Happy 4/20 to all who partake.

Most mourning is maudlin but it's heartless to point that out.

Every week the stupid piles up and topples over and crushes everyone but somehow, magically, it continues to rise.

The stupid defies the laws of nature.

Articles about Jared Kushner's diplomatic role with Iran that mention Kushner has received billions from the Saudi government (2/28-4/19):

NYT: 5 of 58
WashPost: 1 of 43
WSJ: 0 of 40
AP: 0 of 26
CNN Wire: 0 of 18
NY Post: 0 of 17
Chicago Tribune: 0 of 4
LA Times: 0 of 4
Boston Globe: 0 of 2

A copy of my new book, How to Die (and other stories), propped up on a bed of pink styrofoam hearts, with a bunch of the same books behind it.

If you enjoy what I write, and you should because you are incredibly smart and very beautiful, you should get yourself a copy of my new book. People will come to your house, see it, and think you are troubled, but interesting. That’s the sweet spot. www.mulebooks.com/store/how-to...

Five Trump Scandals You’ve Probably Missed Swirling scandals—from the Pentagon to DHS to the IRS to the Labor Department—that represent basic betrayals of public office, trust, and confidence-in-leadership that should be the table stakes of go...

What came first: the gutting of the media; the media being overwhelmed; "flooding the zone"; or all of the above? Is this chicken-egg or just coincidence? And are there any coincidences?

Blowin’ in the Wind: How Nordic Countries Made Electricity Free | Atmos As wind and hydropower flood Nordic grids, electricity prices are plunging and offering a glimpse of a cheaper energy future.

The answer really is blowin in the wind....

What Is Palantir? An FAQ. The Peter Thiel–founded, ‘Lord of the Rings’–inspired company has a massive government presence and is seemingly always at the center of controversy. So, uh … why does hardly anyone know what it does?

For anyone who's waking up to this Palantir statement, I wrote a guide to the company and the fatuous chauvinism of its "defend the West" cosplay ideology a few weeks ago

Why fish are clustering near an Ontario nuclear plant and what it signals about the Great Lakes | CBC News In the warm waters emanating from Ontario's largest nuclear plant, fish are gathering by the thousands. Ahead of an Earth Day livestream, CBC News got a rare look at what some call a 'fish city,' a st...

Abundance as an indicator of decline

www.cbc.ca/news/science...

A Prominent PR Firm Is Running a Fake News Site That’s Plagiarizing Original Journalism at Incredible Scale A PR firm is running a strange AI-fueled plagiarism mill that's ripping off — and mangling — a huge amount of local and national reporting.

There’s always something worse

futurism.com/artificial-i...

Two nights ago, Russia sent nearly 700 drones and dozens of missiles at Ukrainian civilians. In the fifth year of the war, aerial attacks on Ukrainian civilians have become even more intense and more frequent. Please join me in this campaign for air defense equipment. You can help protect lives.

He didn’t have a plan. Duh.
He has never had to deal with a group of educated assholes of this calibre.
He’s not used to anyone behaving as he would.
All his tricks won’t work. He only realizes this in the midnight hour.
And the people who understood them were all fired. Days before.
That’s why.

We could do with less excitement

Meta threw a party for a right-wing influencer who wants to “save the West” The celebration offers a cocktail-fueled look at the tech behemoth's rightward pivot.

NEW: Meta co-sponsored a celebration with the Daily Wire for podcaster Isabel Brown, who often foments about Islam and wants to "save the West," which is an interesting, cocktail-party-level look at the company's rightward pivot www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

Yikes. 😳

Cheeseburger and fries and a martini because I’m fancy.

It shocks me how many businesses still don’t seem to get that Trump’s cultural revolution did not actually happen

I mean:

If you say, “We should respect the sovereignty of each individual, for we are all children of God,” and I say, “Fuck you, you dirty hippie,” what we have is not a feud. What we have is a principled person trying to have a conversation with an asshole.

Oupelaï

The President vs. the Pope vs. the Slop Messiah Sixteen burning questions about Trump, AI Jesus, and JD Vance attempting to correct the pope on matters of Catholic theology

Worth reading just for this definition of AI-generated art alone:

In the image, which has that hazy, spray-tanned ’70s movie-poster quality common to AI imitations of oil paintings—the prompt always seems to be “Cannonball Run, but wetter”

(Brian Phillips is always worth the read no matter what.)

Go Habs Go.

Except these guys.

We do. We suck. At hockey.

Frank Herbert I apologize for ever doubting you

So much stuff makes you work for it. I used to tell underlings “I don’t want to learn how to write” when they were trying to introduce new tools. I want tools that work for me and not the other way around. I also want the effort. The sweat. The barriers.

We long for friction in a world promised on being frictionless. Because we know life is truly lived in the friction. That's where we find the reward.

It is hard to write what the show is about without spoilers but it is both sweet AND existential in the most Sartrian way possible. It is dark and depressing and hilarious. And sweet. It is about love but mostly about sadness and loneliness. It is an entire world set in a suburb of St. Louis.

We don't talk about DTF St. Louis enough.

Less Internet, More Intellect: The Era of the Bookish Influencer In 2026, intellectual influencers are bringing depth, nuance and substance onto our screens. Brands are seizing the opportunity.

So you can be mostly off-line AND be an influencer? This is literal having cake and eating it too territory.

TMZ Turns Its Pitiless Lens on Politicians The tabloid TMZ is ripping elected officials with a searing scrutiny beyond even what it usually reserves for celebrities, becoming an improbable fount of accountability.

I'm honestly surprised (and in today's world very little has surprised me) this didn't happen sooner. I also think if it had, some of the folk in DC would have been flushed out a long time ago.

www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...