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Opinion | We Are Watching a Scientific Superpower Destroy Itself

well stated, Stephen Greenblatt

www.nytimes.com/2025/09/08/o...

thank you for doing these.

... and we are just 6 months in ...

Science and Democracy Under Siege This administration's first 6 months have been characterized by destruction, division, and chaos.

It has certainly felt like science and democracy have been under siege, but here are the receipts.

www.ucs.org/resources/sc...

Opinion | These scientific advances were ‘Made in the U.S.A.’ Will they continue? America has long led in research. Budget cuts could jeopardize that dominance.

Good article by Prof. Bruce Partridge on the cuts to funding for American science:

www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/int...

NASA's disastrous 2026 budget proposal in seven charts The White House has put forward a radical, wasteful proposal for NASA. We have the data to prove it.

This is like a bad dream in slow motion.
A few years back, we would have all been freaking out over a 10% budget cut. Now we have a 50% budget cut so the rich can get a tax break AND we can go further into debt. This is going to make America much less great...

www.planetary.org/articles/nas...

Unprecedented cuts to the National Science Foundation endanger research that improves economic growth, national security and your life The Trump administration has terminated hundreds of federal grants that support engineering, biology, geology, computer science, STEM education and much more.

This was a good article by @paul-bierman.bsky.social

theconversation.com/unprecedente....

This is so incredible fcked up
decimating science, education, and health ... for homeland security and more defense

I have yet to read I Renault book I didn't love. Haven't read the Praise Singer yet. I'll check that out. Last of the Wine was amazing. As are all of her Alexander books.

fckna, Newt talkin sense
weird times ...

www.realclearscience.com/articles/202...

Trump Officials Blame Mistake for Setting Off Confrontation With Harvard An official on the administration’s antisemitism task force told the university that a letter of demands had been sent without authorization.

Clown show

www.nytimes.com/2025/04/18/b...

Trump White House budget proposal eviscerates science funding at NASA “This would decimate American leadership in space.”…

well, this would be fckn terrible ...

arstechnica.com/space/2025/0...

Trump Is Now Mandating His Cabinet/Loyalist Wear "Trump Golden Bust" Pins The Golden Trump Ego Age Marches On

I can't even tell what is real anymore

@deanblundell.bsky.social

deanblundell.substack.com/p/trump-is-n...

What Should We Do If Trump Invokes the Insurrection Act? Three strategies for public pressure in response are refusal, resistance and ridicule.

fun times

truthout.org/articles/wha...

Read the Naval Academy’s list of removed books (Gift Article) The Navy released the titles of 381 books that were removed from the U.S. Naval Academy’s Nimitz Library on the Annapolis, Md., campus this week because their subject matter was seen as being related ...

New reading list just dropped:

www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

The Good News About Trump’s Tariffs Authoritarian leaders are most dangerous when they’re popular. Wrecking the economy is unlikely to broaden Trump’s support.

I always cheer when the stock market goes down.
Chait's arguments make me double happy.

www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...

actually made me feel a lot better about our current timeline !

Winter is Coming : Throughline Dinosaurs, Carl Sagan, and nuclear war. There was a moment in the not-so-distant past when we learned what drove the dinosaurs extinct — and that discovery, made during the Cold War, may have helped s...

This was really good:
www.npr.org/2025/03/13/1...

www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

Opinion | The Authoritarian Endgame on Higher Education This is a moment to trumpet the strengths of higher education and address its weaknesses.

www.nytimes.com/2025/03/15/o...

Well, so it’s per capita. That’s the fair and relevant comparison

that number should be normalized by population. Then US would be 3rd.

we've now regressed back to the era of waking up, checking the news, and seeing crazy shit all over

I'm trying to remember what coping mechanisms I developed 6 years ago

I think I need to listen to more ambient, rocksteady, and beach boys

What's Happening Inside the NIH and NSF

First they came for DEI, then the came for NSF ...

Good real-time analysis by @dereklowe.bsky.social

www.science.org/content/blog...

How the Ivy League Broke America The meritocracy isn’t working. We need something new.

This was a good read.

I agree that our educational system and society is largely broken.

www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...

To the Farthest Reaches in Five Years - NCSA The Astrophysical Sciences Project Office celebrates five years of success with its programs, including the Center for AstroPhysical Surveys.

This has been a lot of my time, effort, and mental bandwidth for the past five years. As my first purely administrative role, it's been stressful, but I've learned a lot. I'm excited to see where we take it in the next five years.

www.ncsa.illinois.edu/to-the-farth...