Me in my Bluesky bubble

Biggest comeback in history? 999: Icelanders convert to Christianity & ditch Norse myth↩️ 1200's: Snorri Sturluson uses the power of euhemerism to make Norse myth biblical↩️ 1930's: a very Catholic Norse scholar pilfers the edda for character names↩️ 2026: Pope quotes a character called Gandalf 🇮🇸👑

Targets included missile launch sites and Iranian boats attempting to emplace mines. U.S. Central Command continues to defend our forces while using restraint during the ongoing ceasefire.”

You may not like it but this is what peak ceasefire compliance looks like

A livestream of a volcano in the Philippines captured a meteor crashing to Earth today. What are the odds? Mayon Volcano, Location: Albay, Luzon, Philippines

Our family has been mostly Democrats for generations Many of those people have served in the military-including my father, who volunteered during the Korean War era I cannot begin to tell you how disrespectful Trump’s disgusting post is to him and other Democrats who are veterans #MemorialDay

No there will not be an early election. A man with 400 seats will not risk half of them three years early to satisfy columnists’ belief in mandate fairies.

Thomas and Alito both say cert isn't discretionary in original jurisdiction cases (that is, when one state sues another directly in the Supreme Court), that they have to accept and decide it. One or both of them plus two or three liberals gets you that. Nothing to lose, why not call their bluff.

On this note: another state (or several of them) should file an original jurisdiction suit against Florida on this basis. The domestic emoluments ban on states paying the president is a federalism safeguard, one state violating it is a real harm to the sovereign interests of every other state.

And Pope Leo tells everyone to stay woke Twice

To state the obvious: many military families include Democrats, and the president just insulted them in his Memorial Day message.

given the number of people in musk v altman who said aloud that they'd been obsessed with AI since reading about it in fiction, I think part of the problem is that the makers of AI themselves do not understand the distinction between truth and fiction

"if i read the chicago pope's entire encyclical on artificial intelligence before leaving the house," i say to myself, "i probably won't run into president donald trump's motorcade"

I’m just sitting here marveling at how the same types of right wing white evangelicals who were so bent out of shape in 1960 about the prospect of a Catholic president, are today worshipping a President who is 50X the tyrannical menace that they thought the Pope would be via his puppet, JFK.

If you’d told me 15 years ago that in 2026 Donald Trump would be the Republican president and that I would be reading papal encyclicals muttering “fuck yeah, this Pope really gets it,” I would have laughed in your face. And yet here we are.

I try not to Trump post much because wtf can you say at this point but this was the rare I Can’t Believe This Motherfucker Said That moment, so late in the game

Whether it's Donald Trump portraying himself as Jesus or a would-be Trump assassin portraying himself as Jesus, there's crazy people thinking they're Jesus on both sides.

Goes to show the type of day job you need in order to make it as a writer these days

apropo of today's encyclical....

The common law "works itself pure by rules drawn from the fountain of justice." -- Lord Mansfield, 1744 The more I read of the great English judges from the 18th century, the less I understand the plausibility of arguments that the Founders would have been originalists.

Side note: Lots of reasons to assume Pope Leo wrote this apart from any and all political subtexts, but worth noting that Vice President JD Vance, an ally of tech mogul Peter Thiel who has feuded w/Catholic leadership multiple times since assuming office, is a big Tolkien fan. So this may irk him.

When your best friend texts you “wake up, new encyclical dropped.

The inaugural Encyclical of his pontificate, tomorrow Pope Leo presents Magnifica Humanitis, on safeguarding the human person in a time of artificial intelligence. Clocking in at 180 pages, Leo to give address upon text’s release. Live-feed begins at 5:30am ET here: www.youtube.com/live/EEM7a3m...

A friend of mine who was TA’ing for an AmLit course found a copy of Moby Dick a student had left behind. It had only one marginal annotation, around page 100, that simply said “whale is important.”

Iran Update Special Report, May 24, 2026: Conflicting US, Iranian, and regional reporting indicates that the contours of a possible US-Iran memorandum of understanding (MOU) remain unresolved and may not yet represent a final agreement. (1/9) Read the full report: isw.pub/IranUpdate05...

“My only regret,” Rhodes said in the days after Jan. 6, “is that they didn’t bring rifles.” “We could have fixed it right then and there.” www.lawfaremedia.org/article/oath...

Over a decade of insisting that verifiably restricting Iran's nuclear program was terrible, because unilateral US force would achieve so much more. It hasn't. The JCPOA advocates were always right. Cruz, Graham, FDD, etc. bear responsibility for this disaster (but will likely never acknowledge it).

Trump has losses coming at SCOTUS. Those should not distract from the broader story: the relentlessness w/ which the six-justice conservative majority is advancing its long-standing ambitions. My preview of the final month of the Supreme Court's term @economist.com www.economist.com/united-state...

You’ve been given free access to this story from The Economist as a gift. You can open the link five times within seven days. After that it will expire. How the Supreme Court both checks and empowers Donald Trump economist.com/united-state...

Suzanne Vega releases “Luka” 39 years ago this weekend. She said she once received a fan letter about it: “Dear Suzanne, Luka is the most compelling piece of music I’ve heard in a long time. There are no words 2 tell U all the things I feel when I hear it. I thank God 4 U, Prince”

Every couple months I check in on the latest Adrian Chiles articles and I’m always absolutely blown away. These are all from the last couple months. The man is operating at an incredibly high level.

"Medicaid often pays about $70 per hour ($83 in North Carolina) for therapy largely provided by workers with high school diplomas who earn around $20. "Private equity firms have acquired at least 500 clinics over the past decade." Gift link:

Many autistic adults have spoken about how traumatic they've found ABA therapy to be. What sucks is it often the only type of early intervention that's covered by insurance for autistic kids.

The feds in Chicago oppose Brian Straw's bid for a preservation order in the "Broadview Six" case on standing grounds. They also say it's unnecessary as they'll maintain records as required. AUSA Diane MacArthur, a longtime well-respected vet of the U.S. Attorney's office, is now on the case.

Little by little, Trump is shrinking MAGA down to its molten core. *Alienating noncollege/rural whites *and* Latinos/young *Forcing disloyal Rs out of GOP *Demanding Rs fund ballroom *Insisting Rs defend 1/6 slush fund *Wrecking economy with tariffs and war From me: newrepublic.com/article/2108...

Heimat was originally meant to be reassuring to some people

always a tweet

Samson and Delilah, by Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1528–30 (flipped), 📸 by Jason Miller

the thing is I am old enough to remember this and no it wasn't and no it wasn't

No it the fuck was not.

Current* conditions near Chicago, IL:

The culprit cooked biscuits, shrimp and fries, police say

Red Bordeaux goes with Memorial Day weekend No need to fool around with white wines yet Unless you want to

[once more, for good measure] Everybody thinks when he gets rich he’ll be a different kind of rich person from the rich people he sees around him; later on he finds out there’s only one kind of rich person, and he’s it. —Thornton Wilder, The Matchmaker

When Stephen Colbert hosted the final episode of “The Late Show,” he told viewers that the next place they would most likely see him was on public-access TV in Michigan. The next day, he hosted an episode of “Only in Monroe,” which covers the happenings of a town about 40 miles southwest of Detroit.

How is "strikes pummel" and "killing medics" and "paramedics killed a day earlier" a "truce"? Why does the New York Times think the words "truce" or "ceasefire" apply to such a situation? How much military force does it take to move from a truce that is "fragile" to no truce?

Every summer I repost this article on how to spot drowning. Please read it and pass on. In the last few years I’ve had SIX messages from people who saved a kid’s life after clicking on the link from my feed. slate.com/technology/2...

This is how you know they’re doing it themselves.

It *does* make one wonder why "the war started" (in the passivest of voices)

“Also, it makes one wonder why the war started to begin with if these perceptions are accurate.” We have to retire the Fell For It Again award after this. I don’t know how this can be topped.