The Mall fireworks may be delayed but elsewhere in DC the dog-terrifying, totally illegal, war-zone-volume fireworks and (mostly) firecrackers are right on time.

I think we did really reach the upper limits of meringue

🎶 There's a lady who's sure all that glitters is gold

So, @michaelharriot.bsky.social asked me how I would re-write the constitution and... of course I had some thoughts. Happy White Man's Independence Day. www.contrabandcamp.com/p/250-in-bla...

For more than a decade, the all-white judges of a Louisiana appellate court ignored thousands of petitions filed by prisoners, most of them Black, who claimed they had been wrongly convicted. Efforts to expose the injustice went unheard. (Published Nov. 2023)

Before the James Webb Space Telescope, these little red dots had never been seen. Now hundreds of them appear in images from the telescope. They’re a cosmic enigma, one that started to appear roughly 650 million years after the Big Bang. www.quantamagazine.org/astrophysici...

Right, the thing about this speech is that he says BOTH that the Fourth of July is a sham, the day that reveals hypocrisy and injustice, AND that the principles of the Declaration are saving principles You can't understand either side of the speech without the other, imo

I wrote ab July 4 three years ago when a judge made up a quote & attributed it to me — said I said we’d done our work to “get around the 1st Amendment”. I couldn’t respond then bc AFL had just sued us in front of that judge. This year he’s just dismissed our case. open.substack.com/pub/agentsof...

Noah on the sclerosis of thought permeating America that might well be its downfall. open.substack.com/pub/noahpini...

Nobody will admit this but “she sells seashells” is enough of a tongue twister on its own before you even bring the seashore into it.

This is about the same rate of detonation as is planned for tonight’s fireworks display in Washington D.C.

Via Wikipedia I just found this second picture of Hector, and FAAAAARK.

Back when politicians were gave speeches in Opera Houses, Rep. John Bingham in 1872, at perhaps the high point of Reconstruction, argued that the period from 1860-1872 “constitute an epoch” analogous to the Founding era, with a “vindicated and amended Constitution“ that ensured ”equal rights.”

Beware the Deep Fried State.

Well, it was fun while it lasted. Go Canada! 🇨🇦 Allez Les Rouges! 🇨🇦

It’s amazing how little of this is actually AI. Even in a corny fantasy joke, it’s impossible to make the case that AI is a useful tool for political organizing, writing, or human collaboration.

These are beautiful sentiments from the @theunpopulist.net staff for Independence Day. Our work as Americans on this grand experiment is never done, and part of that work is offering the blessings of liberty to any who would come to our shores to take part in that effort.

Always remember who hides their faces and who does not. The Patriot Front losers cover up not for fear of arrest but because they fear the judgment of a free people — their neighbors and co-workers and friends and family. No one hides their faces at a “No Kings” rally or an anti-ICE protest.

When *I* say we study history in order not to repeat its mistakes, I often mean the recent history. Great work from @propublica.org. www.propublica.org/article/alic...

Here’s to our continuing aspiration of “forming a more perfect union” There’s such a thing as a clear eyed patriot Happy 250th

this is one of the weirdest turns of phrase I've ever heard.

American democracy turns 250 today. For 15 years, Lawfare has covered the hard national security & legal choices shaping our nation. Support our mission today. lawfaremedia.org/about/support

Due to a process called leveling, “It wasn’t too long before British visitors to America noticed the difference between their English and that of the colonists. These visitors from the Old World likely expected all kinds of accents to have developed, given the hodgepodge of dialects and languages +

Just heard someone say ‘with all due respect’ loudly in an Australian accent. Did not convince.

Not true. In their list of grievances, the Founding Fathers complained that King George III was blocking colonial laws that would promote immigration and make it easier for foreign settlers to become citizens.

Happy Independence Day! www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgcF...

Do they serve Bund cake at their meetings?

Judge Demands Answers About Plans for Trump’s East Potomac Golf Course www.nytimes.com/2026/07/02/u... Judge Reyes gives some very funny quotes here Worth a read I’ve gifted it to

YARDENI: “.. The bubble this time might be in analysts' expectations for the forward profit margin of the S&P 500 Semiconductors industry .. Investors certainly have their doubts, given that they are paying a forward P/E of only 18.4 currently. That reduces the risk of a FOMO-led bubble.”

The photographer here should win a Pulitzer Prize for photography.

Very powerful image

Celebrating finalized paperwork day is the ultimate British way!

as far as books to read to mark the holiday, i am a big fan of this volume www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/195079...

While finishing a story, @justinelliott.bsky.social stumbled in an AI-fueled feedback loop. “Fakes, counterfeits and frauds that would have taken considerable effort to create just a few years ago can now be churned out pretty much instantly,” he writes.

@benjaminwittes.lawfaremedia.org @michael-feinberg.bsky.social @lageneralista.ca re the #dogshirttv call for anti-U.S./anti-Canada songs. Given that there is exactly one country that shares a continent and free trade agreement with them, maybe Mexico is the place to look.

A very old technology becomes the basis of a very new technological/ guerilla warfare.

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them,

Rhapsody and Rebellion (and, I'd add, resignation and respite): This is the only playlist you need today (though I'd add the Dave Alvin original to the X cover that's No. 1).

Happy Independence Day!

The hour before sunrise this morning. Pure peacefulness.

For all that’s happened in such a short time period, we can still be — again — a shining city on the hill, and there’s not a day I’m not thankful to contribute a part, however small, to that endeavor. Happy birthday, America.

Happy Independence Day, y'all. "...He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

1. A bit of evolutionary biology. I'm really intrigued by a new perspective piece from Steve Frank that explores connections between how natural selection creates systems that generalize and recent work in machine learning about the surprising capabilities of massively overparameterized systems.

The Old University, Grant Funding Say, is there Beauty yet to find? And Certainty? and Quiet kind? Deep meadows yet, for to forget The lies, and truths, and pain? . . . oh! yet Stands the lecture theatre clock at ten to three? And is there money still for teaching assistants?

Today, we join our American friends in celebrating 250 years of independence. The Declaration of Independence gave birth to a new nation founded on the ideals of liberty and the pursuit of happiness. For 250 years our transatlantic partnership has been shaped by our shared values and family bonds.

So apparently liberty is modeled on a naked Mark Zuckerberg. Which really tells you something.