I am surprised by how normal France feels.  People want to say “The French this, the French that…” but to me they are fairly Americanized, often speak good English, and have few truly unique cultural habits these days.

They also seem reasonably well adjusted, normal mostly in the good sense, and thus of course somewhat boring too.

Walking and driving through the less salubrious parts of town is a useful corrective, but I do not feel the place is falling apart.

Bordeaux observations – Marginal REVOLUTION

L’expérience, ce petit détail qui change tout.

Pourquoi le fossé se creuse entre les conducteurs de voitures électriques et les autres ?

The first act of the final show…

“You would have been wrong. Everything points to an effort to effectively destroy U.S. science — not gradually as part of a long-term plan, but over the next year or two.”

Nobody Expected the MAGA Inquisition – Paul Krugman

Critical and Emerging Technologies Index | The Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs

I wonder how many people would put India that far ahead of Israel and Singapore.

Every day we understand the world slightly better. As we do, rules and laws need to develop and change. It’s sad that it’s taken Trump to do this and it’s in an order that I probably disagree with.

The bad science behind expensive nuclear – Works in Progress Magazine

Hopefully, we’ll monitor closely and learn so that we can change our minds again we we learn more.

Imagine the irony? Mercedes build a car that’s too big and then ask for the city to make changes to fit it?

“The ­fundamental problem is you cannot overtake here,” he said. “The cars are so big now that you just don’t have a chance to get alongside. It’s circuit specific, we’ve known that, it’s been on the calendar for 72 years. Everything has to move with the times ultimately.

F1 team heads call for Monaco to ‘move with the times’ and make track change | Formula One | The Guardian

Is this the same company that builds cars too big for parking spaces, requests extensions to energy and pollution laws every month?

Mercedes have managed the impossible, made Monaco look like the modern part of this story! Mercedes look unable to adapt to the future both on and off the track.

He says it so much better than me…

This isn’t incoherent. It reflects a clear principle: Only the president and his allies, his supporters, and their anointed are entitled to the rights and protections of the law, and if necessary, immunity from it. The rest of us are entitled only to cruelty, by their whim. This is how the powerful have ever kept the powerless divided and in their place, and enriched themselves in the process.

The Cruelty Is the Point – The Atlantic