When the physicists need burner phones, that’s when you know America’s changed

This is the title of a John Naughton article in today’s Guardian. He notes, “US academics, fearing persecution by their own government, are becoming ideological refugees. Europe, and Britain, must offer them sanctuary… these academics have a finger on the pulse of Trump’s America, and are concerned about what might happen when they return home.”…

Trump administration layoffs may threaten public safety

New York Times, 27 Feb 2025: Three former EPA leaders: you’ll miss it when it’s gone. Nature is one of the preeminent cross-science publications in the world. Nature Briefing, its newsletter, notes today that at the Environmental Protection Agency “More than 1,000 employees tasked with regulating air pollution, researching the health effects of toxic chemicals…

A strangely familiar narrative

…to me, who tried to provide reliable strictly science-based data about Rocky Flats to local governments on the Jefferson Parkway and then the Rocky Mountain Greenway. Happy Halloween! Beth Mole’s [a Ph.D writer for arstechnica] article Idaho health district abandons COVID shots amid flood of anti-vaccine nonsense is a warning about what can happen “during…

Westminster leaves Rocky Mountain Greenway intergovernmental agreement, Indiana bridge will be installed

Story by Monte Whaley, September 24, from Westminster Window “A majority of councilors said they no longer wanted the city to be part of the project over concerns that any foot traffic along the trail into Westminster will stir up deadly plutonium linked to the shuttered Rocky Flats facility.” This vote has been expected since…

Injunction against Rocky Mountain Greenway denied

[Follow-up to the blog entry Doomed new lawsuit will waste tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars of January 25, 2024] (Thanks to Kim Griffiths for passing on the document distributed by David Abelson to the Rocky Flats Stewardship Council! Original here.) In a ruling on September 8 Judge Timothy J. Kelly of the U.S. District…

Lessons: fighting misinformation with social media

Thus endeth the first lesson. In early summer 2024 I began an experiment to determine whether it was possible to fight misinformation by actively posting reliable information via a social media platform serving a well-defined geographical area. (I had posted sporadically in this group as early as 2016.) Topic: The relation between trace soil radionuclides…

My postings blocked from Nextdoor by Downwinders

Nextdoor readers will know that most (all?) of my postings going back (I think) to 2017 have vanished after they were flagged for “Non-local topic outside of a group” or “Spam“, thanks (I believe) to a specific vindictive downwinder. I have appealed these claims, but without success. I have contacted a number of supporters of…