the magic of the Muppets is that there are two fourth walls. they constantly break the one that reminds the audience they are performers. they NEVER break the one that reminds the audience they are puppets. this dynamic is the key to their entire comedy style

Say hello to my little friend #birds

“Renee was not the first person killed, and she was not the last,” Becca Good said. “You know my wife’s name and you know Alex’s name, but there are many others in this city being harmed that you don’t know — their families are hurting just like mine, even if they don’t look like mine.”

Out to Innovate is holding its first in-person conference in years, with policy experts and community leaders, and also yours truly giving a workshop on "speaking for data" — finding ways to serve your community with science. March 7 at USC and online, come Out to Innovate buff.ly/HbnvmGB

LOL.... i wanted to hear JD getting booed at the Olympics and when i searched for it on YouTube i got this

“While not everyone will be funded, there is some expectation of a fair and transparent review process, and that doesn’t seem to be happening ... For new grad students, or those applying this year, the outright rejection without a clear reason is incredibly discouraging” —@kheyduk.bsky.social

Reporting on GRFP applications returned without review.

ICE has grabbed so many people from their vehicles that there are abandoned cars across Minnesota. This tow truck driver returns the cars for free as a public service, and he’s been getting death threats. They hate the helpers. Which is why must keep helping.

“I have deep respect for Mayor Bass. But over the last few months in particular, I’ve really begun to feel like unless we have some big changes in how we do things in Los Angeles, that the things we count on are not going to function anymore.”

"Nithya Raman, who has been compared to Mayor Zohran Mamdani of New York, presents a significant challenge to the incumbent, Mayor Karen Bass." NYT gets the scoop

The Holy Trinity of bumper stickers

Re: Science Mag editorial celebrating mainly the inside/quiet advocacy done this year, I offer this in lighthearted response. 🧪 This is a Myanmar woman doing her usual, longstanding dance routine while black cars speed by to carry out a coup. 1/4

Sass Panther Security is always vigilant (for Churu).

winter olympics

No new pictures. Where are you mentally?

GM: Charisma check. Mamdani: [rolls natural 20] GM: that’s a d6 how did you Mamdani: [direct to camera] Did you know you can check out board games at your local public library? 😊

I think this ("dissolved") is as close as a guy like Blumenthal can get to saying the phrase "Abolish ICE", so I'll take this as a win.

It’s fun to think about future linguistic historians writing stuff like ”some scholars theorize a ‘proto-tumblr‘ dialect, perhaps called ‘alive, or living journal,’ while other scholars disagree that it’s a distinct branch.”

Concentration camps are the defining issue in public health right now. Measles and TB outbreaks, healthcare being withheld as punishment for your race. It is not enough simply to turn the grants tap back on. To do so would make us the same as the Nazi scientists who discovered smoking causes cancer

No new pictures. Where are you mentally?

By the way, for those of you not in MN: Homan’s strategy was to withdraw some agents, so it felt like we were in the denouement of the crisis, and then escalate hard against observers. They’re being incredibly aggressive with observers now. National media may not want to check out just yet

Uh oh, you scrolled too far, too greedily, too deep: you have encountered a balrog.

You know one of the stories that has kind of blown my mind is Haven Watch. Some lady realized people who got released from the Whipple were just dumped outside with no phone or coat and decided she could do something about this, like a month ago. But there are a ton of similar stories.

BREAKING: 4 students at the University of Minnesota are currently chained to Morrill Hall, demanding that their school end all cooperations with ICE and establish itself as a sanctuary campus.

VA Gov. Spanberger (moderate, was in CIA) and NYC Mayor Mamdani (left, is in DSA) both taking steps to block local law enforcement from helping ICE as it violently violates people's rights is a good example of how the relevant divide in the Dem coalition isn't center-left, it's fight-don't fight.

Discworld QOTD, from The Light Fantastic “Not for the first time she reflected that there were many drawbacks to being a swordswoman, not least of which was that men didn't take you seriously until you'd actually killed them, by which time it didn't really matter anyway.”

Bill Cassidy, the guy who acknowledged RFK’s abysmal record on vaccines and voted for him twice anyway? Bill Cassidy, MD, who’s therefore responsible for preventable mass disease and death of US children, which has already begun and will only get much, much worse? I swear to god.

Science EIC Thorp would like to have it both ways: 1) Credited for being reasonable in acknowledging the importance of (i) quiet insiders & (ii) activists in confronting cuts to science. 2) Clear on who he thinks really deserves the credit for the wins: insiders. 🧵 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

The choice of these adjectives is telling: Quiet - AAAS/R!A Heated - Activists Organizations like @aaas.org and @researchamerica.bsky.social are built on members and institutions that are facing the brunt of an intentional effort to confront science. Perhaps they should listen to *us*.

Columbian black-tailed deer, Odocoileus hermionus columbianus, on San Juan Island, Washington 🌿 buff.ly/S31my69

I am… honestly really enjoying starfleet academy. And holy damn well done Kristen Beyer and @tawnynewsome.bsky.social on this week in particular

High-tech social media team yeah, okay, sure, but at some fundamental level he's just genuinely really good at this

free them all

Incredibly chaotic place to drop in a jumja stick, STARFLEET ACADEMY

Reactionary: it didn’t happen Reactionary: it happened but only a few people did it Reactionary: of course it happened everyone was doing it Reactionary: I blame the libs because they keep talking about it

“It seems our university leaders cannot even say that it is wrong to murder a former student in broad daylight because some people might disagree,” geography professor Kate Derickson

I feel like this is a great time to remind everyone that it's not even technically wrong to say that logistic regression is machine learning

Holy shit: it's an RFP for the NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology (PRFB). Hello old friend www.nsf.gov/funding/oppo...

With a few exceptions, the items in this list are already the law. Republicans are saying it’s unrealistic for Trump’s goons to follow the law.

On the list. I have what I've termed the asterisk of death. Very few schools have earned it (ie laid off chemistry profs with tenure, or not granted tenure when it was planned, etc.) Would hate to do so for many Oklahoma regional universities.

“What would you think To be thus used? This is the strangers’ case; And this your mountainish inhumanity.”

New preprint from our big collaborative evolution experiment in 9 whole lakes in Alaska, written by McGill grad student @lucaseckert.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... What happens if you put a mixture of multiple source populations together to complete & evolve in multiple new lakes?

This is incredibly sad news, @climategenorg.bsky.social 😰 My own small outreach budget ran dry six months ago, and I’ve had to radically rethink how I keep doing this work myself. While many issues factor into funding, there’s no question it’s a hard, hard moment for climate action in the U.S. 💔

Maybe @latimes.com has something that's not in the story. But pretty surprised they ran with "unnamed White House official confirms Dodgers are coming to White House, no comment from Dodgers" as if the info is 100% reliable and could not possibly be a pressure tactic. www.latimes.com/sports/dodge...

BOTANY 2026 abstract submission is open!!! @botsocamerica.bsky.social

This is true, and also the best response to this is organizing the largest voter registration drive this country has seen in years and making plans to accompany citizens of color to the polls this November This is a trial balloon. Pop it, don't ignore it

Big news from Virginia: @jaaavis.bsky.social reports that Democrats have settled on passing a 10-1 congressional map that would target 4 of the state’s 5 Republicans in response to mid-decade GOP gerrymandering elsewhere. Lawmakers will reveal the map later today or early tomorrow

notice how none of the annoying leftist posters this crew CONSTANTLY complains about are not in the files of the world's most notorious pedophile?

Hey have I told Bluesky the story yet of how I was invited to submit a piece for The Edge, I made it about sexual harassment/misogynist cultures in STEM, so it was of course rejected, then someone stepped in and they ended up printing it? Anyway, I get why they didn't like me or my writing now!!!

a short story about a mouse and an owl