I forgot to say that in addition to blowing up the protection deal the Trump people provided only a 7-day window for public comment. Please consider putting yourself on record. Go to eplanning.blm.gov/Project-Home... and click on "participate now." You must do this before April 7.

Uh, wut. nypost.com/2026/03/17/u...

For years and years, Pueblos, Diné (Navajo), Indé (Apache), archaeologists, green groups, Utah and New Mexico politicos, and recreation, water, and timber interests fought over the land around Chaco Canyon, one of the world's most important archaeological sites. In 2022, ... (1/5)

For years, Pueblos, Mescalero Apache, archaeologists, Utah and New Mexico politicos, conservation groups, recreation, water and timber interests fought over the land around Chaco Canyon. The Biden ppl finally got a settlement all could live with. Now a few disgruntleds have got Trump to undo it.

An economist friend passes along this graph of energy costs. He says, "Given this history, it is more than a little ironic that renewable energy is derided by fossil-fuel proponents as 'unreliable.'”

Marfa, TX.

Glioblastoma is among the most intractable, lethal forms of cancer--and one with personal relevance, as it killed my closest childhood friend at 37. (Time between diagnosis and death: 4 months.) Over the last few yrs, there's been signs of successful treatments--and now the hope for a vaccine.

I showed this graph in class yesterday on how measles cases in the United States plummeted dramatically after the vaccine was licensed in 1963. It’s not subtle and I could not resist observing: “This stunning design in measles cases was not thanks to vitamin A. It was not due to beef tallow.”

Odd story: FDA says Fresno farm's raw-milk cheese likely caused E. coli outbreak; farm refuses to recall cheese because it doesn't trust FDA; FDA, led by raw-milk fan RFK Jr, refuses to enforce recall. Meanwhile, 9 people, mostly kids, are sick; 3 are hospitalized (more cases likely unreported).

"More than 1/3 of globally traded fertilizer passes through the Strait of Hormuz... Traffic through the route has largely been halted since the war started..., disrupting shipments just as farmers across the Northern Hemisphere prepare fields for spring planting."

People give Bill Gates a lot of grief, much of it deserved, but he also funded & directed the development of these special vaccine fridges for places w/ bad grids that during outages keep vaxxes at temp for 5 days even when outside temps are 110F and now 1000s are deployed all over Africa & S Asia.

So great to spend a good chunk of the day yesterday with my pal @kiliiiyuyan.bsky.social on the occasion of his great new book of photographs: www.amazon.com/Guardians-Li...

"When one side is begging for talks and backing off threats, and the other is making maximal demands you know who has the whip hand in the negotiations and indeed in the larger conflict itself." (Gift link, I think)

It's Norman Borlaug's birthday! If you don't know who he was, you should--regardless of what you think about modern ag and the global food system--as NB was, for better and worse, a major part of creating them. Last year, I had a fun talk with Derek Thompson (@dkthomp.bsky.social) about the guy.

I'm no expert, but this video from the Iranian government sure doesn't look like they will be cowed into submission any time soon.

Today is the 37th anniversary of the Exxon Valdez spill. Despite everything since, the US govt has still been trying to sell Arctic oil leases. But even the oil companies aren't buying--maybe they've learned something.

As Paul notes in a reply, skepticism is warranted, but it's striking to ear people at NASA even talking about this kind of stuff.

@nealstephenson.bsky.social reflects, amusingly, on the most recent "death of the metaverse": nealstephenson.substack.com/p/my-prodiga...

Economists, take heart! The city of Everett, WA, has your back! The center of its new waterfront redevelopment project is a plaza that's a paean to global free trade with flags of trading partners, a floor map of trade routes, and plaques extolling commercial exchange!

Skagit Valley, WA. Daffodils. So many daffodils.

The great parts of globalization, Part 3865. Everett, WA. Ethiopian coffee served Dutch style in a Korean-run coffee shop. Incredibly good.

Stanley Basin, Idaho. Source of the Salmon River, which wriggles along the basin. Hard to imagine a more beautiful spot.

Craters of the Moon National Monument, Idaho.

AI is now telling journalists to deprecate or abandon Xitter and come Over Here, it seems.

Applications are now open for the Agnese Haury Visiting Scholar & Trainee Fellowships at the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research - more information here: ltrr.arizona.edu/fellowships

Roadside hazard, Hailey, Idaho.

Breast cancer mortality dropped 58% from 1975 to 2019. Localized, early detected breast cancer has a 99% 5 year survival rate. Modern mammogram tech was developed by NASA for telescopes. Last year, RFK Jr. cancelled 87 research grants on breast cancer. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/16/u...

Here's a fun exercise! Complete the following sentence: "I'm so glad we slashed diabetes research by more than one-third last year because..."

3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510582097494459230781640628620899862803482534211706798214808651328230664709384460955058223172535940812848111745028410270193852110555964462294895493038196442881097566593344612847564823378678316527120190914564856692 🧵 1/∞

Suddenly, MAGA voices are talking up solar power--including Katie Miller, podcaster wife of Stephen Miller. "Over the past month, ... Miller has published nearly a dozen posts promoting solar—often highlighting China’s build-out while arguing that US solar investment is a nat'l security issue."

"Iran can sustain its counteroffensive for far longer [than theUS]... That is why Iranian leaders say they won't accept a ceasefire until Washington fully grasps the cost of waging this war." Blunt assessment of Iran strategy from @valinasr.bsky.social says to me that it's on track to win this war.

In case you've wondered why so many Indigenous people have expressed strong opinions on Palestine, here's a Norman Finkelstein essay that makes the connection clear. The essay, a reprint, is 30 years old. Some of the scholarship on the Cherokee removal is outdated, but it's still a good piece.

"Respect the thread!"

Well-written, thoughtful essay on the gap between the (sometimes correct!) populist critique of institutional science, esp. its biomedical division, and the remedies so far proposed by Trump-ish populists, which often worsen the problem they claim to solve.

My pal Virginia giving a short, charming, wholly correct video plug for the importance of textiles to the history of technology and society.

Until I saw this video of AI-generated "singer" Tilly Norwood I didn't know it was possible to hide the number of downvotes on YouTube. But after reading the comments I saw why the "creators" thought it necessary. I like the defensive bit at the start where they say 18 people actually made this.

Watching Casey Means' testimony to be Surgeon General and she's being unbelievably squirrely about vaccines. This exchange w/ Senator Kaine in which she tries to worm out of saying whether or not she believes flu vaccines are beneficial is appalling. (At 1:48:42, but it should be cued up.)

I got one wrong. I thought, "This sounds like Cormac McCarthy on a bad day," and marked the passage as AI. But it *was* Cormac McCarthy on a bad day. The quiz is fun, but in my experience a bit misleading. AIs can produce 3-4 pp of OK prose, but then go haywire. They should test longer passages.

The risk for babies who get measles under the age of 6 months to develop this within 10 years is 1 in 600.

Fascinating Nature study shows how symbiotic bacteria in insects--they provide key amino acids and vitamins--are shedding parts of their genomes, losing their identities and evolving to become part of the host organisms. Paper: www.nature.com/articles/s41... Good writeup: phys.org/news/2026-02...

@tedgioia.bsky.social: Hordes of scammers are impersonating famous jazz musicians on Spotify. Spotify not only doesn't try to stop them, it actually is promoting some of the scams. Ripping off jazz musicians--not exactly well-known for rolling in dough--somehow seems extra awful.

Impressive how Corpus Christi region (~500K people, mid-income area) has dropped the ball on providing itself with water. Striking quote here from a regional water official about how the best hope to avert disaster is ... a 20-30 inch rainfall (!). Which, yikes. www.texastribune.org/2026/03/08/t...

This machine kills fascists

they brought back fucking polio

@wsj.com: "EveryLife Foundation for Rare Diseases chief mission officer Annie Kennedy said the FDA has rejected at least 23 rare disease therapies since early 2025... 'This is a policy of death by technicality, these little, tiny glitches that the FDA is producing [as reasons for rejection].'"

This, from Ezra Klein, matches up with my experience. There are far too many journalists for whom this applies. Or to put it another way: I sometimes say my sole advantage, as a journalist, is that I am willing to go to the library. howiwrite.substack.com/p/ezra-klein...

The Forest Service has OK'd exploratory drilling at Pe’sla, in the Black Hills, a site sacred to the Lakota--a place where the world began. How much did the Forest Service weigh the Lakota campaign to preserve Pe'sla? Its name doesn't appear in the decision memo. drive.google.com/file/d/1aiPm...

*Pres Donald Trump, #1 NAIMBY anti-LLM guy *Quick, line up to get shoulder-to-shoulder with this heroic enemy of all-things-slop

Important news in the nuclear world. The NRC has approved construction of a new reactor in Wyoming--the first Gen IV reactor ever approved, the first commercial reactor OK'd for construction in nearly 10 years, the first approval for a non-light water reactor in 40+ years.

There’s a case to be made for deporting violent felons. If that’s what my governor believes she’s doing, she should make that case publicly. There’s no case to make for trying to hide what is going on. Kudos to @burness.bsky.social for digging it out despite tenacious federal and state opposition.