Via Anna Barrett: The Alabama Senate Tuesday approved a bill that would prohibit the state from having stricter environmental regulations than the federal government. Democrats said the bill would leave the state vulnerable as the Trump administration weakens protections. https://ow.ly/ZYob50Y8xSZ

happy #sturgeonsaturday yall 🧪👩🏻‍🔬 🌎 Did ya know that during winter sturgeon do a thing i call cuddle puddle? they find a deep hole to overwinter in & hang out cuddle puddling until spring! we are working to identify & protect these areas now support the sturgies, get a sticker: tinyurl.com/2fjnxy7w

My column from Monday. Alabama politicians give voters little but paranoia and niche right-wing issues, which may be why just 37% of voters turned up for the last midterm in 2022. Those politicians who truly want to make a government for Alabama have to restore Alabamians’ faith in the process.

Some of our friends fighting the hyperscale data center in Bessemer were in the NYT: www.nytimes.com/2026/01/25/u...

"Nach Auschwitz ein Gedicht zu schreiben, ist barbarisch"

BWorks is one of the best things about St. Louis!

Honestly, it is an insult if you send me LLM output. Also an insult if you send your AI zoom listener to a zoom meeting in your stead. Microsoft and Google are forcing this stuff on me too much as it is, I don't need human beings joining in on it.

Depending on the procedurally generated output of probability machines seems like the very definition of arbitrary and capricious.

I remember one of the most mind-blowing things I read about during law school was the Insular Cases. SCOTUS just took on whole cloth a bunch of racist arguments from HLR articles and invented a new form of territory.

🧵 Trump administration AI policy is widely described as deregulatory. This description is misleading. What's happening is not the absence of governance but its rearrangement--intensive state intervention operating through mechanisms we don't typically call regulation. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

New analysis out today from Rhodium Group showing data centres were one of the major drivers of the first rise in total economy-wide emissions in the US in years Uncontrolled growth of demand has helped boost coal growth, in conjunction with the LNG export boom -> rhg.com/research/us-...

Y'all can read the official statement in the article, but just know that my first reaction isn't fit to print. Unbelievable levels of arrogance for a city council to give residents the run-around for a year, then come right back and subject them to it again. 🤬

Feels like I should be offended that someone who works at a tailoring company added me on linkedin immediately after I appeared on a public broadcast in a suit jacket.

This is an almost comically on-the-nose example of why "cost-benefit analysis" ain't all it's cracked up to be, and is, in many cases, just politics dressed up as objectivity.

Northern flicker Watercolour, gel pen, sharpie

Cleo King said he prays about every vote he takes as a city councilor in Bessemer, Alabama. Here's what he said about his vote against a massive data center. New from @insideclimatenews.org. Full story: insideclimatenews.org/news/1811202...

Via Lee Hedgepeth, Dennis Pillion & Inside Climate News: With the Bessemer City Council scheduled to vote Tuesday on a “hyperscale” data center, challenges from an environmental group and the Alabama Department of Transportation present potential obstacles for the project. https://ow.ly/YQAk50XrPy6

via @biologicaldiversity.org, "Petition Seeks Endangered Species Protection for Imperiled Alabama Fish" biologicaldiversity.org/w/news/press...

Saw some cool canids today in Chattanooga -- endangered Red Wolves

Russ does not *have* to do any of this. Because he is in fact not *authorized* to do any of this.

The most important thing I learned in law school was to scrub your own metadata, and look for others' metadata on documents.

Feel like this should come with a warning label, specifically for @jamesgoodwin.bsky.social www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a...

Saw something a while back that was a good line, and felt compelled to add to it slightly You can cave and feel regret, or fight and feel good about yourself, even if you lose. Plus, every second spent making folks do it the hard way is time they're not screwing someone else over.

Did you know the House is poised to pass a bill putting our drinking water and wildlife at risk of even more pesticides and toxic discharges? 🚨 Tell your representative to vote NO on the PERMIT Act! 🚨

I've worked 2nd shift, had some friends who worked night-shift. Blew my mind that WHO considers long-term night-shift work a contributing risk factor for cancer. Requiring that of workers who produce one of the most basic inputs for human civilization seems like an incredibly dire warning.

At the House Natural Resources hearing, the Foundation of American Innovation's Thomas Hochman let it slip: constraining NEPA is about powering AI datacenters to fuel Silicon Valley's latest bubble. Hochman was a speaker at last week's abundance conference, and FAI was a co-host

I'm confused, there's NOTHING about permitting reform in here...

Given the prevalence of Real Estate and Construction company owners in local politics, these efforts are *all* about short-term grift for the already-privileged. Tucson *just* defeated (like, last week) such an effort. The self-satisfied smarminess of the "pro" politicians in interviews is awful

Should have gone with "wanna know how I got these cars?"

The power stuff with AI gets really crazy if you connect the dots to other resource consumption issues (brief thread)

Real quote from a former Open AI C-suite guy I spoke to: "We don't owe them [the communities where hyperscale data centers are being sited] anything except a fair wage during construction...we actually need to be using MORE electricity, not less, if we want to solve these big problems."

"together with AI we..." Lemme stop you right there bud, you and I ain't doing shit together if you're doing anything with AI.

@devintoshea.bsky.social think this might be from VP Fair 83. This photo is dated Dec. '83, but doesn't seem to be from winter based on the tree in the background.

Tonight's cooking music: m.youtube.com/watch?v=52eU...

Okay, I bet right on #WOTUS last time, so I'll lay my chips down here -- they'll be rescinding the endangerment finding

Via @leehedgepeth.bsky.social, @lanierisom.bsky.social and @insideclimatenews.org: How. Ould a proposed hyperscale data center affect Bessemer?

U14 State soccer tournament finals, pouring down rain and the field is a muddy mess. I have the ball on the right wing roughly 24 yards out. Sending in a cross, but know I'll have to get something extra on it, so I take my time to square up and thwack it. Overhit it, sneaks under the crossbar, goal.

I consider myself pretty well-versed in environmental disasters, but I literally had never heard of Coldwater Creek or Westlake Landfill before moving to Missouri. Glad RECA was expanded (hate the bill it was attached to) and glad national outlets are talking about this.

I guess it should have been obvious where we were headed when a supervisor once told me "no, we're facing NW" because that's the direction the google maps icon indicated, when the map showed we must be facing west if we were facing the end of a street, which we were.

You've inherited a movie theatre, what's your first double feature? The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (Jeder für sich und Gott gegen alle) (1974) and Barry Lyndon (1975)

Why do these eggs come with a zine?

Great boat name: "Change of Heart II"

“The lack of clarity around how much water this project will use is the product of one thing: the secrecy of this developer, and whatever big tech company is actually behind this,” Miller said...

This is good advice about any science news that you read.

"How long can the world go on under such a subtle God? How long can the world go on with no new word from God?" open.spotify.com/track/6EJ24u...

Tulane University questioned whether Kimberly Terrell’s research on racial disparities was relevant to the law clinic’s mission—despite it being cited in legal arguments for the clinic’s clients.

“It’s long past time for Alabama to align its water quality standards with current science and protect communities from these harmful toxic pollutants.” ~ @charlesmiller.bsky.social , @alabamarivers.bsky.social