iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Aimee @aimeenvironment.bsky.social · 1h

If you see this, post a vampire that isn’t Dracula.

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Rebecca Solnit @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Time for this classic again.

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Dom Ervolina @dominicervolina.com · 27/09/2026

AI is so unpopular that they've decided going with a nonsensical moniker invented by the most unpopular President ever will be a net positive for branding

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Aimee @aimeenvironment.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Huh. Talk about being tone deaf. Can you imagine how the conversation went? “You know, gas is like $8 a gallon. You know what we should do? Get rid of fuel efficiency standards!” www.nytimes.com/2026/09/26/c...

nytimes.com

Trump Administration Plans to Gut Clean Car Rules (Gift Article)

New fuel-economy standards, which President Trump said he finalized Saturday, would kill a federal effort to speed the transition to electric vehicles.

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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Susan Collins is always horrified by the predictable results of her own vote, which means Mainers who genuinely care about Susan Collins should elect Troy Jackson as he won’t vote for things that wind up upsetting Susan Collins, unlike Susan Collins

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Politico @politico.com · 24/09/2026

A POLITICO reporter was denied access to the White House and his press credentials confiscated after a judge ordered the Trump administration to immediately restore access for news organizations that President Donald Trump banned from the complex last week. politi.co/4dU7YX4

politi.co

POLITICO barred from White House after court ruling restoring access

The Secret Service confiscated a POLITICO reporter's press pass Thursday morning despite a federal judge’s decision hours earlier that a media ban appeared to violate the constitutional due process ri...

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Aimee @aimeenvironment.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

"The woman asks the agents if they are proud of themselves, to which one replied, “Actually, on this one, very proud.”" Huh. If you're proud of your actions, then identify yourself clearly and show your face. www.heraldnet.com/2026/09/22/v...

heraldnet.com

Video shows apparent ICE arrest outside north Everett home - HeraldNet.com

The unidentified, masked officers detained a man on Monday morning outside a home he was hired to work on.

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404 Media @404media.co · 23/09/2026

Citizens showed up to the city council meeting with plans to let city leaders know how they felt about the city’s use of Flock. But Springfield mayor Jeff Schrag moved to prevent public comment on Flock. Then, arrests happened, @mjgault.bsky.social reports. Story: www.404media.co/woman-arrest...

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The Needling @theneedling.com · 22/09/2026

Local Millionaire Investing in AI Can’t Wait to Blame Future Bankruptcy on Millionaires Tax: tinyurl.com/4kps6veu

Middle-aged man wearing short-sleeve polo and puffer vest while standing in Seattle South Lake Union.

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Micro SF/F by O. Westin @microsff.com · 22/09/2026

A spaceship landed in the park. A door dilated. An alien emerged with a chair, which they sat down on, backwards. "Look," they said, "we're not here, okay? You know why nobody contacts you? Because the write-up would be such a pain." They sighed. "Get your shit together, okay? We know you can."

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NY Times Pitchbot @nytpitchbot.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Source: Trump’s revised plans for triumphal arch include a moat filled with sharks with laser beams attached to their foreheads.

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Jonathan Edward Durham @thisone0verhere.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Everybody wave hi to the people from the future

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Aimee @aimeenvironment.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

So, who wants to bet that the fund has been drained already to buy private planes or some other ridiculous waste o' money? Yah, I'm feeling that cynical these days. www.pv-tech.org/us-judge-ove...

pv-tech.org

US judge overturns EPA cancellation of US$7 billion Solar for All programme

A Rhode Island judge ruled the EPA unlawfully terminated the US$7 billion Solar for All programme, designed to expand solar access.

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Aimee @aimeenvironment.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

My 1980s high school had fewer cliques, less in-fighting, and way less gossiping than the current good ol’ boy network seems to. For those of you of a certain age, you know that’s saying a lot. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/21/u...

nytimes.com

George W. Bush and Cornyn Leave Out Paxton as They Raise Cash for Senate Candidates (Gift Article)

The former president and Texas senator are headlining a fund-raiser in Dallas for top Republican Senate candidates. Not included: Ken Paxton, the nominee in their own state.

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ACLU @aclu.org · 21/09/2026

ICE is purposefully trying to make it harder for lawyers and loved ones to contact people held in detention, making it nearly impossible for some people to challenge their removals. ICE must let the outside world know where they are detaining people.

apnews.com

AP Exclusive: ICE hides locations of thousands of detainees with final removal orders

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has stopped publicly revealing where it is holding most detainees who are subject to final deportation orders, in a move that has made it harder for lawyers an...

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Aimee @aimeenvironment.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

“More than 20 people have been shot by federal immigration agents since Mr. Trump took office in January 2025. Six people, including three U.S. citizens, have been killed in those shootings…” www.nytimes.com/2026/09/20/u...

nytimes.com

One Person Shot During Encounter With ICE in Austin (Gift Article)

The shooting in the Texas capital is the latest by federal immigration agents as the Trump administration intensifies its deportation effort.

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ACLU @aclu.org · 20/09/2026

The Trump administration is upending the lives of tens of thousands of people every month, all in furtherance of its anti-immigrant crusade. Our elected leaders must act to stop ICE's violence in our communities.

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Steve Marmel @marmel.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Pete Hegseth went to the A&M game and they lost to Kentucky for the first time in over 70 years. THERE IS NO BATTLE HE CANT LOSE.

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George Chidi, Evil Reporter @neonflag.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

I write about democracy. I have been following the president's public comments about elections closely. At a recent rally, he told his followers to "cheat like hell." We've been looking for some grand plot at the top to interfere with the midterms. Suppose it's simpler than that. Pardons. Again.

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Senator Patty Murray @murray.senate.gov · 19/09/2026

Trump doing whatever he wants, whenever he wants—and expecting hardworking Americans to foot the bill. A new report found that the average household in WA state has had to pay $4,800 MORE because of rising costs under Trump.

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🗽LOLGOP🗽 @lolgop.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

The sickness of locking thousands of five-year-olds in a concentration camp while screaming about the danger of a 10th-grade trans boy playing lacrosse is an evil that needs to be yeeted into a million burning suns.

theguardian.com

Trump ally Stephen Miller leads sweeping push to accelerate removal of migrant children

Exclusive: key White House loyalist orchestrating multi-agency effort condemned by critics as cruel and racist

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Adam Becker @adambecker.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

@aoc.bsky.social just put out a great statement on AI. Refreshing to see a major politician on the left nail this. "Silicon Valley billionaires want us to believe that Al robots will destroy humanity. But the biggest threat to humanity are the tech oligarchs themselves." 🎯

Charles,

Last weekend, Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic, one of the largest Al companies in the world, publicly asked his industry to slow down Al development.

Shortly after, Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAl, followed suit. Then Elon Musk.

This all came days after an Anthropic researcher quit, citing his belief that this technology could wipe out humanity and that Al companies are "gambling with our lives."

For years, people have warned that generative Al could slip out of our direct control.

Those safety concerns must be taken seriously.

And this is why I have advocated for strict safety standards on how Al is built and deployed, public oversight over this technology, and using existing laws to hold these companies accountable when they cause harm.

But I want to draw your attention to another reality: Right now, the U.S. economy and our financial futures are riding on Silicon Valley's bet that Al will soon be immensely profitable and pay off. And that bet isn't looking good.

The formula for a profitable business isn't complicated: make more money than you spend. But the biggest Al companies aren't doing that. They are spending hundreds of billions per year on data centers, chips, and other costs while their ability to make revenues that exceed their already-immense sunk costs are unclear. Experts estimate that these Al companies will require another $600 billion of debt just to finance

themselves in 2026 alone. That is more than the entire budgets of the U.S. Departments of Justice, Transportation, & Education combined.
Meanwhile, despite almost every single one of these companies not turning a profit & having sunk billions of investor dollars in development of data centers & other infrastructure, Al companies are also on a spending spree of hundreds of millions of dollars in lobbying & dark money in our elections.
It would be one thing if we were discussing a few private companies with a poor business model. But last year, virtually all stock market gains - 80% - rested entirely on just a handful of Al companies.
That tells us two things:
1. Nearly the entire U.S. economy outside the Al industry is relatively stagnating and faring poorly & the gains from these few companies are disguising it; &
2. Millions of people's retirements - including their pensions, 401ks, & investments - are potentially exposed to this risk.
That's why these Al companies' dubious financial positions matter to working people.
These companies argue that debt is necessary. They'll tell you that building transformative technologies requires upfront capital, & that massive borrowing today will pay off in generating unprecedented prosperity tomorrow.
But this is not the typical debt that startups take on while they build out a company. We are talking about billions going on trillions of dollars leveraged with no indication that these companies will be able to recoup these funds profitably. And they are increasingly looking to the government as their source of cash.
In an effort to hide their debt, tech companies have been relying on "circular financing" where tech giants like Google, Amazon, & Microsoft give billions to Al startups like OpenAl & Anthropic, only for those startups to hand that money right back to buy Al processing power.
In other words, these Al companies are luring in new investors by making it look like their financials are healthier than they really are.

What's even worse is that retirement & pension funds are key to supporting this illusion.
When the Al companies issue bonds to raise more money, your pension funds & retirement accounts are some of the biggest buyers. When Musk's Al business went public, it became part of index funds where millions of Americans invest our savings. Many Americans don't even know that their retirement investments are tied up in these companies at all.
From Big Tech's perspective, that's a feature, not a bug. By tying our futures to their reckless gambling, Al billionaires are trying to make themselves too big to fail. They think they can take such dangerous risks because we will bail them out if things go wrong.
Sound familiar? This scene is dangerously reminiscent of the rampant speculation, corruption, & broken incentives leading up to the 2008 financial crisis that plunged millions of working class Americans into financial chaos that we never fully recovered from.
It is no accident that these warnings from Altman & Amodei come months-if not weeks-before these companies were meant to go public.
When companies go public, they have to be more transparent about how they are doing financially. And after a waiting period, they typically have to let private investors-like their own employees-sell their shares.
The New York Times recently confirmed that OpenAl has postponed going public for this very reason. They are in no rush for the truth about their finances to come out.
But the moment these oligarchs began to seek our public tax dollars & public contracts while exposing their companies to public pension funds & investments, they opened themselves to public accountability & scrutiny.
Silicon Valley billionaires have rigged the game & are attempting to shift their financial risk to working people: If they're right about Al's potential, they reap the profits. If they're wrong & the bubble bursts, they are setting up the American people to pick up the tab.
Heads, they win; tails, we lose.

We can stop this, and we shouldn't play their game. Together we can address both the economic and safety threats of unrestricted Al development and prevent financial chaos and stabilize market risk.

We must make it clear now that should the Al bubble pop, Congress should not bail out Big Tech.

And across our federal agencies, we have the authorities and tools to hold Al companies and their leaders accountable for releasing dangerous, unvetted, and defective products. We must not wait.

Silicon Valley billionaires want us to believe that Al robots will destroy humanity.

But the biggest threat to humanity are the tech oligarchs themselves.

It's time we hold them accountable.

Thank you for reading.

In solidarity,

Alexandria

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Aimee @aimeenvironment.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Our tax dollars at work: denying medical claims so a private company can make more money. '“The participants are paid based on the claims denied,” wrote the agency’s actuarial staff...' WA state: 53% of claims were denied AZ: less than 20% of claims denied www.seattletimes.com/business/med...

seattletimes.com

Documents show ‘staggering’ denial rate for Medicare AI program in WA

Medicare's new AI-enabled program denied more claims than it approved during a rocky rollout, leaving patients who were in pain to wait out a long appeals process.

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purr.in.ink @purrinink.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

🐈‍⬛🤍..

A dark blue illustration with handwritten white text reading, “You never know what someone might be carrying in the shadows of their life, and maybe that’s why some humans just love cats so much. Cats can see in the dark.” Below, a wide-eyed black cat peeks through a softly lit window with open shutters.

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Hoodlum 🇺🇸 @nothoodlum.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

For 33 years, McConnell has voted against family and medical leave for working Americans. Then he disappears from the Senate for 92 days and keeps collecting his full paycheck. Apparently, paid leave is only a problem when someone else gets it.

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Aimee @aimeenvironment.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

The first book I read by Annie Dillard was, “The Living”, which I jokingly referred to as false advertising. And she was an incredible author. The book world is a little less bright today. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/16/b...

nytimes.com

Annie Dillard, Meditative Author of ‘Pilgrim at Tinker Creek,’ Dies at 81 (Gift Article)

Her Thoreau-like account of journeys in the woods, published when she was 28, was the first of many ruminations on life and nature, good and evil.

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Aimee @aimeenvironment.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Ever have those days where you read something and the only coherent thought you can form is: WTF? Yah, that’s my reaction to the exchanges detailed here. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/15/u...

nytimes.com

Kash Patel Suggests FBI Agents Could Go to Election Polling Sites (Gift Article)

Federal law prohibits armed federal officers or military personnel from being deployed to polling stations.

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Climate Desk @climatedesk.org · 15/09/2026

Under Donald Trump, the Environmental Protection Agency is no longer concerned with protecting the environment or health. It is, however, quite interested in tracking how many of y'all are getting abortions. Strange times we live in. via @motherjones.com

motherjones.com

The EPA would rather monitor abortion pills in water than pollution

The agency is easing climate rules for power plants while testing water for mifepristone.

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Stand Up for Science! @standupforscience.net · 15/09/2026

This is what happens when we fund research!! Yet the Trump admin is decimating American science. We are fighting back and have plenty of actions you can take to save science, link in bio! 🧵

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Mark Z. Jacobson @mzjacobson.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

The more WindWaterSolar, the more reliable a grid in terms of matching supply with demand. Data show more WWS as a fraction of grid electricity demand reduces not only retail electricity prices with statistical significance but also max annual wholesale prices with statistical significance.

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Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 15/09/2026

I still think there is not a good awareness out there of just how much the AI industry plans to run off fossil fuels. This is a *conservative* estimate that excludes many planned projects. These are weak plans and they can be stopped. au.finance.yahoo.com/news/us-data...

Investing.com -- Data centers in the United States are projected to consume more natural gas than most countries within the next ten years, according to a new outlook from BloombergNEF.

Natural gas consumption for electricity generation at data centers is forecast to increase by 15 billion cubic feet per day in the decade ending in 2035, even when accounting for planned projects that may never be completed. This volume exceeds the current gas consumption of all nations except China, Russia, Iran and the United States, based on data from the US Energy Information Administration. The projection is more than double BloombergNEF's December forecast of 6.9 billion cubic feet per day.

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Senator Patty Murray @murray.senate.gov · 15/09/2026

This is absurd. Trump is using YOUR taxpayer dollars to test for "abortions in the water." Seriously. This isn't about health care or science. This is about catering to anti-abortion extremists who are fighting to rip away reproductive rights and control women's bodies.

subscriber.politicopro.com

POLITICO Pro: Abortion opponents claim ‘tremendous victory’ as EPA tests water for abortion pills

The new study will test for trace amounts of chemicals, pesticides and drugs — including ones used to induce abortions — in drinking water in multiple cities.

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Gabe Ortíz @tusk81.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

“ICE agents were caught on video pulling one teen from the car and punching him repeatedly in the face while he lay on the ground. The other teen, Luis Ochoa, said he informed the ICE agents he was a citizen but was told, ‘I don’t give a damn.… Your parents can’t help you now.’”

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Dr. Genevieve Guenther (she/they) @doctorvive.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

“If the move survives expected legal challenges, it could also prevent future administrations from regulating greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.” Absolutely fucking demonic. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/13/c...

NYT headline: E.P.A. Expected to Erase Limits on Climate Pollution From Power Plants

Generation of electricity is the second largest source of carbon dioxide and other planet-warming gases in the United States.

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By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 12/09/2026

If you showed up at Defcon and gave talk about how your autonomous malware did something unexpected and damaged someone else's computers, the first question from the audience would be "Why are you so shit at making secure sandboxes?" It wouldn't be "How are you so awesome at making hacking tools?"

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