A few interesting aspects from the Yunnan China-Cambodia-Thailand trilateral meeting press release: "China will continue to play a constructive role in facilitating the rebuilding of trust and achieving lasting peace between Cambodia and Thailand in the Asian way." 1/n www.mfa.go.th/en/content/p...

China hosting this trilat with Thailand and Cambodia in Yunnan i.e. China’s southern border with Southeast Asia also sends another message: unlike a distant US, this is China’s backyard and through brokering peace it demonstrates its influence as the region’s superpower. www.scmp.com/news/china/d...

If you eat Pop-Tarts for winning the Pop-Tarts Bowl, do you file a Form 1040 for winning the TaxSlayer bowl? #gohoos

Really hoping that this ceasefire will last without any additional incursions. Notable that the agreement calls for a maintenance of the military status quo, return to the KL framework + ASEAN, but no mention whatsoever of US role in KL framework or the ceasefire. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/d...

And this reading, analyzing, and writing takes a lot of time! Not to say that quantitative fields have it easier (it is a different kind of hard work), but in our discipline we have no formula or model to stick our sources into—so much of this just happens in the black box process of human thinking.

Apropos absolutely nothing: "the total budget for UNC football balloons last year? $48,733."

UNC should maintain these centers because it is the right thing to do, but historians will also note that these centers across the US were founded for national security reasons in order to produce scholars, officers, and policymakers knowledgeable about the world. They weakened a country today.

CSEEES feels so much like a home that I regularly attend their events and seminars even though I do not speak a Slavic language nor does my research directly focus on the region, but in doing so I got to learn so much from everyone in that community and they have broadened my intellectual horizons.

This is absolutely catastrophic for research in the humanities and social sciences. Not only are these centers crucial sources of the limited research funding we have as grad students, but they have been interdisciplinary intellectual homes for so many of us at UNC. dailytarheel.com/article/a4ee...

I have long found it interesting that my Europeanist friends seem to all be familiar with Thongchai Winichakul's Siam Mapped (1994) as a major contribution to the history of maps and nationalism and yet the book (as far as I am aware) is known in Thailand at best as an obscure academic text.

This is just the end of the loan period, so the pandas going back is not a diplomatic sanction, but China is about to get the best bargaining chip in its negotiations with Japan amidst the worsening of bilateral ties: want new pandas? Better tone down your rhetoric! asia.nikkei.com/life-arts/li...

All aboard the Democrat comeback train! 🚂

With the discourse about the US National Security Strategy this morning, I figured I should familiarize myself with Thailand's National Security Strategy if I want to be able to come up with some educated commentary. Friends, it is 169 pages long... and yet somehow there is no strategy to show for!

Interesting that the new US NSS talks of "denying aggression" in the First Island Chain instead of explicit commitments to "defend" it. Treaty allies mentioned only to demand for more defense spending without assurances. Can you blame Japan or South Korea if they seriously consider nuclearization?

Xi invoking US-China cooperation during WW2 to make a point about Taiwan is really salient here especially after he recognized an ROC/KMT veteran at the 80th Anniversary of Victory over Japan celebrations earlier this year. Memory about the War continues to play a big role in East Asian geopolitics.

Hey @wmatagm.bsky.social, I appreciate @wmata.com opening early for the marathon today, but the crowd situation needs to be managed better. We had an overflowing platform at Pentagon this morning and now at Rosslyn post-race no one can get into the station, leaving runners standing on tired legs.

Here’s to the past eighty years of the hot mess doing its best and perhaps—if we are lucky enough—another eighty more! 🥳🥂🇺🇳

Always worth remembering that Thomas Jefferson chose to have these three of his accomplishments listed on his gravestone: - a list of grievances and declaration of war against a King - this quoted statute of religious freedom - the founding of a public, politically independent, secular university

I am glad today turned out to be a day that I can proudly say, "I have worn the honors of Honor. I graduated from Virginia."

We should start a club of people with easy phonetic yet slightly “ethnic” last names that scare the living daylight out of the WASPs somehow. I learned how to pronounce Worcestershire.

And just as I thought this whole business could not get any sillier…

have people already forgotten about korea this past winter? fun policing was definitely not part of it

the triangle’s blog blog of record

PSA: dog owners, if walking/running with your animal in public please hold the leash tightly enough so that it does not dash across you such that the leash threatens to trip an innocent runner just trying to get a workout in not sprain his hamstring three weeks out from a marathon.

respect for ranked virginia

official review: all bangers no skips album of the decade goodnight

ladies and gentlemen taylor swift has done it again

calling out drinking matcha and listening to laufey as “performative male” traits reflect a perverse normalization of anti-asian hate in the online progressive discourse, in this essay I will

I am happy to report that there is still hope for journalism in this country.

I hereby dare all brave and honorable AP poll voters to rank Virginia.

football???

The German foreign minister seems rather annoyed that Trump is appropriating the CDU pastime of Green-bashing. Meanwhile Annalena Baerbock crossed an entire ocean, took on a new job, and yet still cannot seem to catch a break from Green-bashing!

SHAFR (@shafrhistorians.bsky.social) offers grants for grads w/ a broad focus on the U.S. & the World (including SEA). This Wed is a webinar on how to write grant apps, useful for those applying elsewhere as well! Event Registration: bit.ly/SHAFRgrants Fellowship Info: www.shafr.org/fellowships-...

You no longer need a prescription to get the updated 2025-26 COVID vaccine in North Carolina! governor.nc.gov/news/press-r...

It is no easy feat, but these American liberals are giving Weimar liberals quite the run for the money on proving that Carl Schmitt might have indeed been right about liberalism all along.

It is hard to read this and not feel despair. Thailand has endured two lost decades. Everything circles back to the same problems and nothing has changed. At the same time, there is now a new democratic consensus and the voices for progress have only gotten louder and louder. Something is different.

Note that this is not the Constitutional Court's first ruling on this matter: it had previously ruled that two referenda were required: one to initiate drafting a new charter and another to approve it. Now that there is a public constitutional consensus, the Court has decided to move the goalposts.

PSA: You can get an updated 2025-26 Covid vaccine with a prescription in North Carolina. If you are a UNC student, visit/message your Campus Health provider and they can prescribe you the vaccine. It is not available on campus yet, but you can get the prescription sent to the Target CVS on Franklin.

All will be good in the world again. We are so back.

How am I supposed to get anything done when everyday I wake up to unprecedented bonkers news out of Thailand? @kenlmathis.bsky.social's daily digests have been indispensable.

so uhh how many days until basketball?

While some Americans might see this as a positive example of a court doing "something," I have to warn people to be careful what they wish for. Thailand has had nine prime ministers since 2001 and five of them have been removed through the courts. This is not a healthy way to run a democracy either.

Has "Uncle" Hun Sen popped every single bottle of champagne in his cellar?

currently stuck on a bus in rush hour chapel hill traffic and I hereby propose the building of a franklin-main st brt including signal priority and ultimately the banning of private vehicles cc @triangleblogblog.bsky.social

I see that bad penalties have spread beyond the women's euros.

Ah it’s move in weekend! No wonder the number of cars that do not give way to pedestrians has dramatically increased in Chapel Hill. Don’t drive like Conrad Fisher—pay attention to the no U-Turn and no turn on red signs, please!

N: Helsinki E: Tokyo S: Singapore W: Honolulu This is a good reminder that I have somehow still never been south of the equator! What goes on down under?

Conrad Fisher, there’s a giant sign, you can’t do a U-Turn on Franklin St! TSITP stop promoting bad driving challenge.

No worse consumerist jump scare than clicking on Google Maps to find pictures of a menu at some restaurant and you come across an image from before 2020 with pre-2020 prices...