Bad jokes and boring my kids with stories of how historical systems of oppression are baked into our everyday lives is basically my parenting identity. I try to remember to fit in hugs and food at regular intervals.

if you invented public libraries today, every opinion page in the country would be arguing for means tested subsidized Amazon Prime memberships

Standing outside in the rain under umbrellas waiting for the bus, so of course I had the opportunity to remark that one of my favorite English words was “bumbershoot“, a British-ism I actually got to encounter when working on insurance stuff.

Listening to this and other recent @volts.wtf pods, it’s surreal the stark contrast between the Trump admin’s 1890s energy policies and the clean, optimized, flexible, distributed battery-led grids we *will have* in the near future. The juxtaposition is wild! open.spotify.com/episode/6hZp...

Introducing In Your Spare Time: A Podcast of the Blog of Ursula K. Le Guin! inyoursparetime.libsyn.com

People (who by virtue of being people tend to want to see humanity in everything) (and who by virtue of where their paycheck comes from are incentivized to find inexplicable complexity) see complicated things we don’t understand in a complicated set of systems we don’t understand?

Deliberately attacking civilian infrastructure without apparent military value is a war crime. Shouldn't be surprising since America elected a war crimes advocate, who in his first term pardoned convicted war criminals, and in his second made the public champion of those war criminals SecDef.

Let's hear it for the members of the International Federation of Professional & Technical Engineers (IFPTE), the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), and all other government unions. But particularly AFSCME.

Just so you understand, this is as if you prepared for argument in front of a panel that included Cookie Monster, and Cookie Monster asked you a question about cookies, and you had not thought about cookies in advance.

This is my trans agenda

Interestingly the NYTimes does know how to write bold headlines that clearly convey the facts and stakes

1/ The US attempted to send several Iran-bound bombers to an Italian air base without prior authorisation and was refused permission by the Italian government while the aircraft were in flight. The news comes a day after Spain disclosed it was refusing US military overflights. ⬇️

thread 🪡

Repeat after me: Having access to power under system of injustice is not the same as being free. Inclusion is a cheap substitute for freedom.

The whole thing about Democrats searching for a winning message for the midterms is infuriating because it is staring them in the face: Rule of Law — People who do illegal shit should face consequences. For insider trading. For illegal wars. For ignoring court orders. For being a pedophile.

Among all the other bad things about “keep politics out of my Star Trek”, the “aliens shooting phasers at each other” scenes are … not good. Like if what you want is good pew-pews, why are you watching Star Trek?

This is one of those simple little style tips that's not always true, but enough so that I really push it at @ancillaryreviewofbooks.org. Also note that rhetorical forms of "you" and "the reader" can make the same faulty/disruptive assumptions.

So I was watching the 1993 Finish Made For TV adaptation of The Lord of The Rings, and thought everyone should see the moment where Gollum falls into Mount Doom.

I searched "data center coloring book" because I was trying to decide if I should make one and found this, from a power management company, and I don't think I can top this www.eaton.com/explore/_pfc...

Now unlocked: Mariame Kaba @prisonculture.bsky.social & Andrea Ritchie @dreanyc123.bsky.social on how to understand the spectacular violence of Trump’s ICE surges as an extension of the violence of everyday policing, and why to abolish ICE we must abolish the police soundcloud.com/deathpanel/a...

Tbh my biggest concern about the Homan era of ICE is that he's less of an idiot groyper than Bovino was, and he'll recognize the value of working ICE agents into the general bureaucracy that we move among every day. They don't have to be popular, they just have to seem inevitable.

“We must avoid feeling powerless about stopping an imminent war by voting in six months“ is a shitty message and you should feel bad for saying it.

We are in the midst of an industrial revolution based almost entirely on solar and battery tech. If there's any single reason to have hope for global sustainability it's shit like this. Solar and battery tech is becoming so affordable that it's saving lives at scale by offering affordable cooling.

things change: authors and wizards are not always to be trusted: nobody can explain a dragon.

really can't be said enough that this case was decided by the same court that decided plessy v. ferguson. if they could have found a plausible rationale to limit birthright citizenship they would have done it. but there is none! the text is as clear as constitutional language can be.

Just realized that with a claim of 9M participants we’re going to get a resurgence of interest in the “sustained 3.5% civil disobedience topples governments” headline.

This month I read a book called "The Saint of Bright Doors" by Vajra Chandrasekera. I really, really liked it. The entire book was made of sentences and they were all really really good sentences.

On the one hand, actual evidence compiled by someone with plenty of experience in the field. On the other hand, Jonathan Chait & a scary picture.

I’m going to wheatpaste this article to telephone poles until everyone reads it

Oh did you want 3300 words from me on today's IOC sex testing rules? An essay on the nature of evidence and why we can't seem to stop getting stuck in the same traps around sex and gender in sports? Wow lucky you!! www.coyotemedia.org/the-olympics...

I usually take "the left has a problem with X" with a big grain of salt, but man it really seems like I'm seeing more folks in Dem spaces voicing homophobia, transphobia, antisemitism. And the disregard for homeless people & "compromises" on immigration. We really gotta drop those folks and say why.

Did you know that this year is the 2nd year in a row where Equal Pay Day is a day later than the previous year? That’s right, the pay gap is getting worse. Maine needs a candidate in the U.S. Senate who knows what that feels like, someone who can use that perspective to lead us forward.

Might be the greatest opening paragraph of anything ever.

Kiddo informs me that in the battle between the immovable object of “ADHD inability to execute on basic routines” and irresistible force of “teenage impulse to cause chagrin to parents” the teenage-ness is victorious and they clean their glasses ”regularly”

My favorite far side story is how this one got pulled from a bunnnnnch of papers cause ppl thought the dog was fuckin the car and Larson was like “idgi oh wait I guess I didn’t have to draw the gearbox yeah I see it now pretty funny”

I’ve done The Hobbit and The Wizard of Earthsea and once I got them into audiobooks we did Beowulf (Heaney is fine, Headley is better though my kids didn’t laugh as much as I did), Court of Fives, Hitchhikers Guide, Hero and the Crown … there’s a lot of good books out there that kids like

and there are so many new, great series! tristan strong! the wild robot books! wings of fire! there's no reason to let your nostalgia fund a terror campaign against trans people!

There is a great BBC World Service radio adaptation of The Dark Is Rising that you can download via podcast app: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w...

Trump tweeted as much this morning, writing that ICE agents at airports were, "rehabbing a fake image given to them by Radical Left Democrat politicians."

Oh hell yes

Nothing but respect for MY formative young adult fantasy novel series

I am about 40 minutes in and I recommend this to every student, faculty member, and person who cares about the future of higher ed

I love Tom Bombadil and wish he’d been in the movies, but at this point the only Middle Earth media I want to watch is a Voyage of Earendel prominently featuring Bilbo‘s actual poetry, or some silly comedy of manners set in the Shire with a quirky elf or dwarf visitor every few episodes

If Bilbo had Chat GPT

20 out of 30, and yeah I'm a bit disappointed with myself for a few of those misses.

An Eagle of the north reaches Minas Tirith. ‘Sing now, ye people of the Tower of Anor for the Realm of Sauron is ended for ever and the Dark Tower is thrown down. Sing and rejoice ye people of the Tower of Guard for your watch hath not been in vain and the Black Gate is broken.’

Sam has carried Frodo far up the slope, but has to stop. They lie down so Sam’s back can rest. They wonder: how much further will they have to climb? Looking up the slope, they realize they have climbed nearly to a road that’s cut into the side of the mountain above them.

The wind turned to the north overnight. Now the morning shows the bleak land around the Morannon to be completely empty. Only the eight Nazgûl are visible, circling high above the Black Gate. Aragorn and the Captains prepare the army, arranging them on two hills of slag.