technocrit

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When NIH stops issuing targeted funding announcements, specific kinds of research become much harder to sustain.

Rare disease research suffers because individual investigators are unlikely to propose studies on conditions affecting small populations unless NIH signals it is a priority and has dedicated funding. Research on health disparities struggles for the same reason. Studies requiring particular methodologies, specific patient populations, or coordination across multiple sites all depend on NOFOs that describe exactly what NIH is looking for and commit resources to support it.

Emerging threats become harder to address quickly. When COVID-19 emerged, NIH issued emergency funding announcements within weeks. Those NOFOs allowed the agency to mobilize researchers rapidly toward specific problems: vaccine development, therapeutic testing, long-term effects, vulnerable populations. Without the ability to issue targeted calls, response to future health emergencies will be slower and less coordinated.

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A party that built its message around a strong, firm, and unequivocal case to end this war now would very suddenly draw attention to the undoubtedly dozens of congressional Democrats who would not echo this line. So what we get instead is limp process critiques, demanding pointless hearings, and bizarre attacks that Trump is not doing regime change fast enough. Polls repeatedly show the most common criticism of Democrats is not that they are too far left or too anti-war, but that they are too weak, that they don’t stand for anything.

Centering criticism of a deeply unpopular war on those carrying it out for not filling out the right paperwork or producing a satisfactory slideshow — rather than making clear, normative objections to a war of aggression — feeds directly into this perception. But perhaps it’s a perception Democratic leaders, and the pro-war, pro-Israel donors who fund their political careers, would prefer over the alternative.

The essay in question: a film review I wrote in 2019 about the horror movies “Hereditary” and “Midsommar.”

I blinked twice, rubbed my eyes, and then began digging around on the internet to understand.

To my astonishment, prosecutors had introduced my seven-year-old analysis of feminism’s relationship to horror cinema as “evidence of ideologically driven intent” the previous day.

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The appearance of my review in the trial is a brazen attempt at conjuring “guilt by literature” — just one of the tactics prosecutors have used to criminalize speech and use First Amendment-protected speech as a legal weapon against the Trump administration’s political enemies.

Nobody, by the way, is suggesting that Estrada shot or conspired to shoot the officer. He stands accused of two crimes: attempting to conceal documents “by transporting a box containing numerous Antifa materials” and conspiracy to conceal those zines. He faces up to 20 years in prison.

article: https://www.metalsucks.net/2026/03/13/drain-raised-almost-40000-to-help-immigrant-families-by-selling-their-anti-ice-shirt/

video: Drain - California Cursed

... in a moment when Americans are still debating why the country is involved in global conflicts at all, the people closest to power appear positioned to profit from the weapons and technology used in them.

NCAR’s climate research may not be the only thing driving the White House attack. It is widely believed to also be part of a campaign of political retribution waged against Colorado for its conviction and imprisonment of Tina Peters, a former county clerk who breached election security systems in a scheme to find proof of fraud in the 2020 presidential election. The state has included the attack on NCAR in a lawsuit against the Trump administration.

But last week, Colorado’s Democratic governor, Jared Polis, floated the possibility of commuting Peters’s sentence in a social media post. Given Trump’s transactional views on politics, such a move could soften the administration’s views of NCAR. The proposal from Polis drew widespread outrage from state Democratic leaders. But Polis, who is from Boulder and has close ties to NCAR, has been known to buck his party in the past. The fate of one of the world’s most famous climate labs may hinge on backroom bargaining far removed from atmospheric science.

Of all the crazy parts of our crazy system, the craziest part is where taxpayers pay for the research, then pay private companies to publish it, and then pay again so scientists can read it. We may not agree on much, but we can all agree on this: it is time, finally and forever, to get rid of for-profit scientific publishers.

Of all the crazy parts of our crazy system, the craziest part is where taxpayers pay for the research, then pay private companies to publish it, and then pay again so scientists can read it. We may not agree on much, but we can all agree on this: it is time, finally and forever, to get rid of for-profit scientific publishers.

... although mental illness puts individuals at a greater risk for becoming homeless, poverty and a lack of affordable housing remain the principal causes of homelessness...

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Homelessness has definite psychological effects, ranging from the detrimental effects of disrupted sleep to the deep psychological trauma inflicted by chronic stress, instability, and exposure to violence. Sleep problems are rampant among homeless people living on the streets or in shelters, where there is constant noise, crowding, and interruption of sleep. On the severe end of negative effects, violent physical and sexual attacks are much more likely to be made on the homeless than on the general population. For example, a sexual assault is twenty times more likely to be made on a homeless woman than on a woman in the general population. These violent assaults result in considerable emotional and psychological trauma in survivors, often leading to post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, depression, suicide attempts, substance abuse and addiction, and further psychiatric symptoms. The death rate among the homeless is also three times greater than that of the general population, with many homeless people dying from preventable or treatable illnesses or from unprovoked violence. Homeless people with mental illness are even more vulnerable than other homeless individuals to violent attacks and death.

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According to the US Department of Health and Human Services, most homeless individuals with mental illness do not require institutionalization but would benefit from a supported housing program that offers mental health care and treatment. However, the number of affordable housing and community treatment services is insufficient to accommodate all the homeless who suffer from mental diseases. Additional resources are urgently needed so that the mentally ill homeless can have access to continuous treatment and therapy.