SemprePhi

Scoop: Fox News will finish October with its worst ratings in years, an ominous sign for Republicans ahead of the midterms. Compared to last October, Fox News is DOWN 27% in total viewers and 32% in the 25-54 demo. MS NOW and CNN are up. Details in @status.news: www.status.news/p/fox-news-r...

“Most people are just too lazy to make their own words,” he continued, “but it’s much more fun.” “Is it difficult? I’m not much good at making words,” admitted Milo, spitting the pits from a P.

Today’s Nico post for @thearsonista.bsky.social is an incredible poem in nine parts by Nicholas Rombes 🔥🔥🔥

"I Believed American Healthcare Was the Best in the World. Then I Did the Math" Yale epidemiologist @Alison_Galvani anticipated a hefty price tag for Medicare for All. But she found that we are already paying more than enough right now to cover the cost of universal healthcare.

"Many are wondering: Can I restore my lost business, crops, forest lands? If my home survived, can I insure it? What about next summer? Events of this magnitude mark survivors for life, the same way tornadoes and mass shootings do." www.nytimes.com/2026/10/12/o... #wildfires

whoa... the current map of "No Kings: Vote Early" events planned for tomorrow, sat oct 17: www.nokings.org

The Roads Have Eyes! 👁️ Turn on the Surveillance Layer in Map Options to see known license plate readers from Flock Safety, Motorola Solutions (Vigilant), Genetec, Axis Communications, Axon, Leonardo (ELSAG), Neology, Rekor, PlateSmart, Ubicquia, Verkada, and other outdoor surveillance cameras.

There have been two filament eruptions on the Sun in the last 24 hrs, one was triggered by the other. We call these sympathetic eruptions. One definitely produced a CME which will provide a glancing blow at best, will have to wait and see about the second. 🌞 💨 🌎️ 🛰️

Choruses of African elephant rumbles appear to become more similar in certain situations, including reuniting or coordinating what to do next, according to a paper in Scientific Reports. The research provides evidence that elephant rumble choruses function as group signals. go.nature.com/4ygimQF 🧪

In preschool, we often refer to the stories teachers & parents read aloud to children as "lap stories," because the intimacy is as important as the story itself. If outsourcing that experience to an AI bot makes you feel gross and angry, @benjaminjriley.bsky.social and I have an invitation for you.

I wrote about the Cornell rape case, specifically about how MAGA responses to it highlight the male supremacism on the American right. www.liberalcurrents.com/the-illusion...

90 Years Ago today! All them fascists bound to lose!

90 years ago, on the 4th of October 1936, antifascist counter protesters stopped a British Union of Fascists march through London’s East End. The Metropolitan Police tried to clear the way for the fascists resulting in violent clashes known as the Battle of Cable Street. #otd #history 🗃️

Annie Howard wrote a big John Prince deep dive ahead of this month’s celebrations for what would’ve been his 80th birthday

This has made my day 😎💙😎

New Horizons is now *three days away* from shutting off its two heliophysics instruments, simply because NASA has not provided the $2M in funding it had promised to the mission last year or this year. There is no science basis for shutting these off. Our earlier coverage:

I am guessing it is a deliberate reference to Daniel Defoe www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44081/...

Ossoff: "What did they spend the most political capital trying to do over the last 18 months? Cover up the Epstein files. They worked harder to cover up the Epstein files than they ever did to lower grocery prices."

Luxembourg Airport has suspended all operations, no arrivals or departures, due to drone activity.

today @ minor lits ... The Kept Hour: A Minor Study — @dreamsofbeing.bsky.social minorliteratures.com/2026/09/17/t...

It was confirmed yesterday that the centre left coalition won the election in Sweden As predicted, with the far right performing poorly, coverage has almost entirely vanished from international media

It is clear that Democrats are set to sweep control of Congress in free and fair elections. It is also clear that Trump and the GOP are working to make sure the elections are not free and fair. I founded Democracy Docket to help you stay informed to fight back. demdock.com/4w6emld

Scotland imposes mandatory environmental assessments on new datacentres - www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026... now require renewal energy too

“There is nothing new under the sun. But there are new suns.” — Octavia Butler 🧪

I wrote here about the last time thugs with power tried to strip citizenship from immigrants based on their politics.

Country blues guitarist and singer Big Bill Broonzy performing "Hey Hey Baby" live in 1956. Song can be found on his 1955 album Big Bill Blues. #Blues #BluesMusic #CouhtryBlues m.youtube.com/watch?v=gSHB...

When your beak is a spear, then your tongue must be an arrow. Flutter your Gulars!

www.mediaite.com/politics/dum... THIS !!!!

Have you seen/heard this? youtu.be/dSnn0uGtnww?...

Gerard McCarthy's response to Maureen Lipman is so fucking good

Good news: he lost.

September 2 is not the same without Wendell Berry allpoetry.com/poem/1262591...

RIP Wendell Berry

Looks like LIV Golf is mercifully going belly up. The league's bankruptcy settlement offers players pennies on the dollar. LIV's net operating losses exceed $5 billion. You hate to see it. www.ft.com/content/5051...

“It is dangerous to leave written that which is badly written. A chance word, upon paper, may destroy the world. Watch carefully and erase, while the power is still yours…for all that is put down, once it escapes, may rot its way into a thousand minds…” William Carlos Williams, "Paterson"

My Dolly Parton story is that she contributed a foreword to a book I edited, and that book make the NY Times best seller list - yet more evidence her book magic was every bit as great as her music magic.

Amazon is officially shutting down Mechanical Turk next month. It feels like the end of an era. I've written about the platform on and off for close to a decade. We wouldn't have the AI tools we do now if it weren't for the low-paid, largely invisible labor of MTurkers

The Tonearm is an online journal of unexpected music and culture, a shared exploration of what it's like to create cool + meaningful things. Check out our latest articles + podcasts: www.thetonearm.com/linkinbio/ and don't forget to subscribe to our weekly newsletter, Talk Of The Tonearm ✨

My first story for @prospect.org in my new role ⤵️

In case you are an academic who is currently being gaslit into believing that you're a caveman who wants their students to be jobless if you resist allowing AI in your classrooms... I present to you Berkeley Law's response, which can be summarized as "Fuck off directly into the sun."

In the face of repeated threats to its licenses, ABC has "moved from capitulation to resistance," writes Prof. @bechamilton.bsky.social, w/tnx for an assist from Marie Miller at the @rcls-nyu.bsky.social :

Y-I-K-E-S.