Dr. Samantha Montano

I need to conjure up approximately another 15 hours of time today to be able to get through my to-do list.

Israel is still bombing Gaza

The press isn't covering it as much but it's still happening

I assume I know the answer but is the administration providing any kind of evidence for this "150% faster" claim? I don't think I've heard it before...

Oof!

When *checks notes* Franklin The Turtle has to put out a statement condemning your literal war crimes 😅😅

Matthew Rhys Is In Talks With Netflix Over Adaptation Of Robert Caro’s ‘The Power Broker’ Matthew Rhys is in talks with the streamer over the adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book.

👀👀👀

deadline.com/2025/12/matt...

An especially important year to remember those lost to AIDS including my Godfather Ronnie (left) who we lost nearly three decades ago. He was my dad’s childhood best friend and a deeply hilarious and mischievous person. Almost all my oldest memories are of him.

It is incredibly strange that these schools seem to factor in zero reputational, enrollment, or recruitment damage to their “settling with Trump” equation, when clearly there’s a major hit to all three.

I consider this to be the worst three weeks of the year.

Thanksgiving break lulls you into a false sense of tranquility. December pops up out of nowhere to pressure you into wrapping up 50 different projects by Christmas. Add end of semester chaos?!? Brutal stuff, man.

Screenshot reads: "Trump’s new choice, Karen Evans, is worrisome in her own way. At least she has solid management experience as FEMA’s former chief of staff, but her record indicates she is more interested in slashing personnel and spending than in the actual, positive role with which FEMA is tasked. Indeed, her nickname is “the terminator” for eliminating grants and worker positions."

I've been pretty offline the past week so this is the first take I've read on Karen Evans. 🤷‍♀️

www.nola.com/opinions/our...

I found a flowchart which helps you navigate the IT landscape

Zillow Removes Climate Risk Scores From Home Listings

It’s baffling to me this didn’t happen sooner!!

www.nytimes.com/2025/11/30/c...

A reminder for those who are not aware: "remigration" is the process of deporting all non-white people from a country. It includes citizens and is, by definition, ethnic cleansing.

And to be clear: this is not fake. I just screenshot it myself.

Obsessed with this being the year that it seems to be widely accepted that “watcha say” by Jason Derulo is THE Thanksgiving song. No notes.

My dad, who has lived in Maine for 30 yrs, gushing about Mamdani and referring to him as ~his mayor~.

Me, casually: He’s not your mayor

Dad, death glare: I AM FROM NEW YORK. HE IS MY MAYOR.

I rattled some ancestors on that one. My bad.

From an emergency management perspective this is the same old story -- it parallels many other types of hazards -- where instead of actually mitigating our risk people are left on their own to try an prepare while other big industries walk away with $$$$.

There are clear policy solutions for actually mitigating (i.e., preventing) gun violence in the U.S., which also incidentally has support among large parts of the population. Instead, we're being cornered into buying (ineffective) products so administrators & politicians can feel like they're acting

I wish they had been more explicit about how this industry is disaster capitalism at work. There is $ to be made preparing for mass shootings (which they estimate to be a $3 billion industry), but not for preventing mass shootings. Not passing gun laws is profitable.

Watched the new HBO documentary "Thoughts and Prayers". If you're up for it, I do recommend it. I think it does a good job of broaching the active shooter preparedness industry. Although primarily coming out of law enforcement, the industry has infiltrated emergency management.

FEMA employee terminated for signing whistleblower letter It appears to be a major violation of federal whistleblower protections and constitutional rights.

🤔👀

www.thehandbasket.co/p/fema-emplo...

Listen, it’s anyone’s game but I still think Phoenix is going to be the first big U.S. city to be unlivable (broadly defined) because of failure to take climate action.

FEMA workers pulled from Chicago storm damage surveys because of ICE The decision to halt disaster assessment work came amid the immigration crackdown in Chicago. Officials worried FEMA’s efforts could put residents and surveyors at risk.

👀👀

www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...

The whole thing is ridiculous. There is no one on that council that I trust.

Google at its peak was basically the best information retrieval system in human history and they and every competitor decided going from there to “you didn’t want answers you wanted half-assed auto-complete 80%-wrong hallucinations” in a few years was the right idea

Is there any research on whether physical or social scientists tend to be more or less “hopeful” about climate action as compared to each other? I have a theory…

Ugh. I suspect I’ve made it just in time.

Smart!

Please send advice about sabbaticals (particularly if you were traveling during yours)! I’m making a list of rules for myself which so far is primarily “never open my inbox”.

Listen, academia is a nightmare in a thousand different ways but they really popped off with this sabbatical thing.

I’ll be traveling full time (while writing, obviously) from July 2026 through February 2027 and it is single handedly keeping me sane.