John McQuaid
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johnmcquaid.bsky.social
John McQuaid
@johnmcquaid.bsky.social
620 followers 510 following 680 posts
Journalist, author (Tasty, on science of flavor; Path of Destruction, on Katrina); currently PhD candidate at UMD Philip Merrill College of Journalism studying media coverage/public debates over AI risk.
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johnmcquaid.bsky.social
Enjoyed "A House of Dynamite" but the premise (spoiler) that the president must decide whether/how to retaliate before the actual nuclear strike, lacking any useful info, is just wrong and seems a serious problem for a film aggressively touting its own realism/credibility
www.npr.org/2025/10/24/n...
The president would have a choice the film never discusses As the clock ticks down, the U.S. president faces an impossible decision about how to respond to what looks like it will be a direct nuclear blow to Chicago. His aide carrying the football (Jonah Hauer-King), recommends a forceful counterstrike — the "well done" option, as he describes it. But in fact, the president would probably be advised to ride out the attack, Lewis said. U.S. forces are capable of launching their missiles "on warning" before an attacker's missiles arrive, but the country's nuclear doctrine actually emphasizes what's known as a "second strike" capability. That would allow it to strike back even if it were hit with a nuclear attack much larger than the one in the movie. Moreover, in the film, the U.S. is unsure who fired the warhead, so is no clear adversary to hit back at. "It made no sense to me," Lewis said. In a real-world scenario, it is more likely the president and his commanders would wait to see what happened to Chicago. (One possibility raised by several experts NPR spoke to was that the entire launch was a false alarm or spoofed as part of a cyberattack.)
October 29, 2025 at 6:11 PM
johnmcquaid.bsky.social
The scene near #NoKingsDC, National Gallery of Art
October 18, 2025 at 6:41 PM
johnmcquaid.bsky.social
#NoKingsDC
October 18, 2025 at 6:28 PM
johnmcquaid.bsky.social
What Pope Leo says here isn't necessarily unexpected, but it's a new experience to hear an American Pope speaking knowledgeably about US politics
www.politico.com/live-updates...
But Leo, in remarks that appeared both careful and bold, urged Catholics not to view the senator — or any political figure — through a single-issue lens. “I think it’s important to look at the overall work that a senator has done during, if I’m not mistaken, in 40 years of service in the United States Senate,” the pope, a Chicago-area native, told reporters, responding to a question from EWTN News. “I understand the difficulty and the tensions,” he said. “But I think as I myself have spoken in the past, it’s important to look at many issues that are related to the teachings of the church.” More pointedly, the pope said, “Someone who says, ‘I’m against abortion,’ but is in favor of the death penalty is not really pro-life. Someone who says, ‘I’m against abortion but I’m in agreement with the inhuman treatment of immigrants in the United States,’ I don’t know if that’s pro-life.”
October 1, 2025 at 2:19 PM
johnmcquaid.bsky.social
A year ago, the news that the FBI director was personally overseeing an investigation might have been reassuring.

Today it seems to mean, "the FBI investigation is going poorly and so it is ramping up lying, political interference, and incompetence"

Yet none of that comes through in news coverage.
F.B.I. director Kash Patel, and his top deputy were headed to Utah on Thursday to more directly oversee the hunt for the person who fatally shot the right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, as the gunman remained on the loose more than 24 hours after the shooting.
September 12, 2025 at 1:39 AM
johnmcquaid.bsky.social
"At its core" this story is not about "brash" figures dueling on the international stage – but the U.S. abandoning any pretense of foreign policy or strategic action and acting entirely on the vanity and pettiness of its leader
www.nytimes.com/2025/08/30/u...
At its core, the story of Mr. Trump and Mr. Modi is about two brash, populist leaders with big egos and authoritarian tendencies, and the web of loyalties that help keep both men in power. And it is also the tale of an American president with his eye on a Nobel Prize, running smack into the immovable third rail of Indian politics: the conflict with Pakistan.
August 30, 2025 at 12:29 PM
johnmcquaid.bsky.social
If your health policy must be based on fantasy, it might as well be Madeleine L'Engle
Wikipedia page for "A Wind in the Door": A Wind in the Door is a young adult science fantasy novel by American author Madeleine L'Engle.[1] It is a companion book to A Wrinkle in Time and part of the Time Quintet. Plot Fourteen-year-old Meg Murry is worried about her brother Charles Wallace, a 6-year-old genius bullied at school by the other children. The new principal of the elementary school is the former high school principal, Mr. Jenkins, who often disciplined Meg, and Meg is sure he has a grudge against her whole family. Meg tries to enlist Jenkins's help in protecting her brother but is unsuccessful. Later, Meg discovers that Charles Wallace has a progressive disease that is leaving him short of breath. Their mother, a microbiologist, suspects a dysfunction of his farandolae, invisible organelles within his mitochondria.
August 28, 2025 at 8:09 PM
johnmcquaid.bsky.social
Good to know that #FOIA survived the Trump administration, the eugenics wars, and the transition from national to interplanetary governance
August 23, 2025 at 7:09 PM
johnmcquaid.bsky.social
Important takeaway from this @laurengoode.bsky.social Wired piece on vibe coding
www.wired.com/story/why-di...
Implication is, there will be more and more coders in the "don't even know the language" group, which will create glitches/broadly impact code quality/create problems in systems/apps
Vibe coding didn’t ignite this longing in me. Instead, I saw more clearly that we’re entering a dizzying age of duality in AI. Is AI going to kill our jobs or create more jobs? Yes. Did I technically build a feature in an app that has since been pushed to a hundred million users, or did I cheat my way through an assignment by leaning heavily on AI and other humans? Yes. [remainder highlighted] Do I need deep foundational knowledge of software programming to be a successful coder, or can I skate by without even knowing the name of the programming language I’m using? Also yes.
August 22, 2025 at 6:30 PM
johnmcquaid.bsky.social
Once again kind of hard to tell what's going on with inflation from reading the NYT and Washington Post
NYT headline/summary: U.S. Inflation Report Shows Effects of President Trump's Tariffs: One gauge showed prices increasing at the fastest annual pace in five months, a sign that businesses are passing along tariff-related costs to customers. Washington Post headline/summary: Inflation held steady in July as tariffs ripple through prices: Economists had anticipated slightly hotter inflation in July, fueled by President Donald Trump's tariffs
August 12, 2025 at 2:12 PM
johnmcquaid.bsky.social
In the 1950s, as atmospheric science was expanding in concert with nuclear testing, Congress appointed an Advisory Committee on Weather Control (mainly cloud-seeding), and while controversial, many people wanted to make it a reality. (Image: 1956 Washington Star story)
Image of 1956 Washington Star story headlined "Now It's Proved: We Can (underlined) Change The Weather!"
July 29, 2025 at 5:47 PM
johnmcquaid.bsky.social
NYT uncritically publishes a bunch of clearly false attacks on the WSJ scoop. Strictly speaking, the NYT has no obligation to defend a competitor's reporting; but in a story on deranged MAGA-Epstein politics it could note that journalism is based on facts/verification
www.nytimes.com/2025/07/21/u...
Stephen K. Bannon, a former White House adviser to Mr. Trump and influential leader of the MAGA base, said that the dynamics were shifting in part because the reporting in the story seemed “phony,” and because the paper decided not to show Mr. Trump a copy of the letter. “The Murdochs’ bizarre assault on the president galvanized his base because of both content and process,” Mr. Bannon said. “Now we are united as Trump goes on offense — against the Murdochs, the courts and the deep state.” Vice President JD Vance, who had previously called for the Epstein files to be released but said nothing amid the backlash to the Justice Department decision, bashed the Journal article. “Where is this letter?” Mr. Vance posted on X about an hour after the story published. “Would you be shocked to learn they never showed it to us before publishing it? Does anyone honestly believe this sounds like Donald Trump?” Even Elon Musk, who accused Mr. Trump in a now-deleted post on X of being named in the F.B.I.’s files earlier this year after the two had a falling out, said he did not believe the letter was real. “It really doesn’t sound like something Trump would say,” Mr. Musk wrote on the platform shortly after the story was published. Laura Loomer, another one of Mr. Trump’s influential, far-right supporters, said in an interview that while many supporters remained frustrated by the lack of promised transparency in the Epstein case, the news story, which she believed “falsely accused” the president of writing the letter, “reunited” the MAGA movement.
July 21, 2025 at 2:41 PM
johnmcquaid.bsky.social
Captures something important. The Trump administration is obviously not transparent. But a key part of democracy is something more like *legibility*: govt. decisions/processes can be seen and explained. By govt. agencies themselves, or IGs, journalists, NGOs etc
talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/polit...
July 18, 2025 at 6:15 PM
johnmcquaid.bsky.social
There is an age-old formula for news stories about govt. decisions:
1. Report the decision
2. Report what the decision-makers say they are trying to accomplish
3. Quote them
4. Report what 'critics say'

That *really* doesn't work here with RFKJr. and vaccines

www.nytimes.com/2025/06/26/h...
June 26, 2025 at 6:25 PM
johnmcquaid.bsky.social
Takoma Park MD #NoKings rally is exuberant and drivers are honking in affirmation
June 14, 2025 at 6:01 PM
johnmcquaid.bsky.social
News organizations have still not figured out how to report Trump actions that may be – or likely are – illegal or illegitimate. As a result you get paradoxical / confusing / Schrödinger's cat-like formulations that nevertheless create a sheen of legitimacy/deference to authoritarian power grabs
May 30, 2025 at 7:37 PM
johnmcquaid.bsky.social
Important point by TPM's @davidkurtz.bsky.social: the institutional voice of a lot of Trump coverage (looking at you, NYT, but not only you) assumes actions/statements are straightforward/made in good faith. Precisely the opposite of what's actually happening
talkingpointsmemo.com/morning-memo...
May 16, 2025 at 6:12 PM
johnmcquaid.bsky.social
Google Trends post-election shows search activity on "Elon Musk" gradually declining after an inauguration surge and February DOGE rampage peak. Maybe his pullback from DOGE is working, though the damage he's done himself/Tesla (as well as the govt.) may be lasting
trends.google.com/trends/explo...
Google Trends chart from election to May 6 shows initial decline, spike on inauguration, decline, rise in Feb. and then gradual decline.
May 6, 2025 at 7:02 PM
johnmcquaid.bsky.social
These AI researchers studying AI consciousness seem to know nothing about the phenomenon of consciousness (nor seemingly does Kevin Roose). Before you even get to self-awareness, you might need a body, and senses, and entire systems that underly subjective sensation
www.nytimes.com/2025/04/24/t...
Mr. Fish told me that his work at Anthropic focused on two basic questions: First, is it possible that Claude or other A.I. systems will become conscious in the near future? And second, if that happens, what should Anthropic do about it? Editors’ Picks Ken Griffey Jr. Is a Photographer Now The Frick Needs a New Piano. Which Would You Choose? Old Friends With Sunny Attire and Spirits He emphasized that this research was still early and exploratory. He thinks there’s only a small chance (maybe 15 percent or so) that Claude or another current A.I. system is conscious. But he believes that in the next few years, as A.I. models develop more humanlike abilities, A.I. companies will need to take the possibility of consciousness more seriously.
April 24, 2025 at 3:54 PM
johnmcquaid.bsky.social
One of many examples. The Trump administration has never bothered to say why it wants to illegally shut down VOA (a course change after appointing Kari Lake to Trumpify it) – even to the judge overseeing this case. The goal is what we see – just trash it.
www.washingtonpost.com/style/media/...
Text from Washington Post article: Lamberth found that the government did not act in a careful or considered way in shutting down the agency. “Not only is there an absence of ‘reasoned analysis’ from the defendants,” he wrote in the opinion. “There is an absence of any analysis whatsoever. … It is hard to fathom a more straightforward display of arbitrary and capricious actions than the Defendants’ actions here.”
April 22, 2025 at 10:10 PM
johnmcquaid.bsky.social
Dan Balz situates a massive effort to destroy American institutions within the borders of normal politics, b/c anything other than normal politics is unthinkable to him. So his main question is how *effective* Trump is at this, with ineffectiveness = failure
www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...
Paragraphs from Dan Balz analysis: Those factors have produced a series of actions: the deportation of undocumented immigrants, mass firings of federal workers, the elimination of some federal agencies, the decapitation of the leadership of various agencies and units of government, attempted intimidation of outside institutions (universities and law firms specifically), and now, perhaps most importantly, a trade war that is upending the world’s economic order. But in pushing forward, the administration has stumbled on many of these fronts, renewing questions about the capabilities of the president and those he has empowered. Trump’s handling of the trade war is Exhibit A.
April 13, 2025 at 6:53 PM
johnmcquaid.bsky.social
It's also 12-dimensional chess per the NYT
www.nytimes.com/2025/03/31/u...
Headline: The Strategy Behind Trump’s Repeated Musings About a Third Term The president’s comments deflect attention from other controversies. And they freeze the field of potential successors who might steal the spotlight from a lame duck.
April 1, 2025 at 2:08 AM
johnmcquaid.bsky.social
Sign of the times: an "election analyst" (presumably an academic) – a group once generally fine with having their names appear in the Washington Post – asks to be quoted anonymously because they make a (self-evident) criticism of Trump
www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...
Another election analyst who spoke on the condition of anonymity to offer a candid opinion described what he saw as the goal of the order: “It is to reduce turnout by people he thinks won’t vote for him,” the analyst said.
March 30, 2025 at 3:09 PM
johnmcquaid.bsky.social
New York Times headline ties itself in knots trying to avoid directly stating the truth. Hedges in the main headline ("Fear of a Constitutional Crisis") then the subhead says OK, busted, only question is how bad it will be
March 19, 2025 at 2:17 PM
johnmcquaid.bsky.social
The Merrick Garlandization of journalism: you believe your institutionalism gives you strength (after all it worked for generations) when it has become a dangerous, perhaps fatal weakness
www.thebulwark.com/p/the-washin...
Newsmax and the Blaze to the Wednesday press pool, were they will work alongside Bloomberg, the NYT, Reuters, AFP, NPR, and ABC. Why are these outlets agreeing to participate in this scheme? For the same reason that mainstream media outlets defended Fox in 2009. Because liberalism’s devotion to fairness and belief in the honor system has made it incapable of taking its own side against those who would replace it with fascism.
February 27, 2025 at 7:22 PM