I keep thinking about that Compact article because I am so frustrated by its baseline premise, which is 'you should be able to get the job you want in the field you want' - a thing that all the groups being accused of succeeding unfairly (women, scholars of color etc) have known FOREVER is a fantasy

Ken Paxton has launched a snitch line to gather reports of supposed violations of Texas' transphobic bathroom policing law. Please do not abuse this snitch line. Please do not fill it with faff and nonsense. Please do not attach huge, unwieldy and irrelevant documentation to any reports.

🤩 www.bostonglobe.com/2025/12/17/m...

The main thing I have had hammered home by the past ten years in politics is that we really need pretty much every government office to be run by boring and anonymous nerds who you will never once hear about in the news

People who fall in love or friendship with AI chatbots are much like people who want AI robots in the kitchen betraying the reality that their ideal domestic, romantic and social relationships follow a model of service use rather than inter-relational connection to other minds.

There is no version of a sane reality where a government should be considering “what if we took access to healthcare from a group of people” as opposed to, like, voting on stuff that would provide MORE care and MORE opportunities for ALL of its citizens

Are these the same companies that told us the robot could do it?

Yep. Mark Kelly, who expects us to have his back vs Trump and Hegseth, and who absolutely will NOT stop sending texts asking for $$$, says your trans family members can go fuck themselves.

there is really no difference between the current administration and having the country run by david duke

good morning holy shit www.nytimes.com/2025/12/16/u...

As a person who has been studying extreme far right ideologies for the last decade (and did a PhD on immigration) I find the entrance of “remigration” into the mainstream American political lexicon so profoundly disturbing

you do not have the unalienable right to the pursuit of happiness if you live in a country that keeps you in a constant state of fear

AS A PROFESSOR, I AM ASKING HOW ARE OUR STUDENTS SUPPOSED TO LEARN IN THESE CONDITIONS? HOW ARE THEY SUPPOSED TO GO TO SCHOOL AND TAKE EXAMS KNOWING SOMEONE MIGHT JUST SHOW UP WITH AN EASY TO ACQUIRE AUTOMATIC WEAPON? HOW??????????

People who argue "who cares it's just for kids" all I can say is fuck right off. Kids deserve thoughtful, well-made movies that challenge them just as much as adults do. Kids aren't stupid, and they remember how movies affect them basically forever.

Each semester I go in my classroom and I try to figure out what we would use to block the doors, if it would be safe to crawl out the windows, where we could hide if there was a mass shooter in campus. It’s such an indictment of this country how we have normalized these preventable tragedies.

Two victims of previous school shootings — Mia Tretta, who was shot in the stomach in 2019 at Saugus High School, and Zoe Weissman, who survived the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School — are now at Brown. Gun violence is out of control in this country.

this fact is the definitive judgment on kirk's life

To give you a sense of how big a departure this year, the government doesn't do this for wanted criminals.

pov: they asked what my research was about

MAGAZINER: How many veterans have you deported? NOEM: We haven't deported veterans MAGAZINER: We are now joined on Zoom by a combat veteran you deported to Korea

we all got cowed into avoiding "virtue signaling" as if the public affirmation of socially agreed upon ethical principles was somehow cringey instead of a significant part of what a "society" even is. now all there's left is vice signaling, and it's reshaping society.

The titular wokeness being rolled back is the Civil Rights Act of 1964

Requiring foreign visitors to hand over 5 years of social media isn’t “security,” it’s unchecked government control. All-seeing surveillance systems don’t make us safer. They are in direct opposition to our civil liberties. www.nbcnews.com/politics/tru...

Now that the semester is over, I need y’all to know that I will be existing beyond the human conception of time.

This is something I and my fellow hyper literate types have a really hard time grasping. It’s frustrating to think you’re being really clear in writing, but still get wildly misunderstood because you’ve overestimated people’s literacy level. This is…a real problem online.

Heartbreaking. The University of Nebraska will terminate its entire Earth science department. One of the country's most successful and respected geology & climate programs: gone. When ideologues & politicians are threatened by the very act of studying climate change, I wonder: who of us is next?

There has been no debate here among constitutional scholars, historians, political scientists, anyone with a pulse really. Any telling you that this very straightforward point, one that has been universally accepted for a century and a half, is now an "abstruse" issue is just a liar and a hack.

More of this nationwide please!

"The democrats need to be open to people who experience hardship and the people who cause it."

The White House’s insistence on using Sabrina Carpenter’s work and image to promote their crimes against humanity is also them appealing to their base, which already uses technology to try and humiliate and puppeteer the likenesses of women who have autonomy, success, and visibility in public

You aren’t going to believe this. But there’s an important distinction between detaining someone as a law enforcement action in an interdiction and summarily killing them.

The USPS posting a NINE BILLION DOLLAR LOSS!!! sounds terrible. Certainly worse than if you said "USPS costs thirty dollars per person per year" even though that means the same thing and more accurately describes a government service

I cannot imagine the level of moral bankruptcy to describe the actions of people whose boat has just been hit by a missile from nowhere (this was the FIRST such strike) and who were most likely making a desperate attempt not to drown in the ocean as trying to "stay in the fight."

The easiest thing for Democrats to do would be to stop confirming Trump judges, but they can’t even be bothered to do that. Just failure all the way down. I really hate these people.

That's the part that sticks with me. This isn't some Tom Clancy novel where they do war crimes because it's the only way they can get at the evil terrorist criminal mastermind or something. Even if we believe them -- and, ha ha, no! -- they murdered low level drug runners. That's it!

Simply amazing that the Supreme Court declared an end to legal race discrimination in the affirmative action case two years ago and now allows overt racism in both immigration arrests and redistricting. Using race to help minorities? Bad. Using it to discriminate against them? Very, very good.

there will be no more cursed job by 2060 than early to mid 21st century historian

certainly a sandwhich from the deli will help me brave the day. extra pepperoncinis too of course

You never want to hit someone with the nuclear "As stated previously" in an email but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do

Hegseth and his ilk are why it was dumb for Democratic senators to vote for any of his nominees. Rubio joined the Cabinet without A SINGLE DISSENTING VOTE

interesting to see her leaning on the argument that pro-palestinian voices are unfamiliar with the relevant history, as if any amount of historical context could justify what's happening in palestine

In a world awash with negative science/health news this is unashamedly great news. connectsci.au/news/news-pa...

"the issue isn’t that we need more 'boy-friendly' reforms. It’s that boys are socialized to compete only with boys and to read girls’ success as illegitimate or emasculating. The result is dissonance, resentment, and disengagement for boys—and hostile climates for girls." time.com/7335723/auto...

“The math is brutal and the juxtaposition stark: millions for OpenAI while pink slips go out to longtime lecturers. The CSU isn’t investing in education—it’s outsourcing it, paying premium prices for a chatbot many students were already using for free.“ www.currentaffairs.org/news/ai-is-d...

ProPublica found more than two dozen cases of immigration agents using "less lethal" weapons in ways that appear to flout the government's own rules, including by aiming at someone’s head, spine or groin or deploying chemical agents near children. Read the full story: propub.li/44HU4Tp

Seems like a good time to drop this here www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/a-complete...

Texas Tech has decided it wants to be a football program affiliated with something equivalent to an air conditioning repair school