Former Obama speechwriter David Litt and his brother-in-law, Matt, couldn't be more different. But during the pandemic, Matt taught Litt how to surf. The time they spent together out on the water created what Litt refers to as "neutral ground" – a space that isn't coded as liberal or conservative. In today's episode, Litt speaks with NPR's Scott Simon about his new memoir, It's Only Drowning. They discuss the way surfing changed Litt's approach to fear, political discussions, and his perceptions of Matt.
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The Indicator from Planet Money - Can you afford to evacuate ahead of a disaster?
We are just at the start of hurricane season, and we're already seeing the danger and tragedy brought on by storms. There's another cost that gets much less attention, but it's a gamble everyone in the path of a storm has to make.
Today on the show, we examine the decision on whether or not to evacuate from an oncoming disaster.
Based on the digital story: 1 reason people don't evacuate for hurricanes? Rising costs, and they're getting pricier
Related episodes:
Hazard maps: The curse of knowledge
Unintended Consequences, Hidden Deaths
The brewing recovery in Western North Carolina
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Today on the show, we examine the decision on whether or not to evacuate from an oncoming disaster.
Based on the digital story: 1 reason people don't evacuate for hurricanes? Rising costs, and they're getting pricier
Related episodes:
Hazard maps: The curse of knowledge
Unintended Consequences, Hidden Deaths
The brewing recovery in Western North Carolina
For sponsor-free episodes of The Indicator from Planet Money, subscribe to Planet Money+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.
Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices
NPR Privacy Policy
Planet Money - Summer School 1: A government’s role in the economy is to make us all richer
Government. The Big G. We like to imagine the free market and the invisible hand as being independent from political influence. But Nobel laureate, Simon Johnson, says that influence has been there since the birth of economics. Call it political economy. Call it government and business. Call it our big topic each Wednesday through Labor Day.
We're kicking off another semester of Planet Money Summer School asking the biggest question: Why are some nations rich and others poor? With stories from India, New York City and Peru, we look at the ways in which government bureaucracy can help make or break an economy.
Tickets for Planet Money Live at the Bell House available here. Planet Money+ supporters get a 10 percent discount off their tickets. Go to plus.npr.org to sign up, if you haven't already, and listen to the July 8th bonus episode to get the discount code.
Always free at these links: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the NPR app or anywhere you get podcasts.
Find more Planet Money: Facebook / Instagram / TikTok / Our weekly Newsletter.
Planet Money+ supporters get early access to new episodes of Summer School this season! You also get sponsor-free listening, regular bonus episodes, and you'll help support the work of Planet Money.
Sign up for Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney.
Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices
NPR Privacy Policy
We're kicking off another semester of Planet Money Summer School asking the biggest question: Why are some nations rich and others poor? With stories from India, New York City and Peru, we look at the ways in which government bureaucracy can help make or break an economy.
Tickets for Planet Money Live at the Bell House available here. Planet Money+ supporters get a 10 percent discount off their tickets. Go to plus.npr.org to sign up, if you haven't already, and listen to the July 8th bonus episode to get the discount code.
Always free at these links: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the NPR app or anywhere you get podcasts.
Find more Planet Money: Facebook / Instagram / TikTok / Our weekly Newsletter.
Planet Money+ supporters get early access to new episodes of Summer School this season! You also get sponsor-free listening, regular bonus episodes, and you'll help support the work of Planet Money.
Sign up for Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney.
Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices
NPR Privacy Policy
Hayek Program Podcast - Abigail Hall on the Boomerang Effect and the Unintended Consequences of U.S. Immigration Policy
On this episode, Nathan Goodman speaks with Abby Hall on the "boomerang effect," where U.S. military tools and tactics used abroad—like drones—are repurposed for domestic border enforcement. Hall discusses how restrictive immigration policies, such as the Secure Fence Act and Operation Streamline, often lead to unintended consequences like increased migrant deaths and overwhelmed asylum systems. She advocates for more open immigration pathways to improve both humanitarian outcomes and resource allocation. The conversation also highlights how past U.S. interventions in Latin America have contributed to current migration patterns and emphasizes the importance of humility and flexibility in policy research.
Dr. Abigail R. Hall is an Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Tampa and a Senior Affiliated Scholar at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. She has published numerous books, including her most recent satirical book, How to Run Wars: A Confidential Playbook for the National Security Elite co-authored with Christopher J. Coyne (2024). She holds a PhD in Economics from George Mason University and is an alum of the Mercatus PhD Fellowship.
Show Notes:
- Hall's article, "Border Fencing, Migrant Flows, and Crossing Deaths"
- Hall's article, "The Unintended Consequences of U.S. Asylum Policy"
If you like the show, please subscribe, leave a 5-star review, and tell others about the show! We're available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and wherever you get your podcasts.
Virtual Sentiments, a podcast series from the Hayek Program, is streaming. Subscribe today and listen to season three, releasing now!
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CC Music: Twisterium
Ologies with Alie Ward - Fromology (CHEESE) Part 1 with Kyra James
Soft. Hard. Fresh. Aged. Stinky. Illegal. Let’s talk cheese with Certified Cheese Professional (CCP) and Fromologist, Kyra James. We chat about proprietary bacterial slurries, basement caves, cheese knife etiquette, rind eating, vegetarian versus vegan cheeses, cheese history, different warm-blooded animals whose milk is used for cheese, American cheese side-eye, shoe deodorizers, and how to chat up a monger.
And come back next week to learn more about plant-based cheese options, how to properly store cheese, the difference between orange and white cheddar, the grilled sandwich debate, DIY cheese, pricey varieties, squeaky curds, the moon’s composition, how cheese changes your brain chemistry, and the ultimate charcuterie board. Plus: holes and crystals and maggots, oh my!
[Content warning: we discuss dairy and do make acknowledgments of animal rights concerns, and next week we discuss vegan options in more depth. However this episode and expert’s focus isn’t the ethics of dairy farming as a whole, but rather the process of cheesemaking. We do have a future episode planned about plant-based diets.]
Visit Kyra’s website and follow her on Instagram and LinkedIn
Donations went to the Cheese Culture Coalition and Team Up’s 2025 Building Schools in Kenya
More episode sources and links
Smologies (short, classroom-safe) episodes
Other episodes you may enjoy: Gastroegyptology (BREAD BAKING), Food Anthropology (FEASTS), Critical Ecology (SOCIAL SYSTEMS + ENVIRONMENT), Mammalogy (MAMMALS), Bisonology (BUFFALO), Zymology (BEER), Gustology (TASTE), Disgustology (REPULSION TO GROSS STUFF), Speleology (CAVES), FIELD TRIP: I Go France and Learn Weird France Stuff
Transcripts and bleeped episodes
Become a patron of Ologies for as little as a buck a month
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Editing by Mercedes Maitland of Maitland Audio Productions and Jake Chaffee
Managing Director: Susan Hale
Scheduling Producer: Noel Dilworth
Transcripts by Aveline Malek
Website by Kelly R. Dwyer
Theme song by Nick Thorburn
What Could Go Right? - What Makes Societies Thrive? with Johan Norberg
What made history’s golden ages thrive? Zachary and Emma speak with Johan Norberg, historian, documentary filmmaker, and author of Peak Human: What We Can Learn from the Rise and Fall of Golden Ages. Johan discusses what special societal qualities produced golden ages across history, as well as why these civilizations declined, what we can learn from their setbacks, and why the cyclical nature of history should bring optimism in today’s world. Johan also explores recent political developments in his native Sweden.
What Could Go Right? is produced by The Progress Network and The Podglomerate.
For transcripts, to join the newsletter, and for more information, visit: theprogressnetwork.org
Watch the podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/theprogressnetwork
And follow us on X, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok: @progressntwrk
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What Next | Daily News and Analysis - Was the Flash Flooding in Texas Preventable?
After one of the deadliest floods in American history in central Texas, people are looking at cuts to the National Weather Service and FEMA’s absence contributing to the devastation. But one looming problem is much, much bigger.
Guest: Jeff Goodell, writer covering climate change, author of The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet and The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities, and the Remaking of the Civilized World.
Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen.
Podcast production by Ethan Oberman, Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, and Rob Gunther.
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This Machine Kills - 413. ScamGPT – How AI Supercharges Fraud (ft. Alice Marwick)
We chat with Alice Marwick — director of research at Data & Society — about a new report she co-authored on how generative AI is now unleashing a new world of scams and fraud. AI is supercharging the business of scamming by making it easier and cheaper than ever to deploy sophisticated scams at scale. Scams are now automated, ubiquitous, and dynamic. The victims of AI-fuelled fraud are not just traditional demographics like older people. We get into types of fraud like pig butchering and harpoon whaling, and what we can do to defend against the automation of fraud. Then we discuss how these technical infrastructures are compounded by social conditions (and societal crises) that are making more people vulnerable to scams—but also to high risk behaviors like gambling, forms of financial exploitation like multi-level marketing, and misinformation like conspiracy theories.
••• Data & Society | Research https://datasociety.net/research/
••• Scam GPT: GenAI and the Automation of Fraud https://datasociety.net/library/scam-gpt/
••• The Future of Conspiracy Theory Scholarship https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/19331681.2025.2491687
••• Mountains of Evidence: Processual “Redpilling” as a Socio-Technical Effect of Disinformation https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21934
Standing Plugs:
••• Order Jathan’s new book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite
••• Subscribe to Ed’s substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble
••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills
Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)
Audio Mises Wire - The Texas Floods: Another Disaster, Another False Narrative
The floodwaters in Texas were just subsiding when Democrats claimed that the death toll was due to staffing cuts at the National Weather Service. Of course, the truth is much different, but this was just one more incident of how natural disasters have become politicized in this country.
Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/texas-floods-another-disaster-another-false-narrative
Engines of Our Ingenuity - The Engines of Our Ingenuity 2725: The Atocha Bombing Memorial
Episode: 2725 The Atocha Bombing Memorial: Remembering the dead — creating hope. Today, mourning and monuments.