If you’ve ever compared unvaccinated kids to vaccinated kids, you’ve seen the former are more likely to die.
Humanitarian, technologist, musician, historian. Proud Harvard Kennedy School grad.
398 followers 1,303 following 149 posts
view profile on Bluesky
If you’ve ever compared unvaccinated kids to vaccinated kids, you’ve seen the former are more likely to die.
As someone who wants to see pattern recognition lead to advanced disaster risk modelling via AI, I am afraid that this graphic is all too true.
*stares into the camera* *sighs*
BREAKING: Social Security Administration chief data officer and whistle-blower Charles Borges has resigned after bombshell report that SSA put highly-sensitive data at risk. He sent out an email to colleagues moments ago. Here is the text of his email shared with me:
“End-run” “Pushing limits” “Unusual” “Redefining” “Challenging norms” “Boldly upending” Sounds heroic, muscular. Our English language already contains the word illegal. No need to craft misleading/laudatory synonyms for suspending our Constitution. In this dangerous moment, we must speak clearly.
One of the greatest errors in the history of US public health reduced to 'clash over vaccine policy.' This is why I cancelled my subscription to the WaPo earlier this year. Irresponsible.
CDC employees standing up and walking out in light of the mass shootings, firings, and *waves hands in the air* everything else. #USAnotRFK Lets gooooo
We need to counter this bullshit by understanding what it is: propaganda. In 2012, it was effective to scapegoat: to say that mental health is the root cause, not gun policy. It is good to reread the NRA's statement and realize they are running the same playbook in 2025.
As Newtown resident, I remember the day after the Sandy Hook shooting. We thought killing elementary school children would move the nation's heart. But the very next week, Wayne LaPierre was peddling the bullshit of "a good guy with a gun." BS is an attempt to persuade without regard to the truth.
Former IFRC here. The seven Fundamental Principles of the Red Cross/Red Crescent Movement are unpinned by the principle of humanity. "Respect for human dignity is paramount in everything the Movement does. It implies helping and protecting others regardless of who they are or what they have done."
These principles protects life and health and ensures respect for every human being. Every. One. "Respect for human dignity is paramount in everything the Movement does. It implies helping and protecting others regardless of who they are or what they have done." www.icrc.org/sites/defaul...
As the former manager of learning at the IFRC, I must point out the Fundamental Principles of the Red Cross Movement: humanity, impartiality, neutrality, independence, voluntary service, unity, and universality.
I adapted Michael Pollan's frame for eating healthy a decade ago for ways to *digitally* detox on vacation: Access information. Mostly maps. Delete social apps. Read books. Facts & fiction. Mostly print. Cache email. Respond later. Mostly family. Limit videos. Not too much TV. Mostly movies.
But someone will pun on this bologna.
When I as 14, I played an evening concert in NYC and then performed in a string quartet on the MetroNorth commuter train home. I've taken public transport all over this planet. I am far more nervous near NatGuard who are not trained for the mission they are being asked to do this month.
Judge Sol Wachtler neglected to mention that even though you can indict a ham sandwich, that doesn't mean you'll succeed in indicting the man who threw it. GIFT LINK. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/27/u...
As a crisis management professional who entered our field because of Hurricane Katrina, this letter from 150 FEMA colleagues hits hard. Unless we act now, our nation is going to have another Katrina-level failure. www.standupforscience.net/fema-katrina...
This is public policy insanity. It will kill untold numbers Americans, likely in the 100s of thousands.
What ICE is doing right now is historically illegal, immoral, and inhumane. If you voted for Donald Trump and you don’t support it, you cannot remain silent or your regret is cowardly and useless. If you do support it, your humanity is busted.
I hope this will not get a name like Night of the... (fill in Nazi theme)
I guess we now know where potus will be visiting
Long time progressive lens wearer: I broke down and acquired a laptop (office) distance single vision pair for this purpose. I also had an office progressive, but I find myself using the single vision more often.
The brown suit is not an accident.
Over the past two decades, I have worked on disaster ops (HADR & DSCA) with many DoD employees, civilian and military. With only a few exceptions, they take their oaths seriously and live by their honor. The chances of more than a handful 'volunteering' to support mass deportations are near zero.
For years, I rode the trains from Union Station twice or more per week at very early and very late hours. Not once did I feel unsafe. This is pure white-male insecurity grabbing at any excuse to deploy military assets in a civilian context.
Slavery was and still is an evil system whose history has been watered down in our museums and schools. We need to come to grips with the darkness of our nation's fight to make all persons created equal, not to erase it. And we must fight against anyone who wants to whitewash these injustices.
You are, in the next few months, going to see a few pro-AI people who start trying to morph into "thoughtful cynics" on the issue, and I can't wait, because I've been taking such detailed notes
No, Just no. We will not normalize this.
Like, I don't think we can put the toothpaste back in the tube at this point. But I think we can maybe get to a point where we recognize that AI, like toothpaste, is best used in scant amounts for specific, relatively infrequent tasks, rather than slathered indiscriminately all over everything.
NEW — I’ve learned members of the DC National Guard were told they were being activated via a mass text message sent with no warning this evening, less than 24 hours before they were expected to show up. Here is the full text of the message, shared with me by a DCNG source:
This story relied on brave people making the docs available and has been live for just 134 minutes and was published in an outlet run by an oligarch currying favor to Trump. Literally, someone DID speak up.
There is no settlement with an extortionist. It is always just the first bite. Harvard must hold the line.
«GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke has resigned, and now GitHub will be part of Microsoft’s AI engineering team.» 🫠 https://www.theverge.com/news/757461/microsoft-github-thomas-dohmke-resignation-coreai-team-transition
Barely an hour ago, Palestinian journalist Anas Al-Sharif warned us all: “If this madness doesn’t end, Gaza will be reduced to ruins, its people’s voices silenced, their faces erased — and history will remember you as silent witnesses to a genocide you chose not to stop.” Israel just killed him.
Technology wants whatever power wants. Power is obviously political. This is not a mystery.
WOW. This new Ari Kuschnir short about Donald Trump's White House ballroom is AMAZING.
Spreading misinformation and destroying science from the HHS podium yet again.
The havoc this will wreak on general aviation--especially pilots with older aircraft/avionics--is going to kill people.
*edit button* Gilbert Stuart.
And perhaps with some irony. IIRC: the (Boston) Athenaeum painting of Washington was one of two painted by Gilbert. The Athenaeum loaned its copy to the US Government after the British burned the original Gilbert (along with the rest of the White House) in 1812.
It could be a whole new take on the sport of skeet shooting! Not that any Americans have the kit to engage in such a thing from their homes.
so I am one of the 12 people (including the “god-fathers of AI”) that will be at the Vatican this September for a two full-day working group on the Future of AI here is my Vatican approved short provocation on 'AI and Fraternity' for the working group
Trump is panicking because the economic numbers are giving a recession vibe. From the Chief Economist at Moody's.
It is akin to telling a Spanish speaker how locals pronounce San Rafael or Paso Robles.
Trump firing Commissioner of Labor Statistics Dr. Erika McEntarfer is completely consistent with how he behaves when presented with data he doesn’t like. He did this with the sharpie hurricane and he did it with the pandemic. Data are not political, they are data.
why isn't Trump celebrating the June to July jobs surge?
A second seismic event of the week that has failed to create the impact most feared... According to Yale Budget Lab, the US effective tariff rate as at August 1 is now 17.3% (after consumption shifts). This is the highest since 1935, but still a shade down on estimates earlier this week...
Stand by this: www.politico.com/newsletters/...
Being in tech and having a single modicum of critical thinking is just screaming "this isn't what LLMs are designed for" over and over as people shove a bunch of word predictors into critical decision making processes because some glorified used car salesmen told them it would fix all their problems
2026 Bingo Card entry: Kate enters and accidentally wins a PNW pickleball tournament.
We are currently exploring answers to the question: how many times can the DoD shoot itself in the foot?
Who is Arrested by ICE under Trump 2.0? A 🧵 New from me & @elizabethacox.bsky.social! Piece: immresearch.org/publications... 1. ICE arrests spike in Jan & May 2025; when arrests increase, percent of those arrested who are convicted of a crime falls Majority arrested have no criminal conviction
Does that set off any sirens?
EXCLUSIVE: ICE may have secretly done more third-country removals than previously known Flight data from private jets contracted by ICE show a spike in activity to 13 countries targeted for third-country removals. 👀I've been working on this for two months. hardghistory.ghost.io/exclusive-ic...
The National Archives Store--a retail shop of the National Archive Foundation, under NARA--is paying to advertise the Constitution of the **Confederate States of America**. We fought a civil war over these issues. Why *pay* to promote hate? (Also Meta won't let me report it: their form craps out).
My senator nails it: greed is trumping liberty. As large media corporations buckle to the demands of a censorship state, the programming that we citizens are allowed to consume is becoming ever less free to criticize either the state or the corporations who have aligned with it.
EXCLUSIVE: Not only does an Excel spreadsheet of Trump mentions in the Epstein files exist, but so do training videos explaining how to flag the files for Trump mentions. Plus, the number of people who had access is larger than previously known. My latest: www.muellershewrote.com/p/the-epstei...
I have worked crisis response (international and national) for 17 years. It is striking how this one is unfolding, mostly in the absence of who is listed on sitreps and what is not happening that usually does. The AAR will get buried, I'm sure...
One of America’s best reporters and non-fiction writers breaks down the emerging gestapo:
As someone who lived in New Orleans during the thing you call Katrina, I’m here to say that the time to politicize governmental failure in a tragedy is when anyone is still paying attention.
USAID didn’t fail. It fed 127,000 kids—then was erased mid-crisis. No speech. No tribute. Just silence. They didn’t end a program. They liquidated a covenant. The last American promise not built on conquest—but care. 🔗 thelastmilewithusaid.substack.com
when you open a service you've been using for a decade only to find it out it caught the virus
If you don’t think this moment of symbolism is 100% deliberate, you haven’t been paying attention. The Speaker surrendering his gavel is purposeful, self-subjugation to the “King”. Congress betraying its role & yielding its power. All on #July4th too.
Let's not forget WASPs eating nachos, tacos, and burritos without utensils. Some even believe that eating pizza with fork and knife is a form of blasphemy.
The Declaration of Independence specifies 27 grievances with King George III and Britain. Donald Trump has committed at least 16 of those same offenses. #NoKings
Quartering did not just mean feeding and housing troops in a private home. It also meant quartering troops in other buildings on the colony's expense. ICE is now being 'quartered' in LA and are being absolved of harms done to disappeared citizens. That's 14 and 15.
John James votes yes. The MAGA murder budget will pass. I hope their god forgives them, because we never will.
IF YOU ARE IN ONE OF THESE DISTRICTS PLEASE MAKE A CALL RIGHT NOW DOES NOT MATTER IF YOUR VOICE SHAKES CALL AND SAY YOU OPPOSE BBB Scripts here: 5calls.org
The moment that turned Scrooge's heart was when he saw a future where Tiny Tim would die as a direct result of Ebenezer's greedy version of capitalism. The GOP has decided that our nation's Tiny Tims should receive no federal aid. We are pointing a bony finger at where this choice leads.
This is Nick Begich (R-Alaska). If he votes for the bill, 37,000 of his constituents lose access to their healthcare. 27,000 of his constituents lose access to their food assistance. 578 energy jobs in his district will disappear.
A new study estimates that USAID saved 92 million lives from 2001 to 2021, and that its demolition could kill 14 million people in only five years through 2030. That would make the end of USAID by far the most impactful action Trump has taken this year. www.nbcnews.com/health/healt...
USAID is shutting its doors today--marking the end of democracy, diplomacy, and decency all in one fell swoop.
Final vote. 50-50. VP breaks the tie. One single GOP Senator could have stopped this abomination. Saved millions of parents from watching their child go hungry. Saved the lives destroyed when Medicaid disappears. They will all live forever with the horror of this bill.
Only 28% support eliminating FEMA
investigating and prosecuting such cases—including stripping people of citizenship for (alleged) “fraud” against the govt—is to be one of the top five priorities of the trump civil rights division
Call your Senators at (202) 224-3121 — NOW!!! ☎️
The Gov of Florida is about to discover what it means to run a refugee camp--with 5000 housed in tents and trailers--in a location with tropical diseases during hurricane season. These conditions will be horrific and--importantly in the Bible Belt--un-Christian. www.newsnationnow.com/us-news/immi...
Amid the madness in the US, I almost miss living in GVA. It can be stunning this time of year. Enjoy!
Per @npr.org, the Department of Homeland Security, in partnership with the White House U.S. DOGE Service, has built a searchable national citizenship register with data from the Social Security Administration & immigration records— without public notice & comment. Infrastructure for a police state.
My hot take on Jeff Bezos' wedding: That $50 million price tag is double what the US government was spending annually on food and medicine for 5 million AIDS orphans before the Trump administration canceled it. We are literally letting orphans die rather than make this guy pay taxes.
Republicans may lie about what's in their budget bill but the numbers sure don't.
Just out: 'Resisting the Techno-Fascist Takeover: Are We Ready for Decomputing?' berlinergazette.de/resisting-th... in which I diagnose DOGE as institutional cyberattack and argue that the way to stop it spreading is to revive an alternative technopolitics.
Perhaps now is the time to invest in mechanical watch companies...
Is it too late to give Sacha Baron Cohen an Oscar for this? Not a damn lie told. 🇺🇸
We are about to find out how many simultaneous non-combatant evacuation operations (NEOs) the US can perform. I'm sure that requirement was in the planning and assets are all prepositioned and briefed.
Did they trademark the term 'fauxton'? 🙃
The goal of my phrase was simple assonance, not a challenge to your complaint. I am on your side!
We are facing a serious threat to democracy, law, and liberty. The abuse of prosecutorial power to intimidate, investigate, and detain political opponents is upon us. It is a constitutional crisis. I will keep speaking out until public outrage overflows. I just hope it’s not too little, too late.
So... is that "insufficiently ignominious"?
Chatbots — LLMs — do not know facts and are not designed to be able to accurately answer factual questions. They are designed to find and mimic patterns of words, probabilistically. When they’re “right” it’s because correct things are often written down, so those patterns are frequent. That’s all.
Just say that matching was providence.
Not a new idea: John Silber proposed a similar concept for Boston University in the early 1990s. It was so unpopular that the idea was pulled and never mentioned again.
When they start arriving in black helicopters, the prophecies will finally be complete. (sigh)
The NYTimes continues to normalize aberrant harmful policies. After all the pandemic trauma that this nation endured, it would seem that Trump's Warp Speed vaccine would be viewed as a social good. Making it seem that this policy is "no longer recommended" is simply bad journalism.
@digiphile.bsky.social
Enabling all the village idiots to form a global network turns out to have been a really bad idea.
If a foreign adversary snuck into our Federal budget and cut science research and education the way we’re cutting it ourselves — strategically undermining America’s long-term health, wealth, and security — we would likely consider it an act of war.
The GOP scheduled the House Rules Commitee to convene at *1AM* tonight to move this bill forward Reminds me of when the TNGOP jammed through the countries’ most egregious anti-abortion bill at midnight five years ago Democracy dies in darkness
Scooped by The Onion is a sign of these times. Sigh.