I'm glad Jim Reardon ended up being a very important Pixar person, with an Oscar nomination for writing the script to Wall-E. But it's pretty clear from this 1986 student short film why he ended up on The Simpsons first.

A key election date people don’t talk about enough is Writ Day (which for this election will be 4 October). If you’re enrolled at your current address by Writ Day you’ll be on the printed roll at voting places in your electorate, will be sent an EasyVote card, and can cast an ordinary vote.

Just finished rewatching season 1 of 30 Rock. Watched every(?) episode when it aired, but haven't seen it since. Remembered the main characters, but like two plot points and no guest stars. It's cool to basically see it new. And it's still really good.

In the New Zealand justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the police, who investigate crime; and for some reason employees of private law firms who prosecute the offenders but aren't subject to the Official Information Act. These are their stories.

Bill Watterson is my favorite cartoonist. I adored the relationship btw Calvin and Hobbes as a child. But as I've gotten older, these strips feel even more tender and insightful. My respect for him grew when I learned of his stance against merchandising. Such principles are almost unheard of today.

In their defence, this actually makes sense! The liquidation records are for last year, and the business confidence surveys asks whether you think things will be better in the next 12 months. This is one of those "it can't get any worse" = "optimism" things.

Fell down a internet deep rabbit hole trying to determine the most random/obscure celebrity to cameo on The Simpsons. Not sure I succeeded in finding an answer, but I enjoyed the research nonetheless.

Joyce Brothers has an incredible cameo in the original The Naked Gun (1988) www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLxt...

There are always Trumps. And so that is why the United States constitution has checks and balances for the misuse of presidential power. The real story of Trump’s presidency is not only what he has done, but also what Congress and the Supreme Court have not done.

Then hacker comes in, with a stolen ticket. And then they ask for every coat on the rack. The instruction was "only give coats to people with tickets". Hacker has ticket. So, they give them all the coats. The stolen ticket is not the issue here. It's that the instruction missed a crucial qualifier.

This is the 8th story I've broken pre-dating official scrunity but later triggering prosecutions (South Canty Finance, WGA, Phoenix Forex, Bullion Buyer, Forex Brokers, Rangi Whakaruru, East Wind, Gerard Peters & Family). I appear to have provided ~15% of the SFO's caseload over the past decade.

Waving my don't tread on me flag and saying hey if a cop tells you to do something and you don't immediately comply of course you're gonna get shot in the head

The “prosecute the former regime at every level” candidate has my vote in 2028.

The constitutional remedy for a president who launches a war of acquisition against an ally is impeachment, removal, disqualification, and ultimately a criminal trial. And the same is true for every member of his cabinet involved in such an illegal undertaking.

“you won’t get away with this”

Quite a lot of people seem to think Maduro was actually the legitimate democratically-elected president of Venezuela, but this is not the case, and the pretence that he was legitimate is not necessary to oppose his unlawful removal by military abduction muse.jhu.edu/article/947882

fwiw it’s been about six weeks since Trump pardoned the former president of Honduras who had been convicted of trafficking drugs into the US

I feel like this is one of those 'declare victory' moments. CBS has taken a position on the rule of law, or liberty, and on equality. Just about everything they say here is anti-Trump. Just hold them to it.

That's already banned. Can be quite serious. Let DIA and Police know of evidence this was seen in NZ and they can investigate and prosecute. Banned in lots of other countries and states too. NZ authorities frequently work collaboratively internationally on these sorts of issues.

sliwa correctly understanding that mamdani ran a very traditional campaign and thus surpassing the analytical ability of 80% if people who comment on politics for a living

Walking past Briscoes and figure there's something I need for the house so pop in. Best as I can tell, not a single item in store on sale. Didn't even know that was possible.

Here are four of my most popular cartoons on 2025

With Bardot's passing, the only named individuals in Billy Joel's We Didn't Start The Fire that are still alive are Bob Dylan, Chubby Checker, and Bernie Goetz. The last one standing will claim The Prize.

Funny Numbers xkcd.com/3184/

Just wow. @pluralistic.net.web.brid.gy came out swinging in this article. He's right though and that's the coolest part.

John Oliver has said this explicitly FYI That without local news he couldn't do his show (and to his credit, he's pretty good about crediting his news sources)

Btw this is one of the biggest reasons why it’s not as easy as people think to start up independent newsrooms or just be an indie journalist on substack. If you are actually holding powerful and rich people to account, you WILL need legal representation. Not a matter of whether but when

Last Christmas I gave you the plums The very next day You ate all of them This year To save me from hunger I’ll put it in the icebox special

What we might refer to as a "Kavanaugh Stop"

IOW, Alito says it's weird that the majority would expect POTUS to call on the military before he can call on the NG. But in times of invasion and rebellion WE WOULD EXPECT THE MILITARY TO BE CALLED UP FIRST. Why should the third statutory condition "unable to execute laws" be different?

I get that start-up business are risky, but seven years on and with results only getting worse with size should really trigger some reflection around the boardroom table (and in cabinet).

At a TCA event for Gen Kill, Ransone asked me if I thought he was good enough in it that people would stop thinking of him as Ziggy — a great performance that he felt typecast as at the time. He's wonderful in that, too.

The time of the year when we remember that Twitter used to bring us some joy

Um, what?! www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZIj...

Have both openers ever scored centuries in both innings of a test match before? I don't believe they have. Latham and Conway have now done so. Rare a completely new thing happens in a sport with almost 150 years of international history, but think we saw that today.

Latest from me in a long intermittent series: A fairly audacious piece of charity financial engineering. www.nzherald.co.nz/business/wai...

Peter Arnett, the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter who covered wars from Vietnam to Iraq, has died at 91. Arnett, who won the 1966 Pulitzer Prize for international reporting for his Vietnam War coverage for The Associated Press.

“Can I sue?” - yes “Should I sue?” - no That is pretty much most sensible litigation advice.

First-time offenders generally do not get prison sentences unless their offending is particularly serious. This is a good thing.

Merriam-Webster’s human editors have chosen ‘slop’ as the 2025 Word of the Year.

Mandamus alert. www.courtsofnz.govt.nz/assets/cases...

This first sentence is ridiculously tortured. Still not entirely sure I've parsed its meaning. www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/former-ru...

I guess this has probably already gone viral somewhere but I am simply dying at this picture of a bear that looks like it hired a photographer to do a glamour shoot

Conclusive proof, if we needed it, that there is literally nothing the Australian media cannot make into a story about real estate and house prices

When your “exclusive” lasts all of 7 hours, because you publicly named a guy who was never charged with a crime, and who now is being hounded by trolls, and will have this show up in internet searches for the rest of his life.

🇭🇰⚖️ The best moment for all the non-Chinese judges at the HK judiciary to quit was yesterday, but today isn't bad, either.

From experience I can tell you, if anything goes wrong with your AppleID, your best bet is to become a different person. Start believing in reincarnation, lie down, wait to die, hope your were right and your new vessel is a human who can afford a Macbook. hey.paris/posts/appleid/

Again, even though the Japanese government leading up to 1945 committed terrible atrocities, none of us think that Japanese internment was caused by the Japanese government. It was caused by American racism.

Ever get on a lift during bright sunlight, where you don't notice until the doors close that the inside light isn't working? It's quite disconcerting.