everyone loved the tech industry's free music and friendship machines of 20-30 years ago. it's unclear what could be causing people to feel the opposite about the industry's new racism and insanity machine
This 53 year old man who lived in my neighborhood w/no criminal record & who had been in the US for 30 years, was detained and thrown into a cold cell for days, caught pneumonia and COVID there and deported.
He finally died.
I am so angry.
www.kptv.com/2026/02/21/n...
Waiting for a train and there are ads up everywhere saying “What if government worked like your favorite app?” And I can’t express how revolting that is to anyone who’s actually Online
Sometimes I believe that we will get through this for something better because we are yearning to take care of each other.
iF PeOpLe DiDnT nEeD to WoRk tO LivE tHeYd NEveR dO AnyTHinG pRoDucTIve
I was interviewed by my friend @shaneburley.bsky.social about Read This When Things Fall Apart: Letters to Activists in Crisis. "Refusing to give up in apocalyptic times is an act of love, and in some ways, it’s an act of faith — it’s about making a commitment to what’s sacred to us."
a dog blurred by the speed of his zoom. in the blur you can still see his manic grin
boy go ZOOM
need you to constantly remind yourself that the average normal person has no idea that any of the stuff we are rightly getting upset about is going on. they dont know. and we need to do everything we individually can to make them know.
This article is a genuine must read if you care about the future of the US, the economy and Social Security. Not exaggerating. www.propublica.org/article/reco...
This shit is so grim. These guys are grifting like they're stripping the copper wires out of a slowly collapsing building.
Can't even secure Twitter's servers -- but sure, give him control over Govt servers in social security, IRS, Justice, Medicaid and Medicare .. and let him 'update' the air traffic control system. I mean, c'mon folks. @wired.com doing the work, again. www.wired.com/story/x-ddos...
There have been people less than helpful in my journey here. I wanted to acknowledge those too, bc I know I am not unique in this experience. No thank you to the physics study assoc that made me sing songs about how women couldn't study physics without sleeping with the professor, the day I stepped into university life. No thank you to the 5th year physics student that decided to assign me a stripper name within the first minute of meeting me in the physics coffee corner in my first year. No thank you to the technician that was responsible for onboarding me on the use of the cluster in my third year who raised his eyebrows and asked me if that meant I was some sort of computer girl. No thank you to the senior researcher that sent me utterly inappropriate texts after a conference, then proceeded to apologise months later by telling me they had not been meant for me anyway so no hard feelings remain hopefully And no thank you to him for attending every conference I've been to since. No thank you to the people who told me that it was surprising that I was doing a PhD since I was a girl. No thank you to the man who mistook me for a coffee lady at a conference, and after having to correct him two times that I did not work there, responded with you should consider it. No thank you to the researcher that asked me what I was wearing underneath my outfit during a conference. No thank you to the physicist who declared to a room full of other physicists that biologists don't know how to design an experiment. No thank you to the people who have called me scary instead of strong and intimidating instead of intelligent. And finally, no thank you to the exec board of the TU Delft, whose knee-jerk reaction to being held up a mirror about the social safety at the university, was to sue the party holding up the mirror instead of looking at the problems they highlighted. ... You have made me feel like I do not belong in science & I cannot forgive you for that.
A friend included this anti-acknowledgement section on her PhD thesis. She also added the proposition: “Systematic bullying and undermining of girls and women in STEM starts early on and is the reason why they do not stay in science and related fields.”
Absurd we still need to go through this
🧪👩🔬
7-year-old: Can presidents get arrested?
Me: Maybe technically, for some things
7: Like destroying a whole bunch of people's houses?
Me: Not necessarily. The Supreme Court says the president can't be punished for anything he does as president
7: I don't think I like the Supreme Court very much
Turns out you can learn cool things when you have lots of data about lakes.
(three cheers for long-term monitoring!)
a chocolate lab mix staring into the distance, limned with the light of a setting sun and backed by a field of ice.
took the boy for a walk along the Lake Michigan shoreline yesterday evening. #dogsofbluesky
This morning at Dept of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) HQ in DC as mandatory return to office began, this video played on loop for ~5 mins on screens throughout the building, per agency source.
Building staff couldn’t figure out how to turn it off so sent people to every floor to unplug TVs.
WaPo/Ipsos poll: 57 percent of respondents say Trump has exceeded his authority since taking office. More than 8 in 10 say he should follow court rulings. That includes more than 9 in 10 Democrats along with roughly 8 in 10 Republicans and independents.
Header on white torn paper reads: Life Under Trump's Proposed $2.5 Trillion Medicaid Cuts: On a dark grey background in light grey writing: "Millions of Americans become uninsured. Older people and people with disabilities will lose benefits like home and community based services and vision and dental benefits. Hospitals are forced to close, reduce services, or struggle to provide quality care for families who rely on Medicaid." At bottom, Rep. Sara Jacobs logo in white.
Trump said he wouldn’t touch Medicaid. He lied. (Shocking, I know.)
Today, Trump fully endorsed House Republicans’ proposal to cut federal Medicaid funds by $2.5 trillion. Here’s what that could mean for you:
Over at EPA, new administrator Lee Zeldin is trying to "claw back" $20 billion that the agency has already dispersed. In other words, the government gave the money to private parties, and now it's going to steal the money back. It is straightforwardly illegal.
In the coming weeks, a lot of slow-on-the uptake folks are going to begin belatedly realizing Trump is both an inept moron and a dangerous autocrat. Our great civic challenge in these trying times will be calmly welcoming them aboard instead of primal-screaming in their faces.
Rebecca Solnit, again and always.
www.meditationsinanemergency.com/no-one-knows...
I realize i shouldn’t be so upset by this, considering all the cruel things happening, BUT my daily “I hate him so much” goes here.
www.nytimes.com/2025/02/14/u...
New: The Energy Department is seeking to bring back nuclear energy specialists after abruptly telling hundreds of workers that their jobs were eliminated, according to two people familiar with the matter
Jack Posobiec has boosted not one, not two, but *three* Russian intelligence-backed operations. One of them, a website called SouthFront that U.S. Treasury sanctioned in 2021 and said "receives taskings from the FSB," regularly published disinformation on the war in Ukraine.
if you need me I'll be shouting this from the nearest rooftop
NPS [Feb 12] -- Natl Park Service scrubs "TQ+" from Stonewall National LGBTQ+ Monument in Christopher Park & the accompanying text. Monument to a riot launched by trans women of color like Sylvia Rivera & Marsha P Johnson reads "LGB."
[@rikiwilchins.bsky.social]
[HT @jenniolsonsf.bsky.social]
NEW: The U.S. Forest Service plans to fire 3,400 people across all levels, roughly 10% of the agency.
The cuts come one day after the "deferred resignation" deadline as DOGE pushes to more aggressively shrink the federal workforce.
w/ Jordan Wolman
subscriber.politicopro.com/article/2025...
these guys are touching every stove with every hand at the same time cyberintel.substack.com/p/doge-expos...
New: We spoke to government IT employees/contractors about DOGE. Their warnings were dire. The people who maintain the systems that keep the country working are terrified. "This is the largest data breach and the largest IT security breach in our country’s history—at least that’s publicly known."
