A thing about AI in higher ed right now is that half of us are scrambling to deal with the implosion of our information environment that broke reading/writing/source verification, while the other half is trying to achieve a massive institutional buy-in of the very thing that's causing the implosion

The truly maddening thing is that, unlike when I was a young man in science and the materials and engineering just weren’t there yet, the future is *right there.* The problem is *solved*. What’s holding us back is not just greed, but this bizarre nostalgia, an obsession with petro- masculinity.

‘Study after study shows that students want to develop these critical thinking skills, are not lazy, and large numbers of them would be in favor of banning ChatGPT and similar tools in universities’, says @olivia.science www.ru.nl/en/research/...

We’re taking the fight against Enbridge’s Line 5 Nationwide on Nov. 18th! You won’t want to miss the opportunity to hear from the folks behind the scenes and on the ground pushing for removal and discontinuation of Enbridge’s Line 5. RSVP: secure.lglforms.com/form_engine/s/-AJYKA8dStwN7kyLRWAaYQ

Congratulations to Delegate-Elect Lily Franklin on a well-deserved victory in HD 41! @lilyfordelegate.bsky.social

Congrats to Chuck Schumer on demonstrating pretty conclusively that his support and endorsement are completely irrelevant.

Looks like the Dems will pick up 12 seats in the VA House of Delegates, which will go from 51-49 to 63-37 D-R. That's an honestly shocking result.

study after study after study shows that literally just handing people money and telling them "do what you want with this" reduces homelessness, increases food security for children, makes it more likely people will find and retain jobs.1

Teen Vogue possesses more integrity and professionalism than NYT and WaPo combined.

Okay, so, here's the sort of query that used to work great at that other place, like, ten years ago: best trade nonfiction books of the past five or so years about climate/environment/energy, etc. For example Vaillant's Fire Weather, Egan's The Devil's Element. Thanks!

Matt Royer’s take on Deciding to Win—what it gets right and how it’s way off base—is an important read. @bytheballot.bsky.social open.substack.com/pub/bythebal...

Out trick or treating and I was confused by why my toddler has been saying happy birthday instead of trick or treat. Turns out he thinks today is the birthday party for monsters. I am now adopting this cosmology as canonical.

“Here we go again,” is what Crystal Mello, an organizer for @powhr.org, says she said to herself when she learned that #MVP was planning a new compressor station in Elliston, VA. https://appvoices.org/2025/10/29/seasoned-mvp-fighters-prepare-for-another-battle/

If you’d like to compare the extortionate demand letters the Trump admin has sent to various universities, you can do that here: sites.google.com/view/univers...

Unions’ “clawing shared governance back can help ensure that universities aren’t converted into profit centers for private equity firms. It seems plausible, even likely, that faculty unions will have some success building power off of the growing resentment of ubiquitous AI and its slop products.”

In social movement studies, we talk about how marches and protests expand the threshold of acceptable risk so that people take more and bigger social risks IN PUBLIC, EN MASSE. This is extremely important for the bourgeois white folks holding signs and building social rapport.

Virginia ranks #4 in the U.S. for total student loan debt — with Virginians holding nearly $45 billion in federal student loans against an average of $40,000+ per borrower. 📚 virginiamercury.com/2025/10/09/v...

"And it’s worked exactly how the politicians and business lobbies wanted it to. It’s driven down wages, busted unions and kept Virginia at the bottom when it comes to worker protections."

is it not weird that every day there’s a new video of anonymous masked men having the time of their lives beating/shooting/disappearing people and the dem response from the top down is “republicans want to double your health insurance premiums”

Was just at a neighborhood school at dismissal. Hundreds of people with whistles surrounding the school and stationed down every block making sure ICE doesn’t snatch anyone. The same is happening at all the schools around here. I love my neighborhood and I love Chicago.

We have truly not yet figured out how to cope with a person or institution that is "aware" of climate change, "accepts the science", but then decides to continue actively worsening it anyway We don't even have a word or a phrase for this! theconversation.com/mark-carneys...

If you are employed & doing pretty fine right now, set aside some money from each paycheck to dedicate to mutual aid asks. Even just $20. Shit is really bad, the social safety net is being shredded, & truly TRULY all we have is each other right now.

Northern Virginia is ground zero for data center buildout.

Look up Friends of Coal and "coal culture" for one of the clearest examples of this.

Huge Palestinian solidarity protest in Italy with a National Strike & 2m taking part. That’s 3.4% of the population.

“Disasters pull back the curtain on inequity,” Labowitz said. “It’s a vicious combination of things that make it so much harder for people without a lot of money to get what they need from FEMA.”

Just witnessed Chicagoans following this undercover ICE vehicle (Black pick-up truck) heading south on Ashland honking their horns incessantly and alerting everyone that ICE was coming.

My latest:”Through gossamer tributes, Kirk’s cruel condemnation of transgender people & his racist throwback views abt Black Americans were no longer anathema but instead are being treated as just another political view to be respectfully debated —like a position on tax rates or health care policy.”

Possibly the most useless man alive.

Feel free to continue arguing over the shooter's motives, but please understand that *it doesn't matter*. There's a organized political movement that plans to suppress, arrest, or kill its political opposition. It it seeking pretexts. Anything will do. If it's not this, it'll be something else.

hell yeah: "A Georgia judge on Tuesday said he will toss the racketeering charges against all 61 defendants accused of a yearslong conspiracy to halt the construction of a police and firefighter training facility that critics pejoratively call “Cop City.”" apnews.com/article/atla...

That's Chris van "I actually flew to CECOT and demanded the release of my constituent when it wasn't clear if I'd ever be coming back from El Salvador myself you fucking chump" Hollen to you, Hakeem. Maybe just stick to your book tours if you don't have anything to contribute.

Grok is being sent to the reeducation camp

In plain terms: - The Guardian originally included paraphrased comments from someone who said they knew the suspect in high school. They claimed, citing an unnamed high school friend, that suspect Tyler Robinson was the lone “leftist” in a family of “very hard” Republicans.

This is what democracy looks like! A people united will never be defeated. We want federal forces out of DC NOW! #WeAreAllDC #FreeDC

Imagine choosing to model scenarios that implicitly assume a) terraforming-scale carbon capture and permanent sequestration is technically, politically and economically feasible, while e.g. b) shifting from car-dependent sprawl to denser cities with good public and active transit is impossible.

Big Oil is fueling the global plastics waste crisis — and relies on the fraud of plastic recycling to keep doing business as usual. “I don’t think anyone was quite aware of the level of fraud the industry was perpetrating on the public,” explained CCI's Richard Wiles. Check out the full story: 👇

BREAKING: Gov. JB Pritzker says the Trump administration has sent the Texas National Guard to Great Lakes Naval Base outside Chicago, awaiting orders to deploy to Chicago. Trump administration officials will target Mexican Independence Day (Sept. 16) celebrations. @wttw.bsky.social

Ok, Bluesky #MutualAid family. A crew of 10 Holler2Holler volunteers are heading down to Welch, WV on Sunday to muck out a building. We need 10 shovels at roughly $25 each if you want to kick in for that! Venmo @ Holler2Holler

if you are ever tempted to write off the residents of a "red" (i.e., gerrymandered) state and say "set them adrift, let them secede, they deserve what they voted for", you are missing all the thousands of stories like this where the human beings in those states are pushing back every single day

Please amplify: A Holler 2 Holler volunteer who supports dozens of our neighbors has a citizenship hearing on Sep 3. Legal representation will cost $2500. Please contribute to keep this single mom out of detention and in our community. Venmo @Holler2Holler with the message “No neighbors in cages.”

Thank you, friends, for showing up for this Community not Cages fundraiser!

The fossil fuel system is “dirty, toxic to human health and the environment – and our politics – as well as the main driver of climate chaos. And wasteful.”

Someone primary Mark Warner challenge

Again, fuck the fossil fuel industry all the way to the sun. substack.com/@earthlyeduc...

Nowhere in this story does it actually describe "community planning." It does say, “(Data centers) are going to need to go somewhere!" (Exclamation point mine.) insideclimatenews.org/news/0308202...

this week I wrote about how Enbridge flagrantly violated the terms of its agreement with the state for 50 years. nbd.

"Through their work, researchers found that the state has no long-term flood recovery plan, which has caused West Virginia’s flooding response to be inefficient."

Really trying not to lose my shit over here, Nick.