Jessica Theodor
@jmtheodor.bsky.social
880 followers 710 following 130 posts
Ungulate paleobiologist, fibre nerd. Professor @UCalgary in Canada. Opinions mine. Born in the traditional territory of the Anishinaabeg and Haudenosaunee, living on Treaty 7 land. She/her.
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jmtheodor.bsky.social
My new band will be called Vicious Compliance.
Reposted by Jessica Theodor
hollyhoye.bsky.social
Sharp, McLean, Wong and others, if elected, will be responsible for more expensive deals and sprawl. Is everybody ready for MUCH higher property taxes?
hollyhoye.bsky.social
Reminder:

“To build the arena, the city is putting up $853M in cash; the Flames are putting up $40M.”

I am not anti-arena, but I am 💯 anti-bad deal.
Reposted by Jessica Theodor
friedmanlab.bsky.social
Opportunity to manage one of the world's great herpetology collections and join the outstanding community of museum folks here at U-M! 🐍🦎🐢🐊🐸
chrisdick.bsky.social
Michigan's #UMMZ Reptiles and Amphibians Collections Manager position is now open. Join a great museums group and help manage the world's second largest herpetology research collection. Please share! careers.umich.edu/job_detail/2...
Res Museum Collection Manager | U-M Careers
careers.umich.edu
Reposted by Jessica Theodor
davidfor7.ca
Today is the last day of advance voting. If you want to avoid the lines on October 20, find the nearest advance poll station here:
www.electionscalgary.ca/for-voters/w...
Reposted by Jessica Theodor
rudepundit.bsky.social
Everything Marx said about the perversity of the very rich is embodied by this deranged supervillain.
washingtonpost.com
Exclusive: Tech billionaire Peter Thiel warned that Swedish activist Greta Thunberg and critics of AI are “legionnaires of the Antichrist” in private lectures that connected government oversight of Silicon Valley to an apocalyptic future.
Inside billionaire Peter Thiel’s private lectures: Warnings of ‘the Antichrist’ and U.S. destruction
In leaked recordings of private lectures by tech billionaire Peter Thiel he argued that “the Antichrist” is likely to take the form of a critic of technology.
wapo.st
Reposted by Jessica Theodor
bhaggart.bsky.social
My naive wish is that even one Canadian journalist, one politician, one security analyst, would address the implications of Canada choosing military integration with an authoritarian power that no longer respects the rule of law or international law.
Looks like that’s not going to happen today.
Golden Dome signals change to Canada’s long-time opposition to joining U.S. missile defence
Canada opted to stay on the sidelines in 2005 as the U.S. developed defences against ballistic missiles
www.theglobeandmail.com
Reposted by Jessica Theodor
ebharrington.bsky.social
What Thiel is saying about tax havens = what Altman is saying about copyright:

"I can't be rich unless you let me steal from you."

This is how Broligarchs differ from oligarchs of yore: the latter tried to hide their thievery; the Broligarchs trumpet their entitlement to steal as a natural right.
Reposted by Jessica Theodor
princess-vimentin.bsky.social
🧪I’m just gonna put this right here.

Also circumcision isn’t linked to autism.

Via Nisha Patel on IG
Nisha Patel, MD MS, Dipl of ABOM...
@DrPlantel
Tell me you don't understand science, pregnancy, or literally anything about women's health... without telling me.
RFK Jr: "A fetus is inside the placenta."
Sir, the placenta is an organ that supports the fetus, not a freaking Airbnb that it lives inside of. Someone please take away his microphone before he starts explaining where babies come from
Reposted by Jessica Theodor
princess-vimentin.bsky.social
🧪Also the point of this is show that if some someone claims that the fetus lives in the placenta, that person shouldn’t be allowed to run a national health department, let alone influence policy decisions that affect women and babies.
Reposted by Jessica Theodor
t0nyyates.bsky.social
Freaks me out somewhat as a Dad of teenage boys that they might encounter morons like this guy on the internet.
flawlessangel.bsky.social
idk why the youtube algo fed me this but i can't describe how scary & weird it is being a woman knowing these freaks are doing presentations on how to understand & conquer us like. we are just people. have you tried being fucking normal. i will never get used to society being like this
a man stood in front of a whiteboard that is just covered in loads of text because he's solved the 'woman' conspiracy he looks like a meme
Reposted by Jessica Theodor
jongraywb.bsky.social
This is deeply and unsettlingly weird and these people should not have this much power to dictate our lives
ebharrington.bsky.social
What Thiel is saying about tax havens = what Altman is saying about copyright:

"I can't be rich unless you let me steal from you."

This is how Broligarchs differ from oligarchs of yore: the latter tried to hide their thievery; the Broligarchs trumpet their entitlement to steal as a natural right.
Reposted by Jessica Theodor
bcnjake.bsky.social
Or anything, really. Passing your grading off to AI is simply deciding that your students’ work isn’t worth engaging with. And if that’s how you feel, why on Earth are you in a classroom?
biblioracle.bsky.social
I strongly urge everyone to not just read this warning from @marcwatkins.bsky.social, but heed it, and be vocal and forceful pushing back against using AI to grade student writing. This must be anathema if we're going to have a world where learning means something. substack.com/inbox/post/1...
The Dangers of using AI to Grade
Nobody Learns, Nobody Gains
substack.com
Reposted by Jessica Theodor
paulwaldman.bsky.social
It's a two-fer, you get your antisemitic conspiracy theory AND the insistence that there is no such thing as sincere progressive opinion, it couldn't possibly be that people are genuinely pissed off so they must have been paid to protest.
atrupar.com
Sen. Roger Marshall: "October 18 is when the protest gets here. This will be a Soros paid-for protest for his professional protesters. The agitators show up. We'll have to get the National Guard out. Hopefully it will be peaceful. I doubt it."
Reposted by Jessica Theodor
michaelhobbes.bsky.social
Please keep making podcasts about how democrats need to stop being so condescending about red states
atrupar.com
Trump: "Portland, I mean -- every time I look at that place it's burning down. There are fires all over the place. When a store -- there are very few of them left -- but when a store owner rebuilds a store they build it out of plywood. They don't put up storefronts anymore. They just put wood up."
Reposted by Jessica Theodor
sherylnyt.bsky.social
BREAKING: Friday night massacre underway at CDC. Doznes of "disease detectives," high-level scientists, entire Washington staff and editors of the MMWR (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report) have all been RIFed and received the following notice:
Reposted by Jessica Theodor
andrejpaleo.bsky.social
"...regional extinction rate of between 75 and 84% for squamates in the Western Interior of North America and suggests this group was more severely impacted across the K/Pg boundary than other small-bodied vertebrates."
royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...
🧪 ⚒️ #Paleobio #EvoBio #Geology
Diversity of North American squamates across the K/Pg boundary. Late Cretaceous squamates from DMNH Loc.3648 (a–aa) and early Palaeocene squamates from DMNH Loc.2560 (bb–dd).
Reposted by Jessica Theodor
delafina777.bsky.social
WHAT A GOOD IDEA
LET’S TRY IT

I heard that 72.9% of antifa’s members are health care execs and if we instituted not-for-profit healthcare we’d drive antifa out of business
dieworkwear.bsky.social
he also said that 80% of antifa's members are landlords and if you lower the cost of housing, you basically starve the network of its financing
Reposted by Jessica Theodor
tonyromm.bsky.social
NEW: It looks like the number of federal layoffs -- so far -- is over 4,000, we've learned from court documents

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/10/u...
White House Signals Federal Layoffs Have Begun During Government Shutdown
www.nytimes.com
Reposted by Jessica Theodor
jayispainting.earthskyart.ca
If you wanted to create the perfect tool to enable fascism you would create AI.

And they did.
Reposted by Jessica Theodor
cultmtl.com
“Canadians show a clear preference for allyship with Europe rather than the U.S. under the Trump administration. Canadians largely agree that Canada needs to move away from relying on the United States.”
Observations from Montreal
An ever-changing collection of commentary and observations by Montrealers or about Montreal politics and culture.
cultmtl.com
Reposted by Jessica Theodor
lmacthompson1.bsky.social
I am writing this because it has swiftly become crystal clear to me that many people have no idea what is happening or how this works. Here is a thread for non-academics to put into context what just happened to Dr. Mark Bray, a fellow historian.
Reposted by Jessica Theodor
kathleenclark.bsky.social
A master class from MIT in responding to authoritarian overreach:

Your “premise … is inconsistent with our core belief that scientific funding should be based on scientific merit alone.
… America’s leadership in science & innovation depends on independent thinking & open competition for excellence.
Dear Madam Secretary,
I write in response to your letter of October 1, inviting MIT to review a "Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education." I acknowledge the vital importance of these matters.
I appreciated the chance to meet with you earlier this year to discuss the priorities we share for American higher education.
As we discussed, the Institute's mission of service to the nation directs us to advance knowledge, educate students and bring knowledge to bear on the world's great challenges.
We do that in line with a clear set of values, with excellence above all. Some practical examples:
• MIT prides itself on rewarding merit. Students, faculty and staff succeed here based on the strength of their talent, ideas and hard work. For instance, the Institute was the first to reinstate the SAT/ACT requirement after the pandemic. And MIT has never had legacy preferences in admissions.
• MIT opens its doors to the most talented students regardless of their family's finances. Admissions are need-blind. Incoming undergraduates whose families earn less than $200,000 a year pay no tuition. Nearly 88% of our last graduating class left MIT with no debt for their education. We make a wealth of free courses and low-cost certificates available to any American with an internet connection. Of the undergraduate degrees we award, 94% are in STEM fields. And in service to the nation, we cap enrollment of international undergraduates at roughly 10%.

source: 
https://orgchart.mit.edu/letters/regarding-compact • We value free expression, as clearly described in the MIT Statement on Freedom of Expression and Academic Freedom. We must hear facts and opinions we don't like - and engage respectfully with those with whom we disagree.
These values and other MIT practices meet or exceed many standards outlined in the document you sent. We freely choose these values because they're right, and we live by them because they support our mission - work of immense value to the prosperity, competitiveness, health and security of the United States. And of course, MIT abides by the law.
The document also includes principles with which we disagree, including those that would restrict freedom of expression and our independence as an institution. And fundamentally, the premise of the document is inconsistent with our core belief that scientific funding should be based on scientific merit alone.
In our view, America's leadership in science and innovation depends on independent thinking and open competition for excellence. In that free marketplace of ideas, the people of MIT gladly compete with the very best, without preferences. Therefore, with respect, we cannot support the proposed approach to addressing the issues facing higher education.
As you know, MIT's record of service to the nation is long and enduring. Eight decades ago, MIT leaders helped invent a scientific partnership between America's research universities and the U.S. government that has delivered extraordinary benefits for the American people. We continue to believe in the power of this partnership to serve the nation.
Sincerely,
Sally Kornbluth