The single most frustrating and enraging thing I do on a reguilar basis is deal with the health care and insurance system in these United States of America.

Look, when you're a zombie star eating the entrails of a hot planet, sometimes you just need to cool things down a bit. badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/astronomer... 🔭🧪

My doctor is at a rural Virginia health clinic. Consolidating them means longer wait times and the degradation of care. Rmember: everything the GOP says is a lie.

Once more: the best evidence shows that Tylenol taken during pregnancy is not harmful. **This question is settled.** The benefit of reducing discomfort and fever is extremely important at a time when the fetus is developing. Pregnant women - Tylenol is safe. sciencebasedmedicine.org/tylenol-and-...

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I prefer triaxial tips

Google's new slogan: Be evil. theintercept.com/2025/09/16/g...

We met up with friends at Walnut Creek Park south of Charlottesville. We used to go here in grad school! Fun reminiscing.

From last night.

I hope he donates his brain to science. It will spawn a hundred PhD theses, and then can be used as a Swiss cheese mold.

An advantage of living in rural Virginia: very dark skies. This is about a two minute shot from my phone and you can see Cygnus and Deneb, the Milky Way, and The Great Rift which is made of zillions of opaque dust clouds that split Cygnus down the middle.

Oh yay! A Marian Call concert! She has a lovely voice and writes great music including nerd anthems. All y'all should tune in.

Any rich dems want to fund an independent science news and commentary outlet, hmu (climate, vaccines, energy, public health, biomedical research, assults on science writ large, etc)

When I made a general plea yesterday for Democrats to do something to stop the GOP's totalitarian takeover of the United States, this is not exactly what I meant. JFC

Marisa's newsletter is not only great, it's important.

@katmabu.bsky.social is a young woman running for Congress in the Illinois 9th. She is also in the streets protesting ICE, taking a huge risk. When I say we need Democrats to do something, they need to look at what she's doing. Stymied in the Capitol? Take to the streets.

How do you weigh a black hole? We're talking ten octillion tons for a *small* one. Plus it just eats the scale. www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-... 🔭🧪

Ladies and gentlemen, the meritocracy

Luckily, Sinclair has a helpful database of all their stations, so you can see if they're operating in your area and respond accordingly. sbgi.net/tv-stations/

Light up, one of a kind, stoneware skull tree. In my etsy shop surly.etsy.com #handmade

There was a whole section in Exodus about this

Mike is a man of discerning taste; wise and truthful. [He has a newsletter too]

Premium subscribers to my Bad Astronomy Newsletter can read about a mysterious impact on the Moon traced to a Chinese rocket, and how astronomers have now discovered more than 6,000 exoplanets! badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/6-000-exop... 🔭🧪

Now live: Charlie Kirk was a Nazi and no one should be expected to engage in performative mourning over his murder. skepchick.org/2025/09/char...

We keep saying CBS and ABC are "bowing to pressure" from the White House. Have you considered that they just agree with him?

WGA Statement on ABC’s Decision to Pull Jimmy Kimmel Live!

Ah yes, this is important background info. Sinclair is Bond-level supervillainry and more people need to be aware of it.

in light of the kimmel news, just a reminder that a few days ago a prominent fox news host literally called for killing homeless people. right afterward, someone shot up a couple homeless encampments. that fox news host still has his job.

Hey Democdats in Congress, now would be an excellent time to do something.

This is as dystopian a move as possible right now

BBC News captures Doctor Who himself Sylvester McCoy at the Trump protest seemingly unaware of who they're interviewing.

This is a terrifying chapter in US history. Right now. Today.

Oh very cool!

The scale of this volcano is immense. That main caldera is about 600 km across. Colorado is 600 km across.

My wife just mentioned the Lucile Ball statute in upstate NY and that made me go back and read my article of the miraculous day we got to see said statue. badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/statue-of-...

This is personally upsetting. Not just because it's NASA but also because I was a contractor at Goddard for many years, and the "get it done" atmosphere was amazing. We knew what we were involved in and was a really great part of the work.

Good. Also a reminder that there's a vast difference between being outspoken about Israel's horrific genocidal actions and being antisemitic. I speak out against it, and I'm Jewish. See here: bsky.app/profile/phil...

I think I'd rather China owned it.

live your life so that when you die everyone talks about how hot you were and not how you were a hateful bigot

Another step towards totalitarianism. You can't fix a problem you don't even know about, especially when it contradicts The Party.

This is funny — I put an *incredible* image of a star-forming nebula in my newsletter today, but by far the majority of the feedback I'm getting is on a short grammar note I wrote. badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/a-grammar-... 🔭🧪

Oh this is very cool #MathNerds

Seeing so many people saying "the media venues have become fascist so please read my Substack" is sending me To wit: badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/nazi-updat...

These are all lies and projection. And, ironically, by saying this, the GOP has openly declared war on the Constitution of the United States.

They’re treating the murder of Charlie Kirk like the 9/11 terror attacks, as an excuse to go to war. But this time they’re going to war against the US.

“As more people document workplace SARS-CoV-2 exposure, there is risk of significant liability claims, especially for productions with high visibility. Meanwhile, contractual restrictions, such as non‑disparagement clauses, often limit what celebrities or crew can publicly say.”

So JWST has seen these weird objects called Little Red Dots that appear to be extremely luminous and way on the other side of the universe from us. What the heck are they? Well, they could be immense star-like objects powered by black holes. So, yeah. badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/little-red... 🔭🧪

dracula: so we meet again mister bond bond: have we met? sorry dracula: at susan’s party  bond: dracula: in malibu bond: oh right right the vampire guy dracula: ha ha yes the vampire guy

I keep thinking about this. Between tariffs and this, why would any foreign country want to have anything to do with us?