Also, this war brought to you by the same Pentagon that shot down a US drone with a laser and closed airspace near El Paso, again. You really want these guys starting wars and/or doing regime changes in Venezuela, Iran, and maybe Cuba in just the first quarter of 2026?

The largest spot-the-difference effort EVER has begun!🚨 On the night of Feb 24, NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory officially released its first ~800,000 public alerts of detected changes in the night sky!🔍 A new era of discovery is here✨ 🔭🧪☄️ 🔗: rubinobservatory.org/news/first-a...

CosmicAI team presenting "AI Among the Stars: How Machines Help Us Explore the Universe" at Texas Science Festival 2026! Join our email list/slack to stay posted on future events! cosmicai.org/get-involved @texasscience.bsky.social @taccutexas.bsky.social

Hey, I know that guy in the middle!

This spring, I'm spending a lot more time on I-35 than usual. Yesterday was particularly hairy: some sort of tarp blowing across windshields, a plastic shopping cart blocking a lane, and a genuine wildfire in Kyle. Spring Break can't come soon enough.

I'm all for pardons and second chances. But it's a hell of a juxtaposition to pardon millionaire NFL players convicted of drug distribution while you're summarily executing impoverished fishermen making a few hundred bucks to shuttle drugs around the Caribbean.

I think we need a new term, like a hell-no-bill.

Hey y'all. I'm hiring. Are you interested in building instruments for astrophysics? wd5.myworkdaysite.com/recruiting/u...

I feel heartened to know this was aired.

How do you not view this as a gorgeous expression of Hispanic culture in the U.S.? Smooth music, beautiful sets, and great dancing.

It felt like a love letter to the Hispanic American experience.

The prof's quotes in this article. 🤮

Phew, one of those times when something is stressing you out that you know you won't care about on your deathbed, but that seems very important right now.

"I'm coming to Boston and I'm bringing hell with me." --Homan in February "Do I expect violence to escalate? Absolutely." -- Tom Homan in March "I actually thought about getting up and throwing that man a beating right there in the middle of the room" -- Homan in July, referring to a D congressman

This was murder. Pretti did not initiate the confrontation. He didn’t strike them. He didn’t brandish his gun. They tackled him, beat him, disarmed him, and shot him.

Pretti clearly did not brandish his gun. Which means the government is saying he was killed for legally exercising his right to carry. It’s as clear-cut a violation of the Second Amendment as I can possibly imagine. And we’re about to see the bulk of the gun rights crowd defend his murder.

TFW you are refereeing a paper you know you should have said no to...

/2 This will be grotesque. Edward R. Murrow didn’t have a radio show in 1946 where Eisenhower debated Göring about whether the Nazis had some good points. Today’s media would absolutely do that. Today’s media will platform people defending and rewriting Good’s murder for years.

I'm glad this is happening to a rostered faculty member instead of an adjunct or TA.

Martin Peterson's creative response to being banned from teaching Plato (shared with his permission).

The White House having it's "we've always been at war with Eurasia" moment.

Also, cedar fever days like today make me think I should retire on medical grounds.

I'm teaching this semester and just had my first teaching bad dream. A student called my Canvas modules "mediocore" lol.

The same editorial board described Seattle’s mayor raising taxes to pay for childcare as a totalitarian power grab

Yeah, man, the only difference between your career and Mark Rufallo’s career is the political stuff.

Happy New Year! 2025 Top 10 reading list: 10. The Secret of Ventriloquism -- Jon Padgett 9. Remembering Peasants: a Personal History of a Vanished World -- Patrick Joyce 8. When we Were Real -- Daryl Gregory 7. The Good House -- Tananarive Due 6. Queen Demon -- Martha Wells

Boycotting Constitution Hall because the DAR won’t let Marian Anderson sing has costs. It may end opera. Is that worth it? By Megan McArdle, 1939

I don't argue much on social media but I did get put on blast when I said that Bernie Sanders doesn't accomplish much in Congress.

What’s the funniest reason someone got mad at you on Bluesky this year?

Still mind-blowing that a top admin official was revealed to have taken $50,000 in cash in a paper bag from people looking for government favors, the reaction of the administration was "Whatever losers, this is how it works now" and bigshot news media said "If you say so, we'll forget about it"

This is sad news. Good luck to the repair team at Lick in the upcoming months.

He lied that Haitian immigrants were trapping and eating cats...

What do you think is the greatest ever TV news clip? For me this can never be beaten...

they've always been biased against anyone who's not a white man and now white men are feeling more of the economics of scarcity as well.

I wonder if these guys don’t realize people will lie to avoid an uncomfortable conversation. The hiring committee chair lied to me the first time I was shortlisted; I learned from that and never forgot.

This reminds me of the time I was on a panel and we got a one-sentence external review that basically said "[Proposal PI] does good work; anything he proposes is worth funding." Reviewer is, not surprisingly, a notorious asshole.

Can't say I ever expected to see a "That Font was No Angel" headline. But here we are.

Brett Kavanaugh's "minor inconvience" now includes beating people up and cutting off their wedding rings for [checks notes] "observing ICE from a distance."

What if they constantly want culture war because policy war is complicated and hard and culture war is stupid and easy

George Retes is a U.S. citizen and Iraq war veteran. He was detained by ICE and held in solitary confinement for three days without explanation. George shared his story before Congress to make sure no American has to endure the same abuse he did.

Very sorry to hear that Raul Malo died. I've had many happy hours listening to The Mavericks and his solo albums. RIP.

Democrats need to lay the groundwork for reform by attacking the villains on the Supreme Court - loudly, angrily, personally, relentlessly. And they should start now. paulwaldman.substack.com/p/democrats-...

By 2040, ~40% of the images from Hubble Space Telescope, and more than 96% from new and future space telescopes like SPHEREx, ARRAKIHS, and Xuntian will be contaminated by internet satellite constellations. Read our new NASA article in Nature: nature.com/articles/s4158…

Congressman Henry Cuellar was indicted for money laundering, bribery, and conspiracy, allegedly taking about $600,000, mostly from Azerbaijan, to influence U.S. policy. President Donald Trump pardoned Cuellar, because Trump supports money laundering, bribery, and conspiracy.

Cedar fever has entered the chat.

The right's anti-empathy shtick has predictably slid into straight psychopathy. At worst these are low-level cocaine smugglers. More likely they're locals trying to make some extra income. Some are likely innocent. Meanwhile, Trump just pardoned a high-level distributor. And an ex-dealer leads HHS.

If the U.S. was at war, Pete Hegseth's order would be a war crime, a military lawyer said. Instead, it might just be murder. wapo.st/49KbUJ1

Thomas Chatterton Williams & co are desperately flogging "the work right" to justify their focus on the left. The more obvious parallel is that the right is obsessed with a form of identity politics that far outstrips anything you see on a college campus, and with much more radical policy goals.

Textbook war crime/extrajudicial killing "Two survivors were clinging to the smoldering wreck. The Special Operations commander overseeing the Sept. 2 attack ... ordered a second strike to comply with Hegseth’s instructions." Report by @alexhorton.bsky.social @ellenwapo.bsky.social o.bsky.social

NEW: I did a very deep dive into one month's worth of Elon Musk's posts on X so I could understand the breadth and depth of what he is posting about these days. In a word: fringe. www.nbcnews.com/tech/elon-mu... 🧵