David Bartram
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dbartram.bsky.social
David Bartram
@dbartram.bsky.social
Sociologist. Interests: inequalities, happiness, migration, & causal identification. Editor-in-chief of @socialindicators.bsky.social. PhD UW-Madison. AI-free teaching & research since 1998. Posts are personal.

https://davidvbartram.wordpress.com
Maybe they’ll come to enjoy the experience of having a spine. Could come in handy.
November 13, 2025 at 8:47 PM
Reposted by David Bartram
“In another of the messages, Mr. Epstein asserted that ‘water was wet.’”
“In one of the messages, Mr. Epstein flatly asserted that Mr. Trump “knew about the girls,” many of whom were later found by investigators to have been underage.”

www.nytimes.com/2025/11/12/u...
Epstein Alleged in Emails That Trump Knew of His Conduct
www.nytimes.com
November 12, 2025 at 2:01 PM
Reposted by David Bartram
The chief propagandist for a far-right network is a former Buckingham Palace employee now helping to forge a US-UK alliance of white supremacists intent on importing US Nazi tactics to Britain. Matthew Gravill is known only by the pseudonym “John” within extremist circles www.itv.com/news/2025-11...
November 12, 2025 at 12:57 PM
Reposted by David Bartram
ITV unmasks a neo-Nazi activist in Britain who gave Buckingham Palace tours by day and organized within international fascist movements by night.

“When confronted by ITV News on a suburban street in west London, Gravill froze. ‘Oh f***,’ he muttered.”

www.itv.com/news/2025-11...
www.itv.com
November 12, 2025 at 1:12 PM
Reposted by David Bartram
Now an example of overt state-sponsored white supremacy.
Indiana University removed a Lecturer from her "Diversity, Human Rights, and Social Justice" course after a student filed a complaint about a graphic the instructor showed in class, which included "Make America Great Again" as an example of "Covert White Supremacy."

www.wfyi.org/news/article...
IU lecturer removed from class during intellectual diversity investigation
A lecturer in the Indiana University School of Social Work has been removed from teaching one of her classes Diversity, Human Rights, and Social Justice while the university investigates a complaint...
www.wfyi.org
November 12, 2025 at 12:45 AM
Tired: "More research is needed."

Wired: "Do it right the first time (and then we won't need 10 incremental versions intended to improve on what you did)."
How do we incentivise people to publish fewer papers?

We need to live in a world where saying 'I have published over 500 papers' is widely understood as a red flag, not as something to brag about.
November 12, 2025 at 11:26 AM
Reposted by David Bartram
Solar’s price drop is astonishing: panels are now 98% cheaper than when I first analyzed them in 2004.

Today, building a fence with solar can be cheaper than using wood.
November 10, 2025 at 8:10 AM
Reposted by David Bartram
Michael Prescott and Sir Robbie Gibb both bailed out of journalism years ago, and enjoy lucrative careers in corporate PR. And now they are the arbiters of BBC editorial standards. Go figure www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/media/...
The BBC has bigger impartiality problems than its coverage of Trump
It is the BBC’s entire governance structure–rather than individual stories–that should cause most concern
www.prospectmagazine.co.uk
November 8, 2025 at 7:59 AM
Reposted by David Bartram
The president who hosted Nick Fuentes for dinner
The president this morning:
November 4, 2025 at 2:52 PM
I've been searching for additional publications I could subscribe to (replacing my Washington Post subscription, now cancelled).

My search just got a bit narrower.
There is a legal case for a third term—but it is strewn with obstacles
Trump 2028
There is a legal case for a third term—but it is strewn with obstacles
econ.st
October 30, 2025 at 3:32 PM
Reposted by David Bartram
The first house I bought In Charlottesville was built (IIRC) in 1948 and the deed covenanted that it could not be sold to a person of the negro race or Hebrew religion. Probably true of every house in that neighborhood. Retvrn.
Vance says it is "totally reasonable and acceptable" for people to not want to live next door to people who speak a different language than they do
October 30, 2025 at 10:25 AM
Reposted by David Bartram
Why is it that every disappeared US citizen is not front page news? At the very least we should have a little box with a count of the number of citizens who have been taken away and are not locatable and a link to a story with photos & min-bios, just as we used to do with military casually figures.
In Portland, Oregon, masked ICE GOONS abducted and vanished US citizen Gonzalo Catalan last week. Tragically, his family remains unaware of his whereabouts and has not received any communication from him as of today.
October 30, 2025 at 2:31 AM
Reposted by David Bartram
I know it’s too much to expect them to know their history, but if the American Revolution had a motto, it definitely would not have been “immigrants go home.”

It would have been “get your fucking soldiers out of our cities.”
America... boy, I dunno.
October 28, 2025 at 1:48 PM
Reposted by David Bartram
Burn. In. Hell.
A Naperville man was hauled away by federal immigration agents Thursday morning as his two sons watched, the older boy begging them not to hurt his father and tearfully asking for a chance to speak to him before they left.
As his two sons watch and cry, ‘Pa, te amo,’ federal agents arrest man outside of Naperville apartments
A Naperville man was hauled away by federal immigration agents Thursday as his two sons cried and begged for him not to be hurt.
trib.al
October 26, 2025 at 3:26 AM
No-one needs ANY of these corporations.

You can boycott them all -- just as with Disney after the Kimmel thing.

If anyone wants some help setting up a laptop with Ubuntu, I'll do what I can.

Use Brave for browsing.

Get off Facebook etc. entirely.
October 24, 2025 at 4:59 PM
If you know the type of UK academic news that usually comes with an initial embargo, then you'll know what sort of good news I've received that I can't currently tell you (!).
October 24, 2025 at 4:49 PM
Reposted by David Bartram
The trend is real, but this NYT analysis at the Congressional district level has big ecological bias

Poor *areas* vote Republican, but it's often the richer *individuals* within those poorer areas that are most Republican

And many poor *individuals* rich blue urban *areas* vote Dem
October 24, 2025 at 2:17 PM
Reposted by David Bartram
After submitting a FOIA request UKRI, I obtained success rates by three grant call scheme and I can only say that I am disheartened by the results:

- AHRC Responsive Mode 2025: 2%
- ESRC New Investigator Grant 2025: 1%
- ESRC Research Grant Round 2025: 1%
October 22, 2025 at 7:55 AM
If someone receiving a fine of this sort happened not to be a UK citizen or have indefinite leave to remain, would getting a fine like this perhaps reduce their chances of success in an application for ILR/citizenship?

Shocking...
October 22, 2025 at 9:14 AM
Tailor-made for @mcmegan.bsky.social ...
The entire "free speech on campus" moral panic was manufactured to blackmail us into making space in intellectual life for bigots and charlatans who couldn't get there on their own merits. Its a DEI scheme for fascism. Congratulations to everyone who took it at face value.
“Following his lecture, Yarvin will debate the legendary British historian David Starkey on history and the future of conservatism.” Everything about this is so cursed. Masks off at the University of Oxford.
October 20, 2025 at 3:29 PM
The reason “viewpoint diversity” is indeed a “MAGA plot” is that the term is cover for an effort to control & destroy US universities.

Has @mcmegan.bsky.social asked herself: who now counts as a “conservative”?

www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...
1/3
Opinion | The sweetheart deal is over for academia
Universities must rebuild public trust starting with viewpoint diversity.
www.washingtonpost.com
October 19, 2025 at 5:44 PM
I don’t want a king either.
October 18, 2025 at 11:51 AM