Posts tagged “politics”

Ranting and raving about fraud and abuse in the welfare system while blithely ignoring fraud and abuse in the White House doesn’t make you a conservative (or a liberal). It makes you an asshole.

To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin:

I’d rather 100 welfare scam artists enrich themselves than 1 child go to bed hungry.

• An oral history of Industrial Light and Magic
• Always Invite Anna
• Don’t cry for millennials or Gen Z. Save your pity for those in their 50s. Why Gen X is the real loser generation.
• Fat Bear Week is here.
• This is now incredibly the 16th consecutive year I’m linking to this: It’s Decorative Gourd Season, Motherfuckers
• The truth is not always beautiful nor beautiful words the truth. – via @swiftonsecurity.com
• I’ve always loved the Jabberwocky.
• For more than a century in the 18th & 19th centuries, an edited version of Romeo & Juliet, with “a 67-line final conversation between Romeo and Juliet“, was more popular than Shakespeare‘s original. – via kottke
• And now for the bad news:
  • A little chat about genAI is well worth your time. Don’t be the kind of person who says, “I hear you. I understand. But also, I don’t care.”
  • He’s Been On Louisiana’s Death Row for Decades. A Judge Just Vacated His Conviction.
  • “A former director of the North Carolina Republican Party – who resigned amid election fraud and corruption scandals – has been appointed to a new role overseeing North Carolina’s state and local election officials…” – via @maddow.msnbc.com
  • Bear shot, killed after wandering into Central Florida home
  • POTUS Fired a U.S. Attorney Who Insisted on Following a Court Order
  • Hollywood Union Files Complaint Against Use of James Earl Jones’ Darth Vader Voice—Which He Sold Before His Death

• One of the largest sports collectibles forgery rings in the hobby has been busted in a bizarre fraud and forgery case that has rocked the hobby.
• A professional toy photographer recreated the amazing story of the Shackleton Arctic expedition using LEGO bricks and a Nikon DSLR camera.
• Tragic things are going to happen. Figuring out how and why is the complicated work of serious professionals.
• I really cannot argue with any of the films on this list of The Ten Best Screenplays of All Time, but I dramatically disagree with the order. I also cannot imagine not putting Casablanca first and not including Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark, or any of a half dozen other Spielberg movies.
• Spontaneously Exploding Prosecco sounds like it would be a good late-90s Italian punk band name.
• The ‘rising fastball’ was a tantalizing myth. Then teams started teaching Induced Vertical Break.
• I agree with most of the points made in this essay on why Robert Redford as Roy Hobbs in The Natural still resonates with sports fans. (It’s one of my all-time favorite movies.)
• An Amateur’s Guide to Working with the Media in a Hostage Crisis

• Florida surgeon general says state will eliminate all vaccine mandates.
• Consider those loonies who believe that the Apollo moon landing never happened. Now imagine a world in which everybody is like that about everything—because nothing can be proven. – Our Shared Reality Will Self-Destruct in the Next 12 Months
• The current administration’s shortcut rule-making is shortchanging all of us.
• His Book on Charlie Kirk Was About to Come Out. Then His Subject Was Murdered. (See also: Florida Reporter Suspended After Texting MAGA Congressman to Ask If He Still Supports Campus Carry After Kirk Shooting)
• The Department of Education has announced that it will partner with right-wing think tanks and organizations to develop and spread what it claims is patriotic education.
• It’s painful to read the archived story of how Epstein, bolstered by unlimited funds and represented by a powerhouse legal team, was able to manipulate the criminal justice system, and how his accusers, still traumatized by their pasts, believe they were betrayed by the very prosecutors who pledged to protect them.

Hoo boy, I cannot wait to watch Seth tonight. I hope @salgentile.bsky.social didn’t spontaneously combust when he heard about Kimmel and was able to eviscerate the GOP in what I expect will be the best A Closer Look ever. (No pressure!)

• 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.

• 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.

• In September of 2023, geophysicists across the world started monitoring a very odd signal coming from the ground under them. (I love stories like this!) – via mikeachim.bsky.social
• The Wikipedia List of Unexplained Sounds – via my son
• I enjoyed this quick profile on Howard Katz, the man behind the NFL schedule.
• Someone on bluesky asked, “Do you remember the hardest you’ve ever laughed at anything?” That was an easy answer for me: I remember watching the SNL All-Drug Olympics sketch when it aired in October of 1988. I was fifteen and thought it was the funniest thing I’d ever seen. I still think it’s hysterical.
• Related: I’ve seen Overboard (1987, Kurt Russell, Goldie Hawn) at least 1,000 times and Mother’s Day 2025 was the first time I noticed that one of the VHS tapes in Grant’s collection is clearly a porno titled Pink Clam.
• Pope Leo XIV, the first American pope, became an instant hit among trading card collectors.
• Can confirm: It Only Tuesday
• How Is Any of This Happening?
  • POTUS is attempting to place Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, the guy who defended him in his porn star hush money trial, as the interim acting librarian of Congress. I cannot fathom how anyone is acting like this is… normal. (How does the AP even allow that headline?!) POTUS and/or anyone in the Executive branch cannot simply hire or fire someone who is de jure employed by the Legislative branch. It’s the Library of Congress, not the Library of the President, ffs!
  • I couldn’t have said it better myself: POTUS accepting a $400 million jet from the royal family of Qatar is banana republic shit.
  • The ICE detainment of progressive Twitch streamer Hasan Piker is a cautionary tale for multiple reasons.
  • A contestant (justifiably!) feels betrayed after spending $10,000 auditioning for a fake singing competition on the Nathan Fielder HBOMAX series The Rehearsal.
  • “This is insane. Republicans have inserted language into the budget reconciliation bill that would ban states from regulating AI in any capacity for 10 years.” – via bcmerchant.bsky.social
  • Employees who use AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini at work face negative judgments about their competence and motivation from colleagues and managers, according to a new study. – via sethpartnow.bsky.social

• 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 4^th – 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 20^th 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