- Ten Ways to Get a Tee Time at Augusta National – via my son
- What Is Italian Brain Rot? The Surreal TikTok Obsession, Explained
- A cephalopod captured on video in March has been confirmed as a juvenile colossal squid, the first live colossal squid observed in its native habitat.
- I visited the Disney website to find the hours of the EPCOT Flower & Garden Festival and was asked to complete a survey. Here was my answer to their question about Lightning Lane passes: “I have been an AP holder (at Disneyland for 5+ years and at Disney World for 10+ years) and still absolutely cannot understand how Lightning Lane works. It’s incredibly confusing compared to Fast Passes and it’s reprehensible and indefensible that AP holders must pay for Lightning Lane passes.”
- Italy enacted a law in March 2025 making it so only individuals who can prove at least one parent or grandparent was born there will can be considered citizens from birth.
- Wow. The U.S. government is phasing out the penny, whose use has spanned more than two centuries.
- The Sports Bra, a small chain of bars that only show women’s sports on their TVs, announced that it’s opening new locations in Boston, Las Vegas, Indianapolis, and St. Louis.
- Bobby Tables: A guide to preventing SQL injection
Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing:
- POTUS resurrected a hallmark policy of his first term, announcing that citizens of twelve countries would be banned from visiting the United States and those from seven others would face restrictions.
- The [current] administration revoked EMTALA guidance for emergency rooms to provide abortions when pregnant patients’ lives are in danger.
- Even the pro-gun lawyer working at the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives opposed the current administration’s move to allow the sale of forced reset triggers.
- While ICE patrols court houses for law-abiding immigrants, friends of the President get a free pass.
- Staff of the Federal Emergency Management Agency were left baffled after the head of the disaster agency said he had not been aware the United States has a hurricane season.
- Close your eyes and point in almost any direction, and you’ll find an area of knowledge loss.
Posts tagged “immigration”
- How Jeffrey Lurie, Jason Kelce, and the Eagles saved the tush push.
- Police in France have found the long-lost graveside bust of Jim Morrison.
- It was never meant to be proprietary. That’s just one of many good points Anil makes in MCP is the coming of Web 2.0 2.0.
- Pope Leo XIV heads the Catholic church from Vatican City, where a secret tennis court awaits.
- Holy smokes. That Preakness win by Journalism was incredible.
- The epic collapse of Florida governor Ron DeSantis is well deserved.
Stuck in the Middle With You:
- The current administration is trying to repeal a Biden rule that requires lead water pipes to be replaced. – via kellster.bsky.social
- U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi sold between $1M and $5M worth of shares on April 2, just before the POTUS “Liberation Day” press conference that sent the stock market tumbling. – via darthbluesky.bsky.social
- I strongly agree with this statement, because it’s hard to stomach the idea that Everyone Is Cheating Their Way through College – via my friend
- Is anyone truly surprised that Kristi Noem, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, has no idea what habeas corpus means? See also: The Questionable Case of Kristi Noem’s $50 Million Luxury Jet
- Criminal investigation launched related to Hope Florida, the sham charity championed by DeSantis and his wife. – via progressflorida.org
- An extraordinarily rare original of the Magna Carta has been discovered, hiding in plain sight in the archives of the Harvard Law School.
- Texas Democrats are trying to ban Republican Senator Ted Cruz from attending college playoff games, saying he’s “a well-known curse” for teams in the state.
- A baby born with a rare and dangerous genetic disease is growing and thriving after getting an experimental gene editing treatment made just for him. – via The Associated Press
- How cool is this? Rick Steves was on The Simpsons
- “These kids are ticking time bombs” – The Threat of Youth Basketball
It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry:
- The Environmental Protection Agency plans to weaken Biden-era rules that limit exposure to “forever chemicals” in drinking water.
- Kristi Noem has been working with the producer of Duck Dynasty to pitch a reality TV show titled The American, featuring immigrants competing in a string of challenges “for the honor of fast-tracking their way to U.S. citizenship.” – via brendannyhan.bsky.social
- The U.S. Register of Copyrights was abruptly dismissed last weekend just 24 hours after her office released a report stating AI companies can’t freely use copyrighted movies and TV shows for training. – via The Dailies
- NYU denies diploma to student who criticized Israel in commencement speech
- In response to latest POTUS executive orders, RAINN, the nation’s largest anti-sexual-violence organization, has barred its crisis hotline staff from sharing resources specific to LGBTQ people, immigrants, and other marginalized groups. – via maggieastor.bsky.social and sarahweinman.com
- The South Carolina Supreme Court ruled the state can keep banning abortions around six weeks after conception by agreeing with the earliest interpretation offered of when a heartbeat starts.
- How to Win an Argument with a Toddler is much better than I expected. – via Links You’ll Love
- It took me twenty-four years, but I finally thought to “Select All” in my Apple Music (née iTunes) library and clear the “Sort As” values for Title, Album, Album Artist, Artist, and Composer.
- Kangaroo on the loose in Florida found safe. / Alligator attacks, kills woman canoeing with her husband on Lake Kissimmee. / Woman arrested after raccoon named Chewy found with meth pipe in driver’s seat during police stop. / Yellowstone National Park reports first 2025 bison goring.
- Pretty much every respiratory intervention or product on the market is not supported by science or research, except one: deep breathing.
- 4×3 is a pretty tricky daily puzzle.
- Bravo has greenlit The Real Housewives of Rhode Island, expanding the franchise to its 12th U.S. city. – via The Dailies
- Unbreaking is a new newsletter which plans to detail how the administration is breaking the government, and what that means for all of us. – via Laura Olin
Death By A Thousand Cuts:
- The [current] administration is invoking the “state secrets privilege” in an apparent attempt to avoid answering a judge’s questions about its mistaken deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador.
- “Rolling Stone reached out to all 53 GOP senators after the president said he didn’t know whether he needs to honor the nation’s founding document. None replied.” – via thetnholler.bsky.social
- Since returning to the White House in January, POTUS has declared eight national emergencies.
- The President of the United States frequently has no idea what he’s signing and has to have it explained to him.
- Newark, New Jersey Mayor arrested at ICE facility / Department of Homeland Security is threatening to arrest members of Congress over the kerfuffle.
- Abortion abolitionists want women who get an abortion to face criminal charges.
- Even in his darkest time, Van Gogh was able to capture, with eerie accuracy, one of nature’s most complex and confusing concepts a century before scientists had the technology to do so. – via my dad
- The Los Angeles Rams will hold a minicamp in Maui this June; players will also help build four Habitat for Humanity homes in Lahaina, a historic town destroyed by wildfires in 2023.
- Self-styled prophets are claiming they have “awakened” chatbots and accessed the secrets of the universe through ChatGPT.
- And now: The Nations of the World, brought to you by Yakko Warner!
- The Death of the Screenplay Industrial Complex – via The Dailies
- People with the lowest LDL levels are less likely to develop dementia. – via Arnold’s Pump Club
Good News for People Who Like Bad News:
- Trillion-dollar Pentagon budget proposal cuts competitors out of NASA budget and could add billions to SpaceX defense contracts.
- The new president of the University of Florida is slated to make up to $3M/year, more than any other public university president in the country and more than twice what he made at the University of Michigan, and all he has to do is be a boot-licking sycophant. I am terribly disappointed in my alma mater and fearful of what this portends.
- Senate Democrats chose not to use the leverage they had to deal with the latest POTUS crypto scam, effectively allowing politicians to speculate personally in perhaps the most fraud-riddled financial market in human history. Pathetic.
- ICE efforts in Washington, D.C. thwarted by solidarity.
- God help us all, but I <gasp> agree with Laura Loomer, regarding the POTUS nomination of Casey Means – who has no government experience and dropped out of her surgical residency program: “[W]e can’t have a pro-COVID vaccine nepo appointee who is currently embroiled in a medical malpractice case and who didn’t go to medical school in the US,” as the surgeon general.
- I cannot believe this has happened three times now: More Troops Injured as U.S. Planes Keep Plunging into Red Sea
- I’ve been using the free native Apple Reminders app for over a decade now and at this point I’d be lost without it.
- The Best Black Friday Heist: They Told People It Was a Scam. People Paid Anyway. – via @froggyb.bsky.social
- How to read the entire Dog Man universe in order
- “If you’re going to talk shit about Kamala Harris‘ Bluetooth avoidance, please be aware Taylor Swift also follows a similar threat profile. For paparazzi spying on new music files before release.” – via SwiftOnSecurity
- If you didn’t read this the previous time I posted it, here’s a second chance: AI is a great idea if you think nobody at your company is great at what they do. [See also.]
- Did you hear about the cannibal who was expelled from school? He was buttering up his teacher.
- Olympic Gold Medalist Dominates the 100m at Her Kid’s Sports Day Event – via kottke
- Last year, Pakistan installed an incredible 22 gigawatts of solar power – more than Canada has ever built, and more than the UK has added in the past five years combined.
- I’ve (finally) started watching Andor S2 and am riveted. It’s definitely not as kid-friendly as the usual Star Wars fare, but I think it’s fantastic.
Hand Covers Bruise:
- POTUS signs (technically non-binding and illegal) executive order directing federal funding cuts to PBS and NPR.
- Despite their formal attire, penguins simply aren’t known for conducting commerce with the USA.
- Migrants held in Texas fearing deportation to notorious El Salvador prison work together to form human SOS.
- Beginning in the 2025-26 school year, thousands of high school students in Oklahoma will be required to learn about debunked claims that the 2020 election was tainted by fraud. The lesson will not be part of a course on conspiracy theories, but an official component of the new social studies curriculum created by Republican Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters.
- A third of parents with children aged 0 to 13 reported wishing they had more time to read to their children, and the number of parents saying their children have too much schoolwork to read books has risen significantly. – via kottke
- The official White House account posted an AI-generated picture of the POTUS holding a red lightsaber on Sunday, May 4th – the unofficial Star Wars day – intentionally mocking the point of the entire franchise. – via my dad
- Egyptologist in Paris Discovers Secret Messages on the Luxor Obelisk: The 3,300-year-old monument has sat in the French capital’s center for almost 200 years, but no one else noticed these strange encryptions.
- I took the boys to see Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith in the theater on the 20th anniversary of its release. I saw it in Century City (several days before the official release) two decades ago (and then again a few days later!) and am happy to report that also viewing it hundreds of times on a TV did not detract at all from the thrill of seeing it on the big screen. We loved it. It’s wild that the re-release of a twenty-year old movie made north of $42M over the weekend. Related: I love reading about Star Wars movie mistakes.
- “The choice of wood was completely incomprehensible,” isn’t the best line in this story about a concentration camp violin, but it’s up there.
- In sport, turning 30 was once the point where pundits started sharpening retirement speeches. But Cristiano Ronaldo, LeBron James, and Lewis Hamilton didn’t just stretch the narrative, they shattered it.
Boulevard of Broken Dreams:
- “DOGE” has tapped into some of the most sensitive and valuable data in the world. Now it’s starting to put it to work.
- Related: “DOGE” says it has saved $160 billion. Those cuts have cost taxpayers $135 billion. – via @heidiyounggrasshopper
- Public health, modern medicine, and disease mitigation will suffer under RFK Jr. because he sees sick people – not sickness – as the problem.
- Vince Vaughn poses with POTUS in the Oval Office. Pathetic.
- Senate Democrats who took heat for government shutdown vote now feel vindicated. Pathetic.
- Oh Great, Millionaires Are Racing Sperm Now
- The Supreme Court’s Late-Night Alien Enemy Act Intervention
- The Falconer time travel sketch is genius, and I can’t believe it took me almost twenty years to see it.
- Space Pants is almost as good. (Check out its Reddit thread and backstory, too.)
- Ballad of a Thin Man has always reminded me of The Second Coming. It’s more than a little disturbing that they’re equally relevant these days. – via my dad
- The Roman Empire’s original smartwatch: portable sundials
- I have been using Dotster as my registrar for this site for more than 25 years. I was a little miffed to learn last year that they were acquired by Web.com, but didn’t think much of it because my site’s registration is paid far in advance and I rarely think about it. Today I got an email telling me that Web.com was acquired by Network Solutions, and I cannot stand their platform. Most of my 50+ domains are registered at Dreamhost, so I’ll likely be switching soon.
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world:
- “The last ship from China will dock at a West coast port on the 29th, and the last Chinese ship will dock on the East coast around May 10th. […] We’re screwed.“
- [Current] administration officials are placing dozens of posters of arrested unauthorized immigrants along the White House driveway.
- POTUS pardons Nevada politician who paid for cosmetic surgery with funds to honor a slain officer.
- A little-known firm with investors linked to JD Vance, Elon Musk, and POTUS could get a piece of the federal expense card system — and its hundreds of millions in fees.
- Republicans are trying to steal an election in North Carolina.
- Please understand that when 2A cultists point their fingers at bizarre tragedies – like what happened recently in Vancouver – as some sort of justification for their infantile predilection for firearms, an excruciatingly rational response is that the entire automobile industrial complex is also misguided, cancerous, and evil.
- Crumple Zone: What Car Crashes Reveal About Human Hubris and Fragility
- I’m A PGA Golf Coach – Here’s Why I Made Sure My Kids Can Play Golf – via my dad
- I’ve seen some people saying how AI-generated text is now as good as certain published authors, and honestly I think it’s really brave for these folks to admit in public how poor their reading comprehension has to be.
- Officials in Cinque Terre, Italy have introduced several strict measures to control overtourism, including a 2000€ fine for wearing flip-flops. – via Jenny
- Gray goo is a hypothetical global catastrophic scenario involving molecular nanotechnology in which out-of-control self-replicating machines consume all biomass (and perhaps also everything else) on Earth while building many more of themselves.
Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.
- How Much Did Congress Make Off Market Turmoil and Why Are They Allowed to Make Anything at All?
- The great thing about fighting back against [fascism] is that if you end up losing anyway you get the same outcome you’d have gotten from complying but you don’t have to fucking hate yourself too.
- [The Administration] Is Gaming Out How to Ship U.S. Citizens to El Salvador – via gtconway.bsky.social
- This is severely bad: Artificial intelligence hallucinating nonexistent software packages with plausible names leads to a new malware vulnerability: “slopsquatting.” – via janelleshane.com
- If you wrote a story about a regime so comically evil that it literally snatches people from their citizenship interviews, you’d be accused of over-the-top imaginings.
- [Administration] freezes $2.2 billion in grants to Harvard over campus activism – via stardustbluepr.com
- A Masters win for Rory McIlroy gives him, at last, a seat at the table.
- The Last of Us S2 on
HBOMax premiered this weekend, so it’s a great time to read some perspectives from an epidemiologist and a plant scientist. - What can we learn from the books being read by the characters in White Lotus S3?
- Lorne Michaels is going to produce a British version of Saturday Night Live starting in 2026.
- Great quote from physicist Brian Greene: “My best teachers were not the ones who had all the answers. They were the ones deeply excited by questions they couldn’t answer.” – via Austin Kleon
Dreaming of a song, but something went wrong:
- A federal judge sided with the [current] administration in allowing immigration agents to conduct enforcement operations at houses of worship for now.
- Death is the point.
- Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard signed a sworn declaration stating that she was a resident of the State of Texas, and then voted in Hawaii. – via mehdirhasan.bsky.social
- Vice President JD Vance fumbles trophy during Ohio State football’s White House visit
- I can think of a few thousand better ways the AP could have worded this headline to more accurately convey just how corrupt this weirdo is: DeSantis Defends $10M Donation from State Agency Settlement to Charity Linked to His Wife
- The American Dream Is Over: He did this with the enthusiastic support of the entire Republican party and conservative movement, and a plurality of American voters.