Favorites December 11th 2021

santi ruiz @rSanti97

NEPA reform could kickstart geothermal tomorrow

google.comGreen Groups Thwarting Geothermal Solutions to Energy Problems - Washington Free BeaconOutdated regulations, political squabbles, and stubborn environmental activists have kept America from embracing a form of renewable power that could solve most of the country’s energy problems.

This reform, making it as easy to drill geothermal wells as oil ones, would be fantastic, and it's wild that it's a pair of Republicans pushing for it.

Noah Smith 🐇 @Noahpinion

When wages go up, companies add robots. THIS IS A GOOD THING. WE NEED MORE ROBOTS.

reuters.comNorth American companies rush to add robots as demand surgesCompanies in North America added a record number of robots in the first nine months of this year as they rushed to speed up assembly lines and struggled to add human workers.

I'm less worried about job loss due to automation than I was in the past, maybe it's because I've read more about economics, but more likely I just follow optimistic people on Twitter now? Or maybe it’s because I’ve seen this kickass video about the pictured robots.

Lee Richards @arcreuk

Oh This is glorious! A POW escaper wearing full Royal Navy uniform while running around Germany

A written letter used to go a long way.

Timothy B. Lee @binarybits

Six years of equating Trump voters with Nazis has apparently convinced some liberals there's a serious risk that reading history books about World War II will turn your son into a Nazi. 🤦

Jane Coaston @janecoaston

The first question here I believe I could handle better than the person who actually answers it, having been a 12-year-old who was obsessed with the Second World War https://t.co/nFcfBqlvIR

From the thread: "I'm also obsessed with war, have not once invaded the Sudetenland"

dr. unicorn 6'4" iq 154 @DrUnicornPhD

@MNateShyamalan the only tweets i respect from brand accounts are tweets that damage the brand

(Through deliberate trolling the Nutter Butter Twitter account got themselves banned)

Timothy B. Lee @binarybits

I wonder if Congress should cut the electric vehicle tax credit for 2022 as an inflation-fighting measure. If they put the savings towards more generous subsidies in 2023 or later, it should if anything accelerate EV adoption.

Wow, this actually seems like a good way to help slow inflation in car sales.

Kelsey Piper @KelseyTuoc

The actual, factual, about-the-world-not-about-Twitter thing I believe about lab leak is that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was engaged in stunningly irresponsible research that risked the release of a deadly disease, that they've concealed most of that research...

We'll probably never be able to definitively identify COVID-19's origin, but there really was pre-pandemic commentary that we should limit gain-of-function research, and I don't think those arguments have gotten weaker.

NBC News @NBCNews

Meet the student bringing Black illustrations to the medical field. nbcnews.to/3oLcSwJ

Amanda Katz: "You have to see these illustrations to realize you never see illustrations like this."

Sarah Rumpf @rumpfshaker

Read the whole thread but especially the end.

Robert Costa @costareports

(thread) Based on our reporting, Eastman begins drafting his memo in late Dec. and Trump WH has it by the new year. WH then gives it to Sen. Lee and others on Jan. 2, as we document in "Peril." But by Jan. 3, after Pence meets w/ Sen. Parliam., it's clear he's not coming along.

No joke, that last tweet in the thread is quite something.

Top of Lombard Street, San Francisco, November 2021