Owen Lewis

The media trots out the "deplorable" comment from a decade ago to castigate the left. Once a week now Trump implies that the military should destroy democrats, and it is just how things are.

One big asymmetry that Dems enable: Republicans attack Dem VOTERS as evil, enemies of the state and now, per Trump, a problem for the military to get rid of. We have one politician who called some of them deplorables and one who said they were weird and people behave as if these are the same

Would honestly not be surprised if he instigates a war to try to stay in power.

It's impressive in a gruesome way when a player wins a match on a ton of painkillers or after a 10-plus minute medical examination off court, but I think if that's what it takes to keep going we'd all be better off just ending the match there

I think we need to set up a system in tennis where the team can throw in the towel on the player's behalf if they're completely immobile. Glad Sinner retired there but the match should've been called as soon as he started hobbling that badly between points.

I had to flee the US – as a foreign, Black, pro-Palestinian activist, I tick every box on Ice’s list | Amandla Thomas-Johnson I’ve never been accused of any crimes, let alone prosecuted. My experience sums-up the draconian plight of non-citizens in the US, says journalist Amandla Thomas-Johnson

I had to flee the US – as a foreign, Black, pro-Palestinian activist, I tick every box on Ice’s list | Amandla Thomas-Johnson

CBS News staffers are ‘literally freaking out’ about Bari Weiss taking over newsroom EXCLUSIVE: ‘People are using words like depressing and doomsday – feels like some sort of doomsday,’ one source told The Independent about the mood inside CBS News right now.

“'The fact that we don't have money to pay journalists, but we have money to pay Bari Weiss between $100 and 200 million is indicative of what the Ellisons' true goal here is,' a network correspondent said. 'And it's not journalism.'"

If a tennis player doesn't lose sleep after missing a match point or choking similarly I know nothing about the world

"I also think you can still, somehow, hear Antonoff on this thing" got a chuckle out of me

"It's entirely possible that this is just some toady trying to score brownie points," said the source.

Special report: Turki Al-Sheikh and the two sides of boxing’s new king

Anyway, some informative links.

www.hrw.org/news/2025/08...

www.nytimes.com/athletic/629...

www.amnesty.org/en/latest/ne...

That said, what makes entertainment-washing work is its relentlessness. The disappointment in the comics will fade eventually (nobody will have the energy to get as upset if there's another festival next year) but the comics will keep saying that Saudi Arabia is cool and totally not oppressive.

Obviously depressing stuff here. I do think the Saudis got ahead of themselves by going into comedy, though -- our moral bar for comics is higher than it is for tennis or golf bros or certainly boxers, and the backlash for this has seemed bigger to me than it was for the sporting events.

I Didn’t Need to Know All of That About Travis Kelce On Taylor Swift’s “Wood.”

"it commits the cardinal sin of heterosexuality: Don’t ever tell a man he’s stacked *and* his podcast is good. This line may singlehandedly fast-track the downfall of civilization."

www.vulture.com/article/tayl...

Israel Breaks International Law So That It Can Continue To Starve Gaza | Defector The Israeli navy intercepted 41 vessels carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza and detained over 450 people on Thursday. The first boats of the Global Sumud Flotilla set sail across the Mediterranean…

Israel breaks international law so that it can continue to starve Gaza: defector.com/israel-break...

Learner Tien appreciation club is booming

Is the hard-charging journalist or scrappy news site in the room with us

Editors, if you can't pay writers, you *lead* with that information. That's not a P.S. or a charming bon mot that you sneak in.

In related news, I'm now taking blood pressure medication like they're Skittles.

You can now search for your books to know if they qualify for the Anthropic settlement. As I suspected, the book I published in 2015 counts, and the one from 2025 that was stolen before it had been published does not. secure.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com/lookup

The ER is the one place where this country actually follows the obvious moral intuition that everyone has a right to medical care, classic Vance to pick the fight on that terrain

We are thrilled to announce that our NEW Large Language Model will be released on 11.18.25.

when they tell you publishing is slow they mean S L O W

i've been working on this for five years and we sold it six months ago but now i get to announce to the world! i'm writing a book! never say the word "talent" around me if you don't want a whole ass dissertation!!!!!

Holy shit congrats Alex!!

We laugh at this shit -- I mean, how can you not? -- but it's serious: these guys want to infuse reactionary thinking into AI and then infuse AI into every nook & cranny of American life. They can't win the argument so they are trying to blunt-force their views onto us with money & power.

"Not only do they not need the money, but many of the comics billed have spent the last decade-plus fashioning themselves as the vanguard of free speech, decrying backlash to bigoted jokes as tantamount to the very sort of state repression they are now endorsing."

What Makes A Loser | Defector Welcome to Margin of Error, a politics column from Tom Scocca, editor of the Indignity newsletter. On Saturday, the Baltimore Orioles, with a lineup featuring three players batting under .200 and no o...

"Pundits nowadays all think they're really political strategists, and fans think they're all general managers, but they aren't, and they don't need to be. It's fine to judge leaders and institutions by their results."
defector.com/what-makes-a...

Mormon church gunman was Marine ‘who supported Trump’ Thomas Jacob Sanford, 40, killed by police after ramming truck into Michigan church and opening fire on worshippers

just a *central casting* MAGA chud, even used a giant flag-bedecked pickup truck as part of the attack www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2...

Atsuko Okatsuka Details Comedian “Censorship Rules” at Saudi Arabia’s Riyadh Comedy Festival The comedian revealed on Threads that she turned down an offer to appear at the festival that Dave Chappelle, Kevin Hart, Bill Burr and Pete Davidson are set to perform at.

www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general...

“I want you to take as seriously people who are in the tent and who are vulnerable and afraid. If you have to convince them of something that’s extremely, extremely uncomfortable, or tell them that you’re taking a position that is extremely uncomfortable, I just think you owe them a little more.”

Just now learned that TypePad is shutting down in 3 days and deleting all the blogs that ever used it!

It's a tragedy how much internet history we've already lost and will continue to lose

arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025...