With the Trump administration switching into anti-Catholic overdrive this week, I wrote about a time a hundred years ago when Catholic students from Notre Dame beat the shit out of the Klan. A feel good story for the ages. dansinker.com/posts/2026-0...

I finished this audiobook. It's a good look at the reign of the last shah of Iran and how thoroughly unprepared the US was for the revolution.

This is more broadly generalizable: If you don't do the research yourself, you have no idea if AI is making stuff up. And if you do the research yourself, then AI isn't saving you much labor, if any.

Physical media we own. No streaming fee, no ads, no depending on licensing availability. Watch/listen anytime, no need for wifi or data plan. It's not inconvenient, it's freedom.

This is why you need to be reading books and writing your own emails, by the way. When you outsource your thinking abilities, you risk turning your brain into soup. Heavy dependence on AI has already been linked with severe cognitive decline. What you don’t use, you will lose.

“You gotta learn AI or get left behind!” is a bit galling given that the entire purpose of AI seems to be to steal our work and fuck our brains and shit up the planet, which is to say, its GOAL is to leave us all behind. That, in order to make its owners rich.

These are measures that will literally kill the open internet if adopted widely.

Let me guess, logistics are woke.

Read that again. This Louisiana bill forces homeless people to choose between jail and "treatment"—and if they can't pay for the latter, they will be forced to perform unpaid labor. The historical precedents are clear: convict leasing, Black Codes, debtor's prison.

It's not a ballroom, it's a bunker. Either he's expecting a foreign attack or he's planning on holing himself in so he holds onto power

If Bluesky's got a hangover or whatever the least they can do is wheel in the TV cart and put on an episode of NOVA for us or something.

You are being asked to believe that a single member of the Democratic caucus had an ideological difference on this and stopped it, rather than that the party leadership didn't want it to pass but wanted it to look like they wanted it to pass. Really tarnishes the entire D brand to pull these stunts

Yes good more of this Like thousands more

Doing a webinar on AI in libraries and the first presenter was so completely pro-AI it was disheartening. We have responsibilities as librarians and AI runs roughshod over them unchecked. We are a trusted place to get information. We have to be careful.

It’s a brilliant tax because when they say “but the billionaires will leave” you get to say “they already don’t live there”

bluesky: we are pivoting to AI [site catches on fire] bluesky: this was not the fault of AI

Google: I can't make money if I'm not a monopoly Open AI: I can't make money if I don't steal Insurance CEO: I can't make money if I don't kill people Media: should we execute shoplifters?

Pretty sure if the average roof can reduce the average household electric use to within 25% of zero, the average big box parking lot can get a mear equal reduction, but remember: most big boxes DO NOT own their property. Strip malls are a commercial real estate/REIT staple.

The new Massive Attack x Tom Waits track and video are worth a listen and watch.

BREAKING: A jury has found Live Nation and Ticketmaster to be an illegal monopoly that overcharges fans. After the federal government settled the case, 34 states kept pursuing the giant ticket and concert company. Now, the states have won.

JUST IN: John Eastman, the conservative attorney who helped devise President Trump's last ditch strategy to overturn the 2020 presidential election, has officially been disbarred, per the California Supreme Court:

That's such bullshit. You know they're going to charge a convenience fee, a tech maintenance fee and anything else they can think of.

"the researchers found that a single raindrop could generate a potential difference of 110 V, sufficient to power a small portable device" this would be all kinds of amazing

NEW: A new pre-print study offers the first causal evidence that outsourcing reasoning tasks to AI can rapidly erode users' independent performance AND their will to persist despite difficulty. "People’s persistence drops... they’re also not willing to try without AI.” futurism.com/artificial-i...

I'm at work on my break and I just snorted so loud a coworker asked what happened

A book about how the government and tech companies have come together to engineer reality, using censorship, mass surveillance, and algorithmic manipulation.

This is the first year I haven't watched a single NHL game. It feels strange to say that but I burned myself out so completely the distance has been good.

Please get vaccinated.

AI is profoundly unpopular. A recent NBC News poll found that among 18-34 year-olds, AI's net favorability rating is -44. *Negative 44*. Those are basically serial killer numbers. It's not much better among women 18-49. (Men over 50 and upper class are the only ones who like AI, and just barely.)

Now reading Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay.

This is a favorite strawman of the Religious Right, asserting that the exact phrase "separation of church and state" isn't in the Constitution. They ignore that there are only three references to religion in the entire Constitution, all three of which work to separate church and state.

I'm listening

Do not shop at Target holy shit

Remember this the next time corporations whine about minimum wage increases.

BREAKING: Maryland is about to become the first state in the nation to ban the use of surveillance data and dynamic pricing at grocery stores. The Maryland House has just passed the Protection from Predatory Pricing Act. Governor Wes Moore plans to sign the bill.

this is called "doing something"

The sooner you realize that Mark Carney sees Canada less as a nation filled with humans and more a series of resources to sell off to the highest bidder the sooner it all makes sense

Shame on DoorDash for participating in Trump’s “no taxes on tips” scam. Aside from their D.C. DoorDash “Grandma” being a GOP operative from Arkansas, it’s mathematically impossible for her to have saved $11,000 in taxes this year as a result of Trump’s bullshit bill.

Paige Thomas, 44, never knows what to say when speaking to friends and family, but, once she finally works up the courage to join a conversation, everyone becomes oddly silent until someone desperately steps in to change the subject.

Today is officially the 30th anniversary of Steamed Hams. On April 14, 1996, "22 Short Films About Springfield" aired for the first time!

Dave gets it. Be like Dave.

You spelled Pennsylvania wrong

If you're looking to decamp from substack, ghost.io has been making strides in its discoverability features and has the added benefit of not making you throw up in your own mouth when you have to plug your blog

My recipe for dinner called for 1/8 tsp cayenne pepper and I laughed. Get out of here with that nonsense.

this is a really smart observation it’s not just zuckerberg tho narcissists are the “leaders” of our age

The effective federal corporate income tax rate: 1950: 50% 1990: 25% 2020: 13% Stop asking "but how we will pay for it?" Restore the corporate tax rate. That is how we will pay for it.

Again, if you have a Substack, the best time to switch away was months ago -- but today's the second best time.