A conditional acceptance at a top journal for a paper that took years to finish is an excellent Christmas present.

Nearly $50k on balloons during this year’s football season at UNC. I know there are different pots of $ on a campus, but this is hard to take when academic units are being asked to make various cuts in the name of austerity.

A smarter model for paying for college: income-based repayment. You start paying your student loans only once you earn enough to comfortably get by. That turns higher ed debt into something more like a tax surcharge on success, not a choke collar on people who are struggling.

Texas A&M University will not reinstate a lecturer who was fired after a video of her teaching about gender identity in a children’s literature class went viral, despite a faculty appeals panel unanimously concluding that her dismissal was not justified.

A step in the right direction.

My family gets me.

Merry Christmas from LEGO Karen and her family!

On Christmas Eve, LEGO Karen’s family gathers around to hear “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas.”

When people make such a big deal calling out the dehumanizing language that is used towards immigrants, this is why: that language lets people do terrible things to other humans. www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

A legend indeed

I love that he's explaining the housing crisis from the landlord perspective

Evidence, facts, research, data…these things are irrelevant when racism is what fuels your very being.

See also:

Mmmhmm

Rapid Response Data Briefing: Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS) Join us to learn: 🔵 What's in PRAMS 🔵 Why it's important 🔵 The risks facing its continued collection and publication 🔵 How you can help support this essential data resource Register: us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

People are angry, and that anger is real. But MAHA redirects it away from the structural forces that create this crisis towards conspiracy and scapegoating.

Study of over twenty five million people over almost four years finds that COVID vaccines reduced COVID deaths by 74% and increased all-cause deaths by zero. I don’t know how much clearer it can get than that. jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

In 2026, Fortune 500 companies will have 54 women CEOs, one less than in June. Since it is no longer extraordinary for women to be in positions of leadership, companies are deprioritizing training programs and workplace supports to keep women in the pipeline. fortune.com/2025/12/23/w...

"Good blue collar jobs" were only good because there were unions. It wasn't the jobs. It was the UNIONS - and safe(r) working conditions, job security & clear trajectories for advancement, pensions, health care, and decent pay.

On DOGE’s watch, federal spending did not go down at all. It went up. But is still led to cuts that closed offices, canceled programs and deprived people of food, medicine and other aid. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/23/u...

Women in 2025:

I finally got some time to flesh out my rant about these headlines... TL;DR: age differences ≠ aging jenndowd.substack.com/p/does-adole... #demography #episky #medsky #neurosky

Visits from out of town family is the best part of the holidays! Or maybe not… #legokaren

“Our aim is to lower tenure density so that we can hire lecturers for classes that students need in high-demand programs.”

We at ProPublica obtained internal government data in May that showed the Trump administration knew the vast majority of Venezuelans sent to El Salvador had not been convicted of violent crimes. Our reporting is featured in Frontline. Read our full coverage: www.propublica.org/series/depor...

“According to a report by the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), minority-serving institution (MSI) programs are unlawful because they award money to colleges and universities based on the percentage of students of a certain race.”

"the researchers found that withdrawing support for rapidly advancing mRNA vaccine technology could result in over 49,000 preventable deaths annually among patients diagnosed with four major cancers"

Tracking parenting leave policies in Europe over five decades The European Parenting Leave Policies (EPLP) Dataset provides harmonised data on maternity, co-parent, paid parental, and job-protected leave regulations across 21 European countries from 1970 to 2024. eplp-dataset.org

This is what is filling the vacuum in hostile states - because they are the ones with the funding. As we prepare for 2026, won’t you consider a donation to make sure ACTUAL comprehensive sexual and maternal health remains an option? wawchealth.com/donate/

1/ Just weeks after a Democrat was elected governor of NC in 2024 by an overwhelming margin, the state’s GOP-controlled legislature set out to strip him of powers. What happened next illuminates the breakdown in the separation of powers throughout the nation. THREAD 👇 tinyurl.com/y3v6np59

ICYMI: our congressional briefing on U.S. Birth Rate Trends: Patterns, Drivers, and Implications for U.S. Families - summary, slides and recording now online!

Who’s up for some reindeer games? #legokaren

The USAID cuts will go down in history as one of the cruelest, most anti-humanitarian actions to ever occur. And as Vance declares the US a “Christian nation,” it’s worth pointing out that failing to help those who need it is a profoundly anti-Christian behavior.

New, at Can We Still Govern? Poverty is not some insurmountable problem, we can fix it. A group of National Academies of Science researchers review the temporary expansion of the Child Tax Credit during the pandemic, showing it cut child poverty in half. 🧵 donmoynihan.substack.com/p/what-have-...

McGill is hiring scholars from outside Canada! The Canada Impact+ Research Chairs (Impact+) Program is designed to attract world-leading researchers whose work addresses critical national and global challenges. Review of applications begins 1/16/26. www.mcgill.ca/research/res...

Now seems like a swell time to point out that Frontline just released this excellent 11-minute mini-documentary about what happened inside CECOT.

In approx 74% of school shooting incidents, the firearm was obtained from the shooter’s home or the home of a close friend or fam member* Safe&secure gun storage—unloaded&locked up—saves lives. Spread the word: Firearm violence prevention is everyone's job 🛟🧪 * publichealth.jhu.edu/sites/defaul...

I am not one to talk about other people’s marriages, but how can his wife, who is not Christian, handle knowing her husband fundamentally considers her unfit to be an American?

Time and again in Alabama, immigrants face harsher punishments for the same crimes as citizens, even when they have fewer prior convictions, a ProPublica review of more than 100 court cases found. By @amyyurkanin.bsky.social

“‘My most daring idea is to refuse,’ she said to applause.”

This admin can’t even implement its bad ideas correctly: “[Donors who put money into a Trump Account] may be required to fill out a little-used gift tax form that can take hours to complete and can only be filed by mail.”

This follows him having purchased a housing complex some years ago, to provide housing for young, single, mothers. He then donated it to the YWCA. If put your money where your mouth is was a person...

After a busy day of Christmas shopping, LEGO Karen has earned some treats from the chocolate shop.

Why decline all these chances to defend feminism? Because to participate would be accepting the premise that our rights and humanity are up for debate in the first place. Once you’ve conceded that it’s reasonable to ask whether women’s equality was a mistake, you’ve already lost.

This piece makes important points, one of which, “where are young people supposed to live between their parents’ house & their own family home?” Having your own place is a key part of the path to forming serious coresidential relationships. Dating is hard when you live with your parents.

Tenure-track Assistant Professor at Trinity College Dublin Call for applications for the position of Assistant Professor in Sociology, commencing on 3 August 2026. Application deadline: 26 January 2026 www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DPW155/a...

“…as a parent, my job is to set my child up for success.” Young adults often feel like they can barely keep their own heads above water given high housing costs, student loan debt, & other expenses. They put off having kids if they feel they couldn’t give kids at least a shot at a good life.

It’s the entire point. There’s no plan to make this meaningful for students. No plan to use it administratively. Its design and implementation signals its only real intent. It’s best and easiest use case is for systematic harassment and to scare faculty into complying in advance.