Tr*** Fusion
• From the always excellent Joy of Tech:
(Click the thumbnail to see the whole thing.)
Jack Smith’s sworn testimony
If you are interested in an excellent summary of Jack Smith’s sworn testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, read Parker Molloy, writing in her The Present Age substack here. One excerpt:
“Our investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 election and to prevent the lawful transfer of power.”
Besides the Republican release of the transcript on New Year’s Eve, one might surmise that the timing of the illegal Venezuelan incursion was not entirely coincidental.
More on Tr***
• What a tangled web that family weaves – read more about the vast enrichment schemes organized by the Trump crime family here in the NYT.
After that, read about Jack Smith’s testimony in the Times, indicting Tr***. No surprise here:
““Our investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 election and to prevent the lawful transfer of power,” Mr. Smith said, according to the transcript.”
More Gun Deaths
And the plague of firearm deaths continues…from Katelyn Jetelina’s Your Local Epidemiologist:
“Almost immediately, social media seized on the tragedy to argue that Australia’s strict gun laws don’t work. I’ll stop that right there. This isn’t a debate because the data are crystal clear:
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- Mass shootings are extremely rare in Australia. Since the Port Arthur massacre in 1996, strict firearm regulations (a buyback program and tight licensing) have kept mass shootings to zero or one per year on average in Australia. By contrast, the U.S. experiences roughly 400–650 mass shootings annually, with more than 46,000 deaths from gun violence each year. As the graph below shows, it’s not even close.
- A tragedy does not disprove the effectiveness of these laws. Data show that strict regulations reduce deaths. Beyond Australia, places like the U.K., Japan, and Canada have similarly strict gun laws and extremely low rates of mass shootings. We can also see variability within the United States. States with the most lax gun laws have the highest rates of gun violence.
- Firearm deaths are the leading cause of death for children in the U.S., whereas in Australia, child deaths from firearms are extremely rare, with suicide and road accidents being the top causes.”
- Mass shootings are extremely rare in Australia. Since the Port Arthur massacre in 1996, strict firearm regulations (a buyback program and tight licensing) have kept mass shootings to zero or one per year on average in Australia. By contrast, the U.S. experiences roughly 400–650 mass shootings annually, with more than 46,000 deaths from gun violence each year. As the graph below shows, it’s not even close.
Modular/Prefab housing
• More than 80% of new homes in Sweden are now completely or partly modular/prefab, with attendant housing cost and environmental benefits. Why can’t we do better in the U.S.?
Reductionism vs Complexity
• A good quick read in the Atlantic discussing why reductionism in physics has to be secondary to studying complexity. I recommend it!
The Truth Physics Can No Longer Ignore by Adam Frank.
mRNA Covid Vaccines Appear Safe
• Are mRNA Covid-19 vaccines safe? More strong evidence that the answer is YES:
From: Semenzato LLe Vu SBotton J, et al. COVID-19 mRNA Vaccination and 4-Year All-Cause Mortality Among Adults Aged 18 to 59 Years in France. JAMA Netw Open. 2025;8(12):e2546822. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.46822
“Design, Setting, and Participants This cohort study used data from the French National Health Data System for all individuals in the French population aged 18 to 59 years who were alive on November 1, 2021. Data analysis was conducted from June 2024 to September 2025.
Exposure Exposure was defined as receiving a first mRNA dose between May 1 and October 31, 2021. Individuals who were unvaccinated by November 1, 2021, were assigned a random index date based on vaccinated individuals’ vaccination dates.
Results A total of 22 767 546 vaccinated and 5 932 443 unvaccinated individuals were followed up for a median (IQR) of 45 (44-46) months. Vaccinated individuals were older than unvaccinated individuals (mean [SD] age, 38.0 [11.8] years vs 37.1 [11.4] years), more frequently women (11 688 603 [51.3%] vs 2 876 039 [48.5%]) and had more cardiometabolic comorbidities (2 126 250 [9.3%] vs 464 596 [7.8%]). During follow-up, 98 429 (0.4%) and 32 662 (0.6%) all-cause deaths occurred in the vaccinated and unvaccinated groups, respectively. Vaccinated individuals had a 74% lower risk of death from severe COVID-19 (weighted hazard ratio [wHR], 0.26 [95% CI, 0.22-0.30]) and a 25% lower risk of all-cause mortality (wHR, 0.75 [95% CI, 0.75-0.76]), with a similar association observed when excluding severe COVID-19 death. Sensitivity analysis revealed that vaccinated individuals consistently had a lower risk of death, regardless of the cause. Mortality was 29% lower within 6 months following COVID-19 vaccination (relative incidence, 0.71 [95% CI, 0.69-0.73]).
Conclusions and Relevance In this national cohort study of 28 million individuals, the results found no increased risk of 4-year all-cause mortality in individuals aged 18 to 59 years vaccinated against COVID-19, further supporting the safety of the mRNA vaccines that are widely used worldwide.”
Read This And Weep For What We’ve Lost
Maxwell Kennedy writes evocatively about his father Bobby Kennedy’s legacy in the Boston Globe. I was 14 and remember being absolutely devastated when RFK was assassinated. Reading this essay reminds me of how incredibly far the quality of our leadership has plummeted.
US Healthcare’s Crazy Costs
• Katelyn Jetelina writes (with Hayden Rooke-Ley) in her Your Local Epidemiologist blog on the wildly disproportionate cost/delivery ratio of health care in the United States; read “5 ways our health care system has become utterly insane” to get a summary of that sad story. One tidbit – wages may have kept pace with inflation over the last 15 years, but they have decidedly NOT kept pace with health insurance costs. And then there’s this:
“One in three Americans has medical debt, and more than half worry they’ll fall into debt any time they use the health care system. That fear changes behavior: people delay appointments, skip medications, or avoid care altogether…Medical debt is now the most common form of debt in collections ahead of credit cards, utilities, or personal loans. Nearly 60% of those in medical debt have insurance.”
Profiles in Courage – Judge Wolf
From Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters from an American:
“Today, former U.S. district judge Mark L. Wolf, who was appointed to the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts by President Ronald Reagan, explained that he resigned on Friday because he wanted the freedom to do “everything in my power to combat today’s existential threat to democracy and the rule of law.” Wolf called out Trump’s use of the Department of Justice to hurt his political opponents, his firing of inspectors general, the administration’s pay-to-play policies in which wealthy donors get government favors, the corruption of cryptocurrency, unconstitutional executive orders, and the threats against judges as Trump attacks the rule of law.”
Kudos to Judge Wolf. His Atlantic essay Why I am Resigning is here.