Fascinating historical analysis finds that higher local circulation of a popular witch-hunting manual increased a city's likelihood of holding its first witch trial by about 30%. An early, quantifiable example of the harmful impact of fake news! link.springer.com/article/10.1...

President Trump threatened to impose tariffs on countries that don’t accept his goal of having the U.S. take control of Greenland.

Over the last year the entire "free speech on campus" beat has been revealed as an utter fraud. Years of punditry puked out in ignorance and bad faith. Yet even as the fraud becomes undeniable we still get stories about wide-eyed idealists who just wanted 'ideological diversity' and 'open debate'.

“We are in an alliance, so we have to fulfill our obligation. I can’t understand,” she said, “why the American people have chosen a person like that.” Shame, shame on MAGA and others who didn't even vote! www.theatlantic.com/national-sec...

For years I've been harping about the problem #Finland 's logging roads cause for #defence. They make the forests too permeable. The problem is insufficiently understood, perhaps because large-scale maps won't show their extent. So I've built my own, from OpenStreetMap & OpenTopoMap data. Behold!

It’s a lawless totalitarian occupation of an American city.

6/ Crucially, she didn’t act in a vacuum. Perkins was empowered by a surging labor movement. That labor power gave her the political capital to humanize the immigration process. A good example of a truism I tell my students: Heroes don’t create movements. Movements create heroes.

1/ I recently wrote about Frances Perkins—FDR’s Labor Secretary and first woman cabinet member. She is best known as the architect of the New Deal but she had a lesser-known achievement: She dismantled her era’s version of ICE.🧵

Chart admirably demonstrating the climate trend It's leading to record wildfires, floods, rising seas, extreme storms & typhoons, harvest failures And whilst the tech is around to curtail the problem, humanity, right now, just isn't doing so www.ft.com/content/e995...

A few months ago, ICE hired me I didn't sign and submit any paperwork. I almost certainly failed the drug test. I'm real outspoken about my opposition to the Trump administration, and I am extremely googlable And yet, there it was, in plain English. "Welcome to ICE!" My latest for Slate

it frankly is kind of taboo to discuss these questions on the left, but this piece also doesn't get into the actual most promising policy ideas (limiting smartphone and social media use to the greatest possible extent) www.npr.org/2026/01/12/n...

Did a billionaire write thi… Oh, they actually did

Joulupukki is a Finnish Christmas figure whose name translates as Yule or Christmas Goat. Pukki comes from the Teutonic root “bock”, which is a cognate of the English “buck”, and means “billy-goat”. There is an old tradition of men dressing as a goat at Yule in Finland. These nuuttipukki were 🧵

On the phone with them right now. You can host the armed goons terrorizing our families, or you can host us.

Expecting ‘the markets’ to discipline insane policy implies that participants are actually informed

The reality-based community. That's a notion uttered by a then-aide to Bush in 2002. It's basically to describe people I still consider normal folks who don't pick their facts based on how well they fit with their opinions. It's bizarre to think such a concept is actually sort of useful now.

The UK, Canada and Australia are considering banning X. And yet, the progressive movement and Democratic Party still haven’t figured out how to boycott it.

"[The US] ranks 101 out of 114 countries—behind Afghanistan—in ordinary citizens’ ability to access and afford legal services." 🤯

This is really good.

This beautifully written piece by my pal @adambonica.bsky.social is worth your time today. A bit of light amid the darkness. open.substack.com/pub/data4dem...

This is wild. It’s like oil is a last century commodity. 🛢️👇🏾 #invest in #solar & #wind 🌞🌬️

Pre-emptively show strength, even. Ban every company that donated to his ballroom from operating in Europe. He has conveniently given you a list of cronies! Punish them now and continue as long as he continues considering attacking Denmark!

These 10 companies stand to rake in $1 billion by 2027 by helping ICE track down and round up immigrants. Cashing in on cruelty.

We evacuated our kids out of Minneapolis this weekend and my spouse reports that as she drove them out of town she saw "multiple freeway exits where people are being pulled over." It feels like the Twin Cities is being subjugated by a hostile occupying force.

Here's an interesting take on the Trump tariffs. The US has threatened any country seeking to regulate their tech monopoly giants with tariffs. It's been a powerful deterrent. Well, the tariffs are already here. So why not regulate them now and salvage something decent from this chaos.

BIG FIGHT AT POLAND’S WROCLAW ZOO!!!

Nightmare-inducing headline from NYT

There's a playbook for everything - including scamming, or at least the specific form known as pig-butchering.

I don't know why but this made me laugh out loud.

This was excellent: Clicktatorship, i.e. the perils of having a social media addicted dicktatorship.

This sounds like an interesting book. Much has been said about metrics and how they change our behaviors, administrative structures, self-images etc., but nevertheless a good book by a philosopher on the gamification of everyday life sounds worth checking out.

On this week’s episode of “The Big Interview,” the author of “The Handmaid’s Tale” talks about Elon Musk, political resistance, and why she still has hope for America’s future. www.wired.com/story/the-bi...

Screw you Miéle for only manufacturing right-hinged washing machines.

US artist visas are now given based on your number of social media followers

For decades, Canadians eagerly rushed onto US tech platforms and services. But now the drawbacks of that dependence are on full display. For @policyalternatives.ca, I explain the economic and political consequences of a US-dominated internet — and why digital sovereignty is imperative.

This is the correct read. Most European leaders have a 'white knuckle it until Governor Fungible (D-Nonsuch) gets 270 electoral votes in 2029' approach. Not a good idea IMV.

Some thoughts on what Trump has done in Venezuela and what it might mean for US national security. Caveat: not a Latin America scholar so this is focused on US policy. Clearly huge consequences for Venezuela that others can address. First, despite the buildup, I didn't think Trump would do it. 1/

I wrote about how we have the foreign policy of a personalist dictatorship right before he attacked Iran in June. A consequence of unchecked executive power: more military misadventures. 3/ www.foreignaffairs.com/united-state...

This may be the best take.

DENMARK SAYS US ATTACK ON GREENLAND WOULD MEAN END OF NATO

🧵Day 3 and we have a new meaning for "running Venezuela," courtesy of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the nation's top diplomat, who is in charge of Venezuela as well as the National Archives. We're going to insist they do what's in the US national interest. Time for some principal-agent theory. 1/

WH sources say Venezuela's opposition leader committed the "ultimate sin": She accepted the Nobel Peace prize. “If she had turned it down and said, ‘I can’t accept it because it’s Donald Trump’s,’ she’d be the president of Venezuela today,” one said. www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...

The foreign policy of a personalist dictatorship. There are no constraints.

Four generations of my family have served our country. Service is in my blood. The President wouldn’t know anything about that.

Wolves.

M. Gessen on the new world order the Trump regime seems eager to bring about. “If Trump can take Venezuela and Putin can take Ukraine, surely President Xi Jinping of China can take Taiwan.” [nytimes.com]

One of the most lopsided results you'll ever see in a poll, from our weekend Washington Post poll www.washingtonpost.com/politics/int...