The recently-launched James Webb Space Telescope could be a generation-defining scientific achievement. Or, it could be a gigantic failure that fuels anti-government cynicism.

It's going to be an exciting month!

Liberals and leftists are frequent coalition partners, but they're not really the same thing. What does history -- specifically, the partially-accurate history of Les Miserables -- tell us about what they might learn from each other?

Most of us can't understand the science of Covid, so we have to decide who to trust. So when institutions do things that make themselves less trustworthy, that's a major problem.

The book "A Thousand Brains: A New Theory of Intelligence" by Jeff Hawkins might offer clues as to why we seek out stories that confirm what we think we already know.

It's part three of the "Democrats...what are we doing here?" series!

Taxing the wealthy and spending money on things like health care and child care is popular. But the word "socialism" is not.

Why do people sometimes use an unpopular word to describe popular policies?

It's part two of the "Democrats...What Are We Doing Here?" series!

Part one established that basically everyone is annoyed by hyper-progressive activists; part two digs into why that might be true.

Data analyst David Shor's "popularism" theory suggests that young, highly-educated people have too much influence in the Democratic Party.

Do they? Yes.

So, what can we learn from that?

Employee revolts aimed at influencing their company's policies are suddenly everywhere, from Apple to the New York Times to Netflix. What's causing this? Surely many factors, but one that might be overlooked is Slack, the suddenly-ubiquitous messaging software that's changing office dynamics.

One of the first rules of good political etiquette is that you don't call your opponent stupid.

Is that a good rule? Could it be contributing to an environment that allows bad ideas to flourish?

Clearly, Facebook sucks.

But could we ever expect a company that doesn't suck to dominate the marketplace?

Also, a few thoughts on the Dave Chappelle controversy drawn from Jeff's experiences as a standup.