KMDT

😩

Picture of the East Wing demolition of the White House taken on my flight out of DCA.

Supporting people's capacity for joy and connection is important work. One little thing at a time. Your delight is not frivolous.

the president has destroyed the east wing of the white house without so much as a word of input from anyone else to build a royal ballroom paid for with bribes

White House begins demolishing East Wing facade to build Trump’s ballroom The president had claimed construction of the $250 million ballroom wouldn’t ‘interfere’ with the existing White House structure.

Well this sure feels on the nose www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

My kindergartener reports that their teacher is fed up and is now taking a “dolphin dollar” (school reward system) any time a kid says 6-7.

I haven’t made it to Loyalty in person yet but these Comfort Reads panels have been absolutely wonderful.

Small DC bookstore reports 60% decline in business since federal surge A bookstore in the Petworth neighborhood reports sales are down a whopping 60% since the federal surge in D.C. began. The small but beautifully arranged Loyalty Bookstore on busy Upshur Street near Ge...

A friend of mine co-owns this bookstore. This is not great.

www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/d...

I see yet again people are pretending antifa is a real thing as an organized group in the world when the things far left activists are best at organizing are: feeding people, loaning each other the same $20 constantly, & arguing amongst themselves. Oh & assigning reading.

So yes, lots of bad shit happens, we are set back frequently by assholes and bad luck, but we still keep staggering forward toward a better world.

I hate so much of what is happening in the US, but it’s actually still a really good time to be alive compared to all the others.

Sedation dentistry is no longer weird. Phone cameras are really good. The price of solar panels has dropped by tens of thousands. Southern white rhinos, giant pandas, Arabian oryx and Stellar sea lions are no longer endangered.

And, I can testify, modern cancer treatments are fucking amazing.

How Are You Supposed To Get The COVID Vaccine Now? An Explainer | Defector As the muggy malaise of summer winds down, you might find yourself interested in taking advantage of one of several safe and proven vaccines to help protect you from the inevitable brumal surge of res...

We took the paywall down on this one. defector.com/how-the-fuck...

i don't know what if anything is actually going on but boy shit is weird right now

We built a calculator that doesn't work, but don't worry, it's also a plagiarism machine that will tell you to kill yourself. It runs on the world's oceans and costs 10 trillion dollars.

We are on a bullet train to the end of US science, and possibly the country as a whole, when political appointees are reviewing every scientific grant submitted to NIH to determine if The Regime finds the science acceptable.

Cardboard box on a rock in a garden that says free plums & propaganda. Inside the box are French plums and postcards by Marc Fischer that say Losers Attack Our Libraries, Fight for Librarians

Free plums and propaganda.

There is absolutely no excuse for any Democrat asked about trans athletes to ever respond with anything but “why are you wasting my time asking about FEWER THAN FIFTEEN CHILDREN AND YOUNG ADULTS IN THE ENTIRE COUNTRY WHO WANT TO PLAY GAMES WITH THEIR FRIENDS. What is wrong with you?”

World Central Kitchen | WCK Resumes Limited Hot Meal Service in Gaza After 5-Day Pause After a five day pause, limited cooking operations resumed today at World Central Kitchen's Deir al-Balah Field Kitchen in Gaza.  This marks the second time in 2025 our hot meal program has been force...

After a five-day halt due to a lack of supplies, our team at WCK’s Deir al-Balah Field Kitchen has resumed limited hot meal service in Gaza. #ChefsForGaza (1/3)

It's become clear that this administration is just a protracted war on anybody who's read a book without pictures in it. It's a miracle we're all still getting up and going to work every morning. The psychological drain is the point, and I'm increasingly grateful to the people who are still decent.

"i asked grok" "i asked chatgpt" yeah well i asked carl sagan and he said the greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge 🧪

www.nytimes.com/2025/06/27/u...

Before the internet I don't know how we coped with those moments when, having dreamed about Annie Lennox, you wake up and have to know at once how old she is (she's 70).

it’s even more demoralizing when the history you’re repeating is history you were around for the first time

Chatbots — LLMs — do not know facts and are not designed to be able to accurately answer factual questions. They are designed to find and mimic patterns of words, probabilistically. When they’re “right” it’s because correct things are often written down, so those patterns are frequent. That’s all.

When Peaceful Protests Are Everywhere There were more than 2000 No Kings demonstrations on June 14, a record-breaking number: Why this ubiquity matters

My latest: With one possible exception, there have never been this many coordinated protests on a single day in the U.S. before. I explore why the omnipresence of these peaceful demonstrations matters so deeply, in the face of authoritarian overreach: lakauffman.substack.com/p/when-peace...

Any industry eliminating entry level roles where new, younger employees learn on the job before promotion to more advanced, decision-making roles is sawing through the branch it's sitting on.

There is so much history happening, if you're a future historian please tell everyone I said aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa thank you

Hell of a photo

Photograph of dozens of tanks on a train, next to I-295 in Washington, DC.

In preparation for next week’s parade/demonstration, tanks are being moved into Washington, DC today. Unprecedented.
(Photo from a colleague in DC)