Island of Reil

NOAA: The Biggest Little Agency in America - emptywheel What We are Quietly Losing in All the Tumult Last week the ghouls of DOGE came to gut NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) by firing all the probationary employees, because they were...

www.emptywheel.net/2025/03/06/n... My piece on NOAA and how they do so much for not just America, but humanity. And nature.

It turns out that winning by a 2 point margin or whatever does not give you a mandate to remake all of the United States into Greater Hitleria. People don't like it

I really wish that when information like this is presented, it had a more in-depth breakdown. What percentage of Afro Latinos? Indigenous Latinos? White Hispanics? Those who consider themselves multiracial?

CONFIRMED: Eileen Higgins, a Democrat, will be the new mayor of Miami.

She'll be the city's first Democratic mayor since the 1990s. She flipped the office from Republicans, and does so easily. She leads the DeSantis-endorsed Emilio González 59/41 right now with most ballots counted.

Federal agents cut off her wedding ring.

One of the great modern counterarguments to "the humanities makes you a better person and thinker" is very simply "Peter Thiel has a philosophy degree".

Is it better to be invaded by an army if the soldiers (or at least their officers) are cultured and well-read? If they're using the experience of war to learn and become better humans?
(Reminded of the Alexandra Petri quote: “I am sick of having to suffer so a man can grow.")

The word "but" should be replaced with "and". Like, it's utterly typical for misogynists to loathe women who are their equals in social standing and to prey on young girls/women.

I had a very charismatic philosopher for my first years of studies, supremely cultured, interesting, funny and notoriously a misogynist to his female colleagues but bedding every 17 yr old student he could in his classes. I don't think education made him a better person.

"Who's Mrs Gummidge?" "If you're a good girl and get well soon I'll lend you the book" "Oh, somebody in a book! All you people like Nilla and the Cornishes and that man Darcourt seem to live out of books. As if everything was in books!" "Well, Schnak, just about everything is in books. No, that's wrong. We recognize in books what we've met in life. But if you'd read a few books you wouldn't have to meet everything as if it had never happened before, and take every blow right on the chin. You'd see a few things coming. About love, for instance. You thought you loved me." Schnak gave a painful howel. "All right then, you think you love me now. Come on, Schnak, say it. Say, "I love you, Geraint." Another howl. "Come on. Out with it! Say it, Schnak." "I'd die first." "Look, Schnak, that's what comes of building your vocabulary on words like 'shit.' Great words choke you. If you can't say love, you can't feel love"

what it can give you, sometimes, is this.

But I don't think it makes you a *morally* better person. It might be one of the ways your morality is shaped or the language you use to express it, but it's a vessel, not the substance. We do not, after all, think of professors of English Literature as an unusually virtuous bunch.

...in the 1950s-1970s, and generalizing or essentializing it beyond that is extremely misleading, unhelpful, and a pet peeve of mine. "If only he'd (and yes usually a he) had taken more humanities he wouldn't be a resentful fascist" is just flatly empirically false.

As someone who has always straddled the "two cultures" it's bizarre to me. Have they heard of Heidegger for example? Or the fact that many early-20th-century German elites were cultured Mandarins precisely to fight a rearguard cultural action against liberals and the left?

I'm definitely less sympathetic to the post that kicked this all off (I think the frustration is fair but is wrongly directed at the university) but this is just obviously true. Knowing Origen and Rousseau did very little to restrain Imperial bureaucrats in the Raj or British North America

After 12 years of catholic schooling, it wasn’t engineering classes that made me rethink the rights of gay people, it was having a gay housemate.

A close friend had a confederate flag on her wall as a frosh and I remember her explaining about how it was about southern pride. She’s now very liberal

Absolutely! I spent a decade and a half in close proximity to folks like these. The reductionistic quantification of all things is pernicious.

There are ample numbers of arrogant bastards interested in the humanities, but trying to make any kind of living in the humanities tends to be an extremely humbling experience in a way that has been far less the case (until, like, last year) for “studying compsci and getting a job in tech”

I think the toxic current correlation between “studied STEM” and “techbro sociopathy” isn’t really about the subject matter itself but is about how our culture has spent 25 years constantly blowing smoke up the asses of guys who are even passably competent at Computer or Quant

Over 250 people quarantined in South Carolina as measles outbreak rages 16 cases are linked to a church, which followed exposures at four schools last week.

Over 250 people quarantined in South Carolina as measles outbreak rages flip.it/suFsPa

This is huge. Even in Florida, voters are rejecting what Donald Trump is trying to do to this country.

The Trump admin gave states an ultimatum: Cooperate with the immigration crackdown, or lose your federal funding.

Oregon and 19 other states fought back — and won.

Then officials logged in to the grant website to accept the money, only to find the button to do so was disabled: propub.li/4a4Bsk5

Seeking the death penalty for Luigi but not for the cop accused of killing a young girl he groomed and raped from a young age, because he thought she was pregnant with his child? That’s Trumpism

JUST IN: It appears Democrats will win the mayor's office in Miami.

This would be a flip from GOP.

It's not final yet, but Democrat Eileen Higgins is up 61% to 39% as the first 23K ballots are counted. That's *the majority of votes cast*, & Election Day is no less Democratic today.

More soon!

I do thank that what’s kept the drone industry from being more publicly insane is that everyone in it understands regulators can and will crush them like bugs if they get too uppity.

This has NOT been the case for AI companies - they don’t fear regulators at all - and we are reaping the results

this changed very rapidly - it was not long ago when being an edgy novelist was one of the most masculine possible jobs!

why are people treating me like a d-list comic book villain when I act and talk exactly like a d-list comic book villain all the time, the big tech CEOs ask

it really is fun to make a certain kind of man mad by telling him that economics is a social science, try it sometime

Sam Altman makes his late-night debut, says he can't imagine 'figuring out how to raise a newborn without ChatGPT'

Care is the holy grail of automation. Because we need it to survive, but it's too labor-intensive to be profitable, even as it gets more expensive. And because we could make it a public good, but only by raising taxes on billionaires.

So, be *very* skeptical when they claim AI can replace care.

New York Times editor Joe Kahn misunderstands what the readers want | Press Watch They want the Times to be more honest, not more partisan

NEW: New York Times editor Joe Kahn misunderstands what the readers want: presswatchers.org/2025/12/new-...