You did it again, flock-stars! 🦩✨ Thanks to your generous donations, the SJMC has broken its record for Fill the Hill gifts! Now it's time for SJMC Director Mike Wagner to take on the Spice the Hill Challenge.🔥 Can he handle the heat? Watch to find out.

True @nytpitchbot.bsky.social territory. NPR talked to 4 self-selected people to draw this conclusion. I guess 4 fly fisherman is "some" fly fishermen. so there's that. This is just incredibly lazy journalism.

NPR@npr.org · 5d ago

Democrats are trying to win back male voters ahead of the midterms. In Maine, some fly fishermen say frustration with both parties is shaping their votes. n.pr/3U6KuaG

The so-called Center for Intellectual Freedom is a fraud perpretated on the people of Iowa and the students and faculty at the University of Iowa. It's just cartoonishly dishonest.

Victor Ray@victorerikray.bsky.social · 3w ago

It’s kind of astounding how bad they are at this.

About halfway through this remarkable piece of student journalism, you learn that the data on alleged liberal bias is *completely made up*

Victor Ray@victorerikray.bsky.social · 4w ago

Shout out to the student journalists at The Daily Iowan for reporting on the travesty that is Iowa's Center for Intellectual Freedom. With quotes from me dailyiowan.com/2026/09/15/u...

It’s the hope that kills you.

Congrats to the techbros for conceding that government action is necessary. So I guess AI hasn't solved the collective action problem www.nytimes.com/2026/09/12/t...

Anthropic C.E.O. Dario Amodei Calls for A.I. Slowdown (Gift Article)

In an essay, the head of Anthropic laid out the rapidly advancing capabilities of artificial intelligence and said there needed to be greater safety controls across the industry.

nytimes.com

With generous assumptions, a new faculty line costs about $180k a year (salary, fringe, overhead). $47 million annually would pay for 250 tenure lines. According to the UMass 2025-2026 fact book, the university has about 1,100 FTE tenure-line faculty and spends about $430 million on academics.

Asheesh Kapur Siddique@asheeshks.org · last mo.

According to a meeting I was in, UMass estimates that if the capacity of these tools were maxed out by student, faculty, staff users, the total cost to the university would be $130,000/day, or about $47 million / year.

I don't think the news has made it here: bluesky political scientist Julia Azari @juliaazari.bsky.social 's _Backlash Presidents: From Transformative to Reactionary Leaders in American History_ (Princeton) was recognized with the Richard Neustadt award for best book published on the presidency!

Dear Mr. Aschenbrenner: Enclosed please find your certified title for galaxy GN-z11. As we agreed, kindly send a certified check or money order for $6250 trillion. Sincerely, Wile E. Coyote

Brendan Nyhan@brendannyhan.bsky.social · 2mo ago

I mean, come ON

A reminder that Bret Stephens - who now wants "accountability" for Woke 1.0 - once complained to the George Washington University Provost about a joke a professor made on Twitter about him being a bedbug.

Talking "Bretbug" in the Classroom

Lessons from that one time I ended up living my strategic political communication syllabus

davekarpf.substack.com

1L hypo for @radiofreetom.bsky.social: In college, I lived both on and off campus, and registered for the first time and voted there. Then I went to grad school in another state, and registered and voted there (state 2) 1/x

Tom Nichols@radiofreetom.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Well, that's a new one. "College kids should be able to vote to overcome the wishes of the people who actually live in the place where they go to school"

I don't know why this absolutely cracks me up.

50+ years old. World Politics 27: 175-200. January 1975.

Holy shit!

Anytime a headline asks a question, the answer is always “no.”

The New York Times@nytimes.com · 7mo ago

From @theathletic.com: For 40 years, Duke has been college basketball’s most polarizing team. People love to hate Duke. But has Duke basketball become less hateable? Perhaps, maybe, even likable? nyti.ms/4rSaLUT

If Isaac Chotiner is interviewing you, and he begins a question with "Sir, you're a very, very smart guy," maybe you should just, I don't know, stop talking.

Isaac Chotiner@ichotiner.bsky.social · 7mo ago

New Interview: www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a...

"Put a bunch of really smart people in one place and give them resources and independence" has produced the greatest global knowledge and public good project in the history of the world (the model still works after 1000s of years). And it's just being burned to the ground.

Shaily Patel@vox-magica.bsky.social · 7mo ago

i’ll save y’all the trouble: luddite faculty are scared of bold changes so it’s all their fault.

Another reminder that any reporter who writes about a Supreme Court decision without linking to the actual decision should just, well, they should just do it.

I reiterate my quadrennial proposal that all Olympics announcers get a contract worth $2 million, which is reduced by $100 for every word they say.

Fun fact: the key term used in these discussions is clinical equipoise. Essentially, for a study to be ethical there must be a genuine uncertainty whether the intervention (withholding the vaccine) or the standard approach (giving the vaccine) is better for patients. This study is 100% unethical.

Prof Gavin Yamey MD MPH@gavinyamey.bsky.social · 10mo ago

This is the best piece I’ve read so far on why the Guinea-Bissau RCT, in which a proven life-saving vaccine will be deliberately WITHHELD, is unethical “When benefit is established, withholding an intervention is no longer neutral experimentation it becomes premeditated harm”

So 10-8=5. Good to know, I guess.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 10mo ago

FOX: If you cut something by 100%, the cost goes down to 0. If you cut it by 600%, the drug companies are actually paying you LUTNICK: What he's saying is if a drug was $100 and you bring it down to $13, it's down 7 times F: Not a 600% cut L: But it's 700% higher price before. It's down 700% now

Every sentence in this book would have won the Bulwer-Litton contest.

Dave Karpf@davekarpf.bsky.social · 10mo ago

…Dammit, Dave, you said you wouldn’t do this!

Well, I guess they solved the online elections security problem. Sort of.

Cryptographers Held an Election. They Can’t Decrypt the Results.

nytimes.com

If you have tenure at Texas A&M and aren't maliciously emailing the president a dozen times every day to ask if you can say this or you can say that, then what's the point in having tenure?

Phil Lewis@phillewis.bsky.social · 11mo ago

COLLEGE STATION, Texas (AP) — Texas A&M adopts policy requiring professors to get OK from school president to discuss certain race and gender issues.

If you have to get permission to teach in your area of expertise from people who are definitionally not qualified to adjudicate your expertise then you are no longer working at a university. You’re working at a state propaganda factory.

Phil Lewis@phillewis.bsky.social · 11mo ago

COLLEGE STATION, Texas (AP) — Texas A&M adopts policy requiring professors to get OK from school president to discuss certain race and gender issues.

Reviewer two has thoughts.

Marjorie James Keenan@unenthusiast.com · 12mo ago

In honour of spooky month, share a 4 word horror story that only someone in your profession would understand. rm -rf ~/

Sad news. They buried the lede: "A proud son of the Midwest, Barnett was born in Illinois and attended the University of Wisconsin...He was married to Braver for 53 years." Bob & Rita have been huge supporters of UW Political Science for many years. True mensches. May his memory be a blessing.

Washington, DC, superlawyer Bob Barnett dead at 79 | CNN Politics

Robert B. Barnett, a Washington, DC, lawyer and dealmaker who represented some of the most notable American political figures over the last half century, has died. He was 79.

cnn.com

A professor who was actually canceled - fired - and crickets from the hysterical “anti-cancel culture” crowd.

Ned Richardson-Little@historyned.bsky.social · last yr.

A lot of people who were panic mongering about a woke cultural revolution are conspicuously quiet about a youth activist denouncing a professor for wrong think and that professor being fired as part of a campaign of public shaming by political leaders.

Hitler: Operation Sea Lion. Churchill: "we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender." NYT: Settlement Talks Stall between Churchill and Hitler

James Fallows@jfallows.bsky.social · last yr.

Online this morning, NYT update from "Harvard is about to cave" team. Today's update: Well, actually..... See headline below. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/06/u... For context of this narrative, please see my piece yesterday fallows.substack.com/p/harvard-vs... (Full timeline before paywall.)

Aaron Swartz was prosecuted by the feds and faced decades in prison and millions in fines for downloading articles from JSTOR, which asked the gov to not pursue the case. The prosecution destroyed his life. He died by suicide in 2013. www.internethalloffame.org/inductee/aar...

Aaron Swartz Inductee Biography - Internet Hall of Fame

Aaron Swartz was inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame in 2013. He was a computer programming prodigy and activist who played an instrumental role in the campaign for a free and open Internet.

internethalloffame.org

The Authors Guild@authorsguild.org · last yr.

A federal court ruled that ANTHROPIC illegally copied MILLIONS of books to train its AI. All authors and publishers whose books were downloaded by Anthropic from pirate websites are subject to receiving compensation. This could involve your work. For more info: authorsguild.org/news/anthrop...