- I finally saw Captain America: Brave New World and will say that, at the end of the day, it was a fun movie. I think Anthony Mackie works as Captain America and he’s a fine actor. Harrison Ford is brilliant, of course. The plot is actually great. But — just like pretty much every MCU offering since Avengers: Endgame — I left feeling like I have no idea whether Disney and Kevin Feige have a plan or if they’re just pumping out movies.
- A Cheeto shaped like the Pokémon Charizard sold at auction for over $87,000.
- I cannot imagine a scenario in which Stephen A. Smith is worth $20,000,000.00 per year, but I also cannot imagine paying $87,000.00 for a Cheeto shaped like a Pokémon character, so I guess that’s why I am not in charge of contracts at ESPN.
- Two men were charged Wednesday in the deaths of three Kansas City Chiefs fans whose bodies were found in a backyard two days after they got together to watch the final game of the regular season in 2024.
- I am almost certain that I read Always Go To The Funeral when it was published (or aired on the radio) two decades ago, but it just popped up in a recent issue of Links You’ll Love and it’s worth sharing again.
- I one hundred percent did not see the sudden political twist coming in White Lotus S3E3 but I am f’ing here for it. Kudos to Mike White and HBO for going there. I can’t wait to see the next episode. (And, yes, I know it’s MAX now.)
In other news:
- POTUS signs executive order to establish government bitcoin reserve.
</bangs head on desk> - It’s Tax Season – The Perfect Time for POTUS to Sell This “Critical” IRS Computing Center: Last year, the IRS Martinsburg site was “viewed as a high priority.” Now it’s suddenly “functionally obsolete”?
- The CDC is planning a large study into potential connections between vaccines and autism, despite extensive scientific research that has disproven or failed to find evidence of such links. – via @boghuma.bsky.social
- Maine officials said the Social Security Administration did not provide any explanation for the abrupt end of the decades old registration process, or for the sudden reversal. – via @crampell.bsky.social
- I really hope in a hundred years there will still be people left to cringe at this headline: Half the World’s CO2 Emissions Come from 36 Fossil Fuel Firms
- POTUS signs executive order to establish government bitcoin reserve.
Posts tagged “POTUS”
- Steve Carell helped make sure high school students affected by LA wildfires wouldn’t have to worry about paying for prom tickets.
- For reasons I cannot explain, I have still not managed to watch A Knight’s Tale, even though I know it was one of my mom’s favorite movies.
- It doesn’t look like they’ve released their 2025 operating dates yet, but the Breathtaker Alpine Coaster is a must for anyone visiting Aspen in the summer.
- Take a moment to complete The Heritage Foundation DOGE Survey and give them a piece of your mind. (If you decide to use your real email address, you’ll have to unsubscribe from their garbage newsletter.)
- Friendly reminder: There’s seriously no sane reason to drill for oil in Alaska and anyone saying otherwise doesn’t understand math.
- I had no idea that watermarks were invented in Italy in the 13th century.
- Practically all of Spain’s population growth since the COVID-19 pandemic is due to immigration.
- Can confirm: “the democratic party leadership sorely underestimates how much young people fucking despise them” – via @junlper.beer
- Make It Stop:
- POTUS signs order designating English as the official language of the US
- This whole story is nuts: With its top lawyer placed on leave after less than one week in the role, a culture of fear has paralyzed FEMA. – via The Handbasket
- After the POTUS joint address to Congress earlier this week, Hayden Haynes, the chief of staff to House Speaker Mike Johnson and one of the most powerful aides on Capitol Hill, was arrested for driving drunk.
- Why Techdirt Is Now A Democracy Blog (Whether We Like It Or Not) “[W]hat’s happening in the US right now is some sort of weird hybrid of the kind of power grabs we’ve seen in the tech industry, combined with a more traditional collapse of democratic institutions.”
- The Iowa GOP advanced a bill making it a misdemeanor for a healthcare provider to administer a COVID vaccine. – via @piperformissouri.bsky.social
- Your Worst Is Not the Worst, the latest issue of Making It Work from Youngna Park, is powerfully relatable. Trying to explain to young children what’s happening in the world in 2025 is so, so hard.
- Behind the Collapse of Technicolor and Why Its Failure Is Sending Shockwaves Through the VFX Industry
- I quickly fell in love with the Hulu sci-fi series Paradise, starring Sterling K. Brown and James Marsden. Check it out.
- How Pop-Tarts turned an easy-to-forget bowl into one of the college football season’s best moments
- “There is not one Yeezy shoe left,” said Adidas chief financial officer. “It has all been sold and that episode is behind us.”
And now, the bad news:
- How “DOGE” Cuts to the IRS Threaten to Cost More Than DOGE Will Ever Save
- Marco Rubio is often the last to know when foreign policy decisions are made in the White House.
- A truly troubling read: “We believe this rush to comply is a sign that universities are willing to become an institutional wing of the new segregationists.”
- POTUS Signs Executive Order Handing U.S. Public Forests Over to Private Logging Industry
- The Strategic Crypto Swindle: A bitcoin reserve would be a government-backed grift.
- A leaked memo calls for VA to lay off as many as 83,000 employees this year.
- Utah teen arrested for taping fish to ATMs – via kottke
- Lorne Michaels Is the Real Star of Saturday Night Live
- Egyptian officials announced the discovery of the tomb of King Thutmose II, the last of the lost tombs of the kings of ancient Egypt’s Eighteenth Dynasty, which reigned for over two centuries. It’s the first royal Egyptian tomb to be discovered since the final resting place of King Tutankhamun was found in 1922. – via @indyfromspace.bsky.social
Mexico threatens to sue Google over name change of Gulf of Mexico on US maps- The most disturbing part of this headline is that anyone — anyone — could be shocked by this: “Julianne Moore in ‘Great Shock’ after POTUS Bans Her Children’s Book Freckleface Strawberry from Schools”
- “DOGE” seeks access to personal taxpayer data, raising alarm at IRS. Here is an excellent TL;DR of the article: The POTUS has ordered the IRS to hand over all of your personal information to a Holocaust denier who works for the richest man on Earth, who is a Nazi. – via @theophite.bsky.social, via anildash.com
- Related? The IRS Is Buying an AI Supercomputer from Nvidia
- “President Plane Accident” – via @rollingstone.com
- Elephants trumpet, squeak, and flap their ears after their complex move across an Australian city.
- Bridge Grades score Congress members on their ability to collaborate, build coalitions, deliver consensus solutions, and bridge America. – via @froggyb.bsky.social
- Men Actually Crave Romantic Relationships More Than Women Do: According to more than fifty studies of mixed-gender relationships, men tend to experience greater mental and physical health benefits from being in a relationship, are less likely to initiate breakups, and struggle more with the emotional toll of a breakup.
- Kudos to Anker customer support. The ring stand on my wife’s iPhone case snapped and when I contacted them via the Amazon product support page, they sent me a new one right away.
- “I resent having to have so much anger in my heart all the time. Because it’s not my default. I’m a happy person by default.” – via @anildash.com
- A recent survey revealed that 83% of Americans say the President is required to follow Supreme Court rulings. (It’s the other 17% that bother me.)
- This is just pathetic: The “DOGE” website created to document how the ‘team’ is eviscerating the US federal government is wide open for anyone to edit.
- Here’s a really lovely resource: Mister Rogers on How to Talk to Kids About Distressing News Events – via kottke
- Of two drivers heading towards each other down a one-way street, surely it is the one driving the wrong way who is most sorely in need of feedback. But it is unfortunately unusual to get a focused note of timely, specific, and usable criticism before things go too badly wrong.
- Scientists are using AI to decipher old scrolls charred by the Vesuvius volcano.
AI means the end of internet search as we’ve known it is a great article from MIT Technology Review about the history of Google and search engines and the wonders of the (inevitable) artificial intelligence future, but I fear we’re looking at yet another Torment Nexus. – via Jodi Ettenberg- “He’s the Veruca Salt of presidents.”
- The current administration is staging a coup, trying to illegally eliminate agencies, seize control of the U.S. government’s payment systems, and gain access to sensitive data on all Americans without any oversight. It’s time to fight back like our democracy depends on it. – via Laura Olin
- “DOGE” has already thrown entire swaths of the federal government and its programs into disarray – programs that serve millions of Americans. ProPublica is is attempting to document who is involved and what they are doing.
- Billionaire’s blitzkrieg on D.C. has brought into focus his vision for a dramatically smaller and weaker government, as he and a coterie of aides move to control, automate – and substantially diminish – thousands of public functions.
- ICE is gaming Google to create a mirage of mass deportations.
- The team at Court Watch is maintaining an ongoing list of Lawsuits Related to Trump Admin Executive Orders.
- Reps. Judy Chu (D-Calif.) and Gwen Moore (D-Wisc.) barged into the office of House Speaker Mike Johnson on Wednesday and challenged him about the “DOGE” team gaining access to a sensitive payment system at the Department of the Treasury.
- Workers at NASA were told to ‘Drop Everything’ to scrub any mentions of indigenous people and women from its websites.
- Federal Judge Blocks Executive Order Intended to End Birthright Citizenship
“It’s sad that Wile E. Coyote will always be remembered for his failures and not his amazingly realistic tunnel paintings.” – via @sean_with_an_ean_damnit- This is the sort of thing that makes my blood boil. Federal law mandates wholesome lunches, but much of it gets trashed because there isn’t time to eat it. – via Jodi Ettenberg
- The “DOGE” Government Data Heist Is the Entire Ballgame is a chilling plea written by a federal employee.
- The US Treasury Claimed “DOGE” Technologist Didn’t Have ‘Write Access’ When He Actually Did: Sources tell WIRED that the ability of Marko Elez to alter code controlling trillions in federal spending was rescinded days after US Treasury and White House officials said it didn’t exist.
- All of this, of course, depends on a functioning justice system. (Things Are Going to Keep Getting Worse Until They Get Better, Part 339.)
- CDC Posts, Then Deletes, Data on Bird Flu Spread Between Cats and People
- Conservative “Christian nationalist” Russell Vought, former vice president of Heritage Action for America and one of the architects behind Project 2025, believes there is nothing left to conserve. He desires revolution — and to burn down the system. And the Senate just confirmed him to be the head of OMB. (I would link you directly to the official White House website for OMB, but… it’s been deleted.)
- This tutorial on installing a newsletter replacement for Jetpack looks promising.
- “Just gonna slide this information in here. The Eagles refused to go to the White House after their Super Bowl victory in 2018. Do with that what you will.” – via @brandi-rene.swifties.social
- Oh, and Taylor Swift is expected to attend the Super Bowl on Sunday night. Obviously, she won’t be sitting in the same suite as POTUS.
- The US government wants to start protecting you (and your kids) from Roblox robux scams. – via Anil
- The Moon is part of the Diocese of Orlando, in accordance with the 1917 Code of Canon Law, which states that “any newly discovered territory was placed under the jurisdiction of the diocese from which the expedition which discovered that territory left.” – via Kent Hendricks
- I can’t be the only GenXer really struggling with the fact that it’s 2025. That number seems impossible to me. It sounds like a year from The Jetsons or Space Mountain. (Related: Wikipedia’s list of movies set in 2025 is somewhat disappointing.)
- I thoroughly enjoyed reading this essay on the evolution of the Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade screenplay. – via hiro.report, via Phil Gyford
- Bad news for people who hate good news:
- In a 6-1 ruling in favor of sixteen youth who sued, the Montana Supreme Court affirmed their constitutional right to a “clean and healthful environment.” – via kottke
- The U.S. Supreme Court won’t hear appeals from oil companies challenging a lawsuit in Hawaii that aims to hold them accountable for climate change. – via Crooked Media
- The US jobs market roared to life in December – via Semafor
- Trump can still vote after sentencing, but can’t own a gun and will have to turn over DNA sample – via The Associated Press
- Biden Issues Sweeping Deportation Protections Before Trump Takes Office
- Good news for people who love bad news:
- Global temperatures in 2024 eclipsed 2023’s average by more than a fifth of a degree Fahrenheit. That’s an unusually large jump; until the last couple of super-hot years, global temperature records were exceeded only by hundredths of a degree. – via The Morning Wire
- Tens of millions of American Christians are embracing a charismatic movement known as the New Apostolic Reformation, which seeks to destroy the secular state. – via my dad
#FridayFive: A Better House
View the Friday Five from November 15th, 2024