just to emphasize again, closing Malacca means 'taking a couple of extra days on a trip.' the economist had a great recent graph on various straits and their relative levels of direness.

One thing that’s striking is just how pathetically fragile the whole racket has turned out to be. The most ineffectual sex tape scandal ever. Szijjarto running straight to the shredder. Orbán just…quitting. Rod Dreher hightailing it to whichever country will give him €10000 a month next.

😧 Hungarian public opinion is consumed by last night’s interview with this oligarch, who broke down in tears multiple times. We watched in disbelief as one of the richest men in the country, collapsing on live TV, tried to defend the indefensible… 3/1

"I observe a fox adjusting its tail with ritual precision. There is a dignity in the gesture, as if preparing for a ceremony that no longer has a god. A wolf embraces a dragon. The laws of biology protest silently, but here, in this curated ecosystem, myth has quietly overruled evolution."

German SPD, Greens, and Linke will stop posting on X. An important step and signal. X and its owner have long become a megaphone for the far right, a venue that is actively used to encourage abuse and violence. It‘s simply shameful how many in politics, media, and academia still actively post there.

SHAFT

Anyway, tldr is the past fucking sucked, anyone who is trying to sell you a rosy vision of life back then is selling you a lemon

1/5 Germany's reluctance to invest in productive infrastructure isn't a sign of thriftiness, nor does it help Germany keep its debt burden low. www.wsj.com/world/europe...

Maine Senate election

Are they nostalgic for the 90s or for Kodak Vision 35mm fine grain film stocks with 1990s color grading

The Simpsons Rome The Wire Breaking Bad Tokyo Vice The Office Andor Band of Brothers Le Bureau des légendes The Sopranos Shogun Sillicon Valley Mindhunter Star Trek: TNG Veep

Introducing Cursor Camp, a website to hang out with other cursors. Out now :) > neal.fun/cursor-camp/

Those Trump assassination attempts in full

Often suspect that the next battle with the European Far Right will be about the moral and strategic purpose a more powerful EU should serve.

all I'm saying is this test never misses

Centrists on here will say, "oh you want to firebomb a Walmart? That pales in comparison to my strategy, voting" and then firebomb a Walmart

many such cases

"somberly contemplative"

Somehow even funnier/dumber than this

The security for tonight was ridiculously lax. All I had to do was literally flash my ticket to get into the ballroom. Just one round of magnetometers. By contrast at both pre-parties I attended, I had to give my name and be cross-checked.

There seems to be a steady decline in presidential assassination accuracy

*Spins wheel* ex Mormon... *shakes magic 8 ball* pornstar doula *throws dart* former Tulsi staffer Motivated by *spins larger wheel* his Qatari data center getting bombed

"Would these people be part of a movie that glorified the films of Harvey Weinstein without ever mentioning that he raped women? [Or] a great promotional film about the charitable works of Jeffrey Epstein?" www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv...

car drivers deserve fewer rights

I actually think I'm starting to understand

Menswear writer here. 👋 Let me tell you why you shouldn't wear an armband like that. 🧵

announcing ILÚVATAR, my multi-billion dollar company which will specialize in the dismantling of all other idiotically tolkien-named entities, that they shalt see that no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me, nor can any alter the music in my despite

FARA enforcement, Title IX compliance for faculty, and fiduciary duty of board members of publicly traded companies; all stuff already on the books waiting to be enforced and all stuff that is objectively good and will also put a serious dent in the fascism complex

Trying to explain St Augustine to the pope, the former head of the Augustinian order, who wrote his doctoral thesis on Augustine, on his way back from celebrating mass at the Basilica of St Augustine in Annaba, Algeria, overlooking the site where Augustine lived is peak Adult Catholic Convert.

Hey, look at Substack promoting Andrew Tate as the #1 new bestseller. The company's amoral leadership & backers will platform anyone, even ludicrously toxic rapists & human traffickers.

The so-called Bishop of "Rome" has been very nasty to me, VERY nasty!

let me preface this by

Counter-Strike

1\ Very hopeful new evidence from the excellent @jakluge.de for 2026Q1. "Despite further increases in sign-on bonuses...Russian recruitment was significantly slower than in the previous year. Both official information and estimates based on regional budget data confirm"

hell yeah

This image would simply not exist if Putin had succeeded in his military ambitions in Syria and Ukraine. This is a moment that only exists in spite of him and in defiance of him, regardless of how conciliatory Damascus has been towards Moscow since December 8th 2024.

Happy Easter 🐣

this is similar to my belief that all drugs should be legal, but only purchasable in plain white packaging from a government store staffed by middle-aged nurses hired for their ability to look disappointed in you.

NYT politics desk delenda est NYT natsec: our sources tell us the US military has no plan, in large part because the WH is asleep at the wheel, and is basically fucked NYT politics: the benevolent god emperor trump in his infinite wisdom has decided to shed his light on the people of persia

Zipf’s law drives anyone who thinks too much about it into gibbering madness

Americans reacting to Iranian FPV drones is my entertainment for today

Man look at this photo of Toshiro Mifune this is out of control