- 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.
Posts tagged “JD Vance”
- 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.
- On The (Apocryphal?) Rules of Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote Cartoons – via kottke, natch
- With the possible – possible – exception of Sonny Corleone‘s toll booth scene, I cannot think of anything in the universe that wouldn’t be dramatically improved by adding a college marching band.
- Netflix is developing a reality television series based on the classic board game Monopoly. Fingers crossed that the producers convey that the only realistic way to win the game is to hoard all the money and property, causing everyone else to eventually quit in despair and destitution, and that unfettered capitalism is actually terrible for any species. – via The Dailies
- Good news! AP wins reinstatement to White House events after judge rules government can’t bar its journalists
- A federal judge ruled former Florida QB signee Jaden Rashada can proceed with his lawsuit against Gators football coach Billy Napier over a $13M NIL deal gone wrong.
- There are actually a few cool items in this Wirecutter article: 18 Things You Didn’t Know Your iPhone Could Do
- Instagram users under 16 will no longer be able to livestream or unblur nudity in direct messages without parental approval. This seems like something that should have already been the policy, but I guess I’ll take the win. – via me
- Why don’t we remember being a baby? Infants can encode specific memories, a new Yale study shows, suggesting “infantile amnesia” might be a memory retrieval problem.
When Is This Going to Stop?
- POTUS signs executive orders to… boost coal production.
- China slams Vance for ‘peasants’ slur as tariff war intensifies – via thebasement.nz
- WTF? Administration orders half of national forests open for logging – via moudhy.bsky.social
- 20 Rude Questions the Media Should Ask – via markjacob.bsky.social
- Inside ICE Air: Flight Attendants on Deportation Planes Say Disaster Looms
- Dark energy is probably doing something weird, and we don’t know why.
- The Scale of Time
- New research suggests that being even slightly dehydrated can reduce muscle thickness after lifting weights—potentially limiting growth and recovery. – via Arnold’s Pump Club
- Prosecutors who resigned rather than carry out what they saw as an unethical, improper and potentially illegal order were 100% vindicated by [the judge]’s extensive findings.
- “Only one thing / I did wrong / Stayed in Mississippi / Way too long” – For some reason I had no idea that this was a “newer” (relatively speaking) Dylan song, or that it was released on 9/11. It feels much older than that. (It’s also weird that the Sheryl Crow cover was released in 1998!)
- On the Best (Worst) Best Man Speech Ever (at My Super Mario-Themed Wedding) – via kottke, of course
- How to optimize files and fix your storage problems on Macs, iPhones, and iPads
- We Can Do Better:
- Several members of [the President]’s National Security Council have been fired a day after conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer visited the Oval Office and pressed [the President] to get rid of them.
- The state of Florida is prepared to convict [a woman] for killing her son, despite the fact that the only direct evidence of arson has been thoroughly discredited. This story is as infuriating as it is heartbreaking.
- JD Vance Would Throw His Own Kids Under A Bus If [POTUS] Were Driving It
- How the [Current] Administration Learned to Obscure the Truth in Court
- Texas GOP Congressman Ronny Jackson has been fundraising with what appears to be an unauthorized legal expense fund.
- [Administration] Declares a Trade War on Uninhabited Islands, US Military, and Economic Logic
- Georgia Woman Arrested After Having Miscarriage
- The [current] administration is planning to halt more than half a billion dollars in contracts and grants awarded to Brown University.
- Signposts on the road to authoritarian rule: “If one were to design a path to authoritarian rule, it would be what we have seen in the first weeks of the Trump administration.”
- Kentuckians can’t afford the high cost of Trump’s tariffs is an op-ed by – of all people – Mitch McConnell.
- For women’s college basketball coaches, motherhood is no longer something to keep quiet.
- “One thing Democratic leadership could do right now is to name an alternate HHS secretary—someone to provide ongoing public updates and health information. And do it for other departments, too. Start showing voters what a Democratic government would look like—press conferences, speeches, all of it.” – via @markharris.bsky.social
- Mark Cuban Says U.S. Healthcare Is ‘Horrific’; Calls for Free Medical School to Fix Doctor Shortages and Soaring Costs
- Pope Francis’ Stunning Rebuke of JD Vance Exposes MAGA’s Dark Soul
- ICE wants to hire contractors to monitor social media for threats. Those who criticize the agency could be pulled into the dragnet.
- Thursday Night Massacre
- Acting US attorney in Manhattan resigns after directive to drop case against Mayor Eric Adams
- Dozens of CFPB Workers Fired in After-Hours Blitz
- The interim U.S. attorney for the Southern District and five officials with the federal public integrity unit quit after the Justice Department ordered charges against Mayor Eric Adams to be dropped.
- Expert Flags DOJ‘s ‘Cascading Scandal’ — That Won’t Go Away
- The Thursday Night Massacre(s)
- Thousands of federal employees fired today and tomorrow.
- What beats rock?
- Pope Francis denounced the current administration’s plan to carry out mass deportations of migrants in a letter to U.S. bishops Tuesday, while appearing to take a direct jab at Vice President JD Vance.
- For decades, casinos scoffed as mathematicians and physicists devised elaborate systems to take down the house. Then an unassuming Croatian’s winning strategy forever changed the game.
Why is Hawaii the rainbow capital of the world?- Is gold hidden under a California peak? This treasure map says so.
- These JETech iPhone screen protectors are a great investment.
- Forensics Experts Challenged the FBI. So the FBI Tried to Censor Their Conference. This story includes a timely reminder that — with the exception of DNA matches — most of the highly-regarded techniques used to put people away (fingerprint examinations, ballistics and toolmarks comparisons, blood pattern analysis) “were developed by law enforcement agencies for law enforcement, and not by scientists first subjecting them to standard, rigorous testing processes designed to ensure they stand on a solid scientific foundation.”
- How did a life-saving pediatric drug – discovered and developed using money from American taxpayers, and spurred by the grassroots fundraising of desperate parents – end up costing $2,000,000 per dose?
- In the span of just weeks, the U.S. government has experienced what may be the most consequential security breach in its history – not through a sophisticated cyberattack or an act of foreign espionage, but through official orders by a billionaire with a poorly-defined government role.
- Harrison Ford said the recent California wildfires burned several Shrinking sets.