Cynthia Froning

I wish I could expect my alma mater to do the same...

Ah yes. The core principle of science that says one should start with the conclusion and then construct the evidence to support it.

I wrote my last term paper (on boron in the interstellar medium), finishing at 3 a.m. the day it was due. I was pulled over by a police officer as I left campus. He let me go when he realized I wasn't drunk, just dorky.

E Pluribus Dumdum

Ooh, the next SPIE meeting is in Copenhagen. Getting excited already.

i know hegseth's speech was intended to tell the military they won't get prosecuted for war crimes and beating your wife won't hold up getting promoted to O-4, but bringing in trump fresh from death's door is a really persuasive way to unconsciously tell them the crimes jubilee may not last too long

watched like three seconds of Hegseth and woo call him the Secretary of War cause my boy is bombing hard

jesus: turn the other cheek

pete "christian crusader" hegseth: shut up pussy

It's not just bribery. He's now using personal litigation, backed by state extortion, to extract "settlements" which he then puts into an account he created to spend on government work, all entirely outside of Congress taxing or appropriating. It's full Charles I illegal taxation and spending.

ADS has given astronomy THE BEST literature tools available anywhere. I almost never have to use the garbage that other academics have to suffer through (GoogleScholar, JSTOR, LexisNexis, WoS, PubMed...)

Literally anytime I have to interface with those tools I weep

How a secret recording of a gender identity lecture upended Texas A&M Officials have struggled to detail the exact reasons for the A&M professor’s termination, citing a technical issue with her course description. Faculty say the move was politically motivated.

This is an absolutely terrific piece from @texastribune.org and reinforces my belief that the best coverage of right-wing cancelations occur at the local level, after years of the national media focusing on threats from the left.
www.texastribune.org/2025/09/19/t...

Hopefully, someone is sharing their class materials. You should not have to start from scratch!

There is literally no Western politician alive that I can think of that has incited more hate, bigotry, and violence than Donald Trump.

That so many in our public life, in our 'liberal' media, have just memory-holed 10 years of nonstop incitement and abuse from him is shameful.

For those posting things they perhaps shouldn’t, it costs you nothing to show someone’s small children the kind of grace that Someone Else would never think to show the children of their slain or hurt enemies.

That is not the same thing as accurately assessing a dead man’s legacy or record

I'm sure what gets people is the conflation of opinion and fact ("Indian food is bad") and a gleeful stubbornness.

❤️ I hope all is well.

I've taken up crossword puzzles.

But it's the start of the semester, so you have a captive audience again. :)

In July, New York Times reporters witnessed other Adams supporters handing out red envelopes with cash at three separate campaign events: one in Flushing, Queens; another in Manhattan's Chinatown; and a third in Sunset Park in Brooklyn. At those events, Mr. Adams picked up support from leaders of influential Chinese community groups, including several with close ties to the Chinese government.

The event, organized by four influential community leaders, buzzed with dozens of fervent backers, proudly wearing shirts adorned with Mr. Adams's face and energetically waving U.S. flags as they chanted and called for his re-election. One of the organizers, Steven Tin, the director of Better Chinatown USA, which hosts the Lunar New Year parades in Manhattan's Chinatown, was seen by The Times holding $50 bills and handing out red envelopes to reporters from Chinese-language news organizations.

Five days after the event in Queens, Chinese American community leaders held a rally at Confucius Plaza in Chinatown in Manhattan, where Times reporters again witnessed red envelopes being distributed. Then, on July 27, Times reporters saw more envelopes being passed out at the Sunset Park rally. Robin Mui, the chief executive of the Sing Tao U.S. newspaper, was among the organizers of the Manhattan rally. Mr. Mui made at least one trip, in 2014, to China with Mr. Adams and Ms. Greco.

Let’s hope the NYT public editor looks into why Times reporters witnessed multiple instances of cash being handed out at the mayor’s events but didn’t write it up til they got beaten on the story by a feisty nonprofit site ….

Apologies …

We are being told the Times no longer has a public editor.

It’s important to see that Trump didn’t have to push these people too hard to become fully fascist thugs.

Milk crates ftw!

We also did it on our own. I can't imagine my mom decorating my dorm room.

This gets more infuriating each time I see it. Trump has made clear for years that he wants to exert dominance over cities and states that don't support him -- nonwhite cities in particular. His aides and supporters have made it clear.

Stop conceding his premise. This is not about crime.

Sitting here in the dog days of summer, trying to get stuff done, and thinking that our European colleagues have the right idea.

I remember having a conversation with a U. Chicago astronomer who was explaining why he implicitly trusts that private school grads are stronger than public school ones and thinking, sure...

Why is school starting on Aug. 13? What is wrong with us?

Basing such unprecedented action on the blatant lie that crime in D.C. is soaring underscores that our democracy is under assault.

To write this off as a “distraction” misses the danger of the moment; the potential for unbridled deployment of the military for domestic policing.

Trump Has Made Himself Commander in Chief of the Chip Industry

Trump is a bigoted fascist operating at a third-grade reading level whose policies are completely incoherent. He believes in absolutely nothing but attention, wealth and power.

the closest the NYT can get to explaining this to readers is to proclaim "this isn't your grandpa's republican party"

They seem to be trying to force me from new drugs to generic. Which would be fine if the process didn't start one day before my current daily inhaler runs out.