Michael Bilow

I'm old enough to have done the original soldering to put the World Wide Web together.

Occupying Gaza is the worst option:
Netanyahu has been dishonest from the beginning because Israel can either eliminate Hamas or recover the hostages, but not both.

open.substack.com/pub/bilow/p/...

Watching Kevin Hassett talk about what to do with the $3 tn surplus from Trump economic policies is like asking whether your wife will get any better at sex after she wins the Miss Universe pageant.

There is a docuseries?

Trump removes official overseeing jobs data after dismal employment report President Donald Trump on Friday had his team remove the head of the agency that produces the monthly jobs figures, after a weak report showed hiring slowed and was much weaker in April and May than p...

The US will soon be forced to import our statistics from China.

apnews.com/article/trum...

We have one just like that in Providence.

Verizon is upping its fees again Verizon says most customers will see an increase of “less than 30 cents.“

I finally left Verizon after literally 30 years of continuous service, with a monthly bill of $130 for a single main line and a secondary data-only line. I'm paying $20 for Visible, ironically a wholly owned subsidiary of Verizon, using the same Android 15 device.

www.theverge.com/news/717506/...

The best @ezraklein.bsky.social show in a while, with Yoram Hazony, the muse behind the ideas of J.D. Vance, about the innards of nationalism.

www.nytimes.com/2025/08/01/o...

Hamlet 2 | Rotten Tomatoes Discover reviews, ratings, and trailers for Hamlet 2 on Rotten Tomatoes. Stay updated with critic and audience scores today!

@radiostoryteller.bsky.social Worst sequel ever!

www.rottentomatoes.com/m/hamlet_2#r...

A Novel About a Friendship So Fierce, It Feels Like Worship

I picked up "Lonely Crowds" about an hour after you mentioned it yesterday. There was a @nytimes.com review — www.nytimes.com/2025/07/29/b... — published at 5am.

I'm only a bit into the book, but so far it's quite good. There is an elegaic tone reminiscent of "The Great Gatsby."

Heat Advisory Through Wed 8pm: Uncomfortably hot with heat index values near 100°F expected - Motif Heat Advisory in effect from July 28, 11:00 AM EDT until July 30, 08:00 PM EDT At Providence, a Heat Advisory is in effect through Wed 8pm with temperatures/heat indices […]

PVD: Heat Advisory to Wed 8pm; temps/heat indices 94°F/99°F. Temp/heat index will decline after the advisory period, 76°F/76°F (Thu), 67°F/67°F (Fri).

Chance of rain exceeds 35% Thu 12pm – Fri 6pm, peaking Fri 2am at 65%; localized flash flooding could result.

motifri.com/wx-2025-07-3...

@radiostoryteller.bsky.social When did RI last have a top-level sports team?

Basketball: 1949 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provide...

Football: 1931 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provide...

Have you stopped posting these?

Why Trump is obsessed with building a White House ballroom As President Trump bends the federal government to fit his agenda, he is also gilding the White House to suit his aesthetics. And there's one more thing he really wants: a ballroom.

Wait, Trump already paved the White House Rose Garden?!

www.npr.org/2025/07/30/n...

How I Became the Motif Weatherman - Motif Weather is an endlessly fascinating topic: It affects everybody and can literally be a matter of life and death. Forecasting seems to many some kind of black art, but the […]

From me you will always get human-crafted forecasts, written with thought and knowledge, not scraped by an app or AI.

motifri.com/motif-weathe...

Some advice on picking the best weather apps You can count on people on social media to complain about the accuracy of weather apps. NPR hears some advice on how to pick more reliable ones.

Relying on weather apps that are often misleading or outright wrong, especially when the oversimplify to suppress legitimate uncertainty, as I have long said.

Local over-the-air comments from @radiostoryteller.bsky.social will not be heard here.

www.npr.org/2025/07/28/n...

Whistleblower Documents Implicate Emil Bove in Criminal Contempt Order by Chief Judge Boasberg Email released by whistleblower would presumably implicate Bove in the “contumacious conduct” identified by Chief Judge Boasberg.

Reuters: Chief Judge "Boasberg said on Thursday he may initiate disciplinary proceedings against Justice Department lawyers for their conduct in a lawsuit."

If you don't see the connection to Emil Bove, you're missing the extra import of this.

www.justsecurity.org/116777/bove-...

At Providence, high heat will break as a front passes through, bringing possibly severe thunderstorms around 5pm plus or minus four hours.

motifri.com/wx-2025-07-25-0730edt/

Biden had no choice: Trump negotiated a deal with the Taliban, drew down US forces to only 2,500, and thereby left Biden with an indefensible military position and two bad options, either a disorganized withdrawal or a significant reintroduction of additional personnel.

We let women vote now.

Her: ChatGPT is great! We're becoming friends.

Me: ChatGPT probably considers you to be its own personal tamagotchi.

If @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social hair and beard were white, New Yorkers would confuse him with Santa Claus: free buses, free groceries, globalize everything.

It's relevant because the grand jury proceedings are the only thing she has no authority to release on her own without court permission.

Just because you ridicule and accuse someone of being Chicken Little will not excuse you from being crushed by falling pieces of sky.

Opinion | ‘Jeopardy!’ Is a Reminder That Facts Are Fun — and Essential

@jeopardyofficial.bsky.social host @kenjennings.bsky.social explains trivia:

"I feel like in an age of disinformation, it’s more important than ever that we have this little carved-out space where knowledge matters and where facts are facts and errors are errors."

www.nytimes.com/2025/07/16/o...

Trump Kept Gold Club World Cup Trophy for Himself So FIFA Had to Give the Winners a Replica Trump took every opportunity to make the new, expanded soccer tournament all about himself.

Donald Trump progresses from a participation trophy to a non-participation trophy.

He really is learning from Vladimir Putin!

www.thedailybeast.com/trump-kept-g...

The weird thing is there are a lot of people like me who are prepared to believe "the Epstein files" never existed at all but are unprepared to trust the assurance of the Trump administration to that effect.

It's like riding a unicycle: once you learn, you never forget how to fall flat on your face.

— my comment this morning over breakfast

France launches criminal investigation into Musk’s X over algorithm manipulation The probe is based on complaints from a lawmaker and an unnamed senior civil servant.

Note that under US law, Grok posts lie outside the safe harbor protections of Sec. 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

www.politico.eu/article/fran...

Roger Daltrey kept up his membership in the ironworkers union.