Benjamin Bixler

Australia has so much solar that it's offering everyone free electricity Australia's extensive solar power penetration makes so much energy that the government wants to offer free electricity at peak hours.

Australia has so much electricity from solar power that it is going to start offering free electricity to everyone for at least three hours during the day as the wholesale price of power goes negative

electrek.co/2025/11/04/a...

Tesla shareholders approved Elon Musk's $1 trillion pay package.

Meanwhile, millions of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, can't afford to feed their families, and struggle with cuts to the safety net made to finance tax cuts for the super-rich.

American capitalism is off the rails.

Yes

it doesn’t get any clearer that america’s betrothal to fossil fuels is about letting energy companies pick our pockets to prop up their obsolete industry

Ursula LeGuin's Earthsea series was a good one with my kids.

Mayor Mamdani redefines what it means to hope His victory has created a harsh contrast between the world we want and the world we have.

"Hope is not blind optimism or uncritical belief in a political savior. Hope, to me, means the ability to imagine a better world is possible and then work to build it brick by brick. It is, as @prisonculture.bsky.social says, not an emotion but a discipline—one we must practice every single day."

"'They’re spending more money than I would even tax them,' [Mamdani] said in an interview with MSNBC last week."

This is the message. Make it clear that these billionaires aren't just worried about losing money. They're worried about losing the ability to exchange their money for power.

“.. There were no counties or cities (as of writing) that moved right relative to four years ago. On average, they instead moved 13 points to the left.”

@pbump.com #Virginia
www.pbump.net/o/what-chang...

YouTube video by ABC News FULL SPEECH: Zohran Mamdani's victory speech following historic NYC mayoral win

Lots of folks are talking about this speech, and they should: among other things, it's an example of generational transition — there are clear Obama-esque inflections and references in here, but it serves as a foundation for newly ascendant political visions. www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOQT...

and you know what? even many 10th graders should be able to understand writing that’s “complex, erudite, punctuated by deep and fluent references”

sometimes “meeting students where they are” means assigning something written by an adult for other adults

basically every 2024 truism is dead. Trump did not build a lasting multiracial coalition or turn young men into committed Republicans. You don’t need to cave on trans rights to win. The pundits have nothing left to tell you.

Live updates: US voters head to the polls in first general election since Trump's return to power One year after Donald Trump retook the presidency, 2025 Election Day includes closely watched races for New York City mayor, New Jersey governor and California's Proposition 50.

BREAKING: Colorado voters approved a ballot measure that would raise state income taxes on higher-earning households to fund free meals for all public school students.

Follow AP for live updates.

whatever you think of Spanberger, the fact that her opponent ran a campaign based almost entirely on transphobia and is on track to eat shit in the biggest blowout the state has seen since 2009 is unambiguously a huge win

2 0 2 5 Updates Key Races N.Y.C. Mayor Va. Gov. County Margin Shift from 2024 pres. T Votes Loudoun Spanberger +29 * 12 pts. 164,366 Prince William Spanberger +34 × 16 pts. 161,419 Portsmouth Spanberger +47 * 8.1 pts. 29,956 Washington Earle-Sears +49 * 4.5 pts. 20,927 Louisa Earle-Sears +20 * 6.5 pts. 18,719 Orange Earle-Sears +15 * 9.3 pts. 17,127 Powhatan Earle-Sears +40 * 4.4 pts. 16,957 Pulaski Earle-Sears +38 * 7.1 pts. 12,466 Dinwiddie Earle-Sears +17 ~ 6.3 pts. 11,974 Harrisonburg Spanberger +41 × 15 pts. 11,753 Manassas Spanberger +30 * 16 pts. 11,514 Carroll Earle-Sears +57 ~ 6.1 pts. 11,277 Wise Earle-Sears +59 ~ 4.6 pts. 10,962 Fairfax City Spanberger +45 * 11 pts. 10,232 Fredericksburg Spanberger +43 * 11 pts. 10,191 Salem Earle-Sears +12 6.9 pts. 9,374 King William Earle-Sears +34 * 7.1 pts. 8,999 Russell Earle-Sears +63 * 4.9 pts. 8,860

Every single county in Virginia shifted Blue.

“The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.” -Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country

This. Always this.

Yes, defend SNAP, but making econometric arguments about it saving other costs or increasing productivity is losing the plot.

As Elaine Brown said, "Because we are so used to the capitalist construct, it doesn’t occur to us that we have a human right to eat; because if you don’t eat you will die."

your daily matthew 7.21-23 moment

Such a perfect example of what we all give up when we refuse to address basic inequalities. I don't want to live in a country where all the public space is militarized to keep hungry people from stealing food, just give them money to buy food!

I can’t stress this enough: you cannot understand politics without reading this paragraph about why there’s no such thing as a 1/3rd pound hamburger

Margaret Atwood recalls in an interview in 2012 what was said to her as she was touting ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ around book publishers…

Whenever people complain about the number of folks relying on food stamps, it is worth reminding them that SNAP is, by too large of a degree, a subsidy for corporations that refuse to pay a living wage and their political allies who reject public policy prescriptions to reduce income inequality.

This video from Portland is a metaphor for what is going on in America. ICE trying so hard to get Americans to cross a line and if they don't, dragging them across the line and violently attacking.

I've lived under martial law before. Not in the U.S.-in Thailand, after a coup. And I've walked Tiananmen Square, too. So what I'm watching in LA right now? It hits different. Because I've seen how authoritarianism takes hold-and how America's resistance isn't following the script. 1/7 In Thailand, I taught at a private school after the military coup. One of my coworkers had lived through the actual lockdown in Bangkok. He remembered hearing gunfire and realizing: they're killing people in the street. That fear settled into daily life. You complied. You stayed quiet. You survived. 2/7

The man who led the coup? He became a monk-because in Thailand, becoming a monk makes you untouchable. I was literally teaching his grandkids. People worried if the military would come for them, too. That's the weight of real martial law. It changes how you move through the world. 3/7 In China, I visited Tiananmen Square. My Chinese teacher's mother was pregnant with her when she stood in that square. That history was personal. But it was also erased. Because in authoritarian regimes, memory itself becomes dangerous. What we're not allowed to remember gets rewritten. 4/7

So watching protests erupt in LA right now-protesters shutting down freeways, standing off against SWAT, refusing to move-I'm struck by what's different. Yes, there's fear. But there's also volume. America isn't going quiet. And that matters. Because martial law requires submission. It relies on people staying home. It needs us to believe we're outnumbered. But in every major U.S. city right now, people are standing up. Not just resisting. Refusing to disappear. 5/7

They want us to believe there's no choice. But that's a lie authoritarianism always tells. And America-messy, loud, imperfect America-still hasn't bought into that lie. So yes, l'm scared. But I also have something I didn't have in Thailand or China. Thave hope. Not because everything will work out on its own. But because people are choosing to show up. Because we're not done yet. 6/7 Hope isn't a mood. It's a decision. And if you're struggling to find it-borrow mine. I've lived through a coup. I've lived under martial law. And I'm telling you right now: This moment isn't over. We're still writing the ending. 7/7

“hope isn’t a mood. it’s a decision.” (via confettitactics on threads: www.threads.com/@confettitac...)

The average age of U.S. homebuyers is now 56, up from 49 last year.

In 1981, the year trickledown economics began, it was 31.

If we were really all being paid by a billionaire, maybe they'd cover us, too.

Normal Rockwell picture of a white man standing up in a town hall, exercising freedom of speech

If you're a K-12 teacher, you should read books! Often! Regularly! It makes you a better thinker, and often, a better human -- both things a real bonus when working with youth!

Remember April 2009 when about 250,000 people took to America’s streets in Tea Party rallies and the media was like “oh man, the Dems are in trouble?” Approximately 28X as many people took to the streets to protest Trump yesterday. Didn’t even make the NYT front page.

I disagree with his assessment

The Pope tweets: "The poor are not there by chance or by blind and cruel fate. Nor, for most of them, is poverty a choice. Yet, there are those who still presume to make this claim, thus revealing their own blindness and cruelty. #DilexiTe" Someone replies: "I was so hopeful I could be a Catholic again after the disaster that Francis was, guess we just get Francis 2.0 now and I am heartbroken. How do I stay a Catholic now...I don't want to lose faith but I am. You belong to someone else, not God."

heartbroken to learn the pope sympathizes with the poor. how can i continue to believe in god

This.

"Regardless of what you think about any individual person, food assistance should not be predicated on meeting your personal definition of deserving. People shouldn’t have to perform feats of social worth to get food; in our incredibly wealthy society, people should just get food."