P1: We should stop doing the thing that's killing people and making us all sick and angry and torching the planet P2: What if instead we spend billions of dollars empowering the biggest assholes in the world so they can have a robot do it and kill marginally fewer people

The potential foie gras ban in Portland is such an interesting view into political argumentation. It's a perfect example of what I call Schrödinger's political issue: simultaneously too big to tackle and too insignificant to be worth discussing.

I know, vintage Gengar. I know.

BOOK REVIEW Perdido Street Station by China Miéville is a Dickensian phantasmagoria of the occult and scientific, featuring beetle-human hybrids, hypnotizing moths, mad scientists, and giant arachnids. The setting is part Victorian England and part steampunk Bladerunner.

Near my apartment I found a stack of discarded photocopies of photos taken in China. I estimate they're ~50yrs old. I'm fascinated by this glimpse into history. If anyone can tell me where and when they were taken or who the people are I would love to know. Please share! 🧵

I love that there's incontroverible proof Talarico is straight in this picture and it isn't the girlfriend.

When Sollman voted against Senate Bill 916, labor unions said they might oppose her reelection. Stollman says she refused to be intimidated, framing this as "payback" and "Trump tactics." Umm no, that's just representative democracy. You work for us. You ignored us. We voted you out.

"It’s not really enjoyable to make music now,” he said. “It takes a lot of time, it takes a lot of practice, you need to get really good at an instrument or really good at a piece of production software.” “I think the majority of people don’t enjoy the majority of the time they spend making music."

UPDATE: We are 5 donations away from 200. We need a 7th progressive on Council to solve the housing, climate, mental health, addiction,& affordability crises facing us. Donate $5 TODAY @ the link in my bio to help us unlock $50k in campaign matching funds thru Portland’s Small Donor Election Program

Seeing a surprising number of new homes in Portland with 3 bathrooms in ~800sqft. Who wants that floorplan? I mean maybe there's a lot of polycules with IBS in this town, but I can think of better ways to use that space.

Shot/chaser

Thank you to DSA Councilors for getting this passed over the very loud objections of the Portland Police Association. @councilorkanal.bsky.social @councilorgreen.bsky.social @councilormorillo.bsky.social @councilortkl.bsky.social

Verdades como puños

Watching Spurs v Thunder. During a timeout the stream showed the kiss cam and...that's the whitest crowd I've ever seen and I'm a Portland sports fan lol

Enforcing a rule that "this factory can't emit any more carbon" requires monitoring that particular factory. Enforcing rule that "this factory can't emit any more carbon unless they pay some other factory to emit less" requires monitoring every factory in the world.

Marxism and Modernism by Eugene Lunn was challenging but enjoyable. I didn't know much about art history or theory going in even though I have some basic aesthetic preferences🧵

What's the best online resource to compare modal share data across cities (or countries)?

"Prostitution is only a specific expression of the general prostitution of the labourer" -Karl Marx, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844

Every day of the Iran War costs enough for 10 of these.

Just heard a radio station do the typical call sign announcement with an additional "guaranteed human" tagline. As a certified AI hater I was stoked. Apparently the Butlerian Jihad will have an 80s soundtrack.

One thing I learned from this inspiring discussion is: We have to understand #fascistization as a process of both explication and escalation. It makes explicit the dehumanizing, racist, sexist and neocolonialist structures of exploitation and repression already at work in liberal democracies 1/

Walter Benjamin's term "profane illumination" would be a sick name for a metal band.

Chestnut-backed chickadees are nesting in a tree cavity in Laurelhurst Park.

Wind and solar generated MORE electricity than gas globally for the first time in April 2026 ☀️🌪️🚨 Together, they produced 22% of global electricity in April 2026 vs. 20% from gas, weakening the case for gas imports even amid the latest energy crisis ember-energy.org/lat...

The thing about the Oregonian headline clownishness is even if as a journalist you don't care about accuracy (initially the race was too close to call)...even if you fully embrace being a right-wing shill...It's STILL stupid to go with that first headline bc you risk looking like a fool.

I've spoken with two people close to me and realized all three of our employers are pushing us to use AI without knowing what the use cases actually are. And all three justified the push by saying "we don't want to fall behind our competitors."

#BREAKING U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros annoucnes that charges against the remaining members of the "Broadview Six" will be dismissed with prejudice.

The class and race divisions in the party were always going to push things toward disintegration. It's only FPTP voting that keeps it viable at all. I met an active and influential member of my local Democratic party a while back. Come to find out she owns 7 properties that she AirBNBs.

Tomb Groundhog

This is the way. D3 folks, we have a trifecta if we want it.

"Driving cross-functional alignment to realize synergies in process refinement, digitalization cost efficiency, and continuous improvement"

SunZia, one of the world's largest wind power and transmission projects (3.5 GW), has started feeding power into California's CAISO. New wind generation records are now being broken every other day. The US should build on this clean energy leadership instead of abandoning it!

Marx reading Hegel (c. 1873, colorised)

🎯"the US constitutional order is becoming less and less representative...We can have a party in power that doesn’t respond to public opinion and is just constantly caught up in its own propaganda and paranoia"

If you wanna follow election results for @demsocialists.bsky.social candidates this is the place: 2026.electoral.dsausa.org

Portland City Council is cleanly split between a “close fire stations, defund wildly popular voter initiatives, and glaze the cops with cash” bloc and a “keep fire stations open, uphold voter initiatives, and cut managerial bloat” bloc

I was curious so I dug a bit. There are more states that fit this archetype than I thought. This map uses data from 2019 but should still be fairly accurate. Illinois, Nevada, and New York jump out.

Does this not prefigure the internet? Memes, Wikipedia, etc. feel very Brechtian to me. Is there any English language literature exploring this? There must be but I haven't found it. Bluesky, help me out and send me literature on this subject!

Re-upping this because I'm interested in further reading on this topic and would like suggestions. I need some sort of art and technology theory bat signal.

This treehopper insect looks like it has a black metal logo on its head \m/

Between the governor of CO pardoning an election thief, the governor of VA vetoing collective bargaining rights for public employees, and the governor of OR trying to destroy Multnomah County's universal preschool program, Democratic governors are ON ONE right now.

Adorno fucking hated jazz lol

In 1932 Bertolt Brecht wrote about the radical potential of radio to democratize art and culture. Brecht loved the idea of involving the audience in his plays and embracing art as something constructed collectively. He said the radio should "organize its listeners as suppliers."

Between the governor of CO pardoning an election thief, the governor of VA vetoing collective bargaining rights for public employees, and the governor of OR trying to destroy Multnomah County's universal preschool program, Democratic governors are ON ONE right now.

TIL 60% of US raspberries are grown in Washington. And almost all of those are grown in Whatcom County.

You know I keep that thang* on me *a 250 year old muzzle loader