feel like if they sent out covid stimulus checks they can send out tariff refund checks

We Need to Prepare for the Mammoth Task of De-Trumpification The damage he and his cronies have wrought could take decades to repair, particularly when it comes to science and public health.

The task of de-Trumpification of science and public health will take a generation and a "Marshall Plan" to rebuild. Without a bold, expansive vision to guide us, there is no coming back. Small-bore, poll-tested versions of the future will not help us. www.thenation.com/article/soci...

Texas A&M civil discourse symposium met with protest Some students said the message of the forum, headlined by former Vice President Mike Pence, rang hollow as the university has placed limits on what professors can teach.

Protest organized by...us!

(You're welcome!)

#BTHOcensorship

Trying to explain St Augustine to the pope, the former head of the Augustinian order, who wrote his doctoral thesis on Augustine, on his way back from celebrating mass at the Basilica of St Augustine in Annaba, Algeria, overlooking the site where Augustine lived is peak Adult Catholic Convert.

Back to books - Sweden's schools cutting back on digital learning Swedish classrooms swap laptops for books, pens and paper, raising concerns from the tech sector.

The sooner the better.
www.bbc.com/news/article...

Such a clear statement of our misguided educational priorities: canceling in-person classes for kids in favor of a lucrative sporting event.

There are currently 6 permanent full time history jobs in the whole UK. 500+ PhDs being produced a year - not all of whom will want to pursue an academic year but likely most, and of course years will stack up onto each other. What a sector.

"We are pleased to share more than 125,000 U.S. Supreme Court records and briefs. These materials which span nearly two centuries of American law are now freely accessible online."

"Includes records and briefs spanning cases from 1830 through 2019."

Mexico's Sheinbaum demands explanation after U.S. officials die assisting in Chihuahua operation Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum says she was unaware of any collaboration between the U.S. and local authorities in Chihuahua after four officials died in an accident over the weekend.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Monday she would demand explanations after four U.S. and Mexican officials died in an accident over the weekend, adding she was unaware of collaboration between the U.S. and the local government in northern Chihuahua. https://to.pbs.org/3OiMzO1

In our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we spoke about AI becoming as divisive as DEI, the prevalence of scholarly slop, and how Bluesky poisons academic discourse. Evan Goldstein: You’ve described the Substack series as “intentionally provocative.” What — or who — were you trying to provoke? Alexander Kustov: I started using Claude Code and other agentic tools, and I was impressed with the possibilities and functionalities. Yet I still hear a lot of negativity about AI from colleagues who haven’t used those tools. The vast majority of folks in academia still think AI is that chatbot interface from a couple of years ago that hallucinates and cannot really do anything. But that’s not what I saw on my computer. I’d written short items about AI, so I thought to try to see whether Claude could assemble that and create a coherent, substantive post. It did a pretty good job. I just posted it. Then I realized it was a big thing.

Kustov: If we look at the best agentic models right now, they can do most quantitative social-science research tasks better than most professors globally. All of the kind of caveats here are important. What made a lot of people upset about this statement is that they interpret it in a very America-centric way. People were thinking about their colleagues at Oxford and R1 research universities. But I was born in Soviet Russia and went to undergrad in Europe. I have seen a lot of human slop. It should not be a controversial statement to say that agentic tools can do better. The value of qualitative research is going up because that’s something that AI cannot do well — ethnography and actually interviewing people in person, especially in hard-to-reach places. If you are gathering new data that is not yet publicly available, that’s the highest value that you can have as a professor and as a researcher. But I just came from an International Studies Association conference. I saw so much poor research that, if anything, I’m more convinced that my original point is correct. Too many people with Ph.D.s, with tenure, are producing work that is not contributing to human knowledge.

Meanwhile, the Chronicle has decided to interview Dr Kustov, who repeats his claim that AI agents do "qualitative social science research better than most professors globally"
Imagine having tenure and stability, and choosing to shit on his colleagues in a time of great instability for academia.

Two men in fatigues with their hands ziptied being arrested by Capitol Police

Dozens of people in fatigues lined up in the Capitol Rotunda with signage demanding an end to the Iran War

Dozens of US military veterans were arrested at the Capitol today during a protest against the Iran War.

Photos via @frankthorp.bsky.social

Epstein Craved Harvard Connections. Many There Were Eager to Help.

Epstein Craved Harvard Connections. Many There Were Eager to Help. www.nytimes.com/2026/04/20/u...

Cocaine contamination alters the behavior of salmon in their natural habitat

(Alice Wong blasted StoryCorps from beyond the grave at her memorial last month—they wanted her "diverse" stories but didn't want to broadcast any disabled voices on NPR that might make (abled bodied) people "uncomfortable" if they heard a stutter or such... so she started disability visability)

The ICE Detention Reengineering Initiative ($38 billion to convert commercial warehouses into a network of massive detention centers) is not being built primarily by GEO Group and CoreCivic. ICE is turning to a crop of relatively untested contractors. A look at who. 🧵

After the fall of MAGA, this arch should be the first exhibit in our museum of fascism.

Why Is Everyone Wicked Obsessed With This Boston Globe Reporter?

Sorry--this is not even a particularly strong Boston accent.

Why Is Everyone Wicked Obsessed With This Boston Globe Reporter? www.nytimes.com/2026/04/15/s...

Tax Day 2026: The Average Taxpayer Paid $4,049 for War and Weapons - Institute for Policy Studies Tax Day 2026: The Average Taxpayer Paid $4,049 for War and Weapons

Did you pay your taxes? Then you gave $4,049 to war and weapons.

According to the Institute for Policy Studies, taxpayers contributed more to Pentagon contractors ($1,870) than to troops' pay ($770), and more to militarism than programs like school lunches ($124) or the Postal Service ($19).

About that Palantir statement: What do they mean by "Musk's interest in grand narrative"? (And why no mention that the crime rate in the US has dropped sharply in recent years?)

Pancreatic cancer mRNA vaccine shows lasting results in an early trial Scientists caution that more research is needed, but nearly all of the patients who responded to the personalized vaccine are still alive six years later.

Reminder: The Trump regime cancelled nearly $500 million in federal contracts for mRNA vaccine development last year.

Why are Harvard’s slavery researchers quitting or being fired? The school’s $100m project to examine its slave ownership in Antigua is mired in controversy as academics allege obstruction

"DeAngelis said while she was at Harvard, the president’s office told her not to discuss her research with students & that a course she was teaching called 'Slavery at Harvard' was changed in the course catalog to include abolition without her consent."

www.theguardian.com/news/ng-inte...

"Who wants to be at their best?"

This is amazing and it does make the hair stand up on the back of your neck. We've all heard plenty of dead men's voices but this is *Robert* *Johnson*.

Cannot decide what is worse--the non-disclosure or the fact that he has over $100 million in assets?

Here’s Trump bragging about making the U.S. a country that no one wants to come to and many want to leave.

The Yale report on trust in higher education has some good recommendations for reforms in many areas that I hope Yale and other schools implement.

But its diagnosis is oddly silent about what I suspect is the most important force driving the decline in trust in higher education: political attack.

Bill Grueskin, a professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, said Hegseth’s latest attacks on the press revealed a misunderstanding of the role of the media in the U.S. “It’s no surprise that a Fox News host who has done so little actual reporting in his career would fail to understand how journalists do their jobs,” Grueskin said. “But Hegseth gives it away when he says, ‘Sometimes it’s hard to figure out what side some of you are actually on.’” “Ideally, reporters are on the side of the truth and see their role as providing the most accurate, complete and transparent account of what’s happening on the ground,” added Grueskin, a former senior editor at the Miami Herald, Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg News. “That is especially difficult given that Hegseth himself has limited journalists’ access at the Pentagon and that it’s almost impossible for U.S. reporters to work inside Iran’s borders.”

yes, that's an accurate quote www.nbcnews.com/politics/tru...

Medical schools must continue to teach students about structural barriers to care “Patients don’t experience illness in a vacuum,” writes Uché Blackstock.

My latest op-ed in @statnews.com is out today. I wrote it in response to the LCME removing explicit language requiring medical schools to teach about structural barriers that shape patients’ health. This isn’t ideology. It’s clinically competent care.

www.statnews.com/2026/04/15/l...

ICE agent charged with two felonies for pointing his gun at motorists during Operation Metro Surge Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said a nationwide warrant has been issued in the first criminal charges against an ICE agent for on-duty actions during the surge.

A nationwide warrant has been issued in the first criminal charges against an ICE agent for on-duty actions during the enforcement surge in Minnesota.