Did you know that most public libraries also let you check out "culture passes" to museums, etc? Public libraries for the win.

What it's like to see ICE tear gas kids Attendees at a Portland, OR protest describe a vicious, unprovoked and sudden attack

Everything moves so fast now. It's impossible to give every event the care and attention it deserves, especially when the bar is "at least no one died."

But what happened in Portland outside the ICE building was evidence of yet another escalation—and a terrifying harbinger of things to come.

What it's like to see ICE tear gas kids Attendees at a Portland, OR protest describe a vicious, unprovoked and sudden attack

New — I spoke to eight people who were present at the ICE protest on Saturday in Portland, Oregon when federal agents deployed tear gas and rubber bullets into a crowd of families, children, elderly and disabled people, and their pets.

These are their stories:

I’m sure Charles Murray gets just as exercised about depictions of Jesus as a white guy.

Two CBP Agents Identified in Alex Pretti Shooting The two federal immigration agents who fired on Minneapolis protester Alex Pretti are identified in government records as Border Patrol agent Jesus Ochoa and Customs and Border Protection officer Raym...

BREAKING: The two federal immigration agents who fired on Minneapolis protester Alex Pretti are identified in government records as Border Patrol agent Jesus Ochoa and Customs and Border Protection officer Raymundo Gutierrez.

A shift of 1.47 logits is, you know, *unheard of* in election results.

It would take a 50-50 split in a prior election and return an 18-81 result. It would take a 81-18 split in a prior election and return a dead tie.

This is EXTRAORDINARY.
bsky.app/profile/did:...

I mean, they just lost 1.47 logits in a special election in Minnesota. You better fucking believe Plan A is "steal the 2026 midterm elections".

Graph showing cooling degree days for the months of June, July, and August from 1899-1900 to 2025-2026. There is a lot of variability across years, but the trend lines plotted show that there's a general trend of increasingly hotter days.

Similarly, our summer months cooling degree days are increasing. It's getting hotter.

Example day: High temp 33°F, low 25°F. The mean for that day was:

(33°F + 25°F)/2 = 29°F

The result is below 65°F:

65°F - 29°F = 36 Heating Degree Days.

The calculation is performed for each day of the period and summed.

Closer to 65 ºF temps = fewer HDDs.

www.weather.gov/key/climate_...

Northern AZ, atop the mountain:

Heating Degree Days since 1 July: 3098; norm: 3826; deviation -728; ~19% deviation.

HDD are a measure of mean ΔTemp from 65 ºF each day summed over a period. See example in next post.

The trend for our winter months is down, which means our winters are warmer.

Two CBP Agents Identified in Alex Pretti Shooting The two federal immigration agents who fired on Minneapolis protester Alex Pretti are identified in government records as Border Patrol agent Jesus Ochoa and Customs and Border Protection officer Raym...

NEW: This isn't about "training." The two agents who murdered Alex Pretti - Jesus Ochoa and Raymundo Gutierrez - have been with Border Patrol for 8 and 12 years respectively. You can't reform CBP. Abolish ICE/CBP. www.propublica.org/article/alex...

California child dies from measles-related complications A school-age child who contracted measles as an infant died from a rare complication after initially recovering from the infection.

And the ticking time bomb of SSPE (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subacut... ) where 1 in 600 infants who get measles get a ticking time bomb planted in their brain that kills them YEARS later publications.aap.org/aapnews/news...

Sight in San Francisco (from a friend)

No.

“We” are not. 👀🤣

Yall forget PEOPLE WERE HERE ALREADY AND PPL WERE STOLEN FROM AFRICA

PLUS— the Mayflower folks were definitely immigrants.

Why do yall try to change History?
For who? Those white ppl are immigrants too.

And the R is an “anti-DEI, anti-trans” schools freak leader! This is a DISASTER for them.

This is tear gassing protesters just for protesting. There is no threat, and the only danger presented is ICE behaving recklessly. There is no provocation; this is just straight up assault.

Just experienced the most intense tear gassing of my life by federal officers outside the ICE facility in Portland where marchers gathered. There was no fast exit as they indiscriminately threw loads of gas and flash bangs. Children were in the crowd screaming. @oregoncapitalchronicle.com

Called it.

This

Over 200 arrested in Maine immigration sweep; families say process is confusing, painful Relatives of those detained describe frustration, lack of information, and rapid transfers that make legal help difficult.

Over 200 arrested in Maine immigration sweep; families say process is confusing, painful Relatives of those detained describe frustration, lack of information, and rapid transfers that make legal help . www.newscentermaine.com/mobile/artic...
If ICE was legitimate they wouldn’t keep moving detainees

Can confirm. Nothing has changed on the ground. ICE still attacking people, kidnapping, all that stuff—and the city is still out protecting and helping neighbors

ICE Is Circling Minnesota Schools, Looking For Children to Take Liam Ramos, 5, isn’t the only child in detention. Teachers and parents describe kids being hunted by federal agents.

NEW: School hallways are silent. Grandparents patrol outside in shifts. Two more kids taken from Liam Ramos' school.

Trump isn't deescalating ICE at all at MN schools.

“I stopped wearing my high heels to work. I wear my boots to work because I have had to run." www.huffpost.com/entry/ice-mi...

To come to this conclusion he looks at metrics like the independence of the civil service, political prosecution of enemies and the use of state force against civilians. You can read more about the data and methods he employs here, but for many of these criteria, the Trump administration does not believe there should be any limitations on its power. It has proudly embraced a theory of government centered on personalized power and retribution. Civil servants should not be independent, political prosecutions are justified payback, and state force against civilians is necessary to maintain order.

Whereas other authoritarians eroded institutions and asserted control over the course of years, trying to maintain a sense of normalcy, Trump is acting like a man trying to make up for lost time. His governing ethos simply rejects some of the criteria that experts use to assess authoritarianism.

graph tracking democratic backsliding is occuring more quickly in the US than elsewhere.

New from me: It is not just that the US is experiencing democratic backsliding. Authoritarianism has emerged more quickly than in other benchmark countries.

This graph from John Burn-Murdoch sums it up. 🧵
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/autocracy-...

Hope is not a strategy.
But Hope is essential.
The world has seen these losers before.
You have ancestors who faced similar oppression and yet...

YOU. ARE. HERE.

We must work to save the world we hope for.

But we must hope for a future someone to say their ancestors faced oppression and yet...

It's wild is that the Epstein document dump is clearly intended as a distraction from their failing military takeover of Minnesota and Maine. Yes, they're still doing evil things to people. But they're also losing so badly that every wild swing is meant to recover from the previous disaster.

This week has been a lot. It’s overwhelming.

But what is in those files the DOJ released today is a scandal of monumental proportions. People fear that it is “too big to fail.” Maybe.
But Congress must act.

Yes! we need all the files. But what has been released is already a four-alarm fire.

this is what’s happening everywhere they go in force

ordinary people will not be cowed the same way elite society has been

we are going to win

Desolation Row (Take 1, Alternate Take) YouTube video by Bob Dylan - Topic

Look. There's no question.
I love Bruce Springsteen. He is, without question, The Boss.
And his new song, Streets of Minneapolis, is absolutely, without question, an homage to Bob Dylan's Desolation Row.

That's a good thing; it's not a dig at Bruce Springsteen.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=exSt...

Tell me five classes you took in college:

History of Culture and Civilization in North Africa
History of the Holocaust
Jazz History
Remote Sensing of Planetary Surfaces
Planetary Global Tectonics