Speed — and You’re Welcome May 15, 2013May 14, 2013 SLOW THE WORLD, I’M NOT AS QUICK AS I ONCE WAS Richard Feinberg: “You can adjust the speed of the playback [on that 30-year time-lapse aerial view of anywhere you posted Monday]. The question mark at lower right has instructions. Just mouse over the year button on the left and you get a drop-down that lets you choose between fast and slow. Also, you can left-click on any of the hash marks and just hold. That will freeze the animation and you can move around that way at your own pace.” BUT WITH 10 HOURS’ EXERCISE, I COULD BE Rafael Diaz-Granados: “It is not often that you agree with the editors of The Wall Street Journal, but on the front page of yesterday’s Personal Journal section [at the same time you had your ‘Get Smart‘ item] they ran ‘When Computer Games May Keep the Brain Nimble‘ that highlights Posit’s Double Decision game.” HISPANIC OUTREACH You know your party has a problem when your director of Hispanic outreach quits and changes his registration. Listen, my Log Cabin Republican friends: it’s okay to stand down until you get your party back (your party now thinks Eisenhower and Nixon were Socialists). Listen, my billionaire entrepreneur Republican friends: it’s okay to stand with Warren Buffett and Nick Hanauer (who makes the indispensable, irrefutable case that it’s the middle class, not the rich, who are the job creators). Listen, my Hispanic Republican friends, to what decorated Iraq vet and just-quit Republican National Committee director of Hispanic outreach for Florida Pablo Pantoja has to say: Yes, I have changed my political affiliation to the Democratic Party. It doesn’t take much to see the culture of intolerance surrounding the Republican Party today. . . . The first DNC Chair I worked with, Joe Andrew, had a stump speech that got better and better with each new delivery from its initial 1998 ad lib under a tent in the back yard of the home of the (then-Republican) Mayor of Los Angeles, which was vying to be the site of the 2000 Democratic Convention. By the time Joe actually delivered it at that Convention, it ended like this: We don’t care whether you’re white or black or brown or purple – you are welcome in the Democratic Party. We don’t care what religion you are or how big your bank account is – you are welcome in the Democratic Party. We don’t care whether you walked in here or rolled in here, whether you’re first generation American or a Mayflower descendant – you are welcome in the Democratic Party. And we don’t care what gender you are or what gender you like to hold hands with. So long as you like to hold hands, you are welcome in the Democratic Party. To which I would add, since I know you all come here as investors, not politicos: the stock market and the economy do significantly better under Democrats than Republicans. Welcome!
Joy To The World; Be Careful Crossing That Bridge May 14, 2013May 13, 2013 JOY TO THE WORLD Two minutes on the Copenhagen metro. It will brighten what I hope is already a fine day. Thanks, Evy! GOOD NEWS / BAD NEWS The good news is that, thanks to some of the stimulus money spent in the President’s first term, our national infrastructure has improved! The bad news is that, thanks to Republicans’ refusal to put people needing work TO work doing so much more that needs doing (funded with near-zero-rate long-term bonds), the grade has improved only from D to D+. Here. GET SMART I have a small interest in Posit Science, so if you click here and decide to sign up, I will be enriched. But if the studies are accurate (typically tested against the same amount of time working crossword puzzles) — and there are quite a few by now — your mind will grow sharper, too. And if there’s one thing I like, it’s sharp-minded readers.
R.I.P. Alan Abelson May 13, 2013May 13, 2013 ANONOMITY How many faces would you say are lost in this crowd? Ten thousand? Fifty thousand? Ah, the anonymity! Now put your cursor in the middle someplace and double click a few times until you can see each one clearly. Anonomity is the state of not being anonymous. AND SPEAKING OF AERIAL VIEWS This site offers 30-year time-lapse photography from space. Skip the preselected locations and use EXPLORE THE WORLD at lower right to type in locations. “Dubai” and “Las Vegas” are fun. (You get more control when you type them in yourself.) Zoom in and watch them grow like crazy. It seems to work for anyplace on the planet, including your own zip code. I’m not sure why they don’t let you adjust the speed of the time scale, but it’s free, so how can we complain? (If you’re quick, you can pause year by year.) Once you’re done playing, scroll down to peruse the “chapters” that follow. (Turns out, Charlie Reese notwithstanding, lawmakers have contributed a thing or two over the last century.) And imagine for a second Columbus or Magellan revivified, being shown this little toy that we get to play with, free. All just seconds, in cosmic time, after they want plunging into the unknown. FRIDAY’S COLUMN Bill Merkel: “I, too, am sad for Donald and pray that he gets his clock reset somehow. That Charlie Reese column makes me so mad I could spit. For anyone to think that going back to the way it was 100 years ago would fix everything shows the typical depth of the conservative narrative these days. That you could wish to undo the incredible progress made in the last 100 years (or even the last 20 or 10) just so you wouldn’t have to pay taxes is a view I can’t fathom. Retirement never worked better than when it claimed Charlie Reese. Now, about Cal Thomas…” Joe Devney: “Mr. Reese lost me with his third sentence: ‘Have you ever wondered, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?’ We have low taxes (too low in some cases) and modest inflation.” ☞ As outlined at Snopes, Reese first published this in 1985, then updated and re-published it several times. The tax list at the end, and some other stuff, was added by various posters as they re-launched. Soon it may include something about Benghazi. Because — while Reese’s disgust with our government was nonpartisan — I’m pretty sure the people who keep this spinning around the Internet are not. Janeen: “I think it was James Carville who once said, ‘I don’t want to live in an economy. I want to live in a society.’ Taxes are the bedrock of society-making. It is fair-game to say that some may be regressive, or levied inefficiently, or even laden with oppressive regulations. But, personally, there are some I get some satisfaction from paying (local property, which supports my schools, hospital, and local government). And — quite honestly — I wish my state (Iowa) would increase its fuel tax, so we can finally get the road and bridge repairs we so badly need. I cringed hearing about the ‘good old days’ when ‘mom stayed home to take care of the kids.’ The good old days weren’t so great. Entire generations of female talent were suppressed. In an ideal world we would all have more choices and latitude in how we juggle our work and home lives.” R.I.P. ALAN Not you, Alan. You’re going to pull through, I promise. Alan Abelson, who died Friday. (Click the link for the swell New York Times obit.) Alan was a force. Brilliant, unstoppable. He went to the same high school and college as my dad (entering college at 15), but a few years behind, and blew up the company I first worked for out of school, National Student Marketing Corp., with a Barron’s column that sent the stock from 140 down to 6 and, ultimately, its president and a Big Eight accountant to prison (and me to business school). When I started writing for New York after getting my MBA, my first story was about him: “The Smartest Man on Wall Street.” In connection with that, he had me to lunch and introduced me to amazing people to help me get started — a young blind financial analyst who was already something of a legend (she loved to astound cab drivers — and me — by suddenly shouting, a mile from where we had started, “Not here! Turn on Lexington!“), who remains a friend to this day; and a lovely guy named Ken Smilen, another of the most thoughtful men on Wall Street, who had a signed copy of Rudyard Kipling’s If on his office wall (sadly, long departed, an obituary for another day). Alan was an institution. Bitingly funny, yet generous; ramrod straight in his analyses and ethics; and if not the smartest man on Wall Street for each of the 57 years he wrote his column, then surely tied, at all times, for first.
Dying May 10, 2013 DO NOT MISS THE LAST THREE MINUTES So the Republicans yesterday blocked appointment of an EPA Administrator. This 4-minute clip from last night’s “All In With Chris Hayes” notes, at 1:16, where we are with carbon dioxide in the atmosphere — back to where we were 800,000 years ago, when the sea level was dramatically higher — and includes compelling clips from Senator Whitehouse’s remarks on the floor, which, if we are to have any hope of sparing future generations untold misery, you must send to your climate-change-denying uncle. As a species, we are good at a lot of things. But taking action now to avoid dire consequences fairly off in the future is not one of them. Which is why the cockroaches may get the last laugh. LAUGHING AT BREAST CANCER In a good way. Four very funny minutes — here. DYING Donald: “I am dying so I have only taken to reading stuff that really matters to me. Please tell me what is wrong with this thinking and why you aren’t an enabler?” READ, WEEP, PRINT AND KEEP! This should be on the front page of every newspaper . . . Charley Reese’s final column for the Orlando Sentinel. He has been a journalist for 49 years. He is retiring and this is HIS LAST COLUMN. Be sure to read the Tax List at the end. This is about as clear and easy to understand as it can be. The article below is completely neutral, neither anti-republican or democrat. Charlie Reese, a retired reporter for the Orlando Sentinel, has hit the nail directly on the head, defining clearly who it is that in the final analysis must assume responsibility for the judgments made that impact each one of us every day. It’s a short but good read. Worth the time. Worth remembering! 545 vs. 300,000,000 People -By Charlie Reese Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them. Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits? Have you ever wondered, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes? You and I don’t propose a federal budget. The President does. You and I don’t have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does. You and I don’t write the tax code, Congress does. You and I don’t set fiscal policy, Congress does. You and I don’t control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does. One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one President, and nine Supreme Court justices equates to 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country. I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank. I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a President to do one cotton-picking thing. I don’t care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator’s responsibility to determine how he votes. Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party. What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits. (The President can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.) The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes. Who is the speaker of the House? (John Boehner. He is the leader of the majority party. He and fellow House members, not the President, can approve any budget they want.) If the President vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to. It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million cannot replace 545 people who stand convicted — by present facts — of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can’t think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist. If the tax code is unfair, it’s because they want it unfair. If the budget is in the red, it’s because they want it in the red. If the Army & Marines are in Iraq and Afghanistan it’s because they want them in Iraq and Afghanistan … If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it’s because they want it that way. There are no insoluble government problems. Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power. Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like “the economy,” “inflation,” or “politics” that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do. Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible. They, and they alone, have the power. They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses. Provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees… We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess! Charlie Reese is a former columnist of the Orlando Sentinel Newspaper. What you do with this article now that you have read it… is up to you. This might be funny if it weren’t so true. Be sure to read all the way to the end: Tax his land, Tax his bed, Tax the table, At which he’s fed. Tax his tractor, Tax his mule, Teach him taxes Are the rule. Tax his work, Tax his pay, He works for peanuts anyway! Tax his cow, Tax his goat, Tax his pants, Tax his coat. Tax his ties, Tax his shirt, Tax his work, Tax his dirt. Tax his tobacco, Tax his drink, Tax him if he Tries to think. Tax his cigars, Tax his beers, If he cries Tax his tears. Tax his car, Tax his gas, Find other ways To tax his ass. Tax all he has Then let him know That you won’t be done Till he has no dough. When he screams and hollers; Then tax him some more, Tax him till He’s good and sore. Then tax his coffin, Tax his grave, Tax the sod in Which he’s laid… Put these words Upon his tomb, ‘Taxes drove me to my doom…’ When he’s gone, Do not relax, Its time to apply The inheritance tax. Accounts Receivable Tax Building Permit Tax CDL license Tax Cigarette Tax Corporate Income Tax Dog License Tax Excise Taxes Federal Income Tax Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA) Fishing License Tax Food License Tax Fuel Permit Tax Gasoline Tax (currently 44.75 cents per gallon) Gross Receipts Tax Hunting License Tax Inheritance Tax Inventory Tax IRS Interest Charges IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax) Liquor Tax Luxury Taxes Marriage License Tax Medicare Tax Personal Property Tax Property Tax Real Estate Tax Service Charge Tax Social Security Tax Road Usage Tax Recreational Vehicle Tax Sales Tax School Tax State Income Tax State Unemployment Tax (SUTA) Telephone Federal Excise Tax Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Tax Telephone Federal, State and Local Surcharge Taxes Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax Telephone Recurring and Nonrecurring Charges Tax Telephone State and Local Tax Telephone Usage Charge Tax Utility Taxes Vehicle License Registration Tax Vehicle Sales Tax Watercraft Registration Tax Well Permit Tax Workers Compensation Tax STILL THINK THIS IS FUNNY? Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago and our nation was the most prosperous in the world. We had absolutely no national debt, had the largest middle class in the world, and Mom stayed home to raise the kids. What in the heck happened? Can you spell ‘politicians?’ I hope this goes around THE USA at least 545 times!!! YOU can help it get there!!! GO AHEAD. . . BE AN AMERICAN!!! ☞ I am distressed to learn that you are dying, Donald. For what it’s worth, don’t let this stuff add to your burdens. Try to focus on the couple of GOOD things that have somehow happened over the last 100 years since all these politicians were elected, all this debt accumulated, all these taxes imposed. Most of the things we use and enjoy today didn’t exist back then, so back then there was no need for taxes to fund things like the FCC or FDA or FAA. Medicare and Medicaid weren’t needed because healthcare consisted of aspirin and leaches (or, well, not much more). Social Security payments weren’t needed because old folks lived with their children. Those items alone — social security and Medicare and Medicaid — are a huge part of the budget we fund with taxes. We didn’t need to tax ourselves much for defense in peacetime because the oceans pretty much defended us (and because we paid our soldiers, when we did draft them, bupkus). There were few taxes to support transportation — because there were few highways. And so on. Yes, we have huge problems, not least the climate change problem Republicans refuse to acknowledge or confront (watch that clip!) . . . and glaring problems in our political system I’d love to see fixed: We went exactly backwards with Citizens United . . . we need to redraw electoral districts in a way that allows moderates and centrists to win . . . we need to bring back, at the very least, the “talking filibuster” so if someone wants to do it, at least they have to do it . . . and more. But getting rid of taxes (and thus all that those taxes pay for) and getting rid of debt (and thus all of the investment it funds) and getting rid of 545 people (only to replace them with 545 new ones selected in the same way) makes no sense to me. Charlie Reese is probably a lovely man, but this is a really simple-minded column that only serves to feed cynicism and disaffection without proposing a single constructive, viable solution. I’d welcome your thoughts — and hope you wind up with many more years than you expect to formulate them.
Ick May 9, 2013May 9, 2013 ICK Donald Trump is loathsome even when giving away suitcases full of cash to people in need. Read and watch it here. YOUR UNCLE STILL NOT SURE ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE? Let Al Franken put it to him this way, in 20 seconds, as he did recently on the Senate floor. Unfortunately, a wide majority of Republicans — including the new Republican chairman of the House subcommittee on the environment — still don’t get it. INSANITY – PART 53 Or whatever Part we’re up to — the Republican notion that we should NOT put people who desperately want work to work doing things that desperately need doing. Things that will cost far more if we wait to do them (like repairing bridges after they’ve collapsed). Things that can be funded by long-term bonds at historically low interest rates. Insane. Their insistence that we not invest in our future is born of misplaced reverence for “austerity” and misunderstandings of economics. (Misunderstanding #1: the federal government needs to run a balanced budget. In fact, it needs only to grow the National Debt slower than the economy as a whole — which still leaves room for very-large-sounding deficits, and for even larger ones in times of severe economic contraction. Misunderstanding #2: you can’t tax the wealthy; they’re the “job creators.” How many times do I have to link to the Nick Hanauer clip?) As previously reported, the misplaced Republican reverence for austerity rests largely on a study everyone now recognizes was faulty. And here, from the latest issue of Foreign Affairs . . . The Austerity Delusion by Mark Blyth The results of Europe’s experiment with austerity are in and they’re clear: it doesn’t work. Here’s how such a flawed idea became the West’s default response to financial crises. . . . SIGA Jim Leff: “SIGA has appointed Jeffrey B. Kindler, a former Pfizer CEO, to its board. This could be seen as an overture to acquisition, but I doubt Ron Perelman would allow that. It’s not his style. More likely (and this would explain SIGA CEO Eric Rose’s enthusiasm in reporting the appointment in his recent conference call), Pfizer will partner with SIGA on its dengue drug, which, for technical reasons, is difficult to test in-house. This bodes well for the pipeline of drugs in development (which, due to the litigation, has been a complete black box), and thus for SIGA’s long term future. Short term, there’s a ton of betting re: the binary result of the upcoming appeal decision. Wedbush is predicting a big shoot-up in stock price after that announcement, because current stock price reflects worst-case scenario. I don’t share that expectation. I’m expecting a sharp but brief spurt followed by enormous sell-the-news pressure….and then a gradual climb back up (as pent-up news is announced) peppered by brief setbacks (as shorts generate trumped-up political and media outrage). I continue to look to the big picture: important and powerful people are clearly paying attention to SIGA – both in a positive way (their board keeps getting more impressive) and negative (lawsuits, accusations, shorting frenzies). If there wasn’t big substance and potential, none of this drama would be happening. I.e. lots of people angling for a piece of a prospective pie is a big ‘tell’ that there’s prospective pie.”
Significant Scandal May 7, 2013August 11, 2013 Yikes. Forgot to click PUBLISH last night. So this is today’s AND tomorrow’s. A couple of stock updates at the end. #43 Jeff Cox: “I have to disagree with your assertion that Paul Krugman ‘nails it.’ George W. Bush was not ‘arguably the worst’ president ever. He was indisputably the worst.” #10 Rhode Island last week became #10 to affirm marriage equality (#11 if you count the District of Columbia*) and the Bishop of Providence is not pleased. Writes Mary Elizabeth Williams in Salon: . . . In a seriously buzzkill message, Bishop Thomas Tobin issued a pastoral letter to his brothers and sisters in the Ocean State suggesting they might want to decline invitations once same-sex marriage becomes official in August. . . . “Catholics should examine their consciences very carefully before deciding whether or not to attend same-sex ceremonies, realizing that to do so might harm their relationship with God and cause significant scandal to others.” Well, if anybody would be an authority on significant scandal, I’d bet it’d be a Roman Catholic priest. . . . Tobin is a product of a specific system and represents its ideology, to which he has to conform. It’s worth pointing out, however, that the Church can and does reverse itself, which will someday soon make Tobin’s comments look especially absurd. After all, in 1965 it stopped blaming all the Jews for killing Jesus. Just six years ago it decided that unbaptized babies might actually go to heaven. And a mere 359 years after branding him a heretic, the Church decided maybe it had been a little hasty regarding Galileo. . . . #2 Turns out, Jason Collins is the second out pro ballplayer in one of the four major sports — the Atlantic recounts the earlier history here. But how hugely great that Collins has taken this step . . . read his now-famous Sports Illustrated story here . . . and that the reaction from the two-highest ranking basketball fans in America, NBA Commissioner David Stern (“we are proud he has assumed the leadership mantle on this very important issue”) and USA President Barack Obama (“I’m very proud of him“) — not to mention from dozens of other pro athletes and millions of fans — has been so positive. ZERO Two of our speculations, DCTH and TTNP, have cratered recently, dropping nearly to zero. Not quite what we had hoped or Guru had expected, reemphasizing that these are speculations, to be bought only with money you can truly afford to lose. (Our ROIC warrants, by contrast, suggested at 27 cents and $1, closed last night at $3.28. So not every speculation goes bad.) Anyway, with the usual caveats, Guru suggests KYTH may rise from under $22.7 to $35 or more, and NKTR from $10.30 to $15 or more, both in the next few months, so I bought a little of each. Meanwhile, SIGA had an investor call that at least one of you found quite positive. I hold on to this speculation with high hopes. * No one does seem to count D.C., even though it is home to more people, actually, than Vermont or Wyoming, each of which has as many Senators as California. D.C. has no votes in either the House or Senate. Little Delaware, meanwhile, became the 11th state to approve marriage equality yesterday (or 12th if you count the District of Columbia).
Fracking May 6, 2013 First, the scary video. Have you seen it? Two minutes, warning of explosions in Greenwich Village and a new cancer risk you can’t avoid without moving to a different neighborhood. In New York, this video is going viral. But there are already natural gas pipelines throughout the City and they don’t generally blow up . . . and new pipelines, I would guess, are less likely to blow up than old ones, though I have no expertise in this area. The concerns about fracking unquestionably deserve close consideration. This recent article in Popular Mechanics is at least somewhat reassuring: “Is Fracking Safe? The Top 10 Controversial Claims About Natural Gas Drilling.” (Did you know, for example, that the famous water faucet we all saw on TV that caught fire when a match was lit wasn’t related to fracking after all?) In a perfect world, an article like this would accompany that viral video. This is not a perfect world. All comments welcome.
Touring the New Bush Library May 2, 2013May 2, 2013 It seems former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor has decided that the Supreme Court’s actions in Bush v. Gore may have been a mistake. (“Now She Tells Us.”) In my view, of course, it was a catastrophic mistake, both because Gore won Florida along with the national popular vote . . . (if you count, for example, the thousands of Florida votes thrown out where “Gore” was punched but also written in — what’s known as an “overvote” — supposedly making it “impossible to discern the intent of the voter”) . . . and also because President Bush mis-led us into war and wrecked our national balance sheet. And impeded the stem cell research that might now not come in time to save your life. And tipped the court even further to the ideological right. And ignored the climate change crisis. And on and on and on. President Bush is fun to be around. A bunch of his college classmates I know affirm this; and in my 30 seconds with him last year he was charming. He is also a far better painter than I could ever be. But he was a disastrous president. (Paul Krugman nails it here.) And now the Bush Library has opened in Dallas, designed to mislead some more. Watch this clip . . . and the one that follows with Colin Powell’s former chief of staff, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson. If only Justice O’Connor had voted the other way.
Solar Power May 1, 2013April 30, 2013 The sun came out! We walked all the way from the Mediterranean to the top of Park Guell, the view from the top of which, back to the sea, is straight off a postcard. I suspect Barcelona is just too hot and crowded to be what I’d want in the summer — it’s crowded even now, midweek — but if you can come off-season as we have, it’s just one of the nicest cities in the world. Jeff Schwarz: “Chip wrote, ‘The GPS worked on my phone even though I had no international data or phone service. I had no data or phone charges.’ GPS works off of a bunch of satellites – GPS satellites – which have nothing to do with the cellular or wireless network or anything. They are different signals, entirely. The GPS signal comes free of charge from those satellites, whether or not you have a cell signal and even independently of whether your device has cellular capability.” ☞ Yet I feel sure AT&T is working to find a way to charge us for it anyway. (Don’t get me started.) (Okay, okay, they wanted $494 for four days during which I made no calls and almost always had the phone either in “airplane mode” or with data roaming OFF but, mainly, and most of the time, entirely OFF. AT&T explained that my phone had nonetheless downloaded 24 megabytes of data for which they were charging $494. This, they noted when I called, was even more than the $30 they would have charged had I signed up for their 120-megabyte data package. Which — as I imagine this nice service rep is employed to do all day long — she cheerfully offered to grant me retroactively. So instead of $494, it was discounted to $30. But would not have been if I had not disputed the charge. A strange way to run a railroad.) ENERGY On the plane over, I read every word of last Thursday’s New York Times Special Energy Section. It was so fascinating — and, in the main, hopeful — I can’t even do my usual thing of picking out a few key paragraphs. (Plus, well, I’m on vacation.) Yes, there is the largely unaddressed question of how our becoming energy independent faster than anyone expected will work with our need to reduce climate-changing carbon emissions. But at least some of the good news in that Special Section is carbon-free; and for more — amazing news, really, if it pans out — here is the TED Talk I wrote about in February shortly after 19-year-old Taylor Wilson first gave it. [Schamlz ON] What a time to be alive. How we must strive to spread the opportunities; and not screw up the planet as we do so. [Schamlz OFF] Have a great day as I hurtle back across the Atlantic Ocean.