Joshua Sharp @JoshuaSharp@qoto.org

Well, they did it. eLife fired Michael Eisen. Absolutely outrageous. The bounds of allowed thought tighten. Any criticism of Israel is out of bounds. A new McCarthyism, except instead of communists under the bed, it's people who think it matters both when Israelis are slaughtered AND when Palestinians are slaughtered. And many, many in the academic community, seeing this, are afraid to speak, especially those without tenure, & even w/ tenure especially those from Middle Eastern countries other than Israel. How easily they can be slandered as anti-semitic should they speak.

Please sign our petition calling for this *not* to happen, and to defend academic freedom: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfdJyIQzIsTypmmZXIi-RfSjbe4Psp1RIvjXz-DxWJKA5hHIQ/viewform

#neuroscience #israel #palestine #freespeech #biology

Wonderful, thoughtful review of HOW INFRASTRUCTURE WORKS by @annaleen for the Washington Post. I especially love this part:

“The problem is that when our infrastructure works, we never think about it. We don’t vote on our infrastructure every two years, and we don’t honor our utility workers as guardians of our lives, the way we do first responders.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2023/10/17/how-infrastructure-works-deb-chachra/

He is absolutely so angry about his Wikipedia page

Must suck to realize that there are some forms of epistemic grounding that you and your pals can't simply purchase and torch to the ground.

NEW: The lawmaker behind Mississippi's near-total abortion ban is warning that efforts to enshrine a "right-to-contraception" into state law would legalize "morning-after abortions."

But there is no such thing as "morning-after abortions."

Read our fact check: https://www.mississippifreepress.org/36872/fact-check-senator-falsely-claims-protecting-birth-control-allows-morning-after-abortions

I'm banned for life from advertising on Meta. Because I teach Python.
L: https://lerner.co.il/2023/10/19/im-banned-for-life-from-advertising-on-meta-because-i-teach-python/
C: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37939269
posted on 2023.10.19 at 02:32:18 (c=1, p=9)

Paper drop!

Molecular mechanism of decision-making in glycosaminoglycan biosynthesis

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-42236-z

Explainer below ⬇️

Featured story: "The conservative campaign to harass the libs out of academia has already sent a chill through #Texas’ world-class public universities, making professors and administrators so fearful of setting off the lunatics in charge at the Capitol that they censor themselves—in scholarship or in their communications with students and the public."

From Editor-in-Chief @gabrielarana: https://www.texasobserver.org/mccarthyism-texas-am-journalism-freedom/

#schools #diversity #racism #education #journalism #FreeSpeech #essays

In my neighborhood. Sarcastic, subtle, serious.

"NOBODY WANTS TO WORK ANY MORE!"

A brief history of capitalists complaining that nobody wants to work for starvation wages

Dr. Kariko was denied promotion at Penn because she couldn't rack up the NIH grants. Yet. She persisted. #COVID #vaccine #Nobel https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/02/health/nobel-prize-medicine.html

In 2019, ProPublica revealed stark inconsistencies between what the #Trump Organization had reported to #tax authorities and what it told lenders about the finances of one of its towers.

This week, a judge ruled the company had committed #fraud.

https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-fraud-ruling-property-valuation-michael-cohen?utm_medium=social&utm_source=mastodon&utm_campaign=mastodon-post

Clarence Thomas twice spoke at the Koch brothers’ annual fundraising retreat. A sitting Supreme Court justice is actually fundraising for a partisan organization that routinely brings cases before the Supreme Court, which he routinely rules in favor of. Naturally he has not disclosed this. https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-secretly-attended-koch-brothers-donor-events-scotus

"Over and over again, Wright seems to think that his clearly admitted to pattern of behavior to seek out his female students and start sexual relationships with them was solely the result of consensual adults agreeing to have a relationship, with no recognition of the power indifference, and the influence both of them knew he had over their future careers.

- @mmasnick
https://www.techdirt.com/2023/08/30/if-your-108-million-defamation-lawsuit-basically-admits-to-everything-people-are-horrified-by-you-might-have-just-filed-a-slapp-suit/