XPost: talk.politics.misc, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh   
   From: bks@panix.com   
      
    |   
    | Happy New Year! Science blogging resumes on Monday. But I   
    | have to get this off my chest first:   
    |   
    | Let me start off this first post of 2026 by acknowledging   
    | that 2025 was, in many ways, a horrible year. I say that   
    | particularly by the subject matters of this site -   
    | biomedical research and science in general. The Trump   
    | administration moved quickly last year to attack federal   
    | research funding from every single angle they could think   
    | of, and went on to do major damage to every science-based   
    | agency. The NIH, CDC, FDA and others will need years to   
    | recover what's been done to them.   
    |   
    | Likewise, US public health will suffer. It already is. I   
    | note that we now have reached a level of measles cases not   
    | seen in this country for decades, and one can only expect   
    | the numbers for every other vaccine-preventable disease to   
    | rise as well. This is of course infuriating, because it is   
    | so senseless and was so avoidable, but here we are.   
    | Children will die who did not have to, and it was a choice.   
    | Just as gutting USAID was one of the early choices of the   
    | administration, an act of petty vandalism which has led   
    | (and will continue to lead) to even more deaths and   
    | suffering in the countries that used to get the aid. Never   
    | forget: whenever Elon Musk walks up to a podium to bullshit   
    | you about colonizing Mars or whatever, he is walking on the   
    | bodies of dead children. He yanked their food and medicine   
    | away while telling lies and cracking stupid jokes.   
    | ...   
      
      
       --bks   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)