This is big. The last kingpin. Of Mexico’s biggest cartel- CJNG. Many thought he was already dead. Now he is.
22.02.2026 19:39
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This is big. The last kingpin. Of Mexico’s biggest cartel- CJNG. Many thought he was already dead. Now he is.
1/ Sorry for double-posting from X. Sharing a new working paper for the Year of the Horce 🐎:
"An AI-assisted workflow that scales reproducibility in empirical research" (bit.ly/repro-ai) w/ Leo Yang Yang
In a new paper with @evadavoine.bsky.social @enguehard.bsky.social & I. Kolesnikov, we build a historical GIS of a core fiscal institution in early modern France: the gabelle (salt tax). It generated up to 25% of tax revenue and sparked intense popular resistance.
👉 hal.science/hal-05501504
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🚨📄 New paper (conditional accepted at @thejop.bsky.social):
We test whether social desirability bias actually distorts answers in online surveys.
Short version:
It mostly doesn’t.
w. @timallinger.bsky.social @kristianvsf.bsky.social @morganlcj.bsky.social
URL: osf.io/preprints/os...
I've been observing academic LinkedIn for a while. Unfortunately I'm not witty enough to write a sarcastic op-ed, so all I can say is posts in academic LinkedIn are so weird
"Switzerland + its stakeholders are recognised worldwide for their integrity + transparency. They are not attractive for illegally acquired assets ... [but] it is likely that there's a high number of unreported cases" - Switzerland's new Anti-Corruption Strategy 🤨
www.news.admin.ch/en/newnsb/sy...
A vibrant, wide-angle photo of a colorful outdoor mural promoting the "Super Bowl LX Apple Music Halftime Show." The mural is painted on a long blue wall in a sunlit, tropical setting with real palm trees and bright pink bougainvillea flowers cascading over the top. The artwork features a playful, surreal collage of cultural and football-themed elements: Central Text: The Apple Music logo in bold yellow and red 3D lettering is flanked by "SUPER BOWL LX" above and "HALFTIME SHOW" below. Iconic Imagery: Large illustrations of a golden trumpet, pink sunglasses, maracas, dominoes, and a cup of coffee with a musical note in the foam. Football Elements: Brown footballs are depicted growing on palm trees like coconuts and resting on the ground. Foreground: A young girl in a yellow dress walks along the sidewalk in front of the mural, passing a small goalpost illustration where a green parrot is perched. The overall aesthetic is warm, festive, and celebrates a fusion of Latin-inspired culture and American football.
I'm going to do a thread of all the references and context behind Bad Bunny's performance and what it means for Puerto Ricans to see this on the biggest stage.
The opening title screen is a street mural in Puerto Rico that comes to life with footballs as coconuts.
Follow along!
Disturbingly detailed analysis of my first rewatch incoming
After a short hiatus, Respect the Marble is back:
catherineeunicedevries.substack.com/p/introducin...
Introducing a new series The Long Carve:
about how to decide which ideas deserves our long-term writing attention,
& how we learn to keep writing when the outcome is unknown and uncertain.
🧵
🎉 This is now out in the latest @apsrjournal.bsky.social issue with page numbers! We find that modernization and expanding state reach through railroad construction in Europe tended to produce backlash and separatism among peripheral ethnic minorities.
Camp East Montana bei El Paso
Während wir auf Trumps geopolitische Eskapaden blicken, geht unter, was gerade im Inneren der USA geschieht: In Internierungslagern werden Menschen getötet. Der neueste, erschreckende Fall ist der des Familienvaters Geraldo Lunas Campos.
Logo of the Journal of Public Policy featuring gold text on a black background with the hashtag '#OpenAccess' below the title.
#OpenAccess from @jpublicpolicy.bsky.social -
The political economy of policy instruments: The Left and collectively governed markets in Germany - https://cup.org/4qjQnMB
- @ndurazzi.bsky.social & Cecilia Ivardi (University of St.Gallen)
#FirstView
I came to Minneapolis to report on what's going on, and one of the main questions I showed up with is "just what is the scale of the resistance?" After all, we're all used to the news calling Portland a "war zone" or whatever when it's just some protests in one part of town.
Starlink terminals rely on GPS signals to locate themselves and connect to satellites. By disrupting these signals, Iranian authorities can render the devices unreliable without touching the satellites themselves. When Russia tried similar jamming in Ukraine, SpaceX responded within hours with software updates that restored service. So far, no such fix has arrived for Iran. SpaceX has not commented on the disruption.
Amidst mass killings and internet shutdowns the Iranian regime has also found a way to jam access to Starlink:
restofworld.org/2026/iran-st...
@restofworld.org
I also hope it makes clear how important it is to just read the papers you are citing (gasp!), and if necessary to develop the methodological expertise to interpret them sensibly.
Some reflections from me on January 6 in comparative and historical perspective (first time on substack)
open.substack.com/pub/ziblatt4...
kind of darkly funny that "gender studies" is the stereotypical "useless degree" because gender studies will help you understand a large and important chunk of the current psychosis in american life
Tupac tried to scold y'all
“Since the announcement of their hunger strike on 20 October till 10 December 2025, the hunger strike by jailed Palestine Action activists was mentioned a total of 12 times in the British mainstream newspapers.”
That is so damning and grim.
There is growing interest in HPE about social conflict in the run-up to the French Revolution.
In a new article at Data & Corpus, I describe the Jean Nicolas Database, a database of 8,516 rebellions in France (1661-1789)
👉Article: doi.org/10.46298/dc....
👉Database: doi.org/10.7910/DVN/...
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I think it’s fairly common that somebody raises concerns about selection bias (as a threat to internal validity) but then others read it as a concern about generalizability (i.e., external validity). The former is way more damning for any attempt to make sense of the data.
Selection on the cases with digitized data. Selection on the questions with easily accessible data. What does this do to knowledge production?
Here is a great piece that deals with some of these issues.
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
Finally completed the 12 part podcast series on Fela Kuti. Well worth it. A complex human being, an amazing artist, a political visionary but also a hugely flawed man. open.spotify.com/show/320MJFB...
Another way to restart the world’s idea machine is to restore funding and grants to universities, researchers, and artists.
It has become received wisdom in Brussels and Washington that there is a new “euro-sclerosis”: that the EU economy is lagging the US
This view is wrong
A little primer on the measurement of productivity – and why reports of the economic death of Europe are greatly exaggerated🧵
I used MEMES as a teaching tool:
Students designed memes to capture a core idea of the course readings.
The ensuing class discussion often led to new perspectives on the readings, plus students had fun.
The course was on State and Violence @ipz.bsky.social University of Zurich
A selection:
!
I have been thinking a lot about this kind of analysis while driving rental bikes in Zurich. Are there any discernible, interesting patterns in the paths?
Every academic has one superpower: the ability to turn a five-minute task into a three-month digression
#KeepEyesOnSudan