haven't even listened yet but sharing because this is exactly the combination of people and topics I have wanted

The hosting of the 2022 World Cup (and of other Doha-based global competitions) was not about "sportwashing": it was a crucial step in building up the emirate as an indispensable go-between/mediator in conflicts and therefore strenghten its own security.

an ordinary person "would already be facing approximately 500 quadrillion years in prison. Yet as usual, Western democracies have not yet attempted to punish Musk or Twitter/X in any way." prospect.org/2026/01/07/e...

Joel's a bang up civil rights lawyer in case anyone in NY has used been a victim of Grok

the thing about Thucydides is that he wrote great literature and the contradictions and tensions are the point -the Melian Dialogue is a perceptive articulation of a vision of power politics he was clearly sympathetic to -in the context of the narrative it also represents dangerous imperial hubris

Ratcliffe wanting Manchester United to embrace analytics, and doing so by creating direct lines of communication and authority between himself and someone 3-5 levels down on the org chart is truly Peak Jim www.nytimes.com/athletic/694...

a failed coup is an opportunity that cannot be let to simmer, it requires *action* I think the best option would have been keeping the House and Senate in session for ~immediate impeachment and conviction votes it bears risks of failure, yes, but like so does the military arresting the president

one thing that has stuck in my head is how many little flare-ups and crises and local/quasi-wars there were in Gilded Age peacetime, and how the gradual buildup and escalation of more and more of these kind of normalized war footing in the years before WWI www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

If there’s any lesson to be learned from Chris Rufo-ism, it’s that you can’t let a fuck up like this go to waste

happy(?) new year everyone, for my first piece of 2026 I wrote about Grok's *still*-ongoing CSAM blitz and the troubling, embarrassing silence of lawmakers in the U.S. and U.K. who've spent the past year censoring the internet for the sake of "child safety" yet are saying and doing nothing about X:

aldrich ames: influencer

you know what the American oil industry loves, when there's a bear market and someone drops more supply into it

honestly the more interesting question is what's #2 after The Americans it paid off every major emotional arc in ways that deepen the story in retrospect, without providing any kind of cheap closure, just a masterpiece

This is that link which puts Ratcliffe’s narrative as a “high performance” savior of… any sports organization into what might be referred to politely as “context” www.buzzsprout.com/819853/episo...

the @doublepivotpodcast.bsky.social on Amorim and United is very good and not only because @michaelcaley.bsky.social says “I’ll put a link in the shownotes to our conversation with Ben Walsh about Ineos and cycling, because he had this nailed from the start” www.patreon.com/posts/amorin...

wow I wonder if there should be change in the Brooklyn Democratic Party

Each new chapter of this story is further illustration of why the Brooklyn Democratic Party needs to move on from corrupt leaders who are eager to gain from their influence over an opaque judicial nomination process.

ok who's got the scoop on West Ham's financial preparedness for relegation

"what's up with this parking lot?" is my sincere pitch for a hyperlocal NYC podcast honestly there are great stories there

going to be super funny when the entire establishment goes to the mat for Goldman and he loses by 25 anyway

it is very, very important to believe true things, even if false things are better evidence for what you want to be true

@indivisible.org FYI found a scam PAC that's probably stealing a copyright from you www.no-kings.io

the biggest Food Discourse red flag is having Food Discourse Opinions

Feels like a narrative violation but nationally however you slice it, asking rents nationally have grown less than wages and less than non-shelter parts of CPI since the pandemic, basically averaging 2.5% per year

Crime stats victory lap: Fewest shootings on record in New York, fewer shootings than Chicago or Philadelphia despite having far more people.

"the French project" is a funny way of describing it insofar as it's a project, there's ~nothing French about it

This could be a dream job for one of you. bloomberg.avature.net/careers/JobD...

Whole country's being run by The Worst Person You Knew 20 Years Ago

1) Major Mackerel pulling out of his pocket the piece of his scalp that had been sliced off with the dreads still attached and holding them up to the defendant saying "ain't no woman worth this mon" in thick Jamaican Patois. No objection somehow.

Right after I took the bar I was on a jury as an alternate in this case where reggae artist Major Mackerel was assaulted with a samurai sword by his neighbor, who believed Major Mackerel was sleeping with his wife. An incredible experience that included... www.nytimes.com/2009/10/05/n...

don't shirk jury duty, turn internet friends into real friends!

Taibbi wrote some gross, sexist jokes as a young commentator in Russia and his writing partner wrote a bunch of truly disturbing sexist quasi-jokes in the same publication and on social media it turned into him having *done* things no one ever said he did doesn't excuse any of his choices since obv

I'd figured that the "I Can't Breathe" experience changed Taibbi; he was very proud of that book and its rollout was wrecked by an unfair, hit-and-run MeToo attack. (Read @walkerbragman.bsky.social on that.) Sure enough. www.pastemagazine.com/politics/mat...

your mileage may vary but my experience on here improved pretty noticeably when I stopped offering explanations to people whose questions sought conflict rather than answers

you don't understand. people who egregiously sexualize content intended for children are a protected class

a teenager who has no more than ok production in the Brazilian Serie A but excels in Duels appears that with Levy gone, Spurs have finally kicked in the cash for a full subscription to SkillCorner for Lange

this guy really think he gonna hold public office with that performance in season five of the FX Original Series Justified on video, floating around out there?

A new survey published Monday shows a majority of New Yorkers are in favor of the city's congestion pricing toll, mirroring the support found in international cities who have implemented similar programs.

somehow they never realize it

insofar as there's a project here and not just reckless hate for views, it's trying to sell *the right* on a vision that the vast majority of American conservatives reject out of hand www.washingtonpost.com/politics/int...

Be smart: No. How would one even do that. Nuh uh.

broadly speaking the opinion of Europe over the centuries has been sort of qualified, reverse Monroe Doctrine that the US can fuck around in the Americas so long as they don't fuck around with European holdings, which is a hard no

this is definitely, horrifyingly happening unless someone makes a law against it and enforces it

This kinda imperial hubris is just fascinating. It's obvs not true (the Taliban are back in power, the communists still run Vietnam, etc) but more than that I find it baffling to want it to be true. The status "citizen of a country that does war crimes with impunity" is imo a bizarre thing to crave.

Ryan Mason has been sacked by West Brom after an 18th place start to the season his team's expected goals difference is better than that of two of the clubs in the promotion playoff places we love the Championship don't we folks www.bbc.com/sport/footba...

quick take is the first two of these are more or less meaningless (and note that democratic transition isn't listed) but the third -- cut off oil to Cuba -- is the thing Marco Rubio cares about more than anything in the world and would be a major policy shift www.politico.com/news/2026/01...

With Amorim's sacking, let's look back fondly on the best moment in @weisenthal.bsky.social and Amorim look-a-like commentary, when Joe's mom @debra-in-guatemala.bsky.social agreed they look a lot alike.

This is really bad; Grok is now going into is third day of regularly producing nonconsensual deepfake pornography and nobody is doing anything about it. The "Mechahitler" and "white genocide" episodes were stopped much more quickly. I suppose this tells us all about relative priorities.

This is basically the view of the world that Plato sets out to refute in the Republic. One of the core questions asked therein is: why do powerful people think the mere fact of them exercising dominion makes it good for them to do so? Sure, you *can* get away with stuff if you're powerful - so what?