Favorites August 23rd 2021

Peter A. Shulman 📚 @pashulman

Please blast far and wide: the story that Rice was experiencing an unexpectedly high rate of Delta spread among a population vaccinated in the mid-90% range led to panic and despondency across Twitter. Nearly all the troubling results were false positives

coronavirus.rice.eduCOVID-19 Response weekly update: August 22 | COVID at Rice | Rice University

Definitely good news if you were worried about rates of breakthrough infection.

Marginal Revolution @MarginalRevolt

Simple facts about Afghanistan:

ift.ttSimple facts about Afghanistan - Marginal REVOLUTIONTrade will be a particular source of difficulty. The last IMF report on the country prior to the collapse of the government counted imports at about $7 billion annually, a huge fraction of Afghanistan’s $19 billion GDP. Imports exceeded exports by about a factor of five. While that high level of imp…

"...prior to the collapse of the government counted imports at about $7 billion annually, a huge fraction of Afghanistan’s $19 billion GDP. Imports exceeded exports by about a factor of five."

Geoff Bennett @GeoffRBennett

New Afghanistan evacuation numbers for this Monday morning, via a WH official: appx. 10,400 people evacuated from Kabul in the last day and 37,000 people since Aug. 14

Apparently they're going to start using commercial planes as well.

Peter Ganong @p_ganong

Amazing new paper by @amirrkermani @francisawong on the racial gap in housing returns. Black and Hispanic households see their housing wealth grow less, contributing to the overall racial wealth gap substantially.

Using homes to build wealth is bad for racial equality. (probably not a surprise)

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

Now that it's fully approved, you can also use the Pfizer vaccine for off-label purposes such as deworming horses and cattle.

Finally!

James Fallows @JamesFallows

From @fmkaplan , former JCS chair Admiral Mike Mullen, on the path not taken with Afghanistan.

slate.comA Top U.S. Military Officer Finally Admits He Was Wrong About Afghanistan“It’s hard to deny the evidence in front of you.”

"thus far the only senior officer from that period who has publicly admitted that the U.S. policy—and he personally—was deeply mistaken". Noah Smith: America isn't an empire.

Kim-Mai Cutler @kimmaicutler

Every week of exposure to wildfire smoke increases the risk of pre-term birth by 3.4%.

news.stanford.eduWildfire smoke and early births | Stanford NewsSmoke from wildfires may have contributed to thousands of additional premature births in California between 2007 and 2012. The findings underscore the value of reducing the risk of big, extreme wildfires and suggest pregnant people should avoid very smoky air.

In case you were trying to decide whether to worry about air quality.

Andrew Prokop @awprokop

In the proposed bipartisan commission, Republicans would have been able to block any subpoenas. But Republicans blocked it. So now, the Democrat-led 1/6 committee can do what they like

Sahil Kapur @sahilkapur

Rep. @BennieGThompson says 1/6 committee will obtain communication via phone, text message and social media from "several hundred people." He says it'll include members of Congress and doesn't rule out including Trump's associates or family. Letters first. Subpoenas may be next.

Many of the crazies who stormed the capitol on January 6 live streamed their activities, so a ton of stuff is already known. But because the press is so obsessed with ‘not the crime, the cover-up’, if anything comes of subpoenas that was previously unknown, it may become a big story.

Eric Topol @EricTopol

The mRNA vaccine story was by no means fast. Both it and lipid nanoparticles for its delivery took several decades nature.com/articles/s4157…

The best time to fund research is 30 years ago, the second best time is today!

August 2021, San Francisco