Daniel Dvorkin @medigoth@qoto.org

Meta meme is meta.

The last time I put my #luggage in an old-fashioned #suitcase, I lifted it too rapidly after check-in because I was in a hurry to catch my flight, and my #massive #manly #musculature propelled it upward so fast it punched a hole in the #airport roof. Air traffic control lost track of it at the #Karman line where it was still traveling at considerably more than escape velocity. It's probably somewhere in the #asteroid belt by now. So I'll stick to the wheeled variety. Just safer for everybody.

The Bird-dog of Alcatraz.

As a friend points out, this is bullshit: there were absolutely #protests against #deportations under #Clinton, #GWBush, and #Obama. #MAGA's selective memory is at it again. "Protests/Riots" is also telling. #Cult rules prohibit them acknowledging any distinction.

I do remember a number of #conservatives getting very worked up about the brutal treatment of #ElianGonzalez and his family. They were right to do so, or so I thought at the time.

Years later I figured out that what they objected to was not government agents waving guns in a little kid's face, but rather that it was happening under a #Democrat instead of a #Republican. Sanctioned #violence is only ever supposed to flow one way.

The #eagles have always known.

#Freedomsaur is not amused.

lolsob

Well, crap. My #Twinings addiction is about to get even more expensive.

Seriously, in a backhanded way I think this is a good thing. Someone must have explained to him, using small words, that #invading #Greenland would be a very bad idea. He's not capable of true understanding, of course, but he's easily bullied. Like #bullies usually are.

Consult your local #biostatistician for details.

Hey, it was better than spilling a bunch of jewel boxes all over the passenger seat floor and leaning down to fumble through them while going 80 mph down the interstate! Which I, uh, may have done a time or two.

Sword in one hand, latte in the other, combat boots on both feet. It's a thing.

This incredibly low-effort and unoriginal meme is going around again. Whoever came up with it has never done #science for a living, and I guess neither have the vast majority of people who repost it.

#Questioning *nature* is how you do science, trying to figure out something new about the way the world works. Sometimes, yes, that involves questioning existing science, but not very often. Much more commonly—99% or more of the time—scientists are building on each other's work. Shoulders of giants and all that, without Newton's sarcasm.

In my line of work, for example, I often question whether a particular #mutation in a particular #gene increases #responsivess to a particular #drug in a particular type of #cancer. I don't question whether #chemotherapy in general is worth doing for cancer patients, or whether genes in general influence drug metabolism in general, because I don't have to. Other people have already done that work, and if I want I can go back and read how they did it.

*Very* rarely I think they did it wrong, and I will of course bring that up to my clients. Even then, it will be about specific cases relevant to the mutation, drug, and #tumor type at hand—not about the idea that relations between #genetics, cancer, and the #treatment thereof *exist*. Not because someone's paying me not to, or because I'm afraid of the answers I'd get, or any of that nonsense, but simply because there's no point.

Scientists could spend all our time trying to prove each other wrong, of course. Every once in a while we do, both because it improves our knowledge, and yes, because that's one of the best ways to get a paper published in a major journal. But if that were all or even most of the practice of science, nothing else would ever get done.

Do you want that outcome? A lot of people seem to. When they're lying in a hospital bed dying of something we could have treated if we'd been able to research it properly, I bet they won't.

NËÜRØ STRÏKË TÅRGËTTËD [sic] is my new band name.

Bold of you to assume there's any kind of #dinosaur I wouldn't at least give a nibble.

"Fucking mirrors, how do they work?"

"No one knows lol"

"Must be a miracle. [solemn nod]"

"Similar to magnets, I think."

"Well that doesn't help!"

"Sorry that’s all I got."

"Fair enough. I guess it's time to Do My Own Research™."

Naaah, not really. You were horny and did something stupid. We've all been there.

"What do you *want*?"

"I want #antivaxers to live just long enough to learn what actual research is. And when they realize what idiots they've been, I will wave at them ... like this. Can you and your associates arrange that for me, Mr. Morden?"

Like, whatEVER.

I think he also coined "Where are they now?"

I laughed. But more and more people believe this dangerous nonsense. Our ability to prevent and treat #disease is under full-scale attack, and millions—tens or hundreds of millions—will die because of it.

Nobody deserves to die of an easily preventable disease. If anyone did, though, the people pushing this insanity would be at the top of the list.