My comps exam study partner when I did my PhD at Princeton was an Army officer. He was fantastic and on top of everything all the time. Hanging out with him and his family kept our study group grounded and sane.
My new Strange Horizons essay is up! With a deliberately provocative title!
WHY ALL SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY WRITERS ARE HISTORIANS
Yes, *all*
And, no, it isn't just for the reason you think...
I've been working toward this one for a while, very excited to share it!
IR faculty with sabbaticals next year - McGill has a one-semester (Fall 2026 or Winter 2027) visiting professorship. It pays $21,000 CAD and entails teaching a small graduate course and hanging out with us. DEADLINE IS MARCH 27.
mcgill.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/McGill_Caree....
"Inside TurboTax’s 20-Year Fight to Stop Americans From Filing Their Taxes for Free: Using lobbying, the revolving door and “dark pattern” customer tricks, Intuit fended off the government’s attempts to make tax filing free and easy,"
www.propublica.org/article/insi...
Hard to overstate how certain we can be that this is, in fact, going to end badly.
@robinwigglesworth.ft.com on the gutting of the SEC.
www.ft.com/content/b5d9...
Really excellent piece from @rajakorman.bsky.social, highlighting that the core barrier to the RMB rivaling the euro & the dollar as a major global reserve currency is that China's domestic financial markets are not remotely developed or globally integrated to the point that this is feasible.
Bad Bunny with *all* the American flags!
What do you say to those who claim you’re not American? I understand it’s confusing to encounter an American who can speak two different languages.
The Onion’s Exclusive Interview With Bad Bunny https://theonion.com/the-onions-exclusive-interview-with-bad-bunny/
Fantastic nerd-forward analysis plus slightly unhinged Super Bowl commentary.
Sir Ian McKellen performing a monologue from Shakespeare’s Sir Thomas More on the Stephen Colbert show. Never have I heard this monologue performed with such a keen sense of prescience. Nor have I ever been in this exact historical moment.TY Sir Ian, for reaching us once again.
#Pinks #ProudBlue
in which ... I summarise me and @himself.bsky.social 's paper for the @britishacademy.bsky.social on the global dollar system, suggesting that it explains the fascination with the digital Euro (a set of EU payment rails that's independent of the US and can't be acquired). www.ft.com/content/5b9a...
Is there a web link for the course info itself, or just for the application?
As an aside to the above note, just today I saw some dudes still seethingly furious about something I wrote in 2012, on how being a straight white dude in the US is the Lowest Difficulty Setting in the game of life. That's longevity in writing for you!
whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/15/s...
❌ NOTICE Federal US website newly deleted.
https://consumerfinancialbureau.gov
Action taken by the nan (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau) at or around 2026-01-29 06:23:52.
This column is Golden!
Not just once but twice, FT Alphaville having too much fun this morning.
Love the Financial Times - we see your cute K-Pop Demon Hunters Golden reference.
Since July, I've tracked at least 2,300 cases in which federal judges have ruled ICE has illegally detained people without bond or due process.
This is one that stands out:
storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
Also, may I say that I don’t agree with people saying ICE and CBP need “more training.” They’re doing exactly what this administration has trained them to—impose a reign of fear in blue cities. They don’t need more training. They need to be ripped up root and branch.
in case you're curious about how angry Minnesota is about ICE, it was -20 today
Short of getting caught orchestrating a coup or assassination, this is absolutely the core case of what you expel an ambassador for.
Signs about the history of slavery in the U.S. and the 9 people George Washington enslaved are being removed right now at the President’s House Site in Philadelphia, across from Independence Hall, months after the Trump administration threatend to do so.
How far we have not come in 250 years.
"I should say so," O'Brien said. "For a moment there, I suspected you of the thoughtcrime of believing that Donald J. Trump, the president of the United States, would be willing to torch the country's credibility, set fire to its alliances, and tank the entire economy to acquire some territory in the North Atlantic whose name he could not even remember." The member of Congress sighed. "No, " he said. "No, you're right. We'd better do Iceland too. In case." He shut his eyes.
www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/...
This line graph illustrates the percentage change in agency staff levels from the previous year for nine major U.S. federal scientific and health organizations between the fiscal years 2016 and 2025. The agencies tracked include the CDC, Department of Energy, EPA, FDA, NASA, NIH, NIST, NOAA, and NSF. For the majority of the timeline between 2016 and 2023, the agencies show relatively stable fluctuations, generally staying within a range of +5% to -5% change per year. However, there is a dramatic and uniform plummet starting in the 2024–25 period. Every agency depicted shows a sharp downward trajectory, with staffing losses ranging from approximately -15% to over -25%. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) shows the most significant decline, dropping to roughly -26%, while the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) shows the least severe but still substantial drop at approximately -15%.
This is the most astonishing graph of what the Trump regime has done to US science. They have destroyed the federal science workforce across the board. The negative impacts on Americans will be felt for generations, and the US might never be the same again.
www.nature.com/immersive/d4...
BREAKING: Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell will attend the Supreme Court's hearing on Trump's attempted firing of Fed governor Lisa Cook, an unusual show of support by the central bank chair.
As everyone could have predicted, it was an absolutely terrible idea to put Angel Hernandez on the Supreme Court
Sometimes they just tell us they are weaponizing the criminal justice system to push their political agenda.
Central banker solidarity for the win! Always a good time to revisit Priests of Prosperity www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501...
Montrealers, come to our CIPSS talks this term!
