Baggage
@carrieonbaggage.bsky.social
Science, politics, environment, community 🐸 Kindness and smarts are our best hopes Assoc. Prof. Micro+Ento+Ag Eco systems PhD Virology 🇬🇧🇦🇺🇺🇸🇪🇺 (it's complicated) Proud Union Member Always celebrating Global Pride 🏳️⚧️🏳️🌈
So much this! "investing in field staff, new offices, volunteer programs, and outreach to Latino, Black, and Alaska Native voters"
Christopher Webb@cwebbonline.com · 3w agoSenate Dems just announced a $40 million ground game investment across 10 battleground states. I’m pleasantly surprised. Instead of blowing it on expensive TV ads, they’re investing in field staff, new offices, volunteer programs, and outreach to Latino, Black, and Alaska Native voters. 1/2
More than 700 MW of rooftop solar was added to Australia’s main grid in the past three months, helping drive wholesale electricity prices in the country’s National Electricity Market to their lowest June quarter average since 2020. www.pv-magazine.com/2026/07/28/r...
Australia adds over 700 MW of rooftop solar in April-June - pv magazine Global
More than 700 MW of rooftop solar was added to Australia’s main grid in the past three months, helping drive wholesale electricity prices in the country's National Electricity Market to their lowest J...
pv-magazine.com
Australia: Home battery rebates still adding 2,000 systems a day as total hurtles towards half a million installations reneweconomy.com.au/home-battery...
Home battery rebates still adding 2,000 systems a day as total hurtles towards half a million installations
The Cheaper Home Batteries scheme is on track to notch up half a million installations in August, according to the latest tally, as the hugely successful federal government rebate continues to defy all expectations.
reneweconomy.com.au
Even a broken clock ... Bret Stephens: "anyone who cares about Israel’s well-being shouldn’t be silent about anti-Palestinian settler terrorism in the West Bank"
Opinion | Jewish Terrorism Is Also a Threat to Zionism (Gift Article)
A blunt warning for Israel.
nytimes.com
Prices drop as renewables surge, and "Gas found itself pushed out of the market by a swathe of new big batteries" What's not to love?
Dr Paul Dorfman @drpauldorfman.bsky.social · 3w agoWholesale electricity prices through Australia’s main grid plunged by 50% in the June quarter amid surge in renewable energy output to new seasonal highs, a slump in coal output and the lowest amount of gas generation for 23 years. reneweconomy.com.au/wholesale-el...
Why so many American Jews are turning away from Israel – video
Why so many American Jews are turning away from Israel – video
For generations, support for Israel was central to Jewish-American identity. But today, amid accusations that Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza, a growing generational and political divide is re...
theguardian.com
The OECD has confirmed again that corporate profits cause inflation in 202 and also the most recent rise at the end of last year (all of which the RBA decided needed interest rate rises to hurt workers) My column for @thepointau.bsky.social thepoint.com.au/opinions/270...
Workers have paid the price for inflation driven by corporate profits, OECD report confirms
The OECD’s annual employment outlook confirms that not only did profits drive Australia’s inflation in 2022, but that growing profits are also behind the most recent increases in prices that led to th...
thepoint.com.au
My latest piece was originally written for Democracy Docket members. They decided to share this one with everyone because of the stakes for this election. www.democracydocket.com/opinion/the-...
The GOP has a plan to undermine free and fair elections. We must stop them
The GOP is not acting like a party trying to persuade voters to support its candidates — because it isn’t.
democracydocket.com
🚨BREAKING: The Department of Justice (DOJ) asked the Supreme Court to allow President Donald Trump’s sweeping attack on mail voting to go into effect before the upcoming midterms. www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/...
Trump DOJ asks Supreme Court to greenlight anti-mail voting order before midterms
Read more here.
democracydocket.com
Marc was one of the most dedicated civil servants I’ve ever met, a man who wanted to make sure the government got the facts rights, and the public could understand what was going on. To see him driven out gives you a sense of how Orwellian this administration has become. Truth is their enemy.
Scott Horton@robertscotthorton.bsky.social · 3w agoMarc Rosenblum, head for statistics at DHS, resigns, saying he is delighted to no longer be involved in supporting the agency's war against facts and the truth. www.wired.com/story/dhs-of...
Is clean power cheap enough to compete? The argument leaves out the environmental and social cost of fossil fuels that never end up on a bill. These are real and large costs. They are just charged to somebody else. More in new Bright Spots edition: open.substack.com/pub/janrosen...
The bill we never see
The hidden costs of electricity, and the good news about counting them
open.substack.com
This was so damn funny, I had to go show it to my wife. ☠️☠️☠️
No. 10 North is right round the corner from St Peter's Field. I hope it's haunted by the spirits of Peterloo.
Andy Burnham spends first working day at new No 10 North in Manchester – UK politics live
PM, on his first day at new base, says it will create ‘that sense of a more balanced country, that big things can be done from here’
theguardian.com
"It was a simple, clear offer to voters that had a direct, positive impact on their lives, one they would remember long after bigger, grander strategies had been lost to oblivion. It worked because politics is, in part, a retail business."
Scoff at cheaper bus fares and No 10 North if you like, but Andy Burnham knows what he’s doing | Jonathan Freedland
Retail politics while taking power out of London: if this works, Burnham’s premiership could be seriously transformational, says Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland
theguardian.com
Too little, too late It's time for a global ban on paraquat
Herbicide banned in 70 countries to be pulled from sale in Australia by chemical maker
Syngenta says it will stop selling paraquat in Australia after new regulations on chemical linked to Parkinson’s disease
theguardian.com
We are being reminded that a fundamental issue of our day isn’t the size of the government or how to make government more “efficient.” It’s who our government actually works for. Should it work mainly for big corporations and billionaires? Or should it work for the rest of us?
This is another step towards a one-party state: only give government grants to your political friends www.nytimes.com/2026/07/24/b...
Trump Administration Admits Canceling Grants to States That Did Not Vote for Him (Gift Article)
Federal officials said in court documents that they halted billions of dollars in funding for energy projects to states “based solely” on whether they backed President Trump in the 2024 election.
nytimes.com
Beyond lithium: how sodium-ion batteries could change the world. Batteries based on sodium ions are entering mass production. Batteries based on sodium promise to be cheaper, safer and much more environmentally friendly than lithium-ion cells. www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Beyond lithium: how sodium-ion batteries could change the world
Batteries based on sodium ions are entering mass production. Some researchers say they could ultimately be a cheaper, safer alternative to lithium in electric cars and other energy applications.
nature.com
Pornainen, Finland (pop 5,000) is now heated by a silo of crushed soapstone. I spoke to CNBC about it. 100 MWh, charged when power is cheap, emissions down ~70%. Days to weeks of storage, no critical minerals. www.cnbc.com/2026/07/25/f...
Finland’s radical answer to renewable energy’s biggest headache: The world’s largest sand battery
A small Finnish town has turned to the world's largest commercial sand battery to tackle a major hurdle in the energy transition: intermittency.
cnbc.com
Anti-clockwise haggis are almost extinct in the wild due to the dominance of the LL (long left) gene over rr (reasonable right), and tendency of heterozygotes to fall off the mountain.
James McLeod@jamespmcleod.ca · 4w agoIt's safe to assume that all major LLMs are scraping Bluesky data to train future models. As an open protocol, Bluesky is one of the few sources of fresh human-generated content that anybody can gobble up. So all this is probably going in the models. There are submarines in the Great Lakes.
SNAP penalizes states for paying the wrong amount. But they don't penalize states for wrongly denying an eligible family. Once you understand this, it's easier to see why the program has shrunk faster than expected. https://newsletter.platypuseconomics.com/p/one-big-beautiful-bill-one-big-
It’s clear from the piece that the author just disagrees with higher taxes on the wealthy and a more generous social safety net. As usual, the electoral argument is a lie. If these people really cared about electing Dems they would be emphasizing how moderate and mainstream the DSA politicians are