““Contrary to the hysteria, redirecting billions of allocated NIH spending away from administrative bloat means there will be more money and resources available for legitimate scientific research, not less,” White House spokesperson Kush Desai said.” Here’s how you know they’re lying. If they were telling the truth, there would be no net reduction to the […]
Suddenly, Trump supporters are no longer fans of district judges: “For those of us who lived through the reigns of Judges Matthew Kacsmaryk and Reed O’Connor (so, like, we who were alive six months ago), this is a surprising turn of events. “The Kacsmaryks and O’Connors thwarted the Biden administration constantly, and on much hackier […]
Apparently, there’s this weird, ahistorical conspiracy theory out there that the CIA is a leftist organization. Not only is there not an atom of evidence for this theory, there’s ample evidence of CIA involvement in destabilizing and overthrowing liberal and leftist governments in favor of right-wing dictatorships: Here’s a short list of CIA interventions in […]
“Johnson said he “wholeheartedly” agrees with Vice President JD Vance that courts shouldn’t try to control the president’s power as DOGE slashes through the federal government. “The courts should take a step back and allow these processes to play out,” Johnson said at the Capitol.” Pretty Boy Floyd. Al Capone. Bonnie and Clyde. All just […]
As John Kenneth Galbraith famously observed: “The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.” I suspect that the Must techbros who concocted the recent announcement of immediate cuts to NIH grants imagined that they were just smacking around […]
When discussions turn to decarbonizing energy, the topics typically concern solar, wind, geothermal and tidal energy. But nuclear energy doesn’t generate CO2 during normal operation, either. “Since Yikpotey had been born, few new reactors had been built on either side of the Atlantic. Competition was fierce for the few opportunities left. “So Yikpotey looked east. […]
Indirect costs on research grants represent charges to cover the administration of grant funds; heating, cooling, water, gas, fume hoods and other centralized infrastructure; building and grounds security; facility maintenance and custodial services. Historically, these have been negotiated every two years between each institution and the NIH depending on the proportion of infrastructure devoted to […]
Sen. Bill Cassidy, MD (R-La.) is a physician. I’m sure he’s pretty smart, but as I’m frequently caused to observe, the traits of high intelligence are unlinked. Dr. Cassidy is exercising poor medical judgement by supporting RFK Jr.’s nomination for Secretary of HHS, although he may be showing good political judgement. “Sen. Bill Cassidy, MD […]
The National Science Foundation is one of the nation’s premier agencies to advance non-biomedical research (the NIH has the biomedical research portfolio). Full disclosure: I was principle investigator on three NSF grants in my career and served on six NSF review panels that made grant funding recommendations. Now, the Trump administration wants to tear that […]
Until 2021, I didn’t pay much attention to the housing market. At that point, we’d lived in the same house for 34 years. There was no Zillow when we bought that house, and we bought directly from the owner, without an agent. We ended up using an agent to buy our house in Rhode Island. […]