Not sure if everyone appreciates the difference. Rooftop solar hardwires into your main panel via a dedicated breaker, so it requires a permit, an installer, an electrician, and a utility agreement. Balcony solar just plugs into a wall outlet, sharing an existing circuit with no permits or rewiring.

A new deal on balcony solar just dropped in the US

Plug-in panels can lower your bills. To boost the American market for the tech, nonprofit Bright Saver is selling kits with no markup, starting at around…

canarymedia.com

Am I correct that university administrators are deeply conflict-averse types?

Gregg Gonsalves@gregggonsalves.bsky.social · 2d ago

So Trump and McMahon now are trying the velvet glove approach to get universities to submit. It’s just a watered down version of the compact they tried to impose last year. No self-respecting university should comply. 1/ www.nytimes.com/2026/08/03/u...

Was ist jetzt?

Maria Sattelschmied@mariasattelschmied.bsky.social · 2d ago

Die CDU ist eine LOL and Order Partei.

"Trump has demonstrated these past six months that warfare, long insulated from what passes in this country for democratic control, has so hollowed out mechanisms for popular accountability that warmakers no longer need to engage in procedural fictions," writes @attackerman.bsky.social

The Markets Matter For War—You Don't

Not only has Iran controlled the escalatory ladder, it's exposed another symptom of American decline

forever-wars.com

Worth a read, especially as African federations come up a lot in the conversation about Infantino's power base - as well, by extension, as about his future.

Stadiums, Statecraft and the Diaspora Surge in African Football - Interstice

By 2050, more than one in four people on Earth will be African. This demographic reality shapes forecasts by The Economist that by 2030, half of all new entrants into the global labour force will come...

steffndei.com

Really interesting reporting here on Rwanda efforts to use social media to sway public opinion. Having personally come under attack from pro-Kagame influencers, this rings true.

Michela Wrong@michelawrong.bsky.social · 4d ago

The Continent magazine has published an investigation I carried out alongside Kenyan journo James Okong'o exposing how Rwanda's government manipulates social media - secretly paying influencers - in support of the M23 occupation of DRC. Thank you @pulitzercenter.org for your support.

Fuck them yet again

Baltimore Banner@thebaltimorebanner.com · 4d ago

ICE releases Johns Hopkins researcher detained while boarding flight

#commsky

jon ben-menachem@jbenmenachem.com · 5d ago

Autopsies of Black Lives Matter and George Floyd protests often conclude that movements produced tough-on-crime backlash. My new study in Work and Occupations finds a different kind of movement outcome: BLM changed how local reporters cover cops and jails. 🧵 journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Ameaka Fatima Nkempu, a Johns Hopkins University researcher in public health, was detained by ICE while boarding a domestic flight. She says she is Cameroonian in a Medium article that she authored. As of Thursday morning, the ICE Online Detainee Locator did not list where she was being held.

Baltimore Banner@thebaltimorebanner.com · 6d ago

ICE detains Hopkins public health researcher as agency expands airport arrests

“Africans were complicit in slavery” is the other classic example.

Molly Crabapple@mollycrabapple.bsky.social · 6d ago

99% of the time, when someone accuses you of selective outrage, it’s a way of politically demobilizing you and shutting you up “Why are you angry about data centers instead of fast fashion” isn’t about making you care about fast fashion. It’s about shutting you up about data centers And visa versa

I remember a former Haitian For. Min. once scoffing at the idea of Western racism and telling me ”Don’t make me laugh! Go to Guinea or Rwanda if you want to see what racism is like.” Which is not to say I’ll feel sorry in the hugely unlikely event Western white supremacy fades away in my lifetime.

Calliope@calliope5431.bsky.social · last wk.

More to the point, this is happening in *non-white* countries as well: Japan, Turkey, and India have huge far-right nativist blocs. So it's not merely white supremacy or nostalgia for the days when the West ruled. Nor is it happening purely in developed post-material countries.

"Writers have been using me long before AI. I am the punctuation equivalent of a cardigan—beloved by MFA grads, used by editors when it’s actually cold, and worn year-round by screenwriters. I am not new here. I am not novel. I’m the cigarette you keep saying you’ll quit."

The Em Dash Responds to the AI Allegations

“Writers have been using me long before the advent of AI. I am the punctuation equivalent of a cardigan—beloved by MFA grads, used by editors when it’s actua...

buff.ly

Wenn das hier stimmt (Tagesspiegel), dann ist es ein Skandal. Wie kann man annehmen, ein frommer Schiit würde sich dem IS anschließen, der Schiiten als Abtrünnige verfolgt? War das zuständige Gericht ahnungslos? Haben die keine fachkundigen Gutachter?

Remembering Silas Soule, born OTD in 1838. American abolitionist, conductor on the Underground Railroad, military officer, and hero for disobeying orders to participate in Sand Creek Massacre and then giving evidence against his commander. Murdered 1865. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silas_S...

Good move.

The New York Times@nytimes.com · 2w ago

Brazilian authorities blocked two senior U.S. officials from traveling to the country next week, concerned that the visitors planned to sow doubt about the security of the nation’s voting systems, according to U.S. and Brazilian officials.

Over the past three years, Germany became a uniquely destructive force in the world. And now it’s government is acting surprised that the other states kept the receipts. That’s not just embarrassing, that’s utterly delusional.

She is so very good.

Rep. Ilhan Omar@repilhan.bsky.social · 2w ago

Proud to lead a statement with 10 of my colleagues to condemn the State Department’s attack on Americans’ free speech rights and collective punishment of Cubans: 🧵

In fact, a dear old friend of mine comes from Soest, Germany, where I once visited him.

David Ho@davidho.bsky.social · 2w ago

Did you know Soest is the name of a town in Germany and SOEST is the name of my school? Also, we have a faculty member at SOEST who is from Soest. Coincidence? I think not. Give @soest.hawaii.edu a follow even if none of that was interesting to you.

Yes. And it’s working.

Robert Weston@hemissroad.bsky.social · 2w ago

That sounds right to me. One thing I've noticed in my neck of the woods is DSA branches supporting food drives, tenant rights, immigrant rights, things like that. They're creating, or strengthening, community bonds at a time when those have frayed badly.

Which goes to show, once again, how weak political parties have become - and nowhere more so than the United States, the country, paradoxically, in which modern political parties first emerged.

Daniel Schlozman@daschloz.bsky.social · 2w ago

This from @cgmaisano.bsky.social (and riffing my work, full disclosure) was illuminating: dissentmagazine.org/article/part...

That sounds right to me. One thing I've noticed in my neck of the woods is DSA branches supporting food drives, tenant rights, immigrant rights, things like that. They're creating, or strengthening, community bonds at a time when those have frayed badly.

Omar Wasow@owasow.bsky.social · 2w ago

Why has DSA grown? One argument from this research: not just ideology, but organization. Strong membership plus ongoing and continuous participation in social movements creates credibility, committed volunteers, political skills, and durable electoral capacity. www.niskanencenter.org/inside-the-d...

Me, I’d nominate him for the Nobel.

Daniel Drezner@dandrezner.bsky.social · 2w ago

LOLOLOLOL this is so embarrassing. nypost.com/2026/07/21/u...

Wir haben jetzt 60% Strom aus Erneuerbaren, vorher hatten wir 4%. Preise für Solarmodule haben sich durch die Energiewende von 15 Euro auf 0,15 Euro je Watt reduziert. Gewisse Leute aus der fossilen Energiewirtschaft wollen uns abhängig halten, lügen und hetzen. Fallen Sie nicht darauf herein.

Obama was the Nicholas II of his era. Biden was its Kerensky.

James Fallows@jfallows.bsky.social · 2w ago

'Must-read' is a cliche, but it applies to this story. www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

Worth pondering.

Judah Grunstein@judah-grunstein.bsky.social · 2w ago

As a text, this Made in USA World Cup Final documented two tensions of today's America. First, between global football's ideal of inclusivity & transcendence of borders, and Trump II's closure. Second, between the bombastic grandiose vision America still has of itself, and the reality of decline.

South Africa 2010 has to still rank as the all-time nadir of racist drivel aimed at France’s national team, but buckle up, because tomorrow morning may well look and smell pretty nasty too.

The other side of the United States and the World Cup www.theguardian.com/football/202...

‘Where did they go?’: homeless people feel force of America’s brutality in World Cup clean-up

Fifa says football brings the world together but the unhoused in Atlanta feel targeted and completely excluded from the tournament

theguardian.com

A reminder that just because the US is shit, it doesn't mean China is good. RIP to a good Hong Konger who died in exile in Taiwan.

Lam Wing-Kee, Hong Kong Bookseller Who Defied Authorities, Dies at 70 (Gift Article)

One of five booksellers kidnapped by Chinese officials in 2015, Mr. Lam spoke out after his release and became an international cause célèbre.

nytimes.com

An der Stelle möchte ich darauf hinweisen, dass auch renomierte Journalisten aus führenden Medien der politischen Berichterstattung nicht müde werden, darauf hinzuweisen was für ein großartiger Reporter Ronzheimer doch wäre. Ist er nicht, war er nie, und die Gründe waren immer klar.

Janoschki@janoschki.bsky.social · 3w ago

„Please mach mich sympathisch." BILD macht nur 5 Std. nach Rücktrittsforderung einen Artikel (natürlich ohne Bezahlschranke) plus Podcast mit Ronzheimer und spricht von Spahns „Familienglück, der inneren Zerrissenheit" und wie er „dem Kleinen helfen möchte, ein guter Mensch zu werden".

Glad I’m not the only one who sees it that way.

Alasdair Cameron@alasdaircameron.bsky.social · 3w ago

Whole issue baffles me. The idea that Argentina is any less of an imperial construct that the British falklands is risible.