people treat "due process" like it's a reward for being the right class of person which is simply wild to me

AI bros keep trying to compare it to the internet, but I don't remember people desperately seeking advice for ways to get the internet off their computers

Every AI article seems to include a sentence like: "The popularity of AI is soaring, with 2.5 billion people using [feature they can't turn off] monthly."

The difference between how techgarchs talk about AI (godlike singularity bringing post-scarcity utopia or science-fiction apocalypse) and what it turned out to be (annoying, mediocre, inescapable, making life steadily worse) exactly parallels how they think of themselves and how they actually are.

Bluesky will never have the respect, influence, or cultural cachet of Twitter because the community was shaped specifically by people who were willing to admit that they were genuinely offended by Musk et al, and were willing to admit that they'd lost---all of which is incompatible with being cool.

Andy Burnham will force Keir Starmer to quit as PM by standing in by-election after by-election until Labour loses its majority.

I've never taken any particular care to keep people from finding out who "Acilius" is, so it seemed ridiculous to ask Katherine to call me by anything other than my given name while I was on camera.

Going to be fun when political science can quantify the electoral impact of having Moloch as your party's nominee (+2-3% in general elections, mildly negative turnout impact in midterms).

love the amazon reviews for this brand of potato chips that used to only be sold in prison

This strip is so much like R. Crumb that it astonishes me the date isn't about 15 years off- surely he must have seen it when he was a kid.

like nobody is telling a pollster in fawning terms how much love and respect they have for the methodists, but also nobody is seething about john wesley's crimes and plotting to blow up the united methodist church of the resurrection in kansas city either

Still hard to believe people voted for Nixon, a man who looked like he ate fingers and lived in a spittoon.

In the 1980s, I read a book published in 1960. I was impressed by it then but disagree with it now. losthunderlads.com/2026/04/22/b...

Love to live in a country where the respectable, reasonable statesman are even more bloodthirsty lunatics than the senile fascists we elected to replace them.

IDK, I think war is bad, but it's especially bad when we're the side double tapping aid workers, hitting schools, and threatening to destroy absolutely essential for civilians infrastructure.

ah yes this is it! substack.com/home/post/p-...

What comes through in these responses is the reminder that many purportedly leftish folks hate children, see them as subhuman, see parents as having made a kind of poor personal consumption lifestyle choice, and, importantly allow children to be the outlet for their latent anti disability thinking.

Reading more about the dogs who broke away from kidnappers. The corgi was chosen as boss because he’s even-tempered. The big labs guarded the injured German Shepherd, & the little pomeranian, etc. were scouts.

I don't think size is relevant. The tiniest of animals may require you to call a professional exterminator. But if the animal wants to leave, all you have to do is reopen the path by which it entered, call its attention to it, and out it goes.

it's weird that there's both "this will change everything and unemploy millions, wait why do you dislike it? that's so irrational." and "this doesn't work, it's also bullshit and hype. we also must kill it before it kills us all." camps as well.

This is the big irony; the best-case scenario for Trump is that the Islamic Republic survives, which lets everybody declare victory in three weeks and go home so the media can anoint him with a Triumph and make fancams of explosions. State collapse or civil war makes this impossible to end.

Sick, decadent country.

I wrote about Daylight Saving Time, which I dread. The past week, daylight has greeted me in the morning, but Monday, it’s once again “time to make the doughnuts.” open.substack.com/pub/ser1897/...

I certainly wouldn't eat 14 hot dogs in a day if they cost that much.

Kipling, after the death of his son, speaking in the voice of the Kaiser, his doctor, & an observer

I believe that the interests of peace for both our nations demand a diplomatic solution that allows the Iranians to feel like they have saved face. Any context you may infer from this on you alone and not present in this post.

6. This is not a US-Iran war. Those titles give this moment too much dignity. This is little more than a militarized political stunt, with the real consequences being murdered Iranians.

If the guy with the remote has sex with the Dew Girl he changed his friend into, as the commercial implies, is it rape? Assume Dew Girl consents, but the man that she previously was clearly did not consent into being changed into her.

Raising billions with my pitch about how I will cause mass unemployment among white collar workers: haha yes! yes! Realizing who votes in local elections and shows up to land use meetings: well this fucking sucks. what the fuck.

I could get a bit into 1400s, but struggled

like it’s true that a major league pitcher can in most cases prevent shohei ohtani from getting on base, and also in most cases prevent me from getting on base. the difference btwn those two “most cases” is the diff btwn modern and pre modern medicine

This is why I disagree when people say police unions aren’t real unions: they are often extraordinarily effective at securing gains for the workers who are members of them and advancing their interests. Those interests are just often not our interests! We sit on the management side of the table.

Love to the musicians. Love to justice and compassion. Love to American music. Love to America.

The numbers here stagger me because the only result of Musk buying Twitter is making enemies of millions of people with a LOT of spare time and energy to spend on grudges

My wife had an uncle who was active in his union and in the local Democratic Party. Then he had a series of strokes, and became a Trump supporter.

Amazing what ancient people built even though they were all skeletons

I'm da rabbit godfather. You come to me on this, da day of my daughter's wedding, and my udda daughter's wedding, and my udda daughter's wedding, and my son's wedding, and my son's wedd... Yeah I got a lot of kids. I'm a rabbit

i feel #grateful every day that i lived to see computers that are bad at math. they said it couldn't be done but the human mind won't take no for an answer

Happy Christmas, if that's what you're into.

Doesn't inspire confidence that they couldn't find "thesaurus."

Very important to remember, when you see people using accommodations for the disabled, that you are not the police and any attempts you make to enforce what you imagine to be the rules are likely to be bad for the people you want to help.

He should have realized that when you share your password with that many people, one of them is bound to be an undercover password cop.

I think if you're a man who's going to cover "Santa Baby," you need to just commit to the theme. Asking "Santa Buddy" for a yacht and a deed to a platinum mine is just delusional. You're lucky if your "buddy" will help you move.

Back in the 1950s, law schools apparently received inquiries (from potential applicants, I assume?) that sometimes included a lot of questions. Here, Dean Prosser of UC Berkeley imagines a reply. jle.aals.org/home/vol10/i...

THOUGHT FOR THURSDAY

What I've been doing online lately: losthunderlads.com/2025/11/05/a...