The lesson of January 6th is that it does absolutely no good to prosecute the the violent foot soldiers if you're not going to prosecute the leaders and hold them accountable for their sedition under the full force of the law.

It’s always a good day to read Martha Nussbaum. (This is from the introduction to *For Love of Country?*, written in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks.)

kind of darkly funny that "gender studies" is the stereotypical "useless degree" because gender studies will help you understand a large and important chunk of the current psychosis in american life

“you won’t get away with this”

amazing how the entire machine can pivot within 24 hours. no need to slowly upsell the argument; just issue new marching orders

You ever think about how the Roman Senate kept meeting centuries into the reigns of emperors. Hanging out, shooting the shit, giving speeches, and play-acting that their positions of privilege remained positions of power.

I’ve been thinking lately about how all children learn how good and wise America’s constitutional structure is: three branches of government, checks and balances, etc. And then in the real world, they just roll over to whatever Trump does. The idea feels almost quaint at this point.

I am so unhappy for one of my favorite movies to be right today..

New year, same rules… Onwards!

they should invent a year that's better than the one before it

Just experienced a sudden, random craving for chocolate milk, and then found both milk and chocolate syrup in the fridge, so that’s one thing that’s worked out for me in the Year of Our Lord, MMXXV.

“There's no secret handshake. There's an IQ prerequisite, but there's no secret handshake.” Reality Bites, 1994

My brother’s sitting with a friend at a window table in a pub in Oxford. Friend says “Was that Brian Blessed in the street?” And then, right by the window: “YES IT’S ME, BRIAN BLESSED! BWAH HA HA HA!”. And then RAN away.

I ate pancakes in a hotel restaurant once. James Doohan (the original Scotty from Star Trek) was sitting across from me, a couple of booths down. I let the man eat his breakfast in peace.

Merry Christmas to me.

Reminder that if you still have FSA funds to spend this year, you can spend them at FSA store: fsastore.com - you can purchase menstrual products for example to donate to your local pantries and homeless shelters. I have $130 left and that's what I did yesterday.

"Academics literally cannot make genAI go away" we also can't make underage drinking go away and we're not advocating for installing bar carts in every classroom.

All of the money that changed hands in the Teapot Dome scandal totaled less than $10 million after adjusting for inflation, and it was considered so corrupt we still teach it in high school government classes a century later.

I don't think most Americans have any idea how dangerous it is for a president to declare an entire ethnic group to be "garbage." This is how the worst atrocities in human history have begun.

Seasons greetings.

After watching live productions of A Christmas Carol and It’s a Wonderful Life this week, I’ve realized that they are basically the inverse of each other: Scrooge is greedy and uncaring. George Bailey is selfless and cares deeply…

Partway through the latest Pluribus when I noticed this poster that I have as a postcard. Very appropriate question: Do the spirits come back?

I mean yeah it’s an authoritarian takeover but can we take some comfort in the fact that the people doing it are INSANELY stupid?

I would like conservative Republican politicians—those who believe America is now and should always be a Christian nation—to actually read the New Testament sometime.

there should be a movie where a woman from a small town begrudgingly goes to the big city for the holidays and falls in love at first sight with ethiopian food

I don’t mean to sound extreme, but I don’t think we should have torture camps for people with criminal records either.

The full spiked 60 Minutes CECOT package, clean & subtitled. 1/5

Share an actor who nailed a role so hard that nobody else will ever be able to live up to it..

Not a historian but like to research. The AI might summarize what I'm looking for, but it doesn't find what I'm *not* looking for. The book on the shelf next to the one I wanted. The insight in chapter 6 based on the quote I needed from chapter 4.

A new federal rule would ban gender affirming care at virtually every hospital system in the country. Now, an organization says they've prepared, have private clinics and financial aid ready for families that need them. Meet one group fighting back, the TYEP. Subscribe to support our journalism.

When Trump visited Mount Vernon in 2018, he couldn't understand why George Washington didn't name it after himself. “You’ve got to put your name on stuff or no one remembers you.” Reupping this prescient piece from @politico.com which seems pretty relevant today. www.politico.com/story/2019/0...

The name "Popular Science" doesn't mean we shift our coverage depending on public opinion. It means we cover relevant subjects that are rigorously researched, reliable, and grounded in reality. And trans lives are grounded in reality. We see y'all. No matter what. www.popsci.com/science/tran...

This. They show themselves as willing to dehumanize any group of persons. They trod not a slippery slope, but chose the cliff-face over deep water with cement boots.

Simpler times

The purpose of blaming any and every tragedy on trans people is convincing each other "wouldn't life be so much better if we just got rid of all the trans people"

We are parents of a trans kid and our family takes this very, very personally. If you intentionally make life harder for our beloved daughter, it’s EXTREMELY hard to think of you as an ally, to say the least. @amyklobuchar.com - you still send us requests for money, while hurting our kid. Disgusted.

The tragedy of Rob and Michelle’s deaths are incomprehensible. I’m hearing Rob’s voice telling us all to do more, to repair the human soul, to repair our hearts, to repair our country, to repair our world, to keep fighting, to keep living for every soul taken from this earth.

this is not behavior becoming of a FIFA Peace Prize recipient.

Graham here subtly invoking the famous Christian tenet “Do unto others worse than they did unto you.”

my favorite thing about the benoit blanc movies is that they aren't really about benoit blanc. he is not grappling with demons from his past. we are not getting flashbacks to the husband whose murder he never solved. he just shows up and does his job like mary poppins for homicides

TIL the original lyrics to Deck the Halls are awesome and “don we now our gay apparel” is temperance movement bullshit

The same people who think we need to bring back real standards to academia also want to give all students a “suspend my professor” button if they don’t like how things are going

This is really interesting to me. I’ve spent most of my life in Texas, and I read this guy as clearly unhappy, kind of shaken up, but I didn’t detect that level of anger. I grew up with loud, profane demonstrations of rage, not this understated tone.

I saw Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in Kuala Lumpur, where the audience freaking loved their homegirl Michelle Yeoh. That was fun.

found my new work email signoff

We now learn that Fifa had a very specific "ask" in exchange for its "Peace Award" to Trump, with loads of gold trinkets, and that was dismissal of a criminal corruption case against senior Fifa officials. And Trump granted it. Another corrupt bargain, barely noticed (and ignored by US media).