This opening ceremony is even worse than I had hoped for

Sir Ian McKellen performing a monologue from Shakespeare’s Sir Thomas More on the Stephen Colbert show. Never have I heard this monologue performed with such a keen sense of prescience. Nor have I ever been in this exact historical moment.TY Sir Ian, for reaching us once again. #Pinks #ProudBlue

We gotta come up with a better system than “everything rests on whether these twelve billionnaires are nice”

An extraordinary opportunity, and so heartening to see this support from UCL-SSEES for fragile yet extremely valuable fields of scholarship!

If Jeff Bezos could afford to spend $75 million on the Melania movie & $500 million for a yacht to sail off to his $55 million wedding to give his wife a $5 million ring, please don't tell me he needed to fire one-third of the Washington Post staff. Democracy dies in oligarchy.

Jeff Bezos’s wealth has increased an average of $70 million every day of 2026, meaning that he could have offset The Post’s losses with what he’s made since Monday.

To the contrary, everyone with half a brain is making EXACTLY this point

Big news out of California. After years of study, the CA Law Revision Commission recommended a major rewrite of state antitrust law — explicitly instructing judges to break with weak federal standards & restore meaningful limits on monopoly power. The legislature often follows the CLRC's guidance.

February Sunday afternoon as it should Be. Spent a few hours out in the cold…

The problem is that clearly we are.

Cat got there first

Gift link: State Terror Has Arrived www.nytimes.com/2026/01/24/o...

#37

@nytimes.com putting the Jack Smith testimony in small print, well below the Oscar nominations gossip, and even below the tzatziki chicken salad. What the hell, it’s only devastating testimony that the U. S. president attempted to subvert our democracy

I'm moved to see Mark Carney take his inspiration from Václav Havel in his superb speech at Davos. Well worth reading the entire speech: www.cbc.ca/news/politic...

Gift link: One Year of Trump. The Time to Act Is Now, While We Still Can. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/18/o...

Less than 10 days to go! 🎓 Join us for our Graduate Open Evening 2026! Meet our academics, explore funding options, and discover our postgraduate degrees. Open to all. 📅 28 January 2026, 17:30 - 19:30 📍 UCL SSEES ➡️Register: www.ucl.ac.uk/arts-humanit...

President Trump is keeping proceeds from the first sale of Venezuelan oil in an offshore bank account based in Qatar, according to reporting from Semafor. The sale was worth $500 million. trib.al/ylz4Msu

“I’m the most peaceful person EVER! So give me a peace prize or I’ll punch you in the nose!” (Overheard in a playground.)

Hats off to whoever did this (and the beautiful model).

Gift link: They Were Ordinary Germans. We Are Ordinary Americans. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/15/o...

Excellent thread:

💥It’s official: Hungary’s parliamentary election will be held on April 12, just three months from now. Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz is trailing the opposition by 10–18 points, yet few believe he wouldn’t do whatever it takes to cling to power. Now he has backing from both Putin and Trump. A dangerous mix.

Amanda Gorman wrote this poem for Renee Good and that’s it for me tonight.

The destruction doesn't make for a photo-op like tearing down the East Wing of the White House or bulldozing the Rose Garden, but it's every bit as bad. Generations of American children learned to spell and count, learned the Preamble to the Constitution, from watching shows produced by the CPB.

People don’t mince words round where I live

Just broke the tip on my 36th pencil—THANK GOD I still have one more

Enough moaning—it’s #Caturday! Raise your hand if you think that’s a happy thing!

American morality has always been simple, and often mocked as simplistic. Simplicity was often a strength though. But how have we flipped so quickly from casting ourselves as the noble resisters against Darth Vaders and Pres. Snows to holding them up as role models? www.nytimes.com/2025/12/05/u...

Bongino saying the quiet--and cynical--part out loud. In other words: I was making money shoveling conspiracy bullshit without having any facts and conning my audience to make a buck. After I leave the FBI, I will get back to that. What a confession.

Didn’t realize till just now how much my life has been missing early-Modern citrus fruits

Overheard in pub in central Prague: two Americans explaining to a very patient waiter that “We’ve never been to Czechoslovakia before”

“Given that we are all, every day, imbibing madness, how do we guard our souls?” Trump’s Boat Strikes Corrode America’s Soul www.nytimes.com/2025/12/05/o...

Tom Stoppard, Award-Winning Playwright of Witty Drama, Dies at 88 www.nytimes.com/2025/11/29/t...

Happy There Is A Circulatory System Walking Through The Kitchen Day to all who celebrate.

Oh, goodie.

It’s those little things… like that the bend in Maiselová is placed not BETWEEN buildings but 1/3 of the way into one building…. <sigh> #PragueIsBeautiful

Trump’s “campaign of summarily killing people”

Oh my god Waves of destruction, just for the sake of destruction.

Was this headline written at gunpoint, @nytimes.com ? Dangerously close to “Dear Leader” rhetoric… Watch it.

Can anyone enlighten as to why Qatar needs an air base in Idaho? (Serious question.)

How did they manage to find three?

Surprise, surprise

Z Holešovké lávky

Superb analysis:

We’ve all done it at some point

Dr. Jane Goodall filmed an interview with Netflix in March 2025 that she understood would only be released after her death.