iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Brian Cook @2ndadminstate.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

It's only September 1, the incipient El Nino is just getting started but revving up fast, and this is where we are. dashboard.theclimatebrink.com#global

Climate Dashboard showing latest trends in global heating, including the developing El Nino and its impacts. There is estimated to be a 75% chance 2026 becomes the warmest year on record.

000

Brian Cook @2ndadminstate.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

Let's check in on the status of climate heating! Uh oh... dashboard.theclimatebrink.com#global

Screenshot of Climate Dashboard showing that this year (2026) is on track for 1.60 degrees C of warming above preindustrial levels.

000

Brian Cook @2ndadminstate.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

Still too many treatments like this doing the work for him.

NBC Politics News headline: Trump sows doubt about election integrity four months before the midterms

1231

Brian Cook @2ndadminstate.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

Simply unbelievable. The worst major newspaper in the country. Sanitizing everything involving the Trump degenerates.

Outrageous Boston Globe article headline about ICE agent who murdered Maine man, describing him as army veteran with interest in law enforcement rather than highlighting his domestic violence record.

120

Brian Cook @2ndadminstate.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

Decided to read this, finally, as a personal celebration of the true spirit of the semiquincentennial. And, despite his struggles and the flux in his reputation, John Adams was a patriot of the first order. A true fighter for liberty and justice.

020

Brian Cook @2ndadminstate.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

paulkrugman.substack.com/p/trump-has-...

Quote from Paul Krugman Substack concluding that "Trump is, at this point, little more than a festering ball of anger and hate."

000

Brian Cook @2ndadminstate.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

Maybe not effective. But if you enter here ⬇️⬇️⬇️ you can follow very closely the “world’s finest orchestra, still” (NYT).

Facade of Severance Music Center, Cleveland, Ohio. Home of The Cleveland Orchestra.

001

Brian Cook @2ndadminstate.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

They still produce waste. The waste is still highly radioactive. And there is still no place to dispose of it permanently. cleanenergyforum.yale.edu/2026/04/26/a...

Description of the challenges of nuclear waste management for proposed small modular nuclear reactors, no established framework for managing spent fuel.

000

Brian Cook @2ndadminstate.bsky.social · 24/04/2026

Hey everyone! We made the funny papers, sort of…

Tom the Dancing Bug comic strip for April 24, 2026 satirizing CJ John Roberts’s nullification of the Clean Power Plan through creation of the so-called shadow docket.

0109

Brian Cook @2ndadminstate.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

From Kim Stanley Robinson’s novel 2312. Maybe this explains a lot.

Passage from Kim Stanley Robinson’s novel 2312, describing the “rage if the servile will.”

000

Brian Cook @2ndadminstate.bsky.social · 02/04/2026

Bondi’s dismissal: alternative theory of the case.

Marketwatch showing Dow Jones Industrial Average at 46,452.17 at 2:50 pm on April 2, 2026

000

Brian Cook @2ndadminstate.bsky.social · 27/03/2026

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, you too can profit from widespread destruction and the suffering of many.

Headline from Marketwatch, “How a conflict can highlight long-term investment opportunities.”

000

Brian Cook @2ndadminstate.bsky.social · 27/03/2026

Everyone forgets that the long-term storage/disposal of high-level waste has yet to be solved. Above ground, dry cask storage is not a long-term solution. This is a political/public management problem that no one wants to think about or resolve. 33 years ago!👇🏻

130

Brian Cook @2ndadminstate.bsky.social · 22/03/2026

My new favorite book cover. And a very interesting social history, too!

Cover of the book Babies Made Us Modern, by Janet Golden. With many pictures of babies of all sorts and all cute.

010

Brian Cook @2ndadminstate.bsky.social · 14/03/2026

Members of the US Congress excel at distributive benefits. That's okay under normal political circumstances. But the republic is under merciless autocratic siege. Sure, this $221.6 million will support projects in many communities. But what good is that if liberal-democratic self-government is lost?

Opening text of an email from Massachusetts US Senator Ed Markey touting over $220 million dollars of congressionally directed spending for 209 community projects in Massachusetts.

021

Brian Cook @2ndadminstate.bsky.social · 13/03/2026

Or you can come here for a visit...

Thirty day forecast for Boston showing consistent temperatures in the 40s F.

000

Brian Cook @2ndadminstate.bsky.social · 07/03/2026

The founding postmodernists have entered the conversation…

Paragraphs 4 & 5 from Guy Debord’s essay The Society of the Spectacle, which states among other things that images mediate social relations and that spectacles convey a worldview that becomes reality.

010

Brian Cook @2ndadminstate.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

Renewed blizzard warning ‼️🥶😩🌨️

000

Brian Cook @2ndadminstate.bsky.social · 22/02/2026

Good luck finding your car on Tuesday!

Blizzard warning with total snow accumulation between 18 and 25 inches. Winds gusting as high as 75 mph.

000

Brian Cook @2ndadminstate.bsky.social · 14/02/2026

Imagine if the endangerment finding had at least led us to level it off at 390!

Global Monthly Mean CO2 as reported by NOAA of 426.48 in November 2025.

000

Brian Cook @2ndadminstate.bsky.social · 24/12/2025

Coming January 1, the 250th anniversary of a "defining moment of the American Revolution when Gen. George Washington established the Continental Army and responded to escalating British pressure with the raising of the Great Union Flag on Prospect Hill." www.thesomervilletimes.com/archives/144...

Prospect Hill, Somerville, MA flying the Grand Union Flag, which is raised every January 1st to mark the beginning of the end of the British occupation of Boston during the Revolutionary War.

020

Brian Cook @2ndadminstate.bsky.social · 13/12/2025

Recirculating this because it is so clear and powerful. www.techdirt.com/2025/11/26/o...

041

Brian Cook @2ndadminstate.bsky.social · 11/12/2025

This is amazing! I received another form letter from Congresswomen Ayanna Pressley @pressley.house.gov. This year's FIFTH such identical form letter I received in response to writing to her office regarding impeachment. I've never received any substantive follow up, not even "stop bothering me."

292

Brian Cook @2ndadminstate.bsky.social · 07/12/2025

Couldn't resist adding my two cents to this, from the concluding paragraph of my Fourth Branch book.

020

Brian Cook @2ndadminstate.bsky.social · 03/12/2025

I like data, so even though I don't particularly trust Gallup methods, this is what we have from recent history. But really, Americans have not been enamored of Congress since 1789. news.gallup.com/poll/1600/co...

Gallup approval ratings for the US Congress since 1975. Brief spike above 80% approval in the early 2000s, but now at 15% approval.

000

Brian Cook @2ndadminstate.bsky.social · 22/11/2025

My proposal for a better way for administrators of all types to say 'no' to a president would still get this result. But it would be on firmer ethical and small 'r' republican grounds. And it would be a way for those dismissed to demonstrate that saying 'no' is a defense of the presidency.

Title and abstract of an article in Public Integrity (2020) by Brian J. Cook. Restraining the Unitary Executive: A Regime Ethics Basis for Administrator Defiance of Presidential Directives.

152

Brian Cook @2ndadminstate.bsky.social · 20/11/2025

New Update! I received a reply of sorts to my letter sent to the CEO of T-Mobile US @t-mobileus.bsky.social. 1) It obviously was not written or edited by a human (note the salutation, lol); 2) The main message: "Our hands are clean! Honest!" 3) Corporate boilerplate. Tell me what you think!

Letter from Sandra Chavez, Executive Response, supposedly, responding to my letter accusing T-Mobile US of contributing a large sum to support the destruction of the East Wing of the White House.

000

Brian Cook @2ndadminstate.bsky.social · 11/11/2025

Let's check in on the National Airspace System... Uh oh ‼️

010

Brian Cook @2ndadminstate.bsky.social · 06/11/2025

Early in the 1912 presidential election, one of the candidates made this argument 👇. No, it was not Theodore Roosevelt or Eugene V. Debs.

Excerpt from a February 1912 speech to the Woodrow Wilson Club of Nashville, TN.

000

Brian Cook @2ndadminstate.bsky.social · 21/10/2025

I think often now about this memorial on Boston Common. How is it we are allowing the sacrifice of these men, and of all the other women and men, enslaved and free, to be trampled in the mud and wasted. Their spirits will never forgive us.

Memorial to Col. Robert Gould Shaw and the Massachusetts 54th Regiment. Bronze relief recently restored and returned to the Boston Common.

030

Brian Cook @2ndadminstate.bsky.social · 16/09/2025

This is from Daniel Ellsburg’s book, The Doomsday Machine. Why can’t Americans get it together to do this now? Two million people in 1969 was nearly 1 percent of the US population! Work and school stoppages! Why not now??

Page from Ellsburg, The Doomsday Machine, explaining why Richard Nixon could not us his nuclear madman theory to end the Vietnam War.

010

Brian Cook @2ndadminstate.bsky.social · 06/09/2025

It does, although I'm not sure what makes it a "stunning new history." And I wonder what Jeremy Bailey will think, given his exploration of Madison's struggles with the idea of constitutional veneration.

Description of constitutional veneration, from the Preface of The Fourth Branch.

110

Brian Cook @2ndadminstate.bsky.social · 28/08/2025

This really might come in handy very soon. Maybe more cities and towns should have them.

000

Brian Cook @2ndadminstate.bsky.social · 28/08/2025

Always fun little surprises when you take time to explore New England…

Sign directing people to the Emerson-Thoreau Amble, 1.7 miles to Thoreau’s cabin.

100

Brian Cook @2ndadminstate.bsky.social · 18/08/2025

Here's a possible explanation for @kjephd.bsky.social's miracle: gun ownership is lower where the fascist takeover is concentrating its initial attacks.

Pew Research Center chart from 2024 showing gun ownership/gun household presence by various demographic, political, and geographic factors.

000

Brian Cook @2ndadminstate.bsky.social · 01/08/2025

For what it's worth, in my book on creating a fourth administrative branch under the Constitution, I use the BLS as a possible model for the political appointee structure for all administrative agencies in such a new fourth branch.

010

Brian Cook @2ndadminstate.bsky.social · 01/08/2025

It's all good, folks! It's all good...

MarketWatch headline, "Exxon Mobil, Chevron say oil production booming and they're rolling in cash.

010

Brian Cook @2ndadminstate.bsky.social · 01/08/2025

Prospect Hill now in the City of Somerville, MA and a beautiful urban park and place of history education.

View of Prospect Hill Park in Somerville, MA looking east.

000

Brian Cook @2ndadminstate.bsky.social · 01/08/2025

The Partnership for Public Service has created a 'Federal Harms Tracker' to reflect the all-out assault on the federal civil service. They count over 148,000 who have left federal service so far. ourpublicservice.org/federal-harm...

Bar chart showing 10 federal agencies with the most workforce reductions. The highest number is in the Department of the Treasury with 31,201 having left federal service.

000

Brian Cook @2ndadminstate.bsky.social · 14/07/2025

What I wrote five years ago seems even more apt now. Continuing to cling to the notion that we’ll be able to make repairs from the heaps of ash and broken bricks of our degenerate republic is foolish. We must create something better.

000

Brian Cook @2ndadminstate.bsky.social · 01/07/2025

As Western Europe swelters now, and the US has had 1200 tornadoes so far this year, this is not good . . .

Screenshot of Climate Action Tracker showing estimated rate of global climate heating of +0.27 degrees C per decade. World is expected to reach and stay above 1.5 degrees C in 2030, and reach and stay above 2.0 degrees C in 2048, based on current CO2 emissions.

010

Brian Cook @2ndadminstate.bsky.social · 30/06/2025

Concord Museum, Concord, Massachusetts.

From the Concord Museum, a quote from Henry David Thoreau: "Under a government which I prisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also prison."

000

Brian Cook @2ndadminstate.bsky.social · 30/06/2025

Every university teaching department chair everywhere ever.

Grand Avenue comic strip showing grandmother realizing she alone has responsibility. Not funny when described in alt text.

000

Brian Cook @2ndadminstate.bsky.social · 23/06/2025

Posting this again because more people should understand what actually happens when a nuclear weapon detonates. The first page of Annie Jacobsen's book Nuclear War. www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/748264...

The first page of Annie Jacobson's book Nuclear War. Titled "Hell on Earth." Penguin Random House Books, 2024.

010

Brian Cook @2ndadminstate.bsky.social · 23/06/2025

Pretty good! But I still think my fourth branch approach is better. The text below is from my 2021 book. It is not the constitutional text, but the basic principles, like those Madison prepared for the 1787 convention.

Principles for developing a fourth branch in the US Constitution, pp. 224-25 of The Fourth Branch by Brian J. Cook.

010

Brian Cook @2ndadminstate.bsky.social · 14/06/2025

Chicago (from The Guardian live stream)

081