Ötzi and a 45,000-year-old Siberian were both infected with a cancer-causing strain of HPV. This is fascinating, and a reminder that we have a vaccine that *prevents cancer* and everyone eligible should get it.

anyway you don’t even have to read between the lines of this piece to see that the real complaint is that nikole hannah-jones won a macarthur fellowship and he hasn’t. which, talk about ego.

thomas chatterton williams, whose main literary output is three memoirs of declining quality, and who has written the same essay ad nauseam for 10 years, nonetheless has a sinecure at the atlantic, a teaching job at an elite college, and a nice handful of prestigious fellowships

it requires an absolutely staggering lack of self awareness for chatterton to complain that he has lost elite opportunities because he has anti-woke views.

“Like Prime, but with human beings.”

So I posted this endnote yesterday, about this exact book, which is getting all these wild year-end accolades despite being so disconnected from the facts of the pandemic. (www.wrecka.ge/landslide-a-...)

Bending your institution to meet the prejudices of your dumbest, meanest students is a surefire way to destroy a university. Now any student can just scrawl “the Bible says this is wrong” on any test and skate to an A at the Oklahoma Football Outlet and Diploma Factory.

This is both funny and surprisingly moving

you are simply not prepared for Kermit, Tyrant of the Universe

This man is a cancer and any future way forward needs to start with holding him accountable in a court of law for his crimes.

The reality for the other students is that they are no longer enrolled in a psychology class. It is a Psychology plus My Personal Christian Beliefs class. Every class at OU is now a My Personal Christian Beliefs class. Every time any student raises such beliefs, instructors have to accept them.

We made a video, then wrote a newsletter to help spread the news that Sam got an honorary degree from Harvard. Here’s the video again (1/3)

It’s working! Keep sharing the news: lni.media/p/sam-the-sp...

One CEO shouldn’t control the entire entertainment industry — we have anti-monopoly laws to stop that from happening. The Trump Administration needs to follow the law, and block Netflix or Paramount from buying Warner Bros.

The Washington Post obtained thousands of private chat messages from the ICE public affairs team tasked by the White House with creating viral raid videos for social media. www.washingtonpost.com/technology/i... via @drewharwell.com

Again going to shout out the good work that WaPo reporters and editors are doing despite a bad owner and his lackeys.

Unacceptable and - yet again - an extremely impeachable act.

Originally published as "Pond Scum," Kathryn Schulz's annihilation of Henry David Thoreau is outstanding: www.newyorker.com/magazine/201...

Anti-trans demagogue and fifth place swimmer Riley Gaines earned $470,000+ last year from a conservative non-profit. Notably, $420k was incentive-based. A neat little window into the way the transphobic grift is being compensated. I wonder what the per-post rate is?

Get off Twitter. And destroy AI.

So I have the cover story in next month's TNR. I interviewed the heads of police groups; immigration defense attorneys, ex-judges and ex-prosecutors; former DOJ and DHS officials, and the former head of Border Patrol. They're all horrified at what we've seen, and they all fear what's coming.

BAD COMPANY Private Equity and the Death of the American Dream bookshop.org/a/109816/978...

In case you need some Christmas dinner conversation starters/enders

Real problem of sorting wheat from the chaff here, in that unwell people alleging the president personally did some convoluted awful crime to them are fairly common under any president. Except now there's the disturbingly credible possibility of real ones mixed in there.

I'd argue it's worse than a blank page, in the same way that garment pieces cut slightly off the grain are worse than not having cut yet. When a thing is wrong, it will suck your energy into making it Less Wrong, which is often not the same as making it right.

people are clowning on this, but the Canadian mind is cunning, pitiless, steeped in boreal perfidy

We don’t spend enough time discussing how the entire MAGA movement is kept afloat by the constant threats of stochastic terrorism orchestrated by the president of the United States. Congress, the courts, much of the media … all kept in line by the mob boss and his army of anonymous goons.

Camps where tens of thousands of politically disfavored people will be concentrated. www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

They’re walking state instruments, working to soften perception of an inherently authoritarian deployment. They may lack legal choice, but that does not negate their intent: to humanize & normalize armed state power in civilian space. I don’t think you can reasonably ask people to split this hair.

Also, who cares? DOGE refunds will also be very complicated. Reversing wildly illegal & unconstitutional things is very complicated. Either we do them or we don’t really live under the rule of law.

Macedo and Lee misrepresent what actually happened during the pandemic and are unable to confront Covid's actual toll, presumably because it undermines their premise. A longer take here w/my colleague Greg Gibson: joshuasweitz.substack.com/p/revisionis...

In the last half decade, our writers have shared stories about surviving extreme heat, navigating broken health care, and being shut out of elections. One of our most read pieces of 2025 is about how kittens softened an entire yard. Help support our work:

decimating the morale of your local occupying security force is a proven, perfectly legitimate, not to mention peaceful, civil exercise.

I don’t know why we’d trust the federal government again. This is evil for the sake of it. www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

Stephen Miller finds it impossible for anyone else to consider immigrants as human beings so he's happy to go on air and say "would those journalists host the people we deported for a night to keep them out of torture prison?" as though getting people out wasn't exactly the point of the reporting.

The “free speech” and “cancel culture” panics have led to overt state censorship because that was always their purpose. (Gift link) www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/1...

"The European Commission strongly condemns the US decision to impose travel restrictions on five European individuals, including former European Commissioner Thierry Breton. Freedom of expression is a fundamental right in Europe and a shared core value with the US across the democratic world."

Everyone involved in the publication and promotion of this book should be embarrassed. It's not a "harsh truth" that COVID mitigation was a mistake, it's ghoulish and false.

The Atlantic suggesting, without evidence, that Canada's Global TV broadcasting the '60 Minutes' segment on CECOT that CBS distributed to it may have been an act of "treachery." 🔗: www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/1...

This is frankly obscene. A form of victim blaming. You cannot ethically put a lying machine into a classroom, tell students who have not LEARNED the actual MATERIAL being discussed to interact with it, and then demand that these students determine what is a lie and what is true. Shameful.

Thanks for sharing this document, @rweingarten.bsky.social. I read it, and I believe it's inexcusably inadequate and will not prepare teachers or schools to confront the very real dangers of the "A.i." products pushed by your partners, including OpenAI. A few thoughts for your consideration...

It's Trump policy that U.S. tech must be globally dominant. It's also US policy that its tech corps must be free from: Regulation. Taxation. Fact checking and monitoring for hate lies, disinformation. All are now being treated as attacks on the U.S. itself. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

This Admin has been a Big Tech coup from Day 1. Now 5 Europeans who have regulated or monitored big tech for hate and disinformation are barred from the US. Chilling stuff. According to Rubio, the infraction is: "targeting American speakers and American companies.” ‪

Merry Christmas to all my followers!🌲❤️ Thank you so much for all your support.. it's been a challenging year with stress related stomach issues, catching Lyme Disease and badly burning my hand, but the constant escape for me is the birds... I love sharing them with you!🐦🥰

thinking of the fugitive slave act and people who profited from it

Here's my favorite flying deer photo. This is a mule deer fawn from a couple of summers ago. It was grazing with its mom. Mom moved on, and this cute fawn hurried to keep up. laurel-gale.pixels.com/featured/jum... #wildlife #nature 📷

Trump is continuing his assault on American diplomacy. He is purging talent and expertise to make it easier to ram through his failed and destructive foreign policy agenda. Leaving 29 Ambassadorships empty for the sake of gutting expertise is peak self-sabotage.