Posts tagged “US Immigration and Customs Enforcement”

• Renewable energy was the world’s leading source of electricity in the first half of 2025 for the first time ever, knocking coal off its longtime throne. – via The Progress Network
• Narrative String Theory (NST) is an awesome collection of movies, television shows, and other assorted media that feature detectives (or conspiracy theorists) connecting pictures on a wall or whiteboard with thread.
• Taylor Swift gave her Eras Tour crew jaw-dropping bonuses because of course she did.
• Mississippi State will face Wake Forest in the Duke’s Mayo Bowl, which requires head coaches to sign an agreement saying the winner will accept having a bucket of mayonnaise dumped on his head.
• RIP Tom Stoppard
• The Athletic did a great story on the current value of the sports collectibles seen in Home Alone.
  Related: Meet the family that pulled the most expensive Shohei Ohtani baseball card to date.
• Why do we have two nostrils instead of one big hole in our face? – via Jason
• 51% of the animals in farms across the world are shrimp. – via Tom Whitwell
• I know I’ve linked to this already, but I’m going to once again urge you to read the fascinating backstory of the Duck Tales theme song, history’s catchiest single minute of music.
• I’ve certainly experienced the Abilene Paradox plenty of times. I didn’t know it had a name, though. – via cassidoo
• Can Magnus Carlsen, the best chess player in the world, beat a novice while facing increasingly-difficult disadvantages?
• Jingle Bell Rock:
  • WTF? White House installs plaques mocking former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden
  • WTF? Liam Neeson Narrates Anti-Vax, Pro-RFK Documentary
  • WTF? Fake social media accounts attempted to push a ridiculous narrative framing Taylor Swift as a white supremacist.
  • Massachusetts Catholic Church Angers Conservatives with Its ICE-Themed Nativity Scene
  • Am I the only one thinking that there’s something really sus about this whole insane Venezuela lunacy? They’re not flooding us with drugs. We don’t need their oil. Why all the trumped up aggression? I feel like we’re living in the first few chapters of a 007 novel and we’re soon going to learn 90% of some critical part of cryptocurrency or artificial intelligence computer chips can only be found buried underneath some mountain range there or something like that.
  • “It makes my blood boil. It’s so ridiculous, so petty, so small minded,” wrote Maria Shriver, about the latest stupidity out of the current administration.

• When ancient Romans felt wronged, they didn’t ask for revenge from the gods. Instead they scratched their anger into thin lead sheets called defixiones, folded them carefully, and buried them in wells, graves, or temples, trusting that some power beneath the earth would take care of the rest.
• Buckle up, buttercup. This essay is going to be tough to swallow. Collagen Sits on a Throne of Lies: How the supplement industry took meat garbage and turned it into a $9B business
• A single HPV vaccination appears just as effective as two doses at preventing the viral infection that causes cervical cancer.
• Finding it impossible to stop thinking about The Chair Company? You can get a Tecca t-shirt or hat, but they’re sold out of chairs.
• One of the hardest parts of being a parent is attempting to balance, “Please study! School and your grades are very important,” with, “Don’t be stressed! This one history test isn’t going to matter at all in twenty years.” – via me
• Have you ever wondered how a touch screen knows you are touching it?
• Chindōgu: The Japanese Art of Unuseless Inventions
• How a UF engineer found purpose Below Deck
• Man unexpectedly cured of HIV after stem cell transplant
• “Anyone who was born an American and therefore feels superior to someone who had to work to become an American doesn’t know the first thing about being an American.” – via @harrymccracken.com
• Good News for People Who Like Bad News:
  • A 6-year-old boy is missing after ICE arrested him and his dad in NYC last week and shipped them to separate facilities. – via @clauirizarry
  • Zillow has removed climate risk scores from over a million real estate listings after realtors complained that information such as how at risk a home is from wildfires was causing them to lose sales. – via @carnage4life
  • Crucial is shutting down — because Micron wants to sell its RAM and SSDs to AI companies instead. – via @papapishu
  • “You are an abuser of women — that is the ugly truth and I have no respect for any man that belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around, and uses women for his own power and ego.” – Penelope Hegseth to her son, Pete
  • The Supreme Court is siding with the current administration 84 percent of the time; it sided with the Biden administration only 53 percent of the time. And of course only one of those administrations is habitually laying waste to the rule of law.
  • Lawsuits allege USA Gymnastics, SafeSport failed to prevent sexual abuse by coach

• 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

• The Philadelphia Eagles have produced yet another awesome and fun Christmas video. – via The Kids Kickoff
• Missing Flamingo Thought to Be Living in France
• Beginning in the 1970s, Alan Rosen – the Indiana Jones of vintage sports cards – professed that there would always be a market for older cards and memorabilia, and history has proven him right.
• The Fascinating History of Tarot Card Decks: From the Renaissance to the Modern Day – via kottke
• It’s tough to argue with anything on this list of 100 small steps you can take to live to 100. And some of them are even pretty fun. – via hurly
• The Food and Drug Administration unveiled a new blueprint for the regulation of bespoke drug therapies, a way for these treatments to quickly get to market if they meet certain standards.
• A cannon, three coins, and a porcelain cup were among the first objects Colombian scientists recovered from the depths of the Caribbean Sea where the mythical galleon San José sank in 1708.
• This Is Fine dot gif:
  • Over 30,000 Charlotte, North Carolina students skipped school in protest of ICE operations in the area.
  • The U.S. is becoming an Nvidia-state: How the AI Crash Happens
  • Sales of AI-enabled teddy bear suspended after it gave advice on BDSM sex and where to find knives
  • I Set A Trap To Catch My Students Cheating With AI. Students chose to actively avoid learning because it’s boring and hard.
  • Paul Bojerski, a 79-year-old who was born to Polish parents in a WWII German refugee camp and who legally emigrated to the U.S. when he was 5, has been abducted by ICE in Florida. – via @oliviamesser
  • Prominently displaying the Ten Commandments in every public school classroom is a clear and obvious violation of the First Amendment. How is this even an issue?
  • Sex Workers & A Secret Charity: The Story Of Cory Mills’ ‘F*cking Bananas’ Afghanistan Mission – via @ronfilipkowski
  • This story is simply heartbreaking. A Teen in Love With a Chatbot Killed Himself. Can the Chatbot Be Held Responsible? – via New York Times Magazine

It’s easier to put your hand in the next guy’s pocket if he’s illiterate.

American society is dominated by wealthy mountebanks and literally demented politicians who are happy to take on all the risks of AI because it promises to create workers who cannot even conceptualize quitting, much less striking.
from We Used to Read Things in This Country, by Noah McCormack

• The paradox of horror: How scary films can soothe your anxiety
• Matt Berninger, lead singer of The National, traded his notebook for a baseball. And the words kept coming.
• I didn’t realize until reading a recap at The Athletic that on Saturday night Will Smith hit the first extra-inning Game 7 homer in the history of the World Series. Oh, and the nail-biter peaked at 33.1M viewers and beat the last Game 7 (in 2019) by 10%, making it the most-watched MLB game since 2017.
• The New England Aquarium built a geriatric island for aging penguins to live in safety and dignity.
• Take a walk! A modest increase in physical activity can delay cognitive decline by three years or more, and Alzheimer’s symptoms decrease with just a few thousand steps a day. And new research shows exercise could help reduce anxiety as effectively as traditional talk therapy in as little as 8 to 12 weeks.
• This is pretty wild: [M]ost Americans in 1790 consumed an average [of] 5.8 gallons of pure alcohol a year. (Today the average is closer to “just” 2 gallons per year.)
• Adults ruined “6-7” for Halloween – via my wife
• The University of Florida Gators 7-foot-9 Olivier Rioux became the tallest college basketball player ever.
• I’ve long loved The Point, but never knew the full story of the brilliant, baffling rise and fall of Harry Nilsson. – via my dad
• Things Can Only Get Better:
  • Federal agents drive off with 1-year-old girl after arresting her father in Los Angeles
  • Louisiana officials waited months to warn public of whooping cough outbreak – via @elizabethjacobs
  • One analytical model shows that the dismantling of U.S.A.I.D. has already caused the deaths of 600,000 people, two-thirds of them children. – via @newyorker.com
  • The United States of America continues to extrajudicially murder people.
  • A Food and Drug Administration official who resigned on Sunday was sued by a Canadian pharmaceutical company, which accused him of soliciting a bribe and tanking its stock with false statements as part of a revenge campaign against a former colleague.
  • Employees at The Washington Post uploaded a fake video to 8 social apps. Only one told users it wasn’t real.
  • East Wing ballroom donations by corporate owners create awkward moments for news outlets

• I am unabashedly irrationally jealous of Bandit Heeler.
• I recently watched (and very much enjoyed) The Four Seasons on Netflix. Aside from one incomprehensible casting decision, it was great.
• Three hours outside of Las Vegas: Star Wars Glamping
• A few things I’ve researched online recently: types of scissors, Randall Tex Cobb, where to watch Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Are Tarantulas Dangerous?, The Ice Storm cast
• Owls in Towels is exactly what you think it is. – via both kottke and Laura Olin
• Whoa. Liam Neeson is doing a remake of The Naked Gun?! – via The Dailies
• The Missing Semester of Your Computer Science Education
• Killer bees!
• Star Wars Lofi is a collection of ambient background music / videos from a galaxy far, far away.
• The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves:
  • The Whiff of Corruption: POTUS’ New Perfume Has Strong Notes of Graft
  • One of the Dreamliners That Gave a Boeing Manager Nightmares Just Crashed
  • HOTTEST TAKE: Stupid-Americans are the New Irish-Americans, POTUS is Their JFK. is a brilliant essay on our current predicament in America. Stupid people are those who don’t understand what is happening around them and have no interest in actually finding out.
  • Alligator Alcatraz immigrant prison camp is Florida’s sadistic ‘one-stop shop’ for mass deportation
  • Why Won’t ICE Comment on Kristi Noem‘s Cannibal Stories?
  • FDA vaccine official restricted COVID vaccine approvals against the advice of agency staff

• 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.

• 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

• 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