I will go to my grave (perhaps later today, if my editor's mood is anything to go by) without knowing whether it is 'cease fire' or 'cease-fire.' It doesn't matter in this particular case, but as a matter of language.
That's Eleventy-Seven(bis), smart guy
Oorah!
bsky.app/profile/ryan...
If someone actually is a writer, as in writes for a living, the idea of outsourcing even an idea to a machine (AI) is insanity. Writers don't even like their editor to fuck with their copy, and those are humans they know and only hate with cold seething rage.
Hell, I pester Shane all the time. That guy is a loon.
To paraphrase a great Texan, and a nearly great American, please clap. Seriously. My social media managers are holding me hostage on a diet of quinhoa and Le Croix.
foreignpolicy.com/2026/03/26/i...
It's hard to believe Little Marco somehow made himself even smaller and sadder.
This remains on the White House website, from last June, which still raises a lot of questions.
www.whitehouse.gov/articles/202...
Inside the Department of War are two wolves:
"We've shut down the Colleges of War because book learnings are woke, gay, and irrelevant to war fighting."
"How come no one told us the Strait is important, there are different kinds of Kurds, Iran is big, and air power historically doesn't win wars?"
Cover page, Wealth of Nations, First Edition 1776
250 years ago today, Adam Smith published An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.
Contrary to popular belief, it is not a proto-libertarian paean to free markets, but a blistering critique of vested interests, corporate power and the British Empire. Some favorite bits:
If I could find the tops to the Tupperware, I would be a happy man. Where do they go? Are they with the socks?
Trump administration officials appear flummoxed, not just by the war on Iran, which (whoa) but by the existence of video. With their own words. From yesterday.
You've got to really F up to have 59% of Americans disapprove of a military action against Iran.
I think about this a lot.
Gorton and Denton was a claymation franchise from the 1990s/2000s featuring a clueless chap from Clacton-upon-Sea and a buffoon with bad hair and worse choices.
when i grow up, i want to be @alanbeattie.bsky.social. Or at least be allowed to write like him.
www.ft.com/content/57d9...
It's cool how the Trump administration keeps filling roles that require the trust and respect of the American people with total cranks who no one in their right mind would even want to sit next to on a bus.
Chart of the day - from a column by @katie0martin.ft.com on the death of the Trump trade. Chart by @raydouglas.bsky.social www.ft.com/content/cfdc...
"We're still trying to reproduce IEEPA. We could replace it in the aggregate."
www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gpb...
Berzelius Windrip gets longer-winded
I adore Sinclair Lewis's *It Can't Happen Here*, not least for naming the protagonist Berzelius.
But this manifesto from the good candidate just sends me every time, esp today.
Apologies, but have to share this letter from Sen. Cantwell to Bessent re: refunds. She put so much more care and rigor into this letter than they did into the tariffs in the first place that it makes you laugh.
www.cantwell.senate.gov/imo/media/do...
I was at a couple of different Spanish hospitals this morning (long story) and can attest: There is a galloping problem with people *using* healthcare, not just the over-60 crowd.
I am told that "grit your teeth" is apretar los dientes.
I can say that falls short of the mark.
Agrietar, maybe.
Violentar, absolutely.
I 1000% guarantee you, there is a market for the over-50-crowd which is like massage porn only they genuinely focus on the backrubs.
I'm old enough to remember the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Okay, it went down, after like FIVE HUNDRED YEARS. But it had 19,000 ethnicities, 11 bajillion languages, and 13 septimus hundred religions. Their drill sergeants were weary. Either way, it lasted longer, and did more than South Africa or Musk
They label Petri as humor, but that is too narrow. This is the best take on this administration.
www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/...
From having been the party of free markets and rule of law, the GOP has now gone to be the party of a pedophilia mafia, tariffs and protectionism and racism.
Do you really believe that you can win elections with such a program?
Cool. Now do Russia's shadow fleet. It's been over a year since you lifted a finger, and that wasn't even your finger.
www.state.gov/releases/off...
