C Anderson 🇨🇦

What the Columbia Settlement Really Means

This post, from the Knight Institute at Columbia, is worth reading:

"Those of us at Columbia should understand how our university is being transformed, and those at other universities contemplating similar settlements should understand how much is at stake."

knightcolumbia.org/blog/what-th...

Over and over we hear World Athletics claim that they are the ones "following the science." But over and over you see experts — very literally the experts whose science is being invoked — tell them that they're wrong!

And yet somehow those of us pointing this out are cast as delusional ideologues.

Murray Barr, the guy who, again, invented this test, disagreed. He wrote that his test was not a good way to tell sex, and in fact in 1987, he wrote to the Canadian Olympic Committee saying that the use of his test in sports “has been an embarrassment to me.”

Did they stop using it? No!

World Athletics’ mandatory genetic test for women athletes is misguided. I should know – I discovered the relevant gene in 1990 World Athletics says its genetic test for women ensures ‘the integrity of women’s sport’ – but science does not support this overly simplistic idea.

World Athletics says that "The SRY gene is a reliable proxy for determining biological sex." The guy who literally discovered the gene and has spent the last 35 years researching it says they're wrong. theconversation.com/world-athlet...

As premiers push for more immigration power, experts call for a fact-based debate Some premiers say they want to have more local control over the immigration system — but experts say what the system really needs is a national conversation on immigration reform that shores up public...

The truth behind the increase in immigration in Canada.
It was these very same premiers, and the businesses they are representing, that pressured PM Trudeau to increase immigration.
"they called for an increase to economic immigration levels to fill local labour gaps"
www.ctvnews.ca/politics/art...

The problem is far bigger than Jeffrey Epstein | Rebecca Solnit Treating the scandal as an aberration misunderstands the global epidemic of violence against women

"One of the reasons the epidemic of violence against women is so unacknowledged is because cases like these are talked about individually, and often treated as though they are shocking aberrations rather than part of a pervasive pattern that operates at all levels of society."

Don't always agree w. Summers. More often disagree.

But not on this.

Why Universities Must Not Capitulate to the Trump Regime Colleges that settle with the Trump administration have no guarantee of safety from further retaliation.

"Columbia and other colleges are trapped in a no-win situation, but even difficult moral dilemmas have wrong answers, and that’s what Columbia’s leadership has chosen."

www.insidehighered.com/opinion/colu...

I’m sorry. That is always a sad realization. I hope your guest gets better and can visit. I’m also not crossing the border.
(Feels wrong to heart your post so please think of it as an acknowledgment, not enjoyment)

Grizzly bear looking sideways at photographer. Gives impression of a small smile. Words added: are you sure?

Grizzly photo taken in Khutzeymateen grizzly sanctuary.
Thought I’d share because heard some people excited about seeing a bear when they saw the warning signs in my neighbourhood. “Maybe a salmon would attract them”.
#notagoodidea #grizzly #sideeye #beautifulbc🇨🇦

Fulfilled two 🇨🇦 stereotypes on walk today - Cdn standoff btw 2 pedestrians and 1 car. (car broke first) Then said “sorry” to woman who fell off bike when her friend stopped to ask me a question - they are visitors and laughed = said social media primed them for hearing extra apologies.

the alt-text 👏👏👏

Hope the weaving helps! I’m having an anxious day but have a guest = my loom room has double duty as guest room. Finishing towels is not the same feeling. Maybe measuring out the next warp will be a better feeling :)

HELP SAVE SCIENCE

The attacks from this regime are killing science, but we can do something about it.

Follow @standupforscience.bsky.social, watch this video, and go to their page where they have a plan for every day August.

Keep calm and buy Canadian.

Canada: Walk away from negotiations. Don't retaliate. Diversify. Find new markets. Buy European military equipment. Reinstate the digital services tax. Let Americans pay more for the things they want from us. Keep up the public boycott. Welcome American refugee talent. Be Canadian. #cdnpoli #USpoli

I wish people cared about research more - this is devastating, and it should be a bigger story.

B.C. brush fire sparked by bird dropping fish on power lines, firefighters say | CBC News Firefighters say a brush fire in the B.C. Interior was caused when a bird dropped a fish onto power lines.

A fish started a wildfire. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

Met a lovely older man in grocery store today. His wife is unwell so he was picking up the slack. His usual yoghurt was sold out so he was trying/struggling to use one of the apps to determine if other yoghurts were Canadian/not US so we did it together - had great time scanning and sharing info

I need to be better about sampling. I wing it and then have cloth that is too stiff or almost falls apart.

Wow. Trump announces he is firing the U.S. Labor Statistics Commissioner for reporting that jobs numbers are weak under his watch.

This is what dictators do.

COLBERT: You warned everyone…he would prosecute political enemies, cut Medicaid, alienate our allies, give tax cuts to the rich. I know you're not here to say 'I told you so' but would you like to?

HARRIS: You're correct. I did predict a lot of that. But what I did not predict was the capitulation.

Jay Bhattacharya once studied health disparities. As NIH director, he’s allowed such research to wither Jay Bhattacharya’s tenure as NIH director has seen health disparities research swept up in the Trump administration’s attack on DEI

Bhattacharya once studied health disparities. He’s allowed such research to wither www.statnews.com/2025/08/01/n... via @statnews.com

With each passing day it become more obvious Bhattacharya is just enabling an anti-science autocrat.

His legacy will be darkness. How does he rationalize?

Virginia Giuffre’s brother: "I think we were shocked by it, especially to use the term stolen, Because she's not an object. She's a person who was recruited at Mar-a-Lago, his property, a place where she was looking forward to having fun that summer. And it just makes us wonder, how much he knew."

One would think so

I know that this is happening on a lot of things, but it's so wild to me to watch World Athletics go back to a policy that doctors and activists and athletes spent literal decades fighting against in the 70's through 90's without a single drop of acknowledgement of that fact.

So, @faineg.bsky.social has been raising the alarm for a while that emergency response agencies have to stop using X to warn the public, and Grok posting false data and false claims about a tsunami should be the final nail in that coffin. Get your agency off the platform. You’ve had years to do it.

So, Columbia paid out $221M so that the Trump administration would resume payments on $400M in existing grants (i.e., signed work contracts) and so that Columbia could compete for future HHS/NIH awards.

Lucy didn't even wait a week before pulling up the football.

I doubt that there is a single family in America that hasn’t benefitted directly from the NIH.