iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

When I was a PhD student I went to a lab fridge and opened a soup container, and very unexpectedly several dozen crickets jumped out (very slowly). 🦗🦗🦗 They were for a class. It took me a full minute to recover and scoop them back up

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This story of lack of grit and realpolitik in fights about our future is from the climate world. It describes the past. Let’s make sure science research does not look back in 5 years having made the same mistake. Scientists should learn about political economy from clean power.

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Watchdog won’t discipline agencies over partisan shutdown posts but warns against ‘derogatory’ messaging

“Some...had the clear non-electoral purpose of influencing pending legislation—namely the pending appropriations bills that would have restored government funding—while others had the non-electoral purpose of conveying operational impacts. Neither is prohibited under the Hatch Act,” staffers wrote."

govexec.com

Many departments blamed congressional Democrats for last year’s funding lapse by posting banners on agency websites and modifying furloughed employees’ out-of-office messages.

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Aaron S. Veenstra @asveenstra.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

this is an extremely cool and useful information visualization

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Reposted by Mark Histed

Absolutely, and it should be presented as a continuation of the January 6 committee's work.

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Reposted by Mark Histed

Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

"Normative appeals to civility and harmony, when applied indiscriminately, can obscure the moral distinction between domination and resistance—condemning confrontational opposition even in contexts where democratic survival or basic human dignity is at stake."

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Reposted by Mark Histed

Omri Marian @omrimarian.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I see you, and I raise you "We need the January 6th Special Prosecutor, for DOGE."

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Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

This is about Russia post-USSR. And it applies to the United States in 2027 and going forward post-Trump too. We will need a major effort on this, to restore democracy and do anti-corruption, if we want to avoid a long-term Putinist oligarchy in the US.

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Reposted by Mark Histed

“.. this week felt different — like the political environment was disintegrating in real time ..” @axios.com www.axios.com/2026/09/26/t...

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Mike Masnick @masnick.com · 27/09/2026

“Much of STEM has [a lot] in common with the humanities and social sciences.” This. I’d say scientific discovery has *everything* in common with scholarship in other fields. It’s why the Trump/Vought/ view that we can kill academia and still have science research is so totally wrong.

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Reposted by Mark Histed

I have a theory about how many of the world's problems are caused by people who were told they were the smartest people alive as kids, believed it, and then when they became adults and couldn't accept that maybe they weren't that special, started breaking shit if only to prove they were special

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Reposted by Mark Histed

Alex Wenzel @alexwenzel.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Frances Kelsey saved thousands of lives by resisting pressure to approve thalidomide in the US. There have been tens to hundreds of thousands of preventable Covid-19 deaths caused by the anti-public health movement that Bhattacharya helped to lead.

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In a private discussion today this came up: “We need the January 6th Commission hearings, for DOGE.” One could do a lot with NIH and NSF alone. There are clinical trials that ended, patients that died, young people leaving the US… and bad stuff that happened inside the agencies.

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Genius Think Meme: Man Tapping Head

No Chadha issues (of the Court barring legislative vetos of executive activity) if every agency is a leg branch agency

static.klipy.com

Alt: Genius Think Meme: Man Tapping Head

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“Nazi führerprinzip” compared to the Roberts Court / Russel Vought unitary executive theory 👀

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Senator Questions Whether FCC Can Operate With Only Republicans

The need to rebuild admin law is not just about NIH and science. From yesterday: “Congress established the FCC so that no party can grab total control over the nation’s communications infrastructure.” That’s the big picture of the government principles that are now being shredded

bloomberg.com

Oregon Senator Ron Wyden asked the lone Democrat on the Federal Communications Commission, Anna Gomez, whether the agency can legally conduct business, including merger reviews, if it only comprises R...

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Reposted by Mark Histed

Sam Bagenstos @sbagen.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Exactly: "The point is we can't not have big government. And that means we need legal theories and institutions ensuring that those powers advance the common good and aren't hijacked by authoritarians."

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This thread 👇. @kalimurray.bsky.social suggests BFS should become a leg branch agency (not subject to presidential control). Yes. Another option is to (re)protect some agencies from direct pres interference. But ANY of this requires remaking admin law—which SCOTUS has gutted.

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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

A sad story about how the CDC has been politicized. And a loss for everyone. The work the CDC did made us all healthier. Similar things are happening at NIH, but the timetable is slower due to (you!) fighting back. However, the new Trump NIH Institute director hires will push us down this 👇 road

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Reposted by Mark Histed

A second problem is enforcement against the use of government resources for propaganda purposes. donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-federa...

So much for oversight. What about the enforcement of appropriations law? There, Kosar suggests, the problem gets even worse. It is GAO that is principally charged with policing appropriations law. But, as a creature of the legislative branch, it has no direct authority to sanction agencies or individuals who violate the law. It can only report its findings and refer violations to the Department of Justice.

“When it comes to propaganda,” Kosar notes, “the executive branch has demonstrated little interest in punishing wayward executive agencies.” At the time of publication, Kosar could locate neither a single opinion of the Office of Legal Counsel on the “publicity or propaganda” statute nor a single criminal prosecution under it.

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Reposted by Mark Histed

Jenna Norton @jenna-m-norton.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

🧵from @jeremymberg.bsky.social on how NIH rushed out a NOFO calling for research on health impacts of metals in "medically-relevant materials" (probable code for vaccines). While most NOFOs await approval for several-months-to-more-than-a-year, this one made it out very quickly. 🤔

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