Just finished "Into the Drowning Deep" by Mira Grant aka @seananmcguire.bsky.social. Excellent book, definitely recommend for anyone who likes horror or dark fantasy. However, I'm afraid it failed for me as horror per se when I started envying the 2022 in the book vs the one in reality.

MIA: the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey. The legally required FEVS that was not sent out last year because they needed to make sure it was properly sexist and racist before doing so. No explanation at all this year.

Did Makary actually resign? Apparently, the "resignation" announced on Truth Social was not posted by him but by the Trump account. There's been no internal statement at all and the only internal evidence that he's gone is that his picture was taken down.

There are two rumors currently circulating: 1. Makary is about to be fired/forced to resign. 2. Hoeg is going to HHS. Is this a whole scale changing of FDA upper management in order to put (even) more radical people in charge?

In case anyone was wondering, Makary’s latest idea is every bit as bad as you might expect. Also going to add a lot more wo‘em for already overburdened reviewers

This headline belongs in a dystopian novel, not reality. "Accused' of being an antifascist. I guess we know who the government is then if antifascists are the "terrorists". www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

While everyone's attention is on Iran: 1. ICE continues to kidnap random people because they have impunity and a quota. 2. Voting rights are being restricted. 3. Measles is running rampant through the US. 4. Climate change is still there and extreme weather events season is coming.

When politicians talk about "purity tests" and how they don't pass them, what they're really saying is, "People don't like my policy(ies) and I'm trying to find a way to make that their fault."

While I'm ranting: The Epstein files. It's clearly important to make them public, investigate those involved, etc. However, it is unlikely that the people who associated with Epstein and those who would want to associate with him have cleaned up their act since his death. 1/2

Going to ask a conspiracy theory question, so feel free to remind me that just because they're out to get you, that doesn't mean you're not paranoid, but...Are the Trump regime and related oligarchs deliberately trying to destroy the world? They're making decisions as though that is their motive.

The US has done without Greenland for 250 years. If it suddenly "needs" Greenland for "national security" it must be because our current leadership is less competent than any prior. Which, honestly, is not a surprising conclusion.

This may seem like a minor point compared to everything going on right now and indeed it is, but there may be implications that could come back to bite us. The Trump admin is trying its best to make people in civil service quit again.

I had been wondering about the upcoming elections. The Republicans appear to be making no moves towards making themselves more popular. No symbolic tax "refunds", no "bipartisan (Reps taking credit for Dems work) renewals of the ACA or other critical social infrastructure (1/?)

Okay, so it's the Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts. By adding Trump's name to the center (illegally, but who's counting), is someone in the administration trying to give us a subtle hint about Trump's vital status?

So this turned out to be overly optimistic about who would win the 2024 election i2.wp.com/leftycartoon...

When people want to reference problems in the US government or US society right now, they use phrases like "challenging times", "the current environment", "recent changes". When are we going to start calling it "fascist authoritarian takeover"? Or is the takeover too far gone to allow that?

Tracy Hoeg? I suppose it could be worse, but it's hard to see how. www.fda.gov/news-events/...

Well, fuck.

What could possibly make this a good idea? www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Predictions re house vote on CR today and future shutdowns: 1. About 30% probability that they won't pass the CR on some excuse or another and the shutdown will continue. 2. If they do pass it (and I think that the more likely outcome), there will be another shutdown as soon as they can manage.

Last night I saw a comment (sorry, don't remember by who and can't find again to give attribution) about how now the stories saying "The Democrats won--that's terrible news for the Democrats" would start. This morning...(continued on next comment)

Going to drop this information about the Hatch Act here, just in case it's useful to anyone. osc.gov/Services/Pag...

One point to consider in the leucovorin as autism treatment discussion: Leucovorin is a critical drug for use as a rescue medication after high dose methotrexate. Without it, patients needing HDMTX are not going to be able to receive needed chemotherapy and are going to be more likely to die.

I've been writing my senators about various and sundry issues, including RFK, the shutdown, and the office of government waste and cronyism. One senator has responded, at length, with statements about what he did to support unions, health care, etc--under Biden. 1/2

I know we've got a lot of people who need to be removed from office for corruption and/or incompetence, but can we make Bill Pulte one of them? His persecution of James is just embarrassing and pathetic. It isn't even grand evil, just petty corruption gone extreme.

Kirk said that people being shot was the price of "freedom" (aka the second amendment.) So if he could say anything about his own assassination, either it would be "well, that's obnoxious, but I knew the risks" or he meant to freeload on someone else's paying the price.

Stating the obvious, but antifa=antifascist. Trump is saying that the opposes people who are against fascism. Couldn't get a clearer statement of his governing position.

So where are the "radical free speech" advocates and why aren't they livid about the people who have been fired for saying things like that Kirk considered an increased risk of homicide an acceptable consequence of the second amendment?

@tkingfisher.com has a thread going about good things that have happened in the past decade or so. A lot of people mentioned things like "modern cancer treatment kicked my tumor out the door." This is great and I agree that if you must get cancer, it's better to get it than 10 years ago. However.

Okay, I know everyone is upset that some random guy who is well known on the internet got shot, but can we go back to talking about NATO airspace being invaded? Because that's a much bigger concern to me.

Quoth George Tidmarsh, Trump appointee and defender of Jay Bhattacharya's disinformation campaign: "I don't have a political bone in my body." Note that he said this shortly after bragging about helping Bhattacharya spread disinformation.

Q: What's the worst thing about today's mass shooting? A: Which one? Per the Gun Violence Archive, there have been 253 mass shootings* this year. We're only 210 days into the year. *Four or more people shot.

The fastest drug approvals in the US in modern times that I have found were for imatinib and blinatumumab. Imatinib is the first BCR-ABL inhibiting drug, which took chronic myeloid leukemia from a death sentence in 3-4 years to an annoyance for which lifelong medication is needed.

Decided I'd watch the FDA roundtable on SSRIs in pregnancy until the first statement that I knew to be BS was made. I didn't make it through the introduction.

That moment when you realize that you're considering looking for a job with a drug company because you want a more ethical employer than your current one.

The US government is insisting so hard that the attacks on Iran were entirely "successful" that I'm starting to wonder if they missed the target altogether.

Israel's defense minister said that Iran's leader "can no longer be allowed to exist" after Iran attacked a hospital in Israel. I don't disagree, but given the number of hospitals Israel has targeted with missiles and/or direct invasions, what does that say about Netanyahu?

I noticed that the Big Story about the protests in LA is about how some of the protestors (gasp!) carried Mexican flags. This tells me that the protestors are remarkably peaceful, because if they'd dumped out a trash container or something that would be the story, not the flags.

Okay, this Makary saying that we should replace insulin with cooking classes for diabetics. There's the obvious problems with this statement: that, if enacted, it would kill a bunch of people, including basically all type I diabetics.

As far as I can figure out, the timeline goes like this: 1. Protest held in Columbia library (no evidence that they were violent or even loud, that I have seen so far.) 2. Police and/or campus security are sent. 3. Police demand that everyone leave. 1/n www.columbiaspectator.com/news/2025/05...

I'm at the AACR virtually this week. My conclusions so far: 1. There's a lot of really neat stuff going on, but most of it is still in the pre-clinical concept stage. No really major new gains since CART have been proven yet. 2. This is a really, really terrible time to defund medical research.

If anyone is interested in commenting on the proposed rule for "Improving performance, accountability, and responsiveness in the civil service" aka schedule F, the direct link to it is here: www.regulations.gov/document/OPM...

“Department of Government Efficiency.”

Something to remember about "reshoring" of factories: factory jobs are boring, dangerous, and frequently underpaid. The only reason that they were ever "good" jobs is because of unions. Which the Republicans have spent decades trying to destroy.

Just to be clear, I'm not downplaying the horror of addiction--opiates, alcohol, or others. It's terrible, extremely hard to climb out of, and ruins lives. But refusing to give opiates to people who just had surgery is not going to solve anything. Treatment and improving lives in general will. 5

It won't solve the problem, but it'll help. Then we can work on figuring out what's safe and necessary to control pain for each individual and actually solve this part of the drug problem. Which is, of course, the Republicans' worst nightmare. No drug crisis to get people excited about. 4

I also hated percocet and had so little high from it that a friend now suspects me of being a mutant who has only peripheral opiate receptors. But my weirdness aside, people tend to get addicted when their lives are bad. Less poverty will lead to less addiction. 3

The same is true of alcohol. Most people don't get addicted from one drink. A few do. This is not a reason to illegalize alcohol. Anecdote alert: I hated both alcohol from the first time I tried it to the time when I gave up trying to be normal and like it. 2

No, you don't get addicted by taking morphine after surgery. Short term exposure is highly unlikely to addict anyone who is not at high risk due to genetic and/or environmental factors that lead to vulnerability. I am in favor of identifying who is vulnerable and using caution when treating them. 1

Not a decision to be made when tired. I'll reconsider in the morning and probably a few more mornings and then make a decision. Subject to revision until...when? Until something breaks one way or another. 4/4