Okay, so Google is screwing over the web by no longer showing search results, only its AI slop-boxes. There are competitors in search, e.g., DuckDuckGo and Kagi. Why can't they make their case to businesses that if people use their services, they will get old-fashioned search results?

A contract made for an illegal purpose is void. If we get a viable Congress again, the current Trump/DOJ agreement may be revisited and may not stand for eternity. For now, looting is the order of the day.

I am rereading one of my favorite books, Joseph Andrews, the English picaresque; two innocents blundering through this wicked world, impervious to its blows, inadvertently shining a light on its hypocrisy and wickedness.

I do not know what the Democrats in Virginia are doing by failing to use the "nuclear strategy." They are endangering us all. This is the end game, and they are treating it as if it is the middle game, where losses can still be recouped over time.

Slightly increase a band: Mobile Home Beethoven.

I have been getting innumerable hits on LinkedIn for the job title "AI Tutor." I suspected that this did not involve "tutoring" and that it was a highly exploitative grey-market industry that would make unreasonable demands. I was completely right. www.wired.com/story/i-work...

Yes, this, a zillion times this: Every time a billionaire threatens to leave a city and destroy its tax base, it is an empty threat because he is likely not paying the government taxes to begin with. www.propublica.org/article/bill...

"May the Force be with you." "And also with you."

Were it not for an accident of history, in the Second Trump Administration, Rudy Giuliani would have been confirmed as the Attorney General of the United States. We may not feel any relief, but we dodged a bullet.

The rich people of today only have two ideas: 1. Let’s kill everyone 2. I need a bunker so after we kill everyone I can emerge from underground, spread my wings like a peacock, and continue to be rich

"Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?" www.thelettersfromleo.com/p/report-tru...

"Spring, the sweet Spring, is the year’s pleasant king; Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a ring; Cold doth not sting, the pretty birds do sing..." (T. Nash) Even though there is enough to sink us many times over, walk outside or look out the window; there is some good at work.

A simple Google on "Catholic Just War Doctrine" gave me this: www.catholic.com/qa/what-is-a... /1

Has anyone assisting in the negotiations actually passed the FSOT? (Keep in mind that it is an entry-level aptitude test!)

Help Matthew Cover Emergency Surgery Costs If, and only if, it would NOT at all be a financial hardship, and you find what I do valuable ⤵️ www.gofundme.com/f/help-matth...

"When you gotta lotta nada, listen to a Bach cantata." —Solomon Reynolds, KUSC

I know someone at the Sasse (Hamilton) center at U Florida. They are happy both to have a job and to write and teach without a theoretical apparatus. I don't think they realize - or perhaps choose not to realize - the larger project the school was intended to further.

Regarding Musil's "The Man Without Qualities," I hear that current undergraduates will not read any more than 20 pages for a given assignment. They would need 700 Musil assignments to get to the end, and they only have 120 weeks of college!

An Episcopalian friend says that Easter is "when the impossible has happened and everything has changed." That's openness.

With time, our proverbially ramshackle empire, by means of huge expenditure on the armed forces, will just manage to remain the second weakest power in North America. (Robert Musil, adapted slightly)

Revised CKD diet therapy: Move from rigid nutrient limits to diverse, plant-rich focus for improved nutrition quality! PMID:41491876, Nat Rev Nephrol 2026, @NatRevNeph https://doi.org/10.1038/s41581-025-01034-0 #Medsky #Pharmsky #RNA #ASHG #ESHG 🧪

After the second Seder ended, I found my wedding ring, lost since Aug., in a corner of my travel bag. I sometimes panic getting my stuff together after the TSA, and dropped the ring without noticing where it went. But today it popped back!

This is an obscene policy from an obscenely rich school. Shame on Yale and shame on Yale College Dean Pericles Lewis. yaledailynews.com/articles/yal...

Canada has been repeatedly insulted by the US for over a year, so please understand why the country is not jumping to assist in a war anyone with a brain would have indicated was a bad idea

Newark says 🗣️ #NoKings Today we take collective action for ALL our communities, including our immigrant neighbors! ✊🏽 🎨: @americasvoice.bsky.social

Possible link: (1) The President's two-minute briefing with the finest curated explosions; (2) The violent "TV programs" little Anthony creates in the Twilight Zone's "It's A Good Life."

An acquaintance has a burgeoning business in writing to grade level using controlled vocabulary. The Army uses a fourth-grade reading level for its manuals, and the TSA uses a third-grade level, but ICE recruits? They're having trouble with third-grade text.

"Nations, like individuals, reap exactly what they sow; they who sow robbery reap robbery. The seed-sowing of iniquity replies in a harvest of blood." —Helen Jackson, "A Century of Dishonor."

This is probably five-dimensional chess that I don't understand, but could it be that the U.S. wants to remove sanctions on Iranian oil as a sort of inducement for Iran to forget about the current state of hostilities so Trump can declare victory and bring our forces home?

Pass the Zofran! (the anti-emetic, not the similarly-named politician)

It's strange to look to the wicked for help, but some of this insanity may lessen once large economic actors realize they are losing more money with a hapless, anything-goes, chaotic president than by operating in a rule-based, taxed system with known costs.

At this point, I can only hope that some brave American institutionalist has reset the nuclear codes. "I'm sorry, Mr. President. You have entered the wrong code. Would you like to try again?" "You have entered the wrong code three times. This call is over. Please try again in four hours. Goodbye!"

In a better world, before the members were seated, each Congress would have to take a six-hour continuing education course on the differences between communism, Marxism, socialism, and fascism. There would also be a mandatory eight-hour course in legislative ethics, with a traffic-school vibe.

Welp. 👀

Messianists love the idea that they don't have to clean up their own messes. They can eat all the seed corn or spread radiation around the planet; we're left behind, so it's on us to deal with it.

I'm hoping against hope that the war will end in symbolic "shock and awe" and not with a bloody, decades-long counterinsurgency war in which the draft is reactivated and Epstein's perpetrators and victims are forgotten.

“We risk a fully automated loop where AI and learning systems generate, submit, and evaluate assignments on behalf of students and instructors.” So, what should the colleges, students, and instructors do with all this saved labor and expense?

I'm not saying that ICE is going to try and do Minneapolis here on Long Island, but the general perception among those who monitor them here are concerned something is up.

“There is a picture that one sees, a picture with an old man, and a man, and a little boy—they have drums and he a piccolo, and they are all ragged. I do not know its name.” I said, “It’s called ‘The Spirit of ’76.’​” —Randall Jarrell

if I had more money, I would print and mail postcards to this effect.

in case anyone else feels like they're teetering on the edge of complete doomerism lately, i wrote an overly personal essay about choosing to be our best selves in spite of the horrors.

Dan Kaszeta FRHistS My own experience, which is not inconsiderable, allows me to put out Captain Dan's Tear Gas Laundry guidelines. Specifically, this is for your street clothing that has been exposed to tear gas in smoke/aerosol/dust/particulate form. A small thread 🧵

"Books have the power to carry you through life." Stormzy (2026) www.theguardian.com/books/2026/f...

The revocation of TPS for Haitian immigrants has been stayed, but the residents of a Jewish nursing home want to hide their Haitian caregivers in their rooms. Their rooms are probably 300-400 ft^2; not much place to hide anyone, but the residents are trying.

In case you are too cheerful, this postcard from Minneapolis will bring you down. Summary: the media has moved on, but ICE and CBP are still in the city, stalking citizens, beating the crap out of people, and destroying useful things. The city's a ghost town. www.deardara.com/so/adPmSCLoz

Maybe Liam is too wee yet for Spider-Verse, but I ❤️ Miles Morales and Nueva York is covered in snow too! Much thanks to @julioanta.bsky.social for the translation so that I could include both spideys. #Comics4Liam FREE THE CHILDREN!!! Shutter forever these evil detention centers; ABOLISH ICE.

[Aide in blue scrubs helps an elderly woman in darker blue, with a bandaged left arm and walker, down nursing home corridor.]

"Oh, My God" by Lula Wiles is my music of the moment: a day when the most jealously guarded privilege is recognized as abject fraud. youtu.be/Kmm7TRXrKCk

"Enormous conflict of interest." A true Timesian understatement, combined with the usual normalization. Why not simply give the man a Federal Reserve solid gold debit card to draw on the public treasury? (Answer: this wouldn't avenge him against his "enemies.")