Stranger Things is the bright spot in an unmitigated disaster area of a year. It warms this 80s nerd child’s heart. (And distracts from all the year end recaps that are making us relive the trauma of 2025)

Who’s Harold Angel?! Asking for a friend. Merry Christmas all you heathens!

There—and Saint Nicholas be thy speed!

Finally FINALLY cancelled the Paramount+ subscription. Sick of David Ellison’s cascading shitstorm of utter nonsense.

This administration would make Nixon blush.

Well, I know what the regime is up to here, but personally, there is really only one I want to see stripped of his citizenship and barred from ever returning. And if we could freeze his assets we’re at it. #wishfulthinking

Disband the mofos.

Today in The December Comfort Watches: Ferris Bueller's Day Off, in which I discuss why what specific day "The Day Off" is on the calendar doesn't actually matter, and why, beneath all the sparkle of being a Very Special Boy, Ferris is ordinary, and that's okay: whatever.scalzi.com/2025/12/12/t...

tfw you get an idea for a photography project, and your neighbor catches you coming home with a giant armful of cheap, sparkly, goofy Christmas decorations you just got for half off at Michael’s lol

I don’t need a Brick or a ridiculously expensive subscription app that turns off other apps I just want a little Pomodoro style widget that pops up with a ding that says “you’ve been doomscrolling for eleventynine minutes. Wouldn’t you like to do something else like go for a walk?”

I knew I shouldn’t have let iOS upgrade to Liquid Glass. Usability took a complete nose dive. Such as getting randomly stuck in the App Store so that the only way to get to home, the App Library or the open apps carousel is to do a hard restart. And even that was difficult to accomplish. *grumble*

Trump says Lisa Cook is unfit to be a Fed governor because she claimed two different properties as her primary residence on her mortgage applications. (Cook denies this.) Trump did the exact same thing on mortgage applications submitted a mere 7 weeks apart. www.propublica.org/article/trum...

These “unitary executive” people are reopening a 250 year old debate bout how this nation should be governed. Only without the debate.

TIL that there were Wolof speakers in General George Washington’s Continental Army at Valley Forge. As an erstwhile resident of West Africa with Senegal amongst my previous diplomatic portfolios, I am delighted.

The cats are hungry, so they come sit on me to ask for/wait for breakfast, not realizing that I can’t feed the cats because I have cats on my lap. They’ve created some kind of never ending loop.

It does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are 20 gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. — Thomas Jefferson

🎵 I threw the sandwich ... but I did not catch the felony 🎶

tfw you start your own photography business but the local photographic society tells you to submit your photos for competition in the Novice category.

You know who won’t be there to give Jamaica a hand now when they really need it? USAID. The United States doesn’t do that kind of thing anymore.

Happy Stock Market Crash Remembrance Day to all who celebrate!

NEW: The government does not track how often immigration agents grab citizens. So ProPublica did. We found more than 170 such incidents since the start of the second Trump administration. Our tally — almost certainly incomplete — includes nearly 20 children, two of whom have cancer.

The algorithms have decided I need to move to Maine and vote for Graham Platner.

The US is going to bailout Argentina with your tariff money. Let that sink in

Say, has our general met the enemy?

People are constantly asking me — what can I do? Here are five, practical next steps you can take to make a difference. https://youtu.be/8W-lVRQQGtI?feature=shared

Horses are often insecure. They don’t want to know who’s boss, they want to know who’s in charge of security.

Anyway: 1. Do not murder people 2. Do not praise the politics of hateful people That is all

Someone shot up my kid's school today, and our governor is paying tribute to a guy who thought that is an acceptable price to pay for having the Second Amendment. Jared Polis has failed Colorado.

24 years ago I was in Paris, on the phone with my mom in Pennsylvania trying to process the news that the twin towers “aren’t there anymore” and that if I needed to get home at that moment, I couldn’t because all air traffic had been indefinitely stopped.

I heard an interview this morning with a young man who considered Charlie Kirk a mentor and friend and who is just devastated today etc. the guy said Kirk was the kindest person (!) and that “people” really need to be more careful about the things they say. 🧵

Once again, I want to give Michel Martin a standing ovation for her interview this morning of Matt Schlapp and not letting him getting away with castigating NPR and perceived “enemies” of the right without acknowledging his, CPAC’s, and the right’s own role in inflammatory speech.

i’m not going to be lectured about political violence by people whose politics is violence

Just got home. I figure some of you might need a timeline cleanse at the moment.

Yea, dost thou jeer and flout me in the teeth?

Give not this rotten orange to your friend

@pbsnews.org The detentions outside courtrooms have sometimes led to scenes of families pleading to let their loved ones go and confrontations with officers. Watch the second part of our conversation with a photojournalist who spent weeks documenting arrests at federal facilities in Manhattan.

As another part of the Trump administration's mass deportation push, immigration enforcement officials have conducted arrests outside courtrooms as people show up for hearings. Here's part of our conversation with a photojournalist who documented arrests at federal facilities in Manhattan.

So. I saw an interview with a photojournalist who’s been documenting ICE detentions as they happen at a New York immigration court. He talked about how-in addition to being devastating for those detained and their families-these detentions are affecting the ICE officers. 🧵

OH GREAT NOW THE SWAMP IS WOKE www.iflscience.com/deep-in-virg...

Late last night I mapped crime rates for cities in OH, SC and WV to show how often they exceeded the rate in DC — where those states’ governors are sending National Guard troops to “combat crime.” www.pbump.net/o/more-peopl...

Is anyone following those goons around with loudspeakers playing the Star Wars Imperial March?

I must continue to insist that this is not a strong regime. It does not have the kind of pan-societal support needed to enforce Gleichshaltung. It has significant elite buy-in and a small popular coalition, but it is brittle and feeble and will collapse if pressed hard enough.

We can't forget Schoolhouse Rock.🗽 m.youtube.com/watch?v=OqvL...

This totally reminds me of smaller birds mobbing raptors. Like starlings ganging up on hawks. And it works in nature.

Not all heroes wear a cape. Some are wrapped in greased paper.

appeals court rules trump administration can divide by zero

I was never worried about driving in DC until now.

NEW: Nathan Albers once co-owned a company that schemed to hire and conceal undocumented workers. Now his company could make hundreds of millions from work on the nation's largest detention camp. “The irony is thick,” said a former DHS official.

I was gonna do a whole bunch of stuff but now there’s a cat asleep on my lap.

I have seen corruption boil and bubble, Till it o’errun the stew