Quite a week for us! 1/ our podcast is launched: “Electric World Order” is a short series about the geopolitics of energy transition; ep 1 is about how China’s industrial strategy kinda accidentally created Pakistan’s solar boom:

DPIR's Professor of Comparative Democratic Institutions @benansell.bsky.social  has launched a new app to explore data by parliamentary constituency: https://benwansell.github.io/constituency-map/

BYD is doing it: “BYD is moving fast to establish a physical retail presence in Canada, with plans to open 20 branded dealerships within its first year in the market. The world’s largest EV maker is already scouting locations in the Greater Toronto Area.” electrek.co/2026/03/24/b...

How to Win a Trade War and....COFFEE? If you too like coffee, @barnesandnoble.com has a special 25% off deal on pre-orders with the code PREORDER25. The deal ends TODAY, so pre-order How to Win a Trade War now! 📚 👉 www.barnesandnoble.com/w/how-to-win... #BNPreorder

We're live! www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRXa...

The US is now net losing tech workers to Europe, especially more senior workers. www.reveliolabs.com/news/tech/fr...

The Associated Press getting on board. "The war in Iran is exposing the world’s reliance on fragile fossil fuel routes, lending urgency to calls for hastening the shift to renewable energy."

Europe’s Defence Strain: Demand Signals, Procurement Hurdles, Tech Opportunities 📆26 Mar 5PM CET📍Online 🗣️Pierre Vandier @guntramwolff.bsky.social Guillaume de la Brosse @katjabego.bsky.social @nathanlane.bsky.social Esben Gadsbøll & @cristinacaffarra.bsky.social Register: ow.ly/33uq50Ywepe #EconSky

This is the largest oil supply shock in history in mb/d The enemy gets a vote. Iran is now delivering pain to Trump via multiple paths (1) Gulf Kings (2) Financial meltdown (3) AI tech oligarchs (4) Fuel, fertilizer, food disruptions Read our Polycrisis Dispatch: buttondown.com/polycrisisdi...

“Felsch emphasizes Habermas’s status as part of a lucky generation of Germans: Born early enough to have witnessed the horrors of Nazism firsthand but late enough to have escaped moral culpability.” www.liberalcurrents.com/also-a-revie...

Many Washington Post readers have been notified via email that their subscription rates are set to increase. Nestled at the bottom of these emails, you’ll find an asterisk and the following: “This price was set by an algorithm using your personal data.”

39 Sudanese Chevening Scholarship finalists ejected this week from consideration for the scheme, for being Sudanese.

Using regional employment data, the map shows which parts of Europe are most exposed to the rise in Chinese import competition across manufacturing industries. The results highlight the industrial core of Germany and the manufacturing belt of CEE.

Happy to say my new book, “Controlling Contagion”, comes out next month. 700 years of tackling pandemics. Not all bad news… press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...

Important work here

We killed 85 schoolgirls. We are not the good guys.

The World Needs Europe to Get Its Act Together – Fast by Dani Rodrik SPOT ON @drodrik.bsky.social @projectsyndicate.bsky.social prosyn.org/TWmTfey

Today on a special emergency episode of Shift Key: I’m joined by the great @jonasnahm.com to discuss the big SCOTUS tariff ruling; what it means for solar, EVs, and electricity; and why it’s time (alas) to learn about the other tariff powers the president can use — as well as their limitations.

Ottawa’s shift away from US defence manufacturers aims to create 125,000 jobs ft.trib.al/85RYA9n

I never noticed this either.

Wow

That’s some alignment

We’re simply in the zone where we continually watch people get executed on video

Cost of living looks dismal

Increased deportations led to more crimes against Hispanics but fewer reports to the police New research on how immigration enforcement undermines public safety and increases vulnerability, from Gonçalves Jácome Weisburst

New QJE for the minimum wage literature uses IRS data to study effects on small and medium size businesses. The effects seem…very good academic.oup.com/qje/article/...

Crooked Timber needs assistance. Surely we can get this done for one of the great OG academic blogs.

im sorry what

SCOOP: Internal ICE material and testimony from an official obtained by 404 Media provides the clearest link yet between the technological infrastructure Palantir is building for ICE and the agency’s activities on the ground. Inside the app called ELITE—what ICE uses to find neighborhoods to raid.

This week, 404 Media obtained material that explains how Tangles and Webloc, two surveillance systems ICE recently purchased, work. Webloc can track phones without a warrant and follow their owners home or to their employer. Watch now:

Perennial reminder of this excellent paper about how secret police forces are swamped with underachievers “We don’t want clever people. We want mediocrities.” (Ungated summary here ajps.org/2019/10/08/w...)

Great piece exploring how HS2 ended up being the most expensive railway track per kilometre in the world www.ft.com/content/3f73...

The gold market did not get the memo - gold prices post DoJ, post-Tillis #EconSky econbrowser.com/archives/202...

By kow-towing to Trump on trade the EU convinced him, and others no doubt, that it was weak, which just encourages more bullying. If as a result the US takes Greenland by force, the EU will have to do much more forceful things than imposing a 35% tariff or whatever. Weakness makes us all less safe.

HAPPENING NOW: In federal court in MN, DOJ is struggling to articulate why a person following an ICE vehicle — so long as they are obeying traffic laws — can be stopped for "reasonable suspicion" of a crime. Judge Menendez sharply questioning that contention.

“I characterize science as a bunch of 5-year-olds playing soccer… They all go where the ball is, running around the field in a herd.” Great quote in this piece (via @histoftech.bsky.social) which is perhaps more about fashions in research funding (see: AI) www.wired.com/story/scient...

Every once in a while, someone discovers that nuclear is low-carbon and tries to stick it to renewables as a result. Yes, the German nuclear phaseout was a mistake. Of course. Meanwhile, Électricité de France has been fully nationalized to keep its reactors running. A model for the US?

Dug this one up as it seems relevant again

The cost of sequencing a human genome has fallen over 100,000 fold in nominal terms since 2001. In a new visualization, I've added some of the key advances in sequencing during that timeline:

new vox dev piece on our recent RCT to counter misinformation in classrooms in india:

2025 made clear that political elites are often not bound by institutions/rules. This spring I’ll teach Political Leadership, a seminar focused squarely on elites (no regional focus). I’d love suggestions in the comments: articles, books, or syllabi (including your own)

Pathetic stuff

👍

Im thankful my family is no longer in Caracas. I despise everything about this administration.

This devastating piece describes what it’s like to die of blood cancer. It also describes what it feels like to do so while your cousin is Secretary of Health & Human Services & a ghoul. www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...

this is the central use case, as I go for here: the struggle to defeat fossil capital is the pivotal political task of our generation. and yes, we are going to win www.bostonreview.net/forum/climat...

Just to add that I love how this guy is wearing a hard hat... in case a ham falls on him and breaks his skull. Maybe you think that's very unlikely... but the more time you spend in a cave full of hung hams, the more that probability approaches absolute certainty.