“If the historical record is any indication, Israel’s overconfidence in what its technologically advanced weapons can do is likely to produce the opposite of its intended results: a more dangerous Iran, now armed with nuclear weapons,” writes Robert Pape.

All the homies are trying to discover the underlying pattern that gives order to chaos

Whether you believe Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah, a prophet, a philosopher, or just a proto-Reform rabbi, there's one thing for which there's consensus within academic history scholarship: that he died by crucifixion for challenging the authority of the government.

Worth thinking about today.

I spoke with Sarah Boim of @firedbutfighting.bsky.social, about her firing and the devastating cuts to the CDC, which terminated teams dealing with lead contamination and cruise ship sanitation, as well as a branch preventing children from drowning.

defector.com/an-interview...

I wrote about the greatest basketball card of all time. defector.com/dont-put-poi...

Firing the whole NIH was catastrophic but the government telling peer-reviewed science what to publish is the end of science and the start of permanent Lysenkoism

Vaccinating is “a personal choice” but your child getting lead poisoning from your municipal water supply is mandatory

Here, have a nightmare Bucky Badger, as a treat.

Talk of "stolen elections," "corruption," and "DEI" are not factual claims, they are something else entirely—mythic images, which positivist punditry is totally unable to grasp or defuse www.unpopularfront.news/p/the-power-...

the stuff about Mars and the Panama Canal, from a political coalition of billionaires mingling with J6 rabble, is practically ripped from Arendt’s chapters on imperialism in “Origins of Totalitarianism”

Its a real shame we never got Car Talk callers describing weird noises their Cybertruck made

“What a tool cynicism is to the corrupt, claiming the whole of the creation is broken and fraudulent, and thus we are all excused to indulge in whatever sins we wish—for what’s a little more unfairness, in this unfair world?”

low-key one of the most insidious dumb guy beliefs of the last few decades to gain widespread purchase has been this notion that demonstrating pro-social behavior in the hope that others would notice and mirror it, one of the fucking building blocks of any kind of society, is somehow ‘fake’.

one of the things in Russia in the last two years has been watching this particular mode of trolling glibness - a staple of Russian nationalist TV - coinciding with the bodybags coming back from Ukraine

realizing i never posted it here….but too long have we been limited by the 2-dimensional political alignment chart. i think by using my new tool we can truly map another person's politics. here it is: The Ideology Cube

i can feel myself slowly morphing into a social democratic george will. complaining about the lack of manners, consideration and due regard for others but from the left