If I were truly wealthy, I’d partner with The New Yorker to compile its most consequential national political reporting into a free special issue, delivered to anyone who signs up, and sent every other month. Stories like these we should all be reading www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

February 17: a new moon, solar eclipse, Lunar New Year, Chinese New Year and the arrival of Ramadan (no wonder I slept horribly last nigh)

Cory does a better job of explaining my research than I do. 😅

This is emblematic of the consumer culture that fees have engendered. What the hell did the students expect? It was a ONCE IN A CENTURY PANDEMIC. There were LAWS against congregating in public. Staff worked themselves to the bone to get online delivery working. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

”The anti-vax movement can only exist bc few living Americans can recall what polio actually did to ppl. I fear the same is true of fascism.” — Jelani Cobb (from ~2017 on Twitter at @jelani9)

Back to my sabbatical side gig: dog siting

Last night's dream: enshittification got so bad, it took an hour to look something up on Google maps, and as I was searching with great annoyance, I found out there had been someone with measles in the store where I was searching/located.

Good critical response: "By focusing so exclusively on Mellon’s social justice priorities, the piece reinforces the narrative that politically oriented humanities work is uniquely corrupting, rather than locating the problem in the broader structure of competitive funding under scarcity."

Ofelia Torres, the teenage Chicago Public Schools student whose fight against cancer while her father was detained by ICE came to represent the federal government's overreach during Operation Midway Blitz, has died. Brave young woman. I will never forget her. RIP.

Were you frustrated by that Atlantic piece on the Mellon Foundation? I decided to write up some thoughts as I am writing on some adjacent topics, including how 2 different different types of social science and humanities research. medium.com/@gabriellaco...

I'd like to think all human creation has a doppleganger counterpart in nature, like this

I am pro-science, but we do a disservice by minimizing the harms of actually existing contemporary science when we fight for science. I just finished reading this astonishing New Yorker article that I think put the problem so well. www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

News: The top-secret whistleblower complaint against Tulsi Gabbard is related to a conversation intercepted last spring in which two foreign nationals discussed Jared Kushner, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter. www.wsj.com/politics/nat...

For those of you keeping score at home, the actual cut to the Post newsroom was 45%, not the widely reported one third. Remaining journalists are a bit over 400, down from around 1100 four years ago and 580 when Bezos bought the place.

Ribbit

Hope that Bad Bunny does something with this Bad Bunny one day. Halloween? Another SNL show?

If there was ever going to be any proof that WikiLeaks is essentially dead, it's the Epstein files. Integrating this sort of data and making it searchable is right up the organization's old alley. The good news is that @ddosecrets.org and @dropsitenews.com joined forces with Jmail to do just that.

Has anyone watched this movie yet ? thelibrariansfilm.com

i think maybe they laid off the wrong people

Whoever invited BaD Bunny: we salute you

Loved the half time show but I wish Bad Bunny had brought the whole Ricky Martin era Menudo cast on stage.

There is no clause in the Constitution or law on the books—none—that allows a President to commandeer state elections. No emergency power. No implied authority. No ‘because I say so.’ We will not let Trump take over our free and fair elections.

Reason magazine, you say... bsky.app/profile/anth...

I feel like I'm losing my goddamnned mind. This op-ed was written by Kathrine Mangu-Ward. Katherine is editor-in-chief of Reason magazine. Reason fired @shikhadalmia.bsky.social for being too anti-Trump.

Ocasio gang rise up 🙌🏽🇵🇷

Love the shout out to Canada at the end of listing all the Latin American and Caribbean nations. The end was powerful. Sending a message without ever having to

BREAKING: The Epstein survivors are releasing this ad on this Super Bowl Sunday to send the message that they will not “move on” from the largest sex trafficking scandal in the world. #standwithsurvivors

Good job or so much better than most of the current reporting. NYT corrects RFKs too bold statement about ketogenic diets and psychiatric cures but features the psychiatrist doing important work in the area with some good success www.nytimes.com/2026/02/06/u...

On the new Acela. So nice not to ride on a grungy and yes moldy (the a/c system) train. So excited for when I return out east to be able to ride Amtrak without getting a sore throat

I posted this earlier re some other horror but what is the likelihood these two pals and co conspirators in sex trafficking of girls (“model scouting”) happened to kill themselves in jail apnews.com/article/euro...

Between the missing minute from jail camera footage (and evidence that they were tampered with), and now this, there are way more questions than answers at this point and we need far more answers than questions www.thedailybeast.com/epstein-file...

What an odd and abhorrent way to let the world know that you are already bought by the insurance industry or are in pick-me mode to have it done. I know it must be hard to be a journalist these days, but jfc have some baseline ethics and competency.

“Memorial services are nothing new to staff at the Minneapolis VA Medical Center. But this week our chapel hosted a memorial like none that preceded it. The memorial service was for Alex J. Pretti, whose sudden passing left a significant impact on the entire medical center.“

Love it when nefarious cyber-techniques are repurposed for analog, do-good purposes.

By the way, for those of you not in MN: Homan’s strategy was to withdraw some agents, so it felt like we were in the denouement of the crisis, and then escalate hard against observers. They’re being incredibly aggressive with observers now. National media may not want to check out just yet

Wonder what @doriechevlen.bsky.social would think of living with this sort of mold, out of sight but pervasive? Is this what we should accept for our housing? Her piece was one of the *most* unserious pieces on mold I've read in a long time. nytimes.com/2026/01/29/rea

I will forever be condemned to stay in hotels that are 10 years or younger (and even many of those won't work for me). I flew out east and had to change hotels at 930 PM. Thankfully, I am on West Coast time. #moldsensitivelife

By far my favorite of the conspiracy bunch. Because vampires

While the headline is click baity the piece at least is more clear than others that there is no clear evidence that Epstein was puppeteering much of anything but wanted to take advantage of these shifts and movements

Happy birthday or happy Stuart Hall day. You were somply the best www.newyorker.com/books/page-t...

Round One of the Insurance Fight: Andy’s insurance co informed us today that they’ve generously agreed to cover a full ⭐️$0 ⭐️ of the scans and treatments that detected and saved him from a massive tumor. Bring it on, bitches 🥊

oh you think you can overwhelm us with 3 million pages of documents? babe you have no idea how online we are

TACO ‘President Trump has backtracked on a major point in negotiations with Harvard, dropping his administration’s demand for a $200 million payment to the government in hopes of finally resolving the administration’s conflicts with the university ..’ www.nytimes.com/2026/02/02/u...

White salmon is a small town but large when it comes to its anti Trump sentiments

Dropping a drop of pure joy: www.instagram.com/reel/DUPdmG3...

This is real. I don’t know what the story entails, but the non-profit @wbaidlaw.bsky.social is doing amazing accountability work! Please donate to whistleblower aid! It’s such a small team that could do so much more with your support.

The USA & much of the world is being ushered into conflict & collapse so a few people may capture control. Its important to resist this, but engaging in spaces they control & dominate will not get a W. They welcome conflict in spaces where it will benefit them in the end. Choose theaters wisely.

Now thats some interesting news x.com/aaronblake/s...