This Remembrance Day, first I watched the intense documentary “Sugarcane,” then an intense display of the Aurora Borealus. Did shifting pink shafts & green curtains of light comfort kids at St. Joseph’s Mission Indian School? Soldiers trapped in WWI trenches? thewalrus.ca/my-father-wa...

Nothing puts the fun into potlucks like Latin binomials. 🙈 😆😬Staphylococcus aureus … Bacillus cereus … Clostridium perfringens … Norovirus… Salmonella … E. coli … Campylobacter … Giardia … Toxoplasma gondii … bktitanji.substack.com/p/an-id-doct...

On November 10, 1898, a shocking coup was executed in Wilmington, North Carolina, as white mobs led by former Confederate Col. Alfred Moore Waddell overthrew the city’s elected biracial government and massacred 60 or more Black people.

Pogromnacht = “Kristallnacht:” “Nazi officials blamed Jews for the riots (pogrom), & imposed massive fines on German Jewish community. Similar pattern with the 1919 Elaine Massacre, when White mobs killed African Americans, then state sentenced 12 Black men to death, blaming them for the violence.“

(1/2) Twelve local playwrights created (10:00) plays that adhered to these prompts: * The play must be titled THE PICKLE JAR. * The play must contain the death of at least one character. * A natural disaster or weather event must occur. * At least one character must sing. (cont.)

Grateful to spend two days on the Klamath watching chinook, liberated by dam removal, return to streams from which they’d been precluded since the Titanic sank. Fish are everywhere, in numbers that stagger the mind & locations that biologists figured would take years to repopulate. Too beautiful.

Academics in Assyria in the 7th c BC complain that admin is preventing them from doing research and teaching

Wo. Rivers running orange from mines is all too familiar in 🇺🇸& 🇨🇦, past & present. TIL about Fe, Cd, Al, Zn and other heavy metals mobilized by *permafrost thaw*. 😬 Not just in rivers, not just in Alaska…and it’s 🔄. Feedback loop, tipping point — or both? #Climate apple.news/AYGSac6XNSWu...

I keep seeing journalism described as an "ecosystem" and I guess that tracks because it's undergoing an extinction crisis caused by billionaires, too.

Participants are now enrolling in our #longCovid randomized, controlled trial of tirzepatide. The largest trial to test a treatment for this condition. Home-based—no sites. In today's @sandiegouniontribune.com www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2025/11/01/c...

Bank of America, Citi, JP Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs are four of the ten.

Here's the whole thing - I paid:

Saw a witch. Followed the witch. Then two, three, four, a dozen more witches.. so followed some more.. until finally, at last, we found all of the witches. #HappyHalloween 🎃

Hon hon hon joyeaux ween de hallo

Read up-🧵for context. (summary: 3 degrees C of global warming is NOT benign.) Daniel’s observation — that wealthy / tech meisters are probably just as divorced from the complexity of Earth’s systems as they appear — is not reassuring. Unclothed emperors will be Earth’s doom.

I would love for someone to write a book on this precise thing. Some offerings: -half of ICE is HSI: Homeland Security Investigations, detectives instead of beat cops, have traditionally been a big force against being too aggro. That culture filters up to leadership and back down to ERO.

“…the more wealth is accumulated in a few hands, the more responsibility for the climate crisis is concentrated among a small number of powerful individuals, who use their money and influence to deny, delay and distract from emissions reductions.” (via 💩 they💰.) www.theguardian.com/environment/...

This is the most-read post on my Rhetorical Tricks substack. I hope it helps. It's where I explain my unified theory of how to understand and predict Trump's actions in his second term. jennifermercieca.substack.com/p/trump-is-o...

Confusing bluntness and authenticity is like accepting the WWA as the proper context for governance. The U.S. is enroute to structural Federal nihilism + kleptocracy, enforced by autocratic thuggishness. How state & local governments deal with this permanent change will be interesting.

It’s best to not be Terminally Online, especially since now and then, someone will translate and summarize the joke, like the way you can tune into a soap opera twice a year without missing much plot or character development.

Latest model projections regarding #Melissa are painting an increasingly dire scenario for Jamaica and possibly western Hispaniola (esp. Haiti) in terms of widespread risk of catastrophic flooding from exceptional rainfall amounts--possibly exceeding 3-4 feet (30-40+ inches).

The Inspector General system is basically broken now. Most IGs have been fired, most positions remain vacant. Those who remain or would take the job pose no risk to holding the regime accountable. Congress added more barriers to Trump firing IGs after his first term. He just ignored them.

Yikes! I knew this would be a big number, but I didn't imagine it would be THAT big--over one-third of GDP growth since 2000 is recovering from and preparing for disasters. This seems unsustainable. Maybe we should change some things?

Every now and then I go back and read the Citizens United ruling to see if it is as unhinged as I thought, and every time I do that I see it is actually far more deranged than I remembered. levernews.com/book

See, Toronto must win tonight to keep Seattle earthquake-free. 🧢

A new University of Montana J-School documentary about 140 lethal miles of U.S. Highway 212 that pass through the Crow and Northern Cheyenne Reservations, southeast Montana. #CarViolence watch.montanapbs.org/video/highwa...

“We could be drawing on the solar resources from the Southwest during the day, and then in the evening the wind resources in Montana and Wyoming ...We have a lot of hydro resources, and we can help make sure the regional grid stays balanced when those are needed.” sourcenm.com/2025/10/13/r...

The plastic inside us: how microplastics may be reshaping our bodies and minds 😡😡😡 www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Laughter is medicine. G’night all

What did Frank and Deborah Popper get right and wrong about the Great Plains in their famous Buffalo Commons paper? (I have thoughts - also interviewed them recently - but curious about others) knrc.org/Files/MtNRC/...

In El Salvador: “With no medical care, she gave birth, fell unconscious, and began hemorrhaging in a bathroom stall. Shortly after, the police came …they weren’t there to help her, but placed her under arrest for what they decided was the abortion and murder of her newborn.” futuroinvestigates.org

Often, The Cult (the Borg?) and those who genuflect to it can't design or even recognize good policy. Or count. "...here we are just months ahead of the premium apocalypse, and apparently the president hears about it for the first time from Chuck Schumer." paulkrugman.substack.com/p/talking-wi...

"WildEarth Guardians...pointed to data that a subsidiary of ExxonMobil, XTO, had 42 spills of waste over the spring... Balloon Fiesta visitors can "expect to hear spoof radio ads...and see several stunts over the coming week." sourcenm.com/briefs/conse...

Folding with barely a whimper. “The decision follows a similar move by a climate group for the insurance industry in 2024. Another climate-focused organisation for the asset management industry is also considering its next steps after facing similar political pressure.” apple.news/AWS7xQzxsTLu...

“Unlike the European Central Bank, which gets a B, the Fed scores poorly… It has resisted global rules on banks’ climate risks and this year pulled out of the Network for the Greening of the Financial System, a central-bank coalition.”

I'd like to point out there are still 7,500 wildland firefighters working 19 uncontained large fires and yesterday, initial attack actions were carried out on 236 new starts. A shutdown adds to the stress, reduces capacity, and creates additional uncertainties in a massively complex environment.

September 30th is also known as Red Shirt Day.

Infuriating. So many feds have such specialized knowledge that it will be near impossible for them to find a decent-paying private sector job. The worst part is that this was totally predictable and yet nothing was ever put in place to help. We just left public servants to fend for themselves.

Eleven days of awe, Jewish Israelis. You could end this before Yom Kippur. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

In the Afro-descendant agroforestry lands of Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil and Suriname, “…practices historically classified as ‘subsistence’ are, in fact, conservation strategies that are as effective – or even more effective – than many state policies for protected areas.” apple.news/AbU-0HNO6Q1u...

Where 🇺🇸 is heading. Graeme Wood: “Iran felt like a late-stage totalitarian state: corrupt, poor, unhappy, unfixable. In Isfahan, an innkeeper begged me to go home and tell President George W. Bush to bomb his country, because he said that it would take nothing less to change the government.”

I had this exact same experience this morning. Same reporter as Heidi. This is *not* normal. I have spoken to the press on these issues for two decades. No government official has ever demanded to know my identity in order to give a comment on a story.

Meeting the housing shortage in one of the 🌏’s most unequal countries still places the onus on the townships. And: “To date, the startup has helped its homeowner partners — 67% of whom are women — more than double their incomes and property values, according to Sammeli.“ apple.news/ARmCWR8uPTPm...

“Abortion bans have forced medical schools…to pare back…health education in the classroom…teaching hospitals & clinics, leaving students…unprepared…for a career as an OB-GYN, but also for…a pregnancy complication requiring an emergency abortion to save the patient’s life.” apple.news/ASpdyl1GPSuC...

Something good: a new, nonprofit newsroom run by some wonderful, experienced folks (core crew from Outside mag's glory days) dedicated to journalism about American public lands! Looks like the plan is to collaborate a fair bit with other outlets.

“… the point is for…people like me to write it down so that people like you can read it and feel something, be it shock, outrage, confusion, or sadness. The shooters may not have a coherent ideology, or even be particularly politically motivated per se, but they seem to know the ecosystem…”

i think that, very broadly speaking, this is a p good lesson about computer

North Dakota had 2,439 jobs in wind, solar, and storage in the most recent survey of energy jobs. They rank 9th per capita in clean energy jobs. 35% of ND's electricity comes from wind. These guys know better. They just lie. Lying is one of the most unifying principles of this administration.