over in club sports world, we sold fudge on valentines day.

Tim Walz on Meet the Press about Trump calling him "Retarded": "We have fought, three decades, to get this out of our school. Kids know better than to use it. But look, this is what Donald Trump has done. He's normalized this type of hateful behavior and this type of language."

Alma Montague, 34, who routinely keeps her arms folded tightly over her chest like someone might try to steal her boobs, is an expert in making new feline friends without exchanging a single word.

It’s so very easy to weaponize uncertainty:“We just can’t know if it’s safe, so better not to act at all”. Everyone is glad when the precautionary principle is used as a cudgel against something they already dislike, but the problem comes when it’s used to ban something you know works-like vaccines🤓

One thing about growing up in New England is that jellied cranberry sauce was a year-round side dish. It was cheap, shelf stable, easy, and I would eat it. So it was on the table all the time. I’m pretty sure that wasn’t universal?

Not the main problem, but increasingly thinking we need a moratorium on the term "Artificial Intelligence" (both in full and as "AI") because it's clear it means at least three seriously different things and equivocation between those helps to enable this nonsense.

“We cross our bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and a presumption that once our eyes watered.” ― Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

So many people who are otherwise so committed to good things are on Substack, which is very nice to bad people, ideas, and lies. My own newsletter was launched on Ghost because the bad news about Substack isn't new.

Thanks for reading, Mr. President

From Stoppard’s Arcadia:

On the one hand, this is the thing Tom Stoppard would absolutely least like to be remembered for. On the other hand, he spent his last years complaining about "cancel culture" and trans people, so I'll take it.

Sadly, I assume the best ones have already been eaten

oh no i starting thinking about what i want to read next year and decided to making a spreadsheet about it

On the Factor Fexcectorn and autism bicycle AI slop study: I got an answer from Springer Nature this morning that this scientific paper will be retracted! 🧪 Full story: nobreakthroughs.substack.com/p/riding-the...

I wonder if the IRB approval and informed consent was attended to as carefully as the methodology in Fig. 1????

I’ll just be over here on the Group W bench if anybody needs me.

Without farmworkers we wouldn’t be able to celebrate Thanksgiving. Be thankful for their hard work this holiday season! Sin los trabajadores agrícolas no podríamos celebrar el Día de Acción de Gracias. ¡Agradece su arduo trabajo en estas fiestas! #WeFeedYou #Thanksgiving

yep. also really can't overstate how much nuzzi is very much the product of an environment that rewards amoral ambition and frowns on people who sincerely believe anything

I don't think every or even most journalists are this utterly corrupt. The investigative folks I know have always conducted themselves pretty scrupulously, and I'm currently forced to conclude that's why they haven't hit the big-time

”The thing is this wasn’t really a catch-and-kill operation as described—I don’t even think there’s a term for what this was,” I say as I pour gravy on my fourth slice of pumpkin pie. My wife has filed for divorce and one of my cats is packing her belongings in a suitcase, but I persist.

Chotiner: so I understand that you limit your children’s snacks before dinner for the sake of their appetites Me: yes, it’s so frustrating to cook only for them to take 2 bites Chotiner: I notice there’s a lot less chips though and you served yourself a tiny plate Me: this interview is over

An annual reminder: The cognitive & emotional toll of staying in contact with abusive family can be both significant & difficult to recognize. There's a kind of social contract that abusive parents have violated. You owe them nothing. Nothing. Thanksgiving doesn't change that.

If you're interested, this tribute to Alice Wong was written by one of the people who knew her best www.thenation.com/article/soci...

Anybody who is like “Piracy is activism!”—trust me, supporting your local library is about 1000% more effective activism, and it’s still free for you and authors still get paid!

fuck you the memories of a generation lost because of Reagan's homophobia will not be erased i think we should do something in DC that would make david wojnarowicz proud tbh

I've spent a lot of time, publicly and privately, trying to educate folks on why they should leave S*bstack. But I've mostly focused on the writers and creators POSTING on there. I didn't realize the readers/users were so married to hanging out at the nazi bar.

he fell victim to one of the classic blunders! the most famous of which is, ‘never answer the phone for isaac chotiner,’ but only slightly less well-known is this: ‘never behave in a manner which causes derek guy to critique your fashion choices’

so, somewhat of a life update: after a lifetime of mostly just being mean/abusive towards me and her two stepdaughters in private such that we barely believed *ourselves* it was going on, my mother is now mean in front of everyone, so they all now understand why I left

Out TODAY! A Funny Thing in paperback!

Every American should have this in their wallet:

We as a country must dedicate our entire national energy to making sure that Ryan Murphy does not make a mini series about Olivia Nuzzi and Ryan Lizza.

It ain’t the first time RFK has prompted this kind of enemy of my enemy statement, but it’s good to see each time.

Hi, James Carville here, I am TERRIFIED of the RABID WILD DOGS Chuck Schumer has sicced on me in this HAUNTED FOREST I've been banished to. To keep my fight for survival going, would you donate $10 to ActBlue right now?

Today’s xkcd made me cry. In a good way. xkcd.com/3172/

If Isaac Chotiner ever said this to me, I would move to the woods.

something i'll note is that if nuzzi ran catch-and-kill ops for rfk jr and lizza knew this prior to him being appointed as HHS, and instead of telling anyone, he decided to save it for his substack long after rfk jr had made communicable disease into federal policy, that's completely fucked

The **chief justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court** called to expand virtual hearings —citing this incident where ICE threatened to smash the window of a judge’s car — because people who work at the courthouses are no longer safe

people are reading "catch-and-kill" in the journalistic sense but she was probably just finding raccoons for him to eat

even people who lionize *all* of the kennedys think there's a fucking curse, you don't need a journalism background to know it's a really bad idea to get involved and the women die way too often (the curse is privilege leading to hubris leading to dead women)

All of Bluesky this morning:

I'M pretty cynical but it turns out I'm NOT NEARLY CYNICAL ENOUGH

NOT LIKE THAT

Previous years I have warned people to thaw frozen turkeys, apparently my concerns might have been overblown www.instagram.com/reel/DRVTR62...

Josie vindicated yet again

can bad prose be sexually transmitted

Watching people who didn't know Alice use her and use her death for their own ends in a way that necessitates the erasure of her agency is really ... fucked.

The thing about the latest news in the Nuzzi/Lizza story is that RFK cost the nation its measles elimination status.

Today is my birthday. I would like many things but from you specifically I want $2,500 for @scarleteen.com's annual fundraiser, which is supporting staff & volunteer healthcare this year. We need $2,500 to unlock a $10,000 match and this would really make my day! Donate to my campaign page here.

Alice LOVED food. She loved eating, she loved sharing food with friends, she loved coming up with wild recipes, and always made sure her parties had the BEST food. You did not leave her house without a to-go box. In this stellar piece, she wrote about the experience of getting a feeding tube.

In 2023, Alice curated "Low and Slow" at Eater, an outstanding series of pieces by disabled people about our myriad, complex, loving, sometimes fraught relationships with food.