we’re about to find out if loving SimCity makes you a better mayor Mamdani was asked in 2002 by NY Mag what he wanted for Christmas and said SimCity 3000

I wrote about how the official statements of RFK Jr. and his HHS add up to an obsession with control, a suspicion of germ theory, and a medicalized Prosperity Gospel. We need to deconstruct MAHA and rebuild it. mereorthodoxy.com/maha-medical...

I fully expected George Santos to be President one day. Dare I hope that he might be our generation's Chuck Colson? www.bbc.com/news/article...

Everyone knows that a relationship with your primary care doctor is good. Did you know that relationship decreases mortality over time? I'm at @thedispatchmedia.bsky.social today: thedispatch.com/article/prim...

"When he was beneath our tree, we ambushed him, beating him mercilessly with our fists and rifle butts. In a frenzy, I stabbed him repeatedly with my bayonet. 'Allahu Akbar,' I muttered in pride as we walked away from his mangled body." www.christianitytoday.com/2025/09/enem...

As one who is guilty here, @robinsonmeyer.bsky.social is right: "The fact is that almost nobody can control themselves around the glowing little demon. [...] The way that we manage temptation as a society is through manners, expectations, and peer pressure." www.theargumentmag.com/p/youre-bein...

they don't call it the everything app for nothing

Nothing like logging in here and seeing a totally normal, sensible opinion not even being argued against but being jeered as though anyone with decent morals and intelligence could never agree with such a thing.

Excellent essay by Brewer Eberly about how he (and others) are opting out of the medical-industrial complex to provide the care their patients need: www.plough.com/en/topics/li...

I wrote for @christianitytoday.bsky.social about the good, the better, and the Instagrammable of short-term missions trips: www.christianitytoday.com/2025/08/hone...

Good reporting from @mepaynl.bsky.social on what it takes to bring a pedophile to justice in Uganda: www.christianitytoday.com/2025/08/chil...

Y'all know I try not to be promiscuous with "this is a pro-life issue" but this is absolutely a pro-life issue. Cutting Medicaid is going to hurt vulnerable, living children and encourage scared mothers to abort children they can't afford to care for. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/21/o...

This is the best thing I think I've ever read about psychosomatic illnesses, and I'll be sharing it with my residents: "One way I explain functional neurological disorder to patients is that it’s a software problem that looks like a hardware problem." www.theamericanconservative.com/what-long-co...

Gilbert Meilaender once said that he wants to be a burden on his loved ones. I wrote for @thedispatchmedia.bsky.social about the joy of dependence, even when that dependence is due to mental illness: thedispatch.com/article/depe...

The next step after this is simply killing the baby who never walks and the adult who will never be able to live independently. If a society is dedicating to preventing suffering, then often the last option is simply killing the sufferer.

The big A.I. companies’ business model

A lot of activism (and online discourse in general, really) is about 95th percentile high-conscientiousness/high-agency people assuming that (a) most of the population is as HCHA as they are & (b) all those HCHA people will act as they do given the right information.

"The distance between the winning Obama coalition and the campaign-by-meme Democrats we have now might well be the distance between Obama’s “I am my brother’s keeper” and Walz’s “mind your own damn business.”" unherd.com/2025/07/will...

"Should pastors use Artificial Intelligence to help write their sermons?"- sounds urbane, philosophical, important "Should pastors let a word guesser machine teach their flock?"- far more accurate, makes you sound stupid for even asking the question

Someone on here compared AI produced material as "digital asbestos " which in a few decades' time we will have to work out how to eradicate from the fabric of research.

Strange that one of the best things that a privileged upbringing can buy you is... self-control. "Across the developed West, obesity has become strongly correlated with poverty. I fear that so, too, will be the tide of post-literacy." www.nytimes.com/2025/07/28/o...

Stephen Sondheim introduced his childhood pal Tom Lehrer in 1998 for an exceedingly rare stage performance, part of a tribute to Cameron Mackintosh. (This will always be my favorite Lehrer song. Interestingly, he here changes one word: "squirrel" becomes "sparrow.") www.youtube.com/watch?v=hf-e...

Some thoughts on the sorts of policies that produced this map: kenopalo.substack.com/p/a-historic...

Taking artificial dyes out of Froot Loops and using cane sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup in Coca-Cola is the land acknowledgements of public health & nutrition.

more evidence for “a bunch of AI cultists dismantled large parts of the federal government because they believed that their LLMs were intelligent and could do the work better” thesis

Out today: a piece I wrote about how slashing foreign aid can't fix the deficit and other common objections about U.S. foreign aid spending. www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2025/07/98438/

"for the liberal arts even when it attracts both students and major financial gifts. The tragedy of the contemporary academy is that even when traditional liberal learning clearly wins with students and donors, it loses with those in power." www.nytimes.com/2025/07/17/o...

just wanted to let you know what you're missing over at the bad place

Great post. I think we have endure stuff like Rings of Power because someone (perhaps not in our lifetime) will eventually adapt the First Age tales and get them right.

Therapy-speak is our generation's clockwork orange. www.freyaindia.co.uk/p/nobody-has...

Brutal assessment by @kopalo.bsky.social: "All Ruto needs to win in 2027 is to successfully extinguish Kenyans’ hopes of structural change on both the economic and political fronts." www.africanistperspective.com/p/reelecting...

Good work here from Charles Lehman on how porn sites could be prosecuted for obscenity- even if the bar for obscenity remains ridiculously high. thedispatch.com/article/porn...

This sort of error will lead to insurance denials, medical errors and lawsuits. It also puts the burden on patients to check and correct their own records, if they can. Just utter madness

What Elon hath wrought: No country has stepped into the role that USAID played across the globe. That has led to many children in the poorest and war-torn countries losing life-saving drugs and dying. Absolutely devastating story. www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/0...

I'm in @thedispatchmedia.bsky.social talking about brain drain, the new face of medical missions in Africa, and the exciting things that the good folks at the Pan-African Academy of Christian Surgeons are doing! thedispatch.com/newsletter/d...

Eve Tushnet on the need for order when the people who promise "law & order" are just unleashing evil chaos: "I am a conservative because… we need order, which means we need to be neighbors." evetushnet.substack.com/p/neighbor-a...

you know another 33-year-old man who shocked the establishment when he pulled off a miracle?

"The hospitals hate it" is not always the best heuristic, but it is certainly fair to take them at their word that if this budget passes the Senate many of them (particularly in rural areas) will have to close. www.politico.com/news/2025/06...

"Keep it analog, keep it bodily, keep it physical and difficult and full of friction. Say no to metaverse church. Say yes to the body of Christ."- Brad East www.christianitytoday.com/2025/06/just...

8 year old me staring at the windows media player for hours

It would appear that RFK Jr.'s approach to telling the truth is about as consistent as his approach to marital fidelity. arstechnica.com/health/2025/...

I know I'm a little late to this particular article, but I would just like to scream and shout that it is profoundly evil to kill someone, even if they ask for it, when they have a functional disorder like fibromyalgia. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/01/m...

I am grateful that Republicans in Congress are trying to claw back some funding for PEPFAR: www.politico.com/live-updates...

"Here’s the thing: a life that simply avoids landing on the Roys Report is not the legacy I want to leave. I want to live a life of joyful, honest, vibrant health—for me and for those around me." andrewosenga.substack.com/p/the-life-w...

You've read some crazy "ChatGPT makes stuff up" stories but you haven't read one this crazy. amandaguinzburg.substack.com/p/diabolus-e...

People may find these distasteful, but (1) and (2) are how the rule of law works and how you keep innocent people from dying inside of locked semi trailers in the desert. If you don't give these to the median voter you're going to keep losing elections.

I think people should stop using @impactcounter.bsky.social 's statistics because their methodology is really crude. I really don't think that we're anywhere near 300,000 excess deaths due to USAID cuts.

it’s time to replace all doctors with ai

Rolling Stone picking up this quite frankly mind blowing Thing Going On With People