Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball ™.

In retrospect the time when he was merely threatening to end NATO to annex Greenland was a sort of golden age of rational foreign policy.

TODAY IS THE DAY WE CELEBRATE THESE ISLANDS

lmao the eurovision mascot is so ugly I literally screamed at this reveal

The United States of America (USA) stands out as a conspicuous example. It is an exceptional new autocratizer due to both far-reaching changes in 2025 and their implications for the rest of the world. The extensive damage already done to American democracy under the second Trump presidency – in just one year – stands out on the world map (Figure 10). Typically, autocratizing countries of the “third wave” have taken about a decade to make such a deep dive, and the speed of decline is comparable to some coups d´états.2 Section

If you live in the US and you feel like your head has been spinning, this is why. Typically, autocratizing countries take a decade to make the kind of decline we've seen here in the past year, according to V-Dem.

Photo of a sketch on a table with pens around it. The sketch depicts a house under a pink flower tree. In the window stands a little samurai silhouette and somewhere hides a cat. Brushed and technical pens on paper.

Daily sketch 🪾🌸🏚🥷🐈‍⬛️

Can you spot the cat ?

Also, I just reached 5k followers here. I’ll post a small celebration + print giveaway later today. Keep an eye out 👀

#art #artsky #ink #sketch

Decided to debug on a Monday, now I've aged five years, walked on the moon, and solved world peace. Still can't find the source of that blasted error.

Ambassador Bridge - 99% Invisible Detroit, Michigan is home to the Ambassador Bridge, which links Detroit to the Canadian border city of Windsor. The Ambassador is essential. CNN once called it “the most economically important one-and...

99pi episode on the Ambassador bridge:
99% Invisible share.google/CXlteRbfkFDJ...

Opinion | The A.I. Disruption We’ve Been Waiting for Has Arrived

"All of the people I love hate this stuff, and all the people I hate love it." www.nytimes.com/2026/02/18/o...

Now they know 2 prime numbers, since 1031 is also a prime

psychosis implies the existence of psychobro

Psychology of Gen X YouTube video by Psychology Simplified

I don't think I've ever felt more seen. www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5Ym...

Welcome to the American Winter In the frozen streets of Minneapolis, something profound is happening.

The Atlantic Magazine just dropped a tremendous story on the Minnesota Resistance. The author is a war correspondent & sees the echoes of leaderless community empowerment around the globe: www.theatlantic.com/politics/202... (supposed to be a gift link, might not work, it’s in Apple News, too.)

Appears that the most recent negotiated EU-US trade deal is dead, with Renew Europe and EPP party leadership rejecting the deal in light of Trump’s recent threats.

More than 200,000 Danish citizens have signed a petition to buy California as a response to Trump’s attempt to take Greenland.

They say they will provide Californians with “rule of law, universal health care, fact-based politics, and a lifetime supply of Danish pastries.”

Opinion | I'm a Minneapolis sociologist who studies violence. Here's how ICE observers are helping. Research into how violence occurs shows that disapproval from the people around you can help reduce it.

For @msnownews.bsky.social, I wrote an article about how ICE Watch is grounded in sociological theories of violence prevention.

The reality is that most men will only commit public violence in extremely specific scenarios and ICE Watch disrupts the conditions necessary for escalation.

A chunk of the map from the boardgame "Risk," clearly showing the United States-Europe connection.

Presumably we have to annex Eastern Canada and Greenland because that's the only way to reach Europe.

It's dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you're feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them. I was so preposterously serious in those days, such a humorless little prig. Lightly, lightly - it's the best advice ever given me. When it comes to dying even. Nothing ponderous, or portentous, or emphatic. No rhetoric, no tremolos, no self conscious persona putting on its celebrated imitation of Christ or Little Nell. And of course, no theology, no metaphysics. Just the fact of dying and the fact of the clear light.

So throw away your baggage and go forward. There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet, trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair. That's why you must walk so lightly. Lightly my darling, on tiptoes and no luggage, not even a sponge bag, completely unencumbered. Aldous Huxley, Island

One of my favorite bits from Aldous Huxley, a good refresher at the opening of a new year

"christmas is in 5 days" don't say that. why say that? that's the fakest shit i ever heard

die-hard | adjective | strongly or fanatically determined or devoted

Die Hard | noun | a Christmas movie

"Congratulations, it's a nazi bar now."

One of my favorite anecdotes from THE PREHISTORY OF THE FAR SIDE: "That doesn't sound like the Jane Goodall we know."

great news! you're not actually seeing karl rove, john yoo, and david frum criticize the administration's lawlessness more stridently than dem leadership. you, reader, were infected with rabies by a brown bat 36 hours ago and this is all just the virus working its way through your nervous system

Hope springs eternal

Herdling is OUT NOW! We’re stoked to finally invite you on this journey 🐐🦬🐏⛰️
Get the game now on Steam, Epic Game Store, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X|S or Game Pass, links below!

We’ll give away 5 Steam keys among everyone who reposts this 🎉🎉🎉

Old Soviet joke for today:

A man walks into a newsstand every day, looks around, and leaves.

After a long time of this, the owner says “Can I help you find something?”

“I’m looking for the obituaries.”

“The obituaries are in the back of the newspaper, comrade.”

“Not the one I’m looking for.”

blahaj goes to waffle house at 3am YouTube video by Atoga

[peterme's YouTube picks]
Treat yourself to some of the best 5 and a half minutes of media you'll watch today. youtu.be/X1beEuBV7M0?...
At every stage I never quite knew what to expect.

This is one of my favorite paintings, from any painter, ever.

Not only is she crushing Mein Kampf, but the arc of her rivet gun's cable also evokes a serpent being crushed under her heel - even while the rivet gun herself is laid on her apron like Christ on the lap of the Virgin Mary.

chatgpt is much like an improv comedy group

1) you are the audience, giving it prompts
2) it produces things roughly shaped like your prompt
3) it is trained to respond with Yes, And
4) it has the factual accuracy of improv
5) it does not understand comedy

Photo of Tom Lehrer

My last living musical hero is still my hero but unfortunately no longer living. RIP to the great, great Mr. Tom Lehrer.