FYI High Country News is letting current and former federal employees access their online content for free right now. www.hcn.org/about/govern...

This headline 🤣🤣🤣

Okay, switched to Average White Band (AKA Vulfpeck before Vulfpeck). From the valleys to the lakes, signs poked through as early as Summer—fireweed, trillium, berries shaded by snowfall. It would be brutal, but the process had begun.

Chipmunk is a go for launch in 10... 9... 8...

31 USC 1341 is clear. Each employee of the United States Government... furloughed as a result of a covered lapse in appropriations shall be paid for the period of the lapse in appropriations. "covered lapse in appropriations” means any lapse in appropriations that begins on or after Dec. 22, 2018.

Your moment of calm this morning, in totally unwartorn Portland. Cedar waxwings lit by the sun, preening on branches.

Judge: That's what I'll do. Prohibit federalization or deployment of any NG troops into Oregon. For all reasons in prior opinion. Deployment of federalized military is ultra vires and contrary to law, violating Title 10, section 12406. I also find it's likely that defendants violate 10th Amendment.

I choose to believe good and hope and compassion will ultimately prevail because that is the future that fuels the fire inside of me, but do not mistake that for a refusal to acknowledge the pain of the present. There is a deep seated grief too, and this thread expresses it very well.

NEW: Judge Immergut BLOCKS Trump's federalization of the Oregon National Guard, writing that the govt has "made a range of arguments that, if accepted, risk blurring the line between civil and military federal power—to the detriment of this nation." storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Finished this one today. It will go to Cline House gallery after it dries and is varnished. #botanicalart #bloomsky #invertibrate #painting #watersolubleencaustic

Acts of imagination and creative play do have a place in countering the rancid, psychotic imagination of this administration. It's just one way, but the juxtaposition is important because it helps us remember how utterly bankrupt it is in normal human values.

Apparently making sure health insurance premiums don’t double for 22 million people isn’t urgent work, but Trump’s $200 million vanity ballroom must continue. Glad they have their priorities straight.

Happy to share a new USFS General Technical Report on passive acoustic monitoring my collaborators and I put together. We discuss sampling design and introduce the Simple Passive Acoustic Monitoring (SPAM) protocol (R/python code/scripts included!)! link here: research.fs.usda.gov/treesearch/6...

Jane Goodall, ethologist and conservationist, has died. She was 91

i was invited to a gathering tonight and initially wasn’t gonna go because every extra thing feels like so much these days but i made myself go and i’m so glad i did because it turns out community is so fucking important right now

portland update: this just crossed the street in front of me holding a bright yellow sign that said WELCOME TO HELL

regular reminder that "he wants" ≠ "he will"

BREAKING: WE WON!!! 💥 💥 💥 Federal Judge William G. Young ruled today in our lawsuit against the Trump administration that the policy of arresting, detaining, & deporting noncitizen students & faculty members for their pro-Palestinian advocacy violates the 1st Amendment. Full ruling here:

Thinking of all my federal colleagues today, holding our government together by a thread while preparing for a potential shutdown from which they may or may not return. You all deserve so much better, and so do we.

I emailed the people who may be able to fix it so I'm trying not to crash out yet even knowing that they likely won't read it until Monday at the earliest but man.... good ol 2025 this might as well happen.

Aaaaaah I may have screwed up something really important shoot

Southern Rockies in the Fall

Taken just a few minutes ago outside the ICE facility in Portland that Trump claims is under siege. My message to Donald Trump is this: we don’t need you here. Stay the hell out of our city.

If someone from another country explained that their president could violate their constitution's plain text but that it was completely legitimate because lifetime judges who belong to political parties said he could on the "shadow docket," you would laugh at them because their country is primitive.

It seems the GRFP solicitation is FINALLY released (like 5 minutes ago)! Due dates have also been pushed back, thankfully! 🧪 🔭 www.nsf.gov/funding/oppo...

Maybe settle in a bit and sip some coffee before reading this @makenakelly.bsky.social & @telliotter.bsky.social joint. “Intermittent sleeping.” Muscle milk. Celsius. Blacked out trash bag windows. What more could you need? www.wired.com/story/armed-...

Reading this piece on the wildland firefighter pulled off an active fire line in Washington by #ICE & his release by the feds with dropped charges after a month in detention ought to infuriate every American. Our tax dollars are paying for this BS. Just an outrage. www.oregonlive.com/crime/2025/0...

"Does the Office of Management and Budget legitimately not understand the appropriations process or are they just deliberately lying?", the newly trenchant political question of our time

The federal government has censored the work of dozens of scientists, including work by my lab, on the impacts of climate change on Acadia National Park. Signs have been removed from Cadillac and Great Meadow. They’re also removing signs about the Wabanaki’s sacred connections to Cadillac.

Another work week at Mount St Helens almost in the books 📚 Hopefully will have more to share about these projects in the near future, but I've got a looooot of data to process first.

i am seriously begging democrats to bring the same smoke to this story that they brought to jimmy kimmel being indefinitely suspended

Thinkin bout fall in the San Juan’s rn

The nuthatches have some things to say about this Tuesday morning.

I am prepared for the raptor I have my camera and binoculars at the ready

Welp.

I wanted to get a video of this ghost crab but every time I got close to their hole they scuttled back in, so I tried getting clever with it. I made a little sandcastle and shoved my phone into it, hit record, and walked away. Crab was VERY suspicious of this addition to their environment.

So many things, but mostly studying how wildlife and plant communities respond to various levels of disturbance or different forest management practices across the Pacific Northwest.

Mount St. Helens was not getting attention for 5 minutes so she had to go dig up 45 year old dirt on everyone

"In the current environment of fear and uncertainty at NASA, it will be more challenging than ever to elicit dissenting views, making it more difficult than ever to prevent the next human spaceflight tragedy."

The Trump administration has reportedly ordered the removal of signs and exhibits related to slavery at multiple national parks, including the historic photograph “The Scourged Back” www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...

Speaking of "oh wow" moments, there was also finding these color slides from the late 1930s and early 1940s housed in the University of Minnesota's online collection. Botany professor Don Lawrence studied Mount St. Helens's vegetation and geological features extensively before 1980.

Last summer while doing surveys in Glacier NP we found PLASTIC HAIRBRUSH BRISTLES in a pika haypile in a remote part of the park. Why?? How?? We don’t know. So of course we speculated about it in a short natural history note. Link: doi.org/10.1898/NWN2... RG: www.researchgate.net/publication/...

Work has me feeling a little crabby 🦀

the borbs of summer happiness

beauties from the depths

The Dept. of Education has pulled funding for programs in 8 states that support students with both hearing and vision loss. A staffer at one program says he was told the Trump admin. took issue with 2 words on the grant application: “transition" and “privilege": www.propublica.org/article/trum...

I very much enjoy underwater photography, especially in our crystal clear artesian springs in North Florida. It's like swimming in an aquarium. #photography #landscapephotography #EastCoastKin #underwaterphotography #snorkeling #springs #ikelite

took a small break from thesis writing this past week and stumbled upon some neat fish finds on the tributaries of the Tallapoosa River 🐠😁 #pirateperch #speckledmadtom #gulfdarter #longearsunfish