About Jared #Polis and #RFK Jr. ⚕️ 🧪 🧵

From comments on a years-ago Facebook conversation: "Well, okay, I used to be #Chekhov, and on my good days I still am. But I can feel myself turning into #Bester." The transition is just about complete now.

"I was too smart to enlist and they didn't want me as an officer because I raise too much hell." "Officially, there's no record of my service." "I'd've punched out the DI the first time he got in my face." Did I miss any?

I do so love it when someone tells me to "read a basic textbook" in a field where I've not only read basic textbooks, but some advanced ones as well—and as it happens, that I'm getting paid to work on *right now*. Well no, I don't love it, but it does at least provide some brief amusement.

RFKjr gave orders to Dr. Susan Monarez for her not to speak to US Senators. He put a gag order on the senate-confirmed CDC director. Scream this story from every rooftop. Impeach and remove RFKjr.

The leading cause of death in the United States is the Republican Party. 🧪 ⚕️ #medsky

Okay, we're clearly at the beginning of a movie. Now, is this a wacky comedy with incompetent gangsters who take ever-more-ridiculous pratfalls in a futile attempt to recover their loot, or a gritty thriller where the viewpoint characters are in way over their heads? Help me figure it out ... fast.

"I am humorously pretending not to understand context so I can deliberately misinterpret your statement! Look at me! I am very clever!" Whoever first said puns are the lowest form of humor might have had a different opinion if they'd lived to see the internet.

31,000 followers? Thank you! You're all quite daft, but thank you anyway. As long as you're here, buy some books, too. Please.😜

I'm still going to try to keep from posting about politics in general, but I'll make an exception for matters of medicine and public health. Not only is it of course a subject near and dear to my heart, in the big picture it may be the most vital issue of our time, and of any time. 🧪 ⚕️ #medsky 🧵

Continue Charlie’s work, huh?

When a right-wing man murdered Democratic lawmakers in Minnesota, progressives asked MAGA to tone down the rhetoric to prevent more violence. Within hours of Kirk’s murder, motive still unknown, the right is demanding that the government wage a campaign of violence against their enemies.

I mean the worry isn’t that this is the tipping point for general violence, the worry is that this is the justification for state violence given the target. Minnesota was never going to be anything because it was one of their guys. It’s all asymmetrical.

You know, tomorrow is definitely going to be the second weirdest 9/11 of our lives

Okay, I lied: now would be a great time to listen to some Small Faces.

Live by the sword, die by the sword. And that's all I'm going to say about that.

Because I talk a lot about #writing on Facebook, I get a bunch of book ads on my feed. 🧵 ✍️ 🚀

This subject comes up fairly often, so I'm putting my mini-essay here as an easy reference. Feel free to share, or copy and paste with attribution, as you see fit. Comments, suggestions, and corrections are welcome. 🦖 🧪 🚀 ✍️ 🧵

This is how "intellectual" #creationists and #antivaxers sound to #biologists, BTW. 🧪

Not posted for agreement, if you share from my post please leave my commentary intact, terms and conditions apply, see your local grumpy scientist for details ... This type of so-called #humor is shit. 🧵

After making a #vampire joke elsenet, I suddenly thought of a portmanteau I can't get out of my head: "#hempire." This is, of course, the word used to describe a giant chain of #dispensaries owned by a bloodsucking creature of the night.

Traditionally, rabbits *are* the experts.

"Colorado governor cuts spending on Medicaid, higher education and grants to plug $750M hole in state budget" Or, yannow, we could have had a special election to repeal #TABOR. I've been sick of #Polis' shit for a while, but I'm pretty disappointed in the #legislature too.

You can still get useful health information from some US government websites, if you know what you're looking for. Here's an example, which I'll explain. 🧪 ⚕️ #medsky

I guess they should have used better priors.

Sometimes I realize a lot of people I think of as being generally on my side, and vice versa, inhabit an entirely different moral universe than I do. Really I've known this for a long time. Getting smacked in the face with it is still weird. #nocontextforyou

A big part of the problem, which I don't see acknowledged very often, is that #writers who create #antiheroes generally know exactly what they're doing. ✍️ 🧵

A story in two parts. 🧪 ⚕️ 🧵

TIL that back in July, I got a $12.85 royalty check. That's for about a year's worth of sales. ✍️ 🚀 🧵

I think a lot of people find it comforting, in a weird way, to believe that They™ are deliberately, calculatingly reducing the world's population. Chemtrails, poisonous vaccines, all that. 🧵

If you think having a degree makes you a better person than people who don’t have a degree, fuck you. If you think not having a degree makes you a better person than people who do have a degree, fuck you. Both of these attitudes are shit. One is currently a much bigger problem than the other.

"Mediocrity" is far too kind, but yes, all of this. I'll add that while Hegseth's plans are terrible for a military which is expected to defend the nation, they're not bad for a military intended to be used *against* the nation. And I'm quite sure that's what he has in his sad excuse for a mind.

Every time I think the vastly misnamed Republicans can't get any lower, they have to go and prove me wrong. 🧵

If we survive this, there will need to be Nuremberg trials. We cannot forget and must not forgive. 🧪 ⚕️ ⚖️

Making the impossible look effortless is the mark of a great writer. I guess I’m just a good writer. Well, I’m all right. ✍️ 🚀

"It's only pedantry if you're right. Otherwise it's just sparkling fuckheadedness."

We've been hearing announcements about possible artificial blood for as long as I've been in medicine and research (30+ years at this point) and none of them have ever panned out. Sooner or later, presumably, one of them will—and if this turns out to it, great. But I'm not holding my breath. ⚕️🧪

For anyone invested in the "wyvern vs. dragon" argument, here is a medieval painting of St. George and the dragon. I will not be taking further questions at this time.

Not posted for agreement, if you share from my post please leave my commentary intact, etc. This came up in a fantasy and science fiction writing group on Facebook. I disagree with it, but it's a worthy topic for discussion. 🚀 ✍️ 🧵

I understand that when it's time to pay up, he can be a real bastard.

When I am dictator, everyone who makes a claim "according to scientific studies," or similar phrasing, will have one hour to produce their citations. Those who fail to do so will be used as study subjects for whatever comes up. 🧪

No matter who you are, or what else you have to say, if you refer to one of two major US political parties as the "Democrat Party," you're a shmuck and I really don't care about your opinion. There are no exceptions to this rule.

This is very well done, like the rest of the Dinosauria episodes. Great animation, impeccable paleontology—or history of paleontology, in this case—and a story about predator-prey conflict that doesn't end the way you expect. I recommend the entire series. 🦖 🦕 🧪 (via @arctomet.bsky.social)

A story in three parts.

Send innocent immigrants to concentration camps. Let mass murderers off the hook. Par for the course. 🧪⚕️⚖️

Rick Astley and Trent Reznor must never be allowed to meet. If they do, they'll mutually annihilate in a shower of gamma rays that could wipe out all life on Earth.

"Of course I don't want German and Japanese forces to draw an occupation dividing line through Denver, but FDR just doesn't seem like he really wants to *earn* my support, you know?" (via @spladayum.bsky.social )

Brought out from a discussion elsenet: would Earth now be warm enough to support large, non-avian dinosaurs today? This is a fair question, because as bad as global warming is—and it's going to get worse—we're still nowhere near the hottest times of the Mesozoic. 🧪 🦖 🧵

The dream that never quite dies. 🧪 🦕

When I criticize religious fanaticism, I am not criticizing all religion, or all religious believers. If this concept makes you uncomfortable, think really hard about why, and what you might be able to do about that. Protip: whining in the comments on atheists' posts isn't it.