zinzinator.bsky.social - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

The measles outbreak in Texas is reminding me of the public letter Roald Dahl wrote about losing his daughter to measles in 1962, just before the vaccine was publicly available.

submitted 10 days ago • 411 comments

Tell me you're redlining without telling me you're redlining

submitted 15 days ago • 355 comments

JUST IN: A federal judge in Massachusetts has blocked the Trump administration's rate change to NIH grants. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

submitted 15 days ago • 74 comments

Why does the world's richest man want to gut the CFPB? Because it would shield him from having to follow financial laws to keep customers' money safe — and give him access to confidential records about his competitors. Follow the money.

submitted 15 days ago • 230 comments

The hardest part about public health is that when we succeed, there's no crisis, no epidemic. People carry on with daily life, unaware of a near-miss. We may never know how bad it could have been - because our public health workforce is always taking action to avoid, prevent, and control threats.

submitted 15 days ago • 30 comments

Someone at the American Bar Association ate their Wheaties this morning.

submitted 15 days ago • 486 comments

Every smart person I know is making quiet plans for a bird flu pandemic to spread human to human. Business folks, medical doctors, public health folks- my network is preparing in big and small ways. That is a privilege I want all of us to have.

submitted 16 days ago • 7 comments

Making sure everyone understands: Afrikaners—Elon Musk’s people—built, enforced, and thrived under the apartheid system they created. Not just “white-ruled segregation”—it was systemic racial oppression to keep the white minority in power. They don’t deserve refugee status—they were the oppressors!

submitted 17 days ago • 483 comments

Me, a US based physician, going to Canada’s avian flu website to see what the latest data are. Because our own scientific communication platforms have been severely compromised or shuttered. In the year 2025. Never thought I’d see this day. Anyhoo, link here: www.canada.ca/en/public-he...

submitted 17 days ago • 15 comments

Black anti-fascists argued the Atlantic world’s history of racial violence belied the novelty of intra-European fascism. Speaking at the Second International Writers Congress in 1937, Langston Hughes declared: “We Negroes in America do not have to be told what fascism is in action. We know.”

submitted 17 days ago • 1 comment

Good advice for researchers who talk to news media about NIH funding cuts. No need to explain indirect cost recovery 👇

submitted 17 days ago • 4 comments

how it feels logging on today

submitted 17 days ago • 3 comments

From Michael Roth, president of Wesleyan University: slate.com/life/2025/02...

submitted 17 days ago • 37 comments

Many are asking: “What can I do now?” Here’s a revised and expanded list of actions you can take, in rough order of importance. https://robertreich.substack.com/p/more-on-what-you-can-do

submitted 17 days ago • 459 comments

"Purging, or hiding, the 'Marxist maniacs and lunatics' in the faculty lounge won’t actually help, because they’re not the real target... the core problem is the modern worldview in which democratic principles of inclusive representation rest on a foundation of rational knowledge creation."

submitted 17 days ago • 1 comment

This was the motto of the civil society movement to resist Bolsonaro’s right wing authoritarianism in Brazil. I learned it from @annagalland.bsky.social and love it. Would love to see American designers do their own interpretations.

submitted 17 days ago • 73 comments

Good perspective for this coming week

submitted 17 days ago • 0 comments

Tesla paid $0 in federal income tax last year. 2022: $0 2021: $0 2020: $0 2019: $0 2018: $0 Tesla reported $6.7 billion in profit in those years.

submitted 17 days ago • 1490 comments

I have a confession . . . I was an “overhead cost”. I was a beaker washer, agar plate pourer, research secretary. I was paid by “overhead cost” fees. Loved it. Those “overhead cost” jobs allowed this rural kid to become a physician. Please tag how #OverheadCostJob impact u.

submitted 17 days ago • 30 comments

DOGE plans to slash about as much ($4B) from NIH, and hence from universities and medical centers, as the government gave SpaceX ($3.8B) last year. It's not about the money and government "waste." It's never been about the money or government "waste." www.usatoday.com/story/money/...

submitted 17 days ago • 35 comments

One Roberts clerk, one former Gorsuch clerk, and one future Gorsuch clerk. All working for DOGE to help Musk usurp the government. Like I wrote earlier today, the courts are not going to stop this.

submitted 18 days ago • 138 comments

The Senate HELP Committee has jurisdiction over NIH. GOP members of the committee represent AK, AL, IN, FL, KS, KY, LA, ME, MO, OH, and SC. Research universities and hospitals in those states need to be extra loud.

submitted 18 days ago • 14 comments

Scientists and journalists need to figure out right quick how to explain to the average person how a massive change in research indirects will impact the medical care they and their children get (eg at the local children’s hospital), the education their children will get, the price of tuition, etc.

submitted 18 days ago • 105 comments

1. Today the NIH director issued a new directive slashing overhead rates to 15%. I want to provide some context on what that means and why it matters. grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

submitted 18 days ago • 271 comments

On changes to #NIH indirect rates, there is a law in place that prohibits NIH from making such changes without the approval of Congress. See Division D, Title II Section 224 of The Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2024 (Public Law No: 118-47) grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

submitted 18 days ago • 82 comments

SCOOP: The US Treasury claimed a DOGE's Marco Elez didn’t have ‘write access,’ when he actually did. Sources tell WIRED that his ability to alter code controlling trillions in federal spending was rescinded, days after officials said it didn't exist.

submitted 19 days ago • 1142 comments

And there it is: Russell Vought is confirmed. I wrote a long profile of him, his worldview, his political project: He’s one of the architects of Project 2025, an avowed Christian nationalist, and a radical ideologue of the “post-constitutional” Right. He is at war with pluralistic democracy.

submitted 19 days ago • 189 comments

This is AMAZING news! Fuck Amazon www.salon.com/2025/01/28/b...

submitted 20 days ago • 258 comments

NEW from inside NIH: I am hearing that a “young” DOGE staffer now has access to eRA, the software system used to track/administer all NIH grants.

submitted 20 days ago • 43 comments

Around 35% of SpaceX’s revenue comes directly from the federal govt. Less than 1% of NPR’s budget comes from the federal govt.

submitted 20 days ago • 808 comments

(Checks to see if my publisher is part of this suit) FUCK YEAH MACMILLAN GET THESE MOFOS www.theguardian.com/books/2025/f...

submitted 20 days ago • 167 comments

NEW from me: Why has Patrick Soon-Shiong touted RFK Jr repeatedly and run interference for him at his paper, the LA Times? Maybe because his biotech company has 3 applications pending at the FDA, whose parent agency Kennedy is about to be running. prospect.org/power/2025-0...

submitted 20 days ago • 83 comments

4 dairy herds in Nevada recently diagnosed with #H5N1 #birdflu were infected with a different version of the virus than has been spreading in cows elsewhere. Evidence of a second (at a minimum) spillover points to the challenge of stopping spread, experts say. www.statnews.com/2025/02/05/u...

submitted 20 days ago • 7 comments

If you work for the federal government and are tempted to take Musk’s “buyout” offer please know that you’re never going to see that money.

submitted 20 days ago • 130 comments

US immigration is gaming Google to create a mirage of mass deportations www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

submitted 19 days ago • 0 comments

I wonder why Musk is focused on the federal civilian workforce (4% of the budget) and not federal contractors, which account for 3x more annual spending and are more prone to waste, fraud, and abuse?

submitted 20 days ago • 235 comments

RFK Jr’s claim about Black people’s immune systems is ‘unscientific and terrifying’ www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

submitted 19 days ago • 0 comments

What's happening at #USAID is causing so much damage. The great reporters at @science.org explore some of that damage. www.science.org/content/arti...

submitted 19 days ago • 7 comments

Amazing turnout for today's... ▪️ 50 States ▪️ 50 Capitols ▪️ 50 Marches Stop the Coup ✊️ Sacramento, California

submitted 20 days ago • 703 comments

Amazing civic action. Thank you for all you do!

submitted 19 days ago • 0 comments

We are hearing from multiple CDC sources that DOGE is at the Roybal campus. If you’re on campus and see anything you’d like to share, please reach out. Stay safe.

submitted 20 days ago • 17 comments

Over the last couple days, I've been going back to this article. Silence --truly-- is not an option. jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

submitted 20 days ago • 0 comments