Rachel P-M
@rpmastronomy.com
Former astronomer trying to be a current astronomer. Jeopardy! Champion.
I was writing our holiday letter and was debating between an em dash and a colon and while I think the colon was technically the better choice I still used an em dash for exactly this reason.
are we still on about em dashes and ai. imo human writers should just use the em dashes even harder. we should be out here pummeling out those em dashes like we're emily dickinson
December 10, 2025 at 7:24 AM
I was writing our holiday letter and was debating between an em dash and a colon and while I think the colon was technically the better choice I still used an em dash for exactly this reason.
It is fucking impossible to find a pediatric Covid vaccine for kids under 5. I am well-resourced and my mom is a retired pediatrician and it was still a nightmare to get one.
5/ Vaccination data is finally here and it’s not looking good. Covid vax rates are down a LOT from last year. Specifically:
🔹 5.7% of children are vaccinated, down from 9.3% this time last year
🔹14.7% of adults are vaccinated this year, down from 18.6% this time last year
🔹 5.7% of children are vaccinated, down from 9.3% this time last year
🔹14.7% of adults are vaccinated this year, down from 18.6% this time last year
December 10, 2025 at 7:20 AM
It is fucking impossible to find a pediatric Covid vaccine for kids under 5. I am well-resourced and my mom is a retired pediatrician and it was still a nightmare to get one.
Reposted by Rachel P-M
You may realize that nightmarish visa requirements are bad for US tourism …
… but you may not realize that most visa policies are reciprocal.
The harder for foreigners to visit America, the harder for Americans to visit other countries.
This doubles as a trap that prevents Americans from leaving.
… but you may not realize that most visa policies are reciprocal.
The harder for foreigners to visit America, the harder for Americans to visit other countries.
This doubles as a trap that prevents Americans from leaving.
December 10, 2025 at 6:47 AM
You may realize that nightmarish visa requirements are bad for US tourism …
… but you may not realize that most visa policies are reciprocal.
The harder for foreigners to visit America, the harder for Americans to visit other countries.
This doubles as a trap that prevents Americans from leaving.
… but you may not realize that most visa policies are reciprocal.
The harder for foreigners to visit America, the harder for Americans to visit other countries.
This doubles as a trap that prevents Americans from leaving.
Reposted by Rachel P-M
DHS ordering a church to take down a nativity scene!?
Wait, so is Trump waging a WAR ON CHRISTMAS!? I’ve been warned about this for years by Fox News!
Wait, so is Trump waging a WAR ON CHRISTMAS!? I’ve been warned about this for years by Fox News!
ICE’s acting director ordered a Boston Catholic parish to tear down its Advent Nativity scene—stripped of baby Jesus and branded with the message “ICE WAS HERE.” The parish priest is refusing, citing he pope’s call to stand with migrants. It's another chapter in Kristi Noem's war on Christians.
“ICE Was Here”: Pope Leo-Inspired Nativity Scene Sparks MAGA Outrage
A Nativity scene missing Jesus — and marked with an “ICE was here” sign — has triggered cries of “politicizing Christmas.” The parish priest says he’s answering Pope Leo's call to welcome stranger.
www.thelettersfromleo.com
December 10, 2025 at 2:12 AM
DHS ordering a church to take down a nativity scene!?
Wait, so is Trump waging a WAR ON CHRISTMAS!? I’ve been warned about this for years by Fox News!
Wait, so is Trump waging a WAR ON CHRISTMAS!? I’ve been warned about this for years by Fox News!
Reposted by Rachel P-M
Reposted by Rachel P-M
We have to listen to bigoted handwringing about how we have to abandon trans people and marginalized communities and immigrants while the clearest election winning message is right there.
"Do the rich have too much political power?"
Yes: 80%
No: 8%
YouGov / Dec 8, 2025
Yes: 80%
No: 8%
YouGov / Dec 8, 2025
December 9, 2025 at 10:26 PM
We have to listen to bigoted handwringing about how we have to abandon trans people and marginalized communities and immigrants while the clearest election winning message is right there.
Reposted by Rachel P-M
My students are not my customers. A person walks into a shop, they want a bag of oranges, they buy it+ leave. I check them out, having no interest in their well being or existence. A student walks into my classroom. I invite them on a quest to become a better thinker and human.
December 9, 2025 at 9:30 PM
My students are not my customers. A person walks into a shop, they want a bag of oranges, they buy it+ leave. I check them out, having no interest in their well being or existence. A student walks into my classroom. I invite them on a quest to become a better thinker and human.
Reposted by Rachel P-M
its like people havent looked at how reagan and bush ii were rehabbed in the popular culture, even nixon towards the end. these memories of how shitty people are do not stick. sorry, but they don't. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...
December 9, 2025 at 8:30 PM
its like people havent looked at how reagan and bush ii were rehabbed in the popular culture, even nixon towards the end. these memories of how shitty people are do not stick. sorry, but they don't. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...
Reposted by Rachel P-M
It seems Not Great that the bureaucracies in charge of California’s streets at ~every level of government are lawless rogue agencies that are not subject to any real public oversight.
LA quietly stopped repaving all streets last July to avoid fulfilling its ADA obligations. The federal govt says when you repave a street, you have to update all the curb ramps. LA has tons of out of date curb ramps, so the rule makes repaving much more expensive. The city's solution: stop repaving!
LA has stopped repaving our streets
The reason why is probably illegal
futureis.la
December 9, 2025 at 8:36 PM
It seems Not Great that the bureaucracies in charge of California’s streets at ~every level of government are lawless rogue agencies that are not subject to any real public oversight.
Reposted by Rachel P-M
I can’t believe how much of the Trump era is about solving problems that *don’t* exist while making all the problems that *do* exist, worse.
There is no one who thinks the biggest problem with air travel right now is not having an area to do pull-ups.
There is no one who thinks the biggest problem with air travel right now is not having an area to do pull-ups.
Duffy on what he's doing to improve the airport experience for travelers: "Maybe I want a workout area where people might get some blood flowing doing some pull ups or step ups in the airport."
December 9, 2025 at 12:10 PM
I can’t believe how much of the Trump era is about solving problems that *don’t* exist while making all the problems that *do* exist, worse.
There is no one who thinks the biggest problem with air travel right now is not having an area to do pull-ups.
There is no one who thinks the biggest problem with air travel right now is not having an area to do pull-ups.
Reposted by Rachel P-M
1. For weeks, EITM has reported that Republicans would push a trans healthcare ban in their ACA negotiations.
Now, the plan is released, and it includes heavy restrictions on ACA plans, a medicaid ban, an EHB ban, and more.
Democrats must not capitulate.
Now, the plan is released, and it includes heavy restrictions on ACA plans, a medicaid ban, an EHB ban, and more.
Democrats must not capitulate.
Democrats Must Reject The Premise Of Trans Healthcare Bans In Republican Healthcare Offer
Republicans new healthcare bill would bar transgender healthcare as an essential health benefit, bar trans medicaid coverage, and would bar HSAs from considering trans healthcare medically necessary.
www.erininthemorning.com
December 9, 2025 at 6:29 PM
1. For weeks, EITM has reported that Republicans would push a trans healthcare ban in their ACA negotiations.
Now, the plan is released, and it includes heavy restrictions on ACA plans, a medicaid ban, an EHB ban, and more.
Democrats must not capitulate.
Now, the plan is released, and it includes heavy restrictions on ACA plans, a medicaid ban, an EHB ban, and more.
Democrats must not capitulate.
My dad started at Johns Hopkins and after 2 years transferred to Pomona. He said that he went to JHU because he was pre-med and it was the best, but undergrads were ignored. He was so much happier at Pomona because it was smaller (and also he met my mom, which probably helped).
One of my students said another professor had told her “she was too smart to be at our university” and I was like pfft, no. Knowing what I know now? I’d choose a small teaching focused school 1000x more than a big prestigious one for undergrad
Grad school is for big schools, undergrad for learning
Grad school is for big schools, undergrad for learning
December 9, 2025 at 6:46 PM
My dad started at Johns Hopkins and after 2 years transferred to Pomona. He said that he went to JHU because he was pre-med and it was the best, but undergrads were ignored. He was so much happier at Pomona because it was smaller (and also he met my mom, which probably helped).
Would you look at that--cutting physics. Because science and math ARE liberal arts, despite how hard people work to try to put them against each other.
(I continue to maintain that the acronym STEM has done a huge disservice to science and math by lumping them in with TE)
(I continue to maintain that the acronym STEM has done a huge disservice to science and math by lumping them in with TE)
For a couple of years now, I've been fascinated with what's happening at small liberal arts colleges, which are running out of money for reasons unrelated to Trump funding cuts. Businessweek let me go deep on the problems, and one college that's trying to blaze a new trail.
Why a College Fighting for Survival Is Slashing Econ and Physics Majors
At Albright in Pennsylvania, the new president is cutting programs, selling art and real estate, and vowing not to hire anyone with tenure. Is this the way forward for liberal arts colleges?
www.bloomberg.com
December 9, 2025 at 5:56 PM
Would you look at that--cutting physics. Because science and math ARE liberal arts, despite how hard people work to try to put them against each other.
(I continue to maintain that the acronym STEM has done a huge disservice to science and math by lumping them in with TE)
(I continue to maintain that the acronym STEM has done a huge disservice to science and math by lumping them in with TE)
lol what
It's been a year and you STILL don't have an office in LA, the biggest city in the state! Your response to me about impeaching RFK Jr was just so bland! You fought your dem primary opponent harder! Come ON, man.
It's been a year and you STILL don't have an office in LA, the biggest city in the state! Your response to me about impeaching RFK Jr was just so bland! You fought your dem primary opponent harder! Come ON, man.
Today marks the one year anniversary of my swearing in to the U.S. Senate, and I’m proud to have delivered for Californians and fought back against the administration when it was necessary.
Californians deserve a life they can afford, and the freedom to thrive.
Californians deserve a life they can afford, and the freedom to thrive.
December 9, 2025 at 4:01 PM
lol what
It's been a year and you STILL don't have an office in LA, the biggest city in the state! Your response to me about impeaching RFK Jr was just so bland! You fought your dem primary opponent harder! Come ON, man.
It's been a year and you STILL don't have an office in LA, the biggest city in the state! Your response to me about impeaching RFK Jr was just so bland! You fought your dem primary opponent harder! Come ON, man.
Reposted by Rachel P-M
its really fucked every day to live in a country with a leader this openly racist and the msm just nods along with it and the dems hardly ever say anything about it
December 9, 2025 at 2:46 PM
its really fucked every day to live in a country with a leader this openly racist and the msm just nods along with it and the dems hardly ever say anything about it
A certain demographic of my college's alumni facebook group LOVES to bitch about the kooky kids on campus and they get so huffy when they are laughed at. I maintain there have always been kooky kids on campus; it's best to just let them do their thing, and that social media just means more exposure.
“There are some kooky kids on college campuses” is a story that merits, like, one front page a year, tops. The tell has ALWAYS been the wall-to-wall saturation coverage it got. That was a clue that something else was happening here: these stories were scratching a deeper itch in people’s psyches.
This was a bad take from you at the time. I continue to believe that one can criticize illiberalism on college campuses and prioritize the more urgent threat of GOP fascism.
It’s enticing to lump every cancel culture critic in with Bari Weiss and those anti-anti types, but it’s dishonest.
It’s enticing to lump every cancel culture critic in with Bari Weiss and those anti-anti types, but it’s dishonest.
December 9, 2025 at 3:55 PM
A certain demographic of my college's alumni facebook group LOVES to bitch about the kooky kids on campus and they get so huffy when they are laughed at. I maintain there have always been kooky kids on campus; it's best to just let them do their thing, and that social media just means more exposure.
Reposted by Rachel P-M
This is your casual reminder that executive orders are not laws.
EOs are directives meant to manage the operations of the federal government. Not state governments.
The states that even deign to acknowledge this are the ones who actively WANT to. No one's forcing them.
EOs are directives meant to manage the operations of the federal government. Not state governments.
The states that even deign to acknowledge this are the ones who actively WANT to. No one's forcing them.
BREAKING: Trump says he will sign an executive order this week that will limit states’ ability to regulate AI.
December 9, 2025 at 5:12 AM
This is your casual reminder that executive orders are not laws.
EOs are directives meant to manage the operations of the federal government. Not state governments.
The states that even deign to acknowledge this are the ones who actively WANT to. No one's forcing them.
EOs are directives meant to manage the operations of the federal government. Not state governments.
The states that even deign to acknowledge this are the ones who actively WANT to. No one's forcing them.
Reposted by Rachel P-M
Altman said basically the same weird thing about electrons a week ago. Suggests there might be some weird text/group these guys are pulling from.
In the bottom 0.1% of the massive mountain of errors, broken arguments and cotton-brained ignorance at play in this classic Yglesias work, but when you generate electricity, you aren't "making electrons", you are pushing them around!!!!!
The heart doesn't 'make blood' folks!!!
archive.ph/wip/XN3RL
The heart doesn't 'make blood' folks!!!
archive.ph/wip/XN3RL
December 9, 2025 at 2:48 PM
Altman said basically the same weird thing about electrons a week ago. Suggests there might be some weird text/group these guys are pulling from.
I hate influencer culture so much. I'm not immune, but I do think I have a stronger than average ability to resist, and it's just so homogenous. The push to consume, consume, consume, no matter the cost (financial, environmental, or otherwise). Everything is "viral;" nothing is organic.
New from me: The internet promised the democratization of information, power, and expression. Now there are vanishingly few ways to be online that don't involve being a billboard.
I wrote about the weird — and sometimes devastating — experience of being *influenced*
www.theverge.com/cs/features/...
I wrote about the weird — and sometimes devastating — experience of being *influenced*
www.theverge.com/cs/features/...
Confessions of the influenced
Behind every influencer is an army of the people mired in debt and mass-produced clutter.
www.theverge.com
December 9, 2025 at 3:22 PM
I hate influencer culture so much. I'm not immune, but I do think I have a stronger than average ability to resist, and it's just so homogenous. The push to consume, consume, consume, no matter the cost (financial, environmental, or otherwise). Everything is "viral;" nothing is organic.
Reposted by Rachel P-M
To clarify, it is so hard to give these diseases to kids this age with any food that’s readily available in this country, and you’d really have to go out of your way, and these are very slow-to-develop, painful conditions that cause overt, outward signs of sickness and suffering for quite some time…
A 5-month-old baby died, & 3 surviving children, ages 2, 4, & 5, had to be hospitalized with rickets, osteopenia, vitamin D deficiency, & significant developmental delays bc their parents put them on “alkaline diets.”
Anyone saying alkalization has health benefits is a murderous liar & a charlatan.
Anyone saying alkalization has health benefits is a murderous liar & a charlatan.
December 9, 2025 at 3:28 AM
To clarify, it is so hard to give these diseases to kids this age with any food that’s readily available in this country, and you’d really have to go out of your way, and these are very slow-to-develop, painful conditions that cause overt, outward signs of sickness and suffering for quite some time…
Reposted by Rachel P-M
This whole so-called “parents rights” movement the right has taken up and the left is supposed to kowtow to for votes is so obviously anti-child it really bothers me to see it presented as anything other than justification for abusive “parenting” and disregard for actual science on child development
December 9, 2025 at 3:16 AM
This whole so-called “parents rights” movement the right has taken up and the left is supposed to kowtow to for votes is so obviously anti-child it really bothers me to see it presented as anything other than justification for abusive “parenting” and disregard for actual science on child development
Reposted by Rachel P-M
It is newsworthy that the president of the United States is increasingly verbally abusive of women reporters and he should be asked about it.
December 8, 2025 at 8:39 PM
It is newsworthy that the president of the United States is increasingly verbally abusive of women reporters and he should be asked about it.
Reposted by Rachel P-M
Reckless, self-centered, and dangerous. Astrophysicists owe it to everyone to understand the implications of our words and actions on the world, and Avi Loeb is not holding up our end of the deal.
Some have argued to me strongly that even if Loeb is wrong, he’s getting people interested in 3I/ATLAS and that’s a good thing for science.
But Loeb isn't just wrong, he's recklessly following an old playbook that got 39 people killed in 1997.
sites.psu.edu/astrowright/...
But Loeb isn't just wrong, he's recklessly following an old playbook that got 39 people killed in 1997.
sites.psu.edu/astrowright/...
Loeb’s Behavior is Reckless
I’ve largely ignored Loeb for the past few weeks. When he started in on his 3I/ATLAS thing, there were plenty of mainstream media outlets willing to give his claims a wide and credulous platform, and ...
sites.psu.edu
December 8, 2025 at 11:51 PM
Reckless, self-centered, and dangerous. Astrophysicists owe it to everyone to understand the implications of our words and actions on the world, and Avi Loeb is not holding up our end of the deal.
Reposted by Rachel P-M
This is a perfect example as to why we need AI regulation yesterday.
AI cannot be the arbiter of whether human beings can live or die. This is an excuse for insurance companies to fire human workers and make our healthcare system even more nightmarish for a quick buck.
AI cannot be the arbiter of whether human beings can live or die. This is an excuse for insurance companies to fire human workers and make our healthcare system even more nightmarish for a quick buck.
"Starting Jan. 1, in six states selected to take part in a federal pilot program, traditional Medicare recipients will face a new hurdle to get certain procedures covered --
private AI companies that get paid based on how many claims they deny..."
www.kuow.org/stories/thou...
private AI companies that get paid based on how many claims they deny..."
www.kuow.org/stories/thou...
Thousands of Washington state Medicare users could soon have claims denied by AI
Starting Jan. 1, traditional Medicare recipients in Washington state will face a new hurdle to get certain procedures covered — private AI companies that get paid based on how many claims they deny.
www.kuow.org
December 8, 2025 at 8:19 PM
This is a perfect example as to why we need AI regulation yesterday.
AI cannot be the arbiter of whether human beings can live or die. This is an excuse for insurance companies to fire human workers and make our healthcare system even more nightmarish for a quick buck.
AI cannot be the arbiter of whether human beings can live or die. This is an excuse for insurance companies to fire human workers and make our healthcare system even more nightmarish for a quick buck.