This is just rank Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism, based on the bigoted idea that there is something inherently scary about a president with the last name "El-Sayed." It is incumbent on all of us to call it out.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 9h ago

JD Vance: "We don't want the next administration, whoever -- god forbid you're gonna have President El-Sayed in three years ... "

This plane landed in Myanmar about three hours ago. This is the third ICE flight to Myanmar this year. Burmese deportees in 2025 were immediately sent to a torture facility next to the airport, according to Myanmar Now. Weeks later, not all of them had emerged.

Gillian Brockell@gillianbrockell.com · yesterday

This likely ICE flight operated by Journey Aviation has taken off and appears to heading for an Asia removal. In May, this aircraft deported people to Myanmar.

As wildfires rage on across Canada, misinformation rages on social media — and AI and American politics are making it worse. @michellecyca.com explains why: thenarwhal.ca/wildfire-mis...

With AI slop, wildfire misinformation is mutating online | The Narwhal

How conspiracy theories, misinformation and AI-generated images anchored by social media engagement are playing out during Canada’s 2026 wildfires

thenarwhal.ca

Valuable thread from Bruce

Bruce Wilson@brucewilson.bsky.social · 11h ago

We can could cook up various metaphors to describe what AI is doing to society. Try this on: what holds human societies & governments together are our shared beliefs on reality, as determined by the scientific method, our shared "facts", & our belief that such knowledge is even *possible*...

What if the Right's lurid claims were true? Malignant, deceptive forces are infiltrating every community, killing little old ladies and robbing children of their futures? And yet mainstream media mostly ignores the real cause? This is true--but it's fossil fuels.

No US politician is speaking with this kind of central focus and clarity about the greatest violence not only of our time but of all human time. I don't follow UK politics closely enough to have strong feelings about their increasingly powerful Green Party--but I know we need this focus here.

JuneSim63 💚@junesim63.bsky.social · 11h ago

Absolutely worth an hour of your time. Polanski showing real leadership here. Particularly impressed with the range of other speakers, including Carl Benfield and Chris Packham. #ClimateEmergency #BoldPolitics #GreenParty #UKPolitics youtube.com/live/bsTXZ2V...

Note of gratitude to Gillian Brockell for staying on the beat and keeping visible systems behind heartwrenching videos. That purple line is a plane likely full of families being broken, people who'll be lost to others & themselves, even young ICE employees who'll bring their violence home to others.

Gillian Brockell@gillianbrockell.com · 22h ago

Third long-range private jet ICE flight in one day. This one is headed for Africa, possible third-country nationals onboard.

Don't look now, but the world has now installed 3TW of solar. Took 10 years to get from 100GW to 1TW. Less than 3 years to get to 2TW. Less than 2 years to get to 3TW. Analysts expect *9TW* by 2036.

The World Crossed a Major Solar Milestone. No One Noticed

The next phase of the boom may reveal a shift in who is gaining access to the technology.

bloomberg.com

I feel like I sometimes have to explain that in 1994 you could have a movie where the main character is so consumed by inner pain that he does himself up like a goth mime, climbs to the top of a warehouse, plays a sick guitar solo at sunset, and smashes the guitar with zero irony

Iranian-Canadian camera store in Montreal. Memorial to a few of the tens of thousands killed by the Iranian gov’t in protests earlier this year.

Kansas voters once against came out to support abortion rights on Tuesday night. www.politico.com/live-updates...

Kansas just affirmed that abortion politics still matter

Voters rejected a measure that was yet another ploy to restrict the right to abortion in the state.

politico.com

Quite an upset in the #KSGov Dem primary. State Sen. Cindy Holscher, who came out against data centers and the Kansas City Chiefs stadium deal, has defeated state Sen. Ethan Corson, who had a big financial edge and an endorsement from term-limited Gov. Laura Kelly.

I try not qt Rupar, as much as I value what he does, because I know so many others will so mine isn't needed, but... this is full on Man in a High Tower stuff. We have gone through the portal and we live in the world in which hitler won.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · yesterday

Sen. Jim Banks refers to American citizens as "the babies of invaders" and compares them to Nazi spies and terrorists

There's a screening of the 1994 Crow tonight. I've never seen it. Can I take my almost-13-yr-old, who's fine with R movies and seen some relatively heavy ones? He's seen Walking Dead, Inglorious Basterds, Sirat, a weird long 1970s Polish movie w/ too much space nudity... I'm a terrible parent.

"The lawsuit alleges that Texas A&M canceled an LGBTQ literature course that Reddy and Sadler were scheduled to teach this fall and required Sadler to remove the Academy Award-winning film 'Moonlight' and a poem titled 'Trans-Generation' from another course."

Texas A&M sued over teaching limits on race, gender

This is the second Texas university system sued over teaching restrictions in recent weeks.

texastribune.org

The Spokane fire conspiracy theories are almost identical to the Altadena fire conspiracy theories. These people have no understand of how fire works, how science works, or why some things burn. I'm writing a book chapter about it, but the people who need to read it don't read books.

LorennaCleary.bsky.social@lorennacleary.bsky.social · yesterday

The internet is filled with really dumb people who right now think the fires in Spokane WA were fake because the houses burned but trees didn’t. What they’re forgetting is that dead, thin, dry wood burns. Wet, dense, living wood is harder to burn. Old living pine and house vs fire: house loses.

Horns, plus cross as tbullet point besides “faith.” This straight-up fascist antisemitism. It’s been noted this won’t get 1/10 attention as non-antisemitic statements by Mamdani. That’s part Islamophobia, & part media market. Very few who aren’t from there or very online know what state this is.

Kyle Clark@kylec.bsky.social · yesterday

Depicting Jewish people with horns is a centuries-old, dehumanizing, antisemitic trope. Democratic Gov nominee Phil Weiser is outspoken about his mother’s birth in a Nazi concentration camp, his family members killed in the Holocaust, and the threat posed by antisemitism today.

I'd be singing the praises of What to Carry, What to Burn even if @blairbraverman.bsky.social wasn't a friend & fellow traveler. It's thrilling, moving, surprising--and of interest to me as a writer, a study in adaptation, knitting sources together into a new tale. podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/w...

What to Carry, What to Burn

True Crime Podcast · Edge-of-your-seat survival stories, as told by adventurer and dogsledder Blair Braverman. How did Ada Blackjack endure a brutal Arctic winter alone? Why did one shipwreck crew wor...

podcasts.apple.com

Wind and solar have just overtaken fossil-fuel power in Germany www.carbonbrief.org/...

Exclusive: We obtained a leaked playbook that Flock gives to cops to coach them on "how to speak to city council" to avoid getting their contracts canceled. Includes strategies like "own the narrative" by talking to mayor "before public comment periods" www.404media.co/own-the-narr...

‘Own the Narrative’: Leaked Flock Guide Shows How It Teaches Cops to Promote Its Tech

"This document shows a coordinated effort from Flock Safety to compel law enforcement agencies to convince our elected leaders to represent their interests as a company rather than the interests of co...

404media.co

That David Ellison op-ed is so astonishingly tone deaf--"straight down the middle," the "range" of his interests represented by GI Joe, Top Gun, and Terminator: Dark Fate... I think his chatbot ghost writer really let him down.

COMMENTARY: Crickets: Four fatal shootings by the Memphis Safe Task Force and almost no national news coverage. At the root lie Tennessee politicians who approve of the task force, writes Editor @jhollymc.bsky.social.

Crickets: Four fatal shootings by Memphis Task Force and little coverage from national news • Tennessee Lookout

Four men have been shot and killed in Memphis by agents with the Memphis Safe Task Force. Does anyone outside the city care?

tennesseelookout.com

I love this movie & think it’s riveting. My first year teaching @ Dartmouth I showed it in a creative nonfiction class to think about dialogue & conversation as action. I sat in front. At the end, I turned around and found only one student remaining, fast asleep.

Michael Warburton@michaelwarburton.bsky.social · 2d ago

This Film often has the piss taken out of it for being a rather sedentary piece about 2 people just talking a lot — BUT — it has one of the most brilliantly prescient monologues in the history of Movies imho. MY DINNER WITH ANDRE (1981) Have a listen.

As the US experiences unprecedented heatwaves this summer, the government is undoing OSHA protections meant to help workers cope with these impacts www.nytimes.com/2026/08/01/c...

Trump Administration Is Undoing Plans to Boost Workplace Heat Protections (Gift Article)

The Biden administration took steps to shield workers from extreme temperatures. The Trump administration is taking a gentler approach with employers.

nytimes.com

Heartening news from "the heartland" where a gathering of 1000-2000 people opposed to hate in affluent Fishers, Indiana drove a planned "Rally for Mass Deportation" (endorsed by the Lt Governor and attended by Bovino) into a secret location elsewhere in the state www.ipm.org/news/2026-08...

Public march counters pro-deportation event in central Indiana

About 1,000 Hoosiers supportive of immigrants marched through Fishers on Saturday — a counter protest to a pro-deportation event planned for the city with remarks from two statewide elected officials.

ipm.org

Great reporting here from @alexhannaford.com on a complex, tragic, & dangerous story. heated.world/p/the-influe...

The influencer teaching millions to fear solar

Alexandra Fasulo says she’s protecting farms and wildlife. How much of her rhetoric is actually true?

heated.world

There are 7 PR people for every journalist in the US. www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

I thought I'd write a little essay about all my interactions with police, good, bad, and ugly, but it turns out not to be so little. I was born in 1972 and a few days of work later I'm up to 1989 and a lot of words. How to speak of such things without demographics and employment & deeper history?

Left: "Memorial" plaque for men incarcerated at Eastern State Penitentiary who fought & died in war "remembered" only by inmate number; right: detail from "Pyrrhic Defeat" by Mark Loughney, who during his own incarceration drew portraits of any inmate who asked.

My wife and I cried tears of relief after we got our first COVID shots. It was a scientific miracle and I’ll never forgive the people who’ve done everything they could to undermine it.