Presidents John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Monroe all died on the 4th of July

Absolutely. Hats off to Cape Verde!

I am rooting for Argentina to win the whole thing but I would not be the least bit mad if Cabo Verde beat them today.

First episode of Silo s03 is out!

As it was foretold: the Trump regime gutted the NOAA and now weather forecasts are less accurate. An atmospheric scientist: “The forecasts I’m able to offer you are less accurate than they would otherwise be.” [gizmodo.com]

Something for the digital crate-diggers: The 40 Best Albums From the Last 40 Years That You Probably Didn’t Hear (But Should’ve). I’d only heard of one or two these… [spinmagazine.com]

“Dictionary of the Illegible proposes illegibility as a strategy for navigating a world increasingly governed by visibility, efficiency, and total surveillance.” [sourcetype.com]

“The average paid newsletter costs $10 per month or $100 per year, according to analysis of thousands of publications hosted on Beehiiv.” KDO memberships start at $3/mo. and I haven’t raised prices since 2016. You folks are getting an incredible deal! [pressgazette.co.uk]

Hank Green interviews Ze Frank, who kind of invented the modern YouTube format (aka vlogging). “At the episode’s end, Ze lays down some of the best advice Hank’s ever heard.” [youtube.com]

Parker Molloy on why the panic about trans women in sports is not actually about fairness or protecting women & girls (in the similar way Gamergate was not about “ethics in games journalism”). [readtpa.com]

Will America Ever Give White-Man Rights to Everyone Else? “These documents…were written by rich white men for the benefit of rich white men, and this country has never for a day recovered from their failure.” [thenation.com]

The US Constitution Is for Simple Folk Still Burdened by the Belief That Words Have Meaning. “The true Constitution is not a document. It’s more of a gut feeling. It is a shimmering legal gas that settles wherever conservatives need it most…” [mcsweeneys.net]

Rebecca Solnit: What Is the United States of America Now? “The United States of America is a truck that has driven into a ditch. The United States of America is a program that has been hacked.” But also: “It is the country that gave the world jazz…” [theguardian.com]

Just popped onto Digg to see if it was progressing and now I feel dumber for having read some of the "takes" they are harvesting (exclusively!) from X. Digg: "If you don't think X is bad enough, can I interest you in some distilled, concentrated X?"

Report from a cruise full of celebrity impersonators. “A woman sat a toddler down beside us, while another, larger toddler tugged at her capris. At this point, every child was starting to look like Wallace Shawn.” [nplusonemag.com]

Erling Haaland “brings the intensity of a raiding party to the sport”. And: “Haaland can call to mind a shark circling dark waters.” [newyorker.com]

My Family Has Been Here Since 1621. That Is Not What Makes Me American. “We are a nation of immigrants that has watched as immigrants arrive, assimilate and begin pulling the ladder up behind them.” [ctinsider.com]

There’s been so much crazy to pay attention to over the past few weeks that I missed this: Midjourney, the AI image-maker that you access through Discord, is making medical imaging machine. “It starts by stepping into a shallow pool of golden light…” [midjourney.com]

Four-Byte Burger. In 1985, a graphic of a floppy disk hamburger was created on an early Amiga computer, photographed, and then deleted. Stuart Brown set out to recreate this image as accurately as possible. [kottke.org]

I love the aesthetic of Fresco, a video game where you play as a character embedded into Egyptian wall paintings. In many ways, these wall paintings are ancient precursors to side-scrolling games. [youtube.com]

How Do You Prove Arson When the Evidence Burns Away? “How do the experts figure out what caused a fire? How do they catch wildland fire arsonists, when all the have to work with is a burnt landscape?" [kottke.org]

You know sometimes you learn some ancient lore and suddenly some contemporary pop culture thing snaps into place? Anyway, I found out how Isadora Duncan died and now I better understand the “no capes” thing in The Incredibles. [en.wikipedia.org]

Saya Irie’s Intricate Sculptures Recomposed from Eraser Shavings. “The Japanese artist erases images & then uses those eraser shavings to recompose the images into three-dimensional form, transforming the byproduct of erasure into delicate works of art.” [spoon-tamago.com]

The Last Astronomers. “Many fear that if unleashed in all parts of the scientific process, AI tools could lead to nothing less than the death of astrophysics as a human endeavor.” [science.org]

Idris Elba DJs a House Party. Elba, now a knight of the realm, has been a DJ since he was 14 years old and he rips it up in this recent set. [kottke.org]

Playwright Georgica Pettus has written a play called Truck, which is based on the excellent documentary Hands on a Hardbody. “I thought, ‘This is the best premise for a play, because all the attention goes to the dialogue.’” [culturedmag.com]

What is queer typography? “I think that covers a lot of what queerness means: an attitude in the face of conformity, an attitude in the sea of passivity, an attitude to say yes when others say no.” [soulellis.com]

People, for the love of God, please stop treating birthright as some kind of sweeping victory. It was 5-4 on the constitutional issue. The dissent laid out a fucking ROADMAP for what Trump should do next. The court always gives Trump multiple bites at the apple WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU HAPPY ABOUT?

All of these cases are basically litmus tests for any Dem nominee. Are immigrants Americans? Do trans Americans deserve human rights? Are corporations superhumans who get to spend endlessly on elections to put whoever they want into power? These are simple questions with simple answers.

Yes. It is readily understandable based on the logic of voting in <political> institutions. It is completely <not> understandable based on the logic that SCOTUS is a <legal> institution ruling what the law/Constitution actually say/mean. We have a 9-member super-legislature & should treat it as such

Donald Trump came one vote away from getting the Supreme Court to say that the 14th Amendment does not guarantee birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented and temporary immigrants, a view held only by fringe far-right nativists until VERY recently. This is shocking. I am stunned.

NPR published and then pulled a story that Alito retired from the Supreme Court. "Editors Note: This story has been taken down. It was published in error." (We can also talk about whether "Editors" needs an apostrophe of some sort.) www.npr.org/2026/06/30/n...

There is a plausible near future where the Supreme Court rules that immigrants, women, Black people have no explicit protection under the Constitution.

Gah, this is another thing I’m completely fucking pissed about today: Supreme Court upholds bans on transgender athletes participating in women and girls’ sports. [npr.org]

Great piece by Andrea Pitzer on how lost Ezra Klein is in this current moment, newly relevant because he interviewed fascist activist Christopher Rufo on his NYT podcast (JFC!) “If you don’t know what your core beliefs are, you’re going to get played.” [degenerateart.beehiiv.com]

I found this AI Compass quiz genuinely useful for pinpointing how I actually feel about various aspects of AI. At the same time, I don’t think my result (“The Kontextmaschine”) quite fits… [bambamramfan.github.io]

He’s doing fascist hate propaganda the right way!

There’s a Grocery Price Emergency in America. “Our research shows that even relatively well-off families are struggling with high prices… President Trump and Congress are neither investing in long-term solutions nor offering short-term relief.” [nytimes.com]

Ezra Klein had fascist Christopher Rufo on his podcast? Fuck all the way off with that shit.

A tour of some playgrounds in NYC designed by kids, with features like pollinator gardens, hair-braiding stations, a floor-is-lava obstacle course, and human-sized chess boards. Love it — children should get way more of a say w/ stuff like this. [nytimes.com]

On decision fatigue: “Why are you so tired? The answer has to do with how many times you’ve had to make a decision throughout the day.” And: “The quality of our decisions deteriorates as we accumulate previous decisions.” [facilethings.com]

Now that summer is in full swing, you might need this Comprehensive Guide to Yellow Stripey Things, so you can tell harmless bumblebees (you can pet them!) from "asshole" yellow jackets. [kottke.org]

If you’ve never seen it (or even if you have), Christian Marclay’s The Clock will be showing at LACMA from July 26 to August 23, including two 24-hour showings. [lacma.org]

The Adjective Word Order We All Follow Without Realizing It. "So you can have a lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife. But if you mess with that word order in the slightest you'll sound like a maniac." [kottke.org]

Love this story about the champion Wii Sports Bowling team at this Tulsa senior living community. “Phyllis the GOAT is 95 years old and rolls 300s in practice sessions like it’s nothing." [kottke.org]

A Retro 70s TV Intro for Andor. “Get ready to travel to a far away galaxy that existed a long, long time ago. It’s the science fiction spectacular…ANDOR.” [youtube.com]

'Maybe It Will Happen Today' T-Shirt. On Friday, I got a bee in my bonnet that this t-shirt should exist and so I made it and now you can buy it. It’s $25 (+s&h) and ships all over the world. [kottke.org]

The Writers Who Wrote The Most in History. “Corin Tellado published more than 4,000 novels, mostly under a contract with Spanish publisher Bruguera, which obligated her to deliver a 76-page novel every single week for years.” [brennan.day]

If I were a billionaire, I wouldn't destroy democracy or ruin the planet, but I would hire Dan Castellaneta to narrate The Odyssey as Homer Simpson.