Happy Rapture Day to all who celebr

Why did adjectives associated with intelligence—e.g. smart, clever, brilliant—take on different connotations in the US and UK? Off the top of my head, I can't think of any other domain with the same variance.

Starship Troopers (2025)

Trump's civic purpose in relighting the flames of patriotism

you can’t even satirize this shit

Best cover of APSA?

Here's a good Soviet joke from tehgraun that I hadn't seen before. www.theguardian.com/news/ng-inte...

Just checking in to see how America is doing...

Point me to the barricades.

Bridleway Revisited

The Midlands remember.

reader I was THIS CLOSE to vandalism

...Cohen in the sheets.

“What is under attack is the rule‑of‑law scaffolding that lets any voluntary association—PTA or synagogue, start‑up or labor union—pursue its mission without waiting for White House permission slips or fearing punitive retaliation.” www.liberalcurrents.com/harvards-fig...

"Cooper’s proscription of the protest group Palestine Action under the Terrorism Act 2000 is probably the most illiberal thing any home secretary has done in 30 years.... the UK has become arguably the most repressive of all nominal democracies..." www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Meanwhile, in Britain…

Now that European summer is heating up, let me quickly remind you just how important street trees are!

LET'S SWAP PAPERS [Yours pictured below. Mine isn't shiny BUT it has broligarchs and empathy and Sophie de Grouchy!]

"...many citizens are all too ready to employ outsiders, admit them to schools, sell to them, buy from them or fall in love with them — in short, welcome them. The only way for a government to prevent this from happening is to control its citizens by limiting their freedom to live as they choose."

Pratap Bhanu Mehta was recently in Cambridge, and the four excellent lectures that he gave on "Our Unborn World: Global Political Thought in the Twentieth Century" are now on YouTube:

Worth it for the TRON: Legacy soundtrack alone.

Ahhhhh, 2025

Missing Helen & trying to think of the best way to honor them. Perhaps it is to let myself be useless. Count grass. Maybe sand. Helen wrote,” joy doesn't always come spontaneously. Much like wonder, you have to make space for it in your life” & so I will try. helendecruz.substack.com/p/finding-joy

Long past time to bring back adjectives postpositive.

o3 is good as any professional copy editor I’ve ever used. And even better in that, for every suggestion, it will cite the Chicago manual chapter and verse.

@lkatfield.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

More excellence from Liberal Currents. “The classical liberals also advocated positions that, today, we are used to thinking of as “conservative,” especially in economic policy. But they arrived at these positions while adhering to recognizably progressive principles.“

Very cool paper.

I go back in time to 2005. Me: In the future, a great human rights struggle takes place. Bill Kristol is on one side, JK Rowling another. Person in 2005: I understand. Me: Actually no, you don't.

There’s a certain extent of generalism beyond which I just don’t trust pundit types. If you think you can opine with authority on everything, you are not receiving the kind of feedback inhibition that prevents most people from making this sort of wrong turn.

Preach.

Some stats from 100 days in on congestion pricing: - Complaints about car-honking are down 70% - The Holland Tunnel has 65% fewer delays at rush hour; time to get thru it is down 48% - 6 million fewer cars - Half as many traffic-related injuries - 1.5 million more visitors to BIDs year over year

Wild.

This part

I’m starting a little side project on the knowledge commons and AI. Any friends or friends of friends working on related issues?

☀️ My interview with The New York Times was featured in today’s @nytimes.com Morning Briefing 🥳 Q: If we’re wired a certain way, can we change? A: You have agency to choose how passionately you adopt these ideologies and what you reject or what you don’t. Interview: www.nytimes.com/2025/04/08/s...

I’m starting a little side project on the knowledge commons and AI. Any friends or friends of friends working on related issues?

"research collections that might violate state law" would be a nonsense phrase in a free society

“Make sure that the fun you’re having doesn’t fuck with your neighbor’s fun.” - Frank Turner, punk liberal

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wpud... Video of my Barrett Lecture at Bridgewater State University

I also recommend @joshtpm.bsky.social from last week. talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/towar...

Hard times for empathy. www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...

This is one of @nescio13.bsky.social ‘s very best. digressionsimpressions.substack.com/p/on-trump-t...

Unmissable review of Skinner's new book by Robin Douglass. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

I saw someone criticizing a very funny poster for making jokes instead of posting about politics, and I am reminded of a favorite line from E. B. White: We should strive not for balanced books but balanced libraries

I come from a long line of extremely poor farmers who worked and lived miserable, short lives so that I could have an email job today, and I am grateful to them every day. Every stupid email I send is a tribute to them.

In DC:

Who says you can’t observe real world politics at a political science conference?