News, 2026-07-07 1. Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was shot & killed by ICE-holes in Houston during a "traffic stop." ICE claims that he drove at him & that they shot him in self-defense. The next time they tell the truth about an incident like that will be the first.

Daily Bandle (1420): He doesn't have Train - "Drive By" in the autocomplete but so help me the actual correct answer is basically the same song as "Drive By."

News, 2026-07-06 (part 2) 1. Black teenager Nolan Wells made a July 4 boat trip to Horn Island, about 10 miles south of the Mississippi coast, with 3 white "friends" who came home without him (but with his phone). Rescuers called off the search after finding Wells's body.

ruptura de la hidratación

News, 2026-07-06 1. Marco Rubio told Congress that "no children are dying on my watch," in reference to the gutting of US AID. As Ashley Renee points out, both Boston University (800,000 deaths tallied to date) and The Lancet (14 million projected by 2030) beg to differ.

Cristiano Ronaldo is the Alex Rodriguez of his sport. Discuss.

Meijer is the name of the doctor. The monster's name is Thrifty Acres

July 5 fireworks?!? On the ten thousand theory (xkcd 1053), maybe today one of you will learn about sabr.org/gamesproj/ga... for the first time.

News, 2026-07-04 1. Because of severe thunderstorms, people attending the Freedom 250 Salute to America had to take shelter in, among other places, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, as well as the IRS building.

I'll tag in @bidetofevil.wtf : biggest sports moments on Canadian soil? Presumably the NHL accounts for some. Joe Carter HR is up there, as is 2025 WS Game 7

News, 2026-07-02 "No President in History has ended the same war so many times. Our Dear Leader has ended the war with Iran at least 38 times by CNN's count" -Hunter Biden

World Cups as a milestone for passage of time: I write Oompa Loompa verses for each team eliminated in the knockout stage (they're on my profile here), something I started to do in 2022. This is interesting in hindsight because of what our kids have been up to in between.

News, 2026-06-30, but first my opinion of many recent opinions: Most of today's SCOTUS is unworthy of respect, at all, much less the respect the institution once earned. Even if you agreed with some or most of the absurd legal conclusions, what I find telling are the factual howlers.

The Fodgather

Die Mannschaft ist tot. F in replies youtu.be/4GBV-VD3DYs?...

News, 2026-06-29 "Subordinates who exercise the President's power are subject to removal by him" - some of the most cursed words John Roberts has ever written (which is a high bar!). Details in second item.

Oompa loompa doompety doo I've got a perfect puzzle for you Oompa loompa doompety dee If you are wise you will listen to me Go tell your Mama there is no more Joy Unless you're a Canadian girl or a boy You beat Korea but that's all she wrote Did you think there'd be another note Bafana mañana

I dunno man, $1.7 billion dollars would pay for a lot of good roads & great teachers. Not trying to beef with a random stranger (but why Bluesky thought I cared about his opinion...) but if he wants to simp for billionaires he could just cut them a check directly.

Scotland can still advance if Mike Pence has the courage

the expanded world cup has finally given soccer what america truly loves: overly complicated interdivisional tiebreakers for wild-card spots

World Cup coincidence: Let me tell you about a bracket that played its group stage games on 2026-06-15 (Monday), 2026-06-21 (Sunday), and 2026-06-26 (Friday), a bracket with a UEFA powerhouse (FIFA top 10 entering the stage), two mid-tier teams, and a (relative) doormat.

World Cup sorting who's in/out starts with Croatia * non-loss: CRO in, IRN needs COD non-win or ALG/AUT non-draw, KOR needs both, SCO out * loss by 1 or 2: IRN in, KOR needs the "or" above, CRO both, SCO out * CRO loss by 3+: IRN in, KOR needs the "or", SCO both, CRO out

News, 2026-06-27 1. "You have to respect the president. If you don't respect the president, you’re going to have a problem" -rich words from the man who got to the White House by doing the exact opposite of that. (To be fair, "Let's go Brandon" was his supporters as opposed to himself.)

News, 2026-06-26 1. Stephen Miller, who claimed today that "America's doors are fully closed to asylum seekers," was (separately) the source of the Department of Justice memo urging states to put disabled people into institutions instead of providing community care.

Geopolitical mayhem: Iran is on the World Cup bubble (needs Congo DR to not-win, Croatia to lose, OR Algeria-Austria to be a non-draw) and the reason for it is that Iraq was SO BAD today that Senegal has the better goal differential. So IRQ screwing over IRN, a tale we've heard before (both ways)

The biggest assholes (based on what the players do on the field) and biggest assholes (based on what that nation's government/regime does) were eliminated within minutes of each other just now.

Fun preference test. Match A: UEFA teams, both undefeated w/superstars in their prime, playing for better elimination seed. Match B: CAF team that needs a win (the more goals the better) & help, vs. AFC team playing for pride. I choose Match B every time, even though (because?) it isn't pretty.

News, 2026-06-25, day of bad court thingies 1. In Mullin v. Doe, SCOTUS held that the regime can end Temporary Protected Status for people from specific countries. More precisely, there can be no judicial review of TPS decisions partly because there can be no plausible showing of racial animus.

Question for Korean friends (context: a decisive Japan win today would make Korea more likely to reach World Cup top 32). On a scale from "why wouldn't I?" to "no way," how fine are you with rooting for Japan today? I support the Red Devils but I'm also very white, so it's not my place to say.

News, 2026-06-24 (part 2) 1. ICE-holes went to a Syracuse polling place, *on election day*, to demand that a poll volunteer take down a six-month-old Instagram post in which she identified (as the Minneapolis Star-Tribune had already ID'd) Jonathan Ross as the murderer of Renée Good.

Every hometown's got the ominous megastructure. What's yours? (P.S. "Here's some money. Go see a Star War")

News, 2026-06-24 1. An affordable housing bill with large, bipartisan majorities, but at the last minute our president canceled the signing ceremony. The bill will take effect in 10 days even without his signature (unless he vetoes it).

The Telemundo C-E-G-C highlight chime is to World Cup 2006 as the ESPN D, B-C-D G-F, E was to baseball fans of the 1990s through 2010s.

*record scratch* *freeze frame* Yup. That's me. You're probably wondering how I ended up in this situation.

World Cup: The final time slot of group stage play may involve two teams in a 3-for-2 situation, where the teams playing have every incentive to avoid a loss but almost no incentive to win. I wonder if (checks notes) Algeria & Austria have faced a similar situation before.

maybe the real earthquake were the notifications we read on the way

Algeria, hosed by the 1982 "Disgrace of Gijón," will play Austria (one of that game's teams!) in the final World Cup group play time slot. It is highly likely that both teams will know they both advance on a draw, but Algeria (perhaps also Austria) face risk of elimination on a loss. Read on!

News, 2026-06-23 1. U.S. District Judge Casey Pitts held today that ICE-holes can no longer make courthouse arrests. Previously they would target people *playing by the rules*, kidnapping them from the hallway, exactly what Judge Hannah Dugan was put away for trying to prevent.

Each World Cup needs to have an "award" for most awesomely egregious miss. www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fkg...

It was gonna be one nil, until Kane shot high England 'bout to have a thrill, but then Kane shot high Group L is still messed up and I know why Because Kane shot high, because Kane shot high, because Kane shot high

News, 2026-06-22 (first several items today via Democracy Docket's daily newsletter) 1. U.S. District Judge Stephanie Gallagher threw out the Department of Justice lawsuit seeking Maryland's full, unredacted voter registration list. DOJ is now 0-for-9 on such suits.

la voz del búho verde: "elige la palabra que significa 'descansar'"

Veinfeld

News, 2026-06-21 1. The Islamic Republic (Iranian regime) closed the Strait of Hormuz again. Our president made the empty (for now) threat that if Iran did so, they would no longer have a country as we know it. Iranian negotiators walked away in protest.

Tonight I learned of repugnant misinfo (you can guess how I learned) claiming that some soccer players got huge payments to switch their nationality & represent a different country at the World Cup. Amazing how much misinfo is specifically racist or anti-foreigner. But to set the record straight:

Bay Area people: I strongly recommend Woodminster's production of Jekyll & Hyde! I'm not a big fan of the book, but the musical is surprisingly good.

The official social media account of a U.S. federal agency, the Department of Homeland Security, used a picture of three USMNT players as the framing device for fascist propaganda. They specifically stole the "one X, one Y, one Z" construction of an infamous nazi slogan.

L to R: Chris Richards: biracial kid from Alabama who speaks about black history and has tattoos of MLK, Ali, and Obama Sergiño Dest: Dutch-Surinamese, emigrated to Brooklyn as a kid, naturalized Fola Balogun: born in Brooklyn to vacationing parents, raised in UK but CHOOSES to play for USA