“[Faculty of Arts and Sciences] unveils anti-racism agenda” (Harvard Gazette, August 20, 2020): Calling on the FAS community to be “relentless, constructively critical, and action-orien… | Continue reading
I’ve been in a bunch of masked-up environments recently. People have their masks off to take a sip of a beverage or a bite of a sandwich. What would happen if someone took off the mask in ord… | Continue reading
From NPR, March 24, “I’m An American Stuck In Peru — Glad To Be On Lockdown To Avoid COVID-19”: Peruvian President Martín Vizcarra had just declared a total quarantine for 15 days… | Continue reading
“Professor Jessica Krug admits she lied about being black: ‘I cancel myself’” (New York Post): Despite publicly living as a black woman for years, George Washington University associate… | Continue reading
Some of my friends were discussing whether adjustments due to coronapanic will make it irrational for more Americans to work, rather than to set themselves up for welfare (means-tested public housi… | Continue reading
A friend who is a professor at NYU told me that so far they’ve found only five students who test positive for coronavirus. He says that this is a population of 24,000 undergraduates who conve… | Continue reading
My Facebook friends like to conjure a bogeyman somewhere in the South or Midwest. He is wearing camo, carrying an AR-15, driving a car with a Trump/Pence bumper sticker, and spouting an absurd cons… | Continue reading
“The age of incrementalism is over,” Markey said. “Now is our moment to think big.” (Boston.com) Ed Markey, who might be running to replace President Harris in 2028 when he will be a young 82 years… | Continue reading
The New York Times ran what seems intended to be an inspiring success story,”Myriam Sarachik Never Gave Up on Physics”: The New York-based scientist overcame sexism and personal tragedy… | Continue reading
My investment advice is almost as good as Nobel laureate Paul Krugman’s. On February 8, I implied that Tesla stock was overvalued. It was trading at around $700 then. Today it is only about $… | Continue reading
The highest-paying American employers celebrate diversity… so long as all of the diverse individuals are between 20 and 40 years of age. If interviews and work are virtual, though, could an o… | Continue reading
It has been six months since coronapanic started. Why is the local Target still out of paper towels, spray cleaners such as Formula 409, cleaning wipes, etc. People are actually using way more of t… | Continue reading
With tens of millions of Americans on the “$600 per week and chill” plan, a lot of retailers shortened their hours. In theory, things should be getting back to normal (it was a brief sh… | Continue reading
Some of our recent helicopter flying has been with a photographer tasked with getting pictures of shopping malls in the context of highways, cities, etc. What are these for? “Everything is fo… | Continue reading
Today is the day that our biggest art museum, the Metropolitan, will supposedly reopen. I wonder if art museums will survive given that people now have to (a) book in advance, (b) show up at a prec… | Continue reading
The British artist Banksy can sell almost anything, including a more-than-$1-million work that shreds itself as soon as purchased. We are informed that low-skill immigration makes a country richer … | Continue reading
My Facebook feed remains alive with those who are convinced that Donald J. Trump will win the election via making it more difficult to vote, e.g., by shutting down the U.S. Post Office and/or disco… | Continue reading
Who has enjoyed Richard Jewell, a Clint Eastwood movie streaming on HBO? It is a great example of how to make a compelling movie even when the outcome is known in advance. (The story concerns the b… | Continue reading
The conventions are over. Did either the Democrats or Republicans present something that could be characterized as a coherent philosophy or clear plan? I struggle with the use of “left”… | Continue reading
From 2003, “Lack of wireless Internet killing children”: A recent AP story talks about the increasing number of children dying after being left in sealed cars by mistake. As a society w… | Continue reading
Just as the Swedes said back in March and April (interview with an MD/PhD), since coronavirus is now a permanent companion for humankind, if ye seek ye shall find. American universities have embark… | Continue reading
A friend here in Maskachusetts texted us regarding his latest trip to an essential business that remains legal to operate: “No employees in gun store wearing mask.” A bit later: “… | Continue reading
“Investors Have Been Making the Same Mistake for 300 Years” (The Atlantic) is an interesting article by Thomas Levenson, teacher of science writing at MIT. Excerpts: Already [in 1720] a… | Continue reading
From exactly 10 years ago, in Business Insider, “15% Of Women Have Slept With Their Bosses — And 37% Of Them Got Promoted For It”: Research from the Center for Work-Life Policy sh… | Continue reading
Turbine-powered Shutdown Karens: “A Vaccine That Stops Covid-19 Won’t Be Enough” (New York Times). Even if we have a vaccine that prevents coronavirus infection from turning into COVID-… | Continue reading
From Empires of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and the Race to Electrify the World: As a regular solo customer of Delmonico’s, the polite and gracious inventor had let the highly trained staff… | Continue reading
Franklin Templeton manages about $700 billion in assets. What does their Chief Investment Officer for Fixed Income think Covid-19 will lead to? Inflation! An article by Sonal Desai: Americans still… | Continue reading
From The American Conservative (both of them?): There once was a general who fought a war to protect slavery. That’s not how he would have described it. He would have said he was fighting to protec… | Continue reading
In April 2015, I wrote the following: Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has been convicted by an impartial jury of 12 locals wearing “Boston Strong” T-shirts. Now they are deciding what to d… | Continue reading
We’ve done more than 70 million coronavirus tests in the U.S. so far (CDC). Yet the plague rages, even in virtuously masked Trump-free states such as California. What’s the solution? Mo… | Continue reading
The First Amendment rights of young people to assemble, go to school, work, socialize, travel, etc. have been suspended or eliminated due to the coronavirus public health emergency declared by the … | Continue reading
Our politicians inform us that low-skill migrants will make any country richer and the existing residents of any country better off. Apparently, not everyone got this memo. “Taking Hard Line,… | Continue reading
My Facebook feed has been alive lately with Post Office Panic supplementing the usual Coronapanic: Trump acknowledged he is starving the USPS because he thinks it will hurt the Dems. His selfish na… | Continue reading
The 74-year-old Ed Markey is running for reelection to the Senate here in Maskachusetts, The 39-year-old Joe Kennedy III, whose primary qualification is being a Kennedy, is running against him. Who… | Continue reading
For the first time in 14 years, as of today it is possible to buy a new version of Microsoft Flight Simulator. How’s that for bad timing? If this thing had been released in mid-March, after 1… | Continue reading
Today is the day that I get full value out of my New York Times subscription: “What Happened When Homeless Men Moved Into a Liberal Neighborhood”. (Note the use of “homeless”… | Continue reading
Published in 1932, Brave New World is worth re-reading in every election year when politicians promise us salvation through technocracy. Today is the first day of the Democratic National Convention… | Continue reading
“Sweden’s success shows the true cost of our arrogant, failed establishment” (Telegraph, August 12, sadly paywalled, by Allister Heath, the editor of the sister Sunday Telegraph): Shock… | Continue reading
I haven’t been getting a good supply of climate change alarmism and panic due to coronapanic dominating the media. Here’s an item that I missed: the next big solar project in Abu Dhabi … | Continue reading
One of the things that I have learned in meetings with a big health insurance company whose claims data we use in the classroom: emergency room (“ED”) visits are expensive. A long wait … | Continue reading
“Mass. Communities’ COVID Risk Would Guide Schools’ Reopening Plans: Report” (NBC): Massachusetts’ education department is reportedly issuing guidance on the amount of… | Continue reading
I spent some time recently with two Harvard undergraduates who are camped out in a Cambridge apartment. I’m the oldest person that they’ll have any contact with for the foreseeable futu… | Continue reading
Facebook remains a safe space for Shutdown Karens to pour out their fear regarding school reopening. Children will die. Maybe the death rate among children could become 100X what it had been? Certa… | Continue reading
“Biden calls for nationwide mask mandate” (Associated Press via ABC): Joe Biden is calling for a nationwide protective mask mandate, citing health experts’ predictions that it could sav… | Continue reading
We recently flew a Cirrus SR20 to Martha’s Vineyard, an instrument training flight for an IFR student that, of course, turned into an actual IMC experience (thanks, Maskachusetts weather!). W… | Continue reading
From November: “Twin Commander pilot departs on a pole-to-pole flight” Today: He’s back! Robert DeLaurentis did this trip in a 1983 Twin Commander, N29GA (made by Gulfstream at th… | Continue reading
Presumably Joe Biden will expire by early 2021, thus turning a vote for Biden into a vote for President Kamala Harris. What are President Harris’s weak and strong points? From “Politica… | Continue reading