Pay attention, because making any other alternative to this will require real political will

An interview I did with Sylvère Lotringer in 2009. Never got around to publishing it. Did not know him well, but I learned so much from him. @semiotexte.bsky.social

he’s gonna give a speech in front of an AI generated banner that says, “ŃMIMMS1ØN ACĞŒMPLISSHEP”

If the Dems who win in the 2026 midterms get squeamish about prosecuting this administration, we'll need to elect a bunch of new people running on Nuremberg shit for 2028. This isn't a joke. It's the law. It's justice. Biden let Trump back in the WH and this happened because Joe didn't do his job

We are governed by idiots; please enjoy some footage I took of small-clawed otters eating fish on a raft

LISTEN UP when I say the “core business” of the near future is ONLY the LOGIC OF THE BUSINESS and nothing else I am telegraphing some important fucking information on how tech finance defines labor to create subordinate classes

When even the animals get raptured but you don't

say it with a full chest: "SHARED GOVERNANCE IS HOW UNIVERSITIES STAY HONEST"

Why a second Justice Democrat in Texas is a bigger deal than you think.

Did everyone catch @nimishabarton.bsky.social's incredible essay on the DEI debacle in Academe Magazine? If not, here's your chance to catch up on an essay we badly need academeblog.org/2026/02/04/t...

I feel like none of our elites have had a new idea since “fire everyone“

This is the Republican endgame for higher ed: unaccountable rw taxpayer funded institutes as incubators for rw snitches

pessimists getting sick of being right all the time

No one wants to confront the fact that the ideal fiscal policy for the next Dem President should look almost identical to Biden's but with the addition of confiscatory taxes targeted at top earners that get dedicated exclusively to paying down the debt to offset inflation.

Which religious leaders in Texas are speaking out to condemn these lawmakers for targeting and inciting fear of a religious minority?

People are so upset about the price of gas as if you can’t just run a car on racial slurs

I feel like Trump‘s lies should have been a bigger issue in the press & political discussion before they led us into war, epidemics, & climate catastrophe

Democratic politicians are greatly underestimating the size of the bag the next president will be left holding.

Good roundup of the shitshow in TX higher ed

Maybe! But there's DEFINITELY a Twilight Zone episode about it:

I keep thinking there's a Hans Christian Andersen story about this

“This is the legacy of the imbeciles” Please enjoy some pure uncut Texas bullshit and I am from there so I get to say that

I just sent this email to the news director at NBC4 Washington about the unprofessional and disrespectful way they handled publishing the body camera footage of the DOGE raid on the US Institute of Peace that was obtained via my FOIA lawsuit:

Love is in the air at Edinburgh zoo. Pebbling marks the start of the breeding season for Gentoo penguins. Kids at Edinburgh Children's Hospital Charity painted pebbles for the penguins to choose from and present to their mates.

We have a lot of default settings in our politics & right now they’re delivering us the Doom Scenario

'The systems now being woven into education are shaped by a remarkably small group of people. Not “the internet” as the source of training material. Not “society” influencing the way we use these tools.' Fascinating that this comes from within Jisc. 1/3

It's really hard not to feel hopeless about the flood of disinformation, lies & manipulation we'll experience between now & the November election. Everyone's just got to try to keep fighting it: be skeptical, vet everything, *speak up* when friends/family share bad info, DO NOT rely on AI.

in a lot of ways we're just learning over and over that people who seem to be very good at one thing may be devastatingly incompetent at everything else, and our functional concept of expertise -- appearing on screen -- cannot accommodate that

Either they didn’t think about the effect of the invasion on oil and gas prices or they did and didn’t care. I wrote a paper once distinguishing malice, recklessness, negligence, and incompetence. Sometimes you get them all at once.

This is the sort of thing a cashless society robs us of, the opportunity to try to get away with paying the bus fare in Carthaginian currency www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

I need a photo for my lecture about law so here's a pic of index eating the patriarchy

Hey Fort Worth / Tarrant County, this is happening today (3/8) from 3-4pm if you are looking for something to do! Mendi and I will be there. www.mobilize.us/mobilize/eve...

I am so serious when I say that there is a direct line to be drawn between Evangelism having no meaningful concept of the future save death and American conservatives having zero awareness of or interest in the future consequences of their actions

For your politics-addled minds, two very young giraffes looking very spindly while running in slow motion

honestly the only thing that would help would be primarying and clearing out the leadership that continues to listen to those consultants; with a few exceptions, those we have now have no stomach for what prosecutions will entail

There was a far-right protest against mayor Zohran Mamdani in New York yesterday and well, that's quite the sign

We have always been at War with Sentimental Readers

The constituency of Americans who see DEI as detrimental to the country is vanishingly small, the sort of constituency that can easily be ignored if politicians want to ignore it.

Resharing for those who missed yesterday’s post. Correct me if I’m wrong, but this might be one of the only lawsuits where the DOGE bros have been deposed.

Watching deposition video now Here is current NEH Chairman Michael McDonald describing his early career at a legal organization that worked to strike down affirmative action under the guise of constitutional conservatism: a term he either refuses or is unable to define. #NEH youtu.be/KiDcKST03Zk?...

The trump administration and their allies are the most powerful threat to Americans' freedom of speech rights in our nation's history. The voices in the media who repeatedly told the public that Trump stands for free speech are their accomplices in tyranny

It looks like the war on Iran is going about as poorly as the regime’s previous wars against Chicago, Minnesota and Los Angeles.

TAMU BOR Chair Albritton’s dismissal of Jon Hagler’s defense of academic freedom as merely ‘his opinion’ ignores an obvious reality: his commitment to Texas A&M is measured not just in words, but in millions of dollars invested in the university’s future. www.kbtx.com/2026/02/06/t...

I sometimes wonder what our lives would be like if we could simply use language like, "this is fascist projection" in public, political discussion

not going to enter the dopey debates about who lost the last election, but things like 👇 should tell us how asymmetrical the information environment is right now, especially after corporate media crapped all over Biden & whatshername

Anyway, they (Eric Martin directed, but you can also see the influence of John Hubley) made a delightful animated version in 1965 and it’s narrated by Dudley Moore.

Seeing ppl circulate projects whose NEH grants were canceled by DOGE reaffirms my argument about AI as a permission structure. Some grants were canceled w/o a “no” from the generated summary. DOGE had a mandate to slash humanities funding & AI gave them the veneer of a rationale for their actions.