Today's superb owls are far, far more interesting than the world's longest gambling ad interrupted by punts.

Curling is the only Winter Olympic sport I can watch and think, "I could do that." (Alas, it's harder than it looks.)

"This is the hard truth I want to land: climate does not care what’s trending. It’s not interested in Jeffrey Epstein, Gaza, or Greenland. There is no algorithmic mercy. Physics is physics, and it is getting more abrupt." #climatecrisis #ElNino #auspol www.lyrebirddreaming.com/post/we-are-...

Our theory of victory is emphatically NOT one involving “a tent big enough for bigots but too small for critical race theorists,” to quote @victorerikray.bsky.social www.liberalcurrents.com/a-tent-big-e...

The authentic sounds of musical instruments used in ancient times 🎶 #saturdayvibe 📹 Bilimtüel

The kids at the Mamdani presser ARE cute. But notice how the blond boy gets/takes more than his share of airtime w/ "woo woo woo" and a long description of the golden snake with a super duper tail. The girl says one word ("goat") and is shushed when she laughs into mic. It starts early, folks.

Gendered administrative burdens academic.oup.com/jpart/articl...

Related: the epidemic of "I didn't know," which has reached Mike Johnson levels of implausibility. Between 2006 and 2011, the NYT published 6 articles about Epstein's sex crimes and legal troubles, not including short mentions in weekly news roundups or op-eds. Not exactly a secret, even back then.

The aurora just now stretching out over the Yukon River with the moon rising in the distance… 158 am AKST

This week at Group Threat, I spoke with @grundrza.bsky.social about Florida's censorship regime, teaching under authoritarianism, and how folks are coping (or not).

This chart seems to suggest a striking pattern: Kevin Warsh's speeches are consistently hawkish, except when Trump is President and about to appoint a new Fed Chair. www.economist.com/finance-and-...

🧵 The entire Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and much of the Western Arctic is at risk!

ICE at the polls! Bannon is basically yelling “fire” in a crowded theater here. His objective is to cause chaos (and suppress votes on the left). And it’s already working. This threat works on multiple levels and doesn’t have to be “real” to serve its purpose. Let me explain & offer some advice.

In the first two months of 2025, ICE raids in the Central Valley increased absentee rates by 22%. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

The US immigrant population generated more in taxes than they received in benefits from all levels of government every year from 1994 to 2023. The Cato study provides the first-ever 30-year analysis of the fiscal effects of immigration on government budgets. https://ow.ly/jy8a50Y8kM3

Alaska’s state ferry system is at risk of a partial or total shutdown this summer due a $78 million shortfall with the failure of the Trump administration to issue a key annual grant in 2025. “Right now, we have a federal chaos problem” - Sen Jesse Kiehl, D-Juneau alaskabeacon.com/2026/02/03/a...

Gosh, maybe C. Wright Mills & Bill Domhoff were onto something. Murray Gell-mann: Nobel physicist Robert Pirie: lawyer Paul Volcker: economist, Fed Chair Tom Brokaw: news anchor Stuyvesant "Howdy" Wainwright: yachtsman & member of social elite None of those pesky wimmin or minorities, naturally.

The Trump administration has transformed how the government collects data, cut access to previously-public data and stopped collecting some altogether, leaving significant holes in everything from substance use to maternal mortality. https://bit.ly/4tib2mc

I dunno, I think 10,000-person detention camps with moldy food, measles, violent guards, and incinerators could be bad, but that black lady had a funny laugh and that hilary woman, well, there was something about her that I just didn't like.

Alaska Native group sues Trump administration for nixing North Slope caribou protections, writes @yjrosen.bsky.social for the @alaskabeacon.com alaskabeacon.com/2026/02/02/a...

Excited to share the findings from Therese Christensen's and my article! In a nutshell: living in Denmark doesn't prevent you from experiencing a motherhood earnings penalty, but it does give you access to government benefits that help offset those financial losses.

The Trump administration has shrunk the number of locations for this year's field test of the 2030 census and added plans to test replacing temporary census workers with U.S. Postal Service staff. n.pr/4brWDNL

Requiring Americans to prove their citizenship to register to vote would exclude millions of citizens from the political process. bit.ly/4cikrkp

At one point in American history, government agents who put kids in cages were widely reviled.

Bunch of uni admins are thanking their lucky stars today that their faculty's research was beneath Epstein's notice. Still, I hope JE prompts all universities to reflect on how to fund research w/o compromising values, particularly as federal & state funding shrinks and donors play larger role.

Another journalist feeding "great man" myth & ignoring role of gvt in Musk's successes. Tesla received a $465M gvt loan at a critical point. It also benefited from tax breaks/subsidies, direct and to EV buyers. In total, Musk cos have had ≈$38B in gvt backing. www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...

So, one of our cats just tried to steal a bit of my breakfast while my back was turned and ended up with a face full of cinnamon and now he's alternating between sneezing and shooting me death glares. If my account goes silent, you'll know what happened.

Not the most important piece of the story, but Dan Ariely signing his emails to Epstein with "honestly*" and "irrationally yours", both references to Ariely's own research, is a dead giveaway of an outsized ego. It'd be like me signing my emails from that era, "yours in microclasses,".

People are worried about ICE or military activity suppressing Dem votes in midterms but I think SAVE Act is greater threat. If it passes, millions of women & poorer Americans will be unable to vote. Voting will be slower, depressing participation and widening race & income-based wait time gaps.

Turns out, "donor relations" involves emailing a sex trafficker the day after Christmas to drop in some random racism. Mark Tramo is a UCLA neurologist. More here, although this email isn't mentioned: dailybruin.com/2025/12/23/u...

The population in this part of Alaska is predominantly Alaska Native, and usually votes Dem. In fact, Mary Peltola, who is a viable challenger to Trump lackey Dan Sullivan for Alaska's second Senate seat, is from the region's hub town (≈6300). I'm sure it's just a coincidence, though.

Trump administration denies full disaster funding for Western Alaska storms, state files appeal, writes @corinne-smith.bsky.social for the @alaskabeacon.com alaskabeacon.com/2026/01/30/t...

Has anyone constructed a network graph from the Epstein files yet? Ties could be defined by shared membership in the same organization, attendance at the same parties, appearance in the same testimony/set of accusations by a victim, etc.

The massive dump of Epstein files offers new, if unsurprising, evidence of the sexual perversion, violent misogyny, and corruption infesting major political, cultural, and intellectual institutions in America. It also amply demonstrates both why we need gender scholarship and why the GOP hates it.

This Epstein drop is HUGE and utterly disgusting. I don’t see how this man is allowed to remain in office. Where are the evangelical leaders, the soccer moms, the folks stocking up on eggs, the farmers, the small business owners. Decide. Who are you?

This censorship is not getting nearly enough attention. I'm sure some faculty in other disciplines, not to mention uni admins, are perfectly willing to throw sociology under the bus. That's hopelessly naive: sociology may be an early target, but it won't be the only one. First they came for ...

Florida Introduces “Sanitized” Sociology Textbook www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty... 669 pages were cut to 267 pages. It "doesn’t include chapters on media and technology, global inequality, race and ethnicity, social stratification, or gender, sex and sexuality."

Thanks @gsb.stanford.edu for covering our work in their piece "How to Talk About Climate Change Across Political Divides" stanford.io/4jQi2Ct Amazing work from Jan Voelkel @nmalhotra.bsky.social @robbwiller.bsky.social & many others! Original article in Nature Climate Change: rdcu.be/e1cbZ

I was in a meeting recently where someone was wondering aloud about why sociology has faced more political scrutiny than econ and psych. And I think it's that sociology centers the social (i.e., systemic) causes of human outcomes, thus directly challenging the individualism on which fascism thrives.

My colleague Kevin Munger asked me and a bunch of editors to sit and think through AI and peer review. Our take: osf.io/9sxnc/files/... We envision an increased (!) involvement of humans in the evaluation of social science.

Sociologists: Excellent article if you're teaching a course on culture, climate change, disasters, indigenous populations, or homelessness. I could go for a moosaroni stick right about now... #socsky #sociology

"P-Hacking with one prompt" by Shigeto Kawahara. TL/DR: Ask LLMs to find a significant effect, and they will oblige. www.researchgate.net/publication/...

Problem is, "medical freedom" folks are also free from any penalty (monetary, legal, or social) when their selfishness and/or ignorance hurts someone else. I don't know how to set up a FAFO system w/o creating worse problems, but trying to get selfish people to care about strangers seems hopeless.

Solidly Dem seat, but still: ooof. About the same share of voters chose the Republican candidate (4.4%) as will report on an anonymous survey that the moon is made of green cheese and the earth's core is cool.

Even benign changes to accreditation rules can require 1000s of person hours to change policies & document compliance. And uggh the committees. Want to know why unis' admin costs have grown so much faster than faculty costs? It's partly due to unfunded mandates like this one.

Trump wants to hit us with a huge tax increase because Mark Carney humiliated him at Davos deanbaker22.substack.com/p/donald-tru...

The violence is not a bug- it’s a feature. My latest op ed is now live: msmagazine.com/2026/01/27/i...

The Middle Finger Lakes

Alaska man who impersonated ICE agent and harassed store employees claims that God told him to ask for employees' papers. When arrested, he said, “I think this is all a political thing. They are setting me up to fail... I think it is because I am a tall white male.” Yeah, dude, I'm sure that's why.