Category Archives: Books

DOGE could have been great. Instead it blew everything up

Preface.  You may remember that a movement called “Code for America” founded in 2009, used technology to improve government services and make them more efficient and accessible.  This post is a book review of Pahlka’s 2023 “Recoding America” about how … Continue reading

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The Nuclear Bomb is Back!

Preface. If you are not worried about nuclear war anymore, you should be. We have accidentally come close so many times.

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Nuclear power is not the solution

Preface. This is a book review of Ramana’s “Nuclear is not the Solution: The Folly of Atomic Power in the Age of Climate Change.” A great overview that covers many topics, one of the best out there, and most recent. … Continue reading

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Refrigeration uses up to 30% of world electricity

Preface. This is a book review of Twilley’s 2024 book Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves. It is a really great book, highly recommended. Refrigeration plays a much larger role in our lives than people realize. … Continue reading

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Chemical industrial farming does not work: Pests evolve immunity quickly

Pesticides, herbicides, and insecticides destroy soil and ecosystems. Yet a third of crops are lost to pests just as in the many millennia of farming before chemicals Preface. This is a book review of Dyer’s “Chasing the Red Queen”, and … Continue reading

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The Mayflower from the book The Barbarous Years

Preface. It was recently Thanksgiving so I thought I’d post something from Mann’s 1491 about the pilgrims that I later found out was grievously wrong from an expert who gives lectures on the Mayflower history. Here is a more subtle, … Continue reading

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Book review of “Livewired. The inside story of the ever-changing brain”

Preface. This book conveys a sense of wonderment and awe about our brains work and how we become who we are.  I think if you read the excerpts below you will understand why Artificial Intelligence will probably never come close … Continue reading

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Book review of “Pandemic Politics: The Deadly Toll of Partisanship in the Age of COVID”

Preface.  This is a book review of “Pandemic Politics” about the myriad ways Trump mishandled the covid-19 pandemic. With the 2024 election coming up, it is a good time to remember how spectacularly Trump failed in managing covid-19. In 2016 … Continue reading

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Why some people are conservative and others liberal

Preface. A book review of: Garcia, H. 2019. Sex, Power, and Partisanship. How evolutionary science makes sense of our political divide. Although Chris Mooney’s book “The Republican Brain” was brilliant, it didn’t address that politics must surely go back to … Continue reading

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Book Review “Conservatives without Conscience” by John Dean

Preface. This is a book review of “Conservatives without Conscience” by John Dean. It is the best book I’ve read in explaining the history of conservatism and authoritarianism. Almost a year before Trump was elected in 2016, Politico wrote that … Continue reading

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