I really did think “surely the big business republicans whose corporate overlords are getting fucked by these policies will be SOME sort of guardrail against SOME tiny slice of this” and like ….. we aren’t really seeing that the way I assumed we would

OpenAI is essentially a social arsonist, developing and releasing tools that hyper scale the most racist, misogynistic, and toxic elements of society, lowering the barriers for all manner of abuse. The so called guardrails make a pinky swear look like an ironclad contract.

University presidents it’s time for a united front. I mean, it’s past time. What are you going to do.

The federal surge didn’t end in DC. It became entrenched. ICE is still riding with MPD. We have “local control” back & people are still being detained & deported. National Guard is still here with long guns pacing our streets.

this is important

Some problems have simple solutions. This new “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” is one. The answer is simply saying no. Simple does not mean easy. But Brown, Dartmouth, MIT, Vanderbilt, Univ of AZ, UPenn, USC, UT Austin & UVA must understand what they’ll lose if they sign on.

Vaccination during pregnancy was associated with lowered maternal risks of COVID infection, stillbirth, preterm birth (including a 34% lower risk of severe preterm birth before 28 weeks), neonatal intensive care admission, & congenital anomalies 1/2

inbox, from Democratic Assembly nominee Katie Brennan (LD-32, Jersey City/Hoboken): Brennan Calls for New Jersey to Withhold Federal Taxes, Seize Trump’s Bedminster Golf Course After Gateway Tunnel Funding Freeze

ER doc here! This is a lie. Wait times are up because the American healthcare system is an unsustainable business model and a for-profit national healthcare system just doesn’t work. These problems will continue to get worse until we change that system. It literally has nothing to do with immigrants

As a parent whose kids commute to daycare on the Metro and have ridden on it since they were teeny tiny babies, the thing I have to say about this is that the scariest part of navigating this city is dealing with drivers as a pedestrian.

AI Bubble Watch: I've now spoken with multiple Writing Program Administrators who have seen dramatically increased usage of Writing Center resources early in Fall term. Is this, as @bcmerchant.bsky.social terms it, the "Luddite Renaissance"?

JD Vance believes if you come to the hospital with a life threatening injury, you should not be treated unless you can prove your citizenship.

The size of the divide between the average American liberal and the average American liberal pundit on one of the defining questions of foreign policy today really can't be overstated.

Starting today, DC’s most vulnerable families will receive a significant increase in child support dollars. Too many DC residents are struggling to make ends meet, and this is a long overdue step towards helping District kids get all the financial support available to them.

If you are an immigrant, you learn the asymmetrical balance of power when it comes to mistakes. You make a mistake - you pay for it. The bureaucracy makes mistakes - you might pay for that too. This is getting worse. More administrative mistakes and zero tolerance for immigrant errors.

As someone who bought a jacket for her daughter *9 months ago* that she hasn't worn yet, can confirm!

UC faculty are fighting through the courts to save the UC system. Our funding has been swept by central admin. We can’t pay to travel or research. Every time we lecture we’re at risk of attacks by right-wing mobs. Fortunately the UC Regents are on the ball: they’re…finding new ways to discipline us.

AI is intellectual asbestos. Building it into all of our information systems and relying on it to produce academic, scientific and legal knowledge is layering toxic waste into infrastructure that we won’t ever be able to fully abate.

Today was my last day as a federal employee, but tomorrow I and my new partner, Ginger Quintero-McCall, open a new law practice, the Free Information Group. We are both FOIA lawyers, and we are very good at suing the government. 1/

YES! This is the site where links still work and people read articles. Link your thing! Read the link!

Yes, do as the War on Cars says. It’s important.

A better world is possible

Does anyone care is almost never the right question. People care. The issue is that people don't know what to do.

I think we, as a society and a species, should be clear that what “make users be more comfortable” means in practice is “forget you are talking to a machine”.

Absolute all-timer sentence in today's @nytimes.com

finally people are speaking out as -don’t-want-to-watch-videos-Americans

We've had evidence of this for ages, right? Frankly this feels like those endless UBI studies where they all demonstrate UBI works but that's not the answer the people in charge want to hear so nothing changes.

FWIW, what Greg has here is a great simple script for anyone phone shy: “Hi, I’m one of [rep]’s constituents, and I would like to tell them to vote NO on any bill that cuts trans health care. Trans health care saves lives, and is worth a government shutdown.” That’s it! That’s all you need to say.

AI fans always seem puzzled why some people have a revulsion to AI and one issue is the people in charge of AI are repulsive

*stares in DC budget left with a $1 billion hole after Schumer negotiated a stand-alone funding bill during shutdown negotiations that the House GOP simply never took up*

A lot of people think that every international student admitted means one fewer spot for domestic students, when the opposite is more likely true - the tuition revenue international students bring allows public universities to provide substantial discounts to domestic students, improving access.

Part of what this reveals is what US labor has been arguing since the late 19th C. At will employment impedes political democracy. If u can lose ur livelihood for ur (non violent & non harassing) beliefs, then being an engaged citizen is all but impossible. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/29/u...

An extensive set of links about the many and legion problems with generative AI, now updated with more on labor issues, incorrect outputs, and a new section on ways in which the bubble may burst catherinedenial.org/blog/uncateg...

notable here that many of the critics of this training are Jewish. the school is claiming to fight antisemitism by preventing Jewish students from registering and denying them health insurance. 1

My general belief is that Dems need to spend more time thinking about what they believe and less about what they think some imaginary swing voters want them to believe. Political strategy will stem from an authentic set of beliefs.

👇🎯 These people will never stop trying to get rich by telling everyone they can learn & teach w/o doing the actual hard work of learning & teaching. They peddle fake alternatives to the hard daily grind of education because they're greedy & lazy. They're charlatans, & we should treat them as such.

Here's a thought. Focus on protecting the people currently under attack by their own military & law enforcement.

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Important to hear more examples like this of how AI is helping intensify the very worst tendencies in education, rather than seeing it as an innovation demanding ever more institutional investment

All of this is so deeply upsetting because children will have preventable febrile seizures, mothers may miscarry due to untreated fever, and some pregnancies will be more challenging due to unmanaged pain. There are no upsides to this reckless misinformation from the top just harm and pain.

I think one of the biggest mistakes we’ve made in academia over the last few years was treating tenure and academic freedom as a guaranteed right and not a labor relation. Had more understood it as the latter perhaps we would have been better prepared to protect it

... Public works are a marvel, and we need people to *see them* and celebrate them more often, and recognize that *this* is where the taxes go!

the political policy cure for “male loneliness” is - more time to hang with the fellas (4 day work week) - more money to spend with the fellas (higher wages) - more things to do with the fellas (taxing the rich and building 3rd spaces)

When I was an epileptic child, my parents would worry so much every time I got a virus or cold—because every time my body temperature spiked beyond a point; I could have a seizure. Have you ever seen a child have a seizure? Do you know how scary it is for them to have a seizure?

read the entire thread. this is why I've been talking nonstop about how capture of data re: meshing, uniting disparate stuff and capture of institutions should be our focus as much as surveillance. that's been the gov-tech vision for a while. I wrote more here: www.baykurt.org/wp-content/u...

Separating shots this way means more medical visits. Which means parents (usually moms) will have to take more time off from paid work, both for the visits and for the fevers that often follow kid shots. Particularly if they can't use Tylenol to manage fevers the next day. bsky.app/profile/jess...

Really happy to see Mamdani planning to send baby baskets to new parents. When I lived in Scotland, every new parent got a baby basket with a few helpful basics from the Sturgeon administration. It didn't cost taxpayers much, it was wildly popular, and it built up a ton of goodwill among voters.

As Netanyahu addresses the United Nations in New York City this morning, the world recoils in horror at the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

He also gets to decide who goes to school and what they teach there, what the museum can show, and what kind of programming is available on television. While sending federal troops and agents to kidnap your neighbors.

This guy is murdering people in the Caribbean and deciding how much your cabinets will cost.