For the past century, Republicans have used the words “Marxist,” “Socialist” and “Communist” as epithets to refer to anything and everything they disapprove of. Now that a generation of Americans that was born after the collapse of the Soviet Union has come of age, those swear words have lost their potency. Looks like “DEI” is […]

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Trump has said that “tariff” is the most beautiful word in the dictionary. Last Friday, he announced his intention to shine that beauty on the American people. “Outside analyses make clear that Trump’s tariffs would hurt the voters that he intended to help, meaning that he might ultimately need to find a resolution. “An analysis […]

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The least trustworthy name in news, buried in the 13th graf: Democratic lawmakers have argued it would be illegal for Trump to unilaterally eliminate a federal agency without consulting Congress. This is not a question of whether something is blue-green, aqua, or cyan. This is a matter of fact. You might think a news organization […]

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Personally, I’ve never had a weight problem. Always had a BMI under 24. But I’ve known plenty of people who were overweight or obese. For the ones who started taking semaglutides, the results have been transformative and the risks for most have been negligible. But don’t take my word for it. Here’s Dr. McGowan, a […]

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There are other forms of taxation besides income taxes. Tariffs are really just taxes on consumer goods. And deportations will drive up the prices of produce that’s left to rot in the fields. Call it a “deportation tax.” This link is from 16 January. “The impact of President-elect Donald Trump’s promise of mass deportation is […]

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Don Boudreaux has reprinted a few paragraphs from a George Will column under the heading:  George Will explains that RFK, Jr., is what people get “when trust in government collapses.”  Here are the quoted paragraphs, my bold: Indifference to evidence, and an appetite for startling hypotheses, are well-known characteristics of cranks. Kennedy is a man-child […]

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Josh Marshall has a post up at TPM about the current assault on the federal government by unelected Elon Musk and his unelected and unappointed minions. While the Trump cult GOP currently holds the executive branch and slim majorities in Congress for the next two years, there are still things their opponents can do to […]

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Below I discussed Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) T-cells and also pulled up a reply by Linda Eissenberg which taught me a lot. CAR T-cells are killer T-cells genetically modified to kill cells to which an antibody binds. I promised crazier ideas in later posts. One was the idea of further genetic modification of CAR T-cells. […]

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Pulled up from a comment by Linda Eissenberg the community has been exploring them [CAR crazy ideas] for some time.  For example, in the “Gene edited CAR-T” method section of this paper (Cooper, et al.  https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6102094/), T cells were treated with IL2 and IL15 before putting the CAR gene into the T cells.  This work was […]

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I graduated college in 1977 with a BA (with honors) in microbiology. I took courses in virology and immunology, among others. Thus, as a 22 year-old, I was already more qualified to discuss vaccines against polio and COVID than RFK Jr is or will ever be. He’s not the only clown in the Trump clown […]

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At its beginning, no one knew that they were in the Industrial Age; let alone how to deal with it. It was like nothing anyone had ever seen before. Later on, great minds like Marx, Keynes, Galbraith, et al would give ‘how to deal with it’ their best shot. Since, say, 1970, we have been […]

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This is a seven year-old NPR interview with David Honig, an attorney and adjunct professor at Indiana University, where he teaches negotiations. While this discussion dates from the first Trump term, he’s obviously learned nothing about negotiation skills since then: “HONIG: It’s an interesting question. I reread “The Art Of The Deal” today in anticipation […]

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Matt Yglesias has a critical piece up on Biden.  I am largely in agreement with Yglesias’ take, although I tend to see his failings as due to longstanding character traits, while Yglesias puts more emphasis on Biden’s age.  A couple of snippets (the whole thing is worth reading, but not sure if it is public): […]

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Truman famously had a desk sign reading “The buck stops here.” That was back when there were grown-ups in the White House. With Trump, the buck stops over there somewhere: “The news, linked above, that the resignations emails were Team Elon’s idea and didn’t have the okay of the White House comes from a Washington […]

The post Trump: Elon ate my homework appeared first on Angry Bear.

“U.S. President Donald Trump’s military deportation flight to Guatemala on Monday likely cost at least $4,675 per migrant, according to data provided by U.S. and Guatemalan officials. “That is more than five times the $853 cost of a one-way first class ticket on American Airlines from El Paso, Texas, the departure point for the flight, […]

The post The economics of Trump’s ego appeared first on Angry Bear.

“Trump claims his policies will do just that, creating a new “golden age” that will lift most boats and more than make up for what people might lose in government largesse. Low taxes will trigger blowout growth; tariffs on imports will bring back millions of good-paying manufacturing jobs; unshackled workers aided by artificial intelligence will […]

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Here CAR stands for Chimeric Antigen Receptor and refers to CAR killer T-cells which are cells genetically engineered to kill other cells which display something detectable (and antigen) typical of a type of cancer. The crazy refers to my dream of improving CARs using the knowlsege from my long ago BA in biology. The amazing […]

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