Sunday, July 31, 2022

Twitter, July 2022

July 2022 saw the continuing aftermath of the Supreme Court's anti-abortion decision (accentuated by the story of the pregnant 10-year-old from Ohio), the July 4 mass shooting in Illinois, more January 6 insurrection hearings in the House of Representatives, and the heat of summer in the age of the climate crisis. At the end of the month, there was the sudden announcement of the Democrats' Senate bargain (called the Inflation Reduction Act), so there may be some divergent tweets this month about Joe Manchin.

Everything below the line is quoted from the attributed Twitter source, and the tweets are in reverse chronological order.

___


Was curious so: A solar panel weighs about 40 pounds and has a 400W capacity. Installed in Indiana, it can be expected to generate >13MWh's (400W x 8760hrs x 25yrs x 15% CF). Coal generates 185lbs of ash — JUST ASH — per MWh. 2,430lbs toxic ash vs. 40lbs recyclable hardware.
John Smillie

that most in US can't visualize a car free street - let alone a car free neighborhood - says a lot about our inability to meet climate goals
@holz_bau

You know what will send inflation absolutely soaring (actually driven by supply/demand not just industry bullshit)? Unchecked climate change. You want to talk about food prices, hoo boy
Amy Westervelt

The right's entire raison d'être is to make being on the side fighting for fairness and justice *unpleasant*, to associate it with marxism or pedophilia or whatever. Third party wankers think they can escape this dynamic by being theatrically Reasonable, but they are deluded.
David Roberts @drvolts

Trump used the presidential seal on towels, golf carts, and other items during the LIV Golf tournament at Bedminster. It's against federal law to use the seal in ways that could convey "a false impression of sponsorship or approval by the Government."
Kyle Griffin

The GOP talking point “PARENTS DESERVE TRANSPARENCY!” re public school curriculum is strangely not the case for charter/private schools
@Meidas_Sammi

Welp:


Bradley Onishi

Water privatisation was a predictable disaster. No psychic powers were needed to foresee that, rather than making long-term investments in sewage treatment, leak prevention and drought preparedness, shareholders would choose to channel dividends into their own pockets. Privatisation is legalised theft from the public realm.
George Monbiot

I've just started rereading The Dispossessed by Le Guin which I originally read when I was about 13, and I wonder how much of this philosophy conditioned who I am today. I'm reading it and just, it's everything. Damn Ursula, you really did it to us huh...
@HenBinder

Your food, gas, energy and travel costs are not higher because of Ukraine. They are higher because of Russia. Keep that in mind when trying to find the responsible.
Melaniya Podolyak

41 Republican Senators can block our rights and freedoms at any time. That doesn’t sound like democracy to me.
Mandela Barnes @TheOtherMandela

Finland tracks what percentage of murders were committed by men who were drunk. It has been above 50% for almost the entire time the statistics were recorded:

Armand Domalewski

you know that christian homophobia is just bigotry and not biblical scholarship bc none of those guys are scared to death of going to hell for being rich
@telowery22

Nothing appeals to white moderates like a person of color who doesn’t challenge their priors.
Adam Miller @ajm6792

Religious folk are compelled to recruit and *save* (what arrogance, eh?), thus they can’t fathom that we nonbelievers aren’t in the recruitin’ and savin’ business. A religious SCOTUS is the end of democracy and freedom.
Paul Thomas @plthomasEdD

Environmentalism without class struggle is using paper straws while the rich take 9 minute flights in their private jets.
Jason Hickel

Heart-warming, "Rags to Riches" Hollywood stories. Brief comment from an American in 2017:


Brunapper

Any reference to “government” schools is a Betsy DeVos and Koch Industries lie. They are PUBLIC schools. Public roads. Public parks. Public water. Public police. NOT Gov’t roads. Gov’t parks. Gov’t water. Gov’t police. Your neighborhood. Your street. Your school. Your kids.
@pastors4txkids

General thought: shouldn’t we strive for each successive generation to work less than the one before? thus, through our cooperative hard work and innovation, the human experience will center less on work for work’s sake, and more on our shared enjoyment of the world around us?
Warren Logan @WarrenMobility

the only real “traditional” values russia has is homophobia and the maltreatment of women. which, i suspect, does form the bulk of the anti-woke appeal
@SevaUT

Once again, and for all time — when the only real choices are Nazis and non-Nazis, siphoning votes away from the non-Nazis makes you a Nazi. I don't give two fucks about your unicorn wishes. I really don't. People are gonna die for your selfishness.
@MissesDread

So weird that the iconography of the right took such a hard turn toward defaced American flags.
scott oneil

This is astonishing, yet not surprising. If it feels like you're far less safe in New York City than ever before, it's not because shootings are up. It's because the media (fueled by lies and fearmongering by NYC Mayor Eric Adams) is up. Look at this chart. Red line is shootings. Grey is media:


Scott Hechinger

The venn diagram of people who say "they should run the government like a business!!" and say "they are just greedy for tax revenue!!" is a circle
Evan Derby

Citizen: we should narrow this road and add other traffic calming features
Planning engineer: sorry, we buy only the largest firetrucks and must build for two of them passing in opposite directions at their theoretical max speed
@n8clu

So not only is the post-Dobbs GOP not serious about policies to support children and families but they're also keen on shifting the cost of paying for K-12 education onto families.
Jennifer Berkshire

Wondering why there are so many tv shows and movies about cops and so few about union organizers
Jorts (and Jean) @JortsTheCat

Tucked in the Inflation Reduction Act is a new green bank, capitalized at $27 billion of public money, to invest in net zero tech. Many of us have long advocated for this; it will supercharge the transition and go where private money is unwilling to go.
Leonardo Martinez-Diaz

First thing they teach you in journalism school is that the media doesn't tell you what to think, but it does tell you what to think about.
Michael Hobbes @RottenInDenmark

There are a lot of ways to describe the evolution of the US conservative movement over the last few decades, but one theme is that RW media has eradicated any notion that cons have an obligation to carry themselves with any class or grace -- to act like *adults*.
David Roberts @drvolts

The fossil fuel industry is in the process of inconveniencing you about a billion times more than any climate activist
Peter Kalmus @ClimateHuman

Absolutely typical: Taliban figures ensure their own daughters are educated, either in privately run schools in Afghanistan or abroad. Many have families living outside Afghanistan who are not subject to the strictures they are imposing on Afghans.
Hussein Ibish @Ibishblog

All the cars waiting for the Bay Bridge in this picture would be moved by half of a BART train. (Photo from SFGATE):


Hayden Clarkin @the_transit_guy

We wouldn't want to stumble into being a kind society, would we??
Tampa Tweeter

Gentle reminder: All Ages and Abilities Infrastructure is required for mode shift. Mode shift is required for effective climate action. If one does not support making walking, cycling, and transit the best choices; then they do not have a credible plan for climate action.
Zac de Vries - Saanich Councillor

Black women have always had the highest labor force participation rate of all women, yet have highest poverty rates. Some solutions: more unionization, better pay for care work. Thanks for these reminders and insights @mlholder999
Amy Hanauer

Because of Texas' abortion ban, doctors could not terminate Elizabeth Weller's failing pregnancy until she developed a severe infection. She eventually brought her "foul" discharge to the hospital to prove that the infection was starting to kill her.
Mark Joseph Stern

Women are literally being tortured as a result of Roe being overturned. This is what the Supreme Court has wrought.
Alejandra Caraballo @Esqueer_

Military budget: $840 billion
Semiconductors: $52 billion
Police expansion: $37 billion
Climate change: $2 billion
Adam Best

I’m almost never offended by people’s opinions on urbanism. But when they defend policies that support automobile *dependence* in the name of poor people, seniors, or people with disabilities—and they’re not in those groups—I’m often offended.
Rik Adamski

Hell ya brother:

Fortune cookie that reads A real patriot is a fellow who gets a parking ticket and rejoices that the system works.
Nilo Cobau

If you google "evangelicals child marriage" you get a curious mix of stories about evangelicals lobbying to preserve child marriage in the United States while opposing it as missionary activists in non-Western countries.
Kristin Rawls

Almost every American worker owns their own car. You don’t get that kind of conformity around consumer choices in a system where alternatives are freely available
Angie Schmitt

Too many cars choke a city. Too many SUVs and pick-up trucks even more.
Brent Toderian

"Water usage data suggests that if Americans avoid meat one day each week they could save an amount of water equivalent to the entire flow of the Colorado each year, more than enough water to alleviate the region’s shortages."
Extinction Rebellion

It's always "what if your daughter didn't get on a sports team"
and never
"What if your child was trans and was regularly beaten at school, and started considering suicide because you decided to send them to a re-education camp?"
Josh @sinboy

I will never understand centering your feminism on body parts. Especially one as obnoxious as a uterus. Cis women are you forgetting you hate that heaux every month? Why is it your identity?
Mikki Kendall @Karnythia

You see a beautiful, yet unremarkable, streetscape like this [in Andalusia] — not uncommon across the globe — and it hits you why North America has a prevalence of mental health disorders and high rates of stress:


Nate Hood

If you’re a single parent with one child and you make $200 a month, that’s too much to qualify for Medicaid in Texas.
@DrHarryThomas

I agree, college sophomores are annoying and fewer adults should be reading their Tumblrs. Maybe we should focus on how a large portion of the country wants to throw doctors into a river to see if they float? Just an idea.
Ben Collins @oneunderscore__

Imagine living in the actual world — the one in which librarians are threatened with being fined and fired if they use the word abortion or help their patrons find information about abortion — and being fixated on the idea that criticizing transphobia is the real censorship.
Jacob Remes

Gas prices are going down so I think we are gonna get nonstop caravan or pronoun coverage starting in a week or so
Brian Schatz

Imagine wasting your life trying to prevent loving people from marrying.
Jay Arnold @jadedcreative

Evangelical Christians desperately need and want hell to be real and that's just fucked up.
Jarred the Big Gay Wyrd-Worker

Listening to Face the Nation talk about climate change, literally the world on fire, and flooding at the same time. And then thinking about living in a city where 24/7 bus lanes are too much, and the 2040 comp plan is on pause. FFS.
Amity Foster

We went from “we’re ready for a woman in the White House” to “women shouldn’t even have healthcare” rather quickly, didn’t we?
@7Veritas4

The cooling effect of a single, young street tree is the same as 5 room-sized air conditioners operating 20 hours/day. If every London borough had delivered the 50% increase in street trees that I did as a Hackney Cllr, we may have prevented the U.K’s first 40C+ heatwave:


@jonburkeUK

The US has only about a third of the electric vehicle models available for purchase as the EU, and about 1/5th of the number available in China. And those models that do exist in the US are more likely to be SUVs.
Yonah Freemark

Asking a bike racer and shop owner how to design bike lanes is like asking a car racer and owner of a performance tuning shop how to design safe streets for kids. Journalists need to be taught the difference between recreational biking and biking for transportation.
Lou Miranda @TheNewLou

A chunk of all the street trees planted are built-in tragedies, because utilities will need to be replaced, roads rebuilt. Only way to avoid entirely it is not plant any street trees.
@kar_nels

A study of 109 countries over 100 years shows that secularization (a decline in religiosity) is associated with robust economic development. In fact, it precedes rather than follows that development, which strongly suggests that it's the cause:
Alfie Kohn

Men are fine, why do you ask?


David Roberts @drvolts

Instead of "traffic is terrible" I'm going to try "too many people decided to drive"
- correctly identifies the problem
- includes self in group who decided to drive
- implies alternatives exist (or at least should)
- doesn't accept traffic as status quo
Schrödinger's cyclist @FBorgal

"Enshitification" for word of the year.
@stevepass

really is impossible to decipher any coherent ideology here. 8th circuit recently ruled that boycotts aren't speech, but money is speech for political purposes. they think union busting is speech, but union organizing isn't. it's just calvinball.
Joshua Erlich

Anyone with a principled dedication to free speech in America would be talking about the nationwide wave of curriculum restrictions, union busting and violent threats to public servants right now — not minor inconveniences for reactionary public figures.
Michael Hobbes @RottenInDenmark

New Ford F-450 Comes with Shotgun in Case Truck Doesn’t Kill Pedestrian on Impact


The Onion

Low-density zoning in high-income neighborhoods is essentially home value insurance, provided by local governments, at the expense of people who didn’t buy homes there 20+ years ago.
Jenny Schuetz

Alternative history is always like “what if the confederacy won?” Or “what if the Nazis had won?” And never “what if all the southern slaves had murdered all the slave holders?”
Katelyn Burns @transscribe

IT WAS A COUP! To so many countries around the world: the fact that we’re debating this means we’re children.
Ken Olin

It's 2024. The democrats are trying to pass the "You Can't Keep Women Chained in Your Basement Against Their Will" Act. 50% of GOPs say "That's already illegal! Waste of time!" The other 50% say "Where in the constitution does it say you can't keep women chained in your basement??"
Aubrey Hirsch

We are deeply troubled by the rise of the phrase “The Trans Question” in media. Framing minorities as “questions” in need of answers is reminiscent of how the Nazis framed the existence of Jews as “The Jewish Question,” which culminated in the “Final Solution” (the Holocaust).
GC Antisemitism

There's no more moderate position than wanting to keep a liveable world. And nothing more radical than the idea we should let it be destroyed for the profit of a tiny minority.
Dr Charlie Gardner

Not everyone can afford an electric vehicle! That's why America's #1 selling vehicle for the past 45 years has been and will continue to be this cheap car. Woo savings!


Simon Mahan

You deserve a system of governance that can comprehend an interconnected living planet, a time horizon of centuries, and the conditions for human and non-human well-being.
Dr. Elizabeth Sawin

It’s so funny that wanting to have a livable planet is a polarizing political issue
Asher Perlman

Have you ever thought about how much we ask bus drivers to do at once? It's wild! The job description is basically "heavy machinery operator/ticket taker/social worker/security guard/tour guide; must be willing to go hours without peeing + endure constant abuse; pay $15-25/h."
streetsblogkea

People keep asking “but where will everyone park?” and I have a very simple answer: We are in a housing crisis, not a parking crisis.
Spokane Rising

Additionally: We are in a climate crisis, not a parking crisis.
Regina @mplsFietser

Body autonomy is a birth right, not a legislative one. No one should be making decisions about anyone's body except for patients and legitimate doctors.
@TheKristyGray

The government shouldn't care if you are pregnant. The government shouldn't care if you are gay. The government should care if you bought an AR -15 to kill people.
Eileen Marie Sarah

Update on the Duluth Target: remodeling the store and we’ve uncovered the original terrazzo floor logo. Since this photo it has been polished and will remain uncovered though part of it is under the current pharmacy. 60 years later:


Bruce Christensen @BismrkBear

Researchers found that the mere presence of diversity mission statements and policies (regardless of effectiveness) made people more dismissive of discrimination claims and other evidence of inequity within companies.
Khalil Gibran Muhammad

It's just kind of bizarre how sizeable, if not overwhelming, left-wing protests over basic rights are treated as dog-bites-man but tiny right-wing protests over total looney-tunes bullshit have reporters falling all over themselves to understand Forgotten America
Hemry, Local Bartender

"We must make sure the candidate's crimes do not affect his election chances" is shit policy.
Julie, your Cruise Director @beaudoin_lyle

Today I learned Dakota and Ojibwe are not words on the list of federally-recognized tribes (see Sioux and Chippewa).
Heidi @laflaneuse

New: Suicide death rates vary tremendously by state, and that variation is due largely to suicides by firearms:


Larry Levitt

Suicide is often not planned but a spur-of-the-moment decisions that comes from a temporary state of extreme depression and the feeling will normally pass with just a few hours. Having an actual kill machine in your home means it more likely you act on that temporary thought
@JonWalkerDC

your reminder that a ten year old child was raped and impregnated and the top three Republican responses were "it's a hoax," "it's a blessing" and "prosecute the doctor who helped her." fucking ghouls
Jeff Tiedrich

Solar panels recycling reaches 96% efficiency, value of recyclable materials projected at $80b by 2050. 100% of wind turbines can be recycled. The DNA of clean energy is circular economy (not so Big Oil, on an environmental destruction path since 1859).


Assaad Razzouk

the climate crisis is a product of the ecocidal and genocidal projects of slavery, colonialism, and capitalism.
Robyn Maynard @policingblack

White society defines “freedom” as the natural right of white people (specifically cis men) exclusively. Everyone else’s access to a similar level of freedom is a matter of policy debate. Where one stands on that debate makes them “liberal” or “conservative” That’s how a group of white settlers could establish a slavocracy where a significant portion of the population was generationally enslaved, in many cases by their own fathers and grandfathers, and declare it a “liberal democracy”
@BreeNewsome

More white folk that aren't racist and are college educated are much poorer now. And their eyes have been opened to the damage that incompetent racist and sexist politicians can do to our institutions.
Mekka Okereke

Congress passed nationally funded locally administered childcare centers in 1971 but conservatives had a fit and Nixon vetoed. It’s not the fault of “government” but of loud reactionaries. We should stand up!
Sue Hornik

"THEY ARE JUST SCAREMONGERING THAT 41 DEGREE [celsius] HEAT COULD RESULT IN HOSPITALISATION AND DEATH!" say people who are constantly terrified of pronouns.
Sooz Kempner

Random Monday thought: People often move to the suburbs when they have kids for "safety." But the most dangerous thing your kids will do is ride in a car, and moving to the suburbs increases the amount of time they are in a car exponentially.
Brandon @BRuddTweets

The reason why Democrats haven’t won white voters in a Prez elex since the 1960s, the reason why Dems are hemorrhaging white working class support, is because LBJ and the party went all in on letting Black people be part of society and changing the all white immigration laws.
Marcus H. Johnson

Happy Paying Attention to Climate Change Week:


Patrick Galey

When Betsy Devos says, “I personally think the Department of Education should not exist,” she means public schools. They have been clear about ending public education since Brown v. Board, don't say gay, CRT, book banning — it's all part of this crusade.
Andrew L. Seidel

Has anyone at the New York Times publicly explained why they use "pro-life" instead of "anti-abortion," which is the AP Style preference?
Gabe Schneider

Friendly reminder, that we are all closer to being climate refugees than billionaires.
Ahmed Ali

My unpopular opinion: If we make talking to strangers (as adults) culturally taboo, the only strangers who will talk to people are assholes and that will make us think that everyone is an asshole and that is bad, so I think striking up conversations with strangers is very good.
Hank Green

Haven't been able to stop thinking about this since I read it: "In a short parable by Franz Kafka, leopards break into the temple one year and drink all the ceremonial wine. When they do it several more times, the leopards are made part of the ceremony."
Alfie Kohn

Genius idea for summer fun/festival. This is from Lakewood, Ohio:


Angie Schmitt

sure was a quick goddamn journey from "throwing it back to the states" to "forced birth for ten year olds is good, actually"
Tom Tomorrow

The irony of people flying to Europe into almost unliveable heat for summer holidays on planes that are causing the unliveable heat. Isn’t it odd no one is talking about this?
Eoin Galavan @galavpsychology

Any fool in >40°C heat can see that 2050 is too late for net zero.
Extinction Rebellion

I am frequently floored by the enthusiasm with which American voters put truly awful people into significant positions of power.
Brent Toderian

“We got hired to make a cover for All Quiet on the Western Front. Anyone here read the book and want to tackle it?”
“I’ve read the title”
“Good enough”


@dagger0621

The societal collision with unreadiness —  millions upon millions of people recognizing suddenly the awful magnitude of the dangers and losses around them, and realizing that they lack security, agency and belonging — is the flood coming for the cracked dam of our present order.
Alex Steffen

Manchin can't stop your town from becoming a walking and biking paradise filled with affordable housing and where oil-powered cars are rarely used. Your mayor and city council can make that happen by changing housing and road use policies. Talk to them.
Carter Lavin

Space tourism could soon fuel significant global warming while also depleting the protective ozone layer that is crucial for sustaining life on Earth, a new study concludes.
Inside Climate News

The GOP is trying to end interstate travel for anyone who might be pregnant and this doesn't merit a top headline at any major US paper?
@flotisserie

A white man with a gun showed up to Rep. Jayapal’s house and told her to go “back to India” and that he’d kill her. Somehow, Brett Kavanaugh not being able to eat a chocolate cookie at a restaurant got more coverage.
Santiago Mayer

I wish everyone on Earth knew how genuinely "off the charts" key planetary trends are right now, and how abnormal and critical it is. Things like atmospheric CO2 fraction, heat extremes on land and ocean, biodiversity loss and extinction rates. All alarms should be going off
Peter Kalmus @ClimateHuman

News: A 10-year-old pregnant rape victim had an abortion.
Normal people: That poor little girl.
Republicans: Is she lying? Does she even exist? How do we know she was raped if the abuse wasn’t reported? We must prosecute the doctor who saved her life.
The Volatile Mermaid @OhNoSheTwitnt

Ñandutí, Paraguayan lace. The name means "spider web" in Guaraní, the official, indigenous language of the country. Due to Spanish colonialism, it is related to Tenerife lace:


@womensart1

The closer we get to a critical mass of the population recognizing that white supremacist ideology is the true rot at center of all our problems, the more we’ll see defenders of the status quo spring forward to scapegoat marginalized groups
@BreeNewsome

Self-driving cars are like widening a highway: They make car travel more appealing, so people do more of it — in the process damaging the planet and creating urban gridlock. Induced demand is a helluva drug.
David Zipper

“The screams of children have been edited out” sums up the GOP policy on guns for decades.
David Pepper

States are trying to make travel illegal for women seeking abortions. Did I miss something? Isn't HIPAA still in effect? Why would state governments be informed of a woman's private health care decisions? So much for the party of limited government!
@jennyek1

A coal baron who lives on a yacht and drives a Maserati is dooming the planet. Yes, you  Joe Manchin
⁩Harvey Miller @MobileHarv

Conservatives during vaccine requirements: you cannot ask me any questions at all about my health or I'm calling a lawyer
Conservatives when a 10 year old girl is raped: why haven't all of her medical records been released for me to review personally???
@jtr6_9

One of my favorite defenses of cop incompetence, petulance, and uselessness right now is the idea that their feelings are simply too hurt by societal distrust in them. This is generally spoken by people who would not extend this level of coddling to teens working at Dairy Queen.
@bombsfall

China’s high-speed rail system now carries >2 billion riders a year, more than twice total US airline use pre-pandemic.
Yonah Freemark

weird how "being competitive with china" always seems to mean lower wages and ballistic missiles and never high speed rail
Ken Klippenstein

Choosing profit over our lives is nothing but a full-frontal attack. Rebel accordingly.


Extinction Rebellion

It is not yet three weeks since Roe was overturned, and we're having a national discussion about whether a 10-year-old rape victim — an actual 10-year-old, not a hypothetical 10-year-old — should have been forced to give birth to her rapist's child. That's where we are.
Lauren Kelley

You need 100 trees to sequester the amount of CO2 emitted from an average car per year.
Trees are nice but they aren’t a solution to CO2.
Math, all national (US) averages:
Trees sequester 25kg CO2/year
Cars emit 0.122 kg CO2/km
Average car drives 12,500 mi/year
Zefram Marks

hey i'm autistic, if you tell me something and I say I already know it, I don't mean it in a "ha beat you to it" way!  I mean it in a "yes indeed! Isn't it nice to have information!" way, please no one get twisted
fun facts with lulu

What people                             What environmentally
think environmentally              friendly actually looks
friendly looks like:                   like:


@Cobylefko

There shouldn’t be any fear about what happens if the insurrectionists get locked up.
There should be some fear about what happens if they don’t. They already tried to violently overthrow the government.
Randy Bryce @IronStache

Things are moving so fast people aren't paying attention to the shift from arguing over policies (which is normal politics) to arguing over inalienable and human rights (which is not).
Brandon Friedman

My city would be SO much better for everyone if we would JUST STOP fearing the change that will set us free of fossil fuels.
Monte Paulsen

Jordan Peterson is the Westboro Baptist Church in a three-piece suit.
Dave Vetter

‘Affordable housing’ being defined as anything other than ‘adequate housing that low income households can afford’
Carolyn Whitzman

Funny how quickly the religious freedom groups went from "we just don't want to bake a cake" to "it should be legal again to put LGBTQ people in prison for 'sodomy.'"
Alejandra Caraballo @Esqueer_

Twelve U.S. presidents enslaved people. Many of them enslaved hundreds of people, but Jefferson enslaved the most. I'm sorry, but I teach Black history, this is the most significant fact to me about many of these men. Thomas Jefferson enslaved over 600 people during his life. 400 at Monticello alone. Even if he weren't Jefferson, that would be notable. That number alone put him in the top .1 percent of enslavers. This is the fact we should begin with when understanding who Jefferson was.
Ashleigh Lawrence-Sanders

United States:
“site is too small and you need parking”

Argentina:


Michael Schwartz

Reminder: the Clean Air Act is one of the most successful pieces of legislation ever passed, in any country. Every year in the US it generates net economic benefits of $3.8 trillion (32X its costs) and averts 370,000 premature deaths.
David Roberts @drvolts

For a project, I'm researching the biblical case for the idea that life begins at conception. There doesn't seem to be one. It's a brand new idea, made up in the 1970s. In the bible and for nearly all of Christian history, life was thought to begin some time in the 2nd trimester.
Adam Davidson

The same people crying that CRT teaches children to feel bad about who they are are packing into lavish churches today to hear about how terrible they are for being born into sin.
Jason Voorhees @Mankow

On one hand Uber and Lyft
-decrease transit ridership
-increase congestion
-mostly serve rich people in a handful of transit accessible neighborhoods
-spend half their time dead heading empty of passengers
-lose a mind boggling amount of investors’ money

On hand they…
Make it easier for me to get to the airport, so who can say whether they are good or bad.
Angie Schmitt

Honestly — we need a president, a congress, a judiciary full of people who've been pregnant, who've had abortions, babies, miscarriages, who've struggled with infertility, who understand how insulting, cruel, and inhumane it is to legislate these things. Repeal all abortion laws.
Steph Herold

When many shortages were reported in the old USSR, communism — the system — got blamed. Now that we suffer many shortages, everything other than the system — capitalism — gets blamed. Don't be fooled.
Richard D. Wolff

If creditors' interests are always protected in law, "creditor" and "debtor" cease to describe economic relations and instead come to describe hereditary castes.
Cory Doctorow

disclaimer, speaking as a layperson, but I do not believe humans evolved with the capacity to process this many constant existential threats from so many directions simultaneously
Tom Tomorrow

America's gun crisis isn't organic. It didn't happen by accident. It's the product of 20 years of gun radicalism by Republicans who have flooded America with half a billion guns. That is why the only way to solve it is by forcing Republicans to choose: the killers or the kids?
Rachel Bitecofer

When I travel overseas, I get to see cities with great density, little violence, no homeless encampments, outdoor cafés, clean parks full of people, streets made for pedestrians, bicycle lanes, and smiles all over. We pay a hefty price so that some people can have houses with yards
@StanleyMJohnson

Battery of a Hummer EV is 2923 pounds. Battery of an e-bike is 10-20 pounds. Not a scientist or anything but if the choice is 200 e-bikes or one Hummer we should do the 200 e-bikes
Scott @scttdvd

Over 70% of Americans support gun safety legislation, marriage equality, abortion rights, gov't funding for childcare, paid maternity leave, raising the minimum wage, and more. This country isn't divided. A radical, armed, anti-democratic minority is attempting a hostile takeover
Mary L Trump

there’s an Minneapolis Police officer making $376,000 a year and the city charter is supposedly requiring Mayor Frey to hire more cops but the library doesn’t open til noon. Make it make sense
@alexbobskers

a random white person popped up to tell none other than George Takei that merely speaking out about his childhood in a Japanese-American internment camp was "divisive," if you wanna know how deeply true American history offends the colonizer
@Needle_of_Arya

If they won’t let women have methotrexate because they might accidentally become pregnant and miscarry the embryo, we should sure as hell not let men have guns because sometimes they go nuts and murder a bunch random strangers at concerts and parades on purpose.
Aubrey Hirsch

Explain why canceling student debt is a “handout” but forgiving $714 BILLION in PPP loans is a “stimulus.”
Public Citizen

A report released in May on the state of housing in the U.S. estimates the annual income needed to afford the median Twin Cities home is now almost $104,000 — nearly $21,000 more than the median Twin Cities household makes.
MinnPost

It's wearying being constantly told that no place is the right place for people on bike to get around town. Not the lovely areas because bikes are somehow less lovely and historic than cars. Not business areas because we don't do business, I guess. Not the residential areas because people need the street to store their cars. Not the through streets because they should be reserved for people in cars to get through efficiently.
Serafina

Genocide is always preceded by scapegoating various minority and marginalized populations.
@BreeNewsome

Life under one-party theocratic fascism in a gun-crazed nation on a dying planet, somehow it just doesn't excite the imagination.
Tom Tomorrow

As a feminist, I am also perplexed at how other people who identify as feminists do not seem to understand — or care? — how the trans-exclusionary mindset upholds the patriarchal structures that oppress us all. The whole “you man, me woman” argument is disturbingly regressive.
Leah McElrath

accosting a short-haired woman in the bathroom at target isn’t civil rights activism! this is antisocial behavior and we won’t tolerate it. they’re not “just asking questions,” they’re the fucking gender police and i will not comply. as a cis woman, i’m actually firmly in favor of being a person first. i don’t need special language about my womanhood or whatever. i’m a person. all the women out there screeching about womanhood are actually undermining MY humanity in their efforts to dehumanize trans people.
molly conger @socialistdogmom

Dear Cities: Tourists don't visit so they can go to tchotchke stores or made up tourist attractions. They come to experience your culture, try new foods, and live like locals. If you focus on making your place as good as it can be for those who live there, others will flock!


@Cobylefko

“One-tenth of flights from France in 2019 were on private aircraft. In just four hours, those planes generate as much CO2 as an average person in the EU emits all year. Four-fifths of people on the planet never get on an airplane in their entire lifetime.” [from Bloomberg]
David Wallace-Wells

The fact that private jets are not banned and that this is not even on any political agenda tells you exactly who our system is designed to work for, and why real climate action is not happening
Pauline von Hellermann

A majority of white Americans live in a perpetual state of grievance and unfulfilled entitlement completely unmoored from the reality of their relative privilege. They consume media that stokes fear, anger, and righteous indignation against “the other.” These are their children.
Angie Thee Optimist

Please stop telling me to vote and go spend some time monitoring your son’s internet activity. Thanks.
@BreeNewsome

I'm genuinely fascinated at how members of the majority experience *proposed linguistic changes* as existential societal threats. Like, even if you think the term "birthing people" is silly, it has no material impact whatsoever. It's double-weird because the basic premise — "updating language will harm society" — makes no sense on its face. Language changes all the time, especially when it comes to marginalized groups. However you feel about these updates, you'd be hard-pressed to link them to a measurable negative impact on society. If it's that fucking important to you to say "pregnant women" instead of "pregnant people" say it, fine. But don't compare the mild pushback you get to some sort of genocide. Get a grip. Plus, if we're honest, the outdated forms are still in circulation. If you want to say "stewardess" or "Indian" or the r-word, you can. People will think you're an asshole and, if you're a celebrity, you'll get e-mails correcting you, but you're not gonna go to jail.
Michael Hobbes @RottenInDenmark

to state the obvious there's a pretty obvious crisis going on right now with school and college-aged right wing men with extreme and violent resentment toward women and minorities being actively encouraged by conservative politicians and media
@kept_simple

One of our two political parties has as part of its fundamental platform the belief that we are only truly free if anyone can buy a gun at any time and murder people with it. The more murders, the more they reiterate this belief.
Ken Tremendous

Neoliberalism has basically been the US political establishment’s response to the end of Jim Crow— defund public services, increase policing/incarceration and diversify the administrative state with a sprinkling of Black and POC officials in various positions
@BreeNewsome

i will never understand how the existence of homeless folk makes people angry toward them and not just absolutely and completely devastated that we live in a world where this is acceptable
@glowyaquarius

Congrats to the NRA for doing their part to cancel July 4, 2022. It’s taken them over 40 years, but the gun lobby has finally succeeded in making it unsafe to celebrate the birthday of the country they claim to love.
Seth Cotlar

Republicans are taking away our freedoms. Freedom of choice. Freedom to say gay. Freedom to vote. Freedom to peaceably protest and redress grievances. Freedom to attend a parade without being shot. Freedom to read books. Freedom from religion. They are NOT THE PARTY OF FREEDOM
Mueller, She Wrote

decoupling pregnancy from femininity means more accurate and inclusive language and treatment, but it also allows cis women to refuse motherhood without refusing womanhood, which is great for feminism and terrifying for misogyny
@lyta_gold

The Second Amendment guarantees your right to wonder if today it will be your school, your church, your store, your hospital.
Peter Manseau

I've been getting a lot of mileage out of this photograph.


@TransformedMe

I hate that it needs to be said but fascists are marching in our cities, they've taken over the Supreme Court, they control statehouses and are trying to end democratic elections. If you're still doing "the left is just as bad as the right" you're helping the right seize power.
@JoshuaPotash

50% of Roger Federer‘s name is “er”
Bob Golen

Elevating patriotism over humanistic values looks the same everywhere; its dark side is just harder to miss when the flag waving is done in, say, Russia or China (vs. here). Thoreau: “I am a citizen of the world first, and of this country only at a later and more convenient hour”
Alfie Kohn

The clean energy transition requires about 1.5 to 2 billion tonnes of minerals over the next 30 years. That's about as much as the coal and oil we extract every six weeks!


Lauri Myllyvirta

First they came for every single person with a uterus, and I loudly complained about the phrase “person with a uterus”
CHOAM Nomsky @samthielman

We deserve a system of governance that actually represents and serves the interests of the majority, not just the people who today most closely resemble the wealthy, white male founders. The highest court in the land is illegitimate and corrupt and so is the local police department. So what are we doing here? The people in charge of making the reforms are the very ones showing us that reform is not possible. I am not talking about elections or saying we can replace the current system before midterms. Not saying there’s no point in voting. I’m saying that to truly grasp the dimensions of this conflict, we must understand why this system of corruption and non-democracy can’t be reformed
@BreeNewsome

"Ruin the character of" is code for "rich white people live here."
@MsDanielleDart

There’s so many little moments where I’m reminded I’m living in a society that was built on slavery and it’s fucking terrifying every single time.
@BreeNewsome

For a city to be joyful it has to allow for spontaneity, not try to prevent it and prescribe behaviour. This is why I don't find a lot of joyfulness in a lot of place making stuff. It's someone else's version of what should happen in that space. I want space that's flexibile I want public space that allows for things to happen that haven't yet been imagined by me or anyone. I want space so someone can saunter outside, sit and reflect, recline, daydream, meditate, get inspired, write a poem, perform it and sell copies of - all in public space.
@mssinenomine

Republicans in 2022: We don't want to traumatize kids by talking about racism and gay people, so we'll ban books and diversity initiatives, but we're fine with kids carrying the baby of their rapist because of something something.
Wajahat Ali

I learned something very cool recently: Arches or "Colonnades" over sidewalks mean the space inside is 10 degrees cooler — so buildings didn't need AC, aka, they're naturally sustainable. We've built cities for 11,000 years and know a lot about sustainability:


LindsayLovesBikes

It pains me to see smart people spending brain cycles arguing against "originalism" and "textualism," as though they are principles offered in good faith, as though conservatives won't abandon them the second they impede the immediate interests of conservatives.
David Roberts @drvolts

We ask that everyone remain peaceful as we escalate violence against you.
@BreeNewsome

I say this as a Jew and as a person firmly *not* in the "abolish the police" camp: That black and blue flag is the American version of a Nazi flag and most American cops want to be the SS. The alliance between cops and the Republicans should be on everyone's radar.
@MissesDread

I was talking to a friend the other day about how white cisgender women in America have a choice to make: they can finally realize that their struggles are in solidarity with other marginalized groups or they can keep viewing themselves as uniquely oppressed and forgo solidarity.
Mx. D. E. Anderson @diannaeanderson

They don’t want to defund the police because cops police the poor. They defunded the IRS because the IRS police the wealthy. We are a country of two justice systems.
Sock Puppet Pundit

In all of the entire developed world — all the OECD countries on 4 continents — there are only 500,000 medical bankruptcies a year. Every single one of them is here in America.
Thom Hartmann

The “we will adopt your baby” couples all look like they’re auditioning to be the white people in a Jordan Peele movie
Karen Chee

Living in LA, I’ve lived in many a neighborhood in which police helicopters circle all day and they don’t do anything except be loud an annoying. You know what improved the morale and safety of my neighborhood in less than two weeks? A new taco stand. I’m 1000% serious.
Vanessa Guerrero

If government can’t quarter in your home, they certainly shouldn’t be able to quarter in your uterus
@ballerinaoaf

Whether it's conservatives forcing ten year-old rape victims to bring their pregnancies to terms, or liberals forcing podcasters to stop using the n-word, both sides have a problem with respecting the wishes of others.
New York Times Pitchbot @DougJBalloon

As I mentioned the other day, a partial overturning of Jim Crow took 60+ years of radical and especially Black radical organizing in part because the fascist capture of institutions meant that THERE WAS NO LEGAL WAY to change them. White supremacists and fundamentalists pose the greatest threat to the rest of us when they capture our institutions and remake them as explicitly fascist vehicles of power and oppression. It is a danger we face right now — one that will only get worse the longer we allow it to fester.
Dr. William Horne

I’m sure it’s only a coincidence that the Right is pushing for omnipresent guns when their agenda is wildly unpopular, requires widespread oppression and violence, and their base is churning out roving paramilitary groups.
Jared Yates Sexton

Note to press: A "pregnant 10-year-old" is by definition a "10-year-old rape victim."
Dr. Catherine Prendergast

My husband's family is in MA and we live in TX. Will I need to prove that I'm either not pregnant or seeking an abortion to visit them? If a student at Tulane goes home to NY, will she need to do that as well? I'm completely serious when I see how we've become 2nd class citizens.
Krista Allen

"Democracy advocates" have become a subset of the population rather than the population itself:


Jeff Jarvis

If medications for auto immune conditions are being halted because they’re possibly abortifacients, then why isn’t tear gas banned? If the police tear gas a pregnant woman, what then?
Amina Akhtar @Drrramina

Roe being overturned isn't about a health procedure. It's about removing the federally protected right to privacy and personal liberty of people who can get pregnant. We are deemed subordinate to a potential person. That life is given more rights than we are. That's the issue.
Kameron Hurley

So, let me get this straight — a law written 50 years ago doesn't apply because regulating CO2 is too different. But an amendment written 240 years ago for muzzle-loading guns absolutely applies to semi-auto guns with 50-round magazines. They're just making shit up.
Dr. Ben R. Hodges

Please remember that fascism is relentless by design. It is not an accident that the bad news is relentless. They want you to burn out. They want you so tired and sad you never show up to protest them. Rest is resistance. Don't let exhaustion do you in.
Gwen Snyder @gwensnyderPHL

PHOTO FUN: Find the emotional woman:


Middle Age Riot

Nothing more pro-life than destroying a habitable planet
Scott Shapiro

You can regulate a pregnant body but not a coal plant. You can control the free speech of a teacher but not the money-as-speech of a corporation. You can coerce a child to pray in school but you can’t keep guns out of their classroom. What a world this Supreme Court is making.
Matt Bell @mdbell79

Are you “burned out” or are you having a reasonable reaction to a never-ending barrage of bad news which you can do very little about.
@iconawrites

If the only people driving big cars and SUVs were moms with three car seat age kids (like on Twitter) it wouldn’t be such a big issue.
Angie Schmitt

There’s something about a problem being unprecedented in human history that makes applying legal precedent to it seem absolutely clownish
Amy Westervelt

It's important to realize that the far-right SCOTUS majority believes the Constitution has been "in exile" since 1937 and that most legislative progress since then is unconstitutional. They do intend to burn it *all* down.
David Atkins

The supreme court is acting like there’s a liquidation sale on evil
@Ryan_Ken_Acts

I was told there would be a handbasket.
@lizzard1278



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