I talk to a lot of folks in real life about data centers. I have never run into even one who supports them, aside from the folks sent to our towns to sell them to us. Dems should lean into this. The Rs are generally in favor of letting corporations steal our water and power and quality of life.

Institutional autonomy and academic freedom can be shored up by Collective Bargaining. Give faculty and graduate students a chance to fight for our institutions! @abigailspanberger.com @aaup.org @afthighered.bsky.social @aaupmason.bsky.social @ucwva.bsky.social

It’s worth noting that Spanberger justifies keeping the data center tax break by an appeal to “keeping one’s word,” but has no problem breaking her commitment to support the expansion collective bargaining

Not before Virginia House Democratic leadership cut the applicability of the bill by 50% by removing public sector higher education workers.

I do think we're moving into a moment where deep reading, thinking, and writing are luxury experiences. And that seems very bad.

Does anyone live near a data center in Virginia? I’m going to start collecting audio from really noisy sites this summer. Get in touch!

Colorado Connecticut Maine Maryland New Hampshire New York Utah Virginia

This statement about higher ed, co-authored by AAUP and AFT, is absolutely worth reading. It sets out a vision education workers should embrace. Question is how we will win it! www.highereddive.com/news/higher-...

I'm working part time as a grant reviewer and its so clear how many worthy projects deserve funding and more opportunities. I feel like there is a real trend to dismiss creative labor as something actually worth funding, & a living wage as a pipe dream. We would all be richer with more public arts.

I guess my only real problem with AI is that it doesn't work, uses all the water, makes the worst people who ever slime-trailed across this green earth richer, gives monsters cover to crater organizations, destroys lives in both obvious & subtle ways & also isn't even AI. Besides that, I'm for it.

“If a system is designed or used in a way that treats some lives as less worthy, or excludes them without the possibility of appeal, then it is not merely a tool ‘to be used well,’ since it has already introduced criteria that contradict the inalienable dignity of the human person.”

Bigger, better batteries are going to make gas obsolete. www.ft.com/content/b5c5...

Happy Mother's Day. www.nationalbailout.org

Residents of Pound, Virginia, are invited to attend an interest meeting on forming a community association in Pound! Swing by the Pound Town Hall at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, May 5, for more information! Stipends will be provided. https://loom.ly/G4i7zf8

On Earth Day, the AAUP & @aft.org requested a meeting with TIAA to discuss an immediate moratorium on all new investments in fossil fuels extraction, processing, & power generation. We need to reinvest these funds in renewable energy & climate solutions for frontline workers & communities. ⬇️⬇️⬇️

Backers of the massive data center campus say at full buildout it will consume 9GW of electricity, more than double the entire state of Utah’s current energy use. They say they intend to burn fossil fuels on site to make all that electricity. Box Elder County will vote on the proposal Monday.

As the Trump administration continues to rapidly expand its immigration jail system across the country, the death toll of people in ICE custody is rising, reaching a record high in over two decades. At least 17 immigrants are reported to have died in ICE custody since January.

If you were around the KY/VA border  on HWY 23 last Friday, you might have heard the sounds of an Appalachian shindig in downtown Pound. Pound, usually known for having almost lost its charter because of widespread corruption, is now showing up as a leader in true community-led revitalization. 1/5

I just signed a @theactionnetwork.bsky.social petition: Higher Ed Needs Collective Bargaining: Restore All Higher Education Workers' Collective Bargaining Rights. Sign here: actionnetwork.org/petitions/hi...

Among the real enduring questions of that moment that we should be working toward answering are 1) why did university leaders go along with repressing their own students' rights and ruining some of their lives for a genocide. And 2) Why did rank-and-file administrators who know better help them?

"Concentration camps exist to support and expand the power of an authoritarian regime. They make everyone afraid of being treated like the current targets of the regime. ... [C]oncentration camps accelerate the process of dehumanizing groups of people in the public imagination."

"But then the data center turned on, along with the eight natural gas turbines powering it. Now her home is barraged by a high-pitch whine that she says has made her newly screened-in porch unusable."

fuck me for being this person, i guess, but public universities are a civic good and shouldn’t be run like businesses. and if you’re going to insist on running them like so, at least do some market research. students like their professors; they don’t want MOOCs taught by ChatGPT.

Absolutely awful result in the "antifa terrorism" trial against the Prairieland noise demonstrators. Innocent people convicted under conspiracy statutes because they had zines at home, or wore black, or were in a Signal chat — even those who did not actually participate in the demonstration.

BREAKING: 18 Senate Dems confirm Trump's NSA Director: Baldwin Coons Cortez Masto Fetterman Gillibrand Hassan Heinrich Hirono Kelly King Peters Reed Rosen Schiff Shaheen Slotkin Warner Whitehouse Idk what needs to happen for corporate Dems to be the opposition party—not fascism is OK party😐

300 families contributed 20% of all federal campaign donations in 2024 www.nytimes.com/2026/03/09/u...

TPUSA is teaming up with Google and NextEra in both municipal and statewide races in Arizona, in part to control the future of a gigantic, publicly owned water and power utility, the Salt River Project. Note the coalition here. Masks are coming off at the utility and energy intersection.

I just took action with @theactionnetwork.bsky.social: Charlottesville's a Union Town: Collective Bargaining For All Town Hall. Take action here: actionnetwork.org/forms/blacks...

I think it’s helpful to keep in mind that the main purpose of public university boards in Virginia is political patronage, not quality leadership of higher education institutions.

“The absence of a case holding that warrantless, non-exigent, anonymous civil seizures…violate the 4A does not mean the Constitution permits them. It means the practice is new enough, and brazen enough, that no court has yet been required to state the obvious. This court is now required to say it.”

A new paper shows that less than 2 months of exposure to Twitter’s algorithmic feed significantly shifts people’s political views to the right. Moving from chronological feed to the algorithmic feed also increases engagement. This is one of the most concerning papers I’ve read in awhile.

The only thing more dangerous than a leaky pipeline is a safely operating one. thecurrentowdm.substack.com/p/its-the-cl...

“The U.S. is now fully embracing the large detention camp model for those who by and large—according to its own agency reports—have committed no crime, save for crossing the border without papers.” degenerateart.beehiiv.com/p/building-t...

What kind of people working for which arm of DHS would destroy water supplies in a desert? In 2011? The cruelty, violence and inhumanity of today is an escalation, but isn’t new. Abolish ICE, CBP and DHS.

DHS should be embarrassed that their ICE agent hires are so soft they can’t handle being videotaped, even while masked, so they resort to pepper spraying women at close range. And we should be proud of the Santa Barbara women who stood their ground anyway.

Ochoa and Raymundo have been with CBP since 2014 and 2018. More training and body cams won’t help. Dismantle CPB Abolish ICE Eliminate DHS

Bipartisan negotiators released a DHS funding bill that does not significantly reduce ICE and CBP’s funding nor rein in the agencies’ abuses of power. Make no mistake: Any Democrat who votes for this bill is complicit in Trump’s campaign of terror. Grow a spine and vote no.

Incapable of understanding how "abolish ICE" was silly but arresting 5 year olds is public policy

And the world's first production solid-state battery comes from Finland! “This is the moment internal combustion stops competing, and starts becoming irrelevant.”

New— An American citizen boarding flight from Boston to Lisbon just now told me after showing boarding pass, every passenger stopped on jetway by two ICE agents demanding to take their photo. When passenger asked why, ICE threatened to detain them. If they said no photo, couldn't board/TBD detained.

“The answer for humanists, as for the rest of the academy and the rest of civil society, is to organize.”

“Solar, wind power and batteries are set to make life a misery for the liquefied natural gas market.”

🤔

My only real hope is that Youngkin pisses off Spanberger enough by the 17th that she removes most or all of his appointments to university boards across the state, not just UVA. My assumption, tho, is that she won't, because of etiquette nonsense.

LNG exports from US up 22% over a year ago, when US was already largest exporter in the world. This is a significant cause of energy inflation costs in US. insideclimatenews.org/news/17122025/liquefied-natural-gas-exports-driving-up-energy-bills/?utm_source=InsideClimate+News&utm_campaign=8b44c2acfb

20. So this goes back to point 10. When we are a net exporter, decisions to produce more help producers and hurt consumers. And in this case, are ALSO bad for the climate. It's lose / lose all around.

10. In other words, in 2012 new production benefited domestic producers AND consumers. But today, new production only benefits producers. That's a fundamentally different policy and political environment. And note also that domestic consumption is basically flat for the last 20 yrs.

Environmental protections are under attack, but Appalachian Voices is standing strong. Please help us continue our work. 💚 Make your tax-deductible #donation today! https://appvoices.org/donate/

“People already have health issues down there, are already fighting cancers and lung diseases. They don’t need more,” Mello said.

Revealing that the closest strike isn't within 1,000 miles of the US border in Miami.