Modern Day Bartleby

I engage in conversations with PhD-level experts every day. It's called reading scholarly literature
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Putin is COMING TO THE UNITED STATES? Even by Trump 2.0 standards, this is beyond belief. U.S. diplomacy is dead.

No, he’s not giving Putin Alaska, but he is giving Putin a huge gift: the legitimacy of touching down on US soil at the invitation of a US president. A reward for the full-scale invasion of a sovereign, democratic country that the United States and its European allies support.

The Republican Party is an international crime syndicate of extortionists

Trump Administration Threatens to Take Over Harvard’s Patents The move is the latest escalation in the White House’s battle with the Ivy League school.

The Commerce Department threatening to take over Harvard's patents shows the extent to which the federal government is trying to pressure the university into a settlement. They are trying everything possible. (gift link)

Seizing the property of private organizations to punish dissent is totalitarianism.

It is illegal, anti-Conservative, Soviet, and sickening.

Yet people who drool ‘freedom’ whisper not a word to object. Lift not a finger.

Supreme Court approval rating sinks to a new low, poll finds. What caused shift? For the first time ever, the court’s approval rating dipped below 40%, the Gallup poll found.

For the first time ever, the court’s approval rating dipped below 40%, the Gallup poll found.

'We're not afraid of these goons': Premier reacts after Melbourne 'Nazi' march Premier Jacinta Allan says "Nazis", "goons" will not be tolerated after about 100 people marched through Melbourne dressed in black and chanting.

Premier Jacinta Allan says "Nazis", "goons" will not be tolerated after about 100 people marched through Melbourne dressed in black and chanting.

I was just at the Osaka Sewerage Museum (which is awesome and everyone should visit) and they had a chart of what percentage of Japanese households had sewer service year by year and the before/after of WW2 and the occupation is jawdropping. Like being dropkicked from the 18th century to the 21st.

another thing people often get wrong about the Pacific War is that the modal Japanese soldier was not an urbanite; they were a rural farmer whose life was a lot closer to the Chinese peasants they terrorized than to our image of Japan today. Japan was about 30% urbanized in 1940.

to what extent does the administration intend to use this money to fund things that congress won't, and also, treating states like conquered territories to be dominated is one of those things that really makes you think the goal of these people is to dissolve the union

Yeah, Trump doesn’t merely want these universities to pay. He wants the money, ideally personally, but certainly for it to be under his control. That’s the rest of this story, waiting to be uncovered.

Green dildos are raining down on WNBA courts. Why? Crypto memecoins, of course. Just another “viral” stunt.

The Republican Party is an international crime syndicate of misogynistic incel-ish gtifters
arstechnica.com/culture/2025...

Throwing dildos at people is sexual harassment. I don't actually care if the person who did it is young.

That said, if it wasn't his idea then it's bullshit if he's the only one experiencing a consequence.

We’re not sure who needs to hear this, but ‘blueberry’ has two b’s.

'Lives shattered': Emiliano's vows to reopen after feds seize 16 in immigration raid Federal immigration agents took 16 people into custody Thursday during coordinated raids at Emiliano’s restaurant locations in the North Hills and Butler County. The agents, led by U.S. Immigrat...

Yesterday’s ICE raids at Emiliano’s is just another example of how the Trump admin is terrorizing our communities and ripping families apart.

This violence and cruelty has no place in Western Pennsylvania or anywhere in this country.

My mother in law used to own a restaurant across the street from Emiliano’s in Gibsonia and all the workers the gestapo pigs snatched out of the kitchen used to be regulars at her place, she knew them all. ICE is a terrorist organization and should be treated accordingly.

Sudan civil war: Besieged el-Fasher city residents face starvation, UN warns - BBC News El-Fasher, encircled by RSF paramilitary fighters, has not had food deliveries for over a year.

Sudan is starving. www.bbc.com/news/article...

Canadians are polite until we are we are not. What makes us not polite is fascism. We fought them on the streets of Toronto in 1933. We fought them in Spain. Long before America joined the war we fought them.
When you tell us we don't have a right to a country or kidnap our people we will fight back

Don't Be Fooled By Trump's Plan To 'Upskill' Workers To Prepare For AI | TechPolicy.Press The future of work does not require an unquestioning acceptance and embrace of AI, write DAIR's Alex Hanna, Tina Park, and Sophie Song.

The Trump AI Action Plan’s language on empowering workers is congruent with much of what counts as mainstream US political discourse on AI and labor, say DAIR’s Alex Hanna, Tina Park, and Sophie Song. That means it's disconnected from what’s actually happening with AI in the workplace, they say.

E.P.A. to Stop Updating Popular Database After Lead Scientist Criticized Trump

The destruction and politicization of US science continues to accelerate as another critical database is destroyed by Trump and his cult. #climate
www.nytimes.com/2025/08/08/c...

The Republican Party is an international crime syndicate of epistemic irresponsibility

The White House has a preferred alternative to PBS. It may already be in countless classrooms. How the right-wing network PragerU could fill the void left by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s defunding.

The White House has a preferred alternative to PBS: PragerU, a nonprofit organization that specializes in creating right-leaning educational short videos for adults and children. . It may already be in countless classrooms. www.vox.com/today-explai...

hell is empty and all the devils are here

Today, Brandon Russell was sentenced to 20 years in prison and a lifetime of supervised release for his involvement in a plot to destroy Baltimore area power plants. He encouraged others to do the same through a loose, violent neo-Nazi network, Terrorgram

Read my coverage of his trial from earlier:

#ICYMI: Ellen T. Meiser joins our Uncommon Sense #podcast to talk kitchen culture, scars and storytelling. From The Bear to Ratatouille, why does pop culture love chefs? What’s commercial kitchen culture really like? What value do scars have within it?

Listen: buff.ly/4dpOL9Z

Three young white girls clad in white sitting among the trees with a promontory behind them.

Peter Weir’s PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK, an arthouse staple and landmark Australian New Wave film, turns 50 today. 🇦🇺

“…aiming to inject patriotism back into Hollywood”

This is an absolutely insane thing to say in 2025. In practical terms you can’t make a movie about the military without Pentagon approval because studios just won’t greenlight the spend anymore. It’s embarrassing that NBC uses the PR frame on this.

With all the news about the return of Confederate monuments, I wanted to share my Confederate Monuments Syllabus page. It includes op-eds going back to 2017, interviews, lectures, teaching resources, primary sources, and a bibliography. #sschat #historyteacher 🗃️ cwmemory.com/civilwarmemo...

Doug Ford floats notwithstanding clause in Toronto bike lanes case The Ontario premier gears up for a fight after a judge rejected his bid to remove Toronto bike lanes

Premier Doug Ford is leaving open the possibility of invoking the notwithstanding clause to ensure the Ontario government has the power to remove bike lanes it disapproves of following a recent court ruling on Toronto's bike lane case. VIA @torontotoday.ca thenarwhal.ca/ford-notwith...