Wait, Mamdani's mom directed Monsoon Wedding??? WHAT?

Seven data-driven lessons from the 2025 elections www.gelliottmorris.com/p/seven-data...

The fact that the Trump admin removed ASL interpreters tells you everything you need to know about this regime’s stance on disability rights. They’re eugenicists. RFK Jr and Dr Oz constantly insinuate only the strong should survive. Trump suggested his own disabled nephew be left to die

I suppose it's a good thing for us humans that this fearsome-looking dragon-like thing is only about 6 mm long. It's the larva of a brown lacewing. If it makes it to adulthood, it'll be really pretty. Also, lacewings prey upon aphids and other pests. #inverts

This Physicist Says We Don't Take COVID Seriously Enough via @thetyee.ca thetyee.ca/Analysis/202...

New and improved pics for #Halloween. 1/2. A long-jawed orbweaver (Metellina sp., I believe), a whirligig mite (Anystis sp.), another prostig mite (family Rhagidiidae), and a Western earwig (Forficula dentata). #arachtober 🐡

I'm pretty much ready for #Halloween. L to R: whirligig mite (Anystis sp.), another prostig mite (family Rhagidiidae), and Western earwig (Forficula dentata). The pièce de résistance, a long-jawed orbweaver jack-o'-lantern (not shown), was completed this afternoon. #arachtober 🐡

Tiger fly (Coenosia sp.) taking off from my neighbour's fence yesterday. Vancouver, BC. #inverts 📸🪰

The replies are pretty amusing too. Not that it would have mattered much in the days before electronic submission, but I *think* the filenames of my own drafts didn't ever match the pattern *steamingpile*.wp*.

In my column today, I note that Trump's freakout over the anti-tariff Reagan ad let slip a basic fact: He's very worried the Supreme Court is going to declare his tariffs unconstitutional. It's in Canada's strategic interests to make that argument. #GiftLink www.thestar.com/opinion/cont...

Hilarious little video by Instagram reel creator spaghettysean about how to take good photos of an earthworm so someone can tell which of more than 6000 species it might be. #inaturalist #inverts 📷🪱 www.instagram.com/p/DQUSJjMDOmN/

The F-winged barklice (Graphopsocus cruciatus) were out in force yesterday. I saw at least three on my neighbour's fence. #inverts

"Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed. The ability to destroy a planet, or even a whole system, is insignificant next to the power of the Force." - Lord Vader "We’re going to win this war - not by fighting what we hate, but saving what we love!” Rose Tico

Not as spectacular as the swallows of Capistrano or anything, but the Ptenothrix (Ptenothrixen? 🙃) have returned to Marpole, Vancouver!😍 #inverts www.inaturalist.org/observations...

They can put a man on the moon, but they can't make a tent that doesn't leak, so the nation's only alternative is to build a ballroom that will seat nearly 4 times as many guests as Buckingham Palace's. Got it. #EastWing Oop, pardon me, can't turn your eyes for a sec! More than 5 times as many.

Stinkbug aficionados – or, er, detractors, for that matter – this is way cool! I wonder if other kinds of stinkbugs exhibit the same phenomenon.

Outstanding thread!👏

Said Ronald, in hope, most of all, That, answering liberty's call, Berlin be united, No longer benighted, "Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" Said Donald, "This joint is too small. There oughta be a beautiful hall. We'll hold our events Inside, not in tents. Make room for it. Tear down this wall!"

After authoritarian regimes are toppled, monuments to the authoritarians are *always* removed. If America's republic survives, the ballroom should be treated no differently. www.thebulwark.com/p/we-will-te...

Lately I've seen many references to the 3.5% rule. A few years ago I pulled together this Q&A on potential uses and misuses of this statistic. www.hks.harvard.edu/sites/defaul...

My signal is annabower.24 if any other United States Attorneys want to text me!

the year is 2030. the white house remains half demolished because president trump refused to pay construction workers and musk gutted government spending. two thieves sneak into the white house using a truck mounted ladder and steal the constitution

"Can wicked rulers be allied with you, those who contrive mischief by statute? They band together against the life of the righteous, and condemn the innocent to death." —Psalm 94:20-21 #NoKings

John Solomon didn’t stumble onto a secret — he recycled one. The Jan 6 committee’s phone-metadata subpoenas were public and reported years ago. This is how the right keeps the outrage machine humming: rename oversight as spying, erase timelines, and sell déjà vu. open.substack.com/pub/adamkinz...

Huh. Apparently I have a photo in the NYTimes today. (Licensed not to the Times, but to the museum exhibit it covers, which is allowed) www.nytimes.com/2025/10/15/a...

Still stand by that if KoC and Italian-American Catholics wanted to show someone who came from Italy to the US and showed true Catholic and American spirit, Mother Cabrini is the obvious candidate.

A Chicagoan formed in Peru And an Augustinian too … Let Altieri explain Roman matters arcane, Pope Leo, and what he's to do. #limericks #Catholic

The way this pastor denied that he "flipped the bird" to ICE agents (and the CNN anchor's lack of response to his too-cute-by-half denial) is just priceless. www.cnn.com/2025/10/09/u...

"[T]he fusion of faith and political power always comes at a price: faith becomes the servant of power and must bend to its criteria." - BVXI in 2007

Make America Great Again, Donny = AN AGING RACKETEER?! I AM A DYNAMO!! #anagram

Thinking that surely book indexing is something AI could do? Think again. @asindexing.bsky.social has released its statement on indexing using LLM-based AI tools - these tools simply don't do a good job of indexing. For a quality index, use a human indexer. buff.ly/X7Vuesc

Theresa's birthday today would be a fitting day to read the piece in my pinned post, a book review I wrote five years ago, partly in tribute to her.

Immergut deposed Monica Lewinsky for Ken Starr, was a US attorney under Bush, and was appointed to the bench by Trump during his first term. This is not some left-wing judge.

We don't often see anaphora like this repetition in judicial opinions. "But not all of them." (law firms) "But not all of them." (higher education) "But not all of them." (media outlets) Constructed through footnotes.

A pollinator garden, NIMBYism and social class, … interesting stuff here!

This is a wonderful tribute to Dr. Markland! terryreith.substack.com/p/rememberin...

You will be missed, Darren Markland.

A female variable duskyface fly (Melanostoma mellinum). Get a load of the green haltere! That's the little ball beside the hind leg, a vestige of ancestral hindwings. #inverts www.inaturalist.org/observations...

A Western calligrapher (Toxomerus occidentalis) checks out one of the heavy plastic bags that Vancouver residents use for paper recycling. #inverts #shadows www.inaturalist.org/observations...

White-faced meadowhawk, a dragonfly native to British Columbia, on a thimbleberry leaf at the Pitt-Addington Marsh Wildlife Management Area. A first for me. #inverts www.inaturalist.org/observations...

Yesterday's observation of a lace bug, any lace bug, is a life first for me. This thing, Stephanitis takeyai, is apparently a pest on andromedas, but it sure is pretty! #nature #inverts 📸🐛 www.inaturalist.org/observations...

At first I didn't understand what was going on, that the stink bug was already firmly trapped. The spider seemed to be jabbing ineffectually at the bug, as if only to harass it. But it makes more sense once you see the spider silk.🕷️#naturephotography #inverts www.inaturalist.org/observations...

When I first saw the screenshot, on another platform, I wondered whether it could be real, though regrettably it didn't seem out of character for the US vice president to behave this way. It's real, all right. He disregards the teaching of the Church he has very publicly belonged to for 6 years.

It gives me tremendous satisfaction that, though this exchange with a vaccine-skeptical critic of mine on Twitter 4 years ago got off to a quite unpromising start, he and I eventually reached a degree of mutual understanding. Engagement – judiciously carried out – is not only possible but necessary.

Though the photographer-naturalist usually takes shelter indoors, his foraging behaviour ranges across intentionally diverse habitats. Here he searches for invertebrates in the intertidal zone at Vesuvius Beach, Salt Spring Island, BC.

A false widow spider has immobilized a fall webworm caterpillar. #macrophotography #inverts #predation More pics of each at #iNaturalist: www.inaturalist.org/observations... www.inaturalist.org/observations...

It's a pity the province's revised policy mandates only the inferior "baggy blue" surgical masks, as illustrated in the original CBC story, rather than the respirator type shown here, but it's still an improvement over not requiring any source control at all.

1/2. Staring contest! A shield bug (Elasmostethus sp., I believe) in Taylor Creek Park, Toronto. #inverts #macrophotography #iNaturalist

With Tom Lehrer's passing, I suppose this is a moment to share the story of the prank he played on the National Security Agency, and how it went undiscovered for nearly 60 years.

In contrast to the many times I've seen spiders catch wasps in their webs (see quoted post), yesterday a yellowjacket suddenly seized a cross orbweaver. The spider resisted but was too small to fight back effectively. #naturephotography #inverts #iNaturalist 🕷️📸 www.inaturalist.org/observations...