i've been procrastinating all afternoon. may be forced to accept that i do not, in fact, feel like writing

as i tweeted in my insomniac fugue last night, this is a bit weird because here "it's about oil" is the pretext, and the real goal and purpose is something much more nebulous and less sensical. the parallel to iraq only goes so far

it's called the Dostoevsky method. what we do is find promising up-and-coming thinkers and make them believe they are on the precipice of execution, calling it off only at the very last second. this releases the exquisite juices of their brains, which benefits us all. unconventional, yet effective.

And like — they’re not dealing with the Democrats, or the sycophantic media. This is a sovereign country with armed forces and a lot of people living there who do not care about cowering or currying favor with the Trump administration. “Good luck soldier”

You can read so much in Marco’s dead eyes

Scicomm Bluesky in a nutshell — someone quote tweeting a local news headline where a mother says of her child’s flu death that it “doesn’t make sense” with “ACTUALLY is DOES make sense.” Log the fuck off

The US is not running Venezuela now just because Trump said so and I seriously need leftists to stop parroting and believing every demented thing the president says because it confirms to an ideological worst case scenario

Exactly. These are not the same thing. Either this was a highly kinetic police operation or the US now runs Venezuela. If it's a policing operation, sovereign power of Venezuela doesn't come in as a package deal.

10:10 AM and I've already got the scaries. Gonna do my best to get some writing done today and tomorrow (back to work) is in God's hands

Would you believe that 35 minutes of scrolling on here and eating olives has not prepared my mind or body for bed

With the Iraq war, it was about the oil (and juicing a stagnating global economy) and WMDs and all sorts of other shit were the pretexts. Here, “it’s about the oil” is the pretext, and what it’s really about is some inscrutable internet-poisoned content creation objective. Crazy!

One thing you should know about me is my instincts are pretty good

Very important signal here. You can say it's abt oil. And part of it is. But the White House is actually being forced to strongarm the oil companies to get involved. www.politico.com/news/2026/01...

I can’t sleep again. Sorry to all

I think what gets me about the Galeano thing is that the left is once again imputing the imperial designs and strategy of midcentury America to a gang of illiterate drunks and pedophiles who neither know nor care about anything but the next content cycle

I’ve not only read the open veins, but read it 15 years ago and in Spanish!!

I was going to force myself to go to the grocery store but that would make me simply miserable so I’m not doing it. Tweeting it so you all can license it

So good. The guest reminds me of my own analyst. The highest compliment I can give something: “generative”

Nope, not good enough, and maybe you guys have to start coming in on the weekend.

I oppose this on every moral and ideological ground possible but if I were one of these Wall Street officials I would absolutely not feel safe going on this trip. There are self-interested grounds for opposition too and self-interested grounds for apprehending the stupidity and laziness of the admin

they're going to run venezuela by tweet

Some other country should abduct Trump and prosecute him for *unfurls scroll*

if you are talking today about how bad maduro was and were alive, at all, during the run-up to the iraq war you are potentially the dumbest person to ever live

nothing like something really fucked up and scary to put into sharp relief how pointless and exhausting bluesky discourse is

I get menstrual migraines and I’m so bored of them that I just drink through them now. I was at the bar for five hours just now — who cares? No matter what I do I’m gonna feel like shit!

I’m averaging more than 100p of war and peace a day and I’m on track to finish it before the first week of the new year is over. Not bad

so I think Tolstoy’s understanding of history is extremely hampered by his class position. he completely did not see how unsustainable and pressurized a brutally unequal structure with no avenues for political representation can be (I have many thoughts about the 1917 revolution here). but…

The torture and abuse of the FFC participants is but an infinitesimal fraction of the torture and abuse that the Israeli state subjects Palestinians to as a matter of course

Extremely disturbing press release from @freedomflotilla.bsky.social just now, stating that Israeli prison guards raped German journalist Anna Liedtke after soldiers intercepted the flotilla ship she was on with medics and other journalists.

my impression of a year end post: wow, what a year. i accomplished so much and had so much fun. everybody loved me and everything got better. looking forward to more of the same next year.

it is new year's eve and it's bitter cold and snowing. why the fuck is my neighbor outside woodworking? turn off the electric saw and go inside and hug your family jesus christ

Southern Charm continues to be the most demonic thing that has ever been on tv

have no clue what isaiah berlin was actually like and his very famous essay about tolstoy is illuminating to read at the absolute minimum but it really does emanate the vibe of "much learning and little insight" that hangs around british intellectuals like a smell

4:30 pm coffee, i love it so much though it does me so much harm

have had people say “you’re just trying to sound smart” to me and like, I’m open to constructive criticism but that’s not constructive criticism. it’s not even criticism. it’s just an insult. if I sound smart maybe it’s because I am smart

Either “you’re unclear” or “this is trivial” there is no in between.

shut the fuck up steve

Finished the battle of Borodino. omg. I can’t sleep after reading WAP I have to chill myself out with something boring

This episode was so much fun and if I have to become a paid subscriber to hear part 2 I will despite the personally ruinous financial choices I made this holiday (buying my friends and myself teaware from China 🤡)

reading riley and brenner's lengthy reply in sept/oct NLR (a true land of contrasts between worthless slop and useful analysis) and... there are perhaps structural political-economic reasons for this political kowtowing to tech CEOs

it's possible for MTG to be both an unrepentant transphobe and an important bellwether of trends in the MAGA movement and its political leadership. interesting or potentially meaningful doesn't mean "good"

this was good, about the epistemological logic of "late capitalism" buttondown.com/abbycartus/a...

Bravo's Southern Charm is one of the densest and weirdest Texts of the first quarter of this century and nobody wants to touch it... nobody, that is, except for me

also, as i am deluged with ever more outraged public health professional posts, i'm begging you all to stop this. your professional-grade outrage does not play the role in our emotional and moral economy that you think it does, they *want* you to be triggered and offended (and disorganized)

i am working on something really interesting (at least i think so) and i'll say again that i think i need help placing it somewhere. i don't know how this works and i don't know if this is a role that folx out there can play as far as i'm concerned. it'll go to my newsletter if nothing else

Part of me wants to get all these books out of the library and construct some kind of essay about it but part of me really shrinks from having to read Fake Accounts or Lockwood’s “internet novel” (life is short)

Is all women write about these days themselves? Even when they’re ostensibly not writing about themselves (Oyler on the Goop cruise, Tolentino on anything) they’re writing about themselves, their dress size, their tedious romantic escapades

Do we as the peoples of the world really need to be hearing quite so much from Patricia Lockwood

don't care for contemporary fiction by and about straight women tbh