Insanity: Sources close to the White House told the Washington Post Trump lost interest in backing Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado to lead the country because she accepted her Nobel Peace Prize rather than demanding it be given to Trump, which was viewed as an “ultimate sin.”

There was a decently large constituency in South Florida for overthrowing Maduro and replacing him with a democratic regime. Overthrowing Maduro for a similarly despotic puppet so we can get resources makes no group of voters happy, though.

As the picture of what happened yesterday comes into focus, I think the proper analogy is a country bombing us, whisking Trump and Melania away for trial elsewhere, declaring that the Democrats have no hope of governing, and leaving Vance in charge as the guy they believe they can work with.

"Look, I will give you the full balance of my Robinhood account. Money is no object. Unless, of course, that money will be added to a pool of community funds that would then be used to pay for the services I’m currently requesting." #McSweeneysTop25of2025

"As with so many things, Trump didn’t invent a bloated, power-grabbing presidency, but he has brought it to its inevitable conclusion, the very thing most feared by the Founders: A madman able to plunge the country into war on a whim."

A remarkable trend that will come as a shock to you if your only info about NYC is from this Fox News. Homicides in NYC... 1990: 2,262 1993: 1,927 1998: 629 2001: 649 2013: 335 2019: 320 2021: 488 2024: 382 2025 (as of 12/28): 302

@zhonggg.bsky.social is currently on a South Korean icebreaker in Antarctica because the US is no longer a serious country. The Trump regime got rid of our Antarctic icebreaker, Nathaniel B. Palmer, so for the first time in six decades we are without a dedicated Antarctic research vessel.

good piece with an incidental insanely brutal takedown of klein

Trump's first year back in office has been an unmitigated disaster for fighting climate change, building out clean energy, and Americans' ability to breath clean air and drink clean water.

If you haven't already, definitely read this WSJ story on how Putin hand-picked Witkoff for his malleability and cupidity. www.wsj.com/world/putin-...

After New York public schools began locking up students' smartphones, kids rediscovered hobbies and human interaction

It is utterly catastrophic that RFK Jr. plans to end CDC recommendations for most childhood vaccines. It’s a betrayal of science, ethics, compassion, and the people of the United States. And it was also a specific goal of Project 2025 (page 254).

Keep in mind that UNC's annual budget for athletics is a staggering $160 million. This includes paying celebrity football coach Bill Belichick $10 million a year (the highest salary of any state employee in all of North Carolina) to finish near the bottom of the ACC.

Keep in mind that UNC's annual budget for athletics is a staggering $160 million. This includes paying celebrity football coach Bill Belichick $10 million a year (the highest salary of any state employee in all of North Carolina) to finish near the bottom of the ACC.

NCAR is a crown jewel of US scientific innovation. Dismantling it is utterly crazy. I hope representatives around the country are hearing lots of pushback from their constituents.

This is insane. UNC is permanently shutting down all 6 of its area studies research centers, plus 8 other centers, affecting hundreds of faculty and grad students, just to get "$3 million in near-term savings," which is a tiny rounding error in the university's annual budget.

Happy 75th anniversary to “Rabbit of Seville” (1950), directed by Chuck Jones, this classic Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd chase is staged to Rossini’s “Barber of Seville” overture. It has been voted No. 12 in The 50 Greatest Cartoons of all time. #LooneyTunes

😂

Sounds about right.

How is this headline not from an Onion article???

The Trump administration has changed which holidays qualify for free entrance to national parks, removing Martin Luther King Day and Juneteenth and adding Trump's own birthday. www.sfgate.com/national-par...

A young Howard Zinn in Japan, pictured here with Ralph Featherstone, among others, during a June 1966 lecture tour focused on civil disobedience and non-violent direct action for anti-Vietnam War groups across the country

This is a million times worse than anything Hunter Biden was accused of doing in even the most fevered right-wing conspiracy dream

Super excited for this one!!

In one of my classes, students create a work of historical interpretation based on primary sources - can be anything: slide deck, video, comic, artwork, diorama, or pretty much anything else you can think of, or else they can do a traditional 5-page essay. Which do you think is most popular? 1/3

In one of my classes, students create a work of historical interpretation based on primary sources - can be anything: slide deck, video, comic, artwork, diorama, or pretty much anything else you can think of, or else they can do a traditional 5-page essay. Which do you think is most popular? 1/3

Absolutely brutal report just out from National Association of Realtors on the utterly broken US housing market. First-time homebuyers fell to a historic low of just 21% of all homebuyers, and their median age was an all-time high of 40 years old. The American Dream is dead.

Absolutely brutal report just out from National Association of Realtors on the utterly broken US housing market. First-time homebuyers fell to a historic low of just 21% of all homebuyers, and their median age was an all-time high of 40 years old. The American Dream is dead.

Day 3 is in the books! The Imagawa and Shimazu clans seem to be doing well so far... Here is a map as of July 1570: #SengokuSim

A number of websites with which I am affiliated keep constantly crashing because ever more malignant AI companies keep scraping them to train their LLMs and not only ignore the robots.txt file, but come up with ever more clever ways to circumvent blocks by disguising their bots as ordinary users.

probably something an innocent man would do

Getting set to run another edition of the Sengoku Japan simulation in my other class. Here is the starting map of the samurai clans selected by the students, as of April 1560: #SengokuSim

You know how the existence of cars and power tools makes it necessary to have “exercise” and “manual crafts” as a deliberately chosen part of a balanced life? We’re probably going to need something like that cognitively, for adults.

Japan's "Mundane Halloween" costume contest is back! Each year website DailyPortalZ holds a contest where people dress up as something super duper ordinary. Here's a thread of some of my favorites from the 2025 contest! #MundaneHalloween

Starts in one hour!!

"You need to be bored. You *will* have less meaning and you *will* be more depressed, if you never are bored. The evidence couldn't be clearer." www.youtube.com/watch?v=orQK...

Japan's "Mundane Halloween" costume contest is back! Each year website DailyPortalZ holds a contest where people dress up as something super duper ordinary. Here's a thread of some of my favorites from the 2025 contest! #MundaneHalloween

Fantastic piece about how the rapid decline of literacy is bringing about a new Dark Ages of superstition and magical thinking. But as Noah McCormack argues, this is a societal choice and not an inevitability.

China is now requiring social media influencers discussing professional topics to prove they have a degree or certification in that subject area www.netinfluencer.com/china-now-re...

A large and growing number of Americans view sports gambling as bad for both society and for sports

Fantastic piece about how the rapid decline of literacy is bringing about a new Dark Ages of superstition and magical thinking. But as Noah McCormack argues, this is a societal choice and not an inevitability.

Wikipedia is ready for your apology www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/hi-...

One of the greatest baseball games ever, on the game's biggest stage. Wow.

Good, short video explaining how AI slop is not only threatening to destroy the internet, but all human knowledge itself: www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zfN...

I see ppl saying "good! there is an oversupply of PhDs right now" The second part is incontrovertible, but it should not be the richest, most prestigious universities cutting back first, but marginal programs that don't fund their PhDs and don't set them up for success.

What is the point of a university if it slashes its core educational programs? This will only further fuel criticisms of Harvard as a "hedge fund with an attached university" and make it easier to tax their endowment.

Harvard is abandoning its core mission of preparing the future of knowledge creation by slashing PhD admissions by 2/3. The money saved will be a tiny rounding error compared to the world's largest university endowment (~$60 billion in 2025).

Lawless and unconstitutional, not "reprogramming"

Thrilled to announce the publication of my article "The Invention of the Kamikaze: Dissent and Resistance in the Japanese Military" in the October issue of the Journal of Military History!

Thrilled to announce the publication of my article "The Invention of the Kamikaze: Dissent and Resistance in the Japanese Military" in the October issue of the Journal of Military History!