Anyway, waiting for the midterms is not a plan, and much as I enjoyed ‘No Kings,’ quarterly rallies are not going to cut it.

We need to start moving towards a general strike and the kind of sustained national protest that topple regimes.

Good morning.

4/4

He literally demolished the East wing of the White House during the shutdown while denying food assistance to poor foods and letting oligarchs bribe the military.

Do you see it?

3/?

It wasn’t a waste for Trump because he got to demonstrate that he can:

(A) Spend money without congressional appropriation
(B) Fail to spend money that -was- appropriated (we knew this)
(C) Politicize the executive branch in somewhat wild disregard for the Hatch act (and common sense).

2/?

bsky.app/profile/some...

I mean, both Putin and Kim hold elections from time to time. We’ll have them too, and to similar effect.

Fair enough.

I do think there will be elections, and I will certainly vote in them … I just think they will be almost completely illegitimate, corrupted, and mostly irrelevant at the national level after another year of this.

Another whole year.

As feast and festival season returns to full swing, the Big Fridge is essential.

Compare and contrast with the time I met Francis Collins at a grad student party in Ann Arbor Michigan. We did a Jell-O shot and he told me to call him Frank.

I was like, ‘yes sir, Mr Collins.’

Some people can come back from that sort of early mistake.

Crick mostly did. Watson didn’t. I’m sure he died believing he did the whole thing all alone.

8/8

Anyway, that’s the extent of it.

He was a co-author on an important foundational paper in biology, but stole credit from Rosalind Franklin, who went on to die of cancer in her 30’s from the radiation exposure she endured gathering the primary data for that paper.

7/?

Once he got on stage he made unforced errors and misunderstood questions. It was rough.

6/?

It took about 15 seconds for him to pop out with the observation that he thought we needed more Protestants in science. ‘Better work ethic than those lazy Catholics.’

5/?

I didn’t have many other responsibilities for the event (aside from the occasional data center tour), so the person running it asked if I would sit with Watson before his keynote, partially to keep him company, but also as as sort of man-to-man defense to prevent regrettable interactions.

4/?

Everybody on the science side had heard stories about his increasingly racist, sexiest ramblings … but leadership went along with inviting him anyway.

3/?

The year was 2013. I had been working in Manhattan for more than a year to help build the NY Genome Center.

Watson was to be the keynote at our gala opening.

2/?

One of my favorite money questions:

When you deposit money with a financial institution, it is still "your money" in the same sense as when you ask a friend to hold your wallet for a sec ... or is it "their money" and what you have is an account number and a promise?

I think it's the latter.