Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Twitter as the Leaves Turn Color

Seems like only a week ago I was writing up the August tweets, but whoops, I guess September is over, so here goes. If you notice any that seem too long for 140 characters, it's because the person tweeted a series where the sentences ran from one to the next, and I thought it would read more easily if I just combined them.

I recently started following David Roberts, a prominent writer at grist.org. He shows up a lot this month. Another recent addition is Strange Animals. Their photos are much more informative than cute kittens!

If you are a woman under 28 and a man over 40 tells you that you have "an old soul," run until you escape the earth's gravitational pull.
By Mallory

Black Power is not hatred of white people. Feminism is not hatred of men. Supporting Palestine is not anti-semitic.
By Malcolm London

The Vervet monkey has a blue scrotum which attract mates.


By Strange Animals

"A man is not old until regrets take the place of his dreams." – Proverb
By Best Buddha Proverbs

The modern world is a mine-field for morality.
By Ta-Nehisi Coates

HOW I EDIT:
1) re-read book
2) what asshole wrote this?
3) ugh no
4) light cleanup
5) fuck it
6) dynamite and hammers
7) rewrite everything
By Chuck Wendig

"If there was one decision I would overrule, it would be Citizens United.” — Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
By Demos_Org

From our archive: Lower levels of inequality are linked with greater innovation in economies.
By LSE Politics&Policy

"Get a job!" is the dumbest thing to yell at protesters. Like, why aren't YOU protesting having to waste 40 hrs/week just to survive?
By Elle of Oakland

WORRIER SCARLET—A Bronze Age Nebbish finds it hard to commit to the Hunter-Gatherer Lifestyle:


By Frank Cottrell-Boyce

Just came from a gathering to mark the 50th anniversary of the Wilderness Act. Amazing to remember there was a time when Congress did good things.
By Bill McKibben

Median family wealth, 2013:
White, less than a high school education $51k
Black, college $26k
Hispanic, college $41k
(Source: @MattBruenig)
By John Schmitt

Babies: socialists or communists?
By Julia Wong

"One man in charge of everything? That's absurd and despotic. There should be twenty-five men in charge of everything." – the Magna carta
By Mallory

This is an interesting bit of info: minorities think climate change is more of a priority than do whites. [Citing the website fivethirtyeight]
By Odysseus Rex

Obama says mistrust of police corroding America. Also corroding America: cops shooting unarmed black men.
By David Roberts

She just dropped knowledge: "The first labor struggle was a slave revolt." [Said by a speaker at a rally in Ferguson late in September.]
By DeRay Mckesson

Cost of deploying one U.S. soldier for one year in Iraq, $390,000. Enough to feed 50 struggling families in the U.S. for a year.
By Injustice Sayings

The arms industry must be raising a glass to their friends in ISIS & UK/US governments:



By Kevin Williamson

It's not cruelty that I mind so much, because that's human. It's oppression, because that's inhuman. People say I am angry and wonder why. I'm just trying to figure out how anyone else could look around and not rage. How do you look at a terrible thing and think that it couldn't happen to you, if it happens to others? Then why not demand better?
By KillerMartinis

A new study shows a trip to the library gives the same "stimulational effect" as a $2K+ pay raise.
By Book Riot

Low-level weed arrests cost taxpayers at least $78 million and 84,000 police hours a year.
By OneNation

How is it that the most hateful, narrow-minded, bigoted voters in the country came to be known as "Values Voters"?
By David Roberts

Overheard, kids age 6: "Your parents are poor!" "At least I don't jaywalk!"
By Molly Priesmeyer

Hatchetfish:


By Strange Animals

Tired of hearing about #Ferguson? Imagine how tired we are of trying to be silenced by those expected to ENFORCE our right to be heard.
By Alexis

Does it matter if Harvard divests [from fossil fuels]? Its endowment is bigger than half the world's economies.
By Bill McKibben

It's not just that tests are poor assessments. It's that leading students to focus on test performance distracts them from engaging with ideas.
By Alfie Kohn

The "reasonable" standard must be worth something or there is no law.
By Ta-Nehisi Coates

So far this week we've bombed Syria with the equivalent (in tax $) of this year's college tuition for over 40,000 US college students. Yay!
By Michael Moore

Free transit would drop oil prices, but that would hurt big oil, so instead the U.S. is spending billions of dollars bombing children to get more oil. #Syria
By Free Public Transit

All actually existing capitalist economies, ever, anywhere, have involved planning & investment & regulation & "industrial policy." Particularly stupid: the notion that any attempt at government planning or investment constitutes a step away from capitalism toward socialism. The notion that economics consists in a single, linear spectrum w/ capitalism on one side & socialism on the other causes much stupidity. There are as many capitalisms as there are societies. Better planning & smarter regulation are not in any meaningful way "less capitalist." Non-capitalist countries don't have a great pollution record either. Whatever a sustainable society looks like, it'll be something *new*.
By David Roberts

Is the fear people have of "getting in trouble at work" learned from school? Is that why school is fear-based? To train future employees?
Sisyphus38

We're fighting them over there because it's harder to profit from war over here.
By Frank Conniff

Americans think CEOs earn 30x what average workers make. They wish it were 7x. In reality it's 350x.
By Justin Wolfers

The Comet Moth:


By Strange Animals

I don't think "smart" means what people who say everything and everyone they like or agree with is "smart" think it means.
By Chris Steller

Idea: what if we just pooled our healthcare spending and let the government administer it with minimal overhead? Has anyone tried that?
By Patrick Steele

An often-ignored factor in the US healthcare market:


By A. Rascal

Having driven creativity out of the education system, in the future our competitive edge won't be innovation but rule-following & low wages.
By US Dept. of Fear

Is there any reason to think I'm not going to hate every second of the 2016 presidential campaign?
By David Roberts

Our nation of collapsing bridges and underfunded schools is so much safer now that we're spending billions bombing Syria.
By Frank Conniff

What idiot decided to call it a Wooly Mammoth instead of a Hairy Elafonté?
By Suitable Holmes

Just now, on Fox News: "It used to be a dinosaur, now it's fuel. How is that not renewable?"
By Kate Sheppard

Stop using the word "childish" when describing stupid actions or ideas.
By Nikhil Goyal

Our bodies are huge-scale reality shows involving trillions of cells living in one house & getting real.
By Aparna Nancherla

No city should ever get away with calling itself "green" unless it's working aggressively to increase density & transit. [This] goes for Seattle & many other ostentatiously progressive, green cities. Only counts if you get more people in city limits, out of cars. When you hear "density," instead of thinking taller buildings, just think fewer cars. So, so much urban land devoted to f'ing cars.
By David Roberts

These receipts have gotten so long I'm starting to think CVS is sending us cries for help.
By Janine Brito

It's striking how much everyone takes as natural that Republicans are going to have a good year because fewer people will vote.
By sethdmichaels

At least in the U.S., winning the war on coal will be the easy part. The war on oil -- i.e., on cars & sprawl -- will be 10 times harder.
By David Roberts

People complain about faves vs retweets, but if you said something in real life and someone gave you a thumbs up, would you go, "Not good enough—repeat it"?
By Daniel Kibblesmith

And the winner of the 'Modest Job title' goes to this chap:


By Dave

A naked body don't impress me. Tell the hacker to do something serious like go into the Sallie Mae database and forgive our loans.
By Patrick T.

There is a strange belief among all Americans that if all have "good hearts" or just "care more," history will somehow become irrelevant.
By Ta-Nehisi Coates

Insofar as climate change remains coded as an "environmental problem," the public will NEVER feel its urgency. Gallup poll shows (yet again) that people see "environmental problems" as problems of luxury, to be addressed when real problems are solved...

We've seen that climate hawks can muster people-pressure. The difficult question is, where in politics can people-pressure make a difference? MASSIVE majorities of Americans favor gun control and higher taxes on the rich. And yet...

The global & especially U.S. ruling classes have insulated themselves pretty well. U.S. politics would improve if everyone on the left *realized* they were on the left & felt solidarity with others on the left. The right has boiled itself down into a rancid but homogenous purity. If you aren't part of that, then you're on the left. Deal with it.
By David Roberts

I didn't realize this until recently, but it's incredible how uneducated most college kids are about capitalism, white supremacy, militarism.
By Nikhil Goyal

NFL says 1/3 of its players develop serious brain problems later in life. When you're watching football you're watching death.
By Sherman Alexie

If you smack your children because yours parents did and you turned out OK, it confirms you are not OK!
By Sam Pringle

As you pointed out, gangs did not exist until we exploded the prison population...but you didn't ask the obvious question. What is cause and what is effect? The prison population exploded because we criminalized drugs and lengthened sentences at the very same time we eliminated programming. Gangs stepped into the vacuum on the inside, and took advantage of criminalization to turn profit on outside...

Gangs are a symptom of a broken system. Fix the system, and the gangs will disappear. Treat drug addiction as a public health problem, shrink the prison population, and give prisoners something meaningful to do 16 hours a day, gangs will disappear.
By Alan Mills

The only thing we really know about learning is that it takes place. How and why are as individual as each snowflake.
By Bill Ferguson

Roberts' Law: if someone claims to have discovered a simple solution that hundreds of experts have missed, that someone is an older white man.
By David Roberts

Guy from Amazon just had the nerve to say that libraries are a big problem for authors' revenue. Ben Franklin reanimated and strangled him.
By Jake Barton

A decentralized, clean energy system is more robust against *many* risks, not just climate.
By David Roberts

Why do they say that KIPP schools teach "character?" Is obedience character?
By John Warner

It's always inspiring when someone robotically says "you know I feel passionately..." as he's glancing down to read his speech.
By Bill Simmons

Ferguson is Black America. And the issue of militarized police is about to be EVERYONE's problem if they don't pay attention.
By Leslie

I believe in the concept of police. I do not believe in a police state.
By DeRay Mckesson

My son's homework just pissed me off. His answer made me proud, though. Read #6:


By Go Big Leci

"Because I said so" is the bane of education.
By Ta-Nehisi Coates

How's Nike gonna suspend Adrian Peterson's contract because "they don't support child abuse" when they hire foreign kids for 20 cents a day?
By Cause We're Fellas

"My father punched me in the face when I talked back and I deserved it." That point when you feel bad for Sean Hannity. Like seriously.
By Ta-Nehisi Coates

A lot of dudes get tired of reading feminist tweets and I really feel for them it must be comparable to experiencing actual sexism daily.
By maddie collier

PARTY TIP: Men can embrace feminism without it making them less masculine.
By ANDREW WK

I love linguists and their glorious takedowns of language pedants. RT @OHTheMaryD: Sometimes @tumblr is great:


By Anandamide

Wage theft affects far more people than more well-known and feared forms of robbery.
By Economic Policy Inst

Clinton's role in mass incarceration is exhibit A in the argument that the "moderate" policy can also be the "bat-shit insane" policy.
By Ta-Nehisi Coates

America "helping another country" is the friend who just "crashes for one night then won't leave and destroys everything."
By jamiekilstein

If you went into journalism to receive praise from politicians & execs, you either went into the wrong business or you aren't doing journalism.
By David Sirota

Dubai is like if a space station and a mall got married.
By Aparna Nancherla

I feel like I should just start my own Facebook memorial page so if the cops decide to kill me then my family will have one less thing to do.
By W. Kamau Bell

Local and state taxes are very regressive. American taxpayers have no idea how much.
By QED

Connecting anchor institution resources to worker co-ops creating jobs in low-income communities, in one infographic:


By Democracy Collab

If your belief system is not founded in an objective reality, you should not be making decisions that affect other people.
By Neil deGrasse Tyson

My computer, smartphone, etc. becomes slow/glitchy/shitty in just 2-3 years (sometimes less!). Will self-driving cars have the same issues?
By Alex Cecchini

Can we harness for good the energy generated by the anger of racist, sexist white dudes whose opinions no one important cares about?
By CaulkTheWagon

I'm no fashion expert but even I know that the Colombia women's cycling team kit seen here is a genuine disaster:


By Hilary Evans

Word Facts: The word "bag" is part of several insulting phrases and is itself a derogatory term.
By Chris Steller

The American labor movement has been the best anti-poverty program in American history. Beware of those who seek to undermine it.
By Mark Naison

If money is a form of free speech, doesn’t that mean that some people have more free speech than others?
By Jamison

In a few years there'll be enough computers in your home that getting hacked and being haunted will be functionally indistinguishable.
By Cliff Moon

Kids planning an outdoor adventure sans adults provides tons of learning. Much more than a highly planned "learning activity."
Sisyphus38

If you've ever judged someone for staying in an abusive relationship, remember that most of us are in one with ourselves.
By Aparna Nancherla

1 white cop's words are worth more to y'all then a dozen black people's. 1 cop who still is in hiding with no interview & no public statement.
By Art Liveon

The beautiful Panther chameleon, found in northeast Madagascar:


By Strange Animals

Kind of weird living in an era where men get to age like teak credenzas, and women, like unrefrigerated dairy products.
By Julieanne Smolinski

Four-lane urban streets make no sense. They just lead to people racing to dodge around left turners and parked cars.
By Patrick Steele

I've noticed when I say, "Have you ever noticed..." what some people hear is, "EVERYTHING YOU KNOW & LOVE IS WRONG!"
By W. Kamau Bell

I'm almost 42 years old. We've been bombing Iraq since I was in high school.
By Mat Honan

It's amazing the number of women I contact for analysis on stories that turn me down because they "don't feel like experts." Men? No problem.
By Molly Priesmeyer

Currently imagining a John McCain presidency and getting a terrible headache.
By Josh Barro

Evolution of music sales:
1. Pay a lot
2. Pay a little
3. Pay anything
4. OK fine, just pay once a month
5. Fuck you, now you own a U2 album
By Dan Wineman

Cymothoa exigua is a type of parasite that enters fish's gills, eats their tongue, and then replaces it:


By Strange Animals

LITERALLY every single person is using the phrase “begs the question” incorrectly. Let’s just all agree to not use it! (LITERALLY!)
By evelyn pollins

I hate the word "grit."
By Nikhil Goyal

Know who is happy tonight? War-contracting companies and mercenary companies.
By jeremy scahill

Pundits describe Obama's ISIS strategy as "muddled," unlike the clear clarity of invading a country that didn't attack us.
By Frank Conniff

Vocabulary tests get in the way of reading. Reading is the most powerful vocabulary builder.
By tim fournier

I am always amazed at those who sneer at kindness as if it were a sign of weakness.
By darth smallberries

Seriously, if you're more concerned about ISIS cutting off your head than the impact of climate change on your kid's life, well, wow.
By Tom Tomorrow

More & more I think that I need to focus exclusively on justice reinvestment work. Push to spend much less on prisons & police AND then to reallocate those funds to other needed services and to other parts of the commons. This needs a concerted national push. But will need to be fought town by town, city by city, etc.
By Prison Culture

If police approached every interaction as a problem-solving/peacemaking opportunity, there would be less killing.
By Alan Mills

As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have its fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular.
By Oscar Wilde

Whatever happens in this corridor seems fucking complicated:


By Liz Buckley

Does anyone else get creeped out EVERY TIME they hear someone refer to "the homeland"?
By Christopher Ryan

Chomsky: the standard technique of privatization [is to] defund, make sure things don't work, people get angry, then hand it over to private capital.
By Stephen Krashen

Wish we had a War on Political and Financial Cronyism putting as many people in jail as our War on Drugs. Their addiction hurts us most.
By John Kuhn

Reclusive candy mogul invites children into his factory to give his empire to whichever kid escapes disfigurement. #ExplainAFilmPlotBadly
By Janine Brito

Hearing from people dealing with real climate impacts in communities always makes the fantasy land of D.C. so much more obvious.
By Kate Sheppard

Gender quotas tend to *increase* overall quality, as less-qualified men are replaced by more-qualified women.
By debcha

We're in the exact point of climate change as when Wile E. Coyote runs off the cliff but hasn't looked down yet.
By Megan Amram

The U.S. spends $200 billion a year on the "war on terror," enough to completely wipe out world poverty.
By Ḥanẓala

Minnesota is a funny place for every damn thing to have sea salt.
By Chris Steller


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