screencap of a tweet with a photo at the bottom of JD Vance giving a talk, gesturing smugly with his hands Eric Daugherty • @EricLDaugh • 1h • JD VANCE RESPONDS TO POPE LEO: "When the Pope says that God is never on the side of those who wield the sword - there is more than a THOUSAND year tradition of Just war Theory." "In the same way that it's important for the vice president of the United States to be careful when I talk about matters of public policy, I think it's very, very important for the pope to be careful when he talks about matters of theology." "And I think that one of these issues here is that there has been - if you're going to opine on matters of theology, you've got to be careful, you've got to make sure it's anchored in the truth, and that's one of the things that I try to do, and it's certainly something I would expect from the clergy, whether they're Catholic or Protestant."

I’ve given this a great deal of thought, trying to come up with the perfect joke for this moment, and this is what I have so far -

POPE LEO: our religion teaches that this war is bad

VANCE: wow, who died and made YOU head of the Catholic Church??

POPE LEO: well, you should know, you were there

@realfollowers.bsky.social Let's see what happens

Or what about this angle??

The Garden of Earthly Delights (detail), by Hieronymus Bosch, 1480-1505, 📸 by @alexbrandon

A container garden with a tomato, thyme, basil, rosemary, and 6 edamame plants. Covered with a greenhouse fabric just in case.

My vegetable garden is off to a good start! I hope I don’t cause a disruption in the soybean market with my six edamame plants.

At this point you should just ask ChatGPT directly, since that’s what Siri will do anyway.

Got it! Thanks for sharing it!

"Giving the industry the yips"? They lined up for a free kick and took out their mascot?

Last week I discovered that watching HIGNFY on the CNN app on AppleTV is commercial-free, so now I'm just doing that every week, war or no war.

Earlier I implied that I escorted yo' momma through the Strait of Hormuz. I apologize for the misinformation. Yo' momma's too fat for such a narrow passageway and whatnot.

In the first year we were married, as zero-income grad students in England, we would buy kidneys and liver, because along with Brussels sprouts they were the cheapest things we could find in the market.

Based on that and other things, I say to RFK Jr: Go to hell.

This song got stuck in my head after reading this so I felt obligated to share. 😅

"Just machines to make big decisions
Programmed by fellows with compassion and vision
We'll be clean when the work is done
There'll be spandex jackets, one for everyone"

I don't think Donald Fagen was trying to be a prophet, even though it might sound like he was.

We are moving my parents into memory care today. I think the hardest part for me today is that my dad watches whatever news channel his TV defaults to when he turns it on, which right now is NewsMax. 😬
#alzheimers

Olivia Dean - You Can't Hurry Love (Jools' Annual Hootenanny) YouTube video by BBC Music

I'm really happy that Olivia Dean won best new artist even though I don't understand how the Grammys determine what makes an artist 'new'.

She's done some great covers the past couple of years on the BBC's NYE show.

I lost touch with him after I left there in 1993 -- I'm happy to see he's found his calling as a composer!

Way back in the 1990s I worked with Frank Wilhoit at CompuServe. We sat across the hall from each other - he worked on their NOAA's public and aviation weather product, and I worked on news products. He's easily the least likely person I would have picked to have a 'law' named after them.

WHAT!!!!??? I always assumed Smart & Final referred to why you don't need to go anywhere else when buying in bulk, and you were clever for doing so.

Vegetarian Greek food restaurant called Don't Meat Your Gyros

2/3 of the way through. I should have done the West Wing second in retrospect… if I get bored I’d have an excuse for not finishing.

That's pretty broad. 🙂 Are we talking about petty professor feuds here or interdepartmental battles?

I've noticed my daughter is pretty good at diplomacy. But yeah, I can see why taking sides one way or the other is probably not going to end well.

So, my daughter just started a job as the department manager/assistant for history and classics at a local university. As a former department chair, what advice can you offer her?

When you're younger, you never think that one day you will be having a discussion over texts with your brother about the best incontinence diapers for your mother. Then you hit your mid-50s, and all bets are off. #dementia

I'll take a pound of soybeans, if it will help. I always wanted to make edamame at home.

I hope this means the next time I buy edamame with my sushi it will be a lot less than $7.

Sigh... this was the last dance at my senior prom. I don't think any of us appreciated the lyrics at the time; we just knew it was a great, but sad song.

This also means my 40th high school reunion is next year. Good grief.