1. There are LOTS of blatantly anti-Catholic Chick tracts - I remember seeing these as a kid in Georgia in the mid-90s, and my parents were atheists/agnostics. 2. If you don’t know what a Chick tract is, you may be very sheltered from the reality of how insane most American evangelicals are.

It always strikes me as weird that you're not supposed to speak ill of the dead, but our libel laws are structured in such a way that you can't speak honestly about people until after they have passed. Also, it's good to be reminded to live your life so that people will not celebrate your passing.

this, for me, is the defining Lindsey Graham statement

Despite a paper trail proving otherwise, Unbound’s administrators claimed they still owned the rights to Effin’ Birds and threatened to sue Penguin Random House if PRH paid me any royalties for my ongoing book sales. Wasn’t resolved until two months ago. They tried to bankrupt me out of spite.

The most successful political propaganda in our time was convincing millions of people that caring for others and the planet was somehow a threat to America.

If Jared Kushner paid €110m to buy an island in Albania that has no fresh water from a guy who did not own it, it would help explain why his negotiations with Iran on behalf of the US have not been entirely successful

"how were people writing 10 page papers before AI???" we were smarter than you. you could've been smart, too. but you sold your brain for nothing

Forgive me, but: Jesus H. Christ. You know, "false" would fit the headline space that is ridiculously wasted on "inaccurate."

This alone is reason enough to ban data centers permanently. And it doesn’t even account for increased energy costs, water usage, air pollution, water pollution, noise, property values, etc. We could be building solar farms over every parking lot in the country. Instead, the billionaires get these.

A contractor building Meta's data center flushed its "closed-loop" cooling system straight into Cheyenne's sewer. It carried a bacterium and knocked the city's water-reuse system offline for months. They sell these as sealed systems that barely touch the water. This one poisoned a city's.

The world would be a better place if more people read books

Ahead of England v Norway in the World Cup, enjoy this classic from my old pal Patrick Kidd in The Times

Not the use of the word "detained" here to make it appear as though the settlers have some legal capacity to be doing this. If i ran up on a US Rep with a rifle and prevented them from leaving it would be, correctly, described as kidnapping; and doing so with political ends would be terrorism.

At some point we are going to have to reckon with what percentage of the Thought Leadership we get from this class of people is just drug addiction. Either a lot of credulous reporters have never listened to someone tooted out of their mind go on a monologue or they're afraid to call it out.

This kind of thing, ICE killing a different person from the one they were searching for, wouldn’t happen if they’d just stop killing people.

“That is a lie." This is how one of the men who were in the van with Lorenzo Salgado Araujo -- who was killed by immigration agents in Houston -- characterizes ICE's account of how the tragedy took place. His two companions back him up, via their attorney. Gift link: wapo.st/4ydn1Ux

ICE claims that Araujo drove into one of their SUVs with his van and then tried to run over an agent. There were no marks on the van and KHOU11's Jeremy Rogalski found surveillance footage showing ICE chasing Araujo and cutting him off. Renee Good all over again.

There's only one kind of affirmative action program that conservatives love, and it's their own crusade to prop up their unpopular ideas and force them on college students. Massive funding, entire programs devoted to the cause, even mandated courses now. And it's still not working.

The complete elimination of Meta would yield unambiguous, far reaching benefits for global society.

Wow — so not only is @MarshaBlackburn refusing to debate in the Republican primary for governor, she’s 🤥 lying that debates/forums have actually happened. Incredible. How are Republican voters ok with this?

the final reckoning between AI hype and reality is upon us. buckle up.

Serious question: Does the president not know what’s in the deal he made with Iran? There are no nuclear concessions in the MOU Trump signed. He is a serial liar and would overstate any gains, but on top of that, there’s a live possibility Vance/Kushner/Witkoff lied to him that they got side deals.

From the article… “You don't need to buy or use these invasive technologies, and you can reject them. Friends don't let friends wear pervert glasses.” Amen!

Absolutely wild. They desperately want this to go away. It won’t.

When I was a kid during the late Cold War, Birchers were a synonym for total political crazy, the epitome of what the GOP had banished from their party to regain credibility with the mainstream. They were just WAY outside the Overton Window. Now these lunatics are running the US government.

A man who publicly was doing something which, when done wrong, can cause graft-vs-host disease, an autoimmune disease which can attack, among other things, your GI tract, now has an autoimmune disease which is attacking his GI tract. What a coincidence.

His name was Robert Powell. He was 68 years old and lived in Nashville.

It's mandatory, but it's also a pass-fail course whose grade isn't factored into students' overall GPA. Which means Iowa undergrads have a chance to troll the shit out of this course.

Again, AI is a mediocre white man talent simulator and laziness enabler.

Good to know!

Remember when Republicans styled themselves as the party of limited government? Anyway. Fresh off their success in securing investigations of teenage girls' genitals for JV volleyball hames, they're now looking to make visiting women submit to pregnancy tests or, you know, maybe sterilization.

This alone should be a decade-defining political scandal resulting in prison sentences.

I cannot believe a few guys making bets on a prediction market are driving some news coverage at CNN and CNBC. It’s clearly info slop, not news. This piece by @atrupar.com & @juddlegum.bsky.social reveals how truly bad it is & how viewers are being misled. Yikes. open.substack.com/pub/aaronrup...

Reminder that years ago it was found out that the FBI straight up made up a whole bunch of fake forensic sciences, plural. People have gone to jail and been executed due to literally pseudoscience. Hair forensics, for instance, is totally nonsense. They admitted it. slate.com/news-and-pol...

First measles, then algae, then heat, then storms. Is it going to take frogs and locusts before people get a clue ?

Today we celebrate the PDFing of "Declaration FINAL v3 USE THIS ONE - SIGNED.docx" (Jefferson's draft was heavily edited by the Committee, then again by Congress, and he was big mad about it.)

they are not afraid of him being a bad mayor, they are afraid of him being a good mayor

@thetnholler.bsky.social Well Marsha deigned to appear to the plebes at the Farragut Fourth of July parade. She must be running a bit scared.

Kylian Mbappé #WorldCup

guys there's 30-50 feral babies on a hospital ship in my backyard

Extremely well played Cabo Verde! Thanks for the most entertaining & exciting game this Wold Cup.

Expecting Egypt to be breaking that game down minute by minute.

I don't think any American--regardless of party, despite fondness for aviation (which I share)--would enjoy being under the nonstop low-altitude, high-speed, incredible-volume of the Caligula overflights of our nation's capital right now. It feels and sounds like being under aerial attack.

By speaking out, this Major has likely relinquished his right to millions of dollars of future benefits and entitlements of his service. Health insurance, pension, etc. When Hegseth was threatening Mark Kelly an other veteran members of Congress, that’s what he was after. Not a small show of courage

“Trump is caught between inserting himself into America’s foundational story and draining as much cash out of the system as possible to the point of death, like a cross between Forrest Gump’s Evil Twin and Nosferatu.”

I'll summarize this: Mamdani asked NYers to keep air conditioning at 78 degrees. A wave criticism hit online. A MSNBC broadcast pointed out the US Department of Energy recommends that 78 degree figure. Immediately after, the US Department of Energy deleted 6,000 web pages related to energy saving.

Early in Trump's first term, David Frum wrote that every time Trump and MAGA say "the deep state" you should hear "rule of law," then it'll make more sense. That stuck with me. And I thought of it again as an unqualified and unconfirmed director of national intelligence conducts political purges.

Elon had this community note removed as of this morning