Boston Tom Levenson

Amazing, valuable thread.

Not a TL:DR, but perhaps its most important message: be kind to the people who are trying to help you and they well be able to help you better and faster.

Do you like this person?

The government’s own data rebuts Trump’s claims about wind and solar prices The Trump administration has targeted renewable energy for driving up electricity prices, but POLITICO’s analysis shows states that are growing their wind and solar power typically have lower power co...

Trump & his Cabinet say wind & solar are making electricity more expensive.

Federal data say the opposite.

Our analysis showed states w/ > avg wind/solar generation & > avg acceleration of wind/solar since ‘21 were likelier to have < avg power prices.

www.politico.com/news/2025/10...

Shaheen, a retiring Dem Rs are looking to flip on shutdown, says of OMB threats on back pay: “It would be a lot easier to resolve the situation if Russ Vought would stop talking.”

I'm on the record saying that Russ Vought will do things during the shutdown that will make his illegal rescissions visible in the way they otherwise weren't. And boy howdy, threatening to ignore the law on backpay is a great example. [corrected]

This whole thing is an example of degenerate Trump thinking. Vought had references to the law deleted from OMB shutdown guidance. It's still the law.

very cool that if you are working on behalf of right-wing culture warriors, you no longer need standing to have your claim adjudicated by the supreme court

Would help to include the link, wouldn't it?

From Nature:

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Here's a better brief account of today's physics Nobel Prize announcement than the NYT one I posted earlier.

An aside: how weird it must be to go to sleep an ordinarily distinguished researcher and wake up a laureate. That flip doesn't make everyone crazy, but there sure are some for whom it does.

This is Adelita Grijalva.

She was elected to Congress two weeks ago, officially making her the final vote needed to force the release of the Epstein files.

She has still not been sworn in because Mike Johnson refuses to do so.

Lemme ask my wife.

If the National Governors Association chooses to remain silent, Illinois will have no choice but to withdraw from the organization.

We should be standing as one against the idea that Donald Trump can call up the National Guard against our will.

How it should be done.

Ed is spot on here.

To repeat myself: Ed could not be more correct.

Opinion | Six surgeons general: It’s our duty to warn the nation about RFK Jr. We took an oath to declare dangers when we found them. We’re doing that again today.

Including Trump's first Surgeon General.

2/ So consider this: Nobel prizes are lagging indicators of research prowess. The results honored this year were achieved 40 yrs ago.

With the Trump/MAGA attack on the US research infrastructure, now pressed on every front, where will future Nobel winners choose to work going forward?

/fin

Nobel Prize in Physics Is Awarded for Work in Quantum Mechanics

Two things of note in today's announcement of the 2025 Nobel physics prize (besides the work being honored).

1: The US institutional dominance of the prize continues.
2: 2 of the three laureates are immigrants, drawn here decades ago by the then-unmatched opportunities for science here...

1/

Opinion | No, Trump Can’t Deploy Troops to Wherever He Wants

"The issue is going to come down to who decides the facts..."

Republicans' relationship to facts has always been shaky, and it's getting worse.

Gift link

“.. On closer inspection, however, it turned out that the image was not a photograph of a real event in Portland, but instead a fabrication created by combining two photographs of scenes that unfolded in South America nearly a decade apart ..”

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

It’s important to flood social media and news channels with news about how ICE lies, so that potential jurors see it.

Opinion | That Hegseth Speech Was Actually Pretty Good

the chris caldwell of 1948 would have been arguing against desegregation of the armed forces www.nytimes.com/2025/10/07/o...

A screenshot from Conrad Adenauers wiki page, the section on denazification and how he ended it in West Germany

Adenauer fired all the nazi-sniffers

Home - Doctor Fungus Welcome to Doctor Fungus! An Educational Website of theMycoses Study Group Education and Research Consortium (MSGERC)   [View Legal Information] Where to Start Mycology Case of the Month An Introducti...

There’s now an app for all things fungi 🦠🍄
Dr. Matthew Pullen, Assistant Professor at the University of Minnesota, helped launch Dr Fungus—a free app that brings the trusted resource to your phone.

Explore fungal infections, antifungal treatments, and case-based learning—all in one place.

Which is, of course, why Trump and MAGA are trying (and will fail) to drag us back to 19th c. energy technology.

I‘ve been eying folders for a little while now. My family’s second car is the used e-bike I got three years ago; it’s my commuter and grocery wagon etc. But I’m starting to use the T’s commuter rail more, and a folder would make it so much easier.

Which bike did you get?

Haven’t read it yet. Should.

eventually politicians need to start advocating for criminal and civil penalties for people involved in fabricating stories to get citizens incarcerated.

or, put another way: a society that would like to keep functioning has to discourage baldfaced lying, especially by authorities

Pritzker is also furious: “Should National Governors Association leadership choose to remain silent, Illinois will have no choice but to withdraw from the organization.”

So that’s what Santa‘s elves do for the other eleven months of the year.

A bright view of today’s full super moon in a black sky seen from San Diego county rising in the eastern sky.

Whoop, there it is!

The full Harvest Super #Moon

According to our local tv meteorologist, peak brightness isn’t for another hour but I’m sure it would not be apparent.
99.9% illuminated

The next three full moons will be brighter and appear (slightly) larger than average. (“Super moons”)

Chicago priest Father Michael Pfleger: "The state of emergency is in AMERICA, not Chicago. It's birthed from this president and his admin's reign of terror."

( ht: @mikenellis.bsky.social )