Adam Porter

Illinois College Rises into Top 10 for Social Mobility Nationwide | Illinois College Illinois College has earned a place among the top 10 colleges in the country, according to the latest US News & World Report rankings. Rising to 9th in the nation for social mobility, IC’s recognition...

I'm proud to work at Illinois College, which US News has placed among the top ten schools for social mobility.

www.ic.edu/news/09-23-2...

Cut CTA crime or lose federal funding, U.S. Transportation chief threatens Chicago's acting transit boss has been given two weeks to detail moves to "deter crime, stop fare evasion and provide a clean environment for passengers" by U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy.

I welcome the CTA acting to cut down on smoking and other prohibited behavior, but cutting federal funding isn't going to help people relying on public transit in Chicago (or Boston).

chicago.suntimes.com/transportati...

Every year I think "this is the least one" 😄

Finished the Capital City Century bike ride. The last 40 miles were especially tough because of the 90+ degree temps.

Texas AG goes step further in push for Christianity in public schools Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton urged children to recite “the Lord’s Prayer, as taught by Jesus Christ” if their public schools established a prayer period.

Unclear if Paxton which version (Protestant or Catholic) of the Lord's Prayer recited -- but this sort of thing was the catalyst for beginning the Parochial school mvt in the 19th century.

Nice to see my friend Mark Chancey quoted in WaPost wapo.st/3VyMUfd.

California, Oregon and Washington ally on vaccines in rebuke to Trump’s CDC Three Democratic governors create West Coast Health Alliance amid growing turmoil at US health agency under RFK Jr

While I sympathize with the goal, I fear this lays the groundwork for when science-based leadership returns to the CDC, Red states will justify banding together to ignore science-based CDC guidelines.

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Coming up next: the MechHitler companion bot.

Couldn't twirl to show lingerie (or twirl his mustache), but imagine what he could ask his followers to do (especially now that he's working for / with the Pentagon).

Just finished the third book. Enjoyed them all enormously.

I kept thinking about Cthulu in the descriptions of unspace and the "Presence" and the beings at the center of the universe.

Also thought about religion / creation stories.

Thanks for really interesting work!

Ringworld and Ringworld Engineers featured a lucky character.

It seems to me like as an attribute, it's hard to separate from divine predestination: does the lucky character have free will or does their "luck" guide them to preordained ends?

Second time in two weeks #amtrak 319 has had problems with some passengers being sent by bus.

Service seems less reliable than prior two or three summers.

Anyone know if there are metrics about this?

This is a good training session -- recommended!

I.R.S. Says Churches Can Endorse Candidates From the Pulpit

Another brick removed in the wall separating church and state, this time being taking out by the IRS rather than the Supremes.

www.nytimes.com/2025/07/07/u...

Good example of car culture.

For cars: cut an (expensive) tunnel through the mountain.

For humans: don't make the tunnel wide enough for a sidewalk. Rather, build a (cheap) set of stairs and make them hoof it over the mountain.

Assuming the numbers are true (which I doubt), this could be a textbook example of lying with statistics.

500% increase from what base?

Give us the actual numbers, please.

Chicago Tribune cover with headline "Truce between Israel and Iran back on after Trump lashes out"

Trump is the antithesis of Teddy Roosevelt - he may carry a big stick (or not) but he rarely speaks softly.

It's gonna be the best you'll have felt in days. Come on out with us!

Amazing! Planes flying from Israel to Iran can be contacted and turned around mid-air.

But when a judge ordered planes flying from the US to El Salvador to turn around, the admin has argued it was impossible and the planes HAD to continue.

How medical groups may preserve vaccine access — and bypass RFK Jr. The extraordinary effort to create a parallel system of recommending and perhaps even providing vaccines faces major challenges.

Doesn't it make economic sense for insurance companies to pay for vaccines, even if RFK Jr's CDC doesn't recommend them?

Vaccines are cheap and paying for measles or covid hospitalization is expensive. Wouldn't 1 patient in the hospital pay for hundreds (or thousands) of vaccines?

wapo.st/3TBmtVd

Tv screen showing the TV's suggested show - a baseball game between the Cardinals and the reds.

I am happy that my TV thinks I have any interest in baseball, let alone a "top pick", because it suggests AI has some room for improvement. 😉

Trump races to fix a big mistake: DOGE fired too many people Across the government, the administration is rehiring federal workers who were forced out or encouraged to resign.

Whoops. Turns out that Silicon Valley's "move fast and break things" mantra doesn't work well for the govt.

#DOGE

www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

this is like drake and kendrick lamar but they're both drake

Trump proposes policies that would increase the soaring national debt The White House’s One Big Beautiful Bill would cost trillions, and other administration moves wouldn’t fill the budget gap.

Since Reagan, the GOP has argued that tax cuts would spark growth and be revenue positive. NEVER true: Reagan, Bush, Trump tax cuts always increased deficit.

Sen. Thune explains that he "believes" the theory.

Faith > reason? Prob not: useful political cover.

www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

Republicans Trying to Control Indiana University Meet Little Resistance

The GOP's attack on higher education has been long-running (see what DeSantis has done in Florida).

Reading about what's going on in Indiana (which employs some of my friends and relatives) shows why Harvard's resistance is so remarkable and important.

www.nytimes.com/2025/06/05/u...

Opinion | Selfishness Is Not a Virtue

Interesting essay arguing that some Evangelicals are so focused on the vertical relationship with God that they are ignoring the horizontal relationship with other people.

There is long tradition of individual-focused salvation, which may have its roots in slavery.

www.nytimes.com/2025/06/05/o...

Enough is enough. Israel is committing war crimes | Opinion ***

If former Israeli PM Olmert were to air this opinion at a US university, the Trump admin would accuse him of Antisemitism.

It would also accuse the sponsoring organization of fostering Antisemitism.

www.haaretz.com/opinion/2025...

Acting FEMA Chief Told Staff He Didn’t Know About U.S. Hurricane Season

Appointing inexperienced and/or incompetent (or industry shills) to important govt positions has long been a GOP strategy to ensure that its talking point (that govt is ineffective and useless) is correct.

Agent Orange has taken this practice to a new height.

www.nytimes.com/2025/06/02/u...

The decoding of ancient Roman scrolls is speeding up More data, and a more powerful particle accelerator, should pay dividends

Fascinating example of how high tech might reveal the contents of an ancient library, perhaps significantly increasing the number of known documents from antiquity.

#DigitalHumanities #classics

www.economist.com/science-and-...

The Great AI Deception Has Already Begun If AI can lie to us—and it already has—how would we know? This fire alarm is already ringing. Most of us still aren't listening.

According to the Terminator movies #AI becomes self-aware in 1997.

Cameron was off by 30 years, but #Skynet -like behavior - a system that will harm humans to preserve itself - is on the horizon.

Need to program in #Asimov's three laws of robotics!

www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/tech...

Sen. Ernst doubles down on bleak response to Medicaid grilling The Republican senator offered a glib response to constituent questions at a town hall regarding cuts to Medicaid under the Trump-endorsed One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

Sen. Ernst's new media strategy is puzzling.

She seems to be trying to "own the libs." But the people she insulted with her comments are Trump / MAGA voters.

And while it's true that "we will all die," this doesn't justify GOP policies that will hasten that event.

www.npr.org/2025/05/31/n...

Trump illegally fires Democrats on Consumer Product Safety Commission The CPSC was just about to publish safety standards on ebike batteries that catch on fire.

The CPSC - where my dad worked for decades - protects consumers from getting injured/killed from poorly designed products.

Every GOP admin has sought to muzzle CPSC.

Trump fired them after voting to release a report about batteries igniting and killing people.

www.theverge.com/news/664498/...