NEW: This might be the perfect visual metaphor for the war in Iran.

Courtesy of today’s Virginia Tech Spring game.

Forbes is going to the special hell.

Palantir wants to bring back the draft (And also the Axis Powers.)

Palantir Wants To Bring Back the Draft www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

Palantir put out the most cartoonishly evil statement possible. They’re so arrogant and self-confident they don’t seem to believe their fascistic plans can be opposed.

We must get rid of Palantir altogether.

twitter-thread.com/t/2045574398...

Serial Failure Sal Khan Wants to Take Over Higher Education And anyone who cares about human-centered education should hope he fails.

"This vision for a future of postsecondary education is a recipe for mass immiseration and public disempowerment. Imagine a world where Microsoft, Google, McKinsey, et al … get to determine what and how you learn from cradle to retirement."

www.insidehighered.com/opinion/colu...

Turns out Russia, Russia, Russia was worse than we thought

I'm feeling irate as a Virginia taxpayer that my taxes go to support subsidies to billionaire Jeff Bezos, who hasn't delivered on his promises to create jobs in the Commonwealth. Let's stop with the corporate welfare.

Opinion | Your Patients Are Getting Surprise Ambulance Bills. Federal Law Still Allows It. Excluding ground ambulances from the No Surprises Act has clinical consequences

Approximately 85% of emergency ground ambulance rides are out-of-network. Roughly half of emergency ground ambulance rides resulted in an out-of-network charge for privately insured patients, with a median surprise bill of $450.
www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/seco...

The Virginia no surprises act specifically mentions "emergency services," though not ground ambulances. But if a ground ambulance doing an emergency patient transfer between two hospitals for potential emergency surgery isn't an "emergency service," I don't know what is.

There have been also a couple of physicians' charges—usually $40 copays. By far, the most expensive part of his treatment was the hourlong ambulance ride from one hospital to another. (We could not have taken him by car; he was on morphine and had to be monitored for internal bleeding.)

My kiddo spent a night in Pediatric Intensive Care to monitor for internal bleeding and the next two days in a regular unit at the Children's Hospital. The bill was something like $30,000. My share was a $250 copay. I had a copay plus an MRI bill for the initial ER visit, for at total of $700.

Virginia, where I live, has a no surprises billing law that covers "emergency services." If an ambulance to transfer a child from an emergency department at one hospital to a trauma unit at another is not an "emergency service," I don't know what it.

The ambulance company received an in-network payment from my insurance company and is balance billing me. They claim to have appealed the payment with insurance, but I have checked and they have filed no appeal.

I have been billed for over $2700 by an out of network ambulance company for an emergency transfer of my son from the local hospital to an out of town children's hospital because the local hospital thought he needed a splenectomy. (In the end, he did not.)

Péter Magyar, who unseated Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán Sunday in a landslide, shared a bombshell with reporters that the outgoing leader had diverted taxpayer funds to bankroll the American Conservative Political Action Conference. trib.al/vozuOJA

Hegseth Quotes Made-Up Bible Verse From Pulp Fiction Does Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth actually know what’s in the Bible?

Almost every single line from Hegseth’s prayer is ripped from Samuel L. Jackson’s iconic recitation of Ezekiel 25:17 in Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, not the actual prophet Ezekiel.

Does Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth actually know what’s in the Bible? trib.al/qVBWH1L

So sorry to hear this news. I hope that your docs have a plan to deal with this situation.

Lt. Gov. of Virginia Ghazala Hashmi and Suzanne Hagedorn stand in front of a William & Mary backdrop.

Thanks for coming to William & Mary yesterday, Lt. Governor Hashmi! I enjoyed your lecture and chatting with you afterward about the AAUP organizing drive!

@aaup.org and @ltgovhashmi.bsky.social Thanks so much for coming to W&M, Lt. Governor Hashmi!

Picture of Lieutenant Governor of Virginia Ghazala Hashmi and Suzanne Hagedorn in front of a William & Mary backdrop.

I had a good chat with Virginia Lieutenant Governor Ghazala Hashmi after she gave a talk on the Federalist Papers at William & Mary last night—I thanked her for coming to an AAUP organizing event last month!

visits the pope → pope dies
leads Iran negotiations → talks collapse
flies to Hungary to prop up Orbán → Orbán loses in a landslide
Man’s got a streak.

CPAC funded by Putin ally Viktor Orbán. Who'da thunk it?

Members of neo-Nazi ‘active clubs’ join combat events at secretive Virginia compound Licensed school teacher and one-time police officer among those participating in riot-style gatherings as experts warn of threat to public safety

Far-right groups are training for a war in Virginia: www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...

‘Everyone is Replaceable’: Death Rattles Oregon Amazon Facility A worker died at Amazon’s Troutdale warehouse last week. Employees were told to look away.

This needs to be investigated:

A worker died at an Amazon warehouse in Oregon last week.
For more than an hour, workers were instructed to continue working as the man lay dead, according to
@thewesternedge.bsky.social

.www.thewesternedge.media/p/everyone-is-replaceabl...

John Lennon with a guitar - text: imagine all the people living life in peace. You may say I’m a dreamer but I’m not the only one.

Virginia!
Vote YES on the redistricting referendum! Don’t let Republican gerrymandering silence your voices!
Visit voteyes.us for more info!
#VirginiaVoteYes
#ProudBlue #Pinks #OneV1

Knitting goals.

My brother went to Harvard for grad school; he said he was happy to have done his bachelor's at Princeton (also my alma mater) because Harvard mainly cared about its grad students. The fact that not enough Harvard faculty volunteer for pre-major advising to make the system work speaks volumes...

As a person with Long COVID/dysautonomia and an immune system that is not working right, I am very concerned to hear factthe Cicada variant of COVID is rapidly spreading.

all these universities kept axing medieval history departments as if they thought tyrants beefing with the Pope was going to stop being relevant