Ah, yes, August. That month of the year when I carry around the jumbo icepack, swaddled in a towel like a very cold teddy bear.

tyranny

Kathleen Bachynski@bachynski.bsky.social · yesterday

"Get away from me right now," King, a retired U.S. Army captain who served in Iraq and earned both a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star, can be heard telling the three male guard members in the video as they approach her on the bench. "You have absolutely no authority to detain me."

Get their asses

The Associated Press@apnews.com · yesterday

Four professors and a national faculty group asked a federal judge Monday to block the Texas A&M University System's restrictions on teaching about race, gender and sexuality and to reinstate courses canceled under the policy.

And out of the pulps, rose Ray Bradbury. I love and respect the golden age sci-fi authors but Bradbury was something beyond them, always centered on the human, not the tech.

"The events of Ray Bradbury’s short story “There Will Come Soft Rains” occur today: August 4, 2026. Like so many dates in science fiction, this one probably seemed far away when it was chosen, but once it was finally upon us, it passed like all days." www.rogerebert.com/mzs/silhouet...

Silhouettes and Warnings: On Reading Ray Bradbury's "There Will Come Soft Rains" On the Exact Day When It's Set

The events of Ray Bradbury's short story "There Will Come Soft Rains" occur today: August 4, 2026.

rogerebert.com

WOW A spectacular Squirrel of the Day for August 3, 2026 #sqrlpix

Same photo

Bluesky oldheads will remember that brief period of time when the conservative trolls tried to storm the place and were flummoxed by the idea they would have to organically grow an audience and that someone who didn't want to talk to them could nuke every interaction they ever had from orbit

final_final_noforreal_finalcopy_master_tobesubmitted.doc

FinalDraftFINALNoReallyForReal3a.doc

Dragon eye sculpt in blender - now animated with shape keys. It is also bioluminescent. ⭐ #Art #3DArt #Blender #FantasyArt #Dragons #Smaugust

"Martin" is thinning apples at a non-union work site in Parker WA. Due to wildfire smoke, there is a 175 "unhealthy" AQI. He is earning WA minimum wage. #WeFeedYou

Stop for a sec. It may seem all too much right now. I get it. We all do. You’re not alone. If you’re having a hard time. If you need someone or something to help you through. Please, reach out. To me, a friend, family, anyone.

Calling my #astrophotography chums in the Americas: will you be staying up late tonight with your telescopes trained on the Einstein Crater? Impact: 02:34 EDT; 4 tonnes of Space-X metal (15m x 4m diameter) travelling 5400mph Expected: 50km high plume containing ~1Mkg of debris 😲🔭

Astronomer Royal for Scotland | Catherine Heymans@astroroyalscot.bsky.social · 5d ago

"Will I be able to see the crash?" Probably not, but that doesn't mean friends in the Americas shouldn't try (daylight for those in Europe): look to the eastern limb of the Einstein crater. The @eso.org VLT will observe it & NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is taking before and after images! 🔭🧪🛰️

Beautiful requiem to the passing of my beloved creation, COSMOS magazine, by the indomitable @jacksonwryan.com in The Monthly. It's been 20 years since its founding, but it too has surrendered to gravity. Ironically, COSMOS is outlived in the depths of space. www.themonthly.com.au/july-2025/na...

Into the void

The end of Cosmos after 20 years is a blow to Australian science journalism, at a time when we desperately need its insights to counter misinformation

themonthly.com.au

Involuntary mental health detention in BC: a new study. journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...

Imagine banning a book about trees because it threatened your heteronormative worldview of sexuality. Critical thinking on display... I'm with the banned. www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/... #BannedBooks

In Virginia, Censors Attempt to Axe 'Wishtree'

The Floyd County (Va.) Public Schools have suspended a One Division, One Book community reading of Katherine Applegate’s Wishtree following complaints that the novel depicts a monoecious red oak, a tr...

publishersweekly.com

The sex of trees—so many ways to be a flowering tree! fieldreport.caes.uga.edu/news/are-you...

Are your trees boys or girls — or both? | CAES Field Report

When planting trees, not appreciating different tree genders can lead to many unwanted problems.

fieldreport.caes.uga.edu

I told you we’d be back

I like the shape of that. The main problem with tax payer money going into insurance is the possibility of it turning into the National Flood Insurance program which pays for people to rebuild in flood zones. But tax money to help manage the retreat is money well spent.

California’s elected officials are delusional in thinking they can force insurance companies to insure the uninsurable. You can pass any law you want, but if a house is worth $750k and climate models predict it will almost certainly burn within 20 years what rates would YOU charge them?

Mike Levin@mikelevin.org · 2mo ago

Californians, read this and get angry.  After many in our state lost everything in last year’s fires, insurance companies quietly buried “wildfire deductibles” in their policies. Not the standard deductible. A separate one,

Re-legalize Zak’s place

Zak Yudhishthu@zyudhishthu.bsky.social · yesterday

A fond goodbye to my Avondale apartment, which breaks every part of its RS-3 zoning and could never be built today ❌ 12 units (2 unit max) ❌ 40 ft tall (30 ft max) ❌ 260 sq ft lot area/unit (2,500 min) ❌ 0 ft rear setback (35 ft min) And way above the 0.9 floor-area ratio cap

How can we improve urban housing to support families? In a new post, I look at downtown Chicago. Despite building little family-friendly housing, it's been among the city's fastest-growing areas for families. That's owed to broadly building more housing. pencillingout.substack.com/p/chicagos-d...

Chicago's downtown family boom

And what it can tell us about building family-friendly cities

pencillingout.substack.com

Funnily enough, there are 3-4 other buildings practically identical to this one on the same block. The zoning in this part of the city is comically restrictive (and definitely makes it more likely to see a new pricey single family house getting built)

Grassy Narrows River Run Rally — they are not alone! SEPTEMBER 23RD 2026 RSVP actionnetwork.org/events/river...

River Run 2026

Join me in attending River Run Rally 2026 to support #GrassyNarrows on September 23rd, 2026 RSVP here: https://actionnetwork.org/events/river-run-2026 #FreeGrassy

actionnetwork.org

Yep. And in summer 2021, the least-vaccinated Western European countries were Greece and the three DACH countries. Corona denialism was not massively worse than elsewhere in Western Europe but was more middle-class than in France and harder to repress. France had riots, we had a nurse give placebos.

Germany is maybe the MAHAiest country on the face of the planet!

I encountered a lot of natural medicine stuff here in Alberta, Canada. It is rooted a bit in the fact that pharmacare is not part of our universal healthcare. You can see a doctor but you might not be able to afford medication. But it's not as bad here as in the US.

oh my god no it does not. Canada has maha type cranks. The UK does. Japan does, Germany does, Sweden does, India does, France does IT'S NOT ABOUT THE MATERIAL CONDITIONS OF THE SYSTEM, WHICH YES ARE BROKEN MAHA IS A EUGENICS MOVEMENT NOTHING TO DO WITH THE HEALTHCARE SYSTEM

Reading Wodehouse got me my job on Frasier. I wrote a Wodehousian novel, rabid Wodehouse fan David Lloyd read it (because a critic compared it to Wodehouse). David gave it to the Charles brothers who hired me for a pilot, which won me an offer from Frasier. None of it would've happened without PGW.