The thing regular people don’t often grasp about ‘academic freedom’ is that if you don’t allow experts to research & teach in their fields of expertise, guided by their professional judgment & decades of training, you have effectively given up on the concept of knowledge & shut down your university

When I taught Natural Resource Policy (not in TX), students learned about the Antiquities Act and the range of national monuments it honors. I would mention that the Stonewall Inn is a nat'l monument, where the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement began. Sounds like I'd get fired for teaching that in TX.

This latest "emergency" ruling - in a Friday nite news dump no different from what politicos do - is a doozy for a host of reasons, not least b/c of how stunningly clueless the majority somehow remains about both public & elite view of their work, obvi on the left & increasingly even on the right. 🧵

I often say that conservatives want to repeal the various Civil Rights Act but it’s probably more accurate to say they want to overturn the Reconstruction amendments.

Military service is about courage and sacrifice. That’s what my father, a Marine, and my mother, a Navy veteran, taught me. But awarding medals for the massacre at Wounded Knee is cruelty, not honor. And reaffirming them today only deepens the injustice. (1/2🧵)

Here's my new Cato post on Trump's executive order declaring a broad law enforcement crackdown on a range of speech and political activity by his opponents, much of it plainly protected by the First Amendment, on the pretext that it promotes, incites, or justifies violence. @cato.org /1

“The New York State Department of Health is investigating a possible locally acquired case of chikungunya virus,” a department spokeswoman, Danielle De Souza, said in a statement. “No locally acquired cases have ever been reported in New York State, and the risk to the public remains very low.”

Michi-gator! 🐊 www.woodtv.com/news/michiga...

A 2023 Supreme Court ruling (Sackett v. EPA) narrowed the definition of “waters of the United States.” A new study from @illinoisnres.bsky.social and PRI finds that about 72% of Illinois wetlands may no longer be federally protected.

Great article about the success of creating a culture of conversation in the Maine lobster industry - the regulations were critical, but equally so was the willingness of the the lobstering community to embrace a long view.

I'll share anything mentioning Elinor Ostrom. She's such a fantastic, original thinker and her work on resource management and governance deserves to be much more widely known.

A judge ruled the firing of thousands of federal employees was illegal. But he stopped short of ordering the government to reinstate them, predicting the Supreme Court would overturn it.

Insightful essay on the essential role of shame 👇. Another example: anthropologist Jim Acheson studied Maine's "lobster gangs." Shame is a big driver in maintaining the norms around lobster harvests. This influenced Elinor Ostrom's work on collaborative governance more broadly. More here:

I get that the news cycle is packed right now, but I just heard from a colleague at the Smithsonian that this is fully a GIANT SQUID BEING EATEN BY A SPERM WHALE and it’s possibly the first ever confirmed video according to a friend at NOAA 10 YEAR OLD ME IS LOSING HER MIND (a thread 🧵)

New faculty position in the University of Illinois Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences for an assistant or associate professor of agroecology: illinois.csod.com/ux/ats/caree.... Position closes October 31st. Happy to answer questions about the dept / university / town.

Insightful essay on the essential role of shame 👇. Another example: anthropologist Jim Acheson studied Maine's "lobster gangs." Shame is a big driver in maintaining the norms around lobster harvests. This influenced Elinor Ostrom's work on collaborative governance more broadly. More here:

I keep thinking about this. This idea of elites being polite to each other as the key to having a liberal society - as opposed to making patently illiberal things socially unacceptable - would seem to provide some continuity linking Ezra Kline’s conduct and Cass Sunstein’s interview.

Our energy future could include things like this, if we decide we want to innovate instead of backslide: www.latimes.com/environment/...

University presidents, take note

Hello, #AcademicSky! We are the Centre for Logic and Philosophy of Science (CLPS) at KU Leuven. Our senior and junior researchers focus on #logic, #epistemology & #philsci. We’re here to share our work and connect with logicians and philosophers of science worldwide—help us spread the word! #philsky

#1993AlbumsTop20 #MusicChallenge 11. CURE FOR PAIN, Morphine A lot of bands from '93 haven't aged particularly well, but Morphine still sounds cool. as. hell. The laid back, baritone vocals (RIP Mark Sandman). The freakin' saxophone. 🎶 "Buena": youtu.be/EthwxA_2lFQ?...

Trump is rescinding road safety grants all over the country, in blue states and red ones. The reason: those projects are "hostile" to cars. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

On Sunday, Chicago hosted an organised swim in the Chicago River - once so polluted it was 'untouchable', decades of environmental protections brought the river back to life - now those protections are in peril. share.google/MlGYSEx4kSv2...

"The United States is less democratic, less self-governing, more dysfunctional, and more corrupt than it was 20 years ago, thanks in large part to the Supreme Court’s rulings." newrepublic.com/article/1997...

Thrive: Cash aid for moms and babies is expanding in Michigan Leaders of Rx Kids, which offers $1,500 mid-pregnancy and then $500 a month up to a year of the baby's life in certain Michigan communities, released two research papers this month evaluating how the program affects economic stability,…

Researchers documented 95 large whales entangled in fishing gear in the United States in 2024. That’s an increase from 2023 and higher than the historical average, according to a new report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

70 years ago today, (Sept 22, 1955) a General Electric scientist warned about carbon dioxide build-up. C02 “may be having a greenhouse effect on our climate” because mankind is “contaminating the earth’s atmosphere faster than nature can clean it.” allouryesterdays.info/2025/09/22/7...

Good to be welcomed into a huge community remembering her today. (That tee shirt! ✊🏻☮️❤️)

That's right. What's more alarming is ~97% of the current highway storm drains in the United States were designed using rainfall information that was published in *1961* using 1930s-1950s data. We're using infrastructure built for the rainfall of nearly a century ago. engrxiv.org/preprint/vie....

Powerful essay on why we need art in times like this 👇.

Future Nobel Prize winner Elinor Ostrom and her husband Vincent invited ecologist Garrett Hardin to their Bloomington, Indiana house for dinner. Elinor made Hamburger Helper.

One irony of this post, in which Trump complains about being impeached over nothing, is that the post itself, demanding prosecution of his political enemies, is impeachable.

Future Nobel Prize winner Elinor Ostrom and her husband Vincent invited ecologist Garrett Hardin to their Bloomington, Indiana house for dinner. Elinor made Hamburger Helper.

Informative article on FEMA's current state. "But mitigation is what makes future recovery cheaper and keeps insurance markets stable. Operating without HMGP in disaster recovery leaves states on their own to future-proof against extreme weather, even as disasters create unique windows to adapt."

We're just now at the point where there are enough data points to be able to draw some clear conclusions about the administration's changes within FEMA. This is a well-written analysis doing just that, and... it's bad. carnegieendowment.org/emissary/202...

Why is this horrible for Universities? Just about everyone who isn't a citizen or green card holder already who's hired for a tenure track faculty position is hired through an H1B and then, after 3-5 years, applies for a green card. This is literally "No more foreign professors can be hired"

Critical part of the President's new $100,000 charge for H1-B visas: The Administration can also offer a $100,000 discount to any person, company, or industry that it wants. Replacing rules with arbitrary discretion. Want visas? You know who to call and who to flatter.

Brian Klaas: “The United States is now a competitive authoritarian system”

now even more than ever, North American tech conferences need to start making plans to be split across multiple sites, one in the US for people that can't leave, and one outside the US for people who can't enter. Simulcast between the two locations.

RIP U.S. innovation. Between gutting the H-1B program, purging US scientists from civil service, slashing research grants, and disappearing international students off the streets, our government has made a conscious decision to kill America's roll as a global leader in science and innovation.

I'm scheduling my appointment.

I like this. Since under RFK Jr, Covid shots are now for people with underlying conditions that put them at risk, Michigan’s chief medical executive Dr. Natasha Bagdasarian states that not having the most recent Covid shot constitutes such an underlying condition. www.michigan.gov/mdhhs/inside...

Austerity measures all over the place but the university has $50 million for… whatever this is

I find myself thinking about historian Robert Paxton’s 2004 definition of fascism far too often than I’d like these days. Note that these sentences were written back when Donald Trump was a NYC playboy libertine who donated to Democrats.

New stuff, from me.

🚨 New from Sabin Center Senior Non-Resident Fellow Ilmi Granoff, a blog on the importance of climate solutions investing and the special role that banks, in particular, can play in enabling climate solutions with their financing: blogs.law.columbia.edu/climatechang...

Last year, the Supreme Court ruled that government officials can't use legal coercion as a way to punish or suppress speech. The decision was unanimous. What Trump and Carr did broke the law and violated the First Amendment rights of multiple parties.