I dunno when it will happen (might need some fundamental advance we don’t know yet) but one day human driving will seem like finding out spider monkeys used to be mayors and such

sometimes I feel bad as a public servant when I assign a test question few students can answer bc we didn’t go over that material as much as I thought. makes me feel better I didn’t invent a fake gang tho

I feel like we underrate chemicals in history. this is probably the canary in the coal mine of something that will seem very big in retrospect. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/21/w...

this recent research from SF Fed seems relevant: (for 2-year yields) “interest rates have become more sensitive to oil supply announcements since the Federal Reserve’s 2022 policy rate liftoff, while long-term inflation expectations have remained well anchored.” www.frbsf.org/research-and...

japan will subsidize gasoline at 29 yen/liter or about 69 cents per gallon. surprised how much that is, bc they have reduced gas & diesel consumption a lot. www.japantimes.co.jp/business/202...

I expect a lot of people abroad will start believing we did this in order to cement our energy dominance. People like conspiracy explanations more than incompetence ones, and MAGA people will feed this by saying this is all actually very good for us.

I wish Tim Gill were still posting. he would be having fun

some memorable lines here: “israel, out of anger for what has taken place in the Middle East, has violently lashed out” “at an amount of strength and power that Iran has never seen or witnessed before“

not in the news much yet, but we'll soon see probably the biggest battle of the war. given new fortifications and lack of starlink, russia's loss numbers could be extraordinary. this will probably be historic also as the first big exhibition of AI drones.

to write this post i had claude make me an R package for downloading statistics from the National Bureau of Statistics. it did a great job. i may publish it because there isn't any good way to download chinese statistics except through expensive subscription services.

Here I argue China's slump is the predictable result of tight monetary policy rather than "structural" issues like involution (overcompetition) or whatever else you read in the news. Chinese money and the dormitive virtue of involution open.substack.com/pub/critical...

today is an important day when alabamians remember our history.

I like “address” property taxes. I will donate to this guy bc of that.

VW is top auto seller in China this year and now launching a new joint ev with xpeng. Unexpected. made in Anhui. in the future we won’t think of ev’s as a “china” story but a story of provinces/cities. Anhui went from ag to world‘s main ev maker in 7 years www.reuters.com/world/china/...

wildfires intersect with an interesting ecological story. the native eastern redcedar tree has been proliferating on the prairie for a century bc of fewer small fires. it has oils that burn easily. the state has been trying to stop its spread to no avail. nebraskapublicmedia.org/en/news/news...

“But, as you see, it's a beautiful day, the Strait of Hormuz is open and people are having a wonderful time.”

*youth pastor sits backwards on chair* You know who else was a famous straight....

i found a survey he answered and it's just as good

polls are unnecessary if the median voter is the candidate

Over at A City That Works: Asian and European transit agencies are run by subject matter experts. American ones are run by local elected officials and community advocates. If we want the new Illinois transit reforms to succeed, we're going to look outside the US.

we really are speed running the bush administration. stereogum.com/2491984/pieb...

the “renaissance” of intercity bus continues. It will be interesting to see if ridership keeps improving this year, with ICE on the one hand and high gas prices on the other.

Get BARTmogged, gasmaxxers!!

reading Oren Cass on Twitter. a reminder that being right isn’t very necessary to have influence or get attention. he gets owned constantly, his points are as hoc. But he never gives up. you can stay relevant by sheer volume as long as you never concede anything.

Scared Strait

you don’t hear as much about the oversupply of electric vehicles these days

rumors are swirling that Tupac fan Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may still be alive. huh 🤔

Missouri is joining in the race to eliminate income tax, an almost-flat 4.7%. The plan is to follow their neighbor Kentucky by expanding the sales tax base to more transactions and services. www.news-leader.com/story/news/p...

when your employer won’t pay for opus 4.6 so u just use the Gemini chatbot

i cant tell what students will know about. in one class the students didn’t know what a V8 engine is. I thought about it later and decided it’s bc that they don’t watch regular tv commercials.

lmao

nailed it in every way. suspicion mixed with intense credulity. i guess musk is the most famous example of someone capitalizing on that: social security is sending checks to hundreds of millions of dead people, and also we are going to have factories on the moon soon.

Breaking News: New video adds to evidence that a U.S. missile likely hit an Iranian school where 175 people, many of them children, were reportedly killed.

went to see how this was received on Twitter and the most common response is that all income should be tax free

this is now also a Honda and Hyundai strategy. “Electric and hybrid vehicle sales increased a combined 56%, with electric vehicles growing by 6% and hybrids surging 79%, all February records.” VW not having a US hybrid is surprising. www.prnewswire.com/news-release...

china: 1/2 new registrations were NEVs in 2025. but only ~1/8 of the fleet are NEVs & 1/12 were BEVs. cars last a long time! NEV fleet share rose ~3%. 8 MM BEVs were added to the fleet. NEV/BEV share will accelerate as cars sold in 2012-18 boom die. big5.www.gov.cn/gate/big5/ww...

an air war is the easiest topic for fake ai videos. a light in the night sky moving around and then an explosion with voices in the background saying woah.

car journalists are still allowed to have some fun

one of the more quixotic social media campaigns of 2025

this crime will produce more DNA evidence than any crime ever cbs12.com/news/nation-...

i wish coverage would clarify for readers that the Dena was a ship of the republic navy, not the IRGC Navy. There were conscripts on board. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/05/w...

and another thing: im not at war. please dont put in the newspaper that i got in a war www.nytimes.com/2026/03/05/u...

waiting until an oil price shock to finally make a firm commitment to ending deflation is a genius move. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

1000 year congestion pricing empire www.nytimes.com/2026/03/03/n...

rise in treasury yields today shows why inflation targeting is worse than nominal gdp targeting. inflation targeting means you destroy money, amid a rise in money demand, in order to keep prices down, bc of a foreign policy choice. And for what

a good article. It pushes back on the idea Chinese EVs are cheap due to subsidies—tho I don’t think it goes far enough. rhg.com/research/why...

lady how long was the first trip

how did Zelenskyy get pt barnum

What costs more on average: a new car or a new parking space? New UCLA report surveys data from 17 cities to show the high cost of constructing parking la.streetsblog.org/2026/03/02/n...

sad to think things had started to turn a corner in ukraine. they've gained some territory, dug many new fortifications. russia's economy was finally on the rocks. now they won't get any more supplies, and russia will get a huge new flow of money.