actual US climate policy

what if we don't agree that college primarily serves as a credentialling process and instead argue that it is intended to be a time of self-discovery, thinking, and participating in a set of tasks designed to make well-rounded persons

Generally, forms of proportional representation make it easier for more parties to be represented in legislatures.

IMHO '25-'26 U.S. Gerrymandering Wars have disabused us of the notion that the single-member district can be reformed post Trump. "The only truly representative system that treats all voters as equal would be some version of proportional representation . . . " From: @sltaylor.bsky.social

What is especially galling is that this saved zero dollars, since the cruise ships pay for the inspections. And now their industry is less trusted because of perceived health risks. Amazing lose-lose policymaking.

A student who sets out to write a research paper will now encounter chatbots who will offer to do their work in their word document, in their learning management system, in their email, in their web browser, and in certain library database interfaces.

The lack of alt text on #AcademicSky and #EduSky posts is so depressing and illustrates why my day job is so difficult.

You’ve got to be bookmaxxing. You have to be knowledgepilled and on that information grind. Checking in and looking things up and citing sources. Dont let them bookmog you. Read.

The day has finally arrived. You can now *officially* watch puffins live from the Farne Islands, 24 hours a day: bit.ly/4tRz72T Please enjoy these puffins kissing in celebration of this momentous event.

In Maine, students, families, and workers are taking the brunt of damage from the lack of public funding for higher education. Wages don't keep pace with the cost of living and workers are asked to do more with less while students pay more. Does that sound familiar?

It seems the university may not have been entirely honest in suggesting that they were caught unaware. I’m shocked, shocked I say! In fact, Prof. Peterson said they were aware and that he modified some language based on their feedback. www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty...

The AAUP & @aft.org stand in solidarity with UM Faculty Senate Chair Derek Peterson. Right-wing attacks on his commencement speech are a direct threat to academic freedom. University leaders must stop apologizing to political agitators & start defending their faculty & protected speech. 👇

Many university presidents have been playing the supremacist roles of Bull Connor, George Wallace, and Strom Thurmond for the last few years. Not just during the encampments but in ongoing recent punishments for students, faculty, & staff. For opposing genocide.

Related: in our surveys, we find that Americans who agree that Israel is committing genocide are significantly LESS likely to endorse antisemitic tropes than people who deny Israel’s war is genocidal. Not a surprise to human rights advocates, but counter to all the absurd claims in The Discourse.

There’s a good faith argument to be had re: efficiencies of decarbonization pathways, orders of operations, and greenwashing. I study all this from an ecology POV. Whenever I post new findings my replies are swarmed by reflexively pro-tech reply guys who just really want to capture carbon. Why?

No, they are not. And instead of faffing about pretending that they are, we need a proper policy or failing that comprehensive review that encompasses HEI finances, teaching, research (including innovation) and civic functions.

The internet, at its heart, is who we are in the dark.

Fired up to announce that Pramila Jayapal is coming to Ann Arbor on Saturday, May 16th to talk Medicare for All and much more. See you there:

This is like if the tobacco industry sponsored a bill to get kids smoking in class to help with concentration, kids today don't have ADHD or autism, they're just not getting enough nicotine don't you know! Give little Johnny one of his five a day (of cigarettes)

No notes.

Reminder that she's the same reporter trying to help push the panic around people with autism to strip them of accommodations and their diagnosis. bsky.app/profile/esqu...

The Economist and the Wall Street Journal here explaining to Americans that it's actually good to have no universal healthcare or public services, because at least 50% of Americans make enough to be able to afford health insurance for at least some of their lives.

Recession tornado siren.

Really enjoying a hat trick of delays on American Airlines. I’m closing in on my third missed connecting flight in less than a month. Really glad we’ve got fewer travel options now because the remaining airlines clearly can’t get their shit together. At least Spirit was on time.

Archaelogists hypothesizing that brutalist architecture had feathers.

"Civility favors the oppressor, never the oppressed," is the most true statement I ever read on the internet

every era makes possible a range of different solutions to different problems, and every era promotes some of the solutions people actually come up with and discards or slow walks others. hence us in an era of multilevel ecological collapse with many of our brightest minds working on digital casinos

Who the hell is Some Worry, the fretful conservative voice who shows up in NYT headlines all the time?

Sigh. We apparently don’t teach marginal tax rates anywhere. Getting $999,999 instead of $1m saved here $0.37 in taxes but cost her $0.63 in after-tax income. In the upside, though, I note have a video to share with my Federal Income Tax class in the fall.

Of course some poor people do drive to work, and we maybe should have means tested gas cards for them. But the point is everyone, even too many people on the left, accept the right wing auto-normative framing that cars are only enhancing mobility.

In an economic justice sense of cars as a tool of limiting mobility, see everybody whining about "high" gas prices in America but not caring about all the people headed to low wage jobs on buses stuck in traffic, or unable to bike even a couple miles to work, because there are too many cars.

Not just cars. See also my latest, and the Atlantic's anti-bench article about limiting who moves through public space. politicsofcars.beehiiv.com/p/bart-fare-...

I am generally growing increasing concerned about car culture and car dependency as a tool of *limiting* mobility bsky.app/profile/this...

Something something sirens something something jagged rocks.

I teach a section on data brokers and it's my favorite section to teach because, at least in previous years, students have had no idea they existed. This is a fantastic resource. Thank you for your service 🫡

Drugs are pretty expensive and mostly a luxury of the rich it turns out

*art bell caller voice* They had to pull the plug because it was about to achieve consciousness

"The octopus on your plate can feel pain, delay gratification, and probably outthink a toddler. Just something to consider before you order."

Q: How will the new SSI rules impact your family? A: I have no clue Q: But you're something of an expert? A: I know, now imagine how everyone else must feel. Q: Why is it like this? A: Because Republicans love administrative burdens and do it on purpose. from @ms.now

Always loved this series of maps. 👁 Also: Comics! h/t @anuncivilphd.bsky.social & @iansociologo.bsky.social

I happily paid my membership dues today to AAUP. Happy May Day.

Also a member.

Me too! If you work in higher ed, you need to join your union yesterday. If you don't have a local already then that's AAUP! Your dues pay for these lawsuits we keep winning, all those trainings that are making thousands of fightin' faculty, and they also get returned in part to your local

"The existence of such a flat Earth, bounded by an ice wall, with a firmament in which the stars and planets move in set spheres, has been the subject of intense debate for the past several years and has fueled arguments against the spherical Earth, despite being widely criticized by Earth experts."

The worst thing to happen to academia was the emergence of a nomadic administrative class like the one in corporations who just move from institution to institution setting fires and walking away. Say what you will about the flaws of faculty governance, but at least they believe in the mission.

Never thought much of benevolent dictatorship until I could see the wreckage of this faux-“meritocratic” alternative where people making decisions that have significant consequences for an institution have no sense of connection or commitment to the institution at all.

“One person is an autocratic president of the university for decades” certainly wasn’t a flawless system but it’s clear that “admins hop from job to job scaling the career ladder by filling their CV with ‘accomplishments’ that are expensive burdens to the schools they leave behind” is even worse.

Contemplating what is lost when "your" senior people must know in their hearts that they're imposing the fourth or fifth reorganisation in a decade, to bulk out their CV for the £250k-a-year job they really want, and everyone else knows this, and despises them for it.

And so, the right posture needs to be some combination of escalating the hardball while always keeping alive the offer of deescalation, provided that it's *mutual.* newrepublic.com/article/2098...