- Three brothers cleaning out their late mother’s attic discovered a remarkably well-preserved copy of Superman No. 1, which sold at auction for a record-breaking $9.12 million.
- Everyone in Florida should be thankful for alligators. – via my dad
- What makes the world’s first bar joke funny? No one knows. – via @heidiyounggrasshopper
- I love this research into whether the mere presence of someone in a Batman costume makes people act nicer. (Spoiler: It does.)
- Why do NFL refs keep botching the overtime coin toss?!
- Clues by Sam is a daily brain teaser that manages to be both cute and maddening – via The Athletic
- On the evening of October 9, 1992, a meteor weighing more than two tons punctured the atmosphere. Sonic explosions accompanied its descent as it broke apart while screaming across the sky before a small chunk of it went through the trunk of a parked car in Peekskill, New York.
- Does Harrison Ford Know His Lines?
- The ultimate dad gift? A World War II Aircraft Advent Calendar
- War Is Over If You Want It:
- The people making AI seem trustworthy are the ones who trust it the least.
- Higher Ed’s Rush to Adopt AI Is about So Much More Than AI
The current maliciously-ignorant dotard running the most powerful nation-state in the history of mankind decided to demolish the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden (established by first lady Edith Roosevelt as the Colonial Garden in 1903) in addition to leveling the Rose Garden and felling two historic magnolia trees (commemorating Presidents Warren G. Harding and Franklin D. Roosevelt) adjacent to the East Wing in his craven lust to install a self-aggrandizing and pointless ballroom.- A 17-year-old U.S. citizen and high school senior was detained by immigration officers in Oregon on Nov. 21, 2025.
- Driver Denny Hamlin breaks down in tears as the first witness testifying at NASCAR antitrust trial
- Indigenous actress Elaine Miles of Northern Exposure was detained by ICE at a bus stop. When she showed them her Tribal ID, they told her it was fake. – via @phillewis
Posts tagged “FDR”
- Italy has embraced a novel approach to integrate olive oil into its tourism industry through oleotourism, an initiative that invites visitors to engage with the olive oil production process, offering experiences that range from guided tours of olive groves and mills to tasting sessions and educational workshops.
“In the final analysis, the progress of our civilization will be retarded if any large body of citizens falls behind. Without the help of thousands of others, any one of us would die, naked and starved.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt- Scottie Scheffler, 2024 PGA Tour Player of the Year, missed the first two tournaments of the season because he needed surgery to repair his hand after slicing it while attempting to make homemade ravioli on Christmas Day.
- A growing number of US government websites have gone offline as of Saturday, including several related to USAID and others focused on youth programs, Africa, and more.
- A newly discovered asteroid has a tiny chance of smacking Earth in 2032. It’s very unlikely, thankfully, but what should be truly concerning is that nobody was even aware of it until two days after it made its last closest pass to us.
- A dire prediction: “[W]hen NIH and other health agencies emerge from the current freeze they will have been emasculated and politicized, prohibited from releasing information and research whose implications the Trump administration doesn’t like, banned from making policy recommendations that are inconvenient for Trump or at odds with the prejudices of the MAGA base.” – via Jodi Ettenberg
- When I was a kid, most of my possessions were very inexpensive, but tremendously meaningful. A baseball hat or an action figure or a comic book only cost a few dollars, but meant the world to me. My kids have tremendously expensive possessions that are very meaningless. An iPhone or iPad or AirPods cost hundreds or thousands of dollars but have essentially zero sentimental value. I’m sure this says something important about capitalism, but I don’t have time to think about it at the moment.
- Chris Coyier wrote a little about the pros and cons of maintaining your own website that’s worth a read. (And he mentions POSSE, which is something I love.)
- Here’s a cool statistical analysis done to determine whether NFL referees unfairly favor the Kansas City Chiefs. (Spoiler: Yup.)
Anna Sofia DiFolco Albanese
A biography I wrote in college about my grandmother, who would have turned 97 today
Works Progress Administration
The WPA changed America forever.
We shall strive for perfection. We shall not achieve it immediately — but we still shall strive. We may make mistakes — but they must never be mistakes which result from faintness of heart or abandonment of moral principle.
I remember that my old schoolmaster, Dr. Peabody, said, in days that seemed to us then to be secure and untroubled: “Things in life will not always run smoothly. Sometimes we will be rising toward the heights — then all will seem to reverse itself and start downward. The great fact to remember is that the trend of civilization itself is forever upward; that a line drawn through the middle of the peaks and the valleys of the centuries always has an upward trend.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt, Fourth Inaugural Address
Saturday, January 20, 1945