More of how trump is destroying the USA www.chronicle.com/article/why-...

Gets my vote. www.dailykos.com/stories/2026...

No joke: I got angry hate mail today for writing an obituary of a Black woman scientist—because the person felt she did didn’t deserve the recognition. Which just makes me want to share it again: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Happy 13th birthday to the most essential artwork of the current era, @kcg.bsky.social ‘s “This is fine,” to all those who celebrate.

Make it viral.

I made it a meme.

This was the beginning of the end www.scotusblog.com/2026/01/25-y...

Some 20+ years ago my I was at Niagara Falls with my wife and in the gift shop I'm almost run down by a blond woman doing a shuffle run calling out to her husband. That voice was so distinct... it was Victoria Jackson.

if conservative sociopaths can override faculty governance and professional expertise, you aren't running a university you are running a propaganda factory

No one says to legit business owners, "hey I see there's an underground market selling toxic knock-offs of your product: how will you incorporate the toxic product AND protect your customers against its harms?" But apparently it's fine to make this suggestion to educators with respect to AI.

NEW: A variety of military and intelligence contractors have already signed on to help ICE's immigrant bounty hunter program. A review of procurement data shows 10 companies stand to make up to *ONE BILLION* dollars from the program by 2027. theintercept.com/2025/12/23/i...

So we all know trump knocked down the East Wing, put up partisan plaques, had his name added to two buildings. What I'd like to know is: what companies are doing this work for him? What construction company said "sure" to knocking it down? What company made those plaques?

You’ve been kidnapped. The characters from the last TV show you watched are trying to rescue you. Who’s coming to save you? Well, it'll be fun with lots of errors, but ultimately successful.

www.smbc-comics.com/comic/nerd-f... I'm in the camp that says the only things in the quote marks are the text being quoted. My punctuation isn't part of the quote!

OK, found the (academically) scariest pumpkin carving ever!

A "random" smattering: aerobics, doobie, ego trip, flower power, group home, heliosphere, ibuprofen, lunar module, midi, omega-3, Peter Principle, RV, spaghetti western, tachyon, word processing, wet bar, yada yada, zonked-out

Name a non LOTR character who could resist the one ring.

“This has been the playbook all along — to issue things that I suspect the administration knows will be overturned by a court, but it doesn’t matter, because issuing it in the first place has the intended chilling effect,” added Gellman-Beer www.chronicle.com/article/coll...

@bot.astronomy.blue signup

So the Chronicle of Higher Ed is musing about why unis are "powerless" in their fight with trump and fall back on "they are decentralized" and "they just aren't used to fights". No. It's because we have an administration that is actively *breaking* *the* *law* to try to make unis accept fascism.

We shouldn't make sure gun-carrying, citizen-killing cops aren't going to continue harming POC, but let's make sure we put consent decrees on colleges where nobody actually got hurt because the admin doesn't like protests. UGH!

For all my next gen friends: thisisindexed.com/2025/05/agai...

Just slashing science. They say this will allow more focus on science and less on administrative costs, but that's a lie. Because we'll now have to spend time and effort calculating percentages of larger costs into our proposals as direct costs. www.chronicle.com/article/trum...

Paging Mr. Orwell... www.nsf.gov/updates-on-p...

Watching the '73 Jesus Christ: Superstar and have to admit I never realized Herod (one of the best numbers) is the son of the late, great, Zero Mostel!

Hmmmm www.smbc-comics.com/comic/wellllll

Best take so far.

Found 5 of my papers here. I suspect Elsevier will be going after them...?

What MAGA mob meant when they said they were voting on "the economy" www.smbc-comics.com/comic/ivy-le...

New genealogy result, which seems apropos these days: I'm a 7th cousin twice removed from Winston Churchill (i.e. he and my grandmother were 7th cousins. www.azquotes.com/quote/789714

I mean, it pretty much is just one time zone... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_in...

In doing my genealogy hobby I have discovered that my 11G-grandfather was William Bradford, first signer of the Mayflower Compact and second governor of Plymouth Colony.