- Researchers in Japan have developed a durable and recyclable plastic that fully dissolves in the sea and doesn’t leave microplastic pollution in the oceans because it breaks down in the water over time. – via @oceanbluestar.bsky.social
- Early entry for the best news of the year? Ted Lasso is returning for a fourth season.
- I recently finished Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. It is easily the best work of fiction I’ve read in the last twenty years. After five pages I was enjoying it so much that I decided to pace myself so I could inhabit its story as long as possible, but ended up devouring it in just a couple of days. My only regret is that I will never get to read it for the first time again. 1
- Happy belated 27th birthday to kottke.org, the website that inspired me to start blogging a quarter-century ago.
Notes from the firehose:
- Conservative former federal Judge J. Michael Luttig issued a stark warning about what he described as [the President’s] escalating attacks on the legal system.
- Former Spiritual Adviser to POTUS Indicted for Sexually Abusing a Child
- Top Democrats Warn “DOGE” Employees of Potential Criminal Exposure from Ethical Misconduct – via @beyer.house.gov
- “Mr. Schumer’s stated approach of waiting for Trump to ‘screw up’ and continue this inexplicable embrace of the slippery slope is wholly inadequate and an astonishing failure of leadership.”
- [The President’s] deportation of Venezuelan migrants may have violated a direct court order, leading to what the former general counsel of the FBI, Andrew Weissmann, has called a potential “doomsday scenario.”
- [The President] has already implemented at least half of Project 2025’s objectives in eight areas.
Posts tagged “climate change”
- You probably never considered how awesome it would be to hear Rick Astley perform an acoustic cover of the Chappell Roan hit Pink Pony Club, did you? – via @jacksongagne.com
- The team at The Athletic put together a sweet Bluesky college football starter pack.
- Mustaaaaaaaaaard! – via kottke
- As a kid I only ever barely paid attention to Star Trek — we were a Star Wars family — but the way Chekov (Walter Koenig) repeats, “Botany Bay,” as he realizes his predicament is just phenomenal.
- Humor is vital to effective protest, and the Democrats suck at it. – via @kurtandersen.bsky.social
- I may have linked this already, but it’s worth a repost: “Wherever you get your podcasts,” is a radical statement.
- “If no laws have been broken, there should be nothing to hide.” – via @beyer.house.gov
I’m terrified beyond the capacity for rational thought:
- The detention of Mahmoud Khalil means we are a hop, skip & jump away from political persecutions. It’s a steep, slippery slope from here to “speak out against [the administration] and go to jail.” – via @joycewhitevance.bsky.social
- I don’t even want to include the subject matter here, but these people are pure evil.
- McLaurine Pinover, the chief spokesperson at OPM and the current administration’s official tasked with defending “DOGE” personnel cuts, posted fashion influencer videos from her office.
- Listening to Chris Hayes interview Robert Garcia (D–CA) on his Why Is This Happening? podcast is not likely to make you feel any better about the future of our country, but it is pretty interesting.
- California, New York, and Maryland all confirmed their first cases of measles this week.
- EPA head says he’ll roll back dozens of environmental regulations, including rules on climate change
- I finally saw Captain America: Brave New World and will say that, at the end of the day, it was a fun movie. I think Anthony Mackie works as Captain America and he’s a fine actor. Harrison Ford is brilliant, of course. The plot is actually great. But — just like pretty much every MCU offering since Avengers: Endgame — I left feeling like I have no idea whether Disney and Kevin Feige have a plan or if they’re just pumping out movies.
- A Cheeto shaped like the Pokémon Charizard sold at auction for over $87,000.
- I cannot imagine a scenario in which Stephen A. Smith is worth $20,000,000.00 per year, but I also cannot imagine paying $87,000.00 for a Cheeto shaped like a Pokémon character, so I guess that’s why I am not in charge of contracts at ESPN.
- Two men were charged Wednesday in the deaths of three Kansas City Chiefs fans whose bodies were found in a backyard two days after they got together to watch the final game of the regular season in 2024.
- I am almost certain that I read Always Go To The Funeral when it was published (or aired on the radio) two decades ago, but it just popped up in a recent issue of Links You’ll Love and it’s worth sharing again.
- I one hundred percent did not see the sudden political twist coming in White Lotus S3E3 but I am f’ing here for it. Kudos to Mike White and HBO for going there. I can’t wait to see the next episode. (And, yes, I know it’s MAX now.)
In other news:
- POTUS signs executive order to establish government bitcoin reserve.
</bangs head on desk> - It’s Tax Season – The Perfect Time for POTUS to Sell This “Critical” IRS Computing Center: Last year, the IRS Martinsburg site was “viewed as a high priority.” Now it’s suddenly “functionally obsolete”?
- The CDC is planning a large study into potential connections between vaccines and autism, despite extensive scientific research that has disproven or failed to find evidence of such links. – via @boghuma.bsky.social
- Maine officials said the Social Security Administration did not provide any explanation for the abrupt end of the decades old registration process, or for the sudden reversal. – via @crampell.bsky.social
- I really hope in a hundred years there will still be people left to cringe at this headline: Half the World’s CO2 Emissions Come from 36 Fossil Fuel Firms
- POTUS signs executive order to establish government bitcoin reserve.
- Steve Carell helped make sure high school students affected by LA wildfires wouldn’t have to worry about paying for prom tickets.
- For reasons I cannot explain, I have still not managed to watch A Knight’s Tale, even though I know it was one of my mom’s favorite movies.
- It doesn’t look like they’ve released their 2025 operating dates yet, but the Breathtaker Alpine Coaster is a must for anyone visiting Aspen in the summer.
- Take a moment to complete The Heritage Foundation DOGE Survey and give them a piece of your mind. (If you decide to use your real email address, you’ll have to unsubscribe from their garbage newsletter.)
- Friendly reminder: There’s seriously no sane reason to drill for oil in Alaska and anyone saying otherwise doesn’t understand math.
- I had no idea that watermarks were invented in Italy in the 13th century.
- Practically all of Spain’s population growth since the COVID-19 pandemic is due to immigration.
- Can confirm: “the democratic party leadership sorely underestimates how much young people fucking despise them” – via @junlper.beer
- Make It Stop:
- POTUS signs order designating English as the official language of the US
- This whole story is nuts: With its top lawyer placed on leave after less than one week in the role, a culture of fear has paralyzed FEMA. – via The Handbasket
- After the POTUS joint address to Congress earlier this week, Hayden Haynes, the chief of staff to House Speaker Mike Johnson and one of the most powerful aides on Capitol Hill, was arrested for driving drunk.
- Why Techdirt Is Now A Democracy Blog (Whether We Like It Or Not) “[W]hat’s happening in the US right now is some sort of weird hybrid of the kind of power grabs we’ve seen in the tech industry, combined with a more traditional collapse of democratic institutions.”
- The Iowa GOP advanced a bill making it a misdemeanor for a healthcare provider to administer a COVID vaccine. – via @piperformissouri.bsky.social
- Your Worst Is Not the Worst, the latest issue of Making It Work from Youngna Park, is powerfully relatable. Trying to explain to young children what’s happening in the world in 2025 is so, so hard.
- Behind the Collapse of Technicolor and Why Its Failure Is Sending Shockwaves Through the VFX Industry
- I quickly fell in love with the Hulu sci-fi series Paradise, starring Sterling K. Brown and James Marsden. Check it out.
- How Pop-Tarts turned an easy-to-forget bowl into one of the college football season’s best moments
- “There is not one Yeezy shoe left,” said Adidas chief financial officer. “It has all been sold and that episode is behind us.”
And now, the bad news:
- How “DOGE” Cuts to the IRS Threaten to Cost More Than DOGE Will Ever Save
- Marco Rubio is often the last to know when foreign policy decisions are made in the White House.
- A truly troubling read: “We believe this rush to comply is a sign that universities are willing to become an institutional wing of the new segregationists.”
- POTUS Signs Executive Order Handing U.S. Public Forests Over to Private Logging Industry
- The Strategic Crypto Swindle: A bitcoin reserve would be a government-backed grift.
- A leaked memo calls for VA to lay off as many as 83,000 employees this year.
- Good news: Bill to ban trans athletes from team sports failed to advance in the Senate – via @erininthemorning.com
- Want to send a message to your representatives urging them to protect Social Security? AARP has a quick and simple form for that. Go!
- High-intensity exercise can significantly improve long-term memory, learning ability, and decision-making.
- Rolling Stone published a list of twenty “essential” Gene Hackman films but didn’t include The Birdcage?! Blasphemy. – via kottke
- My top five, in no particular order: The Birdcage, Superman: The Movie, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Firm, and Unforgiven
- The fastest and easiest way to cut methane emissions (as well as reduce water use and protect biodiversity) is simply to eat less beef. In the United States, half of all the beef is consumed by just 12% of the population, mostly men.
- See also: Climate Kids!
- Things That Suck:
- The Senate confirmed former World Wrestling Entertainment executive Linda McMahon to lead the Department of Education as POTUS pushes to shut it down
- “In North Carolina, there has been a multi-year, hyper focused effort among political actors in the state to gain and keep control over the state supreme court.”
- FAA Officials Ordered Staff to “Find Funding” for Starlink – via @samhalpert.bsky.social
- New jazz fellowship honors the genre’s elders and gives them each an unrestricted $100,000 grant. – via @phillewis.bsky.social
- Welcome to Chicken Town presents exactly what its URL says it does. – via @erikahall.bsky.social
Thomas Perry is likely the strongest player in the 2025 NFL Draft. You’ve probably never heard of him.- While the individual accumulation of wealth offers an illusion of safety, does it simply create more instability and insecurity in the long run?
- After Pressure from Georgia Senator Ossoff, White House Restores Funding for HBCU Students Studying Agriculture
- College Football 25 broke video game records. Can EA Sports keep everyone happy?
- You Have No Rights
- Good News for People Who Love Bad News
- Once social security checks stop showing up, millions of Americans will finally understand the scope.
- After All This
- The Environmental Protection Agency will move to reverse its 2009 declaration that greenhouse gases endanger human health and welfare — a step that would threaten most major climate regulations and make it harder for future presidents to enact new ones. – via @vanhollen.senate.gov
- “You’re not going to like what I’m saying next, but we are in the middle of a totalitarian fascist coup in this country.” – via @anildash.com
- FDA Cancels Meeting of Vaccine Experts Scheduled to Advise on Flu Shots
- It IS Happening Here
- The White House on Wednesday denied reporters from Reuters and other news organizations access to [the administration’s] first cabinet meeting.
- It seems almost unavoidable that we are headed for a deep, deep recession.
- Who doesn’t love making paper airplanes? – via cassidoo
A “secret study” revealed that as the Florida insurance market was allegedly “failing” and companies were “losing money”, executives distributed $680M in dividends to shareholders while diverting billions more to affiliate companies, while Ron DeSantis focused on legal reforms making it harder to sue insurers.- The world’s best chess players burn more calories during a match than NBA players like Steph Curry do in a game. – via Links You’ll Love
- Media
- I am irrationally excited for the Andor season two premier on April 22, 2025.
- So far White Lotus S3 has been just as great as the first two seasons.
- I thought Kristen Bell did a fine job hosting the SAG Awards, but – as much as I love and respect Martin Short – Harrison Ford deserved the Best Actor in a Comedy Series win for his performance in Shrinking.
- Believe the hype. Flow is a phenomenal movie.
- Good News for People Who Love Bad News:
- Climate change is shrinking glaciers faster than ever, with 7 trillion tons lost since 2000.
- Flu hospitalizations this year have already surpassed the last “very bad” flu season in 2017-2018.
- There’s a real-time Project 2025 Tracker that allows you to see just how much of the nefarious plot to destroy the United States has been successful.
- The music industry traded tape for hard drives and got a hard-earned lesson. Roughly one-fifth of the hard disk drives from the 1990s sent to Iron Mountain are entirely unreadable.
- My son got me hooked on New Rockstars. Erik Voss and his team produce amazing YouTube recaps of all sorts of things in pop culture. The Jessica Clemons breakdown of the Kendrick Lamar Super Bowl LIX halftime show is great.
A moving new trailer has been released for Borrowed Time: Lennon’s Last Decade, an ambitious documentary that explores the final years of John Lennon through archival footage, never-before-seen interviews, and firsthand accounts.- A new study shows you can lower your risk of cancer by eating just one serving of cruciferous vegetables per day. Vegetables appear to do the most to help fight gastrointestinal cancers, such as colorectal and stomach cancer, but the protective effects extended to lung and breast cancer as well.
- Climate change is causing hotter temperatures to become more frequent in the four West African countries responsible for producing approximately 70% of the world’s cacao — the key ingredient in chocolate.
- Former Florida Gators and Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver Kadarius Toney is facing multiple charges, including aggravated assault, following his arrest in Georgia last week.
- White House says it has the right to punish AP reporters over Gulf naming dispute. (I am rapidly running out of canaries, people.)
- Was I the only one a little concerned that NASA increased the odds of that asteroid hitting us in 2032 from 1.2% up to 2.3%? This brilliantly simple explanation at Scientific American from astronomer Phil Plait should ease your mind a bit.
- Recent Media
- Black Doves (Netflix) was incredible. Keira Knightley and Ben Whishaw can act. Splendid plot. A+++
- We watched the penultimate episode of Skeleton Crew and I am all-in on this show. Fantastic fun. Jude Law is perfect.
- Four episodes into Slow Horses and love this show, too.
- Almost 96% of new cars registered in Norway in January were electric. – via kottke
- The Wild True Story Behind Kendrick Lamar‘s Super Bowl Halftime Show
- The Supreme Court of Hawaii ruled that insurance companies can’t bring their own legal actions against those blamed for the catastrophic 2023 Maui wildfire, allowing a $4 billion settlement to proceed.
- Trump’s Driving Legal Principle This Time: “What Are You Gonna Do About It?”
- The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children was told by the Department of Justice that they’d lose their funding if the organization didn’t remove any mentions of LGBTQIA+ issues from their public materials.
- Aggeggio is a lovely Italian word for everyday objects.
- The ‘Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly’ of the United States Government
- I need to investigate Tapestry, from iconfactory. It looks like a cool iOS app for aggregating content, and I’ve loved pretty much every other app they’ve ever made. – via hiro.report