A gracious concession: “I want to congratulate Abdul El-Sayed on winning the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate. He is a doctor, a community health official, a Rhodes Scholar, and a dedicated Michigander. I am proud to offer my support as he takes on Mike Rogers in the general election…

Spelling Bee kinda ridic today

My daughter started working at Mother Jones recently (raising funds for the Center for Investigative Reporting). Mother Jones's reporter Abby Vesoulis broke the Max Miller story through disciplined and tedious reporting. So proud of how she contributed to this. www.motherjones.com/author/abby-...

As I've watched movies more seriously lately I've found I'm becoming more discriminating. A source of movies that are almost always worth watching is below. You can choose the movie your haven't seen and mark them off as you do. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

On Your List (Free Access)

Find everything you want to read, watch and try next.

nytimes.com

This seems like an extra level of breakdown from Trump. Insisting that Minnesota hacked their own water systems when intelligence says it was the Iranians, which obviously makes a lot more sense, and then the Reflecting Pool thing. It's either Trump is getting crazier or reality is breaking through.

No professional accomplishment has ever made me happier than this. theonion.com/translator-o...

Translator Of Original ‘Minions’ Epic Poem Slams ‘Sexless, Bloodless’ Film Adaptation

PHILADELPHIA—In a 4,500-word essay published in Harper’s Magazine, Emily Wilson, known for her popular translation of the Minions epic poem, blasted the latest film Thursday as a “sexless, bloodless” ...

theonion.com

US Justice Department drops case against former US Olympian over Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool reut.rs/4pYK1mA

US Justice Department drops case against former US Olympian over Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool

The Justice Department ​has moved to ‌drop its case against a former ​U.S. Olympian ​who was accused of ⁠vandalizing a ​portion of the ​newly renovated Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, a court filing ​showed on ​Friday.

reut.rs

I just this morning fixed a flashlight following Claude's advice. It's like having a helpful assistant who is also sometimes confidently, and completely, wrong.

[Homer sits backwards on a chair] let me tell you about ANOTHER giant brute who was being beaten by Nobody

now that the odyssey is a hit can someone green light my Trial and Death of Socrates

This is a pretty good cat toy (Teazys peaky tail. I got it from Walmart).

Philly friends: the Transit app is FAR superior to the Septa app. It reports bus locations by tracking the locations of phones using the app (not only the unreliable bus gps), and also doesn't fall back to the (more or less useless) schedule when a bus can't be found.

It's kind of cool how, these days, a director can spend hundreds of millions of dollars and enormous effort to bring an ancient classic to the screen yet face greater derision than Golden Age Hollywood did for making say the Elizabeth Taylor Cleopatra.

‘I would be ashamed to have written any part of this’: Odyssey translator Emily Wilson attacks Nolan blockbuster

‘I would be ashamed to have written any part of this’: Odyssey translator Emily Wilson attacks Nolan blockbuster

Wilson, whose work on Homer’s epic was praised by Nolan, said his film was grandiose and superficial with ‘nothing convincing to say’ Emily Wilson, the classicist whose 2017 translation of Homer’s Odyssey was cited by Christopher Nolan in early publicity for his hugely successful adaptation of the poem, has roundly criticised the film, saying “it has nothing convincing to say” and that its “lacks psychological, emotional, political and ethical depth”. In a scathing essay for the London Review of Books, Wilson writes: “I had hoped that Nolan’s affinity with these Homeric themes might push him to new creative heights, and enable him to conjure more believable characters. But The Odyssey features his usual combination of grandiosity and superficiality … the film’s vision is too confused, its characters too underdeveloped, to deliver what it half-promises in terms of big ideas – although it is very good at conveying big bangs and big giants.” Continue reading...

theguardian.com

I really feel like making a contribution to Troy Jackson but I am not going to donate through ActBlue and have to go through more rounds of blocking text requests from other Democrats if I can possibly avoid it. Does anyone have a suggestion about a different way to send him money?

There is a lot to say about the Nolan Odyssey movie. But one point that I think has not been emphasized enough is: this is a film about living in LA, as Nolan, my erstwhile British compatriot and age mate, has done for years. I gather it’s a strange place.

Benjamin Netanyahu is a war criminal.

It's crazy that we tolerate Canada just dumping all their forest fire smoke on us. We don't need a border wall. What we need are some really big fans.

It's commonplace to say that the Democrats, especially Schumer, are doing nothing to fight back. But sometimes they do, in fact, push back in meaningful ways. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/14/u...

Senate Democrats Block Defense Bill Over War in Iran (Gift Article)

The vote reflected how the political debate over the conflict in the Middle East has sapped bipartisan support for a normally popular measure.

nytimes.com

E. Jean Carroll receives more than $5 million from Trump years after a jury found he had sexually abused and defamed the former magazine writer. https://cnn.it/4ykggjJ

Too bad about Sam Neill dying but I'm a little bit happy that I'm not going to have to figure out whether he's Hugo Weaving anymore.

Hannah Dugan, a former Wisconsin judge convicted of obstructing immigration agents, was fined $5,000 but avoided prison. Dugan drew the ire of the Trump administration when she was accused of helping an undocumented immigrant evade federal agents.

Judge Hannah C. Dugan Faces Fine But No Prison Time

The former Wisconsin judge, Hannah C. Dugan, was accused of ushering an undocumented immigrant out a side door as federal agents waited for him near her Milwaukee courtroom.

nyti.ms

"If there’s a lesson here, it might be about the importance of listening hard to the people telling you what you don’t want to hear." Yes. When Fetterman was running Summer Lee, from Braddock, warned us that he wasn't who he pretended to be. Sorry I didn't listen. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/06/o...

Opinion | Lessons From the Graham Platner Disaster

nytimes.com

We have a little granddaughter here and it occurs to me how much joy she gets out of pointing at things and identifying then. "Light!" Some of us never get over that high. Hence, bird watching.

Crypto making a name for itself as the basis for drug sales, ransomware, and political corruption is not a great way for an industry to establish itself. It's quite possible for governments to decide they don't like a parallel currency, and to then ban it. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/04/u...

Nearly a Million Investors Lost a Total of $3.8 Billion on Trump Crypto Coin

nytimes.com

I know having the Fourth messed up because of our narcissist is sad, but just think about the parties we'll throw when, you know, it finally happens.

This is the first article I've seen where the author understands the limitations of AI agents and explains why they will have less of an impact on jobs than many people have been predicting. www.nytimes.com/2026/06/30/o...

Opinion | The Unstoppable Force of A.I. Hype Is Meeting One Immovable Fact

nytimes.com

‘Companies investing most heavily in AI are adding workers faster than their peers, according to new research that challenges predictions of broad AI-driven job losses.’ www.ft.com/content/8026...

Could someone in DC go check on the Reflecting Pool? Because this sequence of photos sense to imply, possibly, that it's cleaned up by now. The last photo shows the nanobubblers working away at it two weeks ago.

Trump's shtick is to keep coming up with new content so we're always entertained. In his first administration people held him back, and then COVID hit, so he didn't run out of ideas. But now, no one's holding him back, and there's no global disaster (yet), so he's done. Can't think of anything new.