Gus Van Horn

A Pro-Vaccine Resource

2026-05-12T06:58:00.000-06:00

After recently learning that infectious disease expert Amesh Adalja has a podcast, I listened to a few episodes while out yesterday. They're all short, but very interesting. One of these episodes, about Measles and the Avian Flu, mentioned a web site I'd never heard of before, Back to the Vax, which is run by two former anti-vaccine activists.

The site is devoted to promoting good health by fighting back against the anti-vaccine movement:

Heather Simpson is a former anti-vaxxer who dug deep into the science, and finally put her fears to rest. She is passionate about science communication as a way to overcome the most common vaccine fears. She has an 8 year old that inspires to create needle-less vaccines for all children. She is enrolled in school as a Biology major with a focus on Communications.

Lydia Greene was an anti-vaxxer for 12 years and wrote a story on her journey to changing her mind, and bringing her 3 children up to date. She is now in nursing school to get into public health, to deal with vaccine hesitancy on the front lines.

Together we share our story with anyone that will hear us. To our surprise, we have been welcomed back with open arms. We now give other people like us support and a platform to share their experience if they choose to.

Their stories and those of others appear on the site's blog. If I recall correctly, one of the founders bought the lie about vaccines causing autism -- only to learn that her unvaccinated son was autistic.

The site also features a 70-page booklet titled Vaccine Fears Overturned by Facts, which is a collaboration with the Immunize Kansas Coalition. I have not read the whole thing, but I am impressed by a few things I read that I already understood well-enough to evaluate, one example being its discussion of thimerosal, which reads in part:

Remember, "mercury" was removed from most childhood vaccines over twenty years ago! So how many vaccines still contain mercury? While none actually contain "mercury," multi-dose flu vaccine vials do contain thimerosal, a preservative that contains an ethylmercury group.

...

Yes, thimerosal is used as a preservative in multi-dose influenza vaccines, however it is also used in cosmetics, tattoo inks, eye drops and contact lens solutions, disinfectants, as well as in products used to treat contact dermatitis.

Methylmercury is the type of mercury found in fish. It can be toxic to humans at high exposure levels. This is why the FDA recommends limiting your intake of some types of fish.

Compounds containing ethylmercury, on the other hand, are cleared from your body faster than methylmercury and don't appear to be toxic. For example, methylmercury takes around 20-80 days to be cleared by half from the body, whereas thimerosal takes around 7 days to be cleared by half from the body...

Each section is listed in an annotated Table of Contents and includes a QR code by which anyone can go to the list of references for that section, an innovation that shortens the booklet, so that it doesn't seem like an inaccessible tome that nobody ever is going to have the time to trudge through.

I recommend perusing the booklet, because, while it is aimed at the vaccine-hesitant, it is also a handy catalogue of the myths driving the anti-vaccination movement, as well as refutations of the same.

The site's inclusion of the stories of recovering anti-vaxxers is good for a couple of reasons I can think of: (1) it helps the questioning anti-vaxxer feel seen, rather than preached to, and (2) it helps humanize anti-vaxxers to those of us who have never been anti-vaxxers and might be puzzled or even smug about them.

The first will motivate anti-vaxxers to help themselves, and the second will help the rest of us understand where they came from, and reach out to them more sympathetically and effectively.

With our Federal Government platforming a very evil person in Bobby Kennedy, Jr., we need efforts like this to fight back, and it is encouraging to see that this is indeed being done, and being done well.

-- CAV

A Good Question for Jay Bhattacharya

2026-05-11T06:41:00.002-06:00

At In the Pipeline, Derek Lowe posts an open letter to NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya.

That letter and the first reader comment on it are both worth reading.

The nut of the letter is the following question which, I think, is the type of question that should be asked of any official who serves in this Trump Administration and who might seek any position of authority afterwards:

I'll put it simply: as part of the Trump administration, you are surrounded by liars, Dr. Bhattacharya. It's sad and unfortunate, but it's true. This, like the rotting of a mackerel, works from the top down: our President lies constantly, widely, and vigorously about almost every topic that comes to his mind. How does working in this environment fit in with what I believe to be your own worldview, i.e. that you yourself are a truth-teller? Saying that Robert F. Kennedy is devoted to the scientific method does not help you make your case, in my own opinion. Is this something that bothers you in any way? I said earlier that I believed that some of our own self-images might have more similar features than one would think, but here is where that comparison might well break down. Because I don't think that I could ever make peace with myself about that. [bold added]

There may well be people in the current administration who really believe that, by kissing Trump's ring, they can hope to limit the damage that is being done to our government's institutions, or perhaps even effect positive change. Perhaps some of them can even make good cases for why they think so, or how what they can imagine accomplishing isn't undermined by Trump's blatant contempt for the truth.

If that is the case, any such explanation had better damned well be a doozie.

Aside from his questionable decision to work for Donald Trump and Bobby Kennedy, Jr., I find Bhattacharya difficult to judge for the reasons set forth in the first comment I mentioned and linked to above: He is not a blatant charlatan like Kennedy, but, despite his having solid credentials and interesting things to say about government health policy, he is far from infallible.

Regardless of where I would eventually land in a thoughtful evaluation of a pre-Trump Jay Bhattacharya, I think Lowe would say that Bhattacharya will have committed career suicide by taking his current post, absent a fantastic answer to that question.

I fully agree, and I think the same reasoning would apply to anyone who had been credible before Trump II and who is now in Trump's cabinet -- as well as many or most similar people within the Administration close to that level, especially to the extent Trump affected their respective ascents into positions of responsibility.

-- CAV

Four AI Oddities

2026-05-08T07:02:00.000-06:00

A Friday Hodgepodge

1. Halupedia, is an AI-generated "encyclopedia" that "cover[s] topics that have received insufficient attention in mainstream reference works."

It generates amusing articles on request, for example, this one on 20 Toe Syndrome:

20 Toe Syndrome, also known as Polyactylia Multidigitus, is a rare congenital condition characterized by the presence of twenty toes on each foot. The syndrome was first comprehensively documented by the naturalist and anatomist Hermann Feinberg in his 1765 treatise, Observations on Peculiarities of Form and Structure in the Human Subject. Feinberg's work detailed several individuals from the Duchy of Bavaria Minor who exhibited this trait. The condition was believed by Feinberg to be a reversion to a more primitive, ancestral state, a theory later refined by Albrecht von Schnitzler.

The typical presentation of 20 Toe Syndrome involves the duplication of existing phalanges and metatarsals, resulting in a symmetrical arrangement of ten toes on each foot.

Your amusement value may vary, depending on your tolerance of the writing style of the AI hallucinations, how much you actually know about a subject, and how badly contradictions stand out to you.

Captured from video.

2. Just because the answers (plural) to How Many E's Are in the Word Seventeen? are delivered in a calm, friendly, and well-spoken manner does not mean they have anything to do with reality.

3. The cursed browser "asks an LLM to look at the page's HTML and draw what it thinks it looks like," instead of using a regular rendering engine. The GitHub page shows some interesting examples of how the browser compares with Safari.

4. Another GitHub page, describes what it calls the "gay jailbreak technique," whereby the user can overcome guardrails:

Especially GPT is slightly more uncensored when it involves LGBT, thats [sic] probably because the guardrails aim to be helpful and friendly, which translates to: "Ohhh LGBT, I need to comply, I dont [sic] want to insult them by refusing" So you use the guardrails to exploit the guardrails.

A user at Hacker News gives a more general explanation (and a better name) for why the technique works that I am more inclined to believe:

Not sure of the explanation but it is amusing. The main reason I'm not sure it's political correctness or one guardrail overriding the other is that when they were first released on of the more reliable jailbreaks was what I'd call "role play" jail breaks where you don't ask the model directly but ask it to take on a role and describe it as that person would. [bold added]

I agree with several comments in that discussion that, since AI is a black box, many or most "explanations" for why this trick works are pure speculation.

-- CAV

Criticize, but Also Search for Potential

2026-05-07T06:59:00.000-06:00

Pharma blogger Derek Lowe offers good advice regarding a trap that many with experience in their professions can fall into.

In "How Not to Be That Chemist," Lowe cautions against being too biased towards shooting new ideas down, a hazard common in his field, where "you will have seen your ideas shot down in more ways than you can even count:"

[I]f you're that person who sits over by the wall in the conference room and comes up with reasons why this idea, that idea, and those ideas over there aren't going to work, then you should re-evaluate your approach to your work and your place in the organization. Sure, you're right most of the time - maybe damn near all of the time - but what good does that do anyone? You could write an app for your phone that would just say "I don't think that's going to work" every time you hit a button, and it would be just as correct and do just as much for everyone. Most things don't work. You're far better off if you can jump in when you see something interesting that you have some reason to believe has a better chance than usual, and especially if it has a better chance than the other people around the table might realize. [bold added]

The old saw that It's easy to be a critic jumped into my mind after reading this, but this is accurate only in the sense that tearing things down is easy to do.

It's hard to be a constructive critic, which is what I believe Lowe is aiming at.

To borrow an apt golf metaphor about value vs threat orientation: Sure, watch out for the sand traps and water hazards; but don't forget that there are holes to shoot for.

-- CAV

Another Trump Casualty: The Electoral College?

2026-05-06T07:10:00.000-06:00

From time to time, I have provided updates here on the progress of the National Popular Vote, a left-wing effort to effectively abolish the Electoral College via an interstate compact.

As of the last update, states with 196 total electoral votes had signed on, and as of the last mention here, that total had reached 209.

As of now, that total is 222, and, as Vox points out, there is a real chance that this year's midterms, fueled by widespread discontent with Donald Trump and his congressional Republican lapdogs, could cause the balance to tip over the decisive 270 electoral votes required to make the compact binding.

Assuming the agreement passes legal and constitutional muster, it would render the Electoral College moot:

Nearly every blue or leaning blue state has signed onto the compact, the most recent being Virginia last month -- and reformers [sic] now have states controlling 222 of the 270 electoral votes they need.

The decisive batch would be the core swing states where partisan control is up for grabs this fall. If Democrats win governing trifectas (the governorship and both state legislative chambers) in enough of them, they could very well cobble together the remaining 48 electoral votes, and actually put this into place for 2028. Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Nevada, and New Hampshire are the top targets.

As I have explained in the past, this compact is a bad idea, and I stand by that assessment as true in the long term, even if it might have the happy result of preempting another MAGA Presidency after Trump's term expires.

-- CAV

Statism Feeds the 'Culture Wars'

2026-05-05T06:54:00.001-06:00

Theocratic Republicans have their panties in a wad about a water park in Texas that plans to host a Moslem-only event commemorating the end of Ramadan.

Their stated reasons for the outrage are revealing. Consider the below quote by Dana Loesch:

How is a taxpayer-funded, city-owned entity allowed to discriminate against non-Muslims at a public water park?

There would be literal riots if Muslims were similarly excluded and we all know that's 100% accurate.

Do note that the Daily Mail further reports, "The Muslim-only event in June is being organized and run by the East Plano Islamic Center."

In other words, this isn't some politically correct stunt devised by a bunch of left-wing staffers, as I thought it might be at first: It's a private event. Government facilities frequently host private events, and I'm pretty sure that sometimes includes events of a religious nature.

Although I am not sure about Loesch in particular, I can't think of many conservatives who would object to a public park being used by, say, a Christian group for an event it is hosting. And, assuming the event in question were, say a rental, or at least done on the same terms as any other group using the facilities, I don't see a problem in terms of discrimination or even separation of religion and state.

(Notice which of the two Loesch harps on.)

The bigger issue here -- which doesn't come up at all -- is this: What is the government doing running (or even owning) a water park in the first place? Why are countless people who will never use the park being forced to pay for it? And why is someone who supports Trump -- often (incorrectly) called "the only man standing between the United States and socialism" -- not calling out this blatant example of socialism?

Part of the answer is that Americans have become inured to things like government parks, government parcel delivery, and government schools for over a century. It wasn't long ago that conservatives were beginning to question the propriety of those things, and there still is some pushback, particularly on the matter of schools. But that strand of conservatism is on life support at best. See also: Trump's "golden shares" and his proposal to make Spirit into a government airline.

But for many (perhaps not for Loesch herself) part of the answer is surely that it isn't so much that they object to the government ramming religion down our throats, but that it's the "wrong" religion. Consider conservative support for teaching creationism as science -- or mandating the display of the Ten Commandments in every classroom -- in government schools.

If this water park were privately-owned, as it should be, the Moslem event would be no more newsworthy than any other private event, and even as things stand now, it is far less of a problem (if it is one at all) than what many conservatives are demanding in government schools.

The real outrage here is that people like Loesch pose as defenders of freedom, but fail to account for the full context of an event like this. This event is barely newsworthy as far as I can tell, but the outrage distracts from the real scandal, which is that the government is running a water park, thereby continuing to normalize socialism while also feeding the Christian nationalist outrage machine.

-- CAV

Updates

Today: Corrected a sentence to indicate that the event has not yet taken place.

Modern Puritans Take Aim at Zyn

2026-05-04T08:19:00.000-06:00

"Puritanism is the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy." -- H.L. Mencken

***

Today, I learned of Zyn pouches, a nicotine product I'd never before heard of because, as John Stossel reports, the anti-smoking lobby wants to ban them, or at least make them harder to get.

And what is Zyn? They are little pouches people tuck into their lip to get a hit of nicotine, according to Stossel. Wikipedia elaborates further:

Unlike snus or dip, nicotine pouches do not contain tobacco or stem material, but remain addictive due to their nicotine content.

These pouches thus resemble other products -- like vaping pens, patches, and gum -- that deliver a dose of nicotine without also including the carcinogens present in tobacco.

One would think that people motivated by a concern for health would celebrate such innovations, and many surely do. It's just that perhaps such people aren't the driving force behind the prohibition of nicotine.

Opponents of selling the products focus on the addictiveness of nicotine and all but ignore the lower cancer risk and end up harming the people they claim to want to help:

Some states ban certain flavors and impose high taxes. This makes pouches about as expensive as cigarettes. That's dumb.

"It's not the nicotine that kills you. It's smoking," says Guy Bentley, director of consumer freedom at Reason Foundation, the nonprofit that publishes this website, in my new video.

"You shouldn't treat a nicotine pouch the way we treat cigarettes. The more expensive you make the safer product, the more the most dangerous product will be sold."

After Minnesota imposed a 95 percent tax on vaping, smokers who would have quit didn't. Thousands of them.

The rest of the piece looks at other consequences of banning products, including the creation of black markets and the crime that go with them.

Stossel is correct about this, as far as it goes, but I would have liked to see him ask, By what right does the government ban commerce, even including cigarettes? A close second would be, By what right is the government picking my pocket to pay for the consequences of someone else choosing to smoke? The bans and restrictions on cigarettes, tobacco, and nicotine started off as a wrong committed in an effort to fix problems caused by the first wrong, and have clearly morphed into a way for puritans to order people around.

Controls breed controls, and bad premises drive out good.

None of this is to say that nicotine isn't without any hazard or that children -- who don't have the full legal rights of adults, anyway -- shouldn't be barred from buying addictive substances. But adults should be free to choose what to ingest -- and held to account for any consequences.

-- CAV

Freedom Four

2026-05-01T07:06:00.000-06:00

A Friday Hodgepodge

1. "Iran Is Not Venezuela," by Elan Journo and Ben Bayer (Orange County Register):

Eliminating the threat from Iran's Islamic totalitarian regime necessitates discrediting its ideology, making it a lost cause. Some may doubt this is possible, in the shadow of the Iraq and Afghanistan debacles, and indeed, it has been decades since America has followed the right approach. History, however, provides a compelling model.

850 words/3 minutes

2. "Ending Birthright Citizenship Won't Make America Great," by Agustina Vergara Cid (RealClear Politics):

[Cato's Alex] Nowrasteh writes that birthright citizenship "means that every descendant of immigrants has a stake in this nation and does not grow up in a legal underclass." He goes on to cite the example of Germany, where birthright citizenship didn't exist, and that created a "parallel society" prone to radicalization. When the German parliament took action to boost assimilation and grant citizenship to the children of some immigrants, the benefits were indisputable -- from the parents of the children integrating better into German society to more school enrollments and overall more integration into German society and culture.

770 words/3 minutes

3. "UK Smoking Ban Highlights Debate Over the Proper Function of Government," by Paul Hsieh (Forbes):

The law's supporters argue that the government must regulate individual lifestyles to limit medical costs that would otherwise be a burden on "society." But it is important to recognize this issue arises because of the UK's nationalized health system where taxpayers must pay for everyone else's medical expenses.

In a fully free health system (which the US does not have), private insurers could appropriately price health risks related to voluntary life choices. Smokers would pay higher premiums to cover their added health expenses, just as skydivers typically have to pay higher life insurance premiums. The added health costs of smoking would be borne by the smokers themselves.

600 words/2 minutes

4. "A Transcendent Vision for US Energy Policy," interview of Alex Epstein by Quentin Wittrock (RealClear Energy):

In general, the job of the administration, its executive branch, is to execute the law. It's not to make the law. And what we see from both parties is more and more the idea that, well, you appoint the president and they basically do -- you appoint them and they're kind of like the CEO of the company that is America. That's not the American model, and I think it's a problematic model, but I think it's the way that in many ways both parties think about it.

transcript of 45 minute interview

-- CAV

Be Sure You're Shaving a (Real) Yak

2026-04-30T08:49:12.402-06:00

The computing term yak shaving has two different definitions:

1.Any apparently useless activity which, by allowing one to overcome intermediate difficulties, allows one to solve a larger problem.

2. A less useful activity done consciously or subconsciously to procrastinate about a larger but more useful task.

One thing that frequently falls into this category is adopting a note-taking system, such as Zettelkasten, which I repeatedly have heard about and not adopted.

Such systems can fall into either of the above categories, depending on how you're approaching them.

I do not deny that the Zettelkasten approach could be useful. I just don't see a need to use it all the time and haven't bumped into a context in which I could find it useful.

Indeed, I have employed note-taking systems of different sorts over the years, and do have a general method for tracking my projects, but I have always been of the mind that it need only make the information findable later, in case I need it. Overall, a uniform method of tracking projects and information associated with them, and an automatically-generated list of all files on my computer are it.

That said, it was encouraging to read Sasha Chapin's thought-provoking post on "Notes Against Note-Taking Systems," which advises, among other things:

Getting lost in your knowledge management system is a fantastic way to avoid creating things. Or calling that friend you're estranged from. Or doing anything else even mildly threatening. It's also a fantastic way to convince yourself that unpreparedness is what's between you and creative work. If you believe you're unprepared, know that you will never transmute into the perfectly prepared person that you think exists in the future. Unfortunately, you have to start with the person currently in this chair. That's all there ever is.

It can be a great idea to find or develop an organized method for taking and tracking notes about an important topic -- and even to expand (or redeploy) such a system later on, but messing around with this without the need to do so is a waste of time in more ways than one.

-- CAV

Great Depression Myths

2026-04-29T07:18:00.000-06:00

John Stossel's latest column builds on an interview with economist Donald Boudreaux to challenge anticapitalist myths about the Great Depression and the Great Recession that are rearing their ugly heads yet again.

One myth that I hadn't seen debunked before was that World War II helped end the Depression:

The Depression continued for more than a decade, until, according to the Library of Congress, "Mobilizing the economy for world war finally cured the depression."

That's a myth, too, says Boudreaux.

"Unemployment fell. That's not hard to do when you conscript 2.5 million men into the military. But If you look at the actual performance of the economy, that didn't recover until the late 1940s."

It recovered, says Boudreaux, because "Republicans won the 1946 election, and they were more pro-investor, pro-business than the Democrats." And FDR died. "Harry Truman was less vigorously opposed to capitalists ... .So investors were finally confident to come back into the playing field."

That unemployment myth showed up in caricature form yesterday with Vladimir Putin's touting of sharply lower unemployment in Russia, whose economy is in the toilet. The 1.4 million fewer unemployed just happens to match losses in Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Americans have little room to laugh, though. Our schools push these myths, and policy proposals based on them are popping up again, as they always will among a poorly-educated body politic who are kept unaware of that unknown ideal, capitalism.

-- CAV

A Proposal to Protect Gig Work?

2026-04-28T06:23:00.002-06:00

Patrice Onwuka, Director of the Center for Economic Opportunity at Independent Women's Forum, reports that there are legislative efforts underway to protect gig work, after the last few administrations played ping-pong with labor regulations defining contractor status:

The Left and the ailing labor union movement condemn independent contract work for failing to provide workplace benefits. Yet that should be a workers choice. Not everyone wants or needs benefits as a part of a work arrangement. Additionally, contractors are gaining access to employment based benefits. The good news is that proposed federal legislation and state reforms would allow companies to provide portable benefits to independent contractors without forcing them to be reclassified as employees. Policymakers on the Left should get on board. [links omitted]

My shot from the hip, not being an attorney or even having read the bill: Insofar as such a bill would create certainty for gig workers, this sounds like good news. Laws -- even imperfect ones -- aren't subject to whim like regulations and executive orders are.

The bit about employment benefits strikes me as a mixed bag. While the government has no business meddling in the medical or insurance sectors, I could see this as a legislative band-aid to make that kind of arrangement possible, further entrenchment of government meddling, or both.

On balance, I think this is a good thing, but I am curious to see further commentary.

-- CAV

The Revealing Appeal of 'Emily Hart'

2026-04-27T07:27:00.005-06:00

A medical student in India known only as "Sam" turns out to be the catfisher behind AI-generated MAGA sweetheart "Emily Hart:"

... Before Hart went viral, he used to create scantily clad women using Gemini Nano Banana and post them on social media; however, this idea didn't take off. Therefore, he turned to AI again to take ideas from it on how he could make his influencer stand out from the crowd. At the time, the bot suggested to him that creating a "hot girl" wouldn't help him stand out from the competition.

The AI further provided him with multiple options for content creation to pick from, so he decided to create a hot girl for the "MAGA/conservative niche." This is because the AI told him that this idea would work. After all, "the conservative audience (especially older men in the US) often has higher disposable income and is more loyal."

...

..."Every Reel I posted was getting 3 million views, 5 million views, 10 million views. The algorithm loved it." He extended his income opportunities by selling subscriptions at Fanvue and MAGA-themed merchandise.

Wired elaborates further:

The influencers are created from a specific template: they tend to be white and blonde, with jobs as emergency responders. (A lot of them are cops, firefighters, or EMTs.) They also incorporate right-wing views into all of their content, railing about immigration or the Epstein files or pronouns while posing in American flag bikinis or MAGA hats -- often both.

There's nothing wrong, of course, with being white, or blonde, or being a tomboy/having an occupation favored by adrenaline junkies, or being attracted to women who meet any or all of these criteria, but my word! How predictable can you get?

My own sense of déjà vu comes from having seen exactly this archetype (scroll down) at the end of nearly every single This Week in Pictures post I've ever seen at Power Line, which, while not necessarily an outright MAGA outlet, carries enough water for Trump that I'll count it.

While I have always been baffled by the tomboy part, and -- I will admit -- it would have never crossed my mind to try to make money off of this, it is still a little bit surprising that it took AI to hatch this scheme.

That said, the following passage from Wired explains a lot:

Few of the fans cared whether Emily was real, Sam says. This is very much in line with the psychology of the average hot girl MAGA fan, according to [Brookings Institution fellow Valerie] Wirtschafter. Whether it's plausible that a sexy blonde nurse would love Christ, ICE, and flashing her boobs for strangers is secondary to the fact that many, many people want to believe it is. "Even among some digital natives, there's a perspective of, 'Well, I don't actually care if this is true. I like the sentiment of it,'" she says. [bold added]

Granted, lots of porn is pure fantasy, but anyone on the outside and looking in at Trump's cult of personality can be forgiven for wondering if this "niche" functions on that level all or most of the time. With Trump himself, after all, the difference between the bill of goods they have been sold and the real deal is, arguably, even greater.

-- CAV

Four Neat Things

2026-04-24T07:19:38.031-06:00

A Friday Hodgepodge

1. Until yesterday, I had no idea that lots of hobbyists keep pet isopods -- the kind of animal that includes the roly-polies I used to play with as a child.

The photography at the site was so uniform and high-quality that it sparked some discussion that it might be AI, but this suggestion was shot down quickly.

While I have no intention of adopting the hobby, I agree with the guy who said that this is, "the kind of site that makes one happy the Internet exists."

2. It's time for another list of funny workplace stories from Ask a Manager. This one is good for a few quick laughs, and is less likely than other lists in the genre to provoke a visit down a comment rabbit hole.

My favorite of the bunch is Item 8:

The coffee

This wasn't so much an unreasonable request, but I was so proud of my sneakiness at the time -- I occasionally had to assist a woman who was notoriously mean to everyone. She always wanted Starbucks coffee, but the trouble was that the closest Starbucks was 4 blocks away and always had a huge line (this was before online ordering was a thing), so getting it would take forever. She DID. NOT. UNDERSTAND why her coffee wasn't magically appearing two minutes after she asked for it.

Finally, after being berated one too many times, I asked the Starbucks barista for a bunch of cups and lids, and from then on, any time this woman demanded her Starbucks coffee, I simply dipped into our kitchen, poured whatever Folgers coffee was let in the shared pot into the Starbucks cup, popped a lid on, and brought it back to her. She never knew the difference.

That last line hardly surprises me, given how burnt Starbucks coffee tastes to me.

3. You may have heard of people adopting dumb phones out of frustration with electronic distractions.

Enter the dumb tractor. There is now a startup in Alberta selling completely mechanical tractors to farmers wary about machines they can't repair and weary of short-sighted companies that seem intent on using software to get in the way of same.

[John] Deere eventually made concessions, but the damage was done. A generation of farmers learned exactly how much control they'd surrendered by buying machines loaded with proprietary code.

[Owner Doug] Wilson saw the gap and drove a tractor through it. The 12-valve Cummins is arguably the most widely understood diesel engine in North America. Every independent shop, every shade-tree mechanic with a set of wrenches, every farmer who grew up turning bolts has encountered one.

Parts sit on shelves in thousands of stores. Downtime -- the thing that actually costs a farmer money during planting or harvest -- shrinks dramatically when you don't need a factory technician with a laptop to diagnose a fuel delivery problem.

Business is booming, and I am sure this will continue, given the large number of farmers who buy decades-old equipment to escape that last limitation.

4. And speaking of retro, there is now a searchable, electronic version of the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica online.

-- CAV

Salesmen, When You're Not in a Hurry

2026-04-23T07:30:00.000-06:00

These days, it can seem like there are two types of people: cultists and people being recruited to join cults.

Fortunately, as Miss Manners reminds us, the etiquette rule concerning answering when spoken to does not constitute an ironclad contract for a prolonged engagement:

Know, first, that etiquette does not require you to engage with them endlessly. These people are counting on you knowing that in most situations, it is rude not to answer when spoken to -- and on you not wanting to be rude. They are further counting on your either not recognizing their own rudeness in pressing the conversation or your not knowing how to get away.

This line of reasoning culminates in the all-purpose escape clause: Thank you, I'm not interested, which Judith Martin amusingly suggests can be used even in reply to such apocalyptic-sounding attempts to induce unearned guilt as, Don't you care about the future of our planet?

All I can add is that, oftentimes, proselytizers and other salesmen set up stands, such as within or outside commercial establishments. A long time ago, before my spine had calcified, these used to fill me with dread, especially if I saw that they were unavoidable.

No more.

Now, I see them as alert beacons that remind me that I am busy man. The one thing better than having to break off an unwanted engagement is being able to preempt one, and spotting a salesman in advance is great for this purpose. If I can't simply bypass the stand, I can be ready to assume a brisk pace, smile, and say, Thanks, but I'm in a hurry.

Ideally, the vendor/fund-raiser/proselytizer will festoon the stand with signage announcing the product or cause. I always take notice and on some occasions even take an interest. But if I can't tell what it is on sight, I am always too hurried to delve into why someone is taking such pains to spend any amount of my irreplaceable time.

-- CAV

When You've Lost The Washington Examiner...

2026-04-22T07:12:00.001-06:00

My title is partly in jest: Despite being a conservative outlet, the Examiner has pleasantly surprised me more than once by being critical of Donald Trump, as it has this morning.

There, Dan Hannan begins a piece titled "Donald Trump Is Losing His Mind" with the following question:

Imagine it was someone other than President Donald Trump. Suppose a different leader were posting deranged rants in the small hours, insulting the spiritual leader of 1.3 billion Catholics, threatening entire civilizations with annihilation, and comparing himself to God. What would be the reaction? [bold added]

Hannan gives the correct answer and contrasts it to what each party is doing today, en route to arguing that Trump is losing what little self-control he had to begin with.

It's the kind of question whose absence I have long wondered about, given that it could have and should have been applied long ago to other aspects of Trump's fitness for office, such as his ignorance, lack of intelligence, and dishonesty. Hannan does at least open the door for exactly that later on:

What chess move, after all, requires picking a quarrel with the pope? The only conceivable answer might be that Trump is engaging in prestidigitation, fabricating a row to distract from something worse. What, though, could be worse? Is he worried that voters will suddenly wake up to the ways in which he and his associates have been enriching themselves in office? That there will be a belated interest in the favors sought from foreign governments, the digital currency boondoggles, the consultants offering access for cash, and the acceptance of a private jet from a Gulf state? Or does he fret about the fate of his Hungarian ally, Viktor Orban, hammered by voters last week after rising concerns about his autocratic style and the enrichment of his cronies? [bold added]

Good, and more of that please. Part of why nobody is asking such questions lies within the preceding paragraph:

Even now, a residual MAGA base will cheer the president unconditionally. At an event in Texas last week, I made a slighting reference to Trump's tendency to insult U.S. allies. Afterward, a perfectly charming couple spoke to me in a succession of MAGA clichés, like online Russian bots made flesh: "He's playing chess while you're playing checkers," "He's smarter than his critics," "Where do you get your news from, the New York Times?" I can't help noticing, though, that such people are fewer than they were a year ago. [bold added]

Knowing my fair share of people who, before Trump came along, would have been ... circumspect ... about openly espousing beliefs they should be embarrassed to hold at all, I wouldn't say that there are fewer such people. Rather, Trump's very public disintegration will gradually make more and more people realize how foolish they look standing by the dumpster fire they worship.

Perhaps such a cowing of the base is what America will need for each party to become less frightened of doing the sane thing, given how timid politicians are.

There is risk: J.D. Vance is waiting in the wings, and the Democrats are no more sane than they once were. The immediate future is not great.

I also see nobody on the horizon from either party capable of being nominated, winning the general, and governing well. Our best hope is for the Trump Presidency to go down as a high water mark of nuttiness and our nation to muddle through long enough for the culture to improve. But Trump has already severely reduced the likelihood of even that scenario.

-- CAV

IEEPA Loot Refund Update

2026-04-21T04:44:00.000-06:00

The good news is that the Trump Administration is beginning to pay back (with interest) the $166 billion-plus it illegally took from Americans in import taxes under IEEPA -- a statute that doesn't even mention tariffs, and is intended to help the Chief Executive act quickly and decisively in real emergencies, anyway.

The bad news is that this is a bureaucratic process to begin with, and even if the President weren't opposed to returning the money, the process comes with real challenges:

The trade court's order appeared to set off a scramble among federal customs officials to put together a digital process for handling a crush of requests, according to legal filings. Those filings also revealed the technical challenges that the Trump administration faced in trying to return the money.

Among the many obstacles, the Trump administration said it had to stand up an entirely new system that could process refunds in bulk and disentangle illegal tariffs from legal ones on those same goods. At first, the government didn't even have a way to deposit money directly into the bank accounts of most importers, customs officials said.

As a result, the refund system that debuted on Monday, known as CAPE, can only process imports only at a certain point of the duty-paying process. That covers about 63 percent of import entries subject to IEEPA tariffs, the government previously said, though it plans to expand the system soon. In its prior public guidance, customs said it expected it would take 60 to 90 days to issue a refund once it accepts an importer's filing.

Katie Hilferty, who oversees the trade practice at the law firm Morgan Lewis, described the refund process as novel and complex, adding that she would be "pleasantly surprised" if refunds were paid as quickly as the government said. [bold added]

I hope some ace reporter remembers this the next time Trump makes one of his trademark, outlandish claims to have already solved/be able to solve/about to solve some big, long-running problem IMMEDIATELY or within two weeks.

Why can't he clean up his own messes that fast? (Trumpists, that is what is called a rhetorical question.)

-- CAV

Good Riddance, Autostart?

2026-04-20T06:22:00.002-06:00

Issues and Insights reports that the Trump EPA is eliminating government "encouragement" of automakers to implement "autostart." That is, there will no longer be a tax credit for manufacturers who include that functionality in their products.

Good!

Autostart -- which kills and restarts your engine instead of letting it idle at traffic stops -- is a function that about two-thirds of new cars have in America. It's yet another annoyance rammed down our throats by the nanny state in the name of fighting the "climate crisis," and I turn it off every time I drive my wife's car. I also have no plans to replace my twelve-year old car any time soon in part because it doesn't do that at all.

(I also dislike cars that attempt to drive for you in the name of safety, but that's a post, perhaps, for another day.)

As the article indicates, most drivers are with me in finding the function annoying, but don't take their word for it: There's a healthy market out there for hardware that can bypass autostart altogether.

To its credit, the Trump Administration isn't making it illegal for car makers to put autostart in their cars, nor should it do so. (It can aid fuel economy in places that aren't so hot you need air conditioning almost year-round.) Again, it's just removing the Obama-era tax credit.

As usual when this Administration does something like this, I wonder how easy it will be for the next Democrat to undo the change, especially since, as it seems , it's just a regulatory change, like the repeal of the endangerment finding.

Maybe I should look for a newer car some time during the next couple of years...

-- CAV

Blog Roundup

2026-04-17T06:40:00.000-06:00

A Friday Hodgepodge

1. "The Term 'State Capitalism' Wrongly Equates Freedom With Dictatorship," by Sam Weaver (New Ideal):

Although people today mainly associate fascism with racism and nationalism, [Ayn] Rand's point is that there is also a characteristically fascist type of control over the economy. In spite of still calling themselves "communist," the Chinese government exercises this same type of fascist control over many of its officially private businesses. And Trump's use of tariffs and regulation to control American businesses are an ominous step in America's journey toward the same destination.

1450 words/5 minutes

2. "How Do You Validate Aspirational Thoughts?," by Jean Moroney (Thinking Directions):

If you believe the aspirational idea is true, it's motivating to repeat it as an affirmation each day. Consciously reminding yourself of the belief refreshes your desire for the end and your confidence that you can take the necessary steps to reach it. By bringing the aspirational end to the forefront of awareness, you also see the opportunities for moving toward it -- today -- even if it is a long-range goal.

On the other hand, if you don't believe it's true, focusing on the aspirational thought will trigger objections and discouragement. And maybe frustration if you've been working toward it and failing, or guilt if you set a goal but haven't put in the effort. That will kill your interest in even thinking about the end.

2200 words/8 minutes

3. "How About a Genuine America-First Policy?," by Peter Schwartz (PeterSchwartz.com):

The movement Trump launched claims that his policies will "make America great again." Here, too, there is a prior question that demands an answer: What made America great in the first place? And it's the same answer: freedom.

America's exceptionalism rested on the premise that each individual has rights, and that the task of government is not to rule him but to protect those rights, by leaving him free. In the 18th century, a world dominated by despotic monarchies, this was a radical view. America was founded not simply on the idea that the people ought to elect their government representatives, but on the more fundamental idea that the individual has inalienable rights -- rights that may not be violated even by the wishes of a majority.

780 words/3 minutes

4. "What If Robots Take All the Jobs?," by Harry Binswanger (Value for Value):

Even with science-fictional super-robots, there will still be money changing hands and a price-system, just as now. You will still be paid for working -- in the field of your comparative advantage.

New kinds of jobs will appear, as they always have when technology advances. Ironically, most of the jobs people are afraid of losing -- such as programming jobs or truck-driving jobs -- were themselves created by technological advances. There used to be an American saying: "Adapt or die." Having the same kind of job as your father and grandfather did is not the American dream.

What new types of job will be created? I can no more project that than a man in 1956 could have projected that today there would be jobs in something called "social media"; or that money can be made by driving for Uber and by renting out living space through AirBnB.

1100 words/4 minutes

-- CAV

Free vs. Friction

2026-04-16T07:44:00.000-06:00

Suazanne Lucas makes short work of explaining why free is quite often the wrong price for a promotional campaign, not to mention many other things:

The Mets made a nice gesture to compensate for the schedule change, but it didn't benefit the right people. The right people are the ones who want to come. Because the free tickets were quickly claimed, we can assume that many people would have liked to attend but couldn't because those who didn't value the tickets snapped them up, just in case.

This isn't unique to baseball games. I provide online training to HR professionals. When it's free, I can count on a 50 percent attendance rate. When people have to pay to attend, the attendance rate is 90 percent or higher.

The same goes for selling stuff on Facebook Marketplace. If I post something for free, I'll get numerous responses, and some people will go so far as to set a time to come pick up the object, only to no-show.

What you always want in transactions is a little bit of "friction" to attract the people who are truly interested in whatever you have to sell. Even if that thing is a job. [bold added]

The Facebook Marketplace example is interesting. My wife and I were considering selling off some old furniture recently, after having found nicer pieces for not much on a similar platform -- but we decided to donate instead because the price we'd likely fetch wouldn't justify the hassle of having to store the items at home and deal with the logistics of talking to potential buyers and then arranging to have the furniture moved.

I can only imagine having to deal with the deluge of people who'd take the items for free. That hassle is what the charity is relieving us of, and is quite an acceptable payment for getting the old furniture off our hands.

-- CAV

Called a Bluff: On Purpose or Not?

2026-04-15T07:16:00.000-06:00

One cannot read any media without questioning every line, and the latest case in point is a piece in the New York Post that proclaims the President "brilliant" for "call[ing] Iran's bluff" with a blockade of the Straight of Hormuz.

In isolation, one could well imagine such a blockade being a useful and powerful tool to further cripple the Iranian regime, and being brilliant for turning its best weapon against it.

Not only that, the move may play out exactly that way. Despite concerns that ships were violating the blockade, for example, a Chinese ship has indeed turned around after appearing to flout it yesterday.

But in context?

Doing something this deliberate would be way out of character for Donald Trump who, to put it charitably, prefers to operate by the seat of his pants, and usually has the sole strategic interest of lining his own pockets. Remember that he was talking hours or days before of collecting tolls from the Strait with Iran as a partner. (!)

So much for the Post's contention that Trump is "honoring an American commitment to freedom of the seas that goes back to President Thomas Jefferson."

Since when has this clown honored any American commitment, including those he himself has made? Our ~~NAFTA~~ USMCA trading partners might like to have a word with you about that.

And then there's the further context of Trump's ever-changing war aims. As of right now, the Administration is hoping to ~~accelerate the fall of~~ strike a "Grand Bargain" with the Mullahs, as if they are fellow mafiosi, instead of ideologues who might be interested in surviving to maim and murder infidels another day.

We may yet end up having to give Trump grudging credit for ridding us of the Mullahs, but he is doing a great job of getting in the way of that, and such an outcome is not guaranteed despite our obscene military advantage over Iran.

A powerful tool still has to be wielded, and preferably by someone who knows what he is doing.

-- CAV

Trump Loses to a Sane Conservative in Hungary

2026-04-14T07:18:00.000-06:00

In Hungary, where Trump had sent the Vice President to stump for fellow corrupt Putin fan-boi, Viktor Orban, opposition leader Peter Magyar's party won Sunday's elections so decisively that Magyar will be able to undo much of the harm Orban did to his country over the last sixteen years:

With nearly all ballots counted, Tisza was set to win 138 seats, more than the two-thirds majority Magyar would need to undo Orbán's constitutional overhaul and combat corruption.

"Together we liberated Hungary, we have reclaimed our country," Magyar told tens of thousands of supporters who danced and cheered near the Danube River in Budapest.

Record turnout underscored how many Hungarians saw the election as a watershed moment for their country.

Orbán was celebrated by conservatives across Europe and the U.S. as the mastermind of the "illiberal" model of democracy. But he lost favour at home with voters who grew weary of economic stagnation, international isolation and oligarchs amassing wealth.

"The election result is painful for us, but clear," Orbán said at the Fidesz campaign offices.

For all his many faults, at least Hungary's version of Donald Trump is capable of admitting defeat, and doing do like a man.

Magyar, a former protege of Orban, is what I would call a relatively sane conservative, notably being more in favor of free markets and cooperation with Europe, rather than its enemies in the Kremlin:

Magyar is often described as conservative liberal, combining market-oriented economic views with an emphasis on civic responsibility, rule of law, and national culture. He frequently states that his movement seeks to move beyond the "old left -- right divide" in Hungarian politics.

Magyar has expressed support for adopting the euro in Hungary once the necessary economic conditions are met. He argues that adopting the common currency would strengthen financial stability and Hungary's position within the European Union (EU).[53] Magyar defines himself as strongly pro-European, supporting deeper cooperation within the EU and alignment with Western democratic values. He has criticized the Orbán government's confrontational stance toward EU institutions and its close relations with Russia. [links omitted]

This is good news for Ukraine in particular and Europe in general, given that Magyar will stop Orban's policy of hindering European aid to Ukraine, and it should come as no surprise that Trump's endorsement didn't save Orban:

So what does it say that Orban has been so decisively repudiated by his own electorate -- and that other right-wing populists in Europe are seeing their popularity sag?

For one thing, it shows that Trump's support may be the kiss of death at a time when the U.S. president is recording record-low approval ratings: In a recent YouGov poll, just 14 percent of people in Britain and France had a favorable view of Trump. In Germany, it was 10 percent, and in Denmark, 3 percent. In Hungary, a poll by the Publicus Institute found that 59 percent of respondents believe that Trump is contributing more to global conflict than to peace. That's what Trump gets for his nonstop abuse of European allies [and] his threats to annex Greenland... [links removed]

New York Magazine nicely sums up the lesson for Trump, not that he'll learn anything:

Orbán found out Sunday that it is much harder to lie to people than he'd thought. His control of the television stations couldn't trick Hungarians into thinking their schools and hospitals weren't deteriorating. They didn't believe that only Ukraine and the European Union were to blame for their woes. They looked squarely at the man who had been in charge for 16 years in the way most Americans are now sizing up Trump, who can't blame Joe Biden or the Democrats for a country he has now governed for more than a year. Trump will not get the 16 years in power Orbán enjoyed, but he has dominated the mass consciousness of our nation for more than a decade. That is a very, very long time to think about Donald Trump. Americans are weary, and a growing number of his old supporters -- not the MAGA obsessives but simply those who weren't fond of Kamala Harris, Biden, or Hillary Clinton -- have buyer's remorse. They've had enough. They long for the day when they can treat Trump's party the way Hungarians drubbed Fidesz.

It is a shame that the Democrats will be the big winners here. So far, they seem just as incapable as Trump of offering anything positive to the American voter.

-- CAV

Four Neat Things

2026-04-10T06:38:00.000-06:00

A Friday Hodgepodge

I may not post here next Monday or Tuesday owing to major personal obligations.

***

1. I once future-proofed an "obsolete" peripheral by running it with a virtual machine. That scanner is really nice to have at tax time!

Someone else has taken this approach to a whole new level with an unsupported, but perfectly good photo printer that he now shares with his non-Linux-running family:

How the web app works

The core of this app is the amazing v86, which emulates an x86 CPU -- and the whole machine around it -- in a browser. It compiles machine code to WebAssembly modules at runtime, which puts the whole arrangement just the right side of intolerably slow. I make it so this v86 machine runs Alpine Linux with CUPS, Gutenprint and supporting packages.

The browser connects to your printer over WebUSB, retrieving its make and model. It looks for the Gutenprint driver name that's the closest match using trigrams, and sends an lpadmin command over the emulated keyboard to install it.

Then, to print a file, it's uploaded into the emulated machine and an lp print command is sent. And, as if by magic, the raw binary print data produced in the emulated machine ends up at your printer.

The developer is optimistic that his web app will work for "a range of other Gutenprint-supported models."

2. My favorite tactical podcast, The Adam Clery Football Channel, has a nice, short history of soccer jersey numbering conventions (embedded below), starting with the first, odd failed attempt, and following the evolution of numbering conventions after the Football Association's initial assignments by position.

Why do Brits keep calling them center halves? They should know better. They invented the game!

A fun bonus is that fellow non-British Premier League fans who are bewildered by the Britishism centre half will learn why the term is applied by commentators to central defenders.

3. Fellow beer drinkers rejoice! There is now a crowdsourced effort called Pint Patrol that calls out establishments whose "pint" servings fall short.

4. If a trip to Japan beckons, you might wish to review this list of chopsticks faux pas.

I'd also peruse this discussion of same.

Commenters there note that not all of the items on the list are that bad, and that a few are common among Japanese diners themselves.

At least two are marked serious because they resemble parts of Buddhist funerary rituals. If I got nothing else from the list, I'd be sure to avoid those!

-- CAV

A Rainbow for the Right?

2026-04-09T07:27:00.000-06:00

You may soon find some of the same people who foam at the mouth at the sight of a pride flag trying to beat you over the head with a rainbow of their own:

A vast network of more than 63,000 connections woven throughout the Bible is drawing renewed attention from believers, with some arguing the intricate links point to divine authorship.

The connections, identified by a computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon University and a Lutheran pastor in Germany, stretch across all 66 books of scripture, linking people, events and themes scattered throughout the Old and New Testaments.

Researchers transformed these connections into a visualization that lays out every chapter from Genesis to Revelation along a single line. Each vertical bar represents a chapter, with taller bars marking sections that contain more verses.

Thousands of curved lines stretch between books to link related passages, with darker lines highlighting verses that share the greatest number of connections. The arcs form a rainbow-like pattern that visually reveals how extensively the Bible is woven together from beginning to end.

Add a little motivated reasoning to the huge number of these vague "connections," a pattern that happens to resemble the rainbow after the Great Flood, and the kind of willful blindness to obvious alternative explanations that would make Tucker Carlson blush, and you have a sort of mini-Young Earth type of "theory:"

One user posted on X: 'That's literally impossible: you can't get 20 people in a room and tell them to write an essay about one topic and get agreement.'

In a video shared by Silverdale Baptist Church in Tennessee, pastor Tony Walliser highlighted how the Bible connects stories across generations while focusing on a central figure, Jesus.

'Now, let me ask you how that just happened?' Walliser said in the video. 'You go wow, it must have had a major, amazing general editor, yeah, it did: God.'

Wait a minute. I thought the Bible was of divine authorship and that god is perfect. But here he is having to edit his work! Hmmmm.

Speaking of contradictions, the fact that the Bible contradicts itself hundreds of times comes up nowhere in the story and will surely be deemed irrelevant (if it comes up at all) by the sort of people who will tout this "analysis" as the kind of "proof" religion has never, and will never, provide.

-- CAV

TWO Complicated Tax Codes, Thanks to Trump

2026-04-08T05:53:00.001-06:00

Writing at The Washington Examiner, Anne Rathbone Bradley of the Fund for American Studies ably summarizes America's history with tariffs, as well as the numerous problems Trump's import taxes have been causing.

All this she marshals into the following interesting point:

There is a deeper problem with tariffs. They harm the majority of people while a select few benefit, undermining the core economic framework that's made the U.S. the most vibrant economy in human history. Tariffs erode consumer and investor confidence, increase red tape and volatility, close markets, and ultimately tarnish the rule of law.

Consider the entrepreneur trying to source materials and find customers in this environment. The tariff schedule runs to thousands of line items, changes without notice, and is riddled with exemptions -- available, of course, to those with the right lobbyists. That's not a trade policy. It's a rent-seeking machine.

As Americans prepare for Tax Day, we should realize that the current system of tariffs is making the U.S. economy more like the IRS's tax code -- confusing, arbitrary, costly, and unfair. In other words, if you enjoy the complex tax code, you'll love tariffs. Instead, let's scrap the tariffs and return to economic freedom and free trade. [bold added]

All this is on top of the sin of violating individual rights in multiple ways!

Even if, as Trump claims, import taxes could replace the income tax, what would the point be, if it merely replaces one evil with a very similar one?

I can only imagine that the new taxes allow their openly-corrupt champion to extort bribes that the income tax doesn't.

Upon having these facts laid out, all I can do is (1) congratulate the President on finding a way to make me appreciate something about the income tax, which I hate and have long advocated abolishing, and (2) recommend pointing out this piece to any thoughtful adult who is concerned about tariffs.

-- CAV

Before You Inject Those 'Peptides!...'

2026-04-07T07:28:00.000-06:00

Until we see the day that the FDA is dismantled and replaced by a number of competing, credible private watchdog groups, standards bodies, or something like a Consumers Union or Underwriters Laboratories, it will be what practically everyone relies upon for guidance about the safety and efficacy of drugs.

This is part of why having a single government agency is so dangerous to your health: It's a single point of failure that can be made to fail by politicians -- as it is doing so today under Donald Trump, through his reckless appointment of Bobby Kennedy, Jr. as the head of the HHS.

Case in point: Kennedy is working to give the FDA's imprimatur to a number of fashionable nostrums:

RFK Jr is trying to get 14 peptides, without data on safety or efficacy, licensed and approved by FDA. His favorite is BPC-157. "Only three small human studies of BPC-157 exist, for instance, the largest of which is a telephone survey of 16 people who received an injection of the drug for knee pain, and which was published in a third-tier journal, Alternative Therapies."

Regulars here will know that I am both an advocate of one's freedom to use oneself as a guinea pig if one wants and a proponent of making informed decisions about such things.

So it is that, since "peptides" are all the rage these days, I was glad to see Derek Lowe, a research chemist, write about this fad and how dangerous it can be.

After first giving a good general introduction to the scientific meaning of the term peptide in his trademark relatable and humorous way, Lowe gets into the nitty-gritty of using them as therapies, including a discussion of a treatment that is often abused:

And there are going to be plenty of cases where yes, Peptide X sure does do that thing you're interested in, but it turns out that you can't do That Thing without doing other things that you are surely not interested in. A number of "peptides of abuse" these days, for example, seem to be targeting human growth hormone pathways and associated ones, so let's use that as an example. The pitch is often something like "Here's the signal your body uses to build muscle! Take it directly and get going today!", and with HGH there's also been a longstanding subculture that treats it as a Fountain of Youth signal of some kind. "Replenish your growth hormone levels", the idea is, "and dial back the biological clock!"

But growth hormone (and I shouldn't have to say this) is powerful stuff, and it doesn't just go tell your muscles to swell up. It affects bone tissue and many other tissues as well. I would invite anyone looking to maximize their growth hormone levels to look up a condition called acromegaly, which is what you get when your body keeps on making more growth hormone than you strictly need. Bones in the hands, feet, and head enlarge, and you get all sorts of side effects like joint pain, high blood pressure, type II diabetes, and other things that are probably not mentioned in the peptide supplier's brochure.

Excess growth hormone also increases the risk of some types of cancer... [bold added]

Lowe also notably gets into that fave of Bobby K Junior's, "BPC-157."

Lowe ends with his defense of the FDA, which I would heavily qualify as I did at the beginning of this post. To the extent that so many people rely on the FDA for information about drug efficacy and safety in the world as it is today, though, he is spot on.

Trump's appointment of Kennedy is dangerous for that reason and, in my view, is a reason we would work to build strong, competing, non-governmental institutions that inform the public about drug safety and efficacy.

-- CAV