the campus going, he said “it’s a faith journey.” In addition to targeting large donors, he’s relying on businesses, churches, and “...

The U.S. abandoning NATO now doesn’t mean Europe will revert to a 1914 mindset; too many economic, cultural, and political threads have been sewn together in the post-WWII period for it to revert to that arrangement. But it is a distinctly American myopia to think Europe will stand pat, won’t evolve on its own as it manages all of its own competing interests, makes its own internal compromises, and responds to the domestic political realities of each country. The U.S. isn’t just abandoning NATO; it’s abandoning having a hand in managing those dynamics and minimizing their impacts on its own national interest — which is another, albeit more nuanced, way of saying Trump is putting his own interest above the nation’s. ~David Kurtz

“In 2017, Roy Moore was accused of sexual misconduct with teenage girls, including one who was fourteen at the time of the alleged assault. Nine women came forward. The reporting was extensive and documented. The Republican Party of Alabama endorsed him anyway. The President of the United States endorsed him. He lost by less than two points, and half the party spent the following years insisting the allegations were fabricated.   “In 2018, Christine Blasey Ford testified under oath before the Senate Judiciary Committee that Brett Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted her when she was fifteen. She had disclosed the assault to a therapist years before Kavanaugh’s nomination — the same evidentiary pattern that now, in the case of Jenny Racicot, is being cited by the very same right-wing media as proof of credibility. She was smeared. She was called a Democratic operative. Her therapist notes were dismissed. She was forced from her home by death threats. Kavanaugh sits on the Supreme Court ...

My postdoc mentor used to say “We don’t compare ourselves to the worst, we compare ourselves to the best.” Does that aphorism apply in politics? “ POLITICO  REPORTED ON MONDAY AFTERNOON that Graham Platner’s ex-girlfriend  said  he “forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections.” Immediately after the story was published, Platner, the Democratic nominee in the race for Maine’s Senate seat, posted an uncomfortable  video  denying the allegations without making clear whether he would drop out of the race.   “He should, and not just on moral grounds. Because before this story was published, Maine voters in our focus groups told us that they would likely abandon Platner over this exact type of scandal.” *snip*   “There had already been months of talk about Platner’s bad behavior at this point, including about his Nazi tattoo. But many in the group were still planning on supporting him. So we asked them what would mak...

A heat dome that covered southern New England finally moved on yesterday. The highs touched 100°F, and with the humidity, the heat indices were five degrees higher. I have a feeling this won’t be the last of it. “The world’s oceans are the   hottest on record   for June, pushing past records set during the 2023–24 El Niño years.     “Right now, the average sea surface temperature is just under 21°C across the world’s tropical and temperate oceans. Before widespread industrialisation in 1870, the temperature was about 19.6°C.     “That may not sound like a big difference. But heating the world’s oceans this much requires a truly enormous amount of energy. Of all the extra heat trapped by greenhouse gases from burning coal, gas and oil, more than 90% has   gone into   the world’s oceans.     “As a result, the oceans are getting   rapidly warmer . In 2025, the heat added   was the equivalent   of about 12 Hiroshima-scale nucl...

Nearly three decades ago, I created a course for first year medical students called “Molecular Biology and Genetics.” Together with a clinical faculty, I co-directed the course for 22 years.   There’s a piece over at Medpage about “niche careers” in medicine. Here’s one: “ 7. Medical Genetics and Genomics Medical geneticists diagnose and manage hereditary conditions, using genomic data to guide treatment and counsel patients on inherited disease risk. As whole-genome sequencing becomes cheaper and more accessible, the specialty is moving from rare disease management to mainstream medicine. Within a generation, a medical geneticist's input may be standard in the workup of cancer, cardiovascular disease, and beyond.” Before I retired, I had a couple of discussions with physicians about whether medical genetics as a distinct field will cease to exist because genomics will make pedigrees and statistical genetics obsolete. I thought it would and I feel vindicated by current events. “Gen...

“I don’t know a soul who’s not been battered I don’t have a friend who feels at ease I don’t know a dream that’s not been shattered Or driven to its knees Oh, but it’s all right, it’s all right For lived so well so long Still, when I think of the road We’re traveling on I wonder what went wrong I can’t help it, I wonder what’s gone wrong” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wu2teJTHMk