BREAKING: The National Institutes of Health has agreed to evaluate grant applications that were wrongfully frozen due to the Trump administration’s ideological purge of biomedical research.

Y’all ever walk into a public restroom and immediately whisper “Jesus Christ”

I know scheduling posts is a thing but I’m still marveling at the idea of him hunched over a glowing laptop screen to hit publish on this take at 3:02 am

I have been lured into the world of international espionage, only partially against my will

I wrote lots of things this year, first for Splinter and then my newsletter. Some were okay. I just wanted to highlight a few of the headlines I was sorta proud of: UN Report: No One Reads UN Reports If Anyone Can Put a Functioning Nuclear Reactor On the Moon, It Is the Terrified-of-the-Subway Man

I find the "most people expect cancer to be cured" fascinating, given that this poll was conducted just a few months after one of the most famous cautionary tales in science journalism was published

I have once again made some predictions

There is impossible wonder in the forests of city state Singapore. I find indescribable magic in the shiny eyes of this beautiful, peaceful Sunda Colugo.

The deleted post hours

Dylan Harper, who has very quickly become one of my favorite young players, just did something extremely rude #NBAsky

And credit where due this explainer is really helpful if you are trying to talk to people. By @davelevitan.bsky.social www.technologyreview.com/2025/10/30/1...

Lots of things to fix out there but a decent argument that a real fix (if such a thing existed) for what can reasonably be called “elite impunity” would cascade out fixes for like 90 percent of the rest of it

Since I posted this I also really liked The Exterminating Angel, Man On Wire, Brighton Rock, and, yes, I finally watched It’s A Wonderful Life for the first time. I get it; pretty great.

I know some of them were a bit worried about it but in the end the pardon stuff is maybe the clearest possible example of "the Framers didn't really see someone this corrupt coming"

Oklahoma City is 0-3 against the Spurs and 26-2 against the rest of the NBA #NBAsky

My dog and two cats love to throw up on the floor and they represent 60% of the household. As a leader I can't just ignore public opinion so I also throw up on the floor sometimes to stay popular

Dying between Christmas and new years shouldn’t count

“Would you like me to find you a fucking box?”

There will be case studies in "how brains get cooked" about him

I have come to savor the specific feeling of logging on and not understanding what a bunch of people are arguing about. Serene.

Santa and the Grinch have returned to the shadow realm, where they will murder each other with rusted knives and axes repeatedly until the next Christmas season dawns once more

Imagine you’ve been waiting for years and it’s finally your turn to carve the roast beast and then they let the fucking psycho who’s been terrorizing your village do it instead.

Love to read screenshots of the worst person in the world’s posts on the worst social media platform in the world on Christmas

john waters' 1995 christmas card with steve buscemi as him

Merry Christmas, everyone

They said the perfect double feature didn’t exist

Bari Weiss’ two accomplishments so far are hosting an interview that she desperately wanted people to watch (but they didn’t) and trying to spike a news story that she desperately wanted nobody to watch (but they did)

Merry Christmas, everyone

So I have the cover story in next month's TNR. I interviewed the heads of police groups; immigration defense attorneys, ex-judges and ex-prosecutors; former DOJ and DHS officials, and the former head of Border Patrol. They're all horrified at what we've seen, and they all fear what's coming.

It’s weird how I generally don’t want anyone to be fired from their job but there is a small collection of extremely vigorous exceptions

Someone just hit a $10,000 half court shot during a timeout at the Thunder-Spurs game, genuinely one of the most exciting things in sports #NBAsky

I hate when virtually every very one of my carefully selected crew of criminal specialists are harboring dangerous secrets

Might have said this before but since latest Champion of Champions is out, my Taskmaster prediction is that they will do five more series, then a Champion of Champion of Champions, then it’s over.

Pollution dropping by that much likely means a whole bunch of people are alive who otherwise wouldn’t be. Incredible stuff.

"It is logically impossible to simultaneously be evil, corrupt, and incompetent" is an absolutely amazing take to have in the year of 2025

Thank you for the happy holidays email, brand I bought one thing from in 2013 and thought was long defunct

Check out the Kavanaugh FN 4; I think it's pretty clear that the Kavanaugh Stop thing has gotten to him:

Anyone else just hear this lyric banging around their heads all the time these days

Good evening

Adams gonna leave a frankly impossible scavenger hunt for Mamdani at Gracie Mansion, little notes stuffed into tea kettles reading things like “when you turn left at the right moment, there you are” and conspicuously upside-down paintings indicating who-knows-what.

“We can’t tell people about the torture until the torturers tell us it’s fine” is a hell of an argument

okay it's possible the flow of "you did the right thing, Bari" messages has slowed somewhat

well this didn't get less true

As much as she's getting savaged by reasonable people I bet Bari has been hearing over-the-top positive reinforcement nonstop from her various enablers today. Fully bubbled head of a major news outlet.

cool country

The Olivia Nuzzi story and the Bari Weiss at CBS story are the same story, which is that the upper echelons of legacy media are absolutely rife with people who worship power and don't feel burdened by any sense of responsibility to their profession or the public.

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

Quietly savage bit of detail in the 60 minutes story www.nytimes.com/2025/12/21/b...