Oldest selfie on your phone. In front of a blank wall at the Doctor Who Experience in 2017.

Cool, cool, cool. How's SAG feel about a new blacklist?

As a reminder, FIFA is so corrupt as to almost be a parody of corruption. They make the Golden Globes look respectable. They once financed an entire movie about how awesome FIFA was. In short, nothing makes more sense than FIFA awarding Trump a prize.

A left leaning candidate winning the mayorship of a large city is *literally* only news in the US because the US media has simply lost all sense of perspective. Big cities are *supposed* to elect left-leaning folks. They're cities, ffs.

"Objective, primatology-based virtues"? We are honestly one day away from an NYT podcaster demanding his guests' phrenological head measurements. Just complete fascist-adjacent gobbledygook.

As Doctor Who: The Writers' Room finishes up its 13th year (!), we come to the end of the Matt Smith era. Our most recent Patreon bonus episode is a draft of the 11 best 11th Doctor stories: www.patreon.com/posts/matt-s...

I'd missed the news of Melvyn Bragg stepping down. "In our Time" podcast brought a panel of experts to talk about certain topics of science, history, culture... you never quite knew which topic was next or if @simontillotson.bsky.social would ask coffee or tea...

The way all of these people convinced themselves that Mamdani is antisemitic is a subject far more worthy of media examination than any of the ‘groupthink on campuses!’ thinkpieces we’ve been subjected to

I have to imagine far-right Catholics are really struggling with the fact that they can now hear this stuff in English directly from the pope.

basically every 2024 truism is dead. Trump did not build a lasting multiracial coalition or turn young men into committed Republicans. You don’t need to cave on trans rights to win. The pundits have nothing left to tell you.

Not every Democratic candidate has to be a copy of AOC or Mamdani. BUT the days when someone who is more comfortable with corporate execs than the people who actually elect them need to come to an end. Corporate America already owns the GOP; they don't need both parties. Time to take it back.

for a muslim american to become mayor of new york city on the same day that dick cheney died... sometimes the purple prose for future dadbook histories of The American Experiment just writes itself.

😎😎😎😎 GOOD THINGS CAN STILL HAPPEN 😎😎😎😎

Every Election Day I am reminded how utterly ill-informed, small minded, parochial, and often flat-out bonehead the American electorate is, en masse.

Every time she comes up, I remind you all that Pamela Paul killed a pro trans paragraph in a review I wrote for the New York Times, lied about it in the press, then when I confronted her with receipts, said “Let’s keep this to ourselves.”

[P] he has slipped the surly bonds of Earth / and shot the face of God

Students taking a test often enter their own world mentally, meaning they can sometimes do things that you suspect they wouldn't do if they knew someone like me was watching. Noticing these tiny behaviors can be both fascinating and frightening. And make me thankful for hand sanitizer.

This isn’t even the first time it would happen - you can literally just go back to when Eric Adams first ran for mayor, and when he got into office, to see how the media manufactured a crime wave that helped push his pro-police agenda at the expense of every other city service.

Pretty good sign this is bullshit is that it would be 6 times higher than the number of people who left New York in the midst of a once-in-a-century pandemic. comptroller.nyc.gov/wp-content/u...

Stewart v Somerset is also where I learned one of my favorite maxims (uttered by the judge of that case): "Fiat justitia ruat caelum." Let justice be done though the heavens fall. Anything that can be destroyed by the truth deserves to be destroyed.

Such a perfect example of what we all give up when we refuse to address basic inequalities. I don't want to live in a country where all the public space is militarized to keep hungry people from stealing food, just give them money to buy food!

This entire "the Dems need to abandon identity and focus on economics!" discourse is being driven by rich assholes who would melt down at the slightest hint of higher taxes on the wealthy or more welfare for the poor. Look how they're treating Mamdani! It's cynical bullshit all the way down.

Wishing everyone exactly this Halloween vibe: Memento mori, but keep it chill (the Greek ευφρόσυνος means something like "cheerful, merry").

Just stop clicking on this shit, I'm serious. People re-heat these "one weird trick so Trump can run again" stories bc people will skip over actual news to read them.

I know there's a lot going on, but it's crazy that Mike Johnson is still refusing to swear in Rep-elect Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.), who won her election on Sept. 23. He could have done this at any time, even amid the government shutdown. But he won't. Unprecedented.

Johnson has been giving all these bogus claims about why he "can't" swear Grijalva in, like he couldn't do it until her election results were certified (false -- there was no dispute in her election), couldn't do it with the House in recess (false) and now, can't do it in a shutdown (false).

Recently, we have seen the results of 40+ years of hard work organizing, fighting at every level, and investing for tomorrow by the US right wing. The Democratics still think they can beat that by adjusting their messaging and finding the right slogan. It's bringing a PowerPoint to a gunfight.

My take on this communication manifesto written by policy wonks is that policy wonks think people vote on policy. If 2024 taught us anything it should be that they absolutely do not.

In other news, the Democratic Party will likely decide to stand for absolutely nothing if it means some extremely old people can cling to their elected offices. At a certain point, the Democratic Party will have to be very clear about what it stands *for* that isn't GOP-lite

Easy one: People don’t have pictures of relatives who were murdered by demons.

Every time you see or hear a right winger say anything remember this: they are frequently profoundly stupid and yet filled with the confidence that only talentless white men can have.

AOC is a federal official who has had over 6 years of national attention. Why on Earth is she the benchmark for an NYC mayoral candidate most people have no reason to have any opinion on? I mean, we all *know* why the comparison is being made -- but I wish the cowards would just admit it.

Bill Clinton blushed when he read this. Your job as a politician is to articulate your decisions and the reasoning that motivates them. This man thinks so little of the voters he tries to trick them with synonyms.

The way Dems treat Mamdani versus Platner... hm

I would rather watch a fragment of underdone potato for two hours

I often think about my rich ex's grandfather. Bought a small peninsula for a family compound & wanted a small lighthouse at the end. Wasn't given permission by authorities. Did it anyway. He just factored the fines into the building costs. Laws only constrain if people care about the consequences.

Struck me at the end of Trump's first term, post-impeachment, that even when he got bipartisan support (like for CARES) he didn't invite Dems to the bill signing. I think about this bc there's a kneejerk political media instinct to ask Dems how they'll unify the country and it's getting very silly.

The Democratic primary in this race will be held fully eight months from now in June 2026, there are nine active Democratic candidates, and there could be more! Even the filing deadline is still months away (March 15, I believe). I don’t get the PSA crew adopting a bunker mentality this early.

Graham Platner is younger than me. He was born in 1984. He was supposedly 23 years old when he got the "regrettable" Nazi tattoo, allegedly in Croatia in 2007. I don't know that his "innocent" explanation makes sense in the age of Google Image Search and the almost 20 years since.

Last week's This Had Oscar Buzz we covered USED PEOPLE, a 1992 movie that you probably have never seen or even heard of, but which nonetheless features Marcia Gay Harden dressed up as Marilyn Monroe, Bonnie Parker, Mrs. Robinson, and Barbra Streisand. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...

Pro-regime media is funded by your wordle addiction. If you or someone you know is struggling with a NYT subscription please show them video games

For God’s sake let us sit upon the ground And tell sad stories of the death of kings

#NoKings Miami!

The curry has been part of British cuisine for over 250 years: Hannah Glasse (18th century Mary Berry) had a curry recipe in her cookbook The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy. And British curry houses first opened in the early 19th cent; chippies in the mid-19th. ARGH.

The White House and other government entities are joining Bluesky as I type. That will bring a new group to bsky that many have not dealt w before. Don't engage, just block their asses. Give them no oxygen, starve them out. 💙✌🏻💙 They may arrive tomorrow

I suspected this might be coming because of her recent retirement... I knew she'd never lay down the microphone unless forced to. RIP to a giant of journalism, to a Founding Mother of NPR, and to -- I am proud and humbled to say -- my friend. www.npr.org/2025/10/16/1...

Ukrainians must be thrilled that Putin and Trump will meet in Budapest, the city where Russia signed a memorandum in 1994 promising not to attack Ukraine.

Personally, I think what this article -- which is from an independent contributor because Forbes is no longer an actual publication but is essentially Medium with a legacy -- argues most clearly is that "Business" was always a questionable university degree.

There was a restaurant like this not far from the college both Lydia and I attended, and man, do I miss it sometimes...