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Zach Binney @binneyz.bsky.social · 6h

"This statistics class is about resistance and anti-fascism" would have made me roll my eyes out of my head a year ago, and now I don't know what else I could say! The entity I'm trying to protect you against the most isn't advertisers or lawyers but our own government.

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Zach Binney @binneyz.bsky.social · 6h

"Both Democrats and Republicans lie."

OK, stipulated. But there is one party that sees truth purely as an inconvenience and is working to annihilate it.

If I'm teaching you to think and be able to identify lies better, you're going to apply those skills more often on one side than the other.

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Zach Binney @binneyz.bsky.social · 6h

This is also why I now tell students on day 1 of my statistical thinking class that the course is now political. It's not my choice. There's no way around it.

Bill Kristol @billkristolbulwark.bsky.social · 6h

Pope Leo quotes Hannah Arendt:

“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction and the distinction between true and false no longer exist."

www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news...

Pope Leo calls for news agencies to stand as bulwark against "post-truths," lies and manipulation

Pope Leo XIV has encouraged international news agencies to stand firm as a bulwark against the "ancient art of lying" and manipulation.

www.cbsnews.com

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Bill Kristol @billkristolbulwark.bsky.social · 6h

Pope Leo quotes Hannah Arendt:

“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction and the distinction between true and false no longer exist."

www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news...

Pope Leo calls for news agencies to stand as bulwark against "post-truths," lies and manipulation

Pope Leo XIV has encouraged international news agencies to stand firm as a bulwark against the "ancient art of lying" and manipulation.

www.cbsnews.com

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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 15h

Thankfully, some of yesterday's CDC firings have been rescinded.

But this should be a major scandal, not business as usual in this shitshow of an administration. It's either spectacular incompetence or an effort to make even politically untouchable positions feel precarious to those in them.

Helen Branswell 🇨🇦 @helenbranswell.bsky.social · 17h

100s of #CDC employees were notified Friday they were being fired — RIF'd. The firings cross multiple parts of the agency, endangering its core mission of keeping Americans safe.
Saturday, some were informed they were RIF'd in error.
Hard to imagine how this happens www.statnews.com/2025/10/11/c...

CDC battered by government shutdown firings, while some are rescinded

The White House’s mass firing of CDC staff on Friday has decimated offices related to injury prevention, respiratory disease surveillance, and chronic disease, according to four people familiar with t...

www.statnews.com

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Zach Binney @binneyz.bsky.social · 19h

Very little you can tell me to make me think less of you at this point than that you work anywhere on the business or financial side in Silicon Valley.

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Zach Binney @binneyz.bsky.social · 19h

For those keeping score at home this would the second time the private sector business geniuses and Silicon Valley wizards have fired a bunch of CDC's EIS officers only to say "whoopsie doodle."

This must be what they mean when they tell folks to go to get more productive private sector jobs.

Joshua Weitz @joshuasweitz.bsky.social · 21h

New reporting: many apparently fired at CDC in 'error'. This is a failure by design given that the admin does not care about fulfilling agency missions. This is the kind of error that should have political consequences.

Unserious people cause real-world harm.

🎁
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/11/h...

Trump Administration Will Rehire Scores of Experts Fired in Error

www.nytimes.com

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 1d

an incontestable fact of the second trump administration is it is actively trying to sicken and kill as many americans as it can

Lena Sun @lenasun.bsky.social · 1d

NEW: @CDCgov hit hard by massive firings that several staff describe to me as a “bloodbath.”
Among those RIFd:
—leadership of the center for immunization and respiratory diseases;
—leadership of global health center
—leadership of the measles outbreak response; 1/4

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Michael Hobbes @michaelhobbes.bsky.social · 1d

There must be some mistake, I read 50 Atlantic articles about how RFK Jr just wants to help Americans eat more vegetables

Gravel Influencer @gravelinfluencer.bsky.social · 1d

They continue to eviscerate the public health machinery that has quietly kept Americans, and others around the world, safe and healthy for decades.

The staff of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, the journal that reports on health trends and emerging infectious threats, was also laid off. The publication’s storied history includes a June 1981 report that five previously healthy gay men were treated for an unusual pneumonia — the first hint of the AIDS epidemic.

Roughly 70 Epidemic Intelligence Service officers — the so-called “disease detectives” who respond to outbreaks around the globe — received layoff notices, according to a person familiar with them. The service was spared during an earlier round of layoffs in February.

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Zach Binney @binneyz.bsky.social · 1d

And I wouldn't eat at your fucking Arby's, either. I would drive two towns over to get my Chicken, Bacon, and Swiss.

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Zach Binney @binneyz.bsky.social · 1d

Are they...are they starting to actually get it?

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Ed Burmila @edburmila.bsky.social · 2d

Imagine how embarrassing changes like this are going to look in 3-5 years

UNC schools of data science and information science to merge, forming unnamed ‘School of AI’

SDSS Dean Stanley Ahalt will be made dean of the new school while SILS Dean Jeffrey Bardzell will stand as the University’s Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer and Vice Provost for AI.

www.dailytarheel.com

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Zach Binney @binneyz.bsky.social · 1d

[INSERT EMPLOYER-APPROVED RESPONSE ABOUT CONSEQUENCES FOR PEOPLE WHO ARE DOING THIS HERE.]

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Zach Binney @binneyz.bsky.social · 1d

I shouldn't have slandered Arby's like that. It's not their fault. They Have The Meats. I'm just mad.

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Zach Binney @binneyz.bsky.social · 1d

I've tried for years to engage with this stuff in good faith, but I'm done. I'm done. Your angry side's response is to nuke the MMWR? The MMWR? You're not worth dealing with. You're worth crushing and driving from any position of responsibility higher than assistant manager of an Arby's.

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Zach Binney @binneyz.bsky.social · 1d

You're mad about hallucinated "lockdowns" that never happened? Kids' schools were closed too long? Don't like Fauci's initial communication about masks?

Feel free to make every day Shut The Fuck Up Friday. Not interested. Go cry in a stuffy.

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Zach Binney @binneyz.bsky.social · 1d

People need to get the fuck over COVID, man. If you're still mad about it: sorry, grow up. Because this is the result. Unfixable vandalism of the entire health apparatus in the United States.

Sheryl Gay Stolberg @sherylnyt.bsky.social · 1d

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:

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Zach Binney @binneyz.bsky.social · 1d

I do like the idea of making it an enormous pain in the ass for parents not to vaccinate their kids.

Deborah Lynn @mrsdeborahlynn.bsky.social · 1d

www.nbcnews.com/health/healt...
A bubbling measles outbreak in the upstate of South Carolina has forced 153 unvaccinated children out of the classroom and into quarantine for a minimum of 21 days.

In Minnesota, 118 students are also under quarantine in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area.

Hundreds of U.S. students quarantined amid measles outbreaks

At least 270 unvaccinated kids are staying home from school as measles continues to spread nationwide. "Expect more," one expert said.

www.nbcnews.com

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Zach Binney @binneyz.bsky.social · 1d

Ok cool so the President is demented enough he's just applying the same number to a bunch of different stuff now?

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Zach Binney @binneyz.bsky.social · 2d

(My policy is that everything else is allowed. Notes, course videos graded problem sets, everything.)

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Zach Binney @binneyz.bsky.social · 2d

I'm stubborn about them. They just work pedagogically for me. I know it makes cheating so much easier, but I have a very lenient policy (no collaboration with another person, nothing written after exam released, no LLMs) and enough honor council convictions to solve MOST of those problems.

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Zach Binney @binneyz.bsky.social · 2d

It's a take home exam they have 5 days for that is designed to take 2-4 hours.

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Zach Binney @binneyz.bsky.social · 2d

Writing my statistical thinking midterm.

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Zach Binney @binneyz.bsky.social · 2d

I've heard some say - and I totally respect it - that this sort of rhetoric makes them less likely to bring their kids to protests.

But it only steels my resolve. It's a lot harder to paint families like this than a bunch of young people. That's why it's important we show up. And bring snacks.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 2d

Mike Johnson: "We're so angry about it. I mean, I'm a very patient guy, but I've had it with these people. The theory we have right now -- they have a hate America rally that's scheduled for October 18 on the National Mall. It's the pro-Hamas wing and antifa people ... "

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Kathleen Clark @kathleenclark.bsky.social · 2d

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

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