Dave

Trump did a lot of terrible things in his first term but was also constrained by his own administration in a way that gave a lot of people the expectation that he was going to be similarly constrained from his worst impulses this time

unfortunately he came in prepared to obliterate the guardrails

I love Lord of the Rings and have read it several times, but there, Tolkien is much more interested in world building and lore than telling a crisp and fun story, so if you’re not up for that, the movies are probably a better bet.

My controversial take is that The Hobbit is a much better written book than Lord of the Rings and holds up surprisingly well. My 11 year old loved it.

Maybe the Winds of Winter will be released in their lifetime, if not ours.

U.S. Government to Take Cut of Nvidia and AMD A.I. Chip Sales to China

This is either a massive new tax or, like the U.S. Steel arrangement, socialism.

Why are elite capitalists more worried about a NY mayoral candidate’s corner grocery proposal than this?!?!?

U.S. Government to Take Cut of Nvidia and AMD A.I. Chip Sales to China www.nytimes.com/2025/08/10/t...

i think it's cool that the existence of Zohran Mamdani is clearly driving the Vice President insane

War correspondents have more spine than basically the national media apparatus of the entire anglosphere

If any other ally did stuff like this, Democrats would not hesitate to condemn them. It’s past time for the party to unite around banning the provision of offensive weapons to Israel.

they released a statement which said, more or less, "and in case you think we did this by accident: we didn't. we killed them on purpose."

Anas al-Sharif: Four Al Jazeera journalists killed in Israeli strike near Al-Shifa hospital Al Jazeera had condemned a "campaign of incitement" by the IDF against its reporters, but the military claims one of the journalists was part of Hamas.

An entire team of journalists, outside a hospital in a tent for journalists, killed by Israel. www.bbc.com/news/article...

US effectively moving to a system where tax policy is set by the executive branch, fully adhoc, unpredictable, and bespoke per company, and based in large part on the presidents' personal relationships with the company's leadership

The candidate who answers this question with a simple “yes” will do themselves a lot of good, given where Democratic voters are on this issue.

Yeah I think people have been conditioned by short (or no) theater windows for comedies to just wait for them to stream. I can see the logic - seeing Superman or Dune on the big screen is easier to sell than a comedy, but like you, I think there’s value in seeing funny movies with a lot of people.

The issue now is that Hollywood is funding less of the mid-budget original movies that did well from the 80s to 2000s, particularly comedies. So it’s not really a glut of nostalgia, it’s just that there isn’t the same variety as there used to be at the theater.

The nostalgia problem in movies isn’t anything new though. The 90s gave us boomer nostalgia IP movies like The Brady Bunch Movie, Lost in Space, and Mission: Impossible as well as the ultimate nostalgia-fest, Forrest Gump.

a leading possibility:

"why are institutions continuing to fold at the same time that trump's approval numbers are going down and some methods of oppositions are proving effective" is The Question right now imo

Cuban has some interesting things to say on health care but is extremely ignorant when he goes outside his lane and like most billionaires, he thinks that because he made a lot of money doing one thing, he’s an expert on all things.

Rome had a run of Five Good Emperors that's widely considered to be its imperial golden age and it was ended by the handover of power from Marcus Aurelius to his son Commodus, who took an empire doing well and drove it off a cliff.

People compare Trump to Nero or Caligula, but he's Commodus

I think "why are people mad at Dems" is pretty straightforward at this point

they will crawl over broken glass to vote these people out and would like Dems to match that energy

This man is your friend. He fights for freedom. Jovial fat white ethnic goofy dad support is how we go mainstream.

My question for Justice Sotomayor on her claim that you cannot retroactively take something that you’ve earned away by constitutional amendment is whether she thinks the thirteenth amendment had the power to end slavery.

Took my son to see Sketch at the theater today and it was wonderful. Inventive, non-IP kid adventure/horror movie in the vein of 80s and 90s family flicks. Well worth 90 mins (yes, only 90 mins!) of your time.

This is my answer too. I used to give him a pass on Bengali in Platforms as him being ham handed in trying to be empathetic, and on National Front Disco as being satire, but it seems clear I was just making excuses for him.

Her assertion that incumbents couldn’t be term-limited even by a constitutional amendment is patently absurd. It’s the supreme law of the land! Of course it could say you stop being a justice in 2029 or whatever, and that’s how the amendment should be drafted, to phase it in for the incumbents.

In the early 2000s, I paid $5 to see Interpol in their prime and a number of other bands at the Q101 Block Party in Chicago. Clearly this was done to promote Q101 which probably took a big loss on the event but it’s still sad that there’s nothing remotely like that anymore.

True. We need to keep them honest. But their commitment to paying artists more (though still not nearly enough) and to a quality listening experience are good signs, and the substantial number of listeners they have who left Spotify hopefully will incentivize good choices.

If you’re worried about your playlists, SongShift can transfer them easily.

Friendly reminder that there is no need to use Spotify. Apple Music has all the real music, sounds better, and doesn’t do this:

We've become so accustomed to lawbreaking that this probably won't ripple much, but it is important not to forget that firing the IRS Commissioner for refusing to break the law--if that's in fact what happened here--would and should prompt immediate articles of impeachment in any other presidency.