A fun question. In 5 years time, what looks better? The US’s enormous bet & capex on AI? Or China’s equally enormous bet and capex on renewables?

Speaking of women in the workplace, one time on a plane, the flight attendant announced that we were on an "unmanned flight" because the pilot, co-pilot, and all flight attendants were women. I'll take more of this, please and thank you. 👩‍✈️🛩️✊

We have universal free school breakfast and lunch in Minnesota. Parents may imagine the school lunches from when we were kids—sloppy joes, rectangular pizza—but we’ve come a long way. Below are some examples of Minneapolis Public School meals. ALL kids should have access to food like this.

I should have known better than to click on this 🤦🏻‍♀️ “The pathology in our institutions known as wokeness is distinctively feminine and feminized. And that, in a very literal sense, our institutions have gone woke because there are more women in them than there used to be.”

We voted! Local elections for the win 💙🩵💙

Scenes from Clarksdale—where Sinners takes place—and elsewhere along the Mississippi Blues Trail. The Delta is a place that more people ought to see and hear for themselves.

I just finished watching Sinners, and whew, that was the best movie I've seen in a LONG time.

Bonsai trees showing off their colors at the Conservatory. I learned there that the art of bonsai was introduced to Japan from China!

The very best house on our block 🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃

The extent of Indigenous land dispossession by the US government is just staggering. The left map shows the shrinking boundaries of the Fort Berthold Reservation from 1852-1910 and the right map shows the 150,000+ acres of remaining reservation land flooded by the Garrison Dam in 1953.

Trend that seems like it would have a simple explanation, but I'm not sure does - pedestrian deaths among US children: 1970 - ~2,400 deaths (4.2/100K) 1990 - ~950 deaths (1.8.100K) 2005 - ~380 deaths (0.6/100K) 2023 - ~260 deaths (0.4/100K)

Amazon is helping fund a $300 million build of a ballroom for the White House. Independent bookstores are donating to food banks and organizations that help with food insecurity. They are not the same.

This will be a long thread on yesterday police massacre in Rio. In nothern Rio de Janeiro city, there is a couple of hills called Complexo da Penha. It's Comando Vermelho("Red Command", a drug gang), or CV, territory. CV is the greatest gang in Rio, second in the whole Brazil. +

Twin Cities folks, go check out the new Dyani White Hawk exhibit at the Walker. It is excellent!

Universities across the world seeing this: "its only wrong 45% of the time!! Lets buy free licenses for our students, staff and faculty!! Lets lock into contracts with rapacious predatory AI companies with shitty technofascist politics, sucking up water and jacking up electricity prices!!"

Bay area news www.sfgate.com/news/article...

Go us! We should definitely build more pipelines.

“In Ireland, data centers consume more than 20 percent of the country’s electricity. In Chile, precious aquifers are in danger of depletion. In South Africa, where blackouts have long been routine, data centers are further taxing the national grid.” Gift link: www.nytimes.com/2025/10/20/t...

Highlight of my PhD research in the Brazilian Amazon a decade ago: We were riding our motorcycle on the Transamazon Highway in Brazil and came across a sloth stranded by the road. It climbed onto a stick and then onto our motorcycle. We drove—very slowly—and let it go by a forested area. 🦥

For those of you keeping score, 18-22 year-old students calling for an end to slaughter in Gaza are so racist they need to be expelled or deported, but 24-35 year-olds celebrating Hitler, rape, and, um, racism are just kids being kids so chill. Also, racism is over so no need for Voting Right Act.

Did you know that jaguars used to live in the United States? Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas were the northernmost parts of their range, but ranchers and trappers killed them all. e360.yale.edu/features/jag...

It might be too late to get solar installed in time for the federal tax credit, but regardless, solar is a great way to offset rapidly rising electricity prices. The company that recently installed our panels, TruNorth Solar, is quoted in this piece. Check them out! www.mprnews.org/story/2025/1...

Economists! We’re hiring an assistant professor who focuses on domestic labor or public economics. The Humphrey School is wonderful and Minneapolis is the best city ever in my humble opinion. More details here: hr.myu.umn.edu/psc/hrprd/EM...

Since 2006, Brazil’s soy moratorium has helped curb deforestation in the Amazon. Now Trump’s tariffs on China are increasing Chinese demand for Brazilian soy & putting new pressure on Brazil to end the moratorium. This could be devastating for the rainforest. 🎁 link: www.nytimes.com/2025/10/15/c...

Economists! We’re hiring an assistant professor who focuses on domestic labor or public economics. The Humphrey School is wonderful and Minneapolis is the best city ever in my humble opinion. More details here: hr.myu.umn.edu/psc/hrprd/EM...

We’re watching Hocus Pocus and at one point the kids thwart the witches because daylight savings time ends and it gets light earlier than the witches expected. I said, “that’s ridiculous, daylight savings never happens on Halloween!” Guess what, in 1993—the year the movie came out—it did. Wild!

Wow New York Times, publishing this editorial is yet another new low. I cannot even bring myself to click on it out of curiosity.

Picture how big the Hoover Dam is. An absolute unit. The Hoover Dam has a power capacity of 2 gigawatts (GW). The solar farm that the Admin just cancelled could have produces 6.2 GW of power. That's more than 3 Hoover Dams.

The removal of dams on the Klamath River in California—the largest dam removal in history—is already an ecological success story. Now it’s time to ramp up the dam removals so rivers can run wild again.

The thing is, to be able to determine whether AI-generated code is “legit”, you need to know both statistics and coding yourself. If we no longer teach students to learn, think, and struggle—without the help of AI—the next generation will have no clue what is and isn’t legit.

“This month, OpenAI…graced the internet with a technology that most of us probably weren’t ready for. The company released an app called Sora, which lets users instantly generate realistic-looking videos with AI.” These companies are literally force feeding us (reality-destroying) poison. Gift link

Kristina Douglass, one of the new MacArthur Geniuses, is an incredible archaeologist and a lovely person. Read about her and her work on how ancient communities in Madagascar adapted to environmental change: www.npr.org/sections/goa...

New procrastination method unlocked! Get rooftop solar and obsessively check your app throughout the day to see how much energy your panels are producing 🌞📱📈

I ❤️ —

Potential five-alarm fire for medical research: “By downgrading its peer review process, the NIH could allow political appointees who now occupy key positions to stop grants that typically would be funded, and to fund grants they prefer that don’t necessarily meet rigorous scientific standards.”

Cheering squad for the Twin Cities Marathon this morning. I asked my three year old what she wanted to write on her sign, and she said “Love”. 💙🏃‍♀️🏃‍♂️🏃🩵

Folks, we are so very screwed. “We’re all dwelling in Uncanny Valley now, staring into our personal screens, not sure what’s real or fake, to the detriment of talking, dating, reading, living.” Gift link: www.nytimes.com/2025/10/04/o...

Not just an attack on academic freedom and democracy, but on science and knowledge creation, too. The end of the system where experts even nominally decide on research funding and priorities, replaced with a loyalty oath.

📣 I am recruiting PhD student(s) in Public Affairs (Fall '26) at the Humphrey School, University of Minnesota! Come join me to work on Development/ Labor/ Education/ Gender/ ECD/ Inequality - in a top-ranked, fully-funded PhD program! Details: www.hhh.umn.edu/doctor-philo... #EconSky #PoliSky

Goodbye to one of my childhood heroes. What a life. Gift link: www.nytimes.com/2025/10/01/o...

OMG. Not another Florida man. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/29/u...

I want the ones *not* included in "some" to have to publicly defend their position.

The North Star Promise is just one of those things we have to protect with everything we have.

This is great news for Minnesota! Enrollment is up across the system thanks to improved recruitment strategies, easier ways to apply, and the “North Star Promise, a new program that makes tuition free for Minnesotans whose families meet certain income requirements.” www.mprnews.org/story/2025/0...

I think the Trump admin assumed no one would try to find out who the people on the boats they blew up really were

This new chapter for former island residents is no fairy tale. They say their new homes are substandard, with rainwater seeping through doorways, malfunctioning appliances and flooded yards causing costly repairs floodlightnews.org/isle-de-jean...

Carolina Sociology is hiring! • Tenure-track in computational sociology or advanced quantitative methods • Open rank in population health. unc.peopleadmin.com/postings/307... unc.peopleadmin.com/postings/307...

“In contrast to the West, where election cycles have constrained consistent climate action, China plays a long game—planning decades into the future. And it doesn’t like to make promises it can’t keep.” Gift link: www.nytimes.com/2025/09/26/o...

Making strides towards electrifying my home. Solar panels ✔️ Heat pump water heater ✔️ Mini-splits for heating when it’s not too cold out ✔️ The tax rebates are going away soon but there still may be time to get solar panels this year, and there is certainly time to get energy efficient appliances!

Shana Tova 🍎🍯 In this coming year may our families be healthy, may our country regain its senses, and may Palestine be free.