*whispers* not sure if we're ready for this convo yet but I really notice how much better it smells in cities like Florence and Helsinki that have low-emissions zones, once the switch to e-vehicles (plus foot/bike/transit infrastructure 🤞🏻) is complete I bet we'll think this about streets too

It’s the 250th year of American independence, and the Pope and the King of England are reminding Americans of their revolutionary values, principles, and ideals Somewhere, John Adams is confused as fuck

I am glad you enjoy your fuzzy ball, cat, but sooner or later you won't have it anymore.

"and then....when she went back to the food bowl........IT WAS EMPTY!" 😱

Easy to dismiss such reality-inverting BS, but it's the president's strategy for the world's two most systemically impactful wars (Ukraine and Iran): Say the side he wants to lose has been totally defeated, hope that manifests it into being, or at least gets the BS into public narratives for a bit.

this post gives me piece of mind

I have sat through HOURS of this Hegseth hearing.

This is not the point of course, but Justice Alito taking time out of his majority opinion gutting the Voting Rights Act to en passant talk about the state having a compelling interest in preventing race riots in prisons is really quite something.

It's so disheartening watching this court carry out the explicit project of white supremacy so blatantly while gaslighting the public to say it's trying to stop discrimination. They're dismantling every major legacy of the civil rights movement. We need to reform this court.

SCOTUS today: a map only violates VRA §2 if there is a strong inference of *intentional* racial discrimination SCOTUS two days ago: summarily reverses dist. court finding that Texas had intentionally racially discriminated www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25p... www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25p...

Just a reminder that in Shelby County, Roberts told us not to worry about the loss of VRA preclearance, because we’d still have VRA sec. 2 suits. That was, of course, disingenuous nonsense even at the time. Now, with Brnovich and Calllais, it’s all the more so.

Justice Kagan: "I dissent. The Voting Rights Act is—or, now more accurately, was—'one of the most consequential, efficacious, and amply justified exercises of federal legislative power in our Nation's history.'

Imagine having laws being put in place to say you're a human.. that you should have equal, civil and voting rights. Now imagine watching those laws getting snatched away.

"This Court should never have interpreted § 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to effectively give racial groups an entitlement to roughly proportional representation" is a real sentence written by Justice Clarence Thomas in his VRA concurrence today, and brb I am going to scream.

NEW: The Supreme Court just gutted the Voting Rights Act, enabling the GOP to erase countless districts drawn to protect voters of color at the congressional, state, & local levels. We detailed each Dem VRA congressional seat that the GOP could target by 2028: www.the-downballot.com/p/with-the-v...

Keep teaching. Keep learning. Keep speaking. Keep reading. Keep seeking. Keep mentoring. Keep writing. Keep trying. Keep fighting. Change nothing.

Why worry whether a case has merit when you can screw your enemies just with an indictment?

While leading immigration raids in Chicago, Gregory Bovino picked regular fights on social media with protesters, Democratic public officials and the media. Since retiring last month, however, Bovino has found a new target: the Trump administration. www.chicagotribune.com/2026/04/29/g...

Megatron, hunter of minnows, destroyer of food pellets, absolute drama queen, is 144 grams today. 42 days until she is released back to her native waters in the Chesapeake Bay.

looks like it's time to shut up about losing range in the winter

Do you need a good laugh? THIS IS THE POST FOR YOU. @angryblacklady.blacksky.app STRUGGLE RIBS with MUSIC.

Imagine identifying a terror cell and it's just James Comey and Jimmy Kimmel.

This is awesome. radiologybusiness.com/topics/medic...

Current* conditions near Kewaunee, WI:

Locomotive fans: The Eastern leg of the historic, 1.2 million-pound Big Boy No. 4014 locomotive’s nationwide tour has been announced, and it includes stops in Illinois.

A note I found yesterday while walking in Portland.

I have a few small Oil Paintings on my shop ko-fi.com/s/ab150327f8 #originalart #oilpaint #original

April marks Community College Month in Illinois. We know that education isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach — it’s why we have the third-largest CC system in the nation. Under my administration, we’ve made it easier than ever to apply and more affordable to attend.

I think it's cool that the DOJ now froths like a pro se litigant. It's cool and good and I like it.

You really cannot overestimate the level of status trauma a lot of white Americans experienced at the election of Barack Obama and how much of our politics is still influenced by it bsky.app/profile/beau...

"The requirements of justice can be met without recourse to capital punishment." Wisdom from Pope Leo as Illinois recognizes 15 years since we abolished the death penalty — a moral voice in a divided moment that we could all learn from.

Years ago, my cat got outside & ran 30’ up a tree. The fire department wouldn’t come out for anything over 23’. I stayed outside all night begging, pleading, singing, & bribing. Finally I started to climb up the tree, and that’s when he decided to come down all on his own, not a care in the world.

For the first time ever at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, a critically endangered Socorro dove has hatched 🕊️

WOW! Ridiculous and entirely unexpected mammatus display just after sunset here in SE OK thanks to a severe thunderstorm literally over 100 miles away. I sadly didn't have my actual camera on me. #okwx

1960 Alfa Romeo Giulietta Spider Veloce 5-Speed

Monday.

The fetishization of stupidity www.miamiherald.com/news/local/e...

wishing a happy "please don't let 'skeets' stick" day to those who celebrate

I'm trying to ride every bus route in Chicago

Not the point, but you can really see the “Chicago Guy” in this picture

What this comes down to is that LLMs are text generation machines. That they appear capable of doing unintuitively powerful things is a product of human ingenuity; smart people have engineered applications in which text generation acts as a substrate for a kind of computation.

This is my favorite time of year out here. The forest is just the perfect shade of green.

‪After their meeting, Pope Leo and the Archbishop of Canterbury prayed together in the Chapel of Urban VIII.‬

Pope Leo in audience with the Archbishop of Canterbury: “As my beloved predecessor, Pope Francis, said to the Primates of the Anglican Communion in 2024, ‘it would be a scandal if, due to our divisions, we did not fulfil our common vocation to make Christ known.’

40 years ago today (1986), John R. MacDougall (using the pseudonym Captain Midnight) jammed the HBO satellite signal on Galaxy 1 during a showing of the film The Falcon and the Snowman. #80s #80shistory #80sTV

not currently in my home (in storage) but I own one of the last surviving artifacts of the USSR’s Glavkosmos from the brief period of perestroika where it looked like it might be viable to use their rockets as a launch vehicle for Western satellites. It’s a 9-foot-tall model of the Energia Buran.

Without sufficient moisture from rainfall or irrigation, wheat shoots struggle to fill out and produce grain

Wisdom.

News affects an employer of people in STL... Bayer, and the former Monsanto.