BTW if you've never seen it, the feverishly queer color noir "Desert Fury" (1947, d. Lewis Allen) with the young Burt Lancaster is on Criterion and is worth checking out.
Steve
@snark.bsky.social
“Yes,” said the Indiana Zephyr, “what is the moral of the story?” (He/him; Ohio, USA)
my kid is currently playing with a friend halfway across the world and overhearing their antics is a delight in itself
House House@househouse.com · 2d ago🔴🟡🔵 BIG WALK 🔴🟡🔵 Out now on Steam, Nintendo Switch 2, and PlayStation 5. Hooray!
tbh I was expecting something more begrudging after the treatment Mamdani got.
MeidasTouch@meidastouch.com · 12h agoA 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…
This new blu-ray of The Outfit (1973)—the movie that comes closest to getting Westlake’s Parker right—is out now, and if you get it you can watch me talk about Westlake, Parker, & the material shittiness of the 1970s. (And then watch Duvall & Joe Don Baker & Robert Ryan & (sigh) Marie Windsor.)
Levi Stahl@levistahl.bsky.social · 3mo agoIn case you missed it the other day: If you want to see The Outfit, one of the best Parker novel adaptations, & also get to watch me in my library talking about it, Donald Westlake, and movies of his books as part of the DVD extras, here’s your chance. This was really fun to get to be involved with.
Utterly bizarre that Ferrara's BAD LIEUTENANT turned into a quasi-franchise (anthology series), but I don't mind! Get all the weirdo filmmakers to make one. Miike BAD LIEUTENANT sounds great.
The Playlist@theplaylist.bsky.social · 2d ago‘Bad Lieutenant: Tokyo’ First Look: Takashi Miike TIFF-Bound Neo-Noir Pic At NEON Stars Lily James & Shun Oguri
I low-key presume that the goal isn't to harass trans child athletes—there are vanishingly few trans girls in high school sports, although these ghouls think that even one is too many—so much as to destroy girls' sports altogether in the name of enforcing proper gender roles.
Gillian Branstetter@gbbranstetter.bsky.social · 3d agoAn initiative on the ballot in Washington state in November would require all athletes seeking to play girl's sports from kindergarten to high school to undergo "genetic screening, a testosterone-levels test, or an examination of their reproductive anatomy" before they can play
this is not true. there was no conspiracy. it didn't matter whether the streetcars were publicly owned (seattle, detroit) or private (los angeles, atlanta). a thread (because i wrote a whole-ass book on this): 1/?
David Ho@davidho.bsky.social · 3d agoIs everyone aware of the General Motors streetcar conspiracy? In the mid-20th century, auto and oil interests bought up electric streetcar systems across the US and systematically replaced them with bus routes and paved roads, funneling commuters toward private cars.
I HAVE BEEN SAYING THIS FOR A LONG TIME IT IS A REALLY BIG PROBLEM Public policy grad school programs don’t want to say this out loud but since at least 2016 the people that go into Republican politics *are not the ones that know math or think critically*. THEY CAN’T BE.
E.J. Fagan@ejfagan.com · 5d agoSenior Republican congressional staffer on trying to recruit new policy experts: “We have a generation of rabid, incompetent idiots.”
the president refusing to defend a state against the nation he started a war with is, like, kind of the biggest thing, you know? kinda sails right past "impeachable" and into darker territory.
Lindsay Beyerstein@beyerstein.bsky.social · 5d agoThis is a crisis of federalism. Tim Walz is asserting as fact that Iran attacked water infrastructure in Minnesota and several other states. And Trump is saying it's Minnesota's own fault they were attacked as part of a war he started.
I will spend the rest of my life adoring the story that Stuart Gordon made this movie because Charles Band had a poster for it already and told Gordon he could make whatever movie he wanted as long as it was cheap, there was a castle, and there was a freak.
Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein@deepcuts.blog · 5d ago11) CASTLE FREAK (1995) - Shot in an actual Italian castle; lot of little Lovecraftian nods, and maybe remarkable just for being such a solid script. Largely eschews the big set-piece effects of RE-ANIMATOR and FROM BEYOND, but spends the time on characterization and a wonderful mood.
I hope these dudes keep talking loudly and publicly about how important it is that honest hardworking Americans feed all their electricity to Glonzo.
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 6d agoHassett: "Data centers are very good for towns bc they create so many jobs & bring people in with high incomes that can buy houses & stuff like that. So if you take a sleepy town that hasn't seen much in the last 30 years & put a data center there, there are gonna be a bunch of happy residents."
I don't know a damn thing about compiler internals and I'm only a dabbler in Rust, really, but this series of blog posts is maybe my favorite set of ongoing tech writing on the internet these days: nnethercote.github.io/2026/07/31/h...
How to speed up the Rust compiler in July 2026
My last post on the Rust compiler’s performance was in December 2025. Let’s see what has happened since then.
nnethercote.github.io
The whole Gordie Howe Bridge saga makes me think of Warren Buffett's sidekick Charlie Munger, who once said that gave MBA students the brainteaser of how to set prices on a monopoly bridge crossing. The obvious answer is you figure out the supply/demand and set the price to maximize profits… 1/2
❀°。Der Siebenschläfer *.ﾟ✿ ⋆@sababausa.bsky.social · last wk.btw if you're wondering how the competing Ambassador Bridge came to be a vitally important international land crossing *privately owned by one billionaire*, basically it was built by a private company in the 1920s which went bankrupt in the 70s and got bought out by one investor
Look I don’t mind a bit of Glonzo on data centers but I want to make one thing clear: anyone campaigning against transmission is a climate denialist and/or a wrecker.
Yashar Ali 🐘@yasharali.bsky.social · last wk.1. Two country music legends, Willie Nelson and Tanya Tucker, are speaking out about different pieces of the same enormous industrial buildout in Texas. Tanya Tucker is speaking out against the massive transmission lines crossing private land to accommodate the state’s surging electricity demand.
My Haitian friend was just fired from his job. "They said I don't have a legal status now." This is likely happening to hundreds of thousands of people across this country today. Sick.
Paragraph *16* in an article decrying that Mamdani did not use one of his nine appointments to choose a Jewish attorney to a judicial selection panel. "Mr. Calvello said Justice Leventhal was rejected because he had represented Ghislaine Maxwell, the associate of Jeffrey Epstein."
Ben K.@benjaminkabak.com · last wk.Another disgusting baseless Mamdani hit piece from Dana Rubinstein. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/27/n...
I've been a critic in Chicago for almost exactly 27 years, and the screening room at the top of 70 E. Lake St. has so many memories for me. Good piece from Richard Roeper, and I love that he talked to the projectionist, Steve Kraus. Great guy, great at his job: www.rogerebert.com/features/a-h...
A Home Away from Home: Goodbye to the Lake Street Screening Room
A loving ode to a place that shaped Chicago film criticism.
rogerebert.com
Haitians who came to America fleeing poverty and violence saved Springfield, and this is how we’re repaying them. JD Vance shouldn’t be able to go outside without being pelted by rotten fruit for his racist lies.
Catherine Rampell@crampell.bsky.social · last wk.TPS for Haitians officially expires tomorrow. ICE is planning big operations, with Springfield, Ohio among the targets www.cbsnews.com/news/ice-hai...
See also: writing about war, family, slavery, love, hope, whatever…someone smarter & more talented than you has already done it, so just do your own thing. And make it not suck.
G. Willow Wilson@gwillow.me · last wk.When you write superhero comics, some days you wake up and think "it's all been done before" and feel panic. And some days you wake up and think "it's all been done before" and feel free. The challenge is navigating yourself from the first to the second so you can get some actual work done
Replicating the experience of reading Wolfe by blurring half the faces and requiring you to reconstruct who said things by Clues by Sam logic.
Tim Marchman@timmarchman.bsky.social · 2w agoSuperheroes are dead now, so Hollywood has no choice but to stage incredibly elaborate adaptations of unfilmable science fiction classics. The masses need The Book of the New Sun!
Student leader of the Indian youth uprising declaring victory and delivering a lesson in grassroots political strategy for all of us: “The world bends, if you know how to make it bend.” Gift: India’s ‘Cockroach’ Protesters Declare Rare Victory Over Government www.nytimes.com/2026/07/25/w...
India’s Education Minister Steps Down in Victory for Cockroach Party Protesters (Gift Article)
The Cockroach Janta Party called an end to weeks of protests after the education minister resigned, a win for that movement even as deep-seated anger among young people remains.
nytimes.com
Also, I really hope that people understand this guy's post is a scam, right? • No, the petition is not "going viral." • It's just a scam to get people to opt into getting emails from Keith Edwards Do not sign it.
We blew up the ayatollah who (plausibly disingenuously! You do not have to Hand It to the Mullahs!) put a fatwa on developing nuclear weapons. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatwa_a...
Fatwa against nuclear weapons - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Shipwreck@shipwreck75.bsky.social · 2w agoAmerican intelligence agencies believe that Iran’s new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, is far more interested than his father and predecessor in pursuing a nuclear weapon, according to officials briefed on the assessments.
like, even if you are ideologically aligned with Clyburn somewhat, why bother with SC when you can register early Black support without having to spend a month or two genuflecting before an 87-year-old narcissist?
We need to enforce FARA only insofar as I want to know if Orban and Russia really were propping up this entire thing