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So now the president gets to pick who gets to vote. "The order also instructed the Postal Service not to mail ballots on behalf of anyone whose name was not on the approved list." www.nytimes.com/2026/08/24/u...

Supreme Court Allows Trump Plan to Restrict Mail-In Voting, for Now

The administration asked the court to clear the way for President Trump’s order that creates “state citizenship lists” and directs the Postal Service to decide who gets a mail-in ballot.

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Yes. Studies in macaques, bats and birds show that animals shed more virus and stay infectious to humans for longer when they're under stress--from hunger, disruption, and captivity Which suggests that being respectful toward them might also protect us from the pathogens in their bodies 6/7 👇

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These people don't destroy or segregate themselves from animals that are reservoirs for pathogens--and yet they don't suffer outbreaks Could it be that these reservoir animals are less infectious? 5/7 👇

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Across Asia, macaques that carry pathogens that cause deadly encephalitis in humans live among people and in the protected forests around temples At such sites, macaques are “crawling all over people,” one expert notes, “smearing their poopy hands in your hair and face.” 4/7 👇

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"Bats are part of us,” as a local from Soppeng city in South Sulawesi put it. “We do not disturb the bats….we live side by side, do not interfere with each other.” 3/7 👇

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Across Austronesia, humans and fruit bats (likely reservoirs of Ebola and coronaviruses among others) co-exist peacefully--people hunt bats, keep them as pets, cherish them as models for rightful living & more In Soppeng City in South Sulawesi, it's considered an honor if a bat poops on you 2/7 👇

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It turns out that people can and do live in intimate proximity with species that carry disease-causing microbes--but without suffering epidemics Take bats, for example 1/7 👇

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The NYT's recent diatribe against ticks for the travesty of carrying pathogens sent me on a deep dive into the science and politics of how we treat animals--and how that shapes our risk of contagions -THREAD-

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Reposted by Sonia Shah

This is like saying we should destroy all mammals because one dog committed a crime He's suggesting that because ONE SPECIES of ticks are problematic we should destroy ALL INSECTS plus mice and deer too

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It's a screed of hysterical villainizing According to the author, ticks are a "horror story;" they are "diabolical" "thieves of our ease and joy," "insidious malefactors" who are like "hordes of soldiers" with "disgusting eating habits"

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The NYT's despicable story on the rise of tick-borne illnesses--which recommends that we kill all the deer, all the mice, & all the ticks and insects, who are “disgusting” and “diabolical”—is a little window into how the crypto and AI kings that the author usually writes about think about nature.

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This @nytimes.com story on ticks and alpha-gal is quite possibly the worst article on zoonotic disease I've ever read www.nytimes.com/2026/08/20/m...

Can We Do Anything About Tick-Borne Diseases Like Alpha-Gal Syndrome?

A scientific and civilizational horror story.

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how this article passed fact check is beyond me

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It's the same shit attitude that brought us the climate crisis and Sixth Extinction --which are the actual drivers of the surge in tick-borne illness So disappointing that this got published in the @nytimes.com magazine

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But other animals are not extraneous beings that we should destroy when they are inconvenient to us Blithely advocating for mass exterminations while we're losing 150 species a day is not only bonkers

Look, tick-borne illnesses are a real problem People in tick-rich areas should take precautions, like spraying on insecticide and treating clothes with permethrin (which is easily acquired for example at Amazon--it doesn't require a specialty service as the article suggests)

and after portraying alpha-gal syndrome as practically a death sentence--a horrible scourge that justifies killing all the deer, all the mice, and all the insects-- In paragraph 27, in a PARENTHETICAL ASIDE, he reveals that alpha-gal "can in many cases, eventually fade."

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he never mentions the role that these animals play in our ecosystems Nor the collapse of insect populations and the fact that our survival literally depends on them the only roadblocks to total slaughter he sees are pesky animal rights activists and property owners

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It's only in graf 15 that he reveals that most ticks don't carry pathogens and of the half of deer ticks that do, most don't infect humans

He says there's no escape because there are animals in other places that can also kill humans, such as black widow spiders in Texas and taipans in Queensland, Australia The implication being....that we should kill all the animals that might bite us there too?

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he targets deer and mice too, advising that we could "just kill all the deer" and "carpet-bomb" the mice

Not just ticks. ALL INSECTS. The "bug situation is getting out of hand," the author complains, because there are "more of them, more kinds of them, in more places"; they are a "plague" that "threaten to make our lives into waking nightmares"

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This @nytimes.com story on ticks and alpha-gal is quite possibly the worst article on zoonotic disease I've ever read www.nytimes.com/2026/08/20/m...

Can We Do Anything About Tick-Borne Diseases Like Alpha-Gal Syndrome?

A scientific and civilizational horror story.

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Sonia Shah @soniashah.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

MAHA thinks that splitting up the MMR combo shot into three separate shots will reduce autism--except when Japan did just that in the 1990s, their autism rates DOUBLED. Using the logic of the anti-vaxx movement, the MMR shot must cure autism! crosspollinations.substack.com/p/the-real-f...

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🎃GHOULLIKEHELLMACHINE🎃 @golikehellmachine.com · 17/08/2026

i know lots of people thinks fox news lies about everything, and you’re not wrong when it comes to their commentary, but this kind of bald-faced, do not believe your own lying eyes shit is a lot worse than it used to be

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Julian Sanchez @normative.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

I’m curious how many viewers of this will dutifully distort their own personal memories of how expensive gas was twelve months ago. Because I don’t know how anyone who drives a car regularly could think this is accurate.

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Sonia Shah @soniashah.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

looks like it's around $165 per person per day but it's ICE that makes the bogus arrests in the first place

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Sonia Shah @soniashah.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

What exactly does ICE get out of this? They arrested this woman and detained her in filth for two weeks only to release her so that her case has to be adjudicated--the exact status she was in *before* they arrested her www.nytimes.com/2026/08/16/u...