I make macaroni and cheese quite a lot. I like to eat it on Fridays and for friends and family on holidays. I have sampled mac and cheese all across the country. I am no Guy Fieri, but I have gotten around, and I can tell you with a great deal of confidence that most elite - which is to say costly - macaroni and cheese uses Velveeta. Or at least a key chemical in it.

The reason is not flavor. It is science. 

COVID-19 vaccines have shown to be effective at preventing vaccines but the big win for public health is reduced effects if you get it anyway. If you don't have co-morbidities your relative risk is very low but if you do have them, every precaution is worth taking.

The vaccines come in many forms but two of note are the Janssen COVID-19 vaccine (Ad26.COV2.S) and Pfizer-BioNTech (BNT162b2), distinct because Janssen only requires one dose.  And the latter made "mRNA" part of the cultural lexicon. 

Which one led to fewer hospitalizations? They were both outstanding but there is a winner.

In the quest to create more social justice and equity, a lot of economic common sense leaves the discussion first. If I become a politician by promising you that you'll get your own personal doctor, for example, you aren't getting a real doctor - you are getting someone handed a doctor title but is really a naturopath, homeopath or whatever else that can be found cheap.

There is little good resulting from the pandemic, except for the fantastic innovation behind the vaccines. A few months ago politicians told companies to stop being greedy and pay more money to people who stopped working when government paid people not to work, so companies paid more, and resulting inflation is causing equity to decrease between the poor and the middle class. San Francisco is telling people they need to get a 4th shot or they'll be called Republicans(1) while the governor of California and the mayors of both Frisco and LA frolicked at events in crowds of 50,000 and took selfies with exposed faces. Hardly inspiring trust.

We may be our own worst critics, but America continues to lead the world in science, science literacy, and science policy. Anyone who has tried to navigate science policy in Europe knows how bad it can get when the discourse is hijacked by government-funded environmental groups who use taxpayer money to prevent sane efforts at progress for European taxpayers.

Compared to Europe, American scientists have it good.

Utility customers in California are being exploited by a special class of grifters. Those who live in apartment buildings or rental homes or live in poor neighborhoods are forced by law to subsidize million-dollar solar installations on homes in Malibu.

The poor are exploited in the form of a direct rebate which depletes funds that could be used for social services for all Californians, plus a special tax levied on their utility bills. It not only pays wealthy people to install solar panels, it pays them to sell any electricity back to the power company on bright days for the same price they buy it at night.