thucydides nutz

Many people have a vested interest in pretending otherwise, but the US research university is globally dominant to an almost unbelievable degree. The typical state university is a football team stapled to a R&D lab with a budget bigger than the entire nation of Belgium.

I am JAR JAR BINKS... an extra-terrestrial from the starship Discovery

A grieving mam brought this up at the recent sentencing of the driver who killed her son. Deaths on the roads are treated with complacency; if we saw the saw level of deaths in any other context there would be calls for public inquiries and demands for action. www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-n...

Wait I though Venezuelans entering the United States were an existential threat to the country

This has me wondering — if Trump had descended the escalator in 2011 instead of 2015, could/would he have beaten Obama?

im eating beans and riding bikes and i can ride bikes and eat beans longer than the united states can raise prices

NEW: Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has toned down his public criticism of vaccines, under orders from the White House. But behind the scenes, a sprawling research effort has become his a top priority. w/ @sherylnyt.bsky.social 🎁 www.nytimes.com/2026/05/11/h...

Slightly increases band Four dog night

The redistricting wars feel like the whole of modern American politics: Trump picks a stupid fight, wages it idiotically, Democrats fight back and win, then some other American institution suddenly chimes in to hand the win to Trump anyway for being a very special boy and everyone gets mad at Dems

A lot of the left obsesses over winning back white working-class voters for no other reason that that a united working class is a requirement to fulfill the essentially religious Hegelian teleology of Karl Marx, which of course is a really fundamentally dumb value to bring to electoral politics.

This is why we have to ruin every single fucking MAGA elite in the United States. It's us, or them. We can have basic human rights and liberties, or they can stay rich and powerful. One or the other. Make no mistake, they want to come for *your* rights, dear followers. For every last one of us.

Any "leftist" taking MTG's side over AOC's is either an op or the biggest mark at the carnival

There are some inaccuracies about the Epstein suicide note presented in this interview. It has not been in former cellmate and murderer Nicholas Tartaglione's possession the whole time. He handed it off to his lawyer days after Epstein's suicide and the lawyer used it as evidence in court.

The author sent me a copy, and it's really something to behold in person.

My latest for MS Now: Why the purported Epstein suicide note is probably the real deal. Great working with @jamescdownie.bsky.social on this one!

THANK YOU

Somehow even stupider than it seems at first glance

“Trump had Epstein killed to silence him” doesn’t actually make much sense if you think about it for more than five seconds

The newly released Epstein note contains a weird a phrase "watcha want me to do - Bust out cryin!!" Well, our eagle-eyed producer @carebrose.bsky.social found it in an email Epstein sent to his brother in 2016. www.justice.gov/epstein/file...

dudes rock

Salad Fingers. Charlie the Unicorn. Badger Badger Badger Badger. All Your Base Are Belong to Us. You're The Man Now, Dog. O RLY? Numa Numa. Leeroy Jenkins. They're Taking the Hobbits to Isengard. This is Sparta. It's over 9000. Rickroll. The Cake is a lie. Chocolate Rain Don't LIE to me I was THERE

There are many frustrating things about this phenomenon, but chief among them are people who will pontificate about the water waste of tech while casually eating beef. For reference, you’d need to spend a solid year talking to AI nonstop to come close to a single hamburgers worth of water/carbon.

Good article, rightfully does not focus on the cost to drivers. It is important though when looking at aggregate economic statistics to realize Americans, versus other countries, spend a ton of money on this mode of transportation roughly because US politicians prioritize racism over vibes or money.

Interesting thread

SCOOP: The F.D.A. blocked the release of studies finding that Covid and shingles vaccines were safe. In the case of Covid, FDA staff had to withdraw studies heading toward publication: www.nytimes.com/2026/05/05/u...

Also, the problem is that Republicans genuinely are quantifiably stupid. Like, we have studied this. It isn’t political science’s fault. You can be conservative without being stupid. Bismarck wasn’t stupid. Churchill wasn’t stupid. Lee Kuan Yew wasn’t stupid. But Republicans are literally stupid.

Boy I love riding a bike

Drinking afternoon beer on the train 👍

The thing about sopranos v the wire is that the answer is Deadwood

Name your top 15 TV shows ever, gut instincts only The Simpsons Mad Men Deadwood The Leftovers Kids in the Hall Mr. Show Star Trek: TNG Star Trek: DS9 Bojack Horseman Frasier Columbo Babylon 5 Batman: The Animated Series

United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain testifying in favor of a 32-hour workweek. "Eighty-four years ago the 40-hour workweek was established. And since then, we've had a 400 percent increase in productivity, and nothing's changed."

Aside from MAGA diehards I think nothing makes me more pessimistic about our civic culture than the ubiquitous and vehement opposition to traffic enforcement

rabbit rabbit

I demonstrated two things today: that driving faster increases the risk that someone will die and that, after the pandemic, people started driving like bigger assholes. Gift link: www.ctinsider.com/columnist/ar...

MEDICARE?!

jesus christ they even got Rand Paul to drink this flavor of kool-aid

Mets… scoring????

Pretty funny that that Washington Nationals are sponsored by a lobbying group

One of the ways in which everything is going wrong is that that mediating institution used to be ‘president of your rotary club’ and now it’s ‘charismatic person saying insane things online’

I wonder how this guy's doing

Oh man if only this man had been part of the public discourse for decades and maybe even had a previous stint as president. But there was really no way to know things would turn out like this. It was just a blind gamble between the flamboyant and mysterious businessman and the black lady.

Paul Williams erasure

Elevating this classic. Have you read Bonfire of the Vanities? No. Which Tom Wolfe book is your favorite? His latest. Bonfire of the Vanities? Yes.

As someone who crosses a lot of big intersections foot, the majority of cars don’t do this because minimal safety is not hard, so would love to be able to toss the rare but regular assholes into space with my mind.