"Everness" by Jorge Luis Borges:

Students and staff at Trinity College Dublin have produced the world's first film in the ancient - and dead - Sumerian language

Phernḗ is the Ancient Greek word for a dowry, derived from the common verb phérein 'to bring', as it's what a wife brought with her. Parápherna were a wife's property separate from a dowry. This term was adopted into Latin, and from the Latin adjective paraphernālis, English gets 'paraphernalia'.

When I saw "SCOTUS AGREES TO REVIEW TRUMP ORDER RESTRICTING BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP" my first thought was, Who granted cert? Two options: (a) Four people on SCOTUS are so insane they can't read the 14th amendment. (b) Four people on SCOTUS want to make the rest say Trump is insane. I wonder which.

Anyone writing Project 2029 for the democrats must realize there are no norms & no conventions post-Trump. So, if the democrats have 50 votes in the senate, on day one the next president needs to nominate 4 democrats to SCOTUS. And they announce all the Roberts precedents they will no longer uphold.

For the astronomers: I found an accretion disk diagram cheese. A quesar.

Share a TV series you've watched from beginning to end more than once.

Right. Here's my big pitch: Muppet James Bond James Bond in…A Heart-Felt Goodbye Dominic Cooper as Bond Kermit M Frog Mrs Moneypiggy Beaker & Dr Bunsen HoneyQ The agents of G.O.N.Z.O. want to kidnap the world's chickens. MI5 has a mole (Rizzo the Rat). An agent is undercover as a chef in Sweden.

Tom Gauld continues to document my life

I can almost already hear Larry Summers (and other conservative economists) admiring Jeffrey Epstein for creating a Pareto-optimal distribution of adolescent sexuality.

A tale I must tell today on my late mother, and in doing so, I mean no actual disrespect to the Cheney family, grieving as they are for the actual loss of their loved one. The humor that follows is that of the Simon family's dark and dystropic sense of humor and so, an apology in advance. However...

Who robbed the Louvre right answers only

He also invented “major question” doctrine which bans Biden from doing things clearly authorized by law but apparently allows Trump to eliminate a congressionally-mandated agency.

it makes me incandescently furious that roberts invented the idea of banning coercive conditions on funding to kill medicaid expansion and refuses to do a single thing about the fact that the trump administration's entire deal is "coercive conditions on funding"

the modern republican coalition is made up of people who are sure that any supposed connection between fuck around and find out is a fabrication of libs and pointy headed elites and the deep state.

1) you can just tell these people to fuck off. 2) work strategically to arrange things so you will continue to be able to just tell these people to fuck off despite the costs they will try to impose on you for doing so. 3) in any case, just tell them to fuck off.

Age yourself with a film you saw in a cinema as a kid.

who's your favorite jedi? wrong answer only

How do you know when you live under a corrupt authoritarian regime? When the government punishes a foreign country for allowing a new business model the shows that businesses run by favored local kleptocrats are old-fashioned, corrupt, inefficient and wasteful monopolies. archive.is/eZbWu

When Trump deploys troops to US cities and orders them to shoot demonstrators — as he will — the fate of the US depends on whether the Trump regime’s perceived legitimacy is like the Chinese Communist Party in 1989, or like Nicolae Ceaușescu in 1989.

The president just gathered the highest ranking officers in the military to tell them that he may order them to kill American citizens -- and that they better follow his orders. All in response to a series of crises that have no basis in reality. I don't know how to yell any louder.

War ravaged Portland

Director Comey, still think it was a smart move to October Surprise Hillary a few days before the 2016 election? For the nation? For yourself? Look, It's shameful for Trump's morons to carry out a nakedly political prosecution. But the Schadenfreude burns like a Bessemer converter.

as I wasn't familiar with this image:

“Whoever designed the human visual system has a lot to answer for. Maybe not as much as the knee team, or the lower back group, but a lot.” - @kjhealy.co , making me shoot my afternoon coffee out my nose.

Antifa terrorist

Since there's no organization called Antifa - and the massive publicity is just sitting right there for the taking - I want to immediately create a 501(c)(3) called "Antifa" and start running bake sales to buy books for elementary school libraries.

yes, people really seem to be going back and forth from "it's not just being poor makes you racist" to "economic policies are irrelevant to the development of the far right". It's such a massive motte-and-bailey that it ought to have a shop selling Historic Wales tea towels.

I've repeated this quote before, but Stanley Rosen is reputed to have once said in a grad seminar at BU: "You liberal grad students think postmodernism is cute, but just wait until the right gets a hold of it."

I guess we have our Reichstag Fire.

Apparently there'll be a gov shutdown at the end of the month, & so the Dems make a deal with Trump & the GOP to stop it. But I don't understand why anyone might think EITHER (1) the GOP are willing to bind Trump, OR (2) Trump will keep a unsecured deal. To me, believing (1) & (2) seems like lunacy.

A doctor I trust more than RFK Jr.

This fucking country. Sure, go ahead, put people in a concentration camp, but only as long as it passes environmental standards first. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/21/u...

Terence Stamp at the Pearly Gates: www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHKY...

My favorite doctor and companion

Kennedy Curse Sure Taking Its Sweet Time With RFK Jr.

If we're doing the next census in 2026, why can't we also have the next presidential election in 2026?

those damned outdoor pigs can't keep getting away with this

If you put the DOGE guys on a desert island where the only way out was to say the magic words “I’m not sure what the answer is, let me consult someone who has worked on this problem for a long time” they would all starve to death

There have been a lot of terrible days in the last year, but August 1 stands out for how clarifying it was in its shitiness.

The annoying spam texts destroying the Democratic brand: $678M raised through those spam tactics $282M to one consulting firm: Mothership Strategies. $11M to actual campaigns (1.6%) The party isn’t just treating donors like marks—it’s being fleeced itself yet continues to back Mothership.

Lughnasadh sona daoibh go léir! (To those who celebrate)

How long is it until the Trump administration starts airbrushing un-people out of official pictures? www.washingtonpost.com/entertainmen...

Walking in Cambridge, I saw someone wearing this t-shirt (1/5):

Weird that he would rename it that. gulfof.mapquest.com?name=Epstein