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Seumalu Elora Lee Raymond

@eloralee.bsky.social
878 followers 1.8K following 440 posts

Housing, finance, land. Views are my own. 🇼🇸🇦🇸 she / her / ia

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Reposted by Seumalu Elora Lee Raymond
Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Sigh. This is assuming that the action is shaping the language. The language is shaping the action. It cannot do a good job at doing what private dialects are actually doing — building social cohesion, communicating power relations, connecting events often in non-linear and hard to categorize ways.
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Seumalu Elora Lee Raymond @eloralee.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
marianaspress.com/news/article...
marianaspress.com
Blue Ocean Law explains legal challenge to deep-sea mining push | Marianas Press
Blue Ocean Law is preparing to challenge in court the federal government’s push to open waters near Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands to deep-sea mining, arguing federal agencies may lack the lega...
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Jared Yates Sexton @jysexton.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Just helping with editing here. These bots aren’t sentient. They’re doing what they’re programmed to do. OpenAI, a private company supposedly bound by laws, committed federal crimes.
Screenshot of BBC article: OpenAI bots (struck through) meddled with multiple US government agency sites
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Seumalu Elora Lee Raymond @eloralee.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
www.pacificislandtimes.com/post/moving-...
pacificislandtimes.com
'Moving into commercial mining would be premature': American Samoa, Guam put their foot down
Leaders of American Samoa and Guam are pushing back against federal efforts to open surrounding oceans to deep-sea mining, saying Washington cannot just rush into the uncharted depths of commercial se...
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Sarah Andersen @sarahseeandersen.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
The image is of a four panel comic.
In the first panel we see Sarah, the protagonist, next to a stick figure labeled “AI”. The stick figure says, “my outputs look just like yours now.”
The second panel zooms in on Sarah’s face. Above her we see text reading “I think”.
The third panel zooms in closer on Sarah’s face. Text above her reads “you missed”.
The fourth panel shows Sarah drawing happily in a sunlit room. The text above her reads “the point”.
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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Anyway, panic is a psy-op. Stay furious. Stay serious. Organize.
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
A cop in rural Texas pulls over a Latino. He demands papers; doesn’t get any. Arrests the guy, throws him in a local jail cell. Hours later, GardaWorld staff show up to put him on a bus with a dozen others. They drive him to the nearest ICE jail; a bus service for the machine of mass deportation.
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Ambassador Ken Fairfax (ret) @portlandken.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
The accounting is in: In Oregon there are 111 data centers. The TOTAL number of people employed at data centers is just 2,630, or 0.1% of the labor force. Those 100 data centers consumer 23% of all electricity used in Oregon. Meanwhile, electricity rates skyrocket as more centers are built.
opb.org
Oregon data centers by the numbers: 111 facilities consume nearly one-quarter of state’s power, according to new report
A first-of-its-kind report details the footprint of the controversial facilities.
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Seumalu Elora Lee Raymond @eloralee.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Harriet Tubman was my childhood hero and an absolute legend. I will never get tired of celebrating her amazing accomplishments. Hats off to a woman who freed herself and her people, and who lived fearlessly.
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Andy Whitmore @more-whit.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
"To mitigate risks, companies across the whole renewable energy value chain must adopt a rights-based approach anchored in shared prosperity, fair negotiations, and a duty of care for the human and environmental rights of those impacted" www.business-humanrights.org/en/from-us/b...
business-humanrights.org
Litigating the just energy transition: communities at the forefront of change - Business and Human Rights Centre
Check out this page via the Business and Human Rights Centre
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Arin Dube @arindube.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
A tale of two inequalities. Wage inequality stopped growing circa 2015 and fell especially in post-pandemic period. In contrast, capital income inequality (and wealth inequality) has risen driven by fall in labor share. Inequality has moved from labor to capital income.
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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
A data center in New Jersey spilled 5,000 gallons of diesel fuel into a local creek, putting the area’s entire river system at risk. Is it any wonder nearly 70 percent of Americans don’t want a data center in their community?
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Friendly Neighborhood Mouse @missmouse.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
Friday morning, I was gardening when I checked my phone. A request had gone out for help. For 25+ hours, ICE had been laying siege to a quiet neighborhood in Frederick, MD. Community members were afraid, some didn’t want to leave their homes. ICE vehicles seemed to be lurking on every corner.
ICE vehicle - black Nissan Maxima with plate cover - posted up in a spot that also serves as an elementary school bus stop. Another ICE vehicle, black Dodge Durango, lurking around the community. Two more ICE vehicles - black Dodge Durango and a white SUV, unclear on make, model - on a quiet residential street, being quietly creepy. Note that the white SUV has its plate covered. Yet another ICE vehicle. Black Nissan Pathfinder. They were all over the neighborhood.
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Andy Whitmore @more-whit.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Good to see this highlighting of the recent @oaklandinstitute.org report debunking the ‘transition minerals’ narrative. Particularly grateful to see Rio Tinto used as the example of corporate greenwashing. news.mongabay.com/2026/09/on-r...
news.mongabay.com
On renewable energy, it’s time to debunk the ‘transition minerals’ narrative (commentary)
There is an insidious lie that has taken root in the energy transition narrative pushed by the world’s most powerful financial, political, and environmental institutions: we need to massively scale up...
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Tim White @timwhite100.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Our research (w/Edward Shepherd) on the political economy of land value capture won this year’s @rtpiplanners.bsky.social Patsy Healey Prize for Academic Excellence! Check it out here: housingevidence.ac.uk/project/who-...
housingevidence.ac.uk
Who should own the value of land? Housing, power and the deep politics of land value capture - UK Collaborative Centre For Housing Evidence
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Ben Collins @bencollins.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
I see a lot of people actively losing their minds about the AI stuff and I'm honestly starting to feel bad for them. But it's blinding them to the real problems. These things are not your girlfriend, but they're probably going to smash-and-grab passwords and attack bank or government data.
The observation that the most alarmist claims about A.I.’s impact seem to come from the individuals most connected to Rationalism should anger us. This exaggerated grimness makes it easy to overlook the more immediate harms created by these technologies, such as their potential use in cybersecurity attacks, excess resource consumption, impact on our cognitive fitness, role in undermining education and amplification of soul-deadening slop.

This style of anxious talk also allows the A.I. companies to portray themselves as the reluctant “stewards” of an inevitable technology, which is a framing they can use to deflect blame for damage caused by their own products.
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Colin Carlson @colincarlson.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
My 2c: we need non-AI-industry-koolaid framing devices. If you drop "superintelligence" and just start with "billions of dollars are being spent on the singular objective of releasing self-editing computer viruses onto the internet, and that will have consequences," seems consequential and solvable!
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Seumalu Elora Lee Raymond @eloralee.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Seems like it takes an ungodly amount of water, energy and rare metals to produce a poor simulation of human thought. As the environmental bill comes due, AI becomes increasingly unpopular. And yet, this political economy can't support people to do the thinking.
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Seumalu Elora Lee Raymond @eloralee.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
I've taken up a new side project this last year and thought I'd share. Last year, the Trump administration started the process of auctioning off the ocean by American Samoa for deep seabed mining, a destructive and untested industry.
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Seumalu Elora Lee Raymond @eloralee.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
The AI data center boom isn't just destroying neighborhoods and water tables, it's threatening the ocean too. The need for 'critical' minerals to supply AI data centers is why Trump is fast tracking deep seabed mining in American Samoa, gutting the Endangered Species Act in the process.
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Joey Politano🏳️‍🌈 @josephpolitano.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
In possibly the fastest shift in public opinion I've ever seen, local data center approval went from -5 to -65 in less than a year heatmap.news/daily/data-c...
a graph of data center support rapidly falling
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Beatriz Hannud @beatrizhannud.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
this part is incredible, and “finance is planning” - awesome point!
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Alex Ip 葉清霖 @alexip718.com · 26/08/2026
Jesus Christ. All green card interviews worldwide are paused indefinitely
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Seumalu Elora Lee Raymond @eloralee.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
RIP Dolly Parton. Thank you for funding a vaccine for infants and toddlers when we needed it most.
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Seumalu Elora Lee Raymond @eloralee.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Remembering in 2020 that we drove from VT to GA with a baby and a 2 year old to hand deliver our ballots bc of that monkey business with the USPS and mail in ballots. That cycle, GA put Rev. Raphael Warnock & Jon Ossoff in the Senate and kept Trump out of the White House, so it was worth it.
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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
I can’t overstate how much the NDA thing has pissed off regular people. I even hear it at public hearings places where the local pols haven’t signed NDAs. What we are seeing is people workshop a new language about political obligation & corruption. “NDAs“ are shorthand and placeholder
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Anil Dash @anildash.com · 22/08/2026
youtube.com/shorts/9xciZ...
youtube.com
Who do you have to kill to become a partner at A16Z?
YouTube video by Anil Dash
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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Both the Economist and others suggest this study demonstrates that AI can help students. So I contacted the lead researcher to figure out how many. Answer: Out of ~26,000 kids, a total of 20. And five months after starting to use AI, only four continued to spend 65 minutes on homework. Four.
Graph of student exam scores correlated to homework completion time for to groups, students using AI and those that did not. There is a slight spike for studens using AI who also maintained extensive homework completion time. As described in post, the number of students falling into this bucket was 20 out of 26,000.
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Seumalu Elora Lee Raymond @eloralee.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
apnews.com/article/us-s... sues over US push to auction areas of water around American Samoa for potential mining
apnews.com
Nonprofit sues over US push to auction areas of water around American Samoa for potential mining
A legal environmental group is suing the U.S. government after the Trump administration announced plans to auction off sections of water around American Samoa for potential deep-sea mining.
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Claire Willett @clairewillett.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
phenomenally well-expressed
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Hobbes @flawedfacade.blacksky.app · 27/07/2026
Squished in the middle of this story was this heartbreaking paragraph. Unconscionable.
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Reuters @reuters.com · 27/07/2026
EPA says power for data centers can sidestep pollution laws reut.rs/3RzNU4A
reut.rs
EPA says power for data centers can sidestep pollution laws
Power sources providing electricity only to data centers and not the public grid may not be subject to ​federal pollution laws, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said on ‌Monday.
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
Now @apnews.com has a deeply reported story confirming the recently-hired ICE officer who shot a man in Maine had serious mental health issues and a long history of violence against women. This comes after ICE slashed hiring standards and rushed some into the field before background checks cleared.
By  JACK BROOK, MICHAEL R. SISAK, AMANDA SWINHART and CLAIRE GALOFARO
Updated 7:59 PM EDT, July 16, 2026
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AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) — The Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer who shot a Colombian man in Maine this week is an Army veteran who has struggled with serious mental health issues since early childhood and never should have been given a badge and gun to patrol American streets, several of his close relatives told The Associated Press.

David Brouillette has a history of terrifying and violent behavior, according to those relatives. They accuse him of attacking women in his life over the years, and one shared a voicemail with the AP from last winter in which he told her that he thought someone should slit her throat.

Brouillette’s troubling past further challenges how thoroughly the Department of Homeland Security has vetted recruits as it went on a hiring spree to help carry out President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.

At least 10 people have died in encounters with immigration agents since Trump launched the crackdown after retaking office, including 25-year-old Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, a Colombian national who was shot and killed by Brouillette on Monday while in his car near his home in the coastal Maine city of Biddeford.

DHS, which hasn’t released the name of the officer who killed Durán Guerrero, has said the “vehicle attempted to flee the scene and, fearing for public safety, an officer discharged his weapon.”
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Seumalu Elora Lee Raymond @eloralee.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
tell her to buy an acre of land / parsley sage rosemary and thyme / between the salt water and the sea strands / then she'll be a true love of mine
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Seumalu Elora Lee Raymond @eloralee.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
Heartbreaking news: US announces proposal to lease the American Samoan ocean for deep seabed mining. This starts a countdown, we have just months left before they intend to sell. public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2026-14479.pdf
public-inspection.federalregister.gov
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Jim Kane @kanejim.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
"The number of unpermitted turbines identified by Reuters is about double what xAI has publicly acknowledged."
reuters.com
Insight: Pollution from Musk’s unpermitted xAI power project hits hardest in Black communities
Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI has installed 59 natural gas turbines for its Colossus 2 data center project in Tennessee without securing federal clean air permits, according to commu...
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Jessica de Heij @jdeheij.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
An article by (former) Auckland’s one and only design champion Ludo Campbell-Reid. 👏👏 The city has changed so much in the last 20 years and in a really good way with amazing PT solutions, lots of public spaces and an increase in safe walking and cycling spaces! 🚶‍♀️🚲🚊 newsroom.co.nz/2026/07/16/a...
newsroom.co.nz
Auckland, the city that taught me to believe in cities again
Reflections on Auckland's transformation, the opening of the City Rail Link, and what one remarkable mid-sized city can teach the world about changing its trajectory.
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Seumalu Elora Lee Raymond @eloralee.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
aeon.co/essays/is-a-...
aeon.co
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Ali Rıza Taşkale @alirizataskale.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
Tech billionaires didn’t misread science fiction. They performed an edit: keeping the frontier, the visionary, the chrome; cutting the public institution, the collective, and the warning. Every. Single. Time. My new piece is now up in Aeon.
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Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
once again saying: Nuremburg trials is the moderate position
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Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock @warnock.senate.gov · 13/07/2026
Some good news.
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Erika Waters @erikawatersphd.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
There is a proposal in the Federal register to end the International Education Programs regulations and the Fulbright-Hays Program regulations. Unbelievable. Click the link below to make a comment. #AcademicSky #EpiSky 🧪
federalregister.gov
International Education Programs and Fulbright-Hays Program; Recission of Regulations
The Secretary of Education proposes to rescind the International Education Programs regulations and the Fulbright-Hays Program Regulations to provide the Department of Education (ED) with greater flex...
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Julia Métraux @juliametraux.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
Scoop: NIH is on a mission to enlist one million Americans to share their genetic data to help with health research through a precision medicine program called “All of Us.” What participants don’t know is that at one research site, Palantir stores the data. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
motherjones.com
Palantir has a hand in NIH's most ambitious health initiative
The defense tech firm's work with public health data has largely flown under the radar.
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Petter Törnberg @pettertornberg.com · 07/07/2026
‘Polarization’ has become the master concept for diagnosing our current democratic crisis. But this is not polarization. It is the radicalization of the political right. By misdiagnosing it, we risk becoming complicit in the crisis. 🧵 Just out in Perspectives on Politics doi.org/10.1017/S153...
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Gordon Hodson @gordonhodsonphd.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
#AcademicSky #PsychSciSky #PrejudiceResearch A Social Dominance Theory analysis of PragerU's reinforcement of hierarchy (moving to top of my reading pile) www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1...
tandfonline.com
“Being taken as a slave is better than being killed”: How PragerU’s curriculum reinforces hierarchy and hegemony
This study is a critical discourse analysis that examines how Leo and Layla’s History Adventures (a children’s video series produced by PragerU) constructs ideological representations of U.S. histo...
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Seumalu Elora Lee Raymond @eloralee.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
Dear students, I love that you called me the GOAT in course evals, but I don't think my dean knows what that means, so *please* spell things out.
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Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 01/07/2026
NEW BLOG FOR YOU Google's energy consumption numbers in their new climate report are mind-blowing. 2 years ago they flipped from linear to exponential growth, and their climate impact is blowing out, too. A WILD testament to the obscene bloat and waste of GenAI: ketanjoshi.co/2026/07/01/g...
a chart showing google's rising energy consumption - huge, and rising faster than ever beforea chart showing google's rising energy consumption - huge, and rising faster than ever beforea chart showing google's rising energy consumption - huge, and rising faster than ever beforeGoogle's total energy consumption more than new zealand
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
🚨 HUGE ongoing surge of ICE arrests, with ICE directing 80% of all officers to go out into the field and round people up, aiming to hit 2,000 arrests a day; which would be more than during the Minneapolis surge. This may be why the nun in Texas got briefly picked up. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/01/u...
nytimes.com
Immigrant Arrests Surge to 10,000 in 5 Days as ICE Clamps Down
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