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Only two months into Trump’s reign, and three prominent Yale professors depart for a Canadian university. These professors started planning to leave the country back in November, which is amazing — they negotiated salaries and startup and facilities, and the University of Toronto cleared everything and made room and got them positions in only two months? That’s moving at light speed for a university.

Unfortunately the part of the story that won’t make the news is all the faculty who want to get out but can’t. Someone like me, who has a good reputation as a teacher, is a dime-a-dozen nobody; Canada has swarms of people who are excellent teachers, and plenty of people who are great researchers, so most of the professors in the US aren’t going to be able to emigrate (I’m also near the end of my career, so there’d be no point to hiring me.) A lucky few are going to be able to escape, and they’re going to have to move fast, before the pipeline is clogged.

And yeah, if I were 20 years younger I’d be putting an application package together, and mailing them off to every college in Canada. Does the Northwest Territories have any openings? I’d take it. A shack on King William Island, with a population of auks needing biology training? Sign me up.

The secret police are here

Way, way back in time, when the atheist schism was running hot, Freethoughtblogs and Skepchick were accused of being like the Stasi by Paula Kirby, a journalist (and also Richard Dawkins’ mistress). It was an event that roiled the atheist blogosphere for a few months. What was notable about it was the accusation that leftists and liberals and feminists were synonymous with the secret police, just itching to disappear anyone they didn’t like, which was weird given that, up to that time, I kind liked Kirby. It’s petty, but right now I wish I could rub her face in a demonstration of how the Stasi would actually behave.

Chilling, isn’t it? The swarm of black-hooded, masked cops surrounding a young woman on the street, handcuffing her, and walking her to a dark car and taking her away. Only it’s not East Germany. It’s Boston. The woman is Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish graduate student studying at Tufts University, who was arrested because she participated in a pro-Palestinian protest and wrote an opinion piece for the university newspaper, which of course has been characterized as pro-terrorist, pro-Hamas activity. You can be disappeared for that. She is currently being held at a detention center concentration camp in Louisiana. No charges were filed. No evidence was presented. No due process. No trial.

Surveillance video released Wednesday and obtained from a neighbor by the advocacy group Muslim Justice League appears to show six plainclothes officers casually approaching Ozturk as she walks alone on a sidewalk.
One officer wearing a hat and hoodie grabs her arms, causing Ozturk to shriek in fear as another pulls out a concealed badge on a lanyard and confiscates her cell phone.
Shortly afterward, the officers all pull cloth coverings over their mouths and noses, some of them wearing sunglasses, as one of them restrains Ozturk’s hands behind her back.
As the officers say, “We’re the police,” a person not seen in the video can be heard responding, “Yeah, you don’t look like it. Why are you hiding your faces?”
One minute after the encounter began, Ozturk is walked into a waiting SUV and driven away.
ICE has not responded to CNN’s request for comment on Ozturk’s case.

Welcome to America.

Hey, Canadians and Mexicans and Europeans etc. who are considering studying in the USA — don’t. Stay home. There are great universities in your home countries or just about anywhere else in the world. Here, you risk finding your studies interrupted by an unplanned vacation in an El Salvadoran prison.

OH NO! MY LAWN!!!

Things you don’t like to come home to: a backhoe parked on the grass and an 8 foot deep trench dug in the yard.

We noticed with the spring thaw that we were building a lovely swamp in the yard — we had a constant leak from the water main feeding our house. The only way to deal with it was to bring in the heavy equipment, excavate the pipe, and replace the leaky broken bit. I think I’m going waterless tonight, but they think it will be fixed tomorrow morning.

The administration is a mob of children

We now have excerpts from that Signal chat, where a reporter was accidentally included as they discussed bombing the Houthis in Yemen.

Jesus fucking christ.

Emojis? Cheering while they gloat about killing people? I know there are a lot of things wrong with this colossal fuckup, but please…can our military leaders take their own actions seriously? If you’re bombing someone, it is not an occasion for joy and laughter, it’s a catastrophe, a failure of policy that has led to violence. It may sometimes be necessary, but it’s also regrettable.

Others have noticed that these people are unqualified amateurs, putting on a clown show.

Zachary B. Wolf of CNN noted that “Trump intentionally hired amateurs for top jobs. This is their most dramatic blunder.” Senator Jon Ossoff (D-GA) told Brian Tyler Cohen: “My first reaction… was ‘what absolute clowns.’ Total amateur hour, reckless, dangerous…. [T]his is what happens when you have basically Fox News personalities cosplaying as government officials.” Foreign policy scholar Timothy Snyder posted: “These guys inherited one of the most functional state apparatus in the history of the world and they are inhabiting it like a crack house.”

Four more years of this. Great.

Poor Martyn Iles

Martyn Iles lost his status as Ken Ham’s successor at Answers in Genesis (there’s a story there, I’m sure, but no one is talking), and now he’s an immigrant wandering loose in the United States, which is definitely not a good position to be in. Normally, I’d be sympathetic, but Martyn Iles? The Young Earth Creationist and far right kook? Nah. Deport him.

Prayer request: | need a new visa for the USA so | can come and go freely for our new project.
The lawyer recommends going for an O-1 visa, but it’s a high bar.
I’ll need some senior political and church figures to help me out with letters that verify my past activities… essentially to confirm that | have been a national leader in political, legal and grassroots advocacy work. And trust nobody who really hates my beliefs ends up with the application on their desk.
But once it’s granted, it’s a very good visa, and very durable.
So… Pray everyone is suddenly overtaken by a desire to do me just a small favour

OK, I’ll be generous: everyone can give him all the prayers he might want. I don’t know what his “new project” is, but I’m sure it’s garbage pandering to ignorance.

I am relieved that our invasion plans are all going to fail

I think this clown’s head might roll pretty good

Canada, Greenland, Mexico, and Panama are even more relieved that the American war machine is run by idiots and incompetents. When they make war plans, they invite random journalists to the meeting…which is also held over a commercial app rather than all those secret channels the government controls. The editor of the Atlantic got advance notice about a recent bombing run over Yemen.

The world found out shortly before 2 p.m. eastern time on March 15 that the United States was bombing Houthi targets across Yemen.

I, however, knew two hours before the first bombs exploded that the attack might be coming. The reason I knew this is that Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, had texted me the war plan at 11:44 a.m. The plan included precise information about weapons packages, targets, and timing.

This is going to require some explaining.

Is it? Is it, really?

It’s clear the military is being controlled by the gang who can’t shoot straight. My questions are: are they going to repeat this behavior next time they want to blow something up? Are they going to pay attention when the Pentagon tells them to not use that app? Will the Democrats be as persistent in hounding these baboons as the Republicans were about Hillary’s Emails?

And, was Pete Hegseth sober at this badly mismanaged meeting?

The fox is in charge of the henhouse

NASA’s budget is getting slashed.

NASA is terminating $420 million in contracts the agency says are redundant or “misaligned” with its core priorities, but has provided few details about what is being cut.

In a statement to SpaceNews late March 24, NASA press secretary Bethany Stevens confirmed a post by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) that NASA had terminated about $420 million in “unneeded” contracts.

The question I have is…how much of that $420 million in contracts was going to SpaceX, which is run by Elon Musk, who is also running DOGE?

Much corruption, so respect.

Feminine stereotypes

Male tarantulas, when they reach sexual maturity, are focused on wandering away to find sex, to the point where they may lose interest in eating.

Females, on the other hand, turn into voracious consumers of calories.

Blue wants her morning mealworm, and strikes like lightning.