Facts worth repeating: It would be cheaper to pay the ~40,000 or so people employed by the coal industry $1M a year to do nothing than to pay for the health damages (not including climate change) caused by burning coal in the U.S. publichealth.hsc.wvu.edu/news/story?h...

Counting up the costs of coal

Regular readers know that WVU’s Dr. Michael Hendryx has done work on that issue (subscription required), reporting that:

publichealth.hsc.wvu.edu

Every time a young person emails me about what they should do at this moment, I say "organize a fundraiser for someone or a group doing the kind of work you value." I don't usually hear back after that, lol.

It's interesting that both Mary Karr and Laurie Lee became famous for poetic memoirs, despite mostly spending their time writing poetry that few read. I continue to think that writing and reading poetry carries value for all writers, even if nobody will read your poetry.

I have read and find deep comfort in the work of Wendell Berry and those he inspired (Kimmerer and more recently Kingsnorth) But my kingdom for a similarly inspired thinker/writer who embraces urban life. Human scaled urbanism can be as (or even more?) kind to the land as a garden.

This is a (tangential and off topic) reminder that my favorite Gadsden flag concept that I have still never seen is a mushroom captioned "You cannot tread on me in a way that matters"

The War on Cars@thewaroncars.bsky.social · 2d ago

Via @waba.org

Also, the Patriots team jet has been regularly used by ICE for flights in the off season, if you needed more evidence that Kraft is bad news.

Dave Singleton@dfsingleton.com · 2d ago

Oh, Claire. A brief dossier: NE Patriots Owner. Lobbied to get rapper Meek Mill released from jail. Got busted at a massage parlor seeking...extras. Is in the Epstein Files.

also there are like ten people waiting outside Mitch’s house

I swear if I learn about the status of Mitch McConnell from musicology duck standing outside his house before an actual journalist....

A statistic that haunts me because it is 100% true and shocking and useless in advocacy precisely because it is true and shocking: Policy that enables a 1-car lifestyle rather than 2 is equivalent to giving a family a $25,000 annual pay raise.

Peter Flax@pflax1.bsky.social · 3d ago

This story buries the lede, but if you pull out a calculator and do the math, AAA found that the average American spends $15,031 a year for a single car! www.cnbc.com/2026/09/14/c...

Spotted on my morning run: Older gent riding his bike with the biggest smile you could imagine on his face. Dad running with daughter in stroller (got to let him know she's still awake, much to his chagrin) Guy struggling to get his bike seat tight enough, so I helped him with that. Sun, wind river

If walking costs you $1, we all pay $0.01. If biking costs you $1, we all pay $0.08. If bussing costs you $1, we all pay $1.50. If driving costs you $1, we all pay $9.20. Via study that still underestimates climate cost. This isn’t about choice. It’s about who pays for your choice. #citymakingmath

Abortion bans make exceptions for ectopic pregnancies, but some people still don’t get care. One doctor told a woman intervening in her pregnancy could land him jail time, according to a lawsuit. “I felt like my life was a risk he couldn’t afford.”

Ectopic Pregnancy Deaths Have Nearly Doubled. It’s Worse in States With Abortion Bans.

With prompt and appropriate medical care, experts say, people shouldn’t die from an ectopic pregnancy. Women in Texas and Oklahoma have sued over delays in care, which, coupled with our new analysis, ...

propublica.org

Gotta love that when I looked up an "Environmentally friendly ETF" to make sure my 401K isn't invested in fossil fuels the top result is 30%+ AI/Data center stocks, 2% Tesla and the biggest financial firm is Chase, the largest funder of fossil fuel projects...

attacking trans people hurts dem politicians and that take is missing from this whole news cycle. dems attacking trans people makes it more likely you will lose, defending trans people makes it more likely they win I want democrats to win so they need to defend trans people

Reading Dan Davies "Unaccountablity Machine" and boy the concept of "Accountability Sinks" hits so hard in the homelessness space, and non-profits more generally. Feels like it should be required reading. Genuinely flummoxed about what to do with the information, but it's necessary.

It would be a huge win for public safety, the environment, and congestion if more cities (and states) across the country did rebates for Class 1 and 2 e-bikes. It's such an easy way to get people out of cars and onto bikes. (I know some existing ones include Class 3, but most I've seen are 1 and 2)

if it took you 5 seconds of contemplation to think of an alternative you should take at least another 5-10 to at least consider the possibility that it at least crossed the minds of 1 or 2 of the people who dedicate their lives and research careers to dealing with the problems we post about on here

You know, there is a constitutional mechanism to remove a president who is unable to discharge the duties of his office.

I shouldn’t be this emotional about a city deciding hey maybe kids shouldn’t starve all day Like how low is the bar. Anyway, thankful to the people who fought for this.

Mayor Katie B. Wilson@mayor.seattle.gov · last wk.

Today, Seattle's kindergartners took their very first steps into Seattle Public Schools, joining their fellow scholars for a brand new year! This year, every single one of them - from kindergarten through 12th grade - starts the year with something new: free breakfast and lunch for each student.

Millions of people peacefully marching around the world: foot note Radical peaceful action from leftists: terrorism A few dozen numpties standing around for a right wing cause: an important unheard minority Right wing violence: "we disapprove, but here's a week discussing what's driving this"

Peter Geoghegan@petergeoghegan.bsky.social · last wk.

Nick Robinson on Today is literally talking about ‘legitimate concerns’ after second night of organised men dressed in black - sorry ‘protesters’ - mobilising en masse in another littoral town. This is how street fascism is normalised

A Labor Day reminder: having a job is no longer enough to protect millions of Americans from homelessness. For many workers, the greatest threat isn't losing their job. It's that their job will never pay enough, never provide enough hours, never offer enough stability to keep them housed.

Opinion | America Is Pushing Its Workers Into Homelessness (Gift Article)

The working homeless are casualties of our prosperity.

nytimes.com

Our society's unfathomable cruelty to homeless people is not just morally unjustifiable, but more expensive than housing people would be. Cruelty against the homeless is an unaffordable luxury. Abandoning homeless people to avoid offending the Protestant work ethic is an unaffordable luxury.

ProPublica@propublica.org · 2w ago

ProPublica spoke to dozens of people who had lived in homeless encampments when cities cleared them out in “sweeps.” We distributed notecards so people could tell us about the toll in their own words. ➡️ This is what they wrote:

The Supreme Court blocked the student loan forgiveness despite there being explicit statutory authority for Biden to do it and allowed the Iran War despite an explicit Constitutional prohibition on anyone besides Congress declaring a war.

Dare Obasanjo@carnage4life.bsky.social · 2w ago

It gets worse when you remember that the Strait of Hormuz was open before the war started. So we’re spending $40B and people are dying on both sides to return to the status quo from January. Everything is socialism unless it’s money for killing people in pointless forever wars.

Happy 100th birthday to Ivan Illich, the OG car hater: "[Cars] create remoteness which they alone can shrink. They create distances for all and shrink them for only a few....The new expressway expands Chicago, but it sucks those who are well-wheeled away from a downtown that decays into a ghetto.”

Took that dialect quiz and got Michigan/San Francisco, two places I have never lived. But I'm curious if there was enough sampling from WNY to capture us well. We are the front lines of the pop/soda war after all.

as a reminder, the boat murders are a) very clear cut crimes and b) crimes where the command responsibility liability is limited to a couple dozen people, total, from pete to ac commanders it's the one specific area dems (if they have to pick only one) should be focused on making examples of in DoD

ae@aelkus.bsky.social · 2w ago

we are going to have to do this with the military too. Senior leadership that went along with things like murdering hundreds of randos in boats have to be publicly made examples of

Nihilism is boring. Care about stuff.

NPR@npr.org · 2w ago

Bucking a push for younger leadership this election season, Sen. Ed Markey, 80, won the Democratic nomination against Rep. Seth Moulton, 47, who said that his party needed new leaders. n.pr/3T7Kfvu

Questionnaire by Wendell Berry