From a Madrid trip journal entry: "Next to us was a family from Colorado Springs where a Fox News Dad was holding forth confidently and incorrectly in monologues about a variety of subjects: education, renewable energy, inflation, etc. while his family dutifully listened."

This essay includes the sentence "to be very clear, I do not mean 'dirtbag' in a fully pejorative sense." Which puts me in mind of the writing of @flotisserie.bsky.social, so I am tagging her.

Robert Garton, who served as Senate president pro tempore with five Hoosier governors, held that post for longer than anyone else in state history. indianacapitalchronicle.com/2026/05/11/r...

I think something that Will Stancil hasn't quite internalized about people's experience in the current economy but doesn't disprove his point is the sheer number of 'get rich quick' schemes that fell apart that people are not admitting to having participated in. They were nuts in 20-21.

Monroe County resident Lee Lawmaster posted "86" to the Facebook pages of Indiana officials. Then, an investigator from the Attorney General's office told him to "tone down the rhetoric" or face indictment. @weiss-a-woni.bsky.social Read more: www.ipm.org/news/2026-05...

The Lt. Governor attacked the performance of some public school band kids as being "demonic." Such rhetoric is dangerous and should not be countenanced.

Racehorse Receives Carrot Every Time He Wins $2 Million For Owner

I've only glanced at the report, but there is some fascinating stats already. Boys and girls are fairly comparable academically in 11th grade, but boys "fail to launch" senior year and into college. More women are going into "male coded" careers but fewer men doing the reverse.

"Is the Pope Catholic? We asked J.D. Vance, and the answer might surprise you." Has this one been done yet? @nytpitchbot.bsky.social

Both of the Republican election division leaders are resigning after the primary is over. Brad King has been there forever (and, prior to that had worked at the Legislative Services Agency where I got my start.) He basically just said that he's 68 years old and it's time.

orban defeated by a margin so large it put jair bolsonaro back in the hospital

😂

I don't remember seeing an image of Earth before that captures the (thin, fragile, tiny layer of) atmosphere so clearly. I mean, look at that.

I should never know what happened on Truth Social. Stop spreading that shit.

The horse op-ed is an instant classic. I can't tell you how much joy this piece gives me. It should be taught in every introductory writing class in no small part because the horse arguments are so compelling. "I have noticed that human children get to eat cake. But I am bigger than the children."

Judge kicks dispute over same-last-name candidate back to Indiana Election Commission indianacapitalchronicle.com/briefs/judge...

A Brief History of People Have Lost Their Sense of Humour 🧵

Just so you understand, this is as if you prepared for argument in front of a panel that included Cookie Monster, and Cookie Monster asked you a question about cookies, and you had not thought about cookies in advance.

Here is a picture of a baby otter for no good reason.

“Whatever in creation exists without my knowledge exists without my consent.” -J.R. “Bob” Dobbs

In my work, when someone is disingenuous, I get a special joy out of leveraging their pretexts to tell them to go pound sand. A form of petard hoisting, I suppose.

This is what the 2024 election was about. Not voting for Harris was a vote against Pax Americana. Of course, the New York Times & other media outlets didn't spend much time describing it this way. Mostly they told you Biden was old and whatever bullshit Trump was spouting that day.

This is quite something from Singapore's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Vivian Balakrishnan, in an interview with Reuters. The end of the post-war order, diagnosed in technocratic language. www.mfa.gov.sg/newsroom/pre...

Both we and the Iranians are going to find out the ground operation is about to begin because there will be a surge of bets placed in the prediction markets 15-20mins beforehand. I presume at this point news desks have a dedicated person watching for that?

Why the heck is the United States banning routers? Here is a 2,000-word explainer that should entertain and enrage you. www.theverge.com/tech/899906/...

This version by Hunter tells us better. www.unchartedblue.com/hell-is-the-... Hell is the George Bush International Airport www.nytimes.com/2026/03/24/u...

Indiana men’s basketball season in review: Sam Alexis #iubb Read: www.crimsonquarry.com/indiana-hoos...

Indiana men’s basketball season in review: Reed Bailey #iubb Read: www.crimsonquarry.com/indiana-hoos...

I'm launching a blog called "Unshaved Truths," after the magazine I published in 1994. Read about it here: open.substack.com/pub/unshaved...

Apropos of nothing, I ran across this brief history of malt liquor that was reasonably interesting.

'Big five' Indiana utilities defend rates in regulator questioning indianacapitalchronicle.com/2026/03/24/b...

We've been valorizing "street smarts" and "common sense" over book smarts for a long, long time. Used as a mechanism for people of indifferent learning to look down on the educated and hold them in contempt.

W.V. Quine wrote of a landlady who sees her rowdy, disreputable tenants as "good boys"... "while knowing full well that they gamble, curse, drink, drive to endanger and consort with loose women. What does she mean? Just that they are reasonably altruistic." This could be a prestige HBO drama....

What do Vance and Rubio's shoes have to do with the Iran War? Everything, you fool. It has everything to do with the war.

Sen. Paul pointed out that, not only did Brooks beat Sen. Sumner with a cane, Brooks had a croney - Laurence Keitt - pointing a gun at others to ensure no one would stop the assault. I'm happy to report that, while committing violence against our country, Keitt was killed by American soldiers.

Crazy crazy story. Times of Israel reporter ( English language Israeli news site ) gets escalating death threats to change story that’s at center of big polymarket bet. www.timesofisrael.com/gamblers-try...

Airline ticket prices are already rising, but an extended crisis in Iran could have bigger effects on the global travel industry. www.wired.com/story/higher...

"If I had some ham, I'd make a ham sandwich, if I had some bread"

Cool article on ancient graffiti in the Egyptian Valley of the Kings by visitors from India. Now I'm fascinated by Cikai Korran. "Why Korran wrote his name so frequently and tried to write it as high as he did is also unclear. 'It's weird, to be frank,' Schmid said in the conference presentation."

Braun declines to sign needle exchange extension

Good read. "When weapons no longer decide the fate of battles but the survival of civilization itself, people who view these contests through strictly military means may not be competent to make decisions about national — or civilizational — survival."

"Our medical system is an octopus riding a donkey riding a skateboard into a sadness quarry." (Not sure where I got that quote, but it showed up in my memories today.)

Wil Wheaton posted to his blog and I only just now got to reading it, (because…. waves at the general state of the world). You might also really enjoy and appreciate his “story behind the story” of this photo: Thank you, Wil. @wilwheaton.net wilwheaton.net/2026/02/seve...

Read a Civil War history book that had a few paragraphs on antebellum drinking patterns. It's like Tennyson said, "we are not now that strength which in old days moved earth and heaven."

for those of you who werent adults during iraq, its hard to overstate how much the media loves war porn. they salivate over pentagon spin briefings. they love stories about all the bombs and how supposedly infallible they are. they love the notion of the commander in chief, in the situation room etc

This is amazing. www.getyourfuckingmoneyback.com

The cut was off in the package of mini-submarine buns I've been using for my lunch this week. Instead of the cut being 25% or 50% of the way into the bun - or whatever is normal - it's like 5% up from the bottom. Which is just not a structurally sound base for my sandwich artistry.

This dude's focus combined with the reporter's desire to avoid anything substantive and just fill time with meaningless fluff makes for a great dance.

The Supreme Court: