…a week of Mad Biologist posts:
Resentment: It Matters What You Do with It
We Need More Than Just Saving Social Security
How a Trump Administration Would Effectively Ban Abortion–Even in Pro-Safe and Legal Abortion States
Professional Democrats Suck at Their Jobs: The Biden Mental Acuity Edition
Links for you. Science:
Communication barriers for a Deaf PhD student meant risking burnout
Up to a Trillion Cicadas Are About to Emerge in the U.S. (gift link)
New Law Allowing Religion into Science Classrooms Is Dangerous for Everyone: It is imperative that we protect science education from “intelligent design” and other alternative “theories” (nothing in movement conservatism makes sense except in the light of creationism)
Outbreak of mpox caused by Monkeypox virus clade I in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Undiscovered Insects Lurk in Plain Sight Across Texas. Meet the Newest: The Houston Tiger Beetle.
Reconstructed influenza A/H3N2 infection histories reveal variation in incidence and antibody dynamics over the life course
Other:
A Texas Court Has Decided to Let the Scariest Judge in Texas Keep Being Scary
Naught for Teacher
Together We Will Win? Poll Shows That Israel Is More Divided Than Ever
No, Stephen Breyer, the Supreme Court Is Not Our Friend
A mom of a nonbinary teen became an anti-trans activist, fracturing a California family
We can slay giants
Between Gods and Rats, the Moynihan Train Hall Is a Temple to Modern Mediocrity
There’s another shelter crisis happening in Massachusetts
What Is Hamas Thinking Now?
The World Central Kitchen Debacle Happened in a World Already Suffering From ‘Israel Fatigue’
Power Of The Pest: How Jared Moskowitz Helped Wreck The Impeachment Inquiry
A disgraced Holyoke city councilor fled the country before his trial. A new video reportedly shows him joining the Russian army.
REI Fired A Popular Manager For Not Immediately Reporting Union Chatter
Biden Might Not Appear on the Ohio Ballot in November Due To Technicality
RFK Jr. Wants To ‘Hear Every Side’ About Jan. 6 Attack On U.S. Capitol
Third parties are a scam
Democrats Pitch Renaming Federal Prison After Donald Trump (should do a Superfund site)
The problem of perceived police partisanship
WTF? Meta Cancels LGF
Anonymous users are dominating right-wing discussions online. They also spread false information.
Insurers Reap Hidden Fees by Slashing Payments. You May Get the Bill.
Montana GOP Senate candidate says he lied to ranger about gunshot wound in 2015
Who Can the New Jersey Democratic Machine Find to Represent Their Corrupt Interests?
How to Fake It in America
The Club of Cape-Wearing Activists Who Helped Elect Lincoln—and Spark the Civil War (proto-woke?)
‘It’s Been Devastating’: A Q&A With The Top Librarian Fighting The GOP’s Book Bans
While extrapolating from a single person is a mug’s game, the erroneous belief that Biden is too elderly to be president does seem to be widespread, if not so much anymore among the chattering class (boldface mine):
And Wallace Welch, 21, a college student and barber in Chattanooga, said he’s inclined to support Trump because he feels like the economy overall was better three years ago. While Biden might have more specific programs aimed at young Black men like him, Welch said he felt safer and expects car prices and inflation would be lower under Trump.
“He might not say the best things all the time but he’s an actual businessman. And Biden is just old,” Welch said. “I don’t really want a world run by old people. Well, there’s nothing wrong with an older person ‒ just an incoherent older person.”
We’ll ignore the policy issues (lower inflation would mean his wages and job prospects would be worse) because the second part of that conversation is more important.
The lack of effective response for months by the Biden political team when his mental acuity was being attacked is political malpractice of the highest order. If nothing else, Biden’s surrogates needed to be out there attacking Trump’s lack of fitness for office–which is overwhelming. Instead, they went dark and let Trump et alia define Biden.
We need better professional Democrats because a bunch of assholes with blogs and social media feeds can’t reverse this sort of ineptitude.
Links for you. Science:
Tests confirm avian flu on New Mexico dairy farm; probe finds cats positive
Bradford pear trees are banned in a few states. More are looking to replace, eradicate them.
The Weirdest Eyes in The Animal Kingdom See a World We Can’t Even Imagine
Within-host genetic diversity of SARS-CoV-2 across animal species
GOP senator attempts to ax Algebra II requirement for Minnesota high school students
Nirmatrelvir for Vaccinated or Unvaccinated Adult Outpatients with Covid-19
Other:
The Economy Is OK. Biden’s Economy, Not So Much.
The Washington press corps doesn’t have a freaking clue
“Not a Christian motive” – Remembering the Murder of Medieval Spanish Jews
The Origins of Blood Libel: E.M. Rose reconsiders where the anti-Semitic slur came from, and how it stuck around. (the third paragraph is of contemporary interest)
Teamsters Push Boycott Of Molson Coors Beers During NCAA Final Four
Trump’s Lawyers Told the Court That No One Would Give Him a Bond. Then He Got a Lifeline, but They Didn’t Tell the Judges. An appeals court reduced Trump’s bond by more than 60% after his attorneys claimed it was a “practical impossibility” to pay the full amount. Their failure to disclose a proposal from a billionaire financier may have violated ethics rules.
Some Colleges Will Soon Charge $100,000 a Year. How Did This Happen?
Justice official Clark violated ethics in aiding Trump, D.C. Bar panel finds (gift link)
Threads dropped the ball on real-time news as the NYC/NJ earthquake didn’t trend until the afternoon (Bluesky reacted very quickly–within a few minutes, it was clear something had happened)
Louisiana HB 777 Would Criminalize Librarians and Libraries Who Join the American Library Association
The Trumps’ cynical request that supporters donate ‘if they can afford to’
In 1946 a Wisconsin Town Invited a Fascist to Deliver the Keynote Address at their Centennial Celebration. Few people in Viroqua, Wisconsin WANTED Gerald LK Smith, the head of the America First Party, to speak, but when they ALLOWED it, they fanned the flickering embers of the American Fascist Tradition
The Great Medicaid Purge was even worse than expected
Ultra-conservative lawmakers target Louisiana libraries as culture war rages on
The AI deepfake apocalypse is here. These are the ideas for fighting it.
Food poverty for NZ teens creating an achievement lag of up to four years
Trump Is Accidentally Exposing Aileen Cannon’s Shady Pro-MAGA Game
Baseball Shows Its Behind
Trump Did Collusion And Is Also A Fascist, Even If Democrats Can Be Pretty Lame Sometimes
Eat in the Street
Are Democrats Getting Better At Moving Public Opinion? A special election in Alabama and a Republican culture war freakout contain hopeful signs.
‘Lavender’: The AI machine directing Israel’s bombing spree in Gaza. The Israeli army has marked tens of thousands of Gazans as suspects for assassination, using an AI targeting system with little human oversight and a permissive policy for casualties
Families Find Ways to Protect Their LGBTQ Kids
The Bees of Wrath: Rorie Woods knew foreclosure all too well. And when her friend was evicted, she rushed over with a venomous posse.
Trump Media saved in 2022 by Russian-American under criminal investigation
Links for you. Science:
Largest U.S. egg producer detects bird flu at Texas plant
As obesity rises, Big Food and dietitians push ‘anti-diet’ advice. General Mills warns of ‘food shaming’; dietitian influencers promote junk foods and discourage weight loss efforts
The Magic of Bird Brains
Europe Greenlights Two Avian Flu Vaccines
A 600-Year-Old Blueprint for Weathering Climate Change
What we know about H5N1 bird flu in cows — and the risk to humans
Other:
Over 80 Percent Of Texas Women Don’t Know How Bad Their State’s Abortion Laws Are. They thought there would be exceptions. There aren’t.
Unmask Donald Trump: If President Biden knows Trump and his henchmen are sabotaging U.S. foreign policy for partisan gain, he should let the American public know before the election.
‘Havana syndrome’ might have been a Russian attack. The U.S. can’t stop investigating. (oh boy…; gift link)
Bubble Trouble
Elon Musk’s X pushed a fake headline about Iran attacking Israel. X’s AI chatbot Grok made it up.
Orange Steam Funnels Are a New York Symbol. What Are They For?
Donald Trump has no idea what to do on abortion
Scum
Half a billion in cuts, targeted tax hikes shape Bowser’s D.C. budget plan
“Screws up female brains”: MAGA leaders are conditioning Republicans to back birth control bans
The Giant Threat Lurking Behind Florida’s November Abortion Vote
Malfunctioning NYC AI Chatbot Still Active Despite Widespread Evidence It’s Encouraging Illegal Behavior
Biden says U.S. economy is world’s best. Trump calls it a ‘cesspool.’ Data is clear.
Google Books Is Indexing AI-Generated Garbage
This tool makes AI models hallucinate cats to fight copyright infringement
MacKenzie Scott’s game-changing philanthropy still mystifies nonprofits: ‘Her gifts are super generous, but unfortunately, they don’t provide long term sustainability’
RFK Jr. campaign describes Jan. 6 defendants as ‘activists,’ then disavows email
“The Small Press World is About to Fall Apart.” On the Collapse of Small Press Distribution
Assisted living managers say an algorithm prevented hiring enough staff
Many Democrats Are Worried Trump Will Beat Biden. This One Isn’t. (gift link)
House Freedom Caucus lays out demands for considering Baltimore bridge funding
Threads Has Weird Ideas About Writing And Publishing, So Here Are Some Of My Own
Why Silicon Valley Reactionaries Love RFK Jr.
The Failed “We Want Them Infected” Movement Is Trying to Rebrand Itself As The “All We Really Wanted Was Poor Kids in School” Movement.
An unending array of jailbreaking attacks could be the death of LLMs
Slash Run: How a DC stream became a sewer, and then a secret
Summarizing Jessica Valenti, here’s how they would do it:
That’s it. It’s that simple.
If you think this is wild-eyed conjecture, conservatives have repeatedly put this in writing (e.g., Pr•ject 2025, p. 284) and have said this out loud–to other people. And the idea that Trump, an adjudicated rapist, credible sexual assaulter of dozens of women, a man who lied to his wife, and a serial fraudster for decades, should be trusted to not enact this policy would be laughable. He’s a liar. You can’t trust him. At all. Those are the wages of lying, which Trump has earned in spades. But I’m sure a Republican-dominated judiciary will save us…
Hopefully, Biden et alia will tell people this non-stop.
Links for you. Science:
Deeper Learning in Astronomy (pdf; good science humor is hilarious)
MIDASim: a fast and simple simulator for realistic microbiome data
Persistence of immune responses of a self-amplifying RNA COVID-19 vaccine (ARCT-154) versus BNT162b2
MiFoDB, a workflow for microbial food metagenomic characterization, enables high-resolution analysis of fermented food microbial dynamics
The LuxO-OpaR quorum-sensing cascade differentially controls Vibriophage VP882 lysis-lysogeny decision making in liquid and on surfaces
CARPDM: cost-effective antibiotic resistome profiling of metagenomic samples using targeted enrichment
Other:
The Person Who Was in Charge of OpenAI’s $175 Million Fund Appears to Be Fake
Biden’s Increasingly Contradictory Israel Policy: A former State Department official explains the Administration’s sharpening public critique of Israel’s war and simultaneous refusal to “impose a single cost or consequence.”
Joe Lieberman Not Only Backed Bush’s War; He Also Helped Make Bush President
Trump aims to be a fearless warrior for White advantage (gift link)
Google Is Killing Retro Dodo & Other Independent Sites
A Va. nonprofit charges for inmate video calls. Two board members quit over it.
Biden’s opened over 100 campaign offices. Trump? Seems like zero
Half of senior staffers in Congress are so fed up that they may quit
Bowser Tentatively Backs Payroll, Sales Tax Hikes in Her New, Constrained Budget: The mayor is staunchly refusing to touch residential property taxes, even as the budget picture gets ugly.
A conservative publisher actually had ties to Soros. Litigation ensued. (rooting for injuries)
Bowser’s 2025 Budget Wipes Out Pay Raises for Child Care Workers. She Blames the CFO.
The ‘Beastification of YouTube’ may be coming to an end
Navies are obsolete, but no one will admit it
Trump said he spoke to murder victim’s family. The victim’s sister said it never happened. (Trump is demented and dishonest)
How Hezbollah attacks displace 60,000 Israelis, six months on
D.C. Council votes to spend $515 million to modernize Capital One Arena (this D.C. resident views this as extortion by a shitty rich person)
Facebook has blocked Kansas Reflector. Here’s what we’re doing, and how you can help.
Biden’s $7.5 billion investment in EV charging has only produced 7 stations in two years. The network of fast chargers promised by the Biden administration has had a painfully slow rollout
The Pious One, Donald Trump. The least likely embodiment of Christian virtues in American life is practically running as an evangelical minister.
A new cereal pays tribute to D.C. The creators have sweet hopes.
AI Companies Running Out of Training Data After Burning Through Entire Internet
China is all in on green tech. The U.S. and Europe fear unfair competition.
A Messiah Anointed with Snake Oil
Israel is at a crisis point: The world has had enough
Superficial Intelligence
What ever happened to QAnon? The once-vocal group and its worldview have largely been folded into the broader Republican Party
We need to expand it.
Many, many moons ago (2013!), some asshole with a blog wrote this:
If we had wanted to guarantee good retirement plans for most workers, we could have simply allowed workers and employers to increase their contributions to the Social Security Fund and then increase their guaranteed retirement payouts accordingly (remember, one-third of Social Security payments do not go to retirees; this ‘bonus’ deal would have been very good for most workers). But we didn’t do that, because retirement security was never the goal, neo-liberal propaganda notwithstanding.
Recently, Robert Kuttner wrote (boldface mine):
Fifty years ago, the typical worker in a primary labor market job had a true pension. The pension was based on years of service times wages paid in the final few years. A worker might retire with 80 or 85 percent of his or her final wages. These so-called defined pensions operated not just in unionized companies but in Fortune 1000 employers generally.
In the 1970s, when industry had a bad decade, major companies began shifting to 401(k) plans, where the worker paid more of the cost and bore all of the risk. Today, only 11 percent of workers have traditional pensions, and only a small fraction of workers in their fifties and sixties have enough money in 401(k) plans to finance more than a few years of retirement. Workers risk outliving savings, getting caught in a down stock market, and making bad choices in terms of which financial companies hold and manage their accounts.
All told, 401(k) accounts hold about $7 trillion of assets. If Wall Street middlemen take out 2 percent, that’s $140 billion a year. Comparatively speaking, the public Social Security system is simplicity itself. You pay FICA taxes during your working life, and when you retire the government cuts you a check that reliably comes every month. It’s adjusted for inflation. It comes as long as you live. Administrative costs are trivial and no fees are taken out by middlemen. There is no risk of making bad investments.
The sensible and radical remedy is to create a second tier of Social Security, as a universal, portable pension. Unlike Social Security, which is pay-as-you-go, the second tier would be funded. Income on the fund, as in a traditional pension, would pay out benefits. That would require higher taxes—on the rich, please. The system would take a generation to mature. Canada is moving toward such a system.
If it’s going to take a generation (not sure I buy that), then we need to get started now.
Links for you. Science:
Analysis of Antimicrobial Resistance in Bacterial Pathogens Recovered from Food and Human Sources: Insights from 639,087 Bacterial Whole-Genome Sequences in the NCBI Pathogen Detection Database
Just-departed head of DOE science wing discusses successes and barriers
Stonehenge’s Continental Cousin: A 4,000-year-old ringed sanctuary reveals a German village’s surprising connections with Britain
Long COVID still has no cure — so these patients are turning to research
Rare wooden artifacts showcase the smarts of early Neanderthals
A unique tree-climbing fox is on the decline in the Midwest. Researchers want to know why
Other:
The Supreme Court Is Taking Its Cues On Abortion Pills From One Of History’s Most Loserish Drips
A Memo to OpenAI: You Are Not the Protagonists. Bury their new Voice Engine program in an unmarked grave
Baltimore mayor weathers racist attacks after bridge collapse
House Republicans push to rename Dulles airport after Trump
Cesar Chavez’s family tells RFK Jr. to stop using activist’s name, image
Amazon Ditches ‘Just Walk Out’ Checkouts at Its Grocery Stores
I tried the new Google. Its answers are worse. (gift link)
The Boeing Nosedive: A once-venerable company turned its soul over to shareholders and courted disaster. (we really underestimate how harmful and nonsensical conservative economic philosophies are)
How a four-day workweek could change Americans’ lives
Woman Who Was Charged With Murder After Abortion Sues Texas Prosecutor
Doctors who said the pandemic ended 3-years ago now have the audacity to lament the “damaged public trust in the medical profession.”
I’m an Economist. Don’t Worry. Be Happy.
Fake right-wing panic about “trans” Easter is part of Trump’s push for Christian nationalism
What Would Society Look Like if Extreme Wealth Were Impossible?
A PR stunt put her behind an MLB stadium mic. She made the most of it.
For the sake of all of us, Sonia Sotomayor needs to retire from the US supreme court
Revealed: US professor was behind extremist site that spread conspiracies
Elite College Admissions Have Turned Students Into Brands
Israeli Army Sources: Gaza Aid Workers Killed Because ‘IDF Officers on the Ground Do What They Want’
Donald Trump acts terrified to face a jury. He should be scared. Trump’s efforts to disrupt his own trials only make jurors hate him more
NYC Department of Investigation Confirms What Everyone Already Knew: Cops Aren’t Doing Anything About Parking Permit Abuse
How to turn your iPhone into a bare-bones device
Supporting Trump Means Supporting a Culture of Violence (gift link)
The Doctor Will Ask About Your Gun Now
The Civil War never ended. The questions that sent Americans to war with each other in the late 19th century still shape the country.
Apple Got Caught Censoring Its Own Regulator Lina Khan
The Staying Power of Crypto’s Political Machine
In response to Tom Schaller’s and Paul Waldman’s recent book, White Rural Rage, there has been a lot of pushback*. Rural resentment (which is nebulously defined and which ignores how people develop these attitudes–the role of second-hand intermediation by various media sources is studiously ignored) has been cited as the reason, and that resentment is valid.
But what this ignores is what various groups do with their resentment, as white rural people clearly aren’t the only people with grounds for resentment. Urban black voters, for example, have overwhelmingly supported Democratic politicians, who very nearly passed a major expansion of the social safety net that obviously would have improved their lives (and those of other people too, of course). Meanwhile, rural white voters have voted for candidates that opposed many policies that would have materially improved their lives (e.g., minimum wage increases or the aforementioned safety net expansion).
It can’t just be resentment–or if it is resentment, that resentment stems from Elias Esquith’s wonderful (and snarky) phrase “lived secondhand experience.” Across the political spectrum, there is an assumption that the political responses to resentment are logical outcomes of material causes. Sometimes they are, but, more often than not, “lived secondhand experience”–which is to say media–plays a significant role in that resentment, along with more banal things like bigotry as a force that gives people meaning.
*There do seem to be some significant data problems with the work, however.
contact me at: mikethemadbiologist {at] hotmail [dot] com
mikethemadbiologist