My similarly anodyne opinion is that competitive elections are good for democracies

Matthew Gertz@mattgertz.bsky.social · 2h ago

My ice-cold boring take that will definitely not go viral is that a primary result with a margin of victory of roughly 1 percent tells you precisely nothing about The Future Of The Party.

our obsession with data and knowing everything makes people think polling is way more accurate than it is and we'd be wise to remember it's astrology for people who were in student government

G Elliott Morris@gelliottmorris.com · 6h ago

What is truly "shocking" about the polling miss in Michigan is that it is completely average for a primary "The expected error on the margin between two primary candidates in a race for governor or U.S. Senate is a whopping 13.0 points." blog.fiftyplusone.news/p/2026-texas...

Planting trees in cities saves lives. A new study in Chicago estimates that planting 14,000 trees per year to increase shade would save 104 lives annually Conversely, eliminating urban trees increases deaths from heat agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/...

Increasing Urban Tree Canopy Associated With Reduced Mortality: A Longitudinal Analysis of Chicago Neighborhoods

Total canopy cover was not associated with mortality, but year-to-year increases were linked to lower all cause and cause specific mortality Year-to-year tree canopy loss is significantly associa...

agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Farm workers: there's a heat advisory across much of CA. Please be careful. Your life comes first. If your worksite is not offering WATER, SHADE, and REST - call the farm worker heat safety hotline at 1-877-881-8281. Reporting heat safety violations saves workers' lives.

Yes I am an active planner and facilitator of this research. “Nothing about us, without us!”

or text/call (929)-486-2865. For questions, email Dr Laura Graham Holmes at Laura.Graham@hunter.cuny.edu

Are you an autistic adult? Do you identify as BIPOC? A neurodiverse team of researchers wants to learn how to make research better for you. Must be based in U.S.A., identify as autistic, and be 18+ years old. cunyhunter.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...

They really don't believe in consent for ANYONE, do they?

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 3d ago

“It is the Eye of Sauron, but it also knows when we enter our daughter’s room in the morning and joy hits her face — and it sends us intelligently edited montages of these moments.”

I saw one of his pieces at the Palm Springs Art Museum and it was fabulous

Sarah Archer@sarcher.bsky.social · yesterday

It's Textile Tuesday, and you know what that means: a piece by artist Faig Ahmed called "The Dragons of Karabakh" that's woven to look like an antique Central Asian carpet is melting off the wall into a puddle. More about the artist here: faigahmed.com

LA County confirmed that SoCal Edison's unused transmission tower started the Eaton Fire, which destroyed much of Altadena. The tower had been dormant since the 70's, but was left up anyway. It energized in the high wind and sent molten metal into dry brush underneath. www.cnn.com/2026/08/04/u...

Southern California Edison equipment blamed for 2025 Eaton fire in Los Angeles | CNN

Sparks from an idle transmission tower owned by Southern California Edison caused the 2025 Eaton fire in the Los Angeles area that killed 19 people and destroyed more than 9,400 homes and businesses, ...

cnn.com

I had to code and pronounce a time of death on a respiratory therapist colleague. There's a memorial plaque for her outside the emergency department to this day. I wrote and re-wrote my will. I will never forgive these ghouls trying to rewrite history and deny our experience.

Gabriel Bosslet@gbosslet.bsky.social · 3d ago

RFK Jr said these words today on national television "There were ICUs that were empty all over the country including in New York at the height (of the pandemic)" hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha You are a fucking idiot hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha <sobs silently>

Mark Ruffalo is lowkey one of the best celebrities on Bluesky because he’s typing on his phone angry about the news in a way that makes it clear it’s really him and he just saw something that got him annoyed

@cwarzel.bsky.social tells @timmiller.bsky.social why the tech oligarchs’ grand vision for the future feels so profoundly anti-human: "They don't seem to be able to articulate a brilliant vision of what the future looks like, because I think their imaginations are really, really small."

I am so triggered by RJK Jr's comment about ICU's being empty during #COVID. I re-read what I wrote after one of the surges. How do others forget. The trauma was--and is--real.

I'm An ICU Doctor. I’m Haunted By What I’ve Seen During The Recent COVID-19 Surge.

“I can’t stop thinking about the 40-something man who told me, ‘I can’t die like this. I just got engaged and have a 6-month-old baby.’ I encouraged him to be positive, but that didn’t stop him from d...

huffpost.com

Political reporters should really take a 3rd grade math class because it would clarify so much for them.

Regardless of how it turns out NO HE DIDN’T. It’s like saying I have more fingers on my left hand after counting 8 digits from left to right with a ring finger and a pinky still to report.

This is the kind of typesetting and editorial judgment you just can't get from online versions of a newspaper.

Kristin J. Boldon@kjboldon.bsky.social · 12h ago

COMPANIES GIVE UP ON CLIMATE COMMITMENTS next to a GenX man scolding Gen Z to be more hopeful, from Sunday's @startribune.bsky.social

I've built a map displaying where on the Amtrak network you can take your bike, line-by-line and station-by-station. This data isn't available anywhere else, check out where you can go! amtrak-bike-map.transittools.dev

Amtrak Bicycle Access

Explore carry-on, checked, and station-level bicycle access across the Amtrak rail network.

amtrak-bike-map.transittools.dev

There is one attorney at the firm that "won" this contract who is listed on the firm's website as having immigration expertise...on the basis of obtaining farmworker visas for his own family's company. I am not naive about my profession but this is absolutely sickening.

This is astoundingly evil - *best* case scenario this is rank corruption, funneling $150M in tax dollars to incompetent ideological allies (with the requisite sexual harasser). Worst case it is deliberate sabotage of children's asylum cases and potential violation of these lawyers' ethical duties.

Corey Rayburn Yung@coreyryung.bsky.social · 17h ago

In addition to having no experience in immigration, their website shows Ilya Shapiro (!) and disgraced former law prof Joshua Wright (!) as Senior Counsel. I don't think this massive contract was awarded to give immigrant children effective, zealous advocacy. burkegroup.law/our-team/

also creating potential financial incentives for individual study doctors to maybe alter data seems pretty dangerous!

Jonathan Cohn @jonathancohn.bsky.social · 12h ago

These betting markets sites are so socially corrosive. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

A federal judge held the Department of Homeland Security in contempt for allegedly slow-rolling an order to turn over phones used by immigration agents during operations in the Los Angeles area last year.  W/ @wendyfry.bsky.social calmatters.org/justice/2026...

Judge orders daily fines against Homeland Security in case over LA immigration sweeps

A federal judge held the Department of Homeland Security in contempt for not disclosing the cellphone records of immigration agents in Los Angeles.

calmatters.org

"Everything is just data so we can computer it" has broken so many brains I swear

If you teach music history responsibly, inevitably someone will inform you that you are doing it wrong by failing to focus on "the music itself", meaning "the notes on the page". The notes, being representative of specific pitches, are quantifiable in ways that history and politics simply are not.

Glenn Mackin@glennmackin.bsky.social · yesterday

Even without the AI crap, there is a strong tendency to substitute quantification for thinking, and exchanges of information for communication. And yes, it produces its own special form of stupidity

I miss these. It was fun to see who all had signed it and where it had been (alt text: image is of an inter-departmental mail envelope)

Ma$on@masonfromtwitter.bsky.social · 2d ago

I started my career in a weird time in life. Email was definitely a thing and people were using it but also people were still using these too.

Guys like this don’t realize that they are the freak

Hey, folks. There's a @gofundme.com set up for artist Andy Fish, who is going through a very tough fight with two forms of cancer. He and his wife, cartoonist Veronica Fish (my Blackwood series cohorts) could use some help during this very tough time. I'm donating, hope you can. tinyurl.com/4wa86a6c

Donate to Help Andy Fish’s Fight Against Two Cancers, organized by Gina Gabianelli

Help Andy’s Fight Against Two Cancers Meet my cousin Andy Fish, father … Gina Gabianelli needs your support for Help Andy Fish’s Fight Against Two Cancers

tinyurl.com

to add: The west is going to burn, fire has been here longer than the USA has, many Indigenous land management practices work alongside fire. Rather than focusing on who started a fire, we need to work out how to live with fire and how the city became a tinderbox and how to help people right now.

James Stout@jamesstout.bsky.social · yesterday

Just wanna caution everyone posting about the Spokane fires that an arrest is not a conviction and if we look at LA they haven’t been able to convict that guy.

I got official mailings about National Survey on Drug Use and Health, and when I went online to complete the survey...it asked me a few demographic Qs and then said I wasn't selected. Guess I'm old and boring. 🤷‍♀️🤣 (I know the real reason is that they hv enough responses from my demographic already)

Not only that, but we now have 60+ years of Census, BLS, and other data showing that *occupations become more poorly paid when more women move into them,* and vice versa. www.nytimes.com/2016/03/20/u...

As Women Take Over a Male-Dominated Field, the Pay Drops (Published 2016)

Work done by women pays less because women do it, research shows.

nytimes.com

Kim Weeden@weedenkim.bsky.social · yesterday

Except for religious studies, the graduates of these "loan ineligible" majors are disproportionately women. Fans of this policy have probably never considered that social worker, cosmetician, teachers aide, etc might be low-paying jobs *because* women do them. newrepublic.com/post/213446/...