Zig

Fred Willard asked me for a tissue at an event I was working. He was about to go on stage, and all I could find on short notice was a brown paper towel. He was profusely grateful and very nice.

Righteous Buckeyes: Inside the Life Surge scam taking America by storm "Surging your life God's way" is where a get-rich-quick scheme meets the Holy Scripture, and numerous Ohio State legends helped funnel financially illiterate Christians into the predatory scam.

The most-read dispatch of 2025:

Inside Life Surge, where numerous Buckeye football legends helped funnel financially illiterate Christians into an obvious, predatory scam.

www.rooster.info/p/lifesurge-...

If there’s one thing the Saudis love, it’s gay anthems

Texas Won’t Study How Its Abortion Ban Impacts Women, So We Did Since Texas banned abortion, no one has studied the statewide effects on pregnant women experiencing complications. Here’s how we sifted through data on millions of pregnancy hospitalizations and…

Earlier this year, ProPublica found that the sepsis rate in second-trimester pregnancy loss hospitalizations increased by more than 50% under Texas’ abortion ban.

Here’s how we did our analysis.
(Published Feb.)

Not to serious up a joke too much, but I heard a great news story on therapists discussing dealing with recalibrating what a 'healthy' level of anxiety was given **waves vaguely in the air** all of this. It really is hard to 'not catastrophize' in the midst of catastrophes. The story was from 2022.🤢

In case you’ve ever wondered whether immigration is used to keep people in abusive labor conditions: let this clear up any fucking doubt

I needed this reference, today. Feel free to tell us about your... cat.

DOGE Put a College Student in Charge of Using AI to Rewrite Regulations A DOGE operative has been tasked with using AI to propose rewrites to the Department of Housing and Urban Development's regulations—an effort sources are told will roll out across government.

SCOOP: A young man with no government experience who hasn’t even finished his undergrad degree is working for Elon Musk’s DOGE at the Department of Housing and Urban Development and has been tasked with using AI to rewrite the agency’s rules and regulations.

Yes. And let's not forget the work of companies like Cambridge Analytica goes on. Neurotargetted propaganda is nefarious and folks are far more impressionable than most of us want to accept.

It really does. I'd love to hear an answer from any of them that makes sense.

Gallego has been appearing at fundraisers with David Sacks.

Men tend to be paid better than women in these fields too, from what I understand.

So all the elderly and disabled democrats, folks who own land and homes, have family etc. just fold and move somewhere else, in your view? Like a mass migration?

I'm surprised that the numbers for Democrats are so high in this poll. I would expect approval to be in the single digits to 20s, percent-wise.

You realize there are more Democrats in Texas than New York, right? And probably more Republicans in California than Ohio.

The lamb from Alborz in Austin. And the rose saffron pudding. The owners retired around a decade ago and I roam in search of anything that compares and always come up empty.

NIH cancels its first and largest study centered on women The Women’s Health Initiative has produced numerous influential findings

Well the NIH has cancelled the Women's Health Initiative, the largest study of women in history

It has been running continuously since 1991 and has provided massive key knowledge about diseases in women

Unreal

www.science.org/content/arti...

University of #Toledo is ending a huge number of programs out of fear of SB 1. An absolute slaughter. Every corner of my hometown will feel the impact

#Ohio's Republican politicians passed this bill. Don't let anyone forget it

news.utoledo.edu/index.php/04...

Right-wing push to dismantle the EU: Heritage Foundation’s private workshop After seizing control of the US government, the Heritage Foundation turns its attention to the EU

A private workshop took place last month in Washington DC, hosted by the Heritage Foundation...

...to discuss proposals by European right-wing lobby groups to dismantle the European Union and the European Court of Justice.

This is fascism. Lexington, Kentucky- No Kings Then, No Kings Now. April 19th. #NoKings

U.S. citizen in Arizona detained by immigration officials for 10 days

American citizen held for ten days in lockup after being picked up near the border. He didn't have ID.
Ten days!

news.azpm.org/p/news-artic...

The government is using universities to do basic research that the private sector would never do at rates lower than the private sector would charge (thanks to the cheap labor of grad students).

Basic research has been good for this nation.

This has happened in reporting here in Columbus OH, too. It is irritating.

You know that’s what he is, I know that’s what he is, but a lot of people don’t

Musk is the perfect target and everyone should keep hammering him, but Miller is also a weird charisma-free little freak and very much an arch-villain here

And “no one voted for him”

An unnamed CFPB employee who participated in the agency's layoff decisions says in a sworn statement that its leaders were aware that their approach violated a court order and instructed them to proceed anyway. "All that mattered was the numbers."

WOW. One of the Venezuelans whom Kristi Noem tried to render to El Salvador's slave prison managed to avoid removal and was able to make it to immigration court, and you'll never guess what happened: THE GOVERNMENT GAVE NO EVIDENCE OF HIS GANG MEMBERSHIP. Due process ftw

Right? If they'd made an example of legit baddies, their base actually might have defended the lack of due process. I know a Trump supporter who just realized most of the "illegals" are actually here legally. They're slowly catching on.

Let's say instead you end up in a slave labor camp. How do you get to the consulate?