How are those federal data sets going?

We gathered metadata from the US Department of Health and Human Services, CDC, and Veterans Affairs database harvest sources (metadata inventories of the agency datasets), and selected databases that were modified between Jan 20 and March 25, 2025. We excluded duplicates, datasets that had no archived copies for comparison or were otherwise unavailable, and datasets routinely updated monthly or more frequently. The final cohort included 232 datasets. We manually compared each dataset to archived versions hosted by the Internet Archive. We tracked alterations to words only, not numbers in the data....

We found that 114 (49%) of the 232 included datasets were substantially altered. Of these, the vast majority (106 datasets [93%]) had the word gender switched to sex (appendix p 2). Only 15 (13%) of the 114 altered datasets logged or otherwise indicated that the change had occurred. Alterations in 89 (78%) of the datasets were to the classification or categorisation of the data, such as column headers or stratification categories, and alterations in the remaining 25 (22%) were to descriptions of the data such as tags or narrative introductions to the dataset.

The alterations span the studied period. Of the 114 datasets with substantial changes, 4 (4%) were altered between Jan 20 and Jan 31, 2025; 30 (26%) were altered between Feb 1 and Feb 28, 2025; and 82 (72%) between March 1 and March 25, 2025. In 28 (25%) of the altered datasets, the change made the data descriptions more consistent. In these cases, the word gender had been applied to data also labelled as sex (eg, a stratification category labelled gender while the underlying data column was titled sex; after the change, only the word sex remained).

To me, this reads like fed workers scrambling to preserve data sets, and not RFK or DOGE actually fudging data, but I really wish they'd also tracked alterations to data.

Anyway, there's lots of crazy administration shit always going on, from paving the rose gardens and hosting UFC fights to signing cartoon genitals to your best pal Jeff. Have at it.

So I gather Trump wants five more congressional seats from the already-skewed Texas district map. Right now the GOP has 25 of 38 seats (ie 65.7%), and the state went for Trump 56.3%-42.4%.

If they want to have a majority in 30 districts (78.9%), and they're using 2024 Trump voter data to carve up the state into districts... this is really whetting my appetite for a midterm Texas blue wave. Please please, that would be so great.

I don't actually think Texas is on the brink of becoming purple. I'm strictly saying that I think they might bungle their way into giving Texas an isolated blue event.

First off, what a delight to catch a break in the news cycle to watch MAGA eat its young old.

Second, I still can't get past the perplexing part: that all of the Epstein dirty laundry has been out for years and years? The meme I saw said, "This is like being shocked to learn that Snoop Dogg smokes pot."

Third, it's hard to imagine this will finally be the straw that takes down Trump. But let's enjoy this while it lasts. I heard that Trump got turned down by 14 year old girls and had to make a pee tape with a hamburger.