At the rate things are going, he’ll be back in the vinegar jug by the weekend.

Fully agree. We need independent & honest news reporting, particularly local news, to feed and supplement analysis and opinion. This means ProPublica and, yes, NPR. Also States Newsroom and local papers where they still exist. Maybe tap some percentage of what we all are giving Substackers, etc.

To its credit, the Schlieffen Plan included an actual railway timetable.

Iran’s Divided Opposition Only a unified movement can threaten the regime.

Iran’s opposition groups must learn to work together, otherwise the Islamic Republic will persist. Not because it commands popular support — but because there is no alternative.

Read Sanam Vakil's (@chmenap.bsky.social) latest analysis via @foreignaffairs.com.

➡️ https://fam.ag/4rcGFMl

Impressive!

Should add @virginiamercury.com to the list. Great independent coverage of a swing state with an election this year.

Atomic Detectives Who Inspect Iran Sites Are Affected by Trump’s Aid Freeze The president’s halt of foreign aid upended two U.S. programs that help the International Atomic Energy Agency find clues about Iran’s drive to build atomic bombs.

More evidence that the Trump team has no idea what it is doing.

www.nytimes.com/2025/03/08/s...

Unfortunately anything seems possible these days, but I would regard stories like this with a high degree of skepticism.

Crescent sun visible through clouds with tree branches in foreground

Just enough cloud cover in Northern Virginia.

Entirely appropriate to choose today to honor their predecessors in the Indiana legislature who mandated that pi = 3.2

Hear, hear!

The thing is, over and above my petty frustration about genii and abaci and agelong(!) and whatnot, crossword people with high self-regard should actually enjoy knowing a word that concisely explains why each shoe fits just one foot whereas socks can go on either one. It’s a good word!

Definitely better that way than with the roles reversed.

Part of the problem is that expertise is being lost both from Congress and from the press. It's hard to see what a good job people are doing when you don't know the basics.

Your regular reminder that pandemics are social problems, which cannot be solved by the products of biomedical research if the social infrastructure necessary for delivering said products is in fucking tatters.

Today’s document: The Vela Hotel Program: The AEC's Space-Based Nuclear Detection and Treaty Verification Program
1/n
permalink.lanl.gov/object/tr?wh...

Some of us new to this place did NOT know. So thank you (and for the men’s wear guy as well).

America’s epidemic of chronic illness is killing us too soon Among people under 65, chronic illnesses erase more than twice as many years as overdoses, homicides, suicides and car accidents combined, a Post examination found.

The United States is failing at a fundamental mission — keeping people alive.

A year-long Washington Post examination reveals that the erosion in life spans is deeper and broader than widely recognized, afflicting a far-reaching swath of the country. wapo.st/45fnDcn