business idea: sandwich truck that caters to protests

The key thing to watch here: they fired a Wired political reporter. That’s the title doing the most effective, pointed work. Teen Vogue’s stuff was culturally impactful, but less focused on investigating the administration. Within the Condé portfolio, Wired and the New Yorker are the canaries.

I was going to do gardening today and not photography, but the shovel exposed this little incipient Pheidole lamia ant colony and I had to get a shot.

Did Ross Douthat ruin the NY Times? A conversation with all of Ross Douthat’s ex girlfriends.

“Mommy! Mommy! Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!” — Leia Kahl, as she was overwhelmed by immigration agents’ tear gas. Leia’s age: 2. Via @natashakorecki.bsky.social www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...

This tiny hemerobiid lacewing, Sympherobius occidentalis, arrived to the porch light last night. With magnification, we can see its hypnotic wing venation.

This is chilling. "Ya’akub isn’t being accused of breaking immigration law — his DACA protection doesn’t expire until May 2026. In fact, Ya’akub’s lawyers say he hasn’t been accused of any crime. Rather, the Trump administration is alleging he’s 'glorifying terrorism' via social media posts."

The good news is, with free tuition students will now be getting exactly what they pay for.

I don’t know how many times I’ve watched this video. I don’t know how we’ve gotten to the point where men in full balaclavas can abduct daycare teachers while they’re watching children. But I do know that this isn’t sustainable. Abolish ICE. There is no way to reform this.

And now for something completely different: #EntSoc25 Entomologists! Please contribute to the iNaturalist collection of pubic lice! It's mostly from the EU at the moment. www.inaturalist.org/taxa/395978-...

Watching billionaires burn their own money warms my heart.

There will soon be a town in rural Argentina called "Nueva Icelandia" that's full of ICE agents who fled prosecution, living under new names and doing temp ag work to survive.

How do ICE agents go to restaurants, knowing all the shit people will put in their food? Do they have a special squad of scrawny little undercover dweebs who pretend to be normies put in the orders?

That UPS crash looks horrific. Planes full of fuel for a long flight have immense destructive potential.

Disturbing news out of Auburn University, where the admin is pressuring professors to sign a statement saying they're complying with an "anti-DEI" law and TPUSA is holding a rally and trying to record classes. I hear faculty are terrified to sign, worried this is a pretense for mass firings.

The different colors of the cells indicate pollen from different species of plants, packed away to be used as food for hungry honey bee larvae.

This is horrifying.

like this post to find out what type of slug moth you are

If you live in Travis County (TX), you can vote anywhere you see a sign today saying“vote here/aqui." You can find polling locations, wait times at those locations, a sample ballot, and more here: votetravis.gov/current-elec...

So many people were detained extrajudicially, were tortured, or died because of Dick Cheney. You can't get to the danger we're in now without everything he did. The weapons he helped forge are ones we need to take away from U.S. presidents forever.

The response by @utaustinaaup.bsky.social to UT Austin's new "Academic Integrity" statement is good. "The statement contributes to a climate of fear that is not conducive to high quality education."

Dick Cheney lived long enough to witness the horrors he had unleashed.

Every high school friend I buried was buried because of Dick Cheney.

It is a, let's say, interesting fact that "academic integrity" is discussed here primarily not as a question of, say, honesty or disclosure of conflicts but as one of "respect for differences" and "balanced treatment of disputed issues"

They fired every Black woman at Teen Vogue and every trans staffer. It is astonishing watching the American media ecosystem just falling like dominoes, bowing its knees to fascism.

if there was a rich person with the will, you could build the most incredible news organization that has ever existed just from the wreckage of this year alone.

A colony of aphids tended by a Camponotus noveboracensis carpenter ant. South Bristol, New York.

UT Austin students are amazing.

For any unfamiliar with the quality of journalism at Teen Vogue, it's well known for hard-hitting stories on "politically sensitive" topics including climate. Then there's CBS: the only major network to increase climate coverage in the last few years. They just axed nearly their whole climate team.

It me.

If this post gets 500 likes I’ll put a tokay gecko in my pants

This is why Bari Weiss spends $10,000 dollars a day on security. There are ton of sandwich shops within range of the CBS building. She could be walloped with a turkey club at any moment. Terrifying.

I'm not necessarily pessimistic about the climate future. The world is mostly moving in the right right direction. Other powerful countries, with wiser governments, are leading. I'm pessimistic about the United State's role, as it cedes power and will likely fall apart anyway.

And the United States government is working to accelerate climate change. The global damage of letting a criminal government run roughshod over the planet will be immense, governments must stand together to contain the United States.

This is quite a story: the US employed every strongarm tactic available, including personal threats against delegates and their families, to derail an agreement on reducing shipping emissions that was almost finalized. on.ft.com/47lq3dZ

I wasn't that excited about this stock standard photo of a darkling beetle (Eleodes goryi), until I noticed the parasitic tachinid fly egg attached above the insect's midleg. This beetle is on borrowed time.

Trump planning to take control over the drug trade and its profits?

A small huntress ant, Neoponera crenata, foraging along a rotting log in the Peruvian Amazon.

BBC News - Rare wolf spider rediscovered on Isle of Wight after 40 years - BBC News www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

I wrote about the growing body of research showing how hurricanes continue to kill for a long time after they hit — and why it will be even worse in Jamaica.

If you thought masked, unidentified federal agents grabbing people off the street were a frightening step toward dystopia, wait until it's private contractors chasing cash bonuses for rounding up human beings at scale

Another thing I'm doing- or rather, not doing- is passing along job announcements here at UT Austin. If UT wants to use my personal platform and personal social media accounts, it can contract me to do so. Otherwise, it feels super gross to try to convince people to come to a dying institution.

UT Austin is a disgrace.

Cool rotifer feeding with it's cilia beating 🐙🧪

I think where it started going downhill was when we allowed dudes under the age of 35 write a hit song called “Reelin’ in the Years”. No consequences.

A better shot of the Beelzebub bee-eater fly, Mallophora leschenaulti.

Classic authoritarian move to weaponize famine

Used to be that effective career advice was “work hard and acquire marketable skills”, and now it’s “donate to the Republican Party” so they’ll elevate you over all the suckers who worked hard and have skills.

It’s Halloween and the monarch butterflies are coming through the neighborhood

Last minute addition to this year’s Spider zoo: Mallophora leschenaulti, found by a neighbor just now.