Omicron and Punctuated Equilibrium When Coronavirus first leapt across the world in early 2020, you couldn’t escape the whispers of some nefarious plan. Was this intentional? Is someone trying to hurt us? It’s origin in Wuhan China, also home to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, made suspicions undeniable. …

Imagine that there are two types of genetic “thing” that l̵i̵v̵e̵ exist on the planet: Life (e.g. archaea, bacteria, eukaryotes, cats) Viruses (e.g. coronavirus, HIV) You could maybe add a third category called plasmids, which are little bits of genetic information that archaea and bacteria pass back and forth between…

Colorado City A message from the mayor: The crisis was so bad it got its own Wikipedia page. There are many harrowing anecdotes from the crisis, but the one seared into my memory is 11 year old Cristian Pineda dying while keeping his 3 year old brother warm through the…

A Conservative Phase Change An overly simplistic description of liberalism and conservatism is that the former is a party of change, while the latter is the party of order. But this isn’t quite right. “The early labels “party of movement” and “party of order” were catchy but misleading. Both liberals…

COVID-19, The Supreme Court, and the Failure of Federalism The year is 2020. A global pandemic kills hundreds of thousands, shutting down the global economy and making every mundane choice — whether grandma watches the kids today, where to go grocery shopping — a life or death decision. The United…

Let me preface this by saying first that I am not a pandemic specialist. I do have a PhD, but in anthropology, not anything useful. As a result, I am leaning heavily on the work of others who have estimated the capacity for the US health care system. While we…

The Atlantic today highlights a legacy of the 2008 financial crisis, the decline of the 4-year humanity degree. Right now, the biggest impediment to thinking about the future of the humanities is that, thanks…

This prescient story from early 2017 outlined a disturbing connection between newly elected President Donald Trump and Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy. Kennedy: [Inaudible] Trump: Very nice, thank you, and coming from you. And say hello to your boy. Special guy. Kennedy: Your kids have been very nice to him. …

Affording Congress an Opportunity to Address Family Seperation IMMIGRATION Issued on: June 20, 2018 SHARE: ALL NEWS By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), 8 U.S.C. 1101 et seq., …