"We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable - but then, so did the divine right of kings" Ursula K LeGuin "The Nazis changed but they never went away" Chumba "He sees the bright and hollow sky" my people "Cuddle us" my kitties
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It has been brought to my attention (thanks @eileen4ever.bsky.social!) that it is the one-year anniversary of this post going super viral (by my account's September 2024 standards). Life was simpler then, so as a treat, please enjoy the video footage (sound on):
Must manufacture a crisis in order to seize power for an increasingly authoritarian state
The thing that often blows by is not only is crime the lowest its been for any non-senior citizen's life, it has been roughly that safe for *fifteen years*. We have had fifteen years of steady, low crime while the irrational freakout over crime has relentlessly grown to a fevered, disordered pitch.
Yes: Drax is notorious for forest destruction in BC: including old growth and primary. Pure evil.
“The city added bright murals and decorative crosswalks at four intersections… last year. Since then, foot traffic nearly tripled at those sections of the busy road, yet the rate of conflicts with vehicles plunged about 65%, according to an Orlando Sentinel analysis of city data.”
You can’t out-fash the fash. Stop trying. It makes us hate you, and the fash will never love you.
Many of them were in foster care homes or facilities run by ORR contractors. The care homes are all over, not just in one state. So it would take longer depending on where they're being returned
bsky.app/profile/anna...
NEW: Judge Sooknanan is back at it. She orders DOJ to file at fifth status report to address whether the two children discussed in its previous report have been returned to ORR custody. Status report due at 12 noon today.
“Defenseless under the night Our world in stupor lies; Yet, dotted everywhere, Ironic points of light Flash out wherever the Just Exchange their messages: May I, composed like them Of Eros & of dust, Beleaguered by the same Negation & despair, Show an affirming flame.” From Sept. 1, 1939 by WH Auden
For those who work in EU law, this debate is vital to the future of the Union. Can the EU survive with a dictatorship in its midst, using its veto on matters existential to the EU? Here are creative ways around the veto, honoring the rule of law.
Watched doc' on fall of Berlin Wall (after watching Good Bye Lenin) and the power of non-violent Leipzig crowds, the incompetence of GDR spokesperson Günter Schabowski and the exasperation of border crossing commander Harald Jaeger comes thru
What a gang of mindless amateurs in Washington accomplished in Beijing:
Pope Leo XIV met with one of the most prominent advocates for greater LGBTQ+ inclusion in the Catholic Church. The Rev. James Martin said Leo told him that he intended to continue Pope Francis’ policy of LGBTQ+ acceptance in the church and encouraged him to keep up his advocacy.
Washington's speculation about Trump's health is at a fever pitch. We've seen multiple reasons this summer to ask questions — and the media doesn't seem to care. What's really going on? www.doomsdayscenario.co/p/it-s-time-...
Sequel coming in 4 weeks. www.panaccindex.info/p/review-eve...
The book written by @joho.bsky.social is verbatim documented evidence that can't be erased. I'll bury it in a time capsule if necessary.
Timothy Snyder: "My worry is about the integrity of the United States, as such." Look on my works, ye Mighty open.substack.com/pub/snyder/p...
The Roadless Rule does a huge amount to protect wild areas against wildfires, the vast majority of which begin near roads. It's super easy to leave a comment urging them to keep the Roadless Rule and protect against fires. Comments like this make a big impact! www.regulations.gov/commenton/FS...
I mean. This is assuming that he was well enough to write it in the first place, which is a big if. But that being said, after the inexorable Trump-Musk implosion, Bob Jr is surely next. There is no room in a narcissist's world for another narcissist.
He's a fucking spam faced jelly backed embarrassment
NEW: Keir Starmer has said he hangs the English flag in his home and 'always sits front of a Union Jack' He told the BBC: 'I'm very encouraging of flags. I think they're patriotic and a great symbol of our nation.'
ICE agents shouldn’t be anywhere near VA property. We are here to care for Vets, not terrorize them.
RIP The Windsor/Detroit Tunnel Bus. #Windsor #Detroit #TunnelBus
On this Labor Day, let's remember that today isn't likely to offer a respite for those--disproportionately women, and especially women of color, immigrant women, and low-income women--who do the unpaid and underpaid labor of care. In fact, that labor may even be greater on days "off" like today. 1/🧵
This should be the lead story in all major national news outlets. Public health people prefer to stay out of the limelight unless there is no other choice. I can’t overstate how bad things have to be for 9 former CDC directors to band together and pen an op-ed in the NYT warning the entire country.
Make it clear that whether this ends in six months or in five years, it makes no difference to us. The only thing that will change from here on out is the Russian death toll. 3/3
We have to tell the Russians every day that no matter how many people they are willing to sacrifice for nothing in Ukraine, Europe will stand by Ukraine and fund its resistance for as long as Ukraine chooses to fight, or until Russia is too exhausted to continue. 2/3
I could now go on about how it took 3.5 years to get here, and how much the previous German government, and partly this one, failed to realize this simple fact. But for now, let’s just be glad that the metaphorical floor of what must be done has finally been reached. 1/3
An idea worth sharing to help the international community understand processes occurring in the United States. Every bookstore at international airports with flights to the U.S. should have a selection like this one.
Happy Labor Day, comrades 🫡
I wouldn’t have thought many Labour MPs came into politics to strip the rights of torture survivors to be reunited with the spouses & children. They need to take a long hard look in the mirror & ask whether Starmer, Cooper & Reeves are really the leadership their careers should be remembered with.
So make dumb jokes. Unfurl ancient "Paul is dead" memes. Let the president know millions loathe him. Look for cryptic portents scorched into your breakfast toast. Start saving to book Yankee Stadium for a party, or to fund a cross-country trip on a tricycle carrying a banner that says WHEW. Go wild.
Having lived through a decade of harrowing events as a child, I'll say it's *good* to imagine the day you'll move beyond the reach of a cruel person—even if that moment won't fix everything. They want to convince you of your powerlessness, but that's not how this story ends.
www.al.com/news/2025/08...
Where has this ludicrous ECHR "debate" even come from. I've never once met an ordinary member of the public who's said to me, "Do you know what? We REALLY need to leave the ECHR." It's just a new right wing talking point because every other shit idea they've foisted on us has run out of steam.
Presumably to deter refugees from coming, which would then lead to their separation from their families, who would be left to fend for themselves. Why would we try to deter genuine refugees from coming? Cruel and neglectful of our duties as a liberal state.
A little sanity #Palestine #gaza #genocide
On 1 September 1920, crusading editor R A Bennett wrote to Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Basil Thomson to alert him to a fearsome threat to public morality – indeed to the very fabric of society itself. What was it? A slim publication featuring essays, poetry and lonely hearts adverts
These American mercenaries are revered in China. Their relatives are among the few US invitees to Xi’s WWII parade: https://cnn.it/4mS0lms
Diana Week was extraordinary - a brief window into the popular hagiology of the Middle Ages, complete with institutions trying to encourage and profit from it. The only thing that came close to it was the Queen's death - another exercise in vernacular religiosity, but one that felt less weird.
—James Oppenheim, “Bresd and Roses”
As we go marching, marching, in the beauty of the day A million darkened kitchens, a thousand mill lofts gray Are touched with all the radiance that a sudden sun discloses For the people hear us singing, bread and roses, bread and roses.
www.theguardian.com/environment/... Grim
Again - the reason that the Good Friday Agreement locks in the ECHR is that the UK had repeatedly been held accountable by the European Court of Human Rights for human rights breaches during the Troubles - while national courts had failed to do so, even upholding miscarriages of justice
Its definitely getting a bit colder in the house. The only reason I noticed Steve was even there, was because I went to pick up Joes black velvet jacket and it politely miaowed at me, black cats are so sneaky
A “British Bill of Rights” sounds patriotic. But as The Bear says, rights that can be rewritten by whichever grievance-peddler is in power aren’t rights at all – they’re privileges.
Native oak trees are turning brown about a month early due to drought in western Oregon.
Mensis September was originally the seventh of ten months on the ancient Roman calendar. This mosaic from the mosaic of the months from El Djem, Tunisia, dates to the third century. It depicts two men crushing grapes. Time for vintage! #MosaicMonday
This is the provision Ensign cited as the basis for the government's authority to summarily remove unaccompanied migrant children. I’d love to hear from immigration lawyers, but having briefly looked at it… it’s so frivolous it’d be laughable if it weren’t so cruel. (Am I wrong??)
Maybe because it’s not actually “post-covid”, given covid continues to circulate and many places are experience surges at the moment. No matter how much we *want* it to be over, wishing something doesn’t make it so. But actual layers of protections could make it so… www.ctvnews.ca/politics/art...
Guerrilla Girls, Untitled, 1985 #artbots #tate https://botfrens.com/collections/14375/contents/1122576
What is Vinay Prasad afraid of? Coward.
I'm actually not sure that I'd take this bet myself but I wouldn't be surprised if she did that bsky.app/profile/anna...
jenny lind apples, painted by deborah griscom passmore, 1897
‘You’re the only port of call for 400 hospital patients, which is absurd’: Matthew Hutchinson on the perils of life as an NHS doctor
Does it come with a side of statins?
None of these questions would be open if Drew Ensign just told the court what he knows, if ICE Air shared any information at all, or if we as a nation still had due process. The heroic Judge Sparkle Sooknanan had a long day. So did those kids, judging by the flight data. 11/11
So that's what I've got. Many of y'all have been wondering why it is taking so long for the kids to deplane and be returned to ORR custody. Me too! But I think it's likely some of them had already been flown away from the facilities they were taken from early this morning and had to be flown back.
Maybe Trump is just having mitochondrial challenges.
Yes, I think that's right. The coalition isn't a monolith and much smarter people than I have said (and I agree) that finding those fault lines will split it.
Every 2A stan believes they are enforcing the law. None of them think they are breaking it. They believe Trump is enforcing the law.
Said with respect, I genuinely do not think it is hypocrisy. The gun culture tells white men that they are police, protectors, virtuous warriors. See, for example, Ahmaud Arbery's murder. They do not see the MAGA government as tyrannical.
Okay, here's what I know and don't know* about the planes that were supposed to take children to Guatemala today. *None of this flight tracking would be necessary if ICE Air didn't keep its operation secret and if Drew Ensign didn't talk to the court in riddles. 1/
Maybe — just maybe — fully funding our parks and libraries and community centers could be a more effective, more life-affirming, and less expensive means of ensuring community *safety* (and vitality!) than bulking up the police budget!
Important to recall that DOJ stopped funding attorneys for unaccompanied migrant children in immigration court this spring. Among many other great orgs doing that work still is KIND: supportkind.org/who-we-are/
UPDATE: In its latest status report, DOJ says that three of the five migrant children discussed in his previous status report have now been returned to ORR custody. Drew Ensign says that he'll file another status report tomorrow when the two remaining children are in ORR custody.
👍
Who wants to bet that Sooknanan orders Ensign to file two separate status reports the minute each of the last two kids is back in ORR custody
"It's not alarmist to say that these are goons, this is a secret police that is going into our cities to kidnap people, abduct people off the streets" @katmabu.bsky.social on the dangers of ICE agents and potentially troops roaming the streets of Chicago.
Extra credit: work in Streisand Effect and game theory. Wrong answers only.
@notredame.bsky.social please reboot your faculty member. They're still running a pre-1934 version of the IPAC module and there are critical safety and security updates pending. Please also confirm the deprecated phrenology add-on has been uninstalled. Duguid, Edinb Med J. 1945 Nov;52(11):385–401:
By the time DOJ files this status report, Judge Sooknanan will have been awake for nearly 20 hours.
It’s no coincidence Trump’s admin is cutting federal funding for victims of crime. When resources for DV survivors are stripped away, women who are already financially dependent on their partners are left w/even fewer options to escape. This reinforces wmns subjugation and maintains male dominance
These people should not be trusted with children. Camp counselors are better equipped. Teenage babysitters have better child-minding skills. If you have 76 kids, you get 76 back to where they belong, you don’t just have four out and about.
The federal govt's extortion of UCLA has numerous problems. One is that it is ostensibly based on some factual allegations that are so exaggerated that they are actually false. I wrote about this today in a long blog post reflecting on what I saw at UCLA and how lawyers later mischaracterized it:
Also just as an aside, this is why I have such massively low confidence in @schatz.bsky.social becoming leader and shaking things up in the way I know he thinks he will. I'm sure he just thinks he's smarter and less in the pocket of Wall Street and that's going to fix the party's problems. No way.
Welcome to the Grifted Age.
Polish tennis star Kamil Majchrzak has met the young fan who had a hat snatched from him in a viral video clip after one of Majchrzak’s matches at the US Open. https://cnn.it/3VqAsOF
I guess there are advantages to having young federal judges who aren't too far removed from BigLaw work schedules. It's weird remembering that Judge Sooknanan once drove me to Guido Calabresi's house for Thanksgiving.
MORE: Sparkle Sooknanan is still awake -- and she wants a fourth status report from DOJ. The judge orders the government to update her when all putative class members have been returned to ORR custody.
NEW: In the dead of night, the Trump admin ripped vulnerable kids from their beds, attempting to return them to danger in Guatemala. We’re heartened the Court prevented this injustice. We’ll keep fighting to protect our plaintiffs & all class members until the effort is enjoined permanently.
Lots of amazing teamwork today to halt the Administration’s assault on children. Thank you all!!
Discussed here. sciencebasedmedicine.org/go-ahead/
From the article: “As one academic familiar with the Nous approach tells The Saturday Paper, the idea that consultants could be brought in to provide cover for executive decision-making is embarrassing.” Et tu, @dalhousie.bsky.social? #KeepDalStrong
🎶There's a sad sort of clanging from the clock in the hall And the bells in the steeple, too And up in the nursery an absurd little bird Is popping out to say "cuckoo" (Cuckoo, cuckoo) Regretfully they tell us But firmly they compel us To say goodbye To you... So long, farewell Auf wiedersehen
“Their level of fear and violence, the danger, the apologies – the entire cycle and years of power and control – it’s clear that homicide for many of these clients is going to be in the near future,” she said. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
The repeated mention of pool chemicals reminded us that the property owners have violated the Cultural Heritage Ordinance by filling in Marilyn Monroe’s swimming pool sans permits. esotouric.substack.com/p/marilynmon...
This reminds me of the way, my elderly, great aunt, who was born in 1909 when the sidewalks in Chicago were literally wood, would sign off on voice mails. “The end! Love you, Auntie!”
Fifty-one of the 85 Federalist papers were written by a guy born in Nevis.
Amidst all the bad news, this is great: Libraries across the country host cookbook clubs, offer classes in demo kitchens, loan spices + kitchen equipment, include food pantries, host farmer's markets, offer English language learning through cooking, host nutrition literacy programs, etc.
Worms are all fun and games… there they wiggle, they can do no other.
This is what a regular traffic stop looks like in DC now.
Just a normal night in DC, sitting on the couch watching Netflix and then having to go outside because 11 cops (FBI, HSI, “police” and MPD) stopped a car on my corner.
Q: What do you do to an elephant with three balls? A: Walk him and pitch to the rhino
Very good profile of the lawyer who chose this path www.politico.com/news/magazin...
Slid right off the roundheads.