Don't forget the bat demon summoned by Bruce Wayne's ancestor and his best bud, Thomas Jefferson.

A lot of this going around (right, Maine?)

If Harris wins she's basically running the country on autopilot right now and has some decent vibes heading into the 250 stuff.

Wow, he got Vanilla Ice AND Milli Vanilli? Jay Leno is going to be so psyched about this.

I was concerned when what appears to be an AI-generated short story was named a regional winner of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize. As an advocate of literature, I decided to protest by writing my own prize-winning short story without AI johnpaulbrammer.substack.com/p/regionally...

Trump had been talking about running for president since the 1980s. He actually ran in 2000, losing the Reform Party nomination to Pat Buchanan. Blaming his presidency on Obama's roast is just a comforting myth, another way of pretending that only liberals have agency.

A year ago, Cottom was pushing the conspiracy theory that the 2026 elections would be canceled. It is time to stop treating this person as a serious thinker.

It's not even that complicated. Voters really hate inflation; everybody forgot this because it had been ~40 years since we last got hit hard by it; voter sentiment lags the rate because prices don't go back down; and now Trump has made everything worse with policies that are bringing it back.

The office of Director of National Intelligence has been upgraded to "vacant."

The most remarkable thing about this chart is that you can actually see the post-pandemic inflation, and it hit Gen X the hardest. Does a lot to explain their swing to Trump in 2024.

Great article with a solid diagnosis of 2024 and some bracing warnings for the future.

"Well, this time we have surely found all the skeletons in his closet," I say as I struggle to claw my way out of an unending tide of bones

You know things are going great when articles about the leader of your country include the phrases "seems to be in a kind of bust-out phase" and "the uncut cocaine of MAGA."

It'll go right after "he voted to put RFK Jr in charge of America's health care."

Final transmission reportedly contained the words "eldritch" and "batrachian"

He sold out his principles to confirm RFK Jr as secretary of HHS and got this for his troubles. It profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world, but for third place in a Louisiana primary?

Excited to announce that Strange Hybrids is out this fall--my new book about the genre turn and the growing overlap between science fiction and literary fiction. Focusing on novels by Francis Spufford, Kim Stanley Robinson, Richard Powers, Jennifer Egan, Colson Whitehead, and more.

When we fight, we can win.

Name your top 15 TV shows ever, gut instincts only— The Wire Homicide Deadwood Mad Men Arrested Development Seinfeld The Simpsons Community Breaking Bad We Own This City Andor Veronica Mars Buffy the Vampire Slayer Superman: The Animated Series Challenge of the Superfriends

There was an easier way to do this, Superman.

We have been bailing out red states and rural voters from the consequences of their actions for far too long. If they keep voting to gut the welfare state that sustains them then that is exactly what they should get.

Two legs, vast, so vast, trunkless. Many people are saying they have never seen less trunk. A traveller from an antique land came up to me, big fella, tears in his eyes, he said "sir, your works are so mighty, I'm in despair." Despair. I think he was a Marine.

Galaxy-brained take: season 2 is incredibly prescient *and* Ziggy is a terrible character. He'd be fine as a walking punchline like Herc or a tragic figure in the mold of Wallace or D'Angelo, but the show keeps asking us to pretend that his antics are funny and... they're not.

Trump and the 77 million innocent, blameless souls who voted to make him president again.

"I'm in favor of government-owned storefronts and stealing wantonly from stores, two policies that can't possibly have bad interactions."

This is the thing, if "academia" wanted to stop this, we could easily tomorrow. Over 3 incorrect references? Rejected and forbidden to submit next year. The purpose of a system is what it does!

She can always fall back on her side gig with the FSB.

reminder that dr doom should be called abd doom since he left college before finishing his dissertation

RFK Jr. is a guy who was meant to commit a series of themed animal crimes in Gotham City with the ultimate goal to “eat the Bat” before being subdued and returned to Arkham.

Great point, though the current economics of film production and distribution really have put the squeeze on the kind of adult movies that take the art form forward. Same was true in the studio era, of course, but they made a lot more movies then and hit the jackpot more often.

My experience was a little odd (and better than most, no doubt). I loved working from home at first, but I work in a profession (teaching) that really doesn't work remotely. Better for college and grad students than for elementary-high school, but still not ideal for reasons that weren't clear...

This is the message I most want to hear from candidates--not just about ICE but about DOGE, the war crimes, the lot of them. Prosecute them all. California, you know what to do!

Nah, the Regional Advisory Council is a machine run out of Albany. The Brooklyn Soviet controls like six blocks and is reinventing show trials from first principles.

I can't believe we got the Pope, the Super Bowl, and Budweiser in the divorce and the country is still 50-50.

"Surely there are no more skeletons in his closet," I say as I open the door onto a whole hallway of closets.

Hungarians celebrated the landslide defeat of Orban by singing "We Are the Champions" out in the streets

i will vote for any candidate who offers up this slogan

Hasan Piker is Fomenting Antisemitic Hatred the Right Way by Ezra Klein

Come to think of it, when was the last time a film scene that *was* an action scene got famous? Most superhero/sci-fi action scenes are just boring CGI, and I forget every John Wick fight the second it's over.

This is the Yad Vashem database entry for Jaacob Fish. My great grandfather, murdered with his entire family, except for a sole survivor, Haim Fish (his son, my grandfather), by the SS unit the insignia of which Platner tattooed on himself. F*ck each and every one of you who support Platner.

If you were on campus a decade ago, you were told that microaggressions mattered and the bigotry was wrong against any group and you would've learned that was bullshit as well. It's almost as if there were always practical limits at places that primarily had another purpose.

It was broadly smeared as antisemitic because it was rotten with antisemites who celebrated the murder of civilians and targeted Jewish students for harassment.

Incredible thread. I will only note that the decorum that prevents journalists from naming what we all know to be true is not applied indiscriminately. Journalists will speculate freely about the unknown and search furiously for the concealed. They will invent stories and then berate their coverup.

The #Artemis II astronauts said they needed more superlatives to describe their view of the eclipse, when the Sun was behind the Moon and its near surface was faintly illuminated by Earthshine

Earthrise. images.nasa.gov/details/art0...

"And if Democrats pander to the bigots and haters on the left, as Republicans have done with the bigots and haters on the right, there will be nothing left of the pro-democracy movement. It will be red shirts versus brown shirts, as in Weimar Germany."

"It all started innocently enough. Poetry exchanges with ChatGPT; career advice; help with writing projects. The kinds of AI use that over 700 million people engage in weekly." Also the kinds of AI use that are guaranteed to produce nothing useful. Why would you exchange poetry with a chatbot?

This is my favorite climate change chart. Japanese monks, aristocrats, and emperors kept meticulous records of cherry blossom festivals for 1,200 years and accidentally built the world's longest climate dataset.