My cat rules.

Would Trump and Co really engineer a huge sell off in order to short a bunch of O&G stocks? No way!

The media keeps repeating the phrase DEI in the euphemistic way the right has re-coded the word, i.e., as affirmative action. It’s the kind of laziness that the right relies upon from the media (Bannon has said as much), and it’s also highly destructive, as we’re now seeing. Do better.

Current sentiments. media2.giphy.com/media/l3q2GD...

The word for this is counter-revolution. www.reuters.com/world/us/mus...

A thing I always admired about Taiwan’s government was that, Blue or Green, there was a strong governing consensus that as TW got wealthier things should get better: new subways, high-speed rail, more education slots, renovated schools, single-payer health, and so on. Simplifying, but still.

Ohio has a new law requiring people to use the bathroom that aligns with their biological sex. You know what the law also says? Asking strangers in a bathroom (or anywhere), even politely, to prove their sex is harassment and that shit carries consequences. Legal consequences.

I am struggling to comprehend the inner bleakness of a political leader whose response to people’s immeasurable grief is to take showy petty swipes at his opponents and to try and to insulate himself from accountability.

I don’t know squat about AI but I do know a few things about China and could have told anyone who asked that if the Chinese central government has decided on a crazy-seeming goal, like being a dominant player in AI,your best bet is that it will happen. Let that guide your thinking hereafter.

All the buffoons on tv yesterday praising the spending freeze as a good, decisive action must be feeling pretty dumb now. Right? Ha! They don’t care. They’ll just say rescinding the memo is the boldest, most decisive-est step ever taken.

Blood on their hands www.nytimes.com/2025/01/27/h...

Currently in a naturalization ceremony and all these people are so much more uplifting than the freaks running the federal government for now.

Of course they spelled it Columbia.

After the announced pause in aid I looked up USAID and State for this and got a 404. Now I know why. These f’ers. Pausing PEPFAR (and probably cutting it eventually) is unspeakably cruel and stupid. www.nytimes.com/2025/01/24/u...

The mighty Olentangy River is currently a frozen highway.

Olentangy Trail bridge. (1/24/25) frosty bike commute, arguably my most wypypo activity

Trump says we were wealthiest in the 1890s. That’s….insane and hilariously ignorant. In REAL dollars, per capita GDP in 1900 was under $9k. It’s about $90k now. WTF is even happening here? Why must we listen to this idiot? How is this doofus president? Misanthropy surging!

Has Bill Easterly spoken up about Trump pausing all foreign aid (except, of course, military aid to the usual suspects) and subjecting all projects to approval by Russ Vought?

The Trump admin has a strange but totally predictable preoccupation with architectural norms. The historical record of regimes claiming to want to restore “Western Civilization” and build accordingly is not great. www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...

Walked by this spectacular house in central Tokyo and had to get up real close to confirm that yes the entire exterior is sugi ban cladding. Stunning. (Yes I touched the walls)

Dusting off my Mackinder now that territorial acquisition is on the agenda.

Someone at the DNC thought 9am today was a good time to send out a donation solicitation.

Someone coined the term “seminar bro” and here is a specimen in the wild. www.nytimes.com/2025/01/18/m...

This might be the wildest trick ive ever seen. youtube.com/shorts/4p7oB...

The NYT now has published four Trump voter forums framed by the assumed strangeness of this particular type of American. Do they understand that their heartland safaris affirm every stereotype about themselves? Do they know this tic they exhibit is a running gag now decades old?

What are the odds Hegseth doesn’t know the difference between Taiwan and Thailand? I’d say rather high.

It should NOT take three months to find reviewers for an article. It should NOT take a week to reply to an email about this. Academic publishing is ridiculous. Not the first to say this, but why must it be said over and over?

Mazzie sits on another flat object.

Reading Perlstein’s “Nixonland” and learning of the huge reactionary resistance to social change in the 60s. The intensity of it is remarkable and familiar. I had to look up the Miami Rally For Decency when 30k+teenagers rallied outraged by Jim Morrison. Too funny. Too ridiculous. So sad.

Birds are not far behind cats as perfect animals. Here a northern flicker feasts on suet.

HBO’s Dune series is garbage.

This is the week to cue up Stan Robinson’s “Shaman” and go for long walks in the snow. (The Mars stuff is slightly tainted owing to one specific weird asshole who clearly read the trilogy as an instruction manual)

Snow day done right.

Columbus, Ohio, needs whatever the reverse of congestion pricing might be. Something, anything to get people into the lifeless wasteland called downtown.

Old bookstores are awesome. Might have to grab this one.

Old bookstores are awesome. Might have to grab this one.

Course syllabi at OSU are no longer intellectual statements and plans for learning. They are absurd legal documents. Mine for an intro course runs 17 pages, 14 of which are mandated legal boilerplate, with the remainder being the course description and schedule.

Read Sinclair’s “The Jungle” and Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath” over the holiday because they seemed relevant to the present conjuncture, as they say. But dayum they’re also just amazing books. Such good writing and storytelling.

Animals (pretending to be?) very happy I’m home.

As someone deep in this scene thru the kiddo, I have to object to this lame take on breaking at the Olympics. Not because Raygun didn’t massively smear the scene. She did. But she could have been ignored as a weak competitor and people could’ve moved on. … www.nytimes.com/2024/12/28/a...

Read “An Hour Before Daylight” by Jimmy Carter this year. Figured I should read at least one of his 30(!!!) books. It was really good. Don’t normally go for the Big Man biographies but he’s different in many good ways. What a life!

Aerial view of King Cinder. That’s a 16-inch circumference btw.

Electronic Arts in Vancouver made perfect skating terrain and then posted these dumb “no skating” warnings. I’m sorry, but that s$&t’s getting skated. Just look at it!

So I hear the MAGA crowd is finally learning that our tech overlords are a bunch of eugenicist freaks with a very strong social Darwinian streak and that in the tech utopia MAGA are, at best, the servant class, if not bred out of existence. Guess MAGA doesn’t read sci-fi. Or anything.

FC Taiwan jersey. Shop owner in Taipei objected to that whole “Chinese Taipei” thing and carries a renegade province jersey as a protest. Represent.

Enjoying the season.

Japanese colonial-era city planning evident in the buildings and streets around the train station in Pingtung, Taiwan. Gotta look close to see the Art Deco design under the many additions. The signature roundabout is still in use.

King Cinder throwing Blue Steel

Siberian Forest cats are superior animals.