SEdwards retweeted
What if stopping fascism were actually pretty simple?
newrepublic.com/article/2171…
"Public health workers....reached out to the affected farms and enrolled dairy workers in a text-based health screening tool that checks daily for symptoms including cough, fever or red eyes. If the workers report any, the health department follows up with additional questions"
A person in Yakima County, Washington, who caught bird flu after being exposed to infected dairy cows has died following a severe illness, county health officials said on Sunday. cnn.com/2026/11/02/health/bi…
Six more herds in Yakima County, Washington from Washington's Department of Ag. For geeks out there, there are some interesting bits on the website, including a detailed infographic on response and a warning about raw milk. agr.wa.gov/departments/anima…
Someone at the State agencies built a response flow chart. Good news is the evidence of thinking/cross agency coordination, the downside is that they still allow a lot of risks here, to include the movement of "dry" cows+calves and no testing of workers. cms.agr.wa.gov/WSDAKentico/D…
Have a lot of respect for public health as a profession. If you get it right, nothing happens. But looking #H5N1 in Yakima...a big spike in infected dairies, 2 confirmed sick, a 3rd dead, and we aren't testing all workers? During flu season? It means we'll be "surprised" and late
If you go to bed on election night and don't know who won a midterm congressional race, that's normal. And if you wake up the next morning and find that a candidate who was behind hours earlier has since pulled ahead, that's normal, too. (via @PolitiFact) to.pbs.org/4zqnWBa
Looks like the second #H5N1 case in Yakima who was hospitalized as of yesterday's announcement, has died. This also includes the announcement of a 3rd human case.
yakimacounty.us/DocumentCent…
SEdwards retweeted
Perfect response from Abdul: "None of this matters. You know what matters? There are families who are preparing to send their kids to schools tomorrow that look like they did 50 years ago. They're worried about what they're going to feed their kids for lunch. They're worried that if one of their kids gets sick, they're not going to be able to pay the bills. Those are the things that matter."
Wishing Murphy the best. Sounds like he did exactly what you are supposed to do--pay attention to the symptoms, don't ignore them and get help. Time absolutely matters when comes to strokes.
Now this is a proper trek...
Last month, I walked the route the Gestapo's most hunted woman took out of Nazi-occupied France.
With me were former CIA and MI6 officers, and two young women who want to follow in her footsteps.
She made the same crossing in November 1942, on a wooden leg. Here's who she was:
Virginia Hall ran spies in occupied France for over a year before the Germans closed in. Most people have never heard of her because she was good at her job.
Her route started in Perpignan and climbed to Mantet, a mountain village the main road didn't reach until the 1960s. A good area for escape & evasion and French Resistance fighters.
The next morning we climbed the Portella de Mantet, close to 8,000 feet. Every one of us was out of breath on the last switchbacks. At the top you step from France into Spain. We stood there and thought about her in that same spot looking back on what she was fleeing and looking forward into Spain, not knowing what was next.
31 miles later, we finished in Camprodon.
We're going back in the spring with six young people. If you know someone who should be on that trail with us, please send them this.
Trip report: open.substack.com/pub/laurae…
SEdwards retweeted
Gene Roddenberry had a rule that drove the writers of Star Trek The Next Generation absolutely crazy: there can't be any interpersonal conflict amongst the crew. The result was a cultural product I consider almost unique: a story about good people trying to do the right thing that isn't boring.
These days, moral ambiguity, twisted anti-heros and an apocalyptic vision of the future practially comes standard in our stories. Dark and complicated is synonymous with "smart," but in fact it's probably ten times harder to write a compelling story about principled, competent and psychologically healthy people. Star Trek TNG dared to imagine a future for humanity where we outgrew our petty squabbles and became our highest selves, where we travel the stars fulfilling our curiosity and genuinely making the universe a better place.
Patrick Stewart's Captain Jean-Luc Picard was the indispensable anchor to this vision. Instead of William Shatner's campy swagger as James T. Kirk, Stewart's Picard made "tea, Earl Grey, hot" iconic. His depth and gravitas as a thespian specializing in Shakespeare sold the moral dilemmas that were so often at the heart of the best TNG episodes.
The dramatic tension in TNG comes from people sharing the same ethical framework as a group facing difficult problems. The buck stops with the Captain. He listens to and respects his crew, but ultimately it is up to him to "make it so."
For TNG to work as a show, Stewart had to take those very internal struggles between a man and his conscience and make it dramatic. He made Captain Picard's very moral seriousness charismatic. He made you believe that...yeah...of course there is a moral arc to the universe and it bends towards justice. Of course it is worth paying the price to stay true to our principles. And of course, the struggle to discern what is right action is actually much more interesting than wallowing in how broken everything and everyone is.
Bon Voyage, mon Capitaine
You're not a democrat and you certainly don't believe in maintaining our democracy if you're campaigning for a Republican at this late date. (you, Haley Stevens). Somehow, somehow too many (mostly white) people in this country still don't understand the stakes. It's madness.
Three days to go and in Washington State, only 32% of voters have cast their ballots--only 13% of voters 18-24.
Talk to your people. Regardless of what State you live in, the truth is simple. We cannot maintain our democracy--quite literally--unless people participate in it.
Every time this image shows up in my feeds, I wince.
Photo of 14,000 satellite trails shows how busy space is becoming
Astrophotographer and teacher Brendan Larsen spent 2 hours taking 578 photos of one section of sky in New Zealand to see how satellites are changing our night skies. These shocking images reveal their impact
newscientist.com/article/259…
docs.google.com/document/d/1…
What a way to put your business out of business. Turning every Starbucks into a surveillance machine is very not "comfortable third place".
Spreading between neighboring farms could be wind, rodents, moving workers, equipment like milk trucks, or cows. Over 2yrs now, we still aren't aggressively investigating, we still aren't locking down sites, still aren't ensuring cows, milk, and workers are tested. It's all soft.























