Ian Ramjohn
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iramjohn.bsky.social
Ian Ramjohn
@iramjohn.bsky.social
3.3K followers 5.9K following 3.2K posts
Wikipedia expert at @wikieducation.bsky.social. 
Plant ecology Ph.D. 🇹🇹Trinbagonian in exile

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2910-0526 (if you want to verify my account's authenticity)
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iramjohn.bsky.social
For Armistice Day, my great-grandfather, Bruno Wanderer, during World War I.

He was a middle-aged man with a family who was drafted, sent to the Western Front. His family lost their home (it was a company house) and most of his salary, and survived the war through the support of his sister.
November 11, 2025 at 7:11 PM
iramjohn.bsky.social
And then there's this.

If you don't want to be sued for breaking federal law, maybe you shouldn't break federal law?
The state also argues that ruling for Landor could open the door to lawsuits being filed against individual government officials in other areas of federal law, such as Title IX, the landmark statute that prohibits sex discrimination in education.
November 10, 2025 at 1:57 PM
iramjohn.bsky.social
Some of the quotes from the state are mind-blowing

Holding prison officials liable for abuse of the law is bad because it could hurt recruitment of prison guards if they might be held liable for their actions.

What.The.Actual.Fuck?

Getting away with crimes is a perk?
For example, the current staffing shortage in state prisons would only grow worse if current staff and potential job applicants learned that they would be personally liable for money damages.
November 10, 2025 at 1:57 PM
iramjohn.bsky.social
Happy to see Mamdani declared winner tonight!
November 5, 2025 at 3:40 AM
iramjohn.bsky.social
WTAF? Bovino throws a canister of teargas, *in person*? This blows my mind.
October 24, 2025 at 9:36 PM
iramjohn.bsky.social
I don't know for sure, but since most of the main building was torn down and rebuilt after the fire, my guess is that the colonnades are - were - among the oldest parts of the building.
The White House after it was burned by the British in the War of 1812, with the west colonnade visible.
October 23, 2025 at 5:52 PM
iramjohn.bsky.social
I feel like they’re burying the lead a bit
In one video, an agent can be seen pointing a weapon toward bystanders from the back seat of a truck with the window rolled down.
October 20, 2025 at 1:19 AM
iramjohn.bsky.social
How is this a "defamatory statement"? I thought you can't defame the dead.
“In the language of the tax code, Fred had given his son taxable gifts masquerading as loans, a likely tax fraud that went unnoticed.” Id. at p. 166.
October 17, 2025 at 3:15 AM
iramjohn.bsky.social
There's so much wrong here, but this is just a bad faith argument. She completely ignores the whole right wing assault on higher ed that has been going on since at least Reagan (probably before).

And *expert failure* in the pandemic? That's what she takes away from the pandemic?
The legitimacy and authority of higher education have been eroding for decades — because of high tuition, rising student debt, increasingly opaque admissions processes, and ever-greater ideological skewing. Then it collapsed under the weight of expert failures during the pandemic.
October 7, 2025 at 12:20 AM
iramjohn.bsky.social
Finally, someone doing this right thing about this
He has demanded ICE turn over the names of all federal officers involved in each incident, and said he is ready to take ICE to court. His department has opened three criminal investigations into various incidents involving ICE agents.
October 5, 2025 at 3:10 AM
iramjohn.bsky.social
These kinds of things have always worried me a lot. But it also makes me glad that we got married in Trinidad, and only moved to the US with a resident visa in hand.
Barbara’s supposed crime dates back to 2019, when she allegedly missed an immigration court hearing she says she never knew about. The government insists it sent a letter. No proof of delivery has been produced. No copy of the notice has been made available to her counsel. Yet that single missing piece of paper is being wielded as the justification for her disappearance.
September 29, 2025 at 2:45 PM
iramjohn.bsky.social
Thanks! A minor infraction does not make someone deportable (assuming he's actually a green card holder).

This *suggests* he was born in Guyana, but plenty West Indians have family in North America and move back and forth. (My older sister was born in Canada, my brother and I in Trinidad)
September 26, 2025 at 10:35 PM
iramjohn.bsky.social
Ok, so these claims coming from ICE via FOX are just plain weird. Pre-9/11 *maybe* you could fade into the system like this, but after? SEVIS pretty much requires them to keep precise track of students.

Really makes me wonder if they have mixed up two people's files, merged them into one.
BREAKING: A senior ICE official tells @FoxNews that today, ICE arrested the Superintendent of Des Moines, Iowa Public Schools, Dr. Ian Andre Roberts, who ICE says is an illegal alien from Guyana & and active ICE fugitive with a deportation order since May 2024. Fox is told Dr. Roberts fled from ICE agents in his car once they ID’d themselves as immigration agents, speeding away, then abandoning the car. He was found in a brushy area 200 yards away with the help of an Iowa State Police K9. Per ICE official, agents found a loaded gun, a “fixed blade hunting knife”, and $3,000 cash in Dr. Robert’s vehicle. Per senior ICE official, Roberts first entered the U.S. in 1999 on a F-1 student visa at St. John’s University was ordered removed from the United States on May 22, 2024, with proceedings being held in absentia. On April 24, 2025, an Immigration Judge in Dallas, TX denied a Motion to Reopen his immigration case. Fox is told Dr. Roberts also has a weapons arrest in 2020, though the disposition of that charge/case is currently unclear.
September 26, 2025 at 7:48 PM
iramjohn.bsky.social
We often hear so much about over-diagnosis, but rarely under-diagnosis. But living with autism/ADHD also means living with trauma, anxiety, depression...and whether they're secondary to the main issue or 'stand alone' doesn't change change the fact that they're part of a person's support needs
“Everything gets thrown into the ‘it’s just part of autism and nothing more needs to be done’ bucket; even things that could and should be treated,” explained Srinivasan. “My official diagnoses are autism and ADHD, but there are a bunch of other things going on as well, which often get drowned in these official labels. So this topic isn’t just academic to me; it’s lived experience.”
September 25, 2025 at 2:34 PM
iramjohn.bsky.social
Japan makes more sense - at least it has a (disputed) border with a UEFA member.

The reason *why* Israel is in UEFA is interesting (per Wikipedia).
Former member of the Asian Football Confederation (1954–1974), joined UEFA after political pressure from Arab and Muslim members that refused to play against them.
September 25, 2025 at 1:43 PM
iramjohn.bsky.social
Ok, it looks like it was in TT's territorial waters. (The current PM is looks more and more like a wannabe mini-Bukele; and I originally thought her election win was probably a good thing!)

guardian.co.tt/news/tt-to-d...
September 10, 2025 at 6:55 PM
iramjohn.bsky.social
We're 7 miles off the coast of Venezuela at the closest. I don't see how you'd stray into international waters.

I really wonder what's going on.
September 10, 2025 at 6:50 PM
iramjohn.bsky.social
Well this makes it so much worse.

If Rubio said the boat was headed to Trinidad and Tobago it was almost certainly carrying migrants. There's no need to be on open water like that if you're carrying drugs.

Secondly, does this mean it was in Venezuelan or TT territorial waters?
One open question is where the boat was headed. Mr. Rubio initially told reporters last week that it was probably headed toward Trinidad and Tobago or some other country in the Caribbean, but administration officials have since characterized it as destined for the United States. Another is what it was carrying. Some have expressed doubts that a vessel of its size would need an 11-member crew. Senator Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican who has called it “despicable and thoughtless” to glorify killing people accused of crimes without trials, has argued that if there were drugs, it was more likely cocaine than fentanyl — the drug most responsible for overdoses.
September 10, 2025 at 6:50 PM
iramjohn.bsky.social
Was trying to figure out last night what in particular made this drone incursion such a significant escalation. I can see that entering Polish airspace directly from Belarus for the first time is a big deal.
According to Tusk, this was the first time drones entering Polish airspace came from Belarus rather than Ukraine. “What is new is the direction from which the drones violating Polish airspace came — for the first time in the history of this war, they did not come from over Ukraine [but] a significant portion of these drones flew over Poland directly from Belarus,” he said.
September 10, 2025 at 12:56 PM
iramjohn.bsky.social
So this bill allows people to enter the US "improperly" and then live the rest of their life at taxpayer expense?

Interesting.

www.congress.gov/bill/119th-c...
The bill establishes a mandatory minimum prison term of 5 years and allows a life sentence for an individual who (1) improperly enters, or attempts to improperly enter, the United States; and (2) is subsequently convicted of a felony.
September 8, 2025 at 3:13 PM
iramjohn.bsky.social
"Records, communications, or analysis pertaining to...efforts to edit or influence content identified as possibly violating Wikipedia policies"

Are they actually asking for information about coordinated efforts to *fix* policy violations? Or is that just unclear writing and they mean the opposite?
August 29, 2025 at 10:49 PM
iramjohn.bsky.social
They're currently supplying a product that would "curiously explor[e]" this kind of thing. They're knowingly releasing a product that can cause harm to its users.

Why is product safety just a quaint, unimportant thing these days? Why does it not apply to the rich?
While our initial mitigations prioritized acute self-harm, some people experience other forms of mental distress. For example, someone might enthusiastically tell the model they believe they can drive 24/7 because they realized they’re invincible after not sleeping for two nights. Today, ChatGPT may not recognize this as dangerous or infer play and—by curiously exploring—could subtly reinforce it.
August 27, 2025 at 10:27 PM
iramjohn.bsky.social
So people are turning to chatbots as their new best friends. But Big Brother is looking over your shoulder, trying to decide what conversations are problematic. And then having human reviewers decide if they should involve the cops.

But we can trust big tech, right?
In a new blog post admitting certain failures amid its users' mental health crises, OpenAI also quietly disclosed that it's now scanning users' messages for certain types of harmful content, escalating particularly worrying content to human staff for review — and, in some cases, reporting it to the cops. "When we detect users who are planning to harm others, we route their conversations to specialized pipelines where they are reviewed by a small team trained on our usage policies and who are authorized to take action, including banning accounts," the blog post notes. "If human reviewers determine that a case involves an imminent threat of serious physical harm to others, we may refer it to law enforcement."
August 27, 2025 at 10:27 PM
iramjohn.bsky.social
So much of Ai use cases seem to boils down to "as long as you don't care whether the answer is right or wrong".

www.theverge.com/news/761338/...
Microsoft also warns against using the AI function for numerical calculations or in “high-stakes scenarios” with legal, regulatory, and compliance implications, as COPILOT “can give incorrect responses.”
August 20, 2025 at 6:54 PM
iramjohn.bsky.social
So according to DHS's McLaughlin it's "reckless" to trust DHS?

She's not wrong. It's just weird.
Evans' arrest touched off a dispute between Old Orchard Beach officials and ICE. Police Chief Elise Chard has said the department was notified by federal officials that Evans was legally permitted to work in the country, and that the town submitted information via the Department of Homeland Security's E-Verify program prior to Evans' employment. Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security Tricia McLaughlin then accused the town of "reckless reliance" on the department's E-Verify program.
August 19, 2025 at 5:22 PM