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medwalds.bsky.social
@medwalds.bsky.social
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Reposted
markhisted.org
Well, this is an utter disaster for science.

This gutting of peer review is very likely driven by Project 2025/OMB/Vought, very likely is about funding junk science, and very likely is coming for #NIH and biomedical research next.
🧪
Science in reviewing grant proposals. The changes permit as few as one outside review rather than the current minimum of three, end the routine use of expert panels to discuss those individual reviews, and give program managers greater authority to recommend which proposals should or should not be funded. They are described in an internal 1 December staff memo that Science has obtained and mentioned briefly in an update to NSF's grantmaking manual posted on 8 December. A major reason for the smaller staff is the elimination of hundreds of so-called rotators, scientists on loan from academia who served as program managers as well as higher level administrators. Their absence, combined with the new review policy, represent a major change in how NSF
December 16, 2025 at 4:10 AM
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charlesornstein.bsky.social
By now the broad story of USAID’s ruin has been widely told: The decree handed down by President Donald Trump; Elon Musk and Russell Vought to scuttle the agency and undo decades of humanitarian work in the name of austerity. 1/x
December 15, 2025 at 1:53 PM
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injusticewatch.org
A screenshot from an article reads “A 2025 investigation by the Investigative Project on Race and Equity and Injustice Watch found the initial debt that cost people their homes was collectively $2.3 million, but the homes had a total market value of more than $108 million — with the sales representing, in many cases, a transfer of wealth from Black neighborhoods to affluent outside investors”
December 10, 2025 at 7:09 PM
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hiksmash.blacksky.app
That arc toward justice won't bend itself
January 27, 2025 at 8:24 PM
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noemamag.com
“In a world where power is misused, public morality has become slippery & dishonesty lurches sickeningly through public speech, animals can offer vital lessons for human ethics, political wisdom & social health.”

— @jay-griffiths.bsky.social

#moralcompass #animals #ethics
The Moral Authority Of Animals | NOEMA
For millennia before we showed up on the scene, social animals — those living in societies and cooperating for survival — had been creating cultures imbued with ethics.
www.noemamag.com
November 25, 2025 at 4:21 PM
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anneapplebaum.bsky.social
Hundreds of thousands of people, dead because of a decision made by the world's richest man
newyorker.com The New Yorker @newyorker.com · Nov 6
One analytical model shows that, as of November 5th, the dismantling of U.S.A.I.D. has already caused the deaths of 600,000 people, two-thirds of them children. https://newyorkermag.visitlink.me/jUzNSc
The Shutdown of U.S.A.I.D. Has Already Killed Hundreds of Thousands
The short documentary “Rovina’s Choice” tells the story of what goes when aid goes.
newyorkermag.visitlink.me
November 7, 2025 at 12:20 PM
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bencollins.bsky.social
Just gonna keep tapping the sign*

*𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘪𝘨𝘯 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘋𝘦𝘤𝘭𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘐𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers. He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance. He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States: For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury: For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences: For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies: For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
October 1, 2025 at 3:14 AM
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kateweb.bsky.social
The article's from January, but interesting stuff - New Zealand also has a forest and a river that have legal personhood. It's represented legally by an eight person body, which would be an amazing job, I think. "So what do you do?" "Voice of a mountain."
adapalmer.bsky.social Ada Palmer @adapalmer.bsky.social · Sep 20
The mountain Taranaki Maunga on New Zealand’s North Island was granted legal personhood in January after unanimous parliamentary vote. By treating it as a living legal entity, it now holds rights to protection, preservation, and the ability to initiate legal action. buff.ly/5xnPDqm
#ShareGoodNewsToo
A New Zealand mountain has been granted personhood. Here’s why that matters | CNN
Mount Taranaki — now known as Taranaki Maunga, its Māori name — is the latest natural feature to be granted personhood in New Zealand.
buff.ly
September 21, 2025 at 9:15 AM
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sifill.bsky.social
A piece of history I did not know.

www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/no...
Aug. 10, 1835: Destruction of Noyes Academy
Nearly 500 white men destroyed the integrated Noyes Academy in Canaan, New Hampshire.
www.zinnedproject.org
August 14, 2025 at 2:43 AM
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wistfulwitness.bsky.social
Ahem.

bsky.app/profile/wist...
wistfulwitness.bsky.social Jennet Jourdemayne @wistfulwitness.bsky.social · Jan 20
“On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
—H. L. Mencken, The Baltimore Sun, July 26, 1920
August 4, 2025 at 4:36 PM
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vscharff.bsky.social
Canary, meet coal mine.
July 28, 2025 at 4:03 PM
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brusselstimes.com
The world’s top court has delivered a damning verdict on society’s use of fossil fuels. What comes next could redefine the energy transition.
The day the climate changed
The day the climate changed
www.brusselstimes.com
July 25, 2025 at 11:55 AM
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paleofuture.bsky.social
Surely this will be the payment that finally gets the extortionist to stop demanding money
Columbia Agrees to $200 Million Fine to Settle Fight With Trump
www.nytimes.com
July 23, 2025 at 11:47 PM
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sifill.bsky.social
After Federal Agents Pay Surprise Visit To Puerto Rican Museum, Chicago Leaders Tell ICE To Get Out blockclubchicago.org/2025/07/09/a...
After Federal Agents Pay Surprise Visit To Puerto Rican Museum, Chicago Leaders Tell ICE To Get Out
At least 15 unmarked vehicles and several agents, seen wearing black and plain clothes, hung out in the parking of Humboldt Park's National Puerto Rican Museum Tuesday, museum staff said.
blockclubchicago.org
July 9, 2025 at 10:09 PM
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chanda.blacksky.app
“The dismantling of Harvard’s diversity offices arrived at Harvard College on Wednesday as websites for centers serving minority students, LGBTQ students, and women disappeared suddenly and without fanfare.”

www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...
Harvard College, Faculty of Arts and Sciences Replace Diversity Offices Amid DEI Purge | News | The Harvard Crimson
The dismantling of Harvard’s diversity offices arrived at Harvard College on Wednesday as websites for centers serving minority students, LGBTQ students, and women disappeared suddenly and without fan...
www.thecrimson.com
July 10, 2025 at 12:21 PM
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sethabramson.bsky.social
Associate Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson will end up being one of the heroes of this era if ever there are historians in the future who write about the fall of the United States

She will almost never be in the majority on a major ruling, but she will have been the conscience of America
July 10, 2025 at 12:09 PM
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joycecaroloates.bsky.social
laughed aloud at some of the reviews of Flannery O'Connor's novella Wise Blood (1952): "...reads as if Kafka had been set to writing continuity for Li'l Abner." (Time); "...[not sure] if the struggle to get from one sentence to the next is worth it." (New Yorker); "sheer monotony" (Saturday Review)
July 8, 2025 at 5:29 PM
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sifill.bsky.social
We must not leave this out of the account of what they have done. What Musk and Trump and Vought did. What Johnson and his band of sycophants allowed them to do. What tens of millions of fellow Americans endorse.
agawande.bsky.social Atul Gawande @agawande.bsky.social · Jul 1
STAGGERING: This new study of 133 countries is the first to estimate the impact of all USAID’s work. In 2 decades, it has saved *92M* lives. Current cuts, if not reversed, are forecast to cost up to *14M* lives thru 2030. www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...
July 5, 2025 at 12:50 PM
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mkirschenbaum.bsky.social
Framing this around “viewpoint diversity” and the supposed expediency of tracking professors’ political donations is absolutely brilliant. www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2025...
A dive into the Board of Visitors’ political donations
Here is a look at Board members’ political donations — all but one of whom has records of political donations which are overwhelmingly to Republican candidates and campaigns.
www.cavalierdaily.com
July 6, 2025 at 1:51 PM
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hbhammel.bsky.social
"Useless" and/or "silly" federally-funded research has turned the United States into the world’s leader in science and technology over the past 75 years. Such science is under attack throughout the federally-funded agencies in the United States. More at: www.americanscientist.org/article/%E2%...
The image shows "silly" research (reptile venom, microbes in Yellowstone Park, bee foraging patterns) that actually turned out to be transformational (anti-obesity drugs, DNA testing, and internet algorithms, respectively). From the article "Why are we funding this?": If someone had said, “Who cares how desert lizard venom works? Let’s not fund that research,” we never would have discovered semaglutide, a key component of drugs such as Wegovy and Ozempic, which have helped millions of Americans lose weight. If we hadn’t funded research into how bizarre microorganisms thrive in boiling Yellowstone geysers, we never would have discovered the bacterium Thermus aquaticus, whose Taq polymerase enzymes now enable medical tests for countless genetic diseases. If we had decided not to study how bees optimize nectar foraging and distribution among a colony because it sounds silly, we never would have developed an algorithm that allocates internet traffic among computer servers—a technology that powers the $50 billion web-hosting industry.
July 2, 2025 at 4:18 PM
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reichlinmelnick.bsky.social
The economic impacts of terminating TPS for Haiti is dramatic, and will be heavily felt by red states too; Ohio, Florida, Kansas... lots of those states have tens of thousands of Haitians living and working there legally right now.

We're talking hundreds of thousands of jobs lost in a single day.
emptywheel.bsky.social emptywheel @emptywheel.bsky.social · Jun 27
Trump to Springfield: Drop dead.
reichlinmelnick.bsky.social Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · Jun 27
🚨NEW: The Trump admin moves to terminate Temporary Protected Status for HALF A MILLION Haitians, claiming despite all reality that Haiti is a safe country to return to — even though large portions of the country are ruled by vicious gangs and civil governance has collapsed.
June 27, 2025 at 5:37 PM