I just can't help but wonder what kind of people are piloting aircraft full of children who are being flown to another country without due process. It's a choice. Flying aircraft for ICE and DHS is a choice.
Aviation journalist, especially on Alaska. Never met a federal database I didn't love. "Probable Cause" newsletter is here: https://colleenmondor.substack.com/
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I just can't help but wonder what kind of people are piloting aircraft full of children who are being flown to another country without due process. It's a choice. Flying aircraft for ICE and DHS is a choice.
Effective consideration of all the lies behind THE SALT PATH. lithub.com/nature-is-no...
U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan and U.S. Rep. Nick Begich have sought to portray the One Big Beautiful Bill Act as a boon for Alaska. Whether they are persuasive could determine their political futures. www.adn.com/politics/202...
Good grief!!!!!!
Sometimes it's the big story behind a photograph and sometimes it's simply the aesthetics of the image itself, as is the case this time. We love an old glider. In particular we love a sepia-toned photo of an old glider in Norway. More info in ALT. | š©ļø šŖ½ š š³š“ š„ | š digitaltmuseum.no/021011364740...
Iāve always been clear how Substack subscription dollars go directly to my work as a freelance journalist. I got a bill for $2600 for public records, and I figure if 35 people get an annual subscription, thatāll get me there. Please consider it. leahsottile.substack.com/subscribe?ut...
This reminds me of @katesheppard.bsky.socialās book āWomen in the Valley of the Kingsā about women Egyptologists.
This: She saved everything, including... a letter she received from a woman scientist after the publication of Volume One. āI greatly enjoyed your work,ā the woman wrote. āI have spent a lot of money on psychotherapy because people kept telling me I was maladjusted.ā #MargaretRossiter
āIn the late 1960s, Dr. Rossiter was working on her Ph.D. at Yale, when a comment from one of her male professors puzzled her. Who, she had asked, were the women in science? There were none, he said. Another professor mumbled something about Marie Curie being the exception.āš
RIP Mark Knoller, the longtime @cbsnews.com.web.brid.gy White House reporter who made himself into a one-man archive of all presidential facts and statistics. He was a prince of the briefing room, ever generous to colleagues and competitors alike. He was the best. www.cbsnews.com/news/mark-kn...
āVolkswagen Brazil was found guilty on Friday of subjecting workers to conditions āanalogousā to slavery between 1974 and 1986 on a vast cattle ranch in the Amazon and ordered to publicly acknowledge the abuses and pay more than $30 million in damages.ā
Check out the current news about the American Helicopter Museum. www.dailylocal.com/2025/08/29/n...
In Which Nadine Amuses a Dragon and Makes Autumn Happen
The budget carrier filed for fresh bankruptcy protection months after emerging from a Chapter 11 reorganization. The airline said it plans to keep flying as usual during the restructuring process.
Update: @status.news has no paywall on weekends.
Sigh. www.adn.com/alaska-news/...
If the state of Alaska can not easily pull data on annual homicide victims up on a database then they need help on the most fundamental and remedial levels. This is pathetic.
Another stunning article from @kylehopkinsak.bsky.social. Pay attention to this, Alaskans.
In case you missed the background on this story last year, this Alabama town tried to elect a Black mayor after decades of white "mayoral selection". Good things just happened there - the people got to vote! www.nytimes.com/2025/08/29/u...
Canadian book pals, my nonfiction story collection is in a handful of lovely indie stores already (e.g. Porch Light Books in Edmonton) but as we inch towards the holiday shopping season - yes, I'm sorry, it's happening! - I'd like to expand the list. Holler if you know of a store that might be game?
Grant was a superior general to Lee. Sherman was better. Chamberlain (the 20th Maine Volunteers at Gettysburg) was better. I could go on and on and on and none of them were traitors.
NEW: Social Securityās chief data officer, Charles Borges, has resigned, three days after submitting a whistle-blower complaint that alleged members of DOGE had uploaded the confidential personal information of hundreds of millions of Americans to an insecure cloud server.
I always taught my students - who were soldiers & dependents at FT Wainwright, AK - that the first thing to know about Lee was that he was a traitor. Any battle analysis etc., that we studied involving him was secondary to that fact. Same for Jackson and all the others. They were traitors.
People are often surprised to learn that Lee was an officer who never made it past colonel. The purported promotion to general was awarded by a treasonous cabal calling itself the "confederate states of america" which was put down by force by the Union army, which also had superior generals.
So far, we've raised enough to cover us for the next two years-we'd love to be able to cover four years during this round of fund-raising so we don't have to do this again for awhile. Thanks everyone who has donated. Please continue to spread the word. www.gofundme.com/f/fantastic-...
I 100% agree! The basic management courses I took (like marketing) were utterly forgettable. I think more industry specific management degrees are vastly superior to the general Bus Mgmt major. (I might not have been clear enough that I was agreeing with you.)
You canāt pack more joy into a 90-second clip than Coldplayās 2020 āTiny Deskā @npr.org #LetsGoLetsGoLetsGo š
My Aviation Management degree was incredibly useful, but as it was so tailored to the industry, the classes were quite specific. (Everything from aviation regulations to aircraft performance, aviation insurance, airport planning & design & obtaining a pilotās license.)
Looking forward to this. Also - Russell Crowe! WOW. www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzuH...
Harrisburg can't find $$$ to run your bus yet the state is giving up to $1.6 billion (!) to Shell's polluting, climate-crushing plastics plant that's a jobs bust and may even be for sale after less than 3 years Inside Pa.'s biggest boondoggle, ever. My new column www.inquirer.com/opinion/shel...
Subscribe to @baseballprospectus.com. This piece is fundamental and indispensable reading for anyone who has even the slightest interest in the intersection of anthropology and sports: www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article... Congratulations to @stevengoldman.bsky.social on his fab piece!
āPeople just started calling people and they got in their golf carts and we got out there as quick as we can." #Florida seniors so upset by DOT orders to paint over decorative crosswalk, one even lies down in the crosswalk to guard against painting over. www.tallahassee.com/story/news/2...
We are no longer the beacon to the world.
That picture. Wow.
this picture of a mom shoes off sprinting to the Mpls school: www.startribune.com/minneapolis-... By Richard Tsong-Taatarii for @startribune.com, which should be a go-to source for anyone following
I need to look more into this. Iām a little confused over what they are going to do with the ATRs as Ravn proved how tough it is to consistently make $$ off pax 121 in AK. (And Ravn had a Part 135 to give it massive income.) It all looksā¦..weird.
NP announced last week it was pulling out of Alaska entirely.
If you donāt know much about Alex Acosta, I highly recommend you read āPerversion of Justiceā by Miami Herald reporter @jkbjournalist.bsky.social.
Think of what we could to modernize & staff ATC with $401.5 million a year.
I really wish we were spending $1 million a day on upgrades to the Air Traffic Control system rather than litter patrol in DC.
Good grief.
How much are we (taxpayers) paying for this?
Even Daytona International Speedway's checkered-flag crosswalks have to be painted over, according to the official jerks at the #Florida DOT. www.orlandosentinel.com/2025/08/26/d... via @skylerswisher.bsky.social
If you're an assigning editor looking for longform (and sometimes shortform!) dispatches on politics, religion and weirdos in the Western US, I'm looking to expand the roster of outlets I write for. I have more ideas than I know what to do with. Contact form here: www.leahsottile.com#Info
Sigh, *taps the sign again*
Wow. Justā¦.wow.
I didnāt see any mention of Begich at all, either. And the suggestion that Murkowski could just take the gov slot with ease really missed a lot. I agree they did a solid job of covering what radio does in rural AK though.
Widely circulated videos from the Alaska State Fair show several Palmer police officers tackling and shocking the man with a Taser after forcibly removing the frightened toddler.
Springsteen releases the āBorn to Runā LP 50 yrs ago this wk. āI wanted to make the greatest rock record Iād ever heard. I wanted it to sound enormous, to grab you by your throat and insist that you take that ride, insist that you pay attention ā not just to the music, but to life, to being alive.ā
Murkowski, Sullivan, and Begich all voted for this.
Three Russian Il-20 Intercepts in a Week off Alaska by NORAD NORAD scrambled U.S. Air Force F-16s to intercept Russian Il-20 surveillance aircraft three times in the Alaskan ADIZ in less than one week. Story: theaviationist.com/2025/08/25/t...
āWhen you see our teams at work in Gaza, you can see the best of humanity. Palestinians cooking for Palestinians, taking care of strangers, taking care of their community one plate at a time.ā - WCK Founder JosĆ© Andres Read JosĆ©ās full reflections from Gaza: wck.org/news/jose-in-gaza #ChefsForGaza
In an effort to distract myself from (waves generally, cries) I'm going to offer a thread with forthcoming books from some of my favorite people (my former grad students).
Iām careful about what I post here because I know my teenager reads it sometimes. I hope they will be awareāso many of my students arenāt, yetābut not overwhelmed. Not defeated. Fascism is speeding up. But kiddo, itās bound to lose. It always has.
I will be reading this.
I feel this too: "this is exactly how it happens ā a blurring here, a norm destroyed there, a presidential diktat unchallenged. Then you wake up one morning and our country is different. Today, August 25, 2025, is that morning. Something is materially different in our country this week than last"
On transgender care, the board approved a draft regulation that ā if made final ā would declare that providing gender transition care for someone younger than 18 amounts to āunprofessional conductā equivalent to drunkenly practicing medicine. (From @alaskabeacon.com)
The precise moment when and where in recent weeks America crossed that invisible line from democracy into authoritarianism can and will be debated by future historians, but itās clear that the line itself has been crossed. www.doomsdayscenario.co/p/america-ti...
Oh man - glad you guys found him!
Gov. Dunleavy's recent post on social media, in which he described salmon farming as a "great opportunity for Alaska," has drawn condemnation from scientists, wild salmon advocates, people in the restaurant industry and regular salmon-eating Alaskans. www.adn.com/alaska-news/...
I wrote about the lost world of alt-weeklies, papers that loved cities *as* cities, for my splendid local alt-daily, Daybreak. āThe first time I saw a strangerās corpse was one summer night, 1992ā¦ā news.daybreak.news/p/enthusiasm...
Last thoughts on salmon and steelhead extinction in the Pacific Northwest, as written by Pat Ford for @idahocapitalsun.com, via @alaskabeacon.com: alaskabeacon.com/2025/08/22/l...
this iconic advertising copywriter named Kathy Hepinstall Parks died over the weekend and I wanted to share something from her website I thought Bluesky would like
Excellent work in this article by @alaska.bsky.social.
In researching the FAA, the changes in admins, months without admins, etc. have had a similar effect. So many times, Iāve read articles saying that changes in agency leadership have derailed upgrade plans, etc. Itās an interesting thing to think about.
If you are looking for a fun/scary distractionā¦..
I love this whole thread & agree with all of it.
This!!!
RIP to the NEA Creative Writing Fellowships. www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/...
Another way y'all can really help us right now is with a donation. We're a nonprofit newsroom and our stories are free for anyone to read (no paywalls), so your support helps a lot. We appreciate whatever y'all can give. Here's the link: givebutter.com/mfpdonate
BREAKING: BlueSky is blocking access to Mississippi. This is the No. 1 platform for @mississippifreepress.org. We ditched X for BlueSky early this year. And now, at 3 pm on a Friday, poof. I don't know what we'll do next. Keep up with us using our newsletter at mfp.ms/subscribe.
I **so** want to quote from the concluding paragraph, but then you might not read the whole thing. It's not that long, just go read it!
What did I just read???????
One thing I see in comments is a lot of people still saying solar and wind are no good when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing. People, there are these things called batteries, which have also experienced huge progress 2/
WCKās mobile bakery in Gaza is currently producing 45,000 loaves of bread every day. With more supplies, including flour and fuel, we'd be able to more than double that daily output and support more Palestinian families in need. #ChefsForGaza
At least 76 #Florida manatees ā almost one in every seven overall deaths ā have died by boat strikes this year, the highest in five years for this point in the year. www.floridatoday.com/story/news/l...
Yeah, it is not cheap to live in Dutch Harbor, that's for sure.
To see a carefully made-up white woman saying these words to a white woman and white man (who nod in agreement) really makes the whole message from this administration crystal fucking clear.
I was struck by that as well in Samantha Powers' "A Problem From Hell". To see such language embraced in America is shocking.
From the Aleutian Airways FB page - this was too great and I had to share.
www.science.org/content/arti... š§Ŗš¦š
Iām so sorry & hope you are getting excellent care.
We are live on BlueSky! The Alaska Earthquake Center (AEC) tracks earthquakes š, landslides šŖØ, explosions š„, icequakes šļø, tsunamis š, volcanoes š, and more š š§Ŗ āļø, advancing Alaska's resilience to earthquakes through monitoring, research, and public engagement. āļø š£ļø
Youāre not gonna believe this, but just this once: Iām asking for help on the internet ::braces self:: SPECIFICALLY, I am looking for help from jewelry/costume jewelry experts who can tell me something about this bracelet that I canāt figure out just by running an image search. Ahem. (Thread)
I love this entire thread of scientists doing amazing things!
It's the aircraft type I'm thinking about. GlobalX is running Airbus for ICE. If they want to replicate that size, then I think it will get complicated.
from chandra manning's wonderful book "what this cruel war was over"
Someone that I follow on this site featured this book in a recent post. It looked interesting so I bought it. Anyway, whoever you are, thank you. Itās fascinating.
The amount of hiring (or subcontracting for pilots and mechanics) that DHS will have to do to accomplish this goal is massive. And the money...wow. (I would say they would cancel their existing contracts if this comes to pass but the likelihood is that they will keep them for internal flights.)
FYI - I am really looking forward to Lance's book! www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/604930...
Also - the Syrian archive article mentions anthropologist Katherine Verdery's book MY LIFE AS A SPY in which she recounts learning the Romanian secret police kept a dossier on her. (She wasn't a spy.) I immediately put this on my list of books I must read. /fin www.dukeupress.edu/my-life-as-a...
...who knew that the archives of Saddam Hussein's regime are now at Stanford? How in the world did they end up where the Iraqi people have little access to them? You can read more about where they are in this recent article but man...this just seems wrong. /2 www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/wh...
Outstanding essay in the European Review of Books about the abandoned archives of the Syrian secret police. I can not recommend this enough - great work here on the data an authoritarian country collects and what becomes of it after the overthrow. Also.../1 europeanreviewofbooks.com/how-to-aband...
The word āoveremphasisā is doing a lot of work here.
This is just a delightful thread of scientists introducing themselves and their nerdy pursuits.
Whoa.
Embraer 195 probe: captain pressured first officer to accept incorrect take-off calculation after wrong-runway taxi - More on hype.aero
I would have to look - so many smaller accidents donāt generate much media attention, so are hard to track.
My father was 1st generation. He served in the USAF and then went career at DOD. After decades of dangerous chemical exposure on the job at US military bases, he died one week after his 60th birthday from cancer. These anti-immigrant jerks can go straight to hell.
