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Matthew Haugen

@mjhaugen.bsky.social
5.2K followers 3.8K following 1.7K posts

Energy and Planning Manager @cplusc.bsky.social (opinions expressed are my own) • sometimes writing at www.terrain.news • based in Birmingham, AL

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Reposted by Matthew Haugen
Climate and Community Institute @cplusc.bsky.social · 8h
NEW: Climate policies must deliver for working people struggling with the cost-of-living crisis. Today, we're releasing Immediate Relief, a set of policy proposals to cut costs, protect rights and survival, and expand leisure and access: stopgreedbuildgreen.climateandcommunity.org/immediate-re...
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Matthew Haugen @mjhaugen.bsky.social · 8h
Here in Birmingham, our electricity bills are 41% higher than Huntsville's because we have an awful investor-owned utility (that has the state government in their pocket) and Huntsville has public power www.al.com/news/birming...
al.com
Comeback Town: Birmingham residential electric bills are 41% higher than Huntsville’s
Birmingham cannot change its electric utility overnight. But Alabama can change the way that utility is regulated.
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sick public transit, gloria @seung.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
jaw dropped when I read this www.nytimes.com/2026/10/01/w...
But for many Brazilians, the most pressing issue as they prepare to vote on Sunday is a crisis much closer to home: crushing personal debt.
More than 80 percent of Brazilian families are in debt, a historic high for the country, according to the National Confederation of Commerce, a retail group.
Brazil also has the highest benchmark interest rate among 40 major economies, and families spend nearly 30 percent of their income on debt payments, according to Brazil’s central bank. In the United States, that figure is about 11 percent.
Unlike in the United States, where most household debt is driven by mortgages, in Brazil debt is fueled by credit cards, payroll loans and retail store installment plans carrying among the highest interest rates in the world.
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a leftist who is locked in a tight race against a right-wing opponent, Flávio Bolsonaro, has seized on this concern in the closing days of the campaign. On Friday, Mr. Lula signed an order banning online gambling, which was legalized in 2018 and has supercharged the household debt crisis.
Brazil is the first country, experts say, to ban online gambling after introducing and regulating the industry.
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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Country rube stuff 101: if they talk fast, they got their hands in your pocket.
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GOLIKEHELLMACHINE @golikehellmachine.com · 04/10/2026
this is a well-reported piece with an awful lot written between the lines, and one of the things that jumps out at me is just how ill-informed these people are. the trucker, his partner, his mother — they can’t even agree *amongst themselves* on a shared understanding of events
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Matthew Haugen @mjhaugen.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
It is cool that the UK finally has the world's first good green party
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Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
I read the ending and I wanted to koolaid man through a wall!!
Screenshot of article which reads: To restore a functioning and 
pluralistic democracy in the United States, reversing over a decade of 
democratic backsliding in the world’s oldest democracy, the thing to 
“fix” is not polarization. Polarization is the country’s immune response 
to an unpopular, antidemocratic, and intentionally divisive faction grabbing for disproportionate power to the detriment of national success, 
reputation, and democratic self-government. Tamping down that immune response only allows this minority faction to have greater control.Screenshot of article which reads: But the fury of the argument shows the importance of the outcome. 
When we focus on polarization as the problem, the solution is for ev-
eryone to quiet down and be “civil”—an outcome that benefits those 
who are willing to grab as much power as they can without concern 
for legality or civility. When we see the problem for what it is, the 
solution is to defend the most robust social progress in American his-
tory—progress that has already been codified into law and enjoyed 
by everyone alike. U.S. democracy needs leaders who are willing to 
defend those rights and voters who are willing to hold accountable the 
leaders who will not defend them. It does not need everyone simply to calm down.
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Sean T. Collins @seantcollins.com · 02/10/2026
"The word got around that finally, there was a real gangster in town." I reviewed this week's excellent MobLand, in which Tom Hardy's fixer Harry Da Souza meets his match in Johnny Flynn's gregarious, shaggy-haired, track-suited mob boss Frankie Cooper
decider.com
‘MobLand’ Season 2 Episode 3 Recap: Frankie Say Relax
For a guy whose job it is to know all the angles, boy, there are a lot of angles Harry doesn’t know at the moment.
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Patrick Bigger @pmbigger.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
My newest in Zeteo UK looks at the elements of ecocide in Gaza: the impacts on land, air, and water that the Israeli assault has produced.
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Unless Congress reclaims its power, this will just become the new normal. A good first step would be to impeach Vought. www.nytimes.com/2026/10/02/u...
nytimes.com
National Science Foundation Diverted $1.4 Billion in Science Funds Mandated by Congress
The move, affecting about one-fifth of the National Science Foundation’s primary research budget, is the latest sign of how the White House is asserting more control over grants.
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Joan Alker @joanalker1.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
The # of kids covered by Medicaid/CHIP since Jan 2025 continues to decline As of August 2026, the ⬇️ was 2.575 million 2026 is a more rapid ⬇️ than the already large ⬇️ in 2025 This is very worrying bcuz drops in child Medicaid enrollment usually means kid uninsured rate is ⬆️
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Moira Birss @moira.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
“We hope that other cities will take it as a lesson: We don’t have to bow down [to] the fascist deportation machine. We certainly don’t have to let its perpetrators benefit from our local economies and infrastructure." - Alderman Andre Vasquez
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Matthew Haugen @mjhaugen.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
"The problem with AI, however, is that it’s moving so fast—both socially and technically—that assumptions formed in one phase may not retain their validity into the next." bentarnoff.substack.com/p/on-the-pac...
bentarnoff.substack.com
On the pacing of frontiers
Everybody’s talking about “pacing the frontier.” A funny phrase.
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Reposted by Matthew Haugen
Charlie Warzel @cwarzel.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
For a long time I've wanted a sense of how trump has or hasn't interacted with chatbots (we know he posts a lot of slop sure). And this TIME anecdote about Grok arguably leading Trump into war is just extremely bracing
Since returning to office, Trump has marveled at AI’s capabilities. He is increasingly in thrall to the tech executives courting him. In December 2025, Elon Musk returned to the Oval Office for a clandestine meeting. Trump spent hours asking Grok, Musk’s AI chatbot, questions about his presidency and legacy, according to an official present. At the time, Trump was ordering missile strikes against Venezuelan boats he alleged were smuggling drugs into the U.S. He asked Grok how Venezuelans would react if the U.S. captured Maduro. According to the official present, the chatbot responded that Maduro was a repressive and deeply unpopular dictator and that many Venezuelans would likely celebrate his downfall. After Trump ordered the mission to seize Maduro, the following month, celebrations broke out in the streets. Trump, according to officials, came away thinking Grok was ingenious.
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Matthew Haugen @mjhaugen.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Great piece by @kennystancil.bsky.social revolvingdoorproject.substack.com/p/reversing-...
revolvingdoorproject.substack.com
Reversing Voughtism; or, Creating a Pro-Worker Government to Save Lives
The Trump regime is dismantling the federal government’s ability to protect you. Undoing the Vought-led onslaught is a matter of life-and-death, and it would be good politics.
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Matthew Haugen @mjhaugen.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
It is hard for me to take AI "existential risk" people seriously when they do not care about things like this www.wsj.com/tech/ai/goog...
wsj.com
Google Pushed AI Into Schools—and Even Students Say It’s Gone Too Far
The risks of cognitive and emotional dependence, along with falling test scores, are fueling a backlash.
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Matthew Haugen @mjhaugen.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
👑
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Matthew Haugen @mjhaugen.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
I haven't read the permitting reform bill yet (seems like there's some good stuff), but I want to once again suggest to fellow clean energy advocates that saying or implying that biodiversity, endangered species, & other non-climate environmental issues do not matter is both detrimental & incorrect
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Jacob Oller @jacoboller.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
just makes me sick, blood is on so many companies' hands
As the audience hears from the confessors’ subdued voices, it becomes clear that any number of naza were acceptable if it meant killing someone deemed a threat to the state of Israel. The military would wait for nightfall when people would come home to their families, eavesdrop to find out when children would say “daddy’s home,” and use AI-derived information to obliterate whole blocks. Entire families could be wiped out at the suggestion of bunk AI data, and multistory buildings, like the ones hosting these conversations in Tel Aviv, could be sent down to earth, killing everyone inside. Although we’ve read the news that Israeli forces are using American technology, including generative AI, to murder Palestinians, hearing about how it’s put into practice makes it undeniable—not to mention undeniably terrifying to contemplate that a new future of tech-driven war against dissidents and designated “others” is already underway.
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Amy Westervelt @amywestervelt.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
I keep hearing from sources about these but had no idea it was THIS many. of course these are also the orgs that squawk about the importance of "academic freedom" www.politico.com/news/2026/09...
politico.com
Inside the anti-climate campaign against researchers
A POLITICO investigation reveals more than 100 open records requests demanding documents from climate scientists nationwide.
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Perry Bacon @perrybaconjr.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
"Economic issues not cultural wars' produces a party that both loses elections and abandons moral causes and vulnerable people. That’s not a theoretical argument—it’s the story of the Democratic Party of my entire adulthood." newrepublic.com/article/2159...
newrepublic.com
Why Democrats Should Stop Using the Phrase “Culture Wars”
Texas’s Gina Hinojosa and others slamming the party for focusing too much on so-called cultural issues are pushing a flawed electoral and policy strategy.
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Yonah Freemark @yonahfreemark.com · 30/09/2026
I've added a new feature to Transit Explorer—the database of the world's fixed-guideway transit systems: The ability to compare cities, side by side, at the same scale. Here, for example, is Washington vs. Chicago, and Singapore vs. London! Play around: www.thetransportpolitic.com/transitexplo...
Transit systems in Washington and Chicago, at the same scale.Transit systems in Singapore and London, at the same scale.
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Snowden St. @snowden.st · 29/09/2026
don’t get headline sniped, these are standard plans from a liberal/progressive policy standpoint.
The platform, dubbed the Building A Healthier America Policy Agenda, takes aim at pesticides in food, backing legislation that would give people the right to sue pesticide manufacturers over harm caused by the products. It seeks accountability for polluters, with a pledge to get industry lobbyists out of regulatory agencies. And it aims to get substances such as lead and microplastics out of water, in part by strengthening federal drinking water rules. It also proposes investments in school meal programs and grocery stores on wheels.
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Christopher Mims @mims.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
there are going to be so so so many stories of disasters when agents with full access to users' everything make huge mistakes there is no harness or minder on earth that can catch every single edge case
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Matthew Haugen @mjhaugen.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
utterly horrifying
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Matthew Haugen @mjhaugen.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
When did "technology" come to mean "digital technology" in common parlance?
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Anthony Moser @anthonymoser.com · 21/09/2026
as a hater let me acknowledge something ai is good at: producing irritating discourse at scale this is usually because, like "ai" itself, people are talking about different things like they are one thing so let me disentangle, with statements numbered for easy disagreement
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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
I struggled to finish reading this important and horrifying reporting www.theatlantic.com/magazine/202...
theatlantic.com
The Babies Left Behind in America
The United States is deporting parents without their children, creating a whole new family-separation crisis.
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Dr. Genevieve Guenther (she/they) @doctorvive.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Republicans want people to use more gasoline, no matter what it costs them, so that fossil industry profits will rise. No, really. This is not a culture war. That’s why they’re making cars burn more gasoline.
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ceej @ceej.online · 27/09/2026
the tech titan backlash to “woke dei hr ladies” makes a lot more sense now huh
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Anna Kornbluh @annakornbluh.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Corporate libertarian donors worked to capture US universities. Donor networks bypassed faculty oversight. Federal funding weaponized after corporate capture. Climate research targeted bc threatens fossil fuel. Faculty collective action critical counterforce. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
sciencedirect.com
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Astra Taylor @astra.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Forget grandiose talk of curing cancer - this is what AI is actually doing to healthcare. In the words of one cardiologist: “it’s bots fighting bots, agents fighting agents, a horrible dystopic future nobody wants to live in.”
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Dan O’Sullivan @osullyville.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Today I saw the new 4 hour documentary Musk, directed by Alex Gibney. There were too many times to count that a sold out theater burst out laughing at Elon Musk, something he said or did, even sometimes just how he looked. I believe that is his worst nightmare come to life.
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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Then, if you’re able, try to get your body moving. You’re going to need your senses and movement is good for your brain. If you have kids in your care, protect their developing brains and their image. That’s all I can say about that.
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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Please try to reclaim your precious precious attention, at all costs. Do puzzles. Take walks without a phone. Dear god, try to read, almost anything that isn’t a manifesto will really do. You are going to need your brain.
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Matt Novak @paleofuture.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
An acute reminder that we don’t live in a free country as long as American tech oligarchs continue to maintain their power.
hollywoodreporter.com
The Major Social Media Platforms Are All Rejecting Paid Ads for Alex Gibney’s ‘Musk’ (Exclusive)
YouTube, TikTok and Meta have all turned down the trailer for the Oct. 9 doc, citing "political" content. X won't even take Bleecker Street's calls. The distributor is appealing.
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Rockefeller Republicans for Zohran @shanefain.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
I’ve always felt this way, but visiting Cuba really solidified it for me, the UN is an institution worth fighting for, and we need an America willing to give it more power.
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Whitney Curry Wimbish @whitneycwimbish.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
The youngest person his pager attack killed was 9-year-old Fatima Abdullah, who had just started 4th grade. The pager was on a table when it went off and she picked it up to take to her dad. It exploded in her face and reports said it covered the room in her blood. She wanted to learn English.
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Colin @colin-fraser.net · 24/09/2026
OpenAI created autonomous hacking software and left it running for hours and days with no one watching
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Rude Law Dog @esghound.com · 24/09/2026
wtf is going on here? Oracle sending out Force Majeure notices with the credit market already looking shaky for them and then saying nah all is well 🍿🍿🍿🍿
ORCL: Oracle sends Blue Owl force majeure over New Mexcio data center, Bloomberg says

Oracle (ORCL) sent Blue Owl Capital (OWL), the developer of its data center being built in New Mexico, a notice citing force majeure, Sridhar Natarajan, Brody Ford and Paula Seligson of Bloomberg report, citing people familiar with the situation. Oracle is attempting to put off payments should the data center named Project Jupiter fail to come online in 2028 as planned, sources told Bloomberg. Oracle is seeking to assert its contractual position if the build out is delayed, according to Bloomberg. "Project Jupiter remains on our planned schedule," a spokesperson for Oracle said without commenting on the notice. "We are fully committed to New Mexico and confident in our path forward." Shares of Oracle are down 4% to $138.07 following the report while Blue Owl Capital is down 4% to $9.23.

This update is part of The Fly's breaking news coverage. To contact The Fly about this story, email support@thefly.com. For sales and API inquires, contact sales@thefly.com.

Provider ID: 4430372 -0- Sep/24/2026 12:32 GMT

[This alt text added by gemini-3.1-flash-lite-preview AI]
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Rachel Holliday Smith @rachelholliday.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
chat is this good www.axios.com/newsletters/...

1 big thing: Ø Link economy breaks
Total U.S. web traffic for top news sites
Visits to approximately 100 top sites;

Traffic to news sites is plummeting in the
U.S. as tech giants steer people away from search and toward AI.
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Emily Grubert @gruberte.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
I think I’ve underestimated how radical it is to be an “actually, we don’t need more data” guy in the age of AI
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Matthew Haugen @mjhaugen.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
It's wild that NYC doesn't have trains from their airports
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Anna Kornbluh @annakornbluh.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
they are increasingly connecting the dots on who benefits when their cognitive capacities are stolen and the history of cultural production enclosed
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Le Ca-ghoul @lecagle.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
you are *not* prepared for what this technology company is called, nothing can prepare you
wkyt.com
UK installs AI facial scanning technology at residence halls
The University of Kentucky is installing artificial intelligence facial scanning technology on several campus buildings.
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Data & Society @datasociety.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
In a D&S letter to Congress today, the organization weighs in on the recent AI safety panic, cautioning legislators against companies’ proposal to collude and “pace the frontier.” Read on for our recommendations and AI evaluation framework: datasociety.net/research-lib...
datasociety.net
Letter to Congress on Pacing the Frontier - Data & Society
Recent incidents concerning rogue AI agents committing cyberattacks have catalyzed a unique moment of political attention on AI safety and regulation. In a letter to Congress, we caution against narro...
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Aaron Huertas @aaronhuertas.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
I shall cleverly do some poll tested insincere triangulation to get some rubes to vote for me vs. look at this rudderless amoral freak who will say anything to get elected
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Matthew Haugen @mjhaugen.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
That Ja'Marr Chase catch was insane
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