Brett Frazer

Living a moral life in an age of bullies requires collective action; it cannot be done alone. Each of us must organize and participate in a vast network of moral resistance. From this solidarity we will grow stronger. This is what our current moment requires.

Trump has done more to establish a unitary executive than all the judges or legal scholars in the world could ever do.

And Trump has done more to discredit and expose the unitary executive theory as lawless authoritarianism than any judge or legal scholar could ever do.

At a time when the most influential media institutions and leaders in the U.S. need to stand up for free speech, they are doing the opposite — either to line their pockets or avoid Trump’s wrath.

They’re treating the erosion of our fundamental rights as a cost of doing business.

It's in no way a solution to our current problems, but try to do something nice for someone you don't know today or this week. It'll make you feel better. Just try it.

I’ll note, too, that an authentic commitment to liberalism and free speech does not require anyone to agree with hagiographic accounts of Kirk’s life to find his murder wholly unacceptable.

And our commitment to nonviolence is doubly tested when we offer such condemnation in the absence of reciprocity. MAGA was silent about—or worse, mocked (in the case of Sen. Mike Lee)—the recent slaughter of Democratic lawmakers.

We are challenged to set a better example for civil society.

Our commitment to the foundational elements of liberal democracy—rule of law, free speech, nonviolent conflict resolution, the wisdom of electoral politics—are most-greatly tested when we condemn violence against those with whom we vehemently disagree.

The AI bros fawning over Grok 4 because of its performance benchmarks is like praising the novel cinematic techniques employed in “Triumph of the Will.”

I hate to sound like one of those gifted-kid-burnout-hacks, but it’s truly remarkable that I used to manage a full chemistry major course load with competitive debate and a six-day-per-week bro split but now I need enough caffeine to kill a horse just to answer four emails and wash three dishes.

“Please don’t pass the bill that I just voted for” is an entirely new dimension of cowardice.

One thing I wish people understood about authoritarianism is life often looks more or less the same. Troops aren’t marching down the street every day; people go to restaurants, have their office jobs. But everyone knows that stepping out of line, even slightly, can derail your life with no recourse

Trump is the first President since the S&P 500 was created to inherit a bull market and then turn in a loss of at least 5% within 90 days of assuming office.

Meanwhile, Trump has proposed massive, regressive tax cuts that will create gaping deficits while benefitting the wealthiest people on the planet. Textbook. Oligarchy.

A billionaire President-elect has selected an unprecedented 13 billionaires to serve in his cabinet, and appointed an additional two billionaires to “informally advise” on enormous spending cuts that will most-egregiously harm the ~60% of Americans that live paycheck-to-paycheck.

And he got his way. This is textbook oligarchy.

and threaten a primary challenge against any Republican who voted for a bipartisan bill that was duly negotiated and agreed upon by hundreds of democratically-elected representatives.

It’s hard to overstate the significance of the past 48 hours. A man worth a quarter of a trillion dollars—who was not elected to public office and is constitutionally barred from serving as the President—used his privately-owned media company to spread wild lies and…

- $190M for childhood cancer research;
- funding to develop treatments for premature labor;
- funding for improved sickle cell disease treatment;
- new programs for early detection of breast and cervical cancer.

but don’t worry; we’ll be fine if we fry our Christmas turkeys in beef tallow.

How’s this for MAHA:

After weeks of negotiating a bipartisan deal to prevent a government shutdown, the richest man in the world broadcasts a mendacious tweetstorm, demanding spending cuts. President Trump and Speaker Johnson obliged, of course.

Here’s what got axed:

Temperature change over time in the United States.

showyourstripes.info

Two things can both be true:

(1) A healthcare system that transfers money from patients to insurance companies whose primary obligation is to shareholders, not patient health, is unjust.

(2) Americans’ apparent acceptance of violence as a means of settling civil or political disputes is alarming.

The figure comes from Cook-Patton et al., 2021. Protect, manage and then restore lands for climate mitigation.

While the title may imply that restoration shouldn't come first, the authors stress that all these efforts should happen simultaneously and can be highly complementary.

Although restoring forests has by far the largest climate mitigation potential compared to protecting (REDD) and managing (IFM) forests, there are serious challenges: a slower time horizon and lower cost-effectiveness, especially when looking at the mitigation potential at ≤US$100tCO2e-1.

The diagram illustrates the hierarchy of Natural Climate Solutions (NCS), focusing on three key approaches: Protect (orange), Manage (green), and Restore (blue). Each approach is represented by overlapping circles, sized to indicate global maximum mitigation potential in gigatonnes of CO₂ equivalent per year (GtCO₂e/yr) by 2030. Icons within the circles represent various factors: time horizon, cost-effectiveness, biodiversity value, land use change, and flux density. Protect has a mitigation potential of 3.9 GtCO₂e/yr, Manage 6.8 GtCO₂e/yr, and Restore 11.8 GtCO₂e/yr. Protect prioritizes immediate ecosystem preservation, with faster time horizons and higher biodiversity value. Manage focuses on improving practices with moderate benefits across criteria. Restore emphasizes long-term solutions requiring land use change and delivering the highest flux density. A legend below explains the icons and their qualitative scales. The diagram highlights the complementary roles of the approaches in optimizing climate mitigation outcomes.

Here’s a useful visual that illustrates the potential of (and highlights the challenges facing) forest restoration for climate mitigation.

a football player is wearing sunglasses and a big shirt ALT: a football player is wearing sunglasses and a big shirt

Michigan wins The Game and Dusty May makes a statement tonight against Wisconsin.

It’s great to be a Michigan Wolverine!

Did I miss anyone?

RFK Jr. (HHS) has net worth of “only” $15M (but the Kennedy family has a net worth north of a billion).

Lori Chavez-DeRemer’s (Labor) net worth is $10M

Sean Duffy (Transportation) is a peasant by comparison, with “only” $4M to his name.

Here are the other *billionaires* joining the Trump Administration:

Scott Bessent (Treasury)
Doug Burgum (Interior)
Linda McMahon (Ed.)
Howard Lutnick (Commerce)

Here are Trump Appointees whose net worth is “merely” >$100M:

Chris Wright (Energy)
Mehmet Oz (Medicare/cade)

The Trump Administration is fully embracing oligarchy.

Trump, a billionaire, is the richest US president in history. He’s enlisted two billionaires, including the world’s richest man, to gut gov’t programs that tens of millions of Americans rely on. But billionaires (esp. Elon) will be get richer.

Following Strava’s super shady price hikes earlier this year, it’s hard to view their move here as a good faith effort to protect user data.

One of the main reasons endurance athletes use Strava is that its well-developed API functionality allows for easy sharing with coaching apps.