Morning

Slacker Saturday

Happy Hour

Get happy.

Working Hard Or Hardly Working

I just can't comprehend not taking being a CABINET SECRETARY seriously. I might be shit at it, but I'd figure it was going to occupy all my time and mental space!

oh my god -- Sean Duffy on Fox & Friends this morning announced that he spent parts of *7 MONTHS* (more than half a year!) on a roadtrip with his family to celebrate America's 250th anniversary

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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) May 8, 2026 at 5:02 PM

Nothing Really Matters

Even in the post-9/11 bloodlust era, most "respectable" commentators felt the need to express concerns and regret about civilian casualties, to discuss war as if it was a terrible, if necessary, tragedy. Most of the time, anyway.

You rarely see any expressed concern at all anymore.  Even if it was mostly fake in the past, or more about the pundits admiring their own morality than actual genuine concern, it still did convey the sense that people dying mattered.

Waiting For A Big Beautiful Deal

We are once again being told there might be an Iran "deal" today, though I suspect that is more nonsense.

Any "deal" that actually happens will essentially involve Iran being the victors in a war they didn't start, with terms set accordingly. I am curious how it will be covered.  If it happens.

I Gotta Admit This Is Funny

I left long before universities were overpowered by mandatory ed tech, but I don't know a single faculty member who actually likes being forced to use this stuff. It's one thing to make tools available, another thing to squeeze everybody into them and make it impossible for them to use anything else.

New York — An apparent cyberattack shut down an education platform used by universities and K-12 schools across the US Thursday, depriving students and teachers of essential classroom materials – at a time when many are taking or prepping for final exams.

Canvas, a popular, cloud-based digital hub for classrooms, has more than 30 million active users globally, with more than 8,000 institutions as customers, parent company Instructure says on its website.

And of course there are monitoring (spying on faculty, eroding any pedagogical freedom) and intellectual property (all your lectures belong to us) issues. 

Morning

Fuckin' Friday.

Happy Hour

get happy

So Much Winning

(WaPo reporter)

U.S. intel also indicates that Iran retains about 75% of its pre-war inventories of mobile launchers & about 70% of its pre-war stockpiles of missiles, per a U.S. official. The regime has also been able to recover underground storage facilities & repair damaged missiles

— John Hudson (@John_Hudson) May 7, 2026

Kavanaugh Stops

Kavanaugh is an idiot, so I can believe it actually didn't occur to him that an immigration stop would never be a one-time thing, like you get your name checked and never have to do it again.

This wasn’t the first time ICE agents stopped and held Garcia Venegas. In fact, Saturday’s encounter marked the third such incident, according to court filings. Garcia Venegas, whose parents are originally from Mexico, had twice before been detained after ICE raided construction sites where he was working, and twice before he was let go after proving his American citizenship. This third detention, Garcia Venegas wrote in his statement, had caused him emotional distress and anxiety. “I live in constant fear that I will be subjected to further baseless detentions just for going about my daily life,” he said, adding, “I only wish to live my life in peace.”

He gave full license to terrorize Latinos constantly forever, and while I doubt that bothers him at all, I can, as I said, believe he didn't get what he was enabling. 

Unreality

I don't know if it's really worse than it used to be, but I do think everyone used to put a bit more work into their bullshit. Now, powerful people lie like crumb-faced kids saying that they didn't eat a cookie, and think it's extraordinarily rude if you don't pretend to believe them.

HERSHEY, Pa. — Chief Justice John Roberts on Wednesday defended the Supreme Court from what he believes are misconceptions held by the American people that he and his colleagues are “political actors” who are making decisions based on policy, not law.

Mr. Trump, Sir, Your Advisers Have Led You Astray

Nothing will shake Trump from his few core beliefs (racism, his own inerrancy), but it would be nice if he got mad at the people who convinced him he could conquer Iran in 24 hours.

Where All My Bed Unshitters At

Our "allies" are getting a bit tired of being turned into a war zone for no reason.

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s abrupt reversal on his plan to help ships go through the Strait of Hormuz came after a key Gulf ally suspended the U.S. military’s ability to use its bases and airspace to carry out the operation, according to two U.S. officials.

Trump surprised Gulf allies by announcing “Project Freedom” on social media Sunday afternoon, the officials said, angering leadership in Saudi Arabia. In response, the Kingdom informed the U.S. it would not allow the U.S. military to fly aircraft from Prince Sultan Airbase southeast of Riyadh or fly through Saudi airspace to support the effort, the officials said.

Countries are realizing they can, actually, just say no.

Morning

Thrilling Thursday

Wednesday Night

Rock on.

Brain Geniuses

It's funny how much Rubio was pushed as The Next Great (And Good) Republican once upon a time.

SECRETARY RUBIO: You know what’s an act of war? Iran putting mines in the water. Why doesn’t Congress complain about that? pic.twitter.com/WJOIjkh30W

— Department of State (@StateDept) May 5, 2026

Yes Iran should get Congressional authorization for its minelaying operations.

Too Much Fucking Context, Barry

 Too much.

At Least We Cured Woke Cancel Culture

I'm not saying this particular reporter deserves it, but it is "funny" that the magazine which spent years documenting every time a college student violated the constitution by objecting to the presence of a highly paid campus speaker is experiencing this.

The FBI has launched a criminal leak investigation focusing on an Atlantic magazine journalist who wrote a deeply unflattering account last month of Director Kash Patel’s work habits, two people familiar with the matter told MS NOW.

Is That Good

He thinks that's good.

Hassett on American consumers: "Credit card spending is through the roof. They're spending more on gasoline, but they're spending more on everything else too."

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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) May 6, 2026 at 2:19 PM

Seems Bad

I think having kids makes a lot of people crazy (I don't mean this derogatorily, I just mean it is a big fucking deal that breaks their brains a bit, understandably), and part of coping with that is convincing themselves they've found the secret tricks to parenting which have eluded other people.

Sadly, sometimes that includes potentially fatal crackpot health care choices.

Their autopsies, which took place over the last several years, all came to the same conclusion: The deaths were caused, in whole or in part, by a rare but potentially fatal condition known as vitamin K deficiency bleeding.

In almost every case, the babies’ deaths could have been prevented with a long-standard vitamin K shot. But across the country, families — first in smatterings, now in droves — are declining the single, inexpensive injection given at birth to newborns to help their blood clot.

Many of them are doing so out of a well-meaning but ill-informed abundance of caution. In the hopes of safeguarding their newborns from what they see as unnecessary medical intervention, they have shunned fundamental and scientifically sound pharmaceutical intervention. The trend is also fueled by a contradictory pairing: families’ fierce desire to protect their babies and a cascade of false information infused into their social media algorithms.