I don’t think “The election will be canceled” Doomers really think about the difficult logistics of cancelling nationwide elections. That’s understandable! A lot of people find logistics boring. But they are super important, especially when you’re talking about how granular U.S. elections are.

Things seem to be going about as well for Bari Weiss as they did for Megyn Kelly during her 14 months at NBC.

If anyone in the current Trump Administration had ever opened a National Geographic, this level of pedantry would be infuriating to them. Nat Geo essentially says, “Sure, you can rename your own waters The Gulf of America, but the rest of it is still The Gulf of Mexico whether you like it or not.”

So you’re telling me that U.S. law enforcement officials kidnapped a man from Latin America to bring him to the United States? Guess we’re doing it backwards in 2026.

Evan Gorelick in the New York Times morning newsletter reduces the Writers’ Strike and Nurses protesting against AI to mere “freakouts”.

Similarly, the Americana list is full of bangers. I can vouch for The Devil Makes Three, Jason Isbell, Molly Tuttle, and Neko Case, which are all so, so good. Which means if you like this kind of studd you should be giving these other recods a shot, too. www.popmatters.com/best-america...

This came out last week but I’m a bit late. The Popmatters Best Albums list is always filled with interesting records, as well as the ones you’d expect. I wrote about albums by Molly Tuttle, Deafheaven, and The Beths, which can all be found in the 60-40 range. www.popmatters.com/best-albums-...

Pepsi has tried numerous times to compete with Sprite and 7 Up. Currently they have Starry, and before that it was Sierra Mist. But before Sierra Mist there was Slice. They’ve revived that brand name as a competitor in the “healthy” soda area, going up against fruity stuff like Oli Pop and Poppi.

I’m an advocate for a 16-team college football playoff. But I want every conference champion to get a spot, just like NCAA basketball and every other level of college football. Sure this would mean a lot of first round blowouts, but when an upset happened it would be magical.

Kill Bill vol. 2 plays so much better as part of the same movie with vol. 1, rather than separated by 6 months or however long it was originally.

Great piece by @elijahgonzalez.bsky.social at the AV Club about Amazon’s AI anime dubbing fiasco that also spins out into Crunchyroll’s anti-union stance and how it hurts the whole industry. www.avclub.com/amazon-ai-an...

Trump, handing a full clip of ammunition to anyone who wants to try to primary Cuellar again from the left.

@msu--football.bsky.social It’s been 2 years since Mel Tucker. Now MSU is set to hire Pat Fitzgerald, who allowed and encouraged a culture of hazing so pervasive that Northwestern had no choice but to fire him despite the fact that he was the school’s most successful football coach of all time.

Seems like a decent theory, since even after two movies and billions of box office dollars, there’s very little conversation about them, still. However, “No one aspires to be or have sex with a giant cat alien,” I mean, maybe the Na’vi specifically but the monsterf**ker genre is pretty huge.

When I looked last week I was worried that I wouldn’t have the chance to see this one in a theater, because there were no Houston locations listed. But @robsaucedo.bsky.social has come through, and The River Oaks Theater will have it this weekend.

Sisu: Road to Revenge gets way more ridiculous than the first one, at least from what I remember of the first one. Having Steven Lang onboard as a real antagonist to react to and torment Sisu is an asset to the movie, though. (I know his name isn’t Sisu)

In case people forgot why MBS-funded efforts like LIV Golf and the Riyadh Comedy Festival invoke such scorn towards their participants, this is the inciting incident. Saudi Arabia forced a WaPo journalist to come to a Saudi embassy for procedural reasons, then brutally murdered him right there.

Nov. 4 - First store playing Christmas music of 2025 Nov. 5. - First Paul McCartney, “Wonderful Christmastime” Nov. 5 - First store playing exclusively Christmas music Nov. 12 - First “Christmas Wrapping” horn riff

15-20 Democratic Senators: “I know what we said about health care subsidies, but that was before I knew I might have to fucking DRIVE HOME for Thanksgiving and even Christmas! Find the 8 of us who are least vulnerable in ‘26 and get this deal done.”

If you’ve ever thought, “Eggo Waffles are pretty tasty, especially with syrup,” but also thought what they needed was to be smaller, crunchier, had the maple syrup flavoring already included, and to be covered in milk, well, have I got a Limited Edition cereal for you to try! Also, marshmallows.

As a @michiganstateu.bsky.social alum, if J Batt hasn’t already called Brian Kelly to get him to come back to the Midwest and coach the Spartans, then I don’t know what we’re doing with the @michiganstatefb.bsky.social program.

Kind of amazed that the NYT found a couple people willing to go on the record and say, “Yeah, the ballroom is needed and the East Wing probably had to go.” Yet, having watched Netflix’s The Residence this summer, which spends considerable time on the logistics of a State Dinner, I kind of get it.

Serious question: Do you think Trump knows how to play chess? Not metaphorically. Can he actually play a game of chess?

Apparently this is the week where @volts.wtf and @adamconover.net finally line up their podcasts. @sgoodyear.bsky.social and @brooklynspoke.bsky.social on both shows promoting their book Life After Cars.

Sloan have a new album out and it’s real good. These guys have been doing great classic rock and power-pop for decades and this one is chock full of big hooks and cool riffs. www.popmatters.com/sloan-based-...

Frost Children are a hyperpop duo who are so close to figuring out the intersection between cool, glitchy sounds and actual songwriting. This album is an improvement over the earlier stuff I sampled, but it’s a step away from being something I can fully recommend. www.popmatters.com/frost-childr...

I think Comer is confused, thinking that Bill Clinton is a former President that only became more beloved after he left office. We did have one of those, but he just passed away at the beginning of the year.

“Both Contemporary Christian Music and worship music are subpar forms that white evangelicals settle for because they think you can catch demons from the real stuff.” www.salon.com/2025/10/01/m...

Looks like we are changing the name again, this time to the Department of War Crimes.

Neko Case has a new album out. Neko Case always makes fascinating, gorgeous music that’s also delightfully off-kilter. You can read me ramble more about her here: www.popmatters.com/neko-case-ne...

Can we talk about what a dick move it was for Noah Hawley to have the s1 finale of Alien: Earth structured as if it was part 1 of a 2-part finale, but the second part doesn’t exist? This wasn’t loose ends or a cliffhanger, it literally feels like they stopped midway because that was all their time.

Sinclair is a big deal as far as owning tv stations. Now they’ve found out exactly how much influence they have over the actual network conglomerates in the past 10 days. It looked like a whole lot, but now it seems to be significantly less than it first appeared. deadline.com/2025/09/jimm...

Thanks, Twons, for propping up the Tigers for another 48 hours. Maybe they’ll wake up when they actually have to play the Guardians again.

Took a nap today, will it be enough for me to make it all the way through the MSU-USC game that only just started? Probably not, but we’ll see how long I last!

This is delightfully unexpected! Hoping the music is as well.

We won the Houston area trivia championship for the second year in a row today!

The New York Times really nailed this one.

Gotta say this seems like utter BS. gizmodo.com/dc-ends-red-...

I'm telling all of you that they are going to do what they ALWAYS do. What you do or do not say has no impact on what THEY WILL DO AND SAY. [just going to leave that here]

Houston elected a Mayor who hates anything that interferes with cars. Since taking office he has been actively redesigning and even ripping out bike lanes and pedestrian-friendly projects. At least now we have proof that this is what’s happening. www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston...

If Cory Doctorow didn’t refuse to use Bluesky, it would be really cool to see his reaction to this.

"Why should I care about U.S. Space Command being transferred to Alabama? I hate the military-industrial complex. We spend too much money on defense. Why does it matter which rich people get richer off it?" There are a number of reasons you should care, but you really only need one. (thread)

The Beths new album is an indie-rock gem. I highly recommend it, and you can click through for the full review. It’s out tomorrow. www.popmatters.com/the-beths-st...

Huh.

One reason to tax the wealthy is to help pay for the billions of dollars the U.S. Government is going to owe people from successful lawsuits against ICE.

If I hadn’t fallen off on the retrospective thing over the past year, I would definitely have done a piece on Twin Cinema for @popmatters.com . I think I put it at #1 when it came time to submit our lists for Best Albums of the 00’s. An absolute monster of a power-pop record.

This is upsetting. Motorcycle accident. It sucks that he left the band on less than amiable terms earlier this year, but this is worse. loudwire.com/mastodon-bre...