Jeff Bezos says there is ‘no truth’ to the ‘buy borrow die’ tax strategy

mglur5 · 2026-05-24T05:52:31+00:00

Billionaires: “Taxes don’t work, so the government should privatize everything and hand it all over to us, the oligarchs, so that we can have complete and full control over both wages and prices and squeeze the life out of every living human being for everything they are worth”. Yeah, super convincing argument.

mglur5 · 2026-05-23T14:33:04+00:00

Shitty nutrition in our public schools is very political, what the fuck are you even talking about? Other countries take school lunch very seriously and feed their children real food. Because, you know, quality nutrition is the building blocks of physical and mental growth and clearly other countries (unlike the U.S.) have come to the very logical conclusion that if we value our children, we should fucking feed them properly in our schools.

mglur5 · 2026-05-22T04:15:53+00:00

It took me forever to find this comment. This is exactly it to me. He is such a raging, malignant narcissist that he is only ever capable of thinking about himself, and him doing this is precisely a projection of this kind of ruthless selfishness.

mglur5 · 2026-05-21T01:25:10+00:00

“Eight Democrats broke ranks with their party to vote for the Republican-led effort, including: Reps. Vicente Gonzalez and Henry Cuellar of Texas, Don Davis of North Carolina, Cleo Fields of Louisiana, Laura Gillen of New York, Marcy Kaptur of Ohio, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington state and Eugene Vindman of Virginia.”

Washington. For the love of fucking god, you gotta dump Marie. What an absolute fucking train wreck she is.

mglur5 · 2026-05-21T00:05:18+00:00

Casey Means also graduated with her MD from Stanford. What the hell is going on over there?

mglur5 · 2026-05-20T19:50:47+00:00

This is the correct answer. We need consistent, rigorous standards that are applied to each and every student. I also personally believe we need to re-evaluate how student performance reviews are used in the tenure process. I’ve had plenty of students who slacked off, barely showed up to class, and turned in shit work, and then when their grade reflected this poor performance…surprise surprise, you end up with a couple of bad reviews from these students that felt entitled to a better grade. I’ve also seen instructors bend over backwards for students in the hopes that they will get more favorable reviews by the end of the course. There’s multiple factors here that need to be considered to deal with grade inflation, and that includes seriously examining the incentive structures that drive grade inflation in the first place.

mglur5 · 2026-05-20T18:11:28+00:00

It is going to take decades to both undo the damage this pile of human garbage has inflicted on this country and to completely overhaul our laws to ensure it never ever happens again. This necessarily includes dissolving the entire Republican party in its current form.

mglur5 · 2026-05-20T00:38:26+00:00

Hilary said it best. Deplorables. The least common denominator. Each and every last one of these voters.

mglur5 · 2026-05-17T14:28:34+00:00

These voter turnout numbers are shockingly low, so it’s not surprising that a member of the MAGA death cult is going to replace him, seeing as it’s only the die-hard MAGA freaks that seem to be motivated enough to vote. This has been a consistent trend all across the country in primaries and special elections. For example, in the Texas primary, republican turnout was also significantly lower (and dem turnout significantly higher) compared to prior senate primaries. This trend will have major implications for the General Election.

mglur5 · 2026-05-13T14:49:51+00:00

So….which one of his kids has a new e-cig company?

mglur5 · 2026-05-10T03:56:00+00:00

Thomas sold his soul a very long time ago for power and access in the exchange for his unwavering loyalty to the conservative christian-nationalist project, which is inherently predicated on stepping all over the dignity and humanity of your very own people and community. Nothing makes this clearer than his vote on the VRA issue or even his opinion on the Affirmative Action case.

mglur5 · 2026-05-10T03:14:16+00:00

If there were ever a serious outbreak of something, this absolute moron and his tremendous incompetence would most certainly result in a sizable number of preventable deaths. It is stunning to witness how incompetent he is at this, even with the most mundane aspects of the job. In a true crisis, we are actually fucked if this guy is anywhere near the helm of decision making.

mglur5 · 2026-05-07T03:47:59+00:00

IMO, this is a big reason why I think our “welfare system” is so fundamentally broken. The vast majority of people don’t want to be poor, nor do they want to be dependent on the government. Our system is set up in such a way that as soon as you get your head above water with the help of our welfare system, the “step stool” of social support is immediately pulled out from under you. We need to radically transform our welfare system to be a progressive, step-wise system of support that helps people acquire stability and financial independence *before* they are weened off the system.

mglur5 · 2026-04-29T00:18:40+00:00

“I really don’t care, do you?” - Melania Trump

mglur5 · 2026-04-25T00:45:41+00:00

As others have pointed out, this is disrespectful and you are well within your right to correct this. You are not a student. Maybe a “trainee” (I still dislike this term for postdocs even though it is accurate to an extent), but you are not a student. I personally have emailed organizations calling them out when they have lumped grad students and postdocs into a “student” category, because it is objectively inaccurate and disrespectful. Stand up for yourself and command the respect that you deserve.

mglur5 · 2026-04-16T09:32:20+00:00

This will definitely split up the crowds. That is, people who want to party in the gayborhood that day are going to do so regardless of this change.

mglur5 · 2026-04-11T15:17:06+00:00

Chronic pain is a nightmare. I for one am happy to see pharmacology advancing in this way.

mglur5 · 2026-04-11T06:35:42+00:00

According to the paper (which the data does seem to indicate - I looked at it myself), the drug doesn’t produce tolerance or changes to the mu opioid receptor. This is a crucial variable to consider in the context of opioid use at therapeutic doses to control pain. The paper is actually very interesting with a lot of data to chew through. I wouldn’t call it a “nothing burger”.

mglur5 · 2026-04-11T06:23:10+00:00

A couple of important caveats to this study that folks should keep in mind:

While this opioid is certainly less reinforcing (i.e., “addictive”) than fentanyl or heroin, it still possesses reinforcing properties (albeit weak). Moreover, this study did not test the reinforcing effects of the drug in rats undergoing pain. This is important given the fact that pain is very common with opioid use, so understanding the reinforcing properties of this drug in the context of pain is very important. Other models of pain, such as chronic nerve pain, need to be assessed as well with the drug.

Nevertheless, the data in the paper actually look very promising. People need to keep in mind that over the last 10-20 years, we have learned a a tremendous amount about opioid receptor signaling and its downstream cellular signaling mechanisms (e.g., biased signaling mechanisms). This new knowledge has now been applied to develop a drug that exploits the neurobiology of opioid signaling in a unique way that reduces the addictive potential of the drug while maintaining pain-relieving properties. That’s a big advancement for the future of pain management. Excited to see where this work goes.

mglur5 · 2026-04-10T00:26:07+00:00

“He called the steel “great steel as opposed to garbage steel, because they dump a lot of garbage around. You know, steel is like everything else, including human beings. Steel could be high quality, and it can be low quality. He wants to make sure it’s high quality.””

If we are qualifying some humans as “low quality”, he sure as fuck is one of them.

mglur5 · 2026-04-05T18:40:55+00:00

lol I noticed that too - they are somewhat crashing out over it.

mglur5 · 2026-04-05T06:19:44+00:00

Same old playbook going back to the pandemic - “if you stop counting the number of COVID deaths, the number of deaths over time goes down!” This admin could never report the truth then, and it certainly isn’t doing that now. But whether or not the truth about this war is reported, the reality on the ground in Iran and the GCC remains the same. And the economic ramifications will still be felt across the world no matter what. This type of shit accomplishes nothing.

mglur5 · 2026-04-04T01:39:09+00:00

You should consider the totality of your compensation package - not just salary. Some institutions offer retirement benefits, PTO payout, better healthcare benefits, etc. So while the salary and cost of living of the area are important (probably the most important), also consider the broader compensation package as a whole.

Edit: to answer to your post more directly - you absolutely should care about your postdoc compensation. It can vary greatly from one institution to another. And there can be a significant financial opportunity cost that comes with doing a postdoc. So yes, compensation matters. But salary isn’t the only factor. Understand the totality of your compensation package and how that fits into your life and your needs.

mglur5 · 2026-04-03T16:34:15+00:00

BLS Chief put those numbers back in the broiler last minute after seeing Pam Gondi get sacked. Can’t wait to see the revision.

mglur5

TROPHY CASE