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Margaret Moerchen (she/her) @carrotslittle.bsky.social · Sep 8

I don’t think it’s about to get communicated: 8 RIFs today (of ~150 total), 5 of them supporting DEI-related initiatives, 6 women, 3 women of color, 1 on maternity leave and 1 pregnant last trimester

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Margaret Moerchen (she/her) @carrotslittle.bsky.social · Sep 8

The longtime lead of this program was just fired so it's not looking promising for Bridge-- hope people see that and make their voices heard.

Margaret Moerchen (she/her) @carrotslittle.bsky.social · Sep 5

Sounds like they’ve ended the program

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Margaret Moerchen (she/her) @carrotslittle.bsky.social · Aug 31

It’s fully closed

Margaret Moerchen (she/her) @carrotslittle.bsky.social · Jun 13

One time @themountaingoats.bsky.social John Darnielle was in front of me at the Target self-checkout in NW DC and I tried to be cool and say nothing, and failed, but he was so incredibly nice despite just trying to take his kid to the zoo that weekend, apparently, and to buy cold medicine

R.L. Stine Cold Steve Austin @bolt451.bsky.social · Jun 13

Right folks. Feeling rather down at the moment so bringing back an oldie

Please Quote this with your most minor celebrity interaction

Margaret Moerchen (she/her) @carrotslittle.bsky.social · Jun 13

I ran into Brian Wilson enjoying a cozy chair in the lobby of my hotel in Salt Lake City, and I managed a very restrained (imho) thank-you for the music. Enjoying that one especially this week.

R.L. Stine Cold Steve Austin @bolt451.bsky.social · Jun 13

Right folks. Feeling rather down at the moment so bringing back an oldie

Please Quote this with your most minor celebrity interaction

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Reposted by Margaret Moerchen (she/her)

McSweeney's @mcsweeneys.net · May 7

Dear business genius,

I’m a [WORKING-CLASS PERSON / MIDDLE-CLASS PERSON / SUPER-RICH PERSON]. Thank you for making me poorer.

Staying brief to save ink money,
[YOUR NAME. LITERALLY ANYONE]

Templates for Thanking President Trump

Template 1 Dear President Trump and [RELEVANT MINIONS] I’m just writing from [UKRAINE / GAZA / THE HEARD AND MCDONALD ISLANDS] to say, once and for...

buff.ly

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Reposted by Margaret Moerchen (she/her)

Andrew Simon @simongandrew.bsky.social · Mar 29

One of many moments in Omar El Akkad’s new book, “One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This,” that will stop you in your tracks.

There is an impulse in moments like this to appeal to self-interest. To say: These horrors you are allowing to happen, they will come to your doorstep one day; to repeat the famous phrase about who they came for first and who they'll come for next. But this appeal cannot, in matter of fact, work. If the people well served by a system that condones such butchery ever truly believed the same butchery could one day be inflicted on them, they'd tear the system down tomorrow. And anyway, by the time such a thing happens, the rest of us will already be dead.
No, there is no terrible thing coming for you in some distant future, but know that a terrible thing is happening to you now. You are being asked to kill off a part of you that would otherwise scream in opposition to injustice. You are being asked to dismantle the machinery of a functioning conscience.
Who cares if diplomatic expediency prefers you shrug away the sight of dismembered children? Who cares if great distance from the bloodstained middle allows obliviousness. Forget pity, forget even the dead if you must, but at least fight against the theft of your soul.

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Margaret Moerchen (she/her) @carrotslittle.bsky.social · Apr 19

Panch is a coward and traitor of the highest order

Science Magazine @science.org · Apr 18

NSF has spent decades—and billions of dollars—trying to attract more women and members of underrepresented groups into STEM. Not anymore. scim.ag/3RUtgZg

NSF starts to kill grants that violate Trump’s war on diversity efforts

Attracting women and minorities into science and studying misinformation are no longer priorities, agency says

scim.ag

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Margaret Moerchen (she/her) @carrotslittle.bsky.social · Apr 5

Lots of people and amazing signs in DC today #handsoff

An effigy of Elon Musk over six feet tall wears a DOGE ball cap, sunglasses and a shirt that says cruel/incompetent/corrupt

A large crowd, many with signs, gathers on the grass and sidewalks around the Washington Monument

A poster depicting Trump with a Hitler mustache and a background swastika advertises RefuseFascism.org and states “in the name of humanity we refuse to accept a fascist America”

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Reposted by Margaret Moerchen (she/her)

Heidi Li Feldman @heidilifeldman.bsky.social · Apr 3

🚨Georgetown University Law Center students are detailing which law firms have caved and which have stood up to the Trump regime. They have created this spreadsheet: docs.google.com/spreadsheets... Please share widely.

Legal Industry Responses to Fascist Attacks Tracker (Public)

docs.google.com

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Reposted by Margaret Moerchen (she/her)

Mark Peifer (He, him) @peiferlabunc.bsky.social · Mar 31

>1900 members of the National Academies of Science, Engineering & Medicine issued a statement supporting science for the benefit of all citizens, and ... 1/2
docs.google.com/document/d/1...

Public Statement on Supporting Science for the Benefit of All Citizens

TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE We all rely on science. Science gave us the smartphones in our pockets, the navigation systems in our cars, and life-saving medical care. We count on engineers when we drive acr...

docs.google.com

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Reposted by Margaret Moerchen (she/her)

Paul Guinnessy @paulguinnessy.bsky.social · Mar 27

arXiv used to be funded by Los Alamos for many years, so its a good job its not there now. It's a nice profile that captures Ginsparg pretty well (and there's still a question of its long term viability as funding is still dependent on grants). #scholarlypublishing #physics

Inside arXiv—the Most Transformative Platform in All of Science

Modern science wouldn’t exist without the online research repository known as arXiv. Three decades in, its creator still can’t let it go.

www.wired.com

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Margaret Moerchen (she/her) @carrotslittle.bsky.social · Mar 27

This also goes for removing “censor-worthy” words from websites, like diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility, etc.
Don’t do them a favor by doing their work for them!

Brendel @brendelbored.bsky.social · Mar 27

Another reason it is cowardly to simply obey and let them take over your newsroom or university is that if you don’t they often will be like “well fuck, that was our main idea”

Kyle Cheney @kyledcheney.bsky.social · Mar 27

JUST IN: Kari Lake has withdrawn the cancelation of Radio Free Europe’s grant, seeking to end a legal standoff.

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Reposted by Margaret Moerchen (she/her)

☠️deadward niedermurder☠️ @niedermeyer.online · Mar 26

I don't care what side of the Israel-Palestine conflict your sympathies lie on, snatching up people with a valid student visa for the crime of writing an OpEd is naked fascism and if you don't oppose this you are a threat to this country's most basic values

Matt Novak @paleofuture.bsky.social · Mar 26

Video of the international student at Tufts being arrested by "federal authorities" in Massachusetts has been released and it's terrifying.

They're not even uniformed officers. Just secret police thugs in hoodies and masks.

From WCVB: youtu.be/PuFIs7OkzYY

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Margaret Moerchen (she/her) @carrotslittle.bsky.social · Mar 26

@joaquincastrotx.bsky.social is doing amazing work these days — a great example for Dem leaders AHEM

Jen Bendery @jbendery.bsky.social · Mar 26

Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) just told Tulsi Gabbard, Kash Patel and John Ratcliffe to their faces that they all know they're lying when they say the war-planning info they shared on Signal wasn't classified. www.huffpost.com/entry/donald...

Dem Rep. To Intel Leaders: ‘A Lie To The Country’ To Say Signal Chat Wasn’t Classified

www.huffpost.com

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Reposted by Margaret Moerchen (she/her)

Pete Buttigieg @petebuttigieg.bsky.social · Mar 24

From an operational security perspective, this is the highest level of fuckup imaginable. These people cannot keep America safe.

The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans

U.S. national-security leaders included me in a group chat about upcoming military strikes in Yemen. I didn’t think it could be real. Then the bombs started falling.

www.theatlantic.com

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Reposted by Margaret Moerchen (she/her)

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · Mar 24

You cannot make this shit up. Sharing this jaw-dropping story with a gift link -- give it a read.

The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans

U.S. national-security leaders included me in a group chat about upcoming military strikes in Yemen. I didn’t think it could be real. Then the bombs started falling.

www.theatlantic.com

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Margaret Moerchen (she/her) @carrotslittle.bsky.social · Mar 22

This person with a few physics degrees understood you fine the first time, hard agrees with you, and encourages you to say whatever you want with no amendments needed 💥

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Reposted by Margaret Moerchen (she/her)

Bethany Brookshire @beebrookshire.bsky.social · Mar 20

Yay. According to this LibGen trained it's LLM on BOTH of my books, one of my features, and...

...my 2019 scientific article on the deletion of the VMAT1 transporter?

Love to see literal years of my work stolen so people don't have to work to write an email.

www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

Search LibGen, the Pirated-Books Database That Meta Used to Train AI

Millions of books and scientific papers are captured in the collection’s current iteration.

www.theatlantic.com

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Margaret Moerchen (she/her) @carrotslittle.bsky.social · Mar 21

Looks like everything I ever wrote, original research or reviews or published recaps of other works, it’s all in there

The Atlantic @theatlantic.com · Mar 20

Meta considered licensing books to train AI—but opted instead to pirate LibGen, a database that currently contains more than 7.5 million books and 81 million research papers, Alex Reisner writes.

The Unbelievable Scale of AI’s Pirated-Books Problem

Meta pirated millions of books to train its AI. Search through them here.

www.theatlantic.com

Margaret Moerchen (she/her) @carrotslittle.bsky.social · Mar 20

Is everyone seeing this??

Josh Gerstein @joshgerstein.bsky.social · Mar 19

SCOOP: Hooded ICE agents snatched Indian-born Georgetown postdoc Badar Suri from Rosslyn street Monday, per court filing. Like Khalil, linked to pro-Palestinian views & Rubio 'foreign policy' power, lawyer says. Then whisked to Louisiana. w/ @kyledcheney www.politico.com/news/2025/03...

Trump is seeking to deport another graduate student who is legally in the country, lawsuit says

Badar Khan Suri, a fellow at Georgetown, says he is being punished because of the suspected views of his wife, a U.S. citizen with Palestinian heritage.

www.politico.com

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Margaret Moerchen (she/her) @carrotslittle.bsky.social · Mar 20

I know such events are happening at numerous ports of entry, but I wonder if it gives #LPSC organizers yet more pause about hosting the conference in Texas when it is hostile in so many ways to scientists.

Mark Wieczorek @mrak.solarsystem.social · Mar 19

A french research going to the #lpsc conference outside of Houston Texas wasn't allowed to enter the country. After a "random" control at the border, the police searched their phone and computer and found compromising statements about Trump […]

Original post on solarsystem.social

solarsystem.social

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Margaret Moerchen (she/her) @carrotslittle.bsky.social · Mar 18

I don’t know the answer, but I’ve been trying to figure out how to make this question into a holiday card for a lot of our extended family

Kai Ryssdal @kairyssdal.bsky.social · Mar 18

I know I keep asking this, but how long does it take for people to realize they’re on the wrong side of history?

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Reposted by Margaret Moerchen (she/her)

WIRED @wired.com · Mar 18

They're called public records for a reason. Starting today, WIRED will *stop paywalling* articles that are primarily based on public records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, becoming the first publication to partner with @freedom.press to offer this for our new coverage.

Wired is dropping paywalls for FOIA-based reporting. Others should follow

As the administration does its best to hide public records from the public, Wired magazine is stepping up to help stem the secrecy

freedom.press

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