Russia killed Alexei Navalny with frog toxin, UK and allies say

In the all important category of "their dance made me cry," Canada's Gilles/Poirier way above the rest of the field, whatever the technical scores say. #milanocortina2026

"You've got to be taught, before it's too late, before you are six or seven or eight, to hate all the people your relatives hate. You've got to be carefully taught." - Oscar Hammerstein II, 1949.

Kaori Sakamoto skating to Edith Piaf has healed my soul. An absolute goddess we are lucky to share the planet with.

the magic of the Muppets is that there are two fourth walls. they constantly break the one that reminds the audience they are performers. they NEVER break the one that reminds the audience they are puppets. this dynamic is the key to their entire comedy style

Winter Olympics also do the artistic elements of some sports better. All figure skaters skate to music and are scored for both technical and creative elements. In gymnastics floor routines in the summer games, by contrast, only the women tumble to music and get marked for their artistry.

Milano-Cortina: excellent opening ceremony overall but particularly stunning for its dance segments, which were the best I can remember. Hivemind, is there a list of the choreographers?

My brain read this passage aloud to me in the tone of voice of Bilbo Baggins trading riddles with Gollum in the cave, for some reason.

In 2022, I proposed a course @uofgsocsci.bsky.social on the politics of pop culture in which polisci undergrads would make art in lieu of a final exam. Tonight I saw a former student on that course, still an undergrad, smash the lead role on a semi-professional stage.

Ian McKellen performs “The Strangers’ Case” speech from “Sir Thomas More” on Colbert.

Meanwhile Pedro Sanchez, governing without a majority for the best part of a decade, is still there, nailing his colours to the mast www.nytimes.com/2026/02/04/o...

If you teach young people, you know that many 90s trends are back. But I almost didn't believe the person who told me this is a debut video from a *new* band, so much does it sound (in a good way) like the guitar band music of my own youth. www.youtube.com/watch?v=cErA...

Now: Bruce Springsteen sings “Streets of Minneapolis” in Minneapolis

I was invited to give a talk in the community last night on Trump's second-term foreign policy. I thought I'd share my slides and bullet points here too.

Political science 2026: just because something sounds plausible doesn’t mean you don’t need a quasi-experimental identification strategy Actual politics 2026: a nurse with a phone is a domestic terrorist

Look at it, it's got anxiety

the most critical praxis here is to call Trump a humongous bitch ( i have a phd so this is real praxis )

The UK very noticeable in its absence here...

I just finished a three-year term as an editor at an international relations journal. I began at the start of the LLM era but ended right in the middle of it. Our volume of submissions tripled and our desk reject rate rose to 75%. I have some thoughts. open.substack.com/pub/hegemon/...

Late to this display of remarkable (because too rare) moral and political clarity from Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey. Telling ICE to "get the fuck out" of our communities may not result in them doing so, but it matters that leaders do not normalize this reign of terror. www.pbs.org/newshour/nat...

@chrislhayes.bsky.social: “A 37-year-old American citizen, the mother of a young child is dead tonight. She was shot in the face by an agent of the federal government, and that government has spent the day telling despicable lies about her.”

Better yet, disestablish all of DHS, and undo the nightmarish idiocies that we created in a panic 25 years ago. Reestablish the INS, get rid of ODNI, fix the damage from the Patriot Act, etc.

2025 was a terrible, depressingly relevant year to be a scholar of technology and corporate power. Some of us tried to make sense of WTF happened here (free to read): doi.org/10.1017/S026...

New Interview: www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a...

Not for the first time, where other European leaders wring their hands over Trump, Spain’s Sánchez draws a line. A stance that is only looking more sensible (more *realistic*) as time goes on.

The reason you go scorched-earth on this is the same reason we should have gone scorched-earth on impoundment; you can't stop it from happening, but you absolutely need to stop it from becoming a normal part of politics. You have to draw a line.

Indeed. Trump is an imperialist. This is a return to the spheres of imperial influence world order of 100 years ago. Russia/China can do whatever in Europe/Asia so long as US is allowed to terrorize the Americas. And that world order caused two world wars before we replaced it w/ the rule of law. 😬

Lost Hal Steinbrenner's vote when he said NYers shouldn't ask for little and expect less.

There should be more swearing at swearing in ceremonies. Just let loose with a string of obscenities and afterwards say you misunderstood the concept.

Absolute top auntie vibes from Mira Nair, taking pictures from the inauguration stage just in case *all the TV cameras* do not capture her beta at the right angle.

Bernie Wagenblast, best known as the “please stand away from the closing doors” voice is the announcer for Mamdani’s inauguration.

Did nobody tell these people the talking teapots and candlesticks in Beauty and the Beast are cursed?!

Wisdom from the old man

2025 was a terrible, depressingly relevant year to be a scholar of technology and corporate power. Some of us tried to make sense of WTF happened here (free to read): doi.org/10.1017/S026...

This is the best new game I have played in the last decade. I am looking forward to playing some more over the next week. You should buy it for everyone you love.

Irony is even more for cowards than subtext. Christmas belongs to the earnest.

What is "oligarchic sovereignty" and can it explain the tech bro seizure of the US government and its effects on the world? I discuss with some very thoughtful colleagues here: cup.org/3KZzRly Free to read as a Christmas gift to you all:

really cannot be emphasized enough that bari weiss has literally never done journalism. i don’t mean that in the pejorative sense. i mean that in the “has never performed the job she was hired to do” sense

"So I sing for you, though you can't hear me, when I get through" is a lyric that gets me in the guts every time, as a person whose family is often (as this year) dispersed on three continents at Christmas.

Academics: has anybody had a journal reject a paper *after* it cleared the editor's desk to go out for peer review, on the basis that they couldn't find willing reviewers? I've had desk rejections and rejections after peer review, but this is a new hybrid type I was not aware was even allowed. 🤔

A service called Primo used by many, maybe most, university libraries is responsible for these fake links. Academic librarians on here, who has authority for licensing Primo on behalf of institutions, and how can we put collective pressure on them to fix this?

*taps the sign* This is "whiteness as property" at work. It turns any attempt to correct for disparity into theft. eprints.gla.ac.uk/253124/1/253...

Now this is an abstract.

- People did not care about online radicalization when it mostly harmed women. - People would not vote for a woman (2x) to stop extremists winning. - People would not take seriously a woman-led movement to resist extremism. The whole ballgame is that people really hate women.

This is doubly horrifying both because of the loss of life and because *Australia has gun laws*. That a global metastatic epidemic of hate has broken through them is a such a dire warning for the world.

This is a block from where I used to live. Just utterly heartbroken and enraged. Stay safe Providence family, and gun control right fucking now.

When I was 8 my dad gave me Animal Farm to read and told me it was a story about farm animals. After I finished, he explained its real meaning. I promptly went to school and excitedly told the other kids all about Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin...and my parents got a call from the principal.

The Intermarché Christmas ad is as adorable as everyone says, but they have missed a trick by not publishing an accompanying quiche recipe on their website. www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLER...