Richard Grusin
@rgrusin.bsky.social
Walker of woods, lover of forests, friendly with trees. Theorist of mediation. Arboreal nonhumanist. Zayde. Recovering academic.
Prepare for an insane explosion of Islamophobia between now and November, from the same people on the right (and center!) who pretend to be exercised by the rise in anti-Jewish bigotry. The hate will be off the charts and make the anti-Zohran campaign look tame. Mark my words.
This is how it’s done And I think this race will let the Dem establishment show they can back a progressive with the same vigor that, say, Bernie backed Biden in 2020. There are two wings in this party, nothing will change that, they need to cooperate
MeidasTouch@meidastouch.com · 4h agoA gracious concession: “I want to congratulate Abdul El-Sayed on winning the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate. He is a doctor, a community health official, a Rhodes Scholar, and a dedicated Michigander. I am proud to offer my support as he takes on Mike Rogers in the general election…
How do academic AI stans live with themselves? www.nytimes.com/2026/08/05/c...
Trump’s Push for More A.I. Data Centers Will Mean Major Air Pollution (Gift Article)
nytimes.com
It’s 11 pm and El-Sayed is leading Stevens by 3.5% with nearly half the votes in. I worry about Wayne County swinging the race towards Stevens. I fear waking up to disappointing news.
"Here Are 19 - Yes, 19! - Ways Trump and Republicans Are Plotting to Rig and Steal the Midterm Elections" Attacking immigrants and Black voting power. Gutting election security. Voter purges. Threats of arrests and raids. And so much more. From Zeteo:
Here Are 19 - Yes, 19! - Ways Trump and Republicans Are Plotting to Rig and Steal the Midterm Elections
Attacking immigrants and Black voting power. Gutting election security. Voter purges. Threats of arrests and raids. And so much more. Trump’s assault on elections is truly unprecedented.
zeteo.com
“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.” time.com/article/2026...
A SpaceX Rocket Is About to Crash Into the Moon. Here's Everything You Need to Know
The Aug. 5 impact is not the first time something has crashed into the moon.
time.com
So Tillis and Cornyn thought the 1.8. Billion dollar slush fun was so bad, that they will be willing to confirm the guy who came up with it. Huh
Predictable. Gang of Four.
Jacob T. Levy@jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 2d agoFour university presidents, "Andrew Martin at Washington University in St. Louis, Michael Crow at Arizona State University, Douglas Girod at the University of Kansas, & Ronald Daniels at the Johns Hopkins University" collaborated in the latest attack on higher ed. www.chronicle.com/liveblog/her...
This is gross. Disgusting greed. Piggishness. Americans are fools. Fool us once shame on you. Fool us again, shame on us.
Rep. Mike Levin@levin.house.gov · 3d agoDonald Trump’s war with Iran is costing Americans every time they fill up their tank. Meanwhile: Exxon’s quarterly profits doubled to $14.5 billion. Chevron’s nearly quadrupled to $12.1 billion.
There are a couple BlueSky accounts I was following whose skeets just got to be too numerous for the balance of my feed. Having unfollowed these accounts I still see as much of them as I need in the reskeets of other accounts I do follow.
Mohammad Marandi, who served as an advisor to the Iranian negotiation team in talks with the US:
This game, guessing the time/place of objects from The Met Museum, is super-fun. anthropeum.com
Anthropeum
A daily game that challenges our understanding of human cultures. Ten objects. 5,000 years of human history. Guess where and when each artifact was made. See how you rank.
anthropeum.com
One of my pet peeves is the way that print and televisual news media continue to bleep out profanities like fuck and shit in quotations. In a world full of obscene actions which news media gleefully report on and amplify, the idea that readers and viewers can't handle a few obscenities is risible.
Trump promised an easy victory. Then Iran shot down an American F-15E. Since, he's relied on multimillion-dollar long-range missiles to keep U.S. aircraft farther away, burning through some of America's most valuable weapons while American troops remain under fire. open.substack.com/pub/adamkinz...
A Scared Man Is Running This War
Trump’s fear of another downed aircraft is depleting America’s most valuable missiles without bringing the war closer to an end.
open.substack.com
This must pose problems of what to wear in the morning.
Jeff Groh@jeffgroh.bsky.social · last wk.Avocados come in 2 varieties - A-types start each day female and switch to male midday. B-types do the reverse. In work just published from the last chapter of my PhD, we show this system evolved 40+million yrs ago and is regulated by alleles of 1 transcription factor www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
"If I were a carpenter, and you were an AI, would you marry me anyway? Would you have my baby?"
In a world full of depressing news, this might be the most depressing thing I have read in a long time. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
A Deluge of A.I. Computing Power Is About to Come Online, Fueling Major Leaps (Gift Article)
The number of A.I. chips that provide the computing power to advance the fast-evolving technology is doubling every nine months.
nytimes.com
"Berlin Pride ramming"--Horrifying murder, infelicitous phrasing. www.dw.com/en/berlin-pr...
Berlin Pride ramming: Police shoot suspect dead
Police said the suspect was shot dead in an operation, after the incident was classified as an "Islamist terrorist" attack. One person was killed and several others injured in the attack. Follow DW.
dw.com
the level of enthusiasm for voting for Democrats hasn't budged despite enthusiasm for voting for Republicans bottoming out and the primary reason is that Democrats steadfastly refuse to be seen as different from Republicans (see also how many Dem Senators vote for Trump nominees)
Eric Michael Garcia@ericmgarcia.bsky.social · 2w agoNEW: AOC and even some moderate Democrats want to claw back money for ICE if they win back the House. But Hakeem Jeffries didn’t make an ironclad commitment to do so. www.independent.co.uk/news/world/a...
Mamdani criticizes Netanyahu. Later, a crazy man stabs a Jewish man and an Asian man. And we get an article suggesting that while one stabbing (dismissed in six words) is just a shrug, the other implicates the mayor. Disgraceful framing. Shame on everyone involved. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/24/n...
After Stabbings, a Rise in Jewish Fears and Questions for Mamdani (Gift Article)
Some politicians said Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s criticism of Israel had created a dangerous environment. He pushed back, condemning the stabbings of two men on the Upper West Side and defending his state...
nytimes.com
Don't worry about the environmental impact of data centers when you're really worried about the sociocultural and economic impacts of AI. Don't worry about the sociocultural and economic impacts of AI, when you're really worried about the environmental and energy impacts of data centers.
Opinion | The Flawed Environmental Case Against Data Centers (Gift Article)
Our animosity toward data centers is really more about our anxieties about A.I.
nytimes.com
I haven't seen anything about the pervy way Trump talked last night at the WHCA dinner. He singled out Kaitlin Collins and incoming WHCA president Jacqui Heinrich as both attractive and "nasty," badgered Kaitlan Collins to smile, and was obsessed with attractive women's marriages (i.e., sex lives).
Wouldn't want to give any DSA candidates a running start now, would you?
DNC committee sets up South Carolina to vote first in Democrats’ 2028 presidential primaries
Key Democrats had pushed for the state as a signal of Black voters’ importance, especially after the Supreme Court’s gutting of the Voting Rights Act.
nbcnews.com
