Things I learned about recently...

He hasn't signed the other bills yet, but he still has days to do so This headline is misleading for not mentioning that. The gender education veto is bad, but far from the most important trans rights bill on his desk. There's still time to contact Newsom for the rest! www.gov.ca.gov/contact/

“If we view feminism as the struggle of gender-marginalized people for bodily autonomy, rather than just calling these things “women's issues,” then we make room for all trans people within feminism.”

...wow.

Wow...I didn't realize that almost the entire Indian rail network was electrified!

The government is in full shutdown and the Republicans are refusing to call the House back into session. Want to know why? Because we have secured the final vote on releasing the Epstein Files and they don’t want it out. Call GOP and tell them to swear in @adelitaforcongress.bsky.social.

The Trump Admin is using government websites and the emails of civil servants to promote blatantly partisan propaganda about the government shutdown. This is an intolerable abuse of power and a form of bureaucratic identity theft from federal workers.

So that's why Artemis is associated with deer?

Also from the story about the #KavanaughRaid in the middle of the night on the South Side of Chicago, where federal agents pulled sleeping people out of their apartments and handcuffed every single person living in this building for hours

Budget cuts come for us all. My contract with Amtrak is not being renewed and it's up tomorrow. I'll have more time to work on the Map Center but until it's fully off the ground, I'm a GIS analyst with 12 years of experience in ESRI, open source, education and cartography. #gigeconomy #opentowork

Today is the beginning of Leiden's two-day festival celebrating the 1574 breaking of the siege of the city during the 80 Years War. My housemates and I went to a big, outdoor feast of hutspot, the stew the townspeople found in an abandoned pot when the Spanish fled their camp. It was very tasty!

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.

We are now in the domain of not just illegal impoundments, but targeted illegal impoundments to punish liberal spaces. Not different from what Trump is doing to to universities.

It's too bad that the Hatch Act apparently doesn't apply to Republicans anymore.

The amazing thing about the hundreds of billions of dollars being spent on AI development is it doesn't even include all the externalized costs like higher electricity prices for hundreds of millions of people.

I somehow didn't know that @zacharyschrag.bsky.social, author of the classic _The Great Society Subway_ is apparently working on a new book about Metro: _Rail Against Sprawl: A History of the Dulles Corridor Project_. I am excited to read it when it's finished! zacharyschrag.com/urban-transp...

Really good stuff, as always from @benschneider.bsky.social. The fiscal cliffs are hard. The NY region has been one of the few to actually plug many of the holes. I'd add that a pivot to different types of trips in a remote work world is a good strategy. But it's a hard situation.

I know this is all anecdote; it's hard to measure vibes. But I'm consistently shocked how this anti-urban narrative has taken off in the past 5 or so years.

Can I put in a word for the Great Polish Map of Scotland? It's the largest relief map in the world, built by Polish ex airmen by way of thanks to the people of Scotland following WW2. It stands in the grounds of the Barony Castle Hotel, north of Peebles. It doesn't take long to see but is magical

Abortus = zorg! Op 28 september staan de Dolle Mina’s stil bij de Internationale Dag van de Veilige Abortus. In veel landen is abortus verboden, of wordt het vrouwen en mensen met een baarmoeder erg moeilijk gemaakt om een veilige en betaalbare abortus te doen. (1/6)

This @bretdevereaux.bsky.social post argues that farming _had_ to be men's work in peasant societies because it wasn't compatible with the breastfeeding and pregnancy that nearly all women spent their fertile years doing. But this leaves me with a big question: (1/5) acoup.blog/2025/09/26/c...

Well, this is definitely concerning...the Dutch media seems to be repeating the transphobic rhetoric that has been spreading through the US media.

Dutch justice minister repeatedly refuses to admit that there were neo-Nazis involved in Saturday’s riot- despite them carrying Nazi flags and doing Hitler salutes. This is where appeasing the far right takes you: defending the indefensible in the hope you’ll keep your job, which you’ll lose anyway

An interesting approach to mapping the Netherlands' rail network!

Hi-res: tubemapcentral.com/webshop/webs...

we have gone from a world in which we were told not to cite wikipedia because it was unreliable to a world where wikipedia might be the only reliable source left on the internet and we all owe a lot to the pedantic nerds who got us there

I think I've mentioned before that I've gone freelance and moved to The Netherlands! As part of this, I'm going to be starting a Patreon soon, and I thought I'd ask a couple questions of my followers:

Laat dit hét moment zijn om af te rekenen met het hardnekkige frame dat PVV-stemmers onschuldige ‘bezorgde burgers’ zouden zijn. We hebben het over rechtsextremistische relschoppers, maar wie denkt dat een stem op Wilders geweldloos is, moet het zijn doelwitten vragen. Racisme ís geweld.

Vivian Wilson talks about how accessing gender affirming care as a teen was lifesaving at the Teen Vogue Summit.

So glad I got rid of my Washington Post subscription a while ago...

As we head into Rosh Hashanah, a very important point of order from Canadian Senate Hansard (1984) :p

As a US citizen, I am embarrassed and horrified by this choice at a time when Russia is posing even more of a threat to European NATO members.

Oh, wow. I assumed Nancy Mace was just obsessed with hating trans people, but it seems she's all-in on being racist about Ilhan Omar, too...

Hi non-Dutch anti-fascist Bluesky, just letting you know that most of Dutch Bluesky are declaring themselves Antifa after our parliament had the brilliant idea to ask the government to mark Antifa as a terrorist organization. #Antifa

Today, I got my bill for my first month with a Nederlandse Spoorwegen rail pass: €143.56. I don't know if I'm surprised at how much or how little it is. Certainly, I've been traveling to Amsterdam a bunch, as well as shorter trips, but I also should walk instead of taking the bus to Leiden Centraal.

Huh! I didn't realize that Duterte actually ended up in The Hague and is being prosecuted. I assumed he got off scot-free.

Please help Mae out if you can, she's a treasure and this sucks

Why aren't @mdhealthdept.bsky.social and Delaware joining?

Happy to have written this with Reece and Narayan. There are more details to this but the point is that Spadina can be so much better with a little political will.

So what's striking to me is that this is basically the Orban/Modi playbook but also that it is hard to say that it is working. In approval terms, Modi is actually popular in India and until very recently in Hungary Fidesz had a hard lock on 55% of the electorate. MAGA has never polled so high.

Klinkt echt geweldig! Ik wou dat ik genoeg Nederlands kende om ze te begrijpen.

I know jumping to politically-advantageous conclusions is just what we do now, but its still striking how many right wing folks have immediately jumped to "violent leftist," as if there hasn't been a sustained, decadelong hate campaign against Charlie Kirk from those to his right.

This is terrifying. The far-right everywhere is targeting the transgender community as a wedge issue.

Dit is angstaanjagend. Extreemrechts beschouwt de transgendergemeenschap overal ter wereld als een splijtzwam.

This is not true. Blackstone owns 0.06% of the single family homes in America. There is no market where they own more than 1% of the homes. Nobody has a monopoly on housing. 2/3 of American households own their homes and rental housing is a VERY diversified and competitive industry.

while playing hockey in the scarborough bus lanes that efficiently moves 50,000 people per day, i wonder if this city councillor candidate noticed that there's also no midday traffic on the car lanes (which carry far less people) either on eglinton, kingston and morningside. bus lanes work.