maybe a hot take? not only is ziggy sobotka a great character and a great performance (RIP james ransone), but looking back from the vantage point of today, "young man struggling with his masculinity and yearning to be recognized as a man commits catastrophic violence" is incredibly prescient.

youre laughing. a half sunk visage lies beside two trunkless legs of stone and you're laughing

Here’s the deal: If you catch it on the fly, it’s yours. You earned it. But if the ball hits the ground and you’re within easy reach of a kid? It’s not your ball. It’s the kid’s ball. If you happen to pick it up? Give. it. to. the. kid.

most people focus on the immediate & obvious dangers, but actually the worst aspect of godzilla romping thru a city tends to be the hazardous particulates that get kicked up into the air. way more people die of godzilla-related mesothelioma than get crushed, radiation-lasered, &c

At this point the only thing that will bring me around to this current crop of AI platforms is if one entirely deletes my student loan debt.

Listening to the college’s commencement speech.

Me: We genuinely need a revival of virtue in the United States. The Atlantic: Something is happening to America’s moral code Me: … No! NO!

the party of "a whole civilization will die tonight" fake-rending their garments over violent rhetoric is funnier than the entire history of saturday night live

Honestly, it probably would be a pretty good idea for there to be criminal penalties for violations of the WPR. If the action was genuinely defensive then a grateful nation would surely forgive quick and decisive action. But if it’s simply an adventuring president?

I think it's deeper than standing. That's just their easy out. No court will ever feasibly do this. WPR should have stronger penalties to coerce the president. But direct operational orders to the military are not, and in no feasible way ever could, issue from the bench. Judges are not commanders.

The civilian officials responsible for this should be extradited to the home countries of the people killed in these attacks to face local justice. The military personnel responsible should be sent to The Hague.

Going from watching the first act of Hamilton (per 10yo request) to watching How to Succeed in Business … is a, ahem, little bit of a tonal shift.

Done and done!

It’s bananas.

Saw this from a distance, and I am pleased to report that I can still recite it word for word from memory.

I mean part of Sinners is kinda partially making the point that I made in the previous reskeet (re: risk of American political violence): What are your alternatives when legal processes are unjustly foreclosed?

As we continue to foreclose democratic political processes; as legal avenues produce no justice; as our spaces for civil resistance and protests are eliminated; as our government continues to operate without the consent of the governed this WHOLE THING is just building a giant powder keg.

Not only do I think that Trump’s ballroom should not be built (and, if built, should be dismantled by the next administration), I also think that it would be considerably better for democracy if all of the fencing that was built and street closures done in the wake of 9/11 were also undone.

yeah my thought when i hear that is "tell this to the president and his goons"

Not only do I think that Trump’s ballroom should not be built (and, if built, should be dismantled by the next administration), I also think that it would be considerably better for democracy if all of the fencing that was built and street closures done in the wake of 9/11 were also undone.

With the now 13yo, bedtime stories for a couple of pre-school years were Detective Hippo and Inspector Pig who would, nightly, solve mundane mysteries on the dark and dangerous streets of Knightsbridge. The stories were participatory—the kiddo volunteered settings and scenarios.

Sabastian Sawe has just become the first person in history to run a sub two-hour marathon in race conditions. www.bbc.com/sport/athletics/l...

Holy fucking shit. What an incredible athletic performance by Sawe and Kejelcha! And by Assefa too!

A reading from the Book of the Prophet Baudrillard

BANANAS.

Bananas.

(Ceteris paribus*) I’m confused about why this is a common response to making structural changes at the driver level to prevent traffic violence. If you’ve repeatedly demonstrated your noncompliance with laws regulating the safety of the road then meaningfully denying you access seems appropriate.

It turns out they do know how to make a plane turn around and bring people back when they want to.

hortus in urbe

Come on you Fulham.

The death penalty should be abolished.

I idly roll this over from time to time: Of all the things, how many of those things are knowable? Of all the knowable things, how many of those things are known? My intuition is that the answer to both of those questions is the same. An infinitesimal proportion.

I went to the garden center and didn’t come home with any plants. I’m not even sure who I am anymore.

Lags and path dependency are a hell of a thing.

Dear Cubs, Please rebrand for one game.

When California + other western states passed laws that Chinese immigrants & other nonwhites couldn't testify in court, it became open season on committing crimes against the those groups. Similar perverse incentive if immigrants today go to court for a nonimmigration reasons & can be arrested. 1/

The existing 6-month rule is cruel. It forces people who fled for their very lives and who have a legal right to be here into the shadow economy at great personal (and legal and immigration) risk. Extending it is obscene. This is one of those moves I used to think big business would block. 🤷‍♀️

It is impossible to have a society governed by the rule of law where some people think that it is permissible to live outside of that law. In fact, it should be that people who are making and enforcing the law are held to substantially higher standards than ordinary citizens.

This is your annual reminder that the 'dragon' St George killed was two feet long, an obligate herbivore, and blind in one eye.

Today is the feast of St Adalbert, very unsuccessful apostle to the Prussians but very successful patron saint of Poland, †997 (St Adalbert arriving in Prussia by Arvydas Stanislovas Každailis, 1986)

That scene in The Matrix where Neo opens a hollowed-out “Simulacra & Simulation” to find his stash, but instead it’s a hollowed-out Bible with “Simulacra & Simulation” inside.

right-wing populism is currently the greatest force for moral and epistemic relativism on the planet

One of the advantages of seeing the world as a heraclitean flow as opposed to a set of fixed parmenidean absolutes is that it really does give you a better perspective into a relational concept of family rather than forcing you to wallow in a fixed set of jural forms.

Fine. I’ll be Secretary of the Navy. But I have to tell you, there is going to be *a lot* more Gilbert and Sullivan around here.

Dunno, guys, would passing a law requiring the Ten Commandments to be posted in classrooms be a violation of the Second Commandment?

I routinely descend into madness at the end of the semester. I regret to inform you that it’s happening two weeks earlier than usual this Spring.

If I ever have a vaudeville double act, it will be called Pimper and Stub. I, obviously, am Stub.

“I am an extraordinarily brilliant person.”

Two copy editors high-fiving so hard right now

Sitting back down to work on my manuscript after a nice walk on the quad and a hot cup of coffee.