in Greenland, the government owns a bunch of businesses--a fishing company that is the largest single employer, a shipping company, a ferry company, several retail and logistics companies, etc, and it all works pretty well?? I traveled there to investigate: prospect.org/world/2025-0...

Hobbyhorse: at university, lectures remain an incredible format. They introduce & explore a huge amount of content in a short period of time. They scaffold further reading, with a personal twist. Workshops, etc, do their own thing, but don't replace effective lectures: share.google/AyFxBwYh5BYM...

Surprised it took you this long, you idiots. www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio...

Many studies have shown that there is no relationship between MMR vaccine and the development of autism. Here are two of the best. This one followed every single child born in Denmark from 1991 through 1998 (n=537,303). There was no association.

THE HYPOCRISY IS THE POINT!!

Dam been writing a book about this and she just TikToked it in 90 seconds.

How does any Democrat still think that victory is found by winning a middle swarm of voters who loathe extremism at both ends of the political spectrum? People are lazy. They aren't bouncing between news sources. By default, they are either picking a side or will be swayed to one by their choice.

In so many ways, the Roberts Court has revived the logic of Dred Scott: that racially targeted groups have “no rights which the white man was bound to respect.” Thinking in particular today abt the free Black Americans trafficked under the Fugitive Slave Law, virtually w/o legal recourse.

The “problem” with vaccines? They so effective at preventing deaths that they create generations of people that question whether disease was a problem in the first place because they have never experienced the horrors of a world without vaccines.

BREAKING: Trump, Hegseth violated the Posse Comitatus Act with their troop deployment to Los Angeles, Judge Charles Breyer rules after trial. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Not sure whose fault it is primarily that most people don't seem to know that the president is basically a manager whose job is to carry out the will of Congress, and not The Country's Boss

So let me get this straight; by denying my son's crown, his dental insurance will now have to go through an appeals process that involves hours of billable work by various individuals including paralegals or lawyers that will end up costing more than just paying for the crown in the first place?

Once again reminded of exactly how monumentally unreliable student evaluations and complaints about courses can be.

The story of Lucretia should be a key part of every high school government class in the US. If you’re not explaining why the Roman system was so attractive to the Founding Fathers, you’re doing it wrong.

If I see one more story about the failure of Democratic party leadership... look, it's simple. If your whole operating policy is based on external validation you die. It's that simple. Because you can never win that way. Half the people out there hate you for you, the other half hate equivocation.

Even if for no other reason than pure cynical politicking, Clinton should have been publicly excised from any association with the modern Democratic party ages ago. Even if it's all mendacious, the assumed links - and the stupidity of 'But Clinton!' framing like this - continue to do harm.

People have embraced authoritarianism in large part because they've been sold individualistic explanations for social problems. If you think people are poor or unhoused because they've made "bad choices," then you'll see appeal in authoritarian leaders who promise to punish those who are "bad."

Yeah, this is... not good. And every country that joins this creates a cascade effect making it easier on the next.

Once again, for those in the back: tariffs are even with their new sky-high percentages only _4%_ of government revenues. They are functionally meaningless for actually funding our government. Anyone pointing to 'but increased revenues' is either a scam artist or has an IQ below room temperature.

Sigh. "But I did better than he did on the test!" "Is than an achievement or just losing the limbo contest?"

Hi! Your friendly neighborhood natsec professional here. And one who has been on patrols with US, Iraqi, & Georgian Soldiers during Phase IV (conventional) operations, has helped plan, direct, & assess those operations, teach others how to, etc. This is NOT why the US military did those patrols. 1/

“There's a reason you separate military and the police. One fights the enemies of the state, the other serves and protects the people. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the state tend to become the people.”

I cannot emphasize enough that the playbook being used against mRNA vaccines (and vaccines in general) is IDENTICAL to the playbook used to restrict voting rights after the 2020 election: actively sow public distrust, then cite the distrust you sowed as an independent reason for your desired policy

Wow, Fortune magazine and Nick Lichtenberg are really kissing ass today. "Trump is bringing in so much revenue from tariffs that it’s seriously reducing the $37 trillion national debt" is the headline - then talks about tariffs going from 2% of gov revenue to... 5%. Drops in buckets.

Originally about public health, but this applies to the propaganda spewage in nearly all subject areas.

How Vaccines Work 🧬🧫🧪🔬💉🥽

Economist Amartya Sen won a Nobel in part for asking: Why did India avoid the mass famines that killed tens of millions in China? His answer: a free press. Journalists could expose suffering and shame governments into action. Silence and avoidance, by contrast, can be deadly.

There's an old Doonesbury cartoon from the 1970's where Mike is touring the Vietnam countryside to find an intact shrine for weeks with no success. Finally he finds one - just for it to get bombed right at that moment. This is finding an intact government program that helps everyone right now.

Oof. Poetry has power.

🗃️ #skystorians: have any of you ever done a commonplace book type of assignment in your courses? I'm thinking of something like @jmadelman.bsky.social 's assignment, detailed here. josephadelman.com/2014/09/04/c... #teaching #pedagogy Thoughts? Advice? Could it be done digitally?

Lord help me, more articles I refuse to link to in the NYT talking up increased revenues from tariffs while never mentioning they still only provide likely <5% of government revenue. “Hard to quit”, they say, while Congress slashes much larger revenue streams without a qualm.

For a nation whose largest religion has at its centre helping others without stint or limitation, we are really, really bad at it. That so many Christians are convinced that it can only happen on an personal level, rather than accepting that often government is more efficient to get there, is nuts.

It's a weird day for those of us who were only allowed to watch PBS as kids.

Unquestionably the most dangerous and corrupt attack on the independence of US economic data in American history. Trump is firing the head of the BLS, a longtime civil servant confirmed 86-8 by the Senate, simply because the job numbers came in below his expectations today

Re: CPB winding down: watching the USA right now is like watching someone selling their car and cancelling their internet/cellphone to save money and then wondering why they can’t hold a decent job or have access to anything to eat or make life better. We’re eating our damned seed corn, by choice.

Not only is today’s employment report uniquely bad, but revisions to the prior months show that, on average, we have seen 35k net new jobs created for the last 3 months: JAN: +111K FEB: +102K MAR: +120K APR: +158K MAY: +19K JUN: +14K JUL: +73K No way to put lipstick on this pig.

Many of the seemingly baffling decisions made by the current administration make sense when you realize that it is a loose coalition of very divergent ideologies whose sole point of agreement is "suffering is good, actually". 1/

Another teaching prompt for historians: What are the guiding principles of your survey courses? Not "outcomes." What ideas, approaches, orientations to the material do you want them to keep in mind during the term?

few outcomes, except for 99% of FDA-approved drugs, 174 recipients of 104 Nobel Prizes, training ~30K MDs and ~10K PhDs per year to enter the workforce, and a 34% reduction in age-adjusted cancer deaths since 1990 -- the largest decrease in history

Wondering about the financial security of a registered nonprofit - be it a charity, a private school, or the like? Be aware that to maintain nonprofit status, they have to file detailed financial declarations with the IRS. Propublica has an easy tool for that - projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/

A plea: I am 100% here for interdisciplinary work. But that work actually has to be INTERDISCIPLINARY: people working together across fields. Not just someone from one field thinking that history is "easy" and, for that reason, "anyone can do it. 1/x #HistMed #Skystorians #Medievalsky

Another defense of "intellectual diversity" that doesn't reckon with what this would mean in the areas that most students at U.S. universities study, such as engineering, business, health sciences, computer science, data science, economics, etc. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/15/o...

Interpretation's vary but students in my classes--and the vast majority of university-level humanities classes--have to back up their claims, whatever they are, with evidence from the texts. One of the most common comments in my classes is "where in the text do you find support for that claim?"/12

Ex-farm worker here. We need to talk about this whole "But a living wage for farm workers would spike the cost of food!" thing. Not true AT ALL. Y'all don't understand how fast experienced farm workers are. The average tomato picker pulls 650lbs per hour. At $20/hr, that's $0.03/lb for labor.

I think it's now possible to make a poli-sci course that equips one for modern political analysis better than most classic theory and has a syllabus sourced entirely from random internet posts. Text 1. Wilhoit's Law, born as part of a 2018 blog comment crookedtimber.org/2018/03/21/l...

Wondering how Medicaid impacts your local communities, especially for children? Lots to dig into at kidshealthcarereport.ccf.georgetown.edu

This is a nuanced perspective on the relationship between NWS cuts and the disaster in Texas: NWS got the forecasts right, but lacked staff who could preplan with and warn local officials of the dangers. P www.nytimes.com/2025/07/05/u...

Their tactics.