Yay! Number go up!
U.S. retail sales rose 1.7% month-over-month in March!
Fastest one-month rise in more than three years!
(Checks notes)
Increase due to higher gasoline prices.
(WSJ)
Nearly a tenth of the world’s roughly 1,000 VLCCs (Very Large Crude Carriers) are now en route to the U.S. via @dailychartbook.bsky.social
Not ‘just because’…because fear of litigation. If the city deviates from the norm interest‑group litigants weaponize the process as “capricious” and it delays the process even more! This is govern-ment, after all…as in to keep something from going too fast. 😬
Tax and spend radicals
“Americans with a college degree or more are more likely to have done this (30%) than those with a high school diploma or less (17%).”
My son’s experience at Bentley (outside Boston) was that it was a commuter school. Kids had cars and commuted daily and/or over the weekend…sometimes 2-3 hours. Same at LMU in LA where he is now. I think Iowa has also seen an increase in commuter students. Campus life seems no longer attractive.
As we await the Hungarian election results, it’s worth remembering that Orban first rode to power using the same antisemitic Soros conspiracy theories that fuel MAGA. The US consultant who gave him the idea (Finkelstein) got his start selling Goldwater and then Reagan in the US.
Read this and more here: gsp.yale.edu/sites/defaul...
Between 1965-1973 the campaign dropped ~5x more
than reported at the time. 2,756,941 tons. During all of WWII the allies dropped ~2 million tons of bombs including Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Cambodia may be the most heavily bombed country in history.
A record Trump & Co probably want(ed) to beat.
B-52's “Big Belly” payloads dropped on Cambodian villages. Dozens of payloads over several hours. The result was near-total destruction. A US official said, “We had been told, as had everybody...that those carpetbombing attacks by B-52s were totally devastating, that nothing could survive.”
Kissinger called Haig relaying orders from Nixon: “He wants a massive bombing campaign in Cambodia. He doesn’t want to hear anything. It’s an order, it’s to be done. Anything that flies, on anything that moves. You got that?” The response from Haig, on tape, sounds like laughter.
All the talk of 'unprecedented' Presidential action and calls for 'rational' military actors to step in, let's recall Cambodia. The Menu campaign labelled targets as Breakfast, Lunch, Supper, Dinner, Dessert, and Snack by American commanders. Started by a 🫏, Johnson, and accelerated by an 🐘, Nixon.
Also, I've chatted with a few Renton and South King County folks who plan to use the South Bellevue P&R to get into Seattle for work and play. I've already seen it with Mariner's games...a mirror of the Lynnwood P&R for folks to the north.
“Open-weight models are more amenable to frugal AI as they eliminate proprietary API margins, can run on any infrastructure, and enable data sovereignty…”
restofworld.org/2026/frugal-...
"In 2026, China’s combined wind+solar power generation will exceed US household+industrial power consumption. In transport, [] China’s (EV) fleet is now consuming the equivalent of 1.76m barrels of crude oil/day, [] reducing China’s future needs for imported oil." h/t @dailychartbook.bsky.social
“Building more roads and reducing congestion”
What he said 👇
That 'red' state of Texas keeps getting greener.
"Scholars have recently come to view African American slavery as central to the making of America, but few have seen Native Americans in a similar light...It was their garden homelands, after all, that birthed America." h/t @dailychartbook.bsky.social
By the time those 2020 kindergartners hit second grade AI was already bringing its own disruption to conventional education. Seems to be on path to be even more disruptive/disorienting than the lockdown!?🤷♂️
Reminded of Siteline Institute’s three S’s.
Supply: More new homes to reduce the shortage and cool rents and prices*
Stability: More protections to safeguard those with the least housing security
Subsidy: More subsidies to help those who can’t afford what the market offers
*see above 🧵
"In 1507-15, the Portuguese crown built the fort of Our Lady of the Conception in Hormuz, to control trade from India and charge hefty tolls to passing ships..."
h/t @dailychartbook.bsky.social
The notoriously 'red' 🟥 state is VERY 'green' 🟩.
h/t @dailychartbook.bsky.social
🫣
“…heated political debates over constitutional or institutional reforms may heighten social
tensions and fuel demand for strongman leaders... Such cycles can thus erode democratic institutions
and create repeated opportunities for democratic backsliding.”
gratton.org/papers/Techn...
Great showing (out the door!) at Reem’s California Mission for the zine party! Thanks for organizing, @geogboycott.bsky.social!
Messianic authoritarianism isn't just a fringe idea — it’s a psychological tool for managing fear and justifying "double tap." @geographers.bsky.social @americangeo.bsky.social #GeoSky interplace.io/p/the-map-th...
From Vietnam’s "ear necklaces" to modern day "signature strikes," a pattern of devaluing "othered" lives persists. It's time to face the settler-imperial mind. @geographers.bsky.social @americangeo.bsky.social #GeoSky interplace.io/p/the-map-th...
Research on authoritarianism finds a common psychological “core” across left and right: a desire for enforced conformity, punishment of deviants, and centralized control, particularly when people believe they live in a dangerous world.
Fear, uncertainty, and "collective narcissism" fuel our tolerance for state violence. See how political psychology makes the extraordinary feel righteous. @geographers.bsky.social @americangeo.bsky.social #GeoSky interplace.io/p/the-map-th...
