Genuine question: am I right in thinking that our negotiators in the Iran talks are Witkoff, Kushner, maybe Michael “Flight 93” Anton, and Brad Cooper (the CENTCOM commander, not the movie star)? I.e., no diplomats and no arms control or nuclear specialists?

I really need people to understand that Palantir is not an engineering marvel; it is a multi-billion-dollar contractual containment layer wrapped around the world's ugliest legacy open source frankenstack. It's a shitty Snowflake for companies that don't know how to do data engineering.

Any time you hear a story about how Palantir finally supercharged Ukraine's drone targeting with Gotham, assume it 100% bullshit "halo effect" -- taking credit for stuff they had no part in. Your average Internet cafe in Kyiv has more engineering talent than all of Palantir combined. I promise.

Who among us hasn’t borked their own fuel tank with a manpad?

how do we feel about "under-bussing" as a verb, does that work for the act of throwing someone under the bus?

yeah he's totally right too

The Miyawaki method transforms small plots of land into dense native forests capable of supporting wildlife, improving local environmental conditions and restoring fragments of lost ecosystems. timesofindia.indiatimes.com/science/from...

My main criticism of these sorts of statements is it treatment disinformation and misinformation as a supply side issue, when its really a demand side issue. The solutions need to deal with what drives that demand, which is a sense of humiliation and/or betrayal.

Hey y'all! I wrote a bit of background to the plutonium the government wants to give away and checked out the websites of the companies that want it. Yeesh. #nukesky

My Go Big or Go Home thoughts for this Saturday: I make the case for why we should consider amending the Constitution to create a fourth branch open.substack.com/pub/asharang...

Moving vital institutions -- like the DOJ -- out of the control of the executive is an intriguing proposition. Whatever the merits of that idea, it's absolutely time to Go Big.

Lots of expert head-scratching and shoulder-shrugging in this 🧵 about Russia’s recent use of Oreshnik against Ukraine.

This 🧵clarifies a few things. Trump’s ignorance and misunderstanding is horrifying.

There's really no point in further analyzing any Iran deal until the actual details are published, since both the Trump administration and the Iranian regime are inveterate bullshit artists.

Sickening.

Donald Trump promised the war in Iran would end with unconditional surrender. But he never said which country would do the surrendering.

This is wonderful, despite how fucked up Colbert's cancellation is.

Call Mark Zuckerberg before Congress and offer him a glass of water from the site, Erin Brockovich-style

Memorable and informative🧵:

Interior Department, which recently used $1 billion in taxpayer funds to bribe a foreign oil company into stopping development of cheap offshore wind in the US, had already decided on the deal before it had fabricated a legal justification for it electrek.co/2026/05/21/i...

Thank you for posting this!

Also the network of unaccountable “immigration” concentration camps & punitive detention is something that continues and what the fuck are we doing here people

A must-read thread 🧵

Useful context from @kenwhite.bsky.social about law enforcement tipping off favored media about imminent arrests etc..

“I don’t know. I’m not sure, you have to ask the various people involved...” www.ms.now/rachel-maddo...

solid report by cnn I don't think this is surprising, exactly, but it is a good accounting of base damage (on top of previously reported aircraft and radar losses etc). edition.cnn.com/2026/05/01/w...

All of this.

DOJ did not include Cole Allen's full manifesto in the complaint, taking out the bit that asked USSS why their security sucked. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Republicans finally reveal their healthcare plan.

A little background on who the Southern Poverty Law Center is and what kind of work they’ve been doing for decades makes it clear that DOJ’s indictment (which is of the center, not of any individuals) is vindictive & malicious, an attack on civil rights work itself. open.substack.com/pub/joycevan...

I had a great time talking with @jjwalsh.bsky.social . A few technical glitches on my end but the conversation continued.

I’m looking forward to joining Joy Walsh on her Seek Sustainable Japan podcast in a few minutes, at 9am JST. We’ll talk about minka and other related subjects. It's always a lively and fun discussion, please join if you can. Link for livestream and playback later: www.youtube.com/live/e-zR4yw...

Iran is being coy about whether it will participate in talks after signaling that it would not. Interpretable (at least) as either/both coercive bargaining and/or Iran-internal divisions & debates over government & policy.

I just read Alex Karp's 22 points, and what most stood out to me was the ignorance about many things.

In the same manifesto, Palantir's owners argued that we need a national military draft, that soft power is over, and that we were too hard on Germany and Japan after World War II. I don't think that company should be allowed to exist anymore.

Absolutely incredible. NASA Astronaut Reid Wiseman, who commanded Artemis II, took this footage from the far side of the Moon with his iPhone. Watch with sound on.

The best possible explanation is that Peter Thiel is a barrow wight

The FBI Director, the DC US Attorney, and the Secretary of Defense walk into a bar. Apparently like every day.

Hahahahahahahaha Oh my! Is this an opening para or is this an opening paragraph? This alone should end any normal human cabinet secretary.

PALLETS OF CASH TO IRAN?!?

Iran did not have a stockpile of highly enriched uranium until after Trump withdrew from the JCPOA because Iran was prohibited from doing so and under monitoring, Trump is the arsonist taking credit for putting out the fire he started.

I've been threatening to write this post. I hope to write another in which I consider specific nations.

Yaay!

This @nytimes.com piece on Iran's propaganda war is amazing, BUT it leaves out a very important detail: In the incident involving the U.S. F/A-18 Hornet was not faked. At least not entirely. The plane was ALMOST shot out of the sky.... A short🧵 www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

The simple answer is that it works as was shown in "House of Dynamite." A military officer accompanies the President at all times with the Presidential Satchel, also known as "the football." The football contains communications equipment and a book of options for nuclear attacks. 1/

Morally, legally, economically the war on Iran is disastrous and the disaster goes on for years no matter what happens now. But what cannot be overstated is that in pure national security terms it is also an unmitigated catastrophe.