Puddle of Consciousness

E.P.A. to Stop Considering Lives Saved When Setting Rules on Air Pollution

Save Big Oil a buck or save a life?

Easy choice, says the Trump administration. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/12/c...

Watching them all fall in line to brazenly lie to protect their new secret police/terror squads from accountability for shooting a scared mom in the face 3 times, is a reminder (in case we still needed one) that it’s no where near enough to just replace Trump. It’s the entire immoral & corrupt GOP.

Corporation for Public Broadcasting Votes to Shut Down

This incredibly disheartening news was made possible thanks to voters like you!

(Well, perhaps not exactly like you, especially if you think the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and/or public media are generally worthy of support. But you get the idea...)

#GiftLink #CPB #PBS #NPR

ICE posing as utility workers to detain immigrants, Gresham lawmaker warns • Oregon Capital Chronicle Rep. Ricki Ruiz, D-Gresham, in December received reports of his constituents getting detained by people posing as utility workers.

ICE agents have altered license plates and placed Mexican flag stickers on their vehicles to try to lure and detain people, NPR reported. And now, Oregon utilities are taking steps to ensure their customers don’t mistake ICE agents for their employees.

What in the Gestapo is going on in Grand Rapids?

Watch this activist get arrested *mid-interview* for speaking out against U.S. action in Venezuela.

Two years since conservatives took over a liberal arts college, what’s been lost — and gained Once a top college, it dropped nearly 60 spots in rankings and spent twice as much per student as its peers. Here's what happened.

www.masslive.com/news/2025/12...

The fangy under-chin eclipse of a sleeping cat out cold on his back - atop a plush purple blanket. The “Jaws” theme is playing, sideways.

anyway good night

We’ll stop criticizing when they stop doing appalling things.

Perfect day to donate to the radical left. NPR, for example. :/

The plan to block voters they perceive (rightly, most likely) as not supporting them is a core GOP plan right now for 2026.

They'll use many techniques, likely including ICE agents massed at selected polling stations.

Also, you know, gerrymandering on steroids.

The Secretary of Education Outlined a Vision for Higher Ed in a Speech. Here’s Some Context. In an address to Hillsdale College, Linda McMahon articulated the Trump administration’s vision for higher education. We annotated the speech.

"Degree programs must deliver a clear return on investment... College is not a place to 'find yourself' - but to quip yourself for a concrete career," like making lots of 💰 off people who like to watch guys in spandex and face paint pound the crap out of each other, says our Secretary of Education

Library Synergy Please allow 10 working days to process before shipping Garment Dyed - Concrete Long SleeveMade in USA - 100% USA Cotton BARC / Synergy By the 1960s, social protest movements in larger society we...

BootBoyzBiz (of all places) has a great literature review informing the design of its (sadly sold-out) Library Synergy sweatshirt — ft the Bay Area Reference Center's Synergy magazine, Bootlegger mag, radical reference, library activism, Celeste West, Sandy Berman...

boot-boyz.biz/products/lib...

The FDA Let Substandard Factories Ship These Medications to the U.S. ProPublica identified more than 150 products that were exempted from import bans since 2013. Our list provides the names of the drugs or ingredients and their manufacturers, many of which are no longe...

#ICYMI: For years, the FDA quietly allowed substandard foreign manufacturers to ship drugs to the U.S. from factories the agency had officially banned.

We compiled a list of the drugs and their makers.

Graphic filled with stats on the efficiency of urban biking and how safe it is.

Why do we need a lot more protected bike-lanes in cities? Because biking in protected #bikelanes poses just 1/10th the risk of biking on major streets with parking. Via @momentummag.bsky.social. Plus they mean a LOT more people choosing biking, which has all sorts of health and cost saving benefits.

The Ice alert app founder sparking fury in Trump officials: ‘Pam Bondi said I better watch out? Please.’ After IceBlock’s launch in April, Kristi Noem attacked developer Joshua Aaron and his wife was fired from the DoJ. The attention has only led to more raids being reported

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

2 adolescent squirrels loitering by the sidewalk

These two adolescent squirrels were loitering on the sidewalk outside work. So cocky :)

Wisdom, Laysan Albatross Super Mom, Is 73 and Still Going Strong Wisdom the Laysan Albatross (left) on Midway Atoll in 2015, with her mate, Akeakamai. Photo by Kiah Walker / USFWS via Wikimedia Commons. When we first wrote about Wisdom the Laysan Albatross, in 2...

I’m not entirely comfortable with how much of my mental health is tied up in whether or not this one individual albatross continues to breed. #OceanChat

www.allaboutbirds.org/news/wisdom-...

Happy National Library Week! Read, resist and refuel with knowledge. #BookSky

More.

YouTube video by National Book Ursula Le Guin

I miss her so much, but the work is on the rest of us now.

@ursulakleguin.com at the 2014 National Book Awards. "I think hard times are coming when we will be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now."

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Et9N...

Excellent points!

being an indie bookseller in the helltimes has felt both very stable and very stabilizing, and part of me wishes everyone could be on my side of the counter for a little while, because I think it would help some of you be a little less cynical and doomy right now. so here is my VERY anecdotal data:

Kagi Search - A Premium Search EngineArrow RightArrow Right Better search results with no ads. Welcome to Kagi (pronounced kah-gee), a paid search engine that gives power back to the user.

I’ve been testing out this new search engine under the extremely intensive use case of fact checking a book and I gotta say this is the best search I’ve used since old google. It consistently delivers what I’m looking for. Absolutely worth the cost by a mile.

kagi.com

How a dog's nose became a powerful tool for science and conservation : Short Wave On their second job ever, Collette Yee and her partner were assigned a difficult job: locate transient whale poop in the ocean before it sinks. Luckily, Collette was partnered with Jack, a blue…

How a dog's nose became a powerful tool for science and conservation : Short Wave

Word.