A long read about water pollution, data centers, agriculture, and insider trading in Eastern Oregon.

I thought the earlier news from A&M was bad, but this is incredibly bleak. It’s close to the point of not having a functional university.

Almost makes me want to preemptively bug my neofascist administration about my biology lessons on biological sex and global patterns of lactase persistence. Race and gender all over the place!

Pick a random part of your teaching bookshelf and consider the books you keep and have yet to read (but you bought them for some reason).

Comments are now enabled on my piece.

I am older than gender markers on passports! How do you regulate gender? By making it a form of government ID. It has nothing to do with state security, only regulation

Ask your friends and you will discover that many people presenting as female have been groped by a stranger, usually starting in teenage years.

"I DON'T NEED YOU TO FUCKING REWRITE WHAT I'VE JUST WRITTEN!"

Once again, @mcsweeneys.net does not miss. ------------------------------------------------ "In 2004, you saw some college guy using me and thought, 'What a lazy cheater.' Now you’d think, 'At least he’s not asking Gemini.' In a few years, you’ll say, 'Wow, look, a human being who can read.'"

This is true—Bessent owns $25 million of farmland in North Dakota—and a reminder of why farm bailouts are nothing more than a giveaway to feudal lords who demand the government grossly distort agricultural economics to make their tax haven "farms" even more valuable to them.

As U.S. wheat farmers face painful losses in the global market due to President Trump's policies, one domestic flour mill on a reservation in Oregon is expanding its production twelvefold. n.pr/4oaI5Wk

As someone who is acutely aware of the very real barriers to pursuing a STEM career, I’m so happy to see these amazing and consistently brave leaders compose this important piece

Inside the Hermitage, the winter palace where Tsar Nicholas II and his family lived before they were executed—in a country where Russians were starving.

The revolution will be inflatable..

I’m a scholar of social movement studies who has studied protests and conflict for over two decades and I agree with Dr. Corrigan’s points. Read her entire thread.

I lost the reimbursement link for today’s rally and would really like to get my money for the dinosaur inflatable I wore. Can anyone share the link please?

Giant copy of the Constitution being carried down Pennsylvania Avenue.

I think this moment of people feeling nervous about something and doing it anyway could prove quite liberating and profound

🐸

I told my intro bio students this week that I much prefer labs where I don’t know the answer. Then I can be a researcher along side them. (But we do have some labs . . .)

one response to this (correct) observation is to say “well, the cops will attack you no matter how you dress and behave.” that’s right. images of cops and ICE beating grandmas and kids in inflatable frog costumes is a win for the opposition.

If you're going to the No Kings protest in your area on Saturday, you need to know your rights. www.aclu.org/know-your-ri...

this is an incredibly ominous beginning to a future with a largely carved out federal emergency response system

We use concept maps a couple of times a quarter in our biology classes. I am excited to share this information and talk about it more with my colleagues.

This Is Fascism

Sadly, with the cuts to Dept of Ed grants, there will be no money to pay for tech “solutions” to unfunded mandates. <insert ironic eye roll here>

it’s shocking how much this boils down to “people shouldn’t be allowed to disagree with me, and especially not allowed to agree with the people who were better-liked than me in college”

🐸🐸🐸 🐸🐸🐸🐸 🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸 🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸 🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸 🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸 🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸 🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸 🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸 FROGS TOGETHER STRONG Find a frog gathering near you www.NoKings.org | October 18

a key thing about vought — and all of these guys — is that they have a totally top down and hierarchical vision of the world. they believe that the cultural changes they hate can be turned off by destroying the federal government because they can’t imagine that they emerged bottom-up in society

The deportation order is based on Vedam’s conviction for murder—a crime he did not actually commit and for which he’s now been wholly exonerated. He entered the US at 9 months old and was a legal permanent resident before his conviction. We are so, so, so far from the light of justice.

I invested in a “proto-bird” inflatable (dinosaur for non-biologists) for this coming Saturday. Spirit Halloween pop-ups FTW!

kidnapping

an incontestable fact of the second trump administration is it is actively trying to sicken and kill as many americans as it can

"President Trump continued to describe Portland as a city on fire Friday even as residents enjoyed the first fall rain and the lone demonstrator at the city’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement building was dressed as a pink Care Bear." Sometimes there is a good sentence or two in the NYT.

Well now I'm definitely going to a protest that day.

Trump announces 1500% tariffs on Lutefisk

"When authoritarians seize power, it is crucial to recognize courageous defenders of freedom who rise and resist."

Dr. Jane Goodall filmed an interview with Netflix in March 2025 that she understood would only be released after her death.

There really are no whistleblower protections in place any more. This administration does not recognize any boundaries.

If you have reason to contact a federal worker, know that their out of office reply was out of their control.

I was sent this by a Georgian this morning. 2025 premiums vs 2026 premiums for someone making $65k a year. Republicans in Washington did this. This is what I'm fighting to stop. This is what’s at stake in this shutdown fight.

Shutdown rules aren’t neutral. They favor agencies aligned with GOP priorities, while those aligned with Democratic priorities bear the brunt of furloughs. Furlough Rates: EPA: 89% Dept. of Education: 86% Dept. of Labor: ~75% DHS / ICE / CBP: ~0% Bad incentives → biased outcomes.

Sonja is the best. All of her writing is so insightful. If you haven't seen "Machine Yearning," check it out. ⬇️ And, there's more of her writing on AI here: sonjadrimmer.com/public-writing

I would be fired under this higher ed system.

Dam been writing a book about this and she just TikToked it in 90 seconds.

I stand with PBS. I stand with NPR. I stand with Stephen Colbert. I stand with Jimmy Kimmel. I stand with the First Amendment. PERIOD.* *Also #ReleaseTheEPSTEIN_Files

This looks like a great resource to unpack with students.

""Hate speech does not exist legally in America. There's ugly speech. There's gross speech. There's evil speech. And ALL of it is protected by the First Amendment." -- Charlie Kirk, 2024

I wrote about Them. www.pbump.net/o/what-they-...