"God will ask us if we have cultivated and cared for the world that he created for the benefit of all and for future generations, and if we have taken care of our brothers and sisters - what will be our answer, my dear friends?"

every Pacific naval encounter from late 1943 onward is like the IJN Golden Kirin, Glorious Harbinger of Eternal Imperial Dawn versus six identical copies of the USS We Built This Yesterday supplied by a ship that does nothing but make birthday cakes for the other ships

Anyway, here's what this all means. US soybean farmers have two options. Grow something else, or get welfare checks forever. There is no third option.

On the death of a prophet, a church shooting in Michigan, and what I learned from President Russell M. Nelson. This was a difficult piece to write. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

Multiple people of my faith community were murdered today, their church building set on fire, and first responders are now searching for the remains of unaccounted for individuals. And here’s the president bragging about the tackiness of his office.

DDDDDDDD

Tell me you have no idea what Utah County is like without telling me you have no idea what Utah County is like. At the No Kings protests this summer, someone starting chanting F*CK Trump and he was drowned out by LDS Hymns about loving one another.

"Among college graduates ages 22 to 27, computer science and computer engineering majors are facing some of the highest unemployment rates, 6.1% and 7.5% respectively ... That is more than double the unemployment rate among recent biology and art history graduates, which is just 3%"

To be clear, these people are flatly insane and nothing in Mormon doctrine, theology, or practice could reasonably be construed to suggest that this is a good idea.

Great reporting by @taylorwanderson.bsky.social. This is a situation indicative of larger problems with a supermajority legislature that rushes policies through during a short session to fulfill a business-friendly agenda that values relationships over outcomes. buildingsaltlake.com/shadow-lobby...

we’re about to find out if loving SimCity makes you a better mayor Mamdani was asked in 2002 by NY Mag what he wanted for Christmas and said SimCity 3000

“Tesla’s driverless ‘robotaxis’ could launch in Austin as soon as June 22. But a demo in Austin today showed a $TSLA, manually driven to test its Full Self-Driving system, failed to stop for a child-sized dummy at a school bus—and hit it.” @cbsaustin @velez_tx

ICE crossed a line in LA

New rivalry just dropped.

TRB was a pretty good thing while it lasted. Probably will never go again.

Organizations and conferences that have the potential to partially fill the void left by TRB (a thread):

The land, once slated for development, will now remain wide open — providing sanctuary for migrating elk, deer and moose and public access for recreation.

so after the maersk antares docks tonight, there will be no ships listed as inbound to the port of LA. at all. zero. few to the port of long beach next door, but, like, count em on one hand. Port of LA alone usually processes ~800k TEUs a month; it has gone to ~zero.

This is the lesson of Andor Season 1

PhD Timeline xkcd.com/3081

BYU PhD student, father of 5, just had his student visa revoked and he and his family may have to return to Japan 1-year short of finishing his doctorate. 😡 kslnewsradio.com/utah/visa-re...

If this is your first time giving to the @newap-georgia.bsky.social Charity Bowl and you're trying to figure out how to make a hater's donation, don't worry, I'm here to help

Thrilled to contribute to the #charitibundibowl to support refugee relief efforts in my old town of Atlanta. Amount is BYU 122 - Utah + AZ + AZ St + Colorado 82, plus an extra hundo for Utah's AD's meltdown after the BYU game.

Wow this is wild. James: "The Trump team didn't actually calculate tariff rates + non-tariff barriers, as they say they did. Instead, for every country, they just took our trade deficit with that country and divided it by the country's exports to us."

Trump to impose tariffs on Gondor, Coruscant and Wakanda.

Amid lots of response to this (like the skeet below), I’ll just note that from the 1850s until the early 1900s, there was significant debate over whether Mormons — yes, Mormons — counted as white. There was even a report submitted to the U.S. Senate. archive.thinkprogress.org/what-a-19th-...

How would @edsbs.bsky.social fix Atlanta? There’s no escaping many of the allegations we’d like to dodge about our city. But at the very least, we should change the name of our baseball team. It's time to rebrand the Braves—immediately and forever. how-id-fix-atlanta.ghost.io/how-spencer-...

I say this often but Germany was the preeminent research power until 1933 and in 100 since years has never caught up to where it was before the purge of Jews

The Framers assumed that the major area of conflict at the federal level would not between parties, but between branches. And they relied on that assumption to craft their scheme of checks and balances--they expected that Congress would jealously guard its own power, for example.

"History will remember this day— when an American President and Vice President abandoned all we stand for."

I will never forget the photo of Zelenskyy’s face after he saw Russia’s war crimes in Bucha in 2022. He seemed to age years in an afternoon. Watching him constantly cross the world asking for aid that should have been thrown at him is one of the deepest shames of our age.

I can't think of a faster way to undermine the country than simultaneously firing government workers, cutting scientific research, rolling back protections on public health & environment, & cutting essential services. It's like the US was defeated in war and is being occupied by a hostile enemy.

In a phone call with The Tribune Thursday night, Rep. Trevor Lee denied ever saying Nazi flags could be displayed in schools. Here is video of Lee saying Nazi flags could be displayed in schools.

I drove a 1987 Buick Regal in high school. Should have painted it black and pretended it was a grand national.

C.S. Lewis in @theatlantic.com in 1959 with one of my favorite essays, about the efficacy of prayer. www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...

Blaming Biden for high grocery prices was uninformed cynicism, because the president can’t do much to lower prices. But 1) can/mex tariffs 2) deporting ag workers 3) releasing water from CA dams 4) gutting reg agencies seems like perfectly calibrated policy to make prices explode.

Over and over, Paul was like yeah guys, I know what Jesus said feels like the opposite of what the world has taught you, and that's because ... it is the opposite. "Common sense" has no power here

The head of the FAA, Mike Whitaker, resigned on January 20 — one year into his 5 year term — after facing relentless criticism from Musk for not approving SpaceX missions quickly enough. The Senate confirmed him unanimously in 2023. No acting FAA head has been appointed.

Can’t believe the engineer congress dude in the show I just watched is a GEORGIA grad. Most fantastically implausible fiction writing possible.

Utah has some of the best conservatives out there. But it is also a haven for dangerous lunatics. Let’s at least not elect these guys as sheriff please.

Reminder that we didn't win the similar long fight over seatbelt usage by gently persuading skeptical anti seatbelt people with empathetic outreach, or by having cops write tickets, but by having manufacturers make cars do a little annoying beep if you didn't wear it.

A banner year for my passport. Happy to present research, see family, and show the world to my students. 2025 won’t be quite as epic in this way, but maybe I can make it epic in others.

This is how close the arena and in n out are to each other and to my hotel, which I’m standing in front of. It’s literally across the street. You cannot walk there. The person who designed Vegas should be beaten with a cane.

My new class on sustainable infrastructure was profiled by my college over the weekend. Some of my quotes hit a little hard, but I mean what I say.

I am not involved in this kind of thing often, but having one public meeting at the city council might lead to *worse* outcomes than having no public meetings.

I maintain that the minimum viable thanksgiving (MVT) is turkey, stuffing/dressing, and cranberry sauce. These are necessary, all else is bonus. But bonuses are good.

A sobering look at traffic violence victims we sometimes forget about. Designing roads and vehicles to soften anger and discourage competition will make lots of things better.

BYU football, 2024

I’m happy that my recent research has been published in ASCE’s Journal of Transportation Engineering Part A: Systems. We looked at what is likely to happen when a road becomes unusable.