First 6 Days of Iran War Cost U.S. $11.3 Billion, Pentagon Says

The 2026 National Science Foundation budget is $8.75 Billion.

Satellite proposals threaten the night sky In the United States, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the agency responsible for authorizing satellite launches and operations…

The FCC just opened public comments on SpaceX's plan to launch a million satellites to do AI compute in space. Under the current proposal, an environmental review won't be required. Please consider submitting a public comment to oppose this damaging plan.
darksky.org/news/two-sat...

One of my favorite "I learned this as an adult and it blew my mind" items

🎯🎯

And now, the #Pope, in an apostolic letter on … the importance of #archaeology:

"It teaches us to respect matter, memory & history. Archaeologists do not throw things away, they preserve them. They do not consume, but contemplate. They do not destroy, but decipher."

www.vatican.va/content/leo-...

What should we expect this flu season?

Here’s a forecast from a wastewater perspective (because sh*t don’t lie)
1/

I don’t know who needs to hear this but the CDC is being eviscerated right now. America is not going to have any kind of outbreak response capacity after tonight. Americans’ health data is no longer secure. Say goodbye to federal public health in any capacity. It’s a disaster. We won’t recover.

I will never get over how a handful of tech bros set billions of dollars on fire to build a plagiarism machine that doesn't work and will destroy human society when they could have used a fraction of that money to fund a new golden age of creativity and knowledge.

RFK Jr. in interview with Scripps News: ‘Trusting the experts is not science’ HHS Secretary RFK Jr. sat down with Scripps News for a wide-ranging interview, discussing mRNA vaccine funding policy changes and a recent shooting at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

1. "'Trusting the experts is not a feature of either a science or democracy," Kennedy said."

It's literally a vital feature of both science and of representative democracy.

I've written a fair bit about trust in expertise as a vital mechanism in the collective epistemology of science.

tehran is a city of 10 million people, and this article was published one week ago, to give you a sense of the urgency here

Who’d a thunk it? Data centers are turning out to be environmental parasites. Grok, why are the wells and rivers running dry?

Scientists once hoarded pre-nuclear steel, and now we’re hoarding pre-AI content Newly-announced catalog collects pre-2022 sources untouched by ChatGPT and AI contamination.

Scientists once hoarded pre-nuclear steel, and now we’re hoarding pre-AI content arstechnica.com/ai/2025/06/w...

Okay their dad just took them to the playground so HERE WE GO

(thread)

Hearing state officials talk about how unexpected these floods were & it’s infuriating.

This was completely predictable to anyone even vaguely aware of the climate crisis.

Same thing with LA fires. The Mayor cut the fire fighting budget as global temps soared.

Climate ignorance = needless deaths

All right, I was just on a call with House Dems including Reps Maxwell Frost (FL-10), Debbie Dingell (MI-06) Lauren Underwood (IL-14) Hakeem Jeffries (NY-08) and Joe Neguse (CO-02) Here is rapid fire what they want us to know for the next 18 hours. “ kids will go to school hungry” that language is powerful Costs will go up and jobs will go down. For the bill to get to the floor, it has to pass through the rules committee first kind of like the vote before vote-a-rama in the senate When Debbie Dingell was in the rules committee she submitted 15,000 letters from Michiganders into the record There is a storm right now travel delays may delay this and every minute this is delayed it becomes less popular. Maxwell Frost said that there should be faxing campaigns. Republicans might turn off their phones, but their fax machine is their copy machine. They won’t turn it off. Almost 500 amendments have already been introduced by Democrats, but the Republicans majority rules committee is not allowing any of them to be voted on. Jeffries said “this is the largest cut to healthcare in American history”” people are going to die, this is a crime scene” 20–30 Republicans are saying they are a no, that is the list that is going around. We need to keep them at a no and Maxwell Frost (and everyone in the room) gave the OK to contact them whether they are your rep or not. But start with those in your state and then you can move outside of your state after you’ve done that. Joe Neguse stepped out of the rules committee to tell us that he does not think the Republicans have the votes. 18 hours is the magic number that is how long Democrats are expecting this process to take that is how long we have to really push. This is not in any way shape or form a done deal yet.

House Dems are 100% united we only need four Republicans and with Thomas Massie almost certainly know we really need three Lauren Underwood mentioned that if someone had a heart attack and there’s not a hospital nearby they will die. It doesn’t matter if they are on Medicaid or private insurance. The hospital doesn’t exist for them to go to. She also said “the nursing home industry will collapse.” And that ACA tax credit will expire. That means that if you are paying $10 for your premium right now that will go up hundreds 17 million people will lose their healthcare but millions more will have it increase in cost possibly out of their ability to keep paying. We can focus on holding Republicans accountable later. Ignore the Senate right now. Our focus is on the house and the Republicans who may vote no And finally the human angle matters if you have a story write a letter or send a fax and tell it that may be the difference between a republican voting and voting no That’s all I got. I hope this was helpful. I will be updating you as I know more. I will be posting infographics and other things as I know more but I hope this helped clarify some things and gives you some call to action right now. Remember, our voices are our superpower, but only when we use them and now more than ever before we have to use them!

This is a breakdown on what Democrats in the House are doing right now. With some small hope I say this pos bill isn’t done yet. @ariellaelm.bsky.social
(type is small but alt text is all there)

As a public service, people will find the original pdf files of all the U.S. National Climate Assessments, 2001-2023, publicly available at: www.patrickgonzalez.net#us_national_...

Well the “NOAA Climate” and “NASA Climate” social media feeds - a key tool to communicate the massive challenge of climate change to the world - are now gone.

Democratic Leaders Stand Real Still In Hopes No One Notices Them WASHINGTON—With the elected officials trying their hardest not to move a muscle, reports confirmed Monday that top Democratic leaders in Congress were standing real still in hopes that the American people wouldn’t notice them. “Don’t make any sudden movements, or they’ll spot us,” Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said out of the corner of his mouth, […]

Democratic Leaders Stand Real Still In Hopes No One Notices Them

theonion.com/democra...

It’s a good thing Congress isn’t alive to see this

The US now has no vaccine advisory committee, no CDC director, and an anti-vaxxer as Health Secretary.

Red background with white text on read reads: "tell your friends. our access to vaccines is under attack." below: "Submit a public comment to the FDA by May 23: We all need access to updated COVID boosters " "Our template makes it easy (link in bio). Comment at tinyurl.com/FDAVaccineMeeting" Yellow People's CDC in lower right corner.

Red background with white text reads: "Vaccine Access is under attack" Under it: "The CDC currently recommends the COVID vaccine for people 6 months and up. But the Wall Street Journal reported that HHS is considering no longer reccomending COVID vaccine access to pregnant people, and children. Robust scientific evidence shows that updated COVID boosters provide important protection against severe illness for all age groups." Below "Comment by May 23 tinyurl.com/FDAVaccineMeeting" People's CDC logo is in lower right.

Red background with white text reads: "Vaccine Access is under attack" Below it: "The FDA recently approved the Novavax, but with no scientific basis, restricted it to people over 65 and 12-64 with certain health conditions. These unfounded limitations likely could extend to all COVID vaccines (Pfizer and Moderna). We need to tell the FDA to make COVID vaccines available for all. Use our template (link in bio) and comment by May 23." And small text: "Comment by May 23 tinyurl.com/FDAVaccineMeeting" People's CDC logo is in lower right.

Our access to COVID vaccines is under attack. It’s more important than ever to make our voices heard by making public comment to the FDA by May 23 at 11:59 PM EST. Use our template available on our substack at peoplescdc.substack.com/p/vaccine-ac...

You have three days, starting today, to leave a public comment with the FDA about, say, why COVID-19 boosters should remain available to everyone and also free. "Individual consumer" is the category you most likely want (unless you are one of the other categories; if so, choose that).

🚨 ACTION ITEMS to stop the FDA from limiting Covid vaccine access:

1. Submit a public comment to the FDA www.regulations.gov/commenton/FD...

2. Contact your elected officials
www.usa.gov/elected-offi...

This is an excellent analogy

Harvard University Harvard University is devoted to excellence in teaching, learning, and research, and to developing leaders who make a difference globally.

Harvard redid its whole homepage to push back against the administration’s demands. I mean, this is just a website but I think it’s kind of a great PR move: www.harvard.edu

"You boy! What tariff is it today?"

“Instead, we will be signing a blank check and handing it to him to do with as he wishes. I am very smart.”

One minute. That's all it takes.

Amidst everything, I still can't believe they didn't exempt Canadian oil. They literally built a "higher gas prices" button and pushed it. They acknowledged it was a bad idea to put tariffs on it but decided to do 10% instead of 0. They literally built a "higher gas prices" button and pushed it!

we spend 1/3 of our lives sleeping? rookie numbers. we can do better.