Trump Is Said to Be in Talks to Send Afghans Who Aided U.S. Forces to Congo

This is monstrous. Just profoundly shameful behavior by our government.

www.nytimes.com/2026/04/21/w...

The state Supreme Court upheld his ability to do that. The legislature controls appropriations and sets guidelines for the program, but as in many other cases the Republicans want to be able to step in and block specific efforts by the state to use funds they've already appropriated.

Back story on Republican opposition to funding the Knowles-Nelson that is a crucial source of support for land conservation in Wisconsin: Mary Felzkowski (R-Irma) blocked purchase of the Pelican River Forest, but eventually Evers went around the legislature to do so. www.wpr.org/economy/land...

UW Madison *Geography* PhD, just noticed I left out that important word.

The story quotes UW Madison PhD Charlie Carlin, who now works for the land conservation group Gathering Waters

I care less about the tree planting goal and much more about the land conservation goal, which is still threatened by Republicans upset because the state Supreme Court said, essentially, that they can no longer block specific purchases of land with Knowles-Nelson funds.

An image documenting multiple bee species with ID tips Andrena: Usually looks like a black bug in a fur coat Some Andrean will eat anything (Generalists) Including A. dunningi, a black bug in a brown fur coat, some hair on head, and no colored hair on abdomen A. milwaukeensis, a black bug in a longer golden-red fur coat. Thorax is all orangey rust fur, top of head has some hair, and T1-T2 have orange hair too But many Andrena are picky! (Specialists) A. erigeniae is a spring beauty specialist A. erythronii is a trout lily specialist Both of them are black with a soft, sparse gray-fur thorax Colletes- C. inaequalis is the Colletes most likely spotted They are fluffy yellow thorax, fluffy face, and black abdomen with strong white/cream banding. Likes: Willows and fruit trees (pink apple blossoms, cherry, pear, plum). The Key with Colletes is a heart-shaped face. Less common is C. thoracicus, which is like C. inaequalis, but more red/rust/orange

Tiny Bee SPRING SHOWDOWN: Andrena (more common) vs Colletes (more cute, IMO) Their pollen zones on female bees are different, with Andrena having more of a "knee-pit" / armpit collection that looks like a bulky leg warmer. Colletes is more divided between tibia and femur Their wings have slight differences, with different scaled submarginal shapes. Additionally, andrena has a straight line where Colletes tends to have an S shape in the middle of their wing Their butts (abdomens) are different, with proportions exaggerated here. On Andrena T3 and T4 are bigger than T1 and T2, while on Colletes, the opposite is true Head shapes: Andrena has a square/rectangular head, while Colletes has a heart-shaped head. They're both cute.

quick, look at an Andrena vs Colletes comparison before it becomes irrelevant, until like July. Colletes are big spring guys and only show up rarely later in the year.

One of North America's larger internally drained basins: Mexico's Bolsón de Mapimí

Large print of a black and white photo mounted on two pieces of cardboard. subject is a large gully in Buffalo County, Wisconsin, along the "Beef" (Buffalo) River valley.

Photo of a drop structure built for soil conservation, somewhere in the Driftless Area.

A wood box full of large images related to soil conservation in Wisconsin. Possibly belonged to Stafford Happ, not sure. Found it while clearing out a former faculty office, didn't open it until now. Going to an archive.

The goat's head is apparently something my not-too-distant ancestors might have made on special occasions. Tuna fish casserole is what my mother left us the ingredients to make when she was away at grad school or teaching. Incuding the soda crackers of course.

Long thread on "what's the most horrible food from your culture," and people are mixing together a goat's head on a plate and tuna fish casserole.

Duh, no. It’s a wind instrument.

Students talking about my colleagues on the bus. How closely should I listen in?

And yes, I do often think about what it would like if they were coming in to attack us

Always love to be outside in our neighborhood when the F-35s come roaring overhead, unbearably loud, shortly after takeoff from Truax.

(Air National Guard training flights, for those not from Madison)

Plot of cumulative rainfall so far in April, 2026, at five mesonet weather stations. All show abrupt rises early in the month and especially between April 11 and 14. One station had total rainfall over 8 inches of rain in April, and all had more than 4 inches.

Quick plot of the rainfall that produced record flooding along the Wolf River in Wisconsin, as recorded at Wisconsin Mesonet stations.

"Penrose recognised that defeating eugenics was not just a scientific problem, but a political one too... If the history of the interactions between eugenics & genetics tells us anything, it is that political movements may continually adapt in response to a constantly changing scientific landscape"

Photo of Iris the cat lying on her back on the carpet, trying to look endearing.

I was just enjoying some pistachio ice cream with the doomscrolling, when I heard a slurping noise and realized Iris the cat was enjoying it too. The ice cream, she doesn't care about the doom.

We keep hearing that the LLM Genie is out of the bottle, but so were CFCs, leaded gasoline, and so many issues we’ve pushed back on. There is no reason we need to accept things that harm us individually and collectively.

Push back.

Similar range of cumulative rainfall so far at Wisconet stations in the Madison area, but accumulated a little more gradually (and later).

Plot of cumulative rainfall so far in April, 2026, at five mesonet weather stations. All show abrupt rises early in the month and especially between April 11 and 14. One station had total rainfall over 8 inches of rain in April, and all had more than 4 inches.

Quick plot of the rainfall that produced record flooding along the Wolf River in Wisconsin, as recorded at Wisconsin Mesonet stations.

Went to a workshop this morning & one of the “fireside chat” speakers was former CDC Director Dr Mandy Cohen & it was painful to hear her say it’s going to take “generations” to undo the damage & rebuild CDC—she reflected on the amazing outbreak experts, eg Marburg experts, at CDC when she ran it

Linkages between historical redlining and contemporary indicators of structural racism and discrimination across 5 North Carolina metropolitan areas Historical manifestations of structural racism and discrimination (SRD; e.g. 1930s redlining) have been linked to current adverse health outcomes, yet less is known about linkages to present-day ne...

Happy this paper at Journal of Urban Affairs is finally out :)

Planey AM, Taylor NL, Kumar AD, Cross RI, Neally S, Lewis JA, Luben TJ, Martin CL. "Linkages between historical redlining and contemporary indicators of structural racism and discrimination across 5 North Carolina metropolitan areas"

Although I knew most of what's in this Wikipedia page and I've been to the site of Ludlow, somehow I never knew that George McGovern wrote his dissertation on the Coalfield War and years later published a book from it.

There is at least one map of watersheds of Turtle Island online that does include many internally drained basins in the US and Mexico though it may not get them all right.

Watershed Map of North America Watershed map of North America showing 2-digit hydrologic units. A watershed is an area of land that drains all the streams and rainfall to a common outlet such as the outflow of a reservoir, mouth of...

Are you going to block this one, too? www.usgs.gov/media/images...

Significant US data center capacity at risk of delay

FT looked at satellite imagery of other big data center projects. Its verdict: progress is much slower than the AI hype machine would suggest.

Trump-branded AI data center megaproject stalls, CEO departs Fermi America is emerging as a high-profile test of ambitious AI data center projects.

Fermi Energy's "President Donald Trump Advanced Energy and Intelligence Campus", which would have burned 17 GWs of power, mostly fossil gas and mostly onsite, is in trouble. No anchor tenant has been found, construction has been delayed & the stock price is plummeting.

Wonderful news, because many institutions rushed the roll-out of this "rule" and didn't provide the requisite support for faculty whose teaching materials needed to be made compliant (not the same thing as accessible...)

If you search for "milk in Plattdeutsch" you will see many examples.