It's more normal than not! I worked on the Google Assistant (like Siri) when it was still all handwritten in 2020, and we discovered that a lot of people who came out to the Assistant were not doing it in celebration but because they had nobody else to tell. We rewrote its response so it...

Frustrated that I don't have enough characters left in my profile to add the information that my neck is definitely too thin for me to ever be a credible presidential candidate.

Well, tell us what you really think… “the same modelers who overestimated the potential of geological carbon storage repeatedly underestimated solar power — one of the energy technologies that would allow more oil to remain in the ground.” projects.propublica.org/why-carbon-c...

KBJ dissenting in Wolford (decision invalidating Hawaii law that creates a presumption of no firearms on private property w/o property owner's consent): "Today’s decision makes one thing clear: The Court’s objective is protecting guns, not consistently preserving any principle of law."

The School of Earth, Environment and Sustainability at UIowa is hiring at the Assistant/Associate Professor level in the area of Climate Governance and Policy. Please share this job ad!

A really good interview with Bob Mann, a respected expert on Louisiana politics about the prospects for a Democratic comeback in the state. It's got good ideas for Democrats elsewhere, too.

Turns out “Blue No Matter Who” only travels in one direction.

BREAKING: Federal judge blocks DOJ from seeking NYC trans care information via grand jury subpoena. Judge Failla's temporary restraining order is the first such ruling in DOJ's recent escalation in its effort to go after gender-affirming medical care for minors. Today, at Law Dork:

All the hand-wringing from establishment centrists over yesterday's primary results should take a hard look at these poll numbers. The public identifies the centrist establishment Democrats with weakness and ineffectiveness, and the GOP with extremism, etitism, and cruelty.

The William Carlos Williams poem I always come back to

Climate.us is officially live! After NOAA ended Climate.gov’s day-to-day operations in 2025, former team members built Climate.us to carry that work forward. Their explanations and graphics have always stood out to me as clear, accessible, and transparent. I’m really looking forward to this reboot.

If we want to create foreign aid that works for all, then we need WAY more people who know and care more about aid than “USAID was an imperialist CIA project that I’ll grudgingly admit saved lives and stuff, and I guess we’ll eventually get around to bringing it back in an unspecified way”

Name your fav album to hear start to finish, no skips.

“I carry with me a photo of a Muslim child who, during my visit to Lebanon, was standing there holding a sign that said ‘Welcome, Pope Leo,’ and in this latest phase of the war, he was killed. “As a Church, I say again: as a pastor, I cannot be in favor of war.” — Pope Leo XIV

"We have met the vandals and they are us."

Research confirms that the more skilled professionals like doctors and software engineers rely on AI, the more their skills degrade. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Hilarious that NDOT gives 4 days notice that drivers won’t be able to park on one street for two hours on one day, but we’ll close the only halfway decent bike path through downtown with zero notice or signage at the drop of a hat

I've spent the last two months putting together this exhaustive analysis of the New York Times coverage of trans people. It covers 3,242 articles over 12 years. In 2022, the NYT shifted towards a hostile stance towards trans people in their framing. www.thedissident.news/exclusive-ho...

I doubt that man has had peace of mind a single day of his life. If he weren't so wilfully cruel and dangerous, I would feel pity for him.

Everyone should read this. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Unsurprisingly, straight-up racism drove Tennessee's redistricting.

“The decline in institutional autonomy in the United States stands out as a case of fast and steep deterioration" www.scientificamerican.com/article/see-...

A poem by David Gate.

Anybody have the site plan / renderings? I have trouble imagining anything worse than the existing land use but my trust in Vandy is pretty low. A 30+ story high rise is going to really dwarf the surrounding skyline (laudatory) - Hogwarts Tower is only 20 stories - but WTF will they use it for?

“New York City feels like a city where workers are ascendant, unions are coming into their own, and where employers have to reckon with us.” Peter Cole looks at what NYU’s non-tenured faculty won by withholding their labor.

Came across a reference to this Eileen Myles poem in Andrew Epstein’s “‘Raw’ Poets” (2024) while working on revisions for an article forthcoming in Bishop–Lowell Studies. Interesting.

The rights left behind: The future of LGBTQI+ organizing in post-uprising Bangladesh globalvoices.org/202... #transgender #trans #LGBTQ #LGBTQIA

this is a story about a person who fled to seattle because their life was threatened because of who they are, the other a person who fled seattle because he was a selfish and entitled person who felt out of place these are not the same www.npr.org/2026/06/08/n...

Déja vu all over again. www.newyorker.com/magazine/200...

I feel it’s sort of underrated the extent to which a Dem Congress and/or states could (1) absolutely destroy car dealerships as a business, and (2) this would cripple a lot of GOP state and local parties

I was distracted by the Chapman conference last week, but flagging now *2* new MACH studies looking at the role of human-caused sea-level rise in increasing coastal flooding around the world

I wish @advocate.com would figure out that there isn't an algorithm on Bluesky that penalizes posts that include links to news stories. This isn't Twitter, and it's annoying when the link relevant to the main post is put in a reply for no good reason.

In the future, everyone will have their name on the Kennedy Center for 15 minutes.

I feel like that Vanderbilt/WashU report exists almost entirely to be forwarded to the iPhones of trustees, who will in their turn skim the first few sentences before forwarding it triumphantly to chancellors. “FW: FW: FW: Food for thought?”

NAS staff and experts who serve on the committees that write its reports do a good job. But NAS leaders—McNutt in particular—and its privileged members have decided it’s best to hide in fear and capitulate at a time when courageous voices are needed more than ever. Let NAS reap what it’s sown.

Yup. McNutt's call, "We need to make science bipartisan again. ... I suggest that the NAS and its members focus our activity on topics for which everyone agrees," is aging like milk.

A new study of 445 adolescents treated at pediatric gender clinics in Canada found that after a mean 2.4 years, 94.6% still identified as trns. Of the 353 who started hormonal treatments, 1.1% discontinued them. www.jahonline.org/article/S105...

Make this cop famous! Guilty before you answer the door! denverite.com/2025/10/27/b...

🚨Out today in @nature.com our new paper uses deep learning to map four decades of global human migration. By building the first comprehensive, four-decade dataset of annual flows (1990-2023), we reveal that global migration has nearly tripled since 2000. 🔗 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

GoFundMe donations finally made it to my bank account 😭🙌 Thank you again to everyone who donated. What a massive relief I'm still keeping it open since I'm not quite recovered to work again yet, if you wouldn't mind sharing to support this trans activist: www.gofundme.com/f/help-trans...

Gender-affirming care for minors is not a bad thing. It’s been so needlessly demonized and the position has been so thoroughly capitulated to that I think people forget it’s actually a good thing. A Grammy award winning artist had gender affirming surgery at 16. It’s a great thing!

Two weeks until Owning The Green Grid's release! Available for pre-order here: (2/2) @mitpress.bsky.social mitpress.mit.edu/978026205358...

I can’t believe that the @clevelandclinic.bsky.social found a new way to betray trans kids. The kids who were their patients. They’ve told the Feds they won’t care for kids for twenty years, they’ll pay $300,000 in protection money, and they’ll spend millions to open a detransition clinic. 😭 😡

This analysis by @jessicavalenti.bsky.social is spot on. "I am so fucking tired of our humanity being treated as political fodder." 💯 And the fact that the NY Times thought that such a foolish op-ed was worth running speaks volumes about its management's misogyny. substack.com/@jessica/not...

I am puzzled that no one within Trump's inner circle has suggested to him that, with regard to Iran, thoughts and prayers are well-established as the most effective means to protect against mass violence. They are also far cheaper than missiles, and the arsenal of T&P can't be depleted.

“Bursting the Academic Bubble” explores why scientists must bridge research, policy, and public understanding to better protect communities and drive informed decisions.🏛️📝🧪 A powerful read on science, advocacy, and impact ⬇️ thebridge.agu.org/2026/06/09/g...

Indeed, authoritarian-pleasing is probably the more important driving force, because shareholders will likely become displeased at the plummeting ratings that follow when the public decides it doesn't like sycophantic slop.

"The [Cleveland] Clinic is jumping to the front of the line to comply not with science and medicine, but with cruelty and anti-trans hate." www.advocate.com/health/trans...

Americans have forgotten about climate change but it hasn't forgotten about you.