“[Clarence] Thomas has attended at least two Koch donor summits, putting him in the extraordinary position of having helped a political network that has brought multiple cases before the Supreme Court.”
“Here’s a rule of thumb: If you have to market the meaning of survey results to make those results seem newsworthy, then they’re probably not.”
“If you fancy getting your hands on Bob Ross‘ first-ever TV painting, you’re in luck. Well, that’s if you have a cool $9.8 million to spare.”
“The upshot of all this is that Danish AI will likely have a strong bias toward horses and horse adjacent topics.”
“I think Donald Trump was the gateway drug that has drawn a lot of otherwise pretty standard Republicans to the Democratic Party over the last eight or nine years. And a Never Trump Republican in 2016, two or three cycles later, turns into a pretty conventional Democrat up and down the ballot.” It’s more nuanced than that, and a great read overall. And right here in Houston the old CD07 and HD134 are prime examples of these voters.
“A seven-year, 3.9-billion-mile journey ended Sunday when NASA landed a time capsule in the Utah desert. This capsule contained rocks and dust snatched from asteroid Bennu, a floating pile of rubble formed by remnants of the early solar system. Scientists believe the OSIRIS-REx mission collected half a pound of material, which makes it the largest asteroid sample ever brought back to Earth and the first through a U.S. mission.”
RIP, Terry Kirkman, frontman and co-founder of the 60s group the Association, best known for songs like “Windy”, “Cherish”, and “Along Comes Mary”.
The wingnuts are so mad about Travis Kelce, even before the whole thing with Taylor Swift. But the attention he’s gotten from that has made them so very, very mad.
Former MLBer Erik Pappas is my new sports hero.
RIP, David McCallum, veteran actor best known for The Man From U.N.C.L.E and NCIS.
“Once again, none of these stories is about drag queens.”
“Hunter Biden sues Rudy Giuliani and another lawyer over accessing and sharing of his personal data”. Why is a public menace like Rudy Giuliani allowed to be out on the streets?
“The Supreme Court Just Rejected Alabama’s Attempt to Deny Representation to Black Voters. Again.”
RIP, Brooks Robinson, Hall of Fame third baseman and legendary defensive wizard for the Baltimore Orioles.
“A judge ruled Tuesday that Donald Trump committed fraud for years while building the real estate empire that catapulted him to fame and the White House, and he ordered some of the former president’s companies removed from his control and dissolved..”
“The agreement to finally end the 148-day-long Hollywood writers strike includes landmark rules governing the use of AI in Hollywood projects.”
“The mounting existential threats Trump faces fuel his escalating threats of violence, authoritarian crackdowns and extra-constitutional actions if he is returned to power.”
RIP, Michael Gambon, actor best known for playing Dumbledore in the last six Harry Potter movies.
Wishing Tim Wakefield all the best. And though it should go without saying, screw Curt Schilling.
RIP, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, groundbreaking politician.
“One of the last living witnesses to the fatal drive-by shooting of rapper Tupac Shakur in Las Vegas was charged with murder with use of a deadly weapon Friday in the 1996 killing, a long-awaited breakthrough in a case that has frustrated investigators and fascinated the public ever since the hip-hop icon was gunned down 27 years ago.”
Netflix has officially shipped its last DVD.
“That brings us to today and Scott Hall, an Atlanta-area bail bondsman who was facing seven charges in the Fulton County case, including a RICO violation and conspiring to steal sensitive election data in Coffee County. This afternoon, with little advance notice, Hall pled guilty to five misdemeanors, will serve five years of probation, pay a $5,000 fine, and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors. It’s the sort of deal that is so beneficial to a defendant that it suggests prosecutors believe his cooperation is valuable enough to merit the bargain.”
“At every point this was about the House Republican caucus’s demand to get some new goodies in exchange for not shutting down the government. The only slight ambiguity there is that for some House hardliners the shutdown itself clearly was the goodie. For the House hardliners it was goodies or a shutdown. There was no getting out of that binary choice because Kevin McCarthy refused any solution that relied on Democratic votes. Then sometime [Saturday] he decided to allow a vote on a clean resolution relying on Democratic votes. It passed and that was it. That change was really all that happened.”
“Needless drama, posturing in place of governing, doing damage to institutions and norms for the sake of it. It’s old hat for Republicans now. It’s been tiresome for the rest of us for a long time.”
The whole right wing asshole industrial complex losing their minds over Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce is peak “we are truly in the stupidest timeline.”
The most pathetic thing I saw was a Tweet (or X-cretion) from some self proclaimed alpha male that said :
“I heard that Taylor Swift is in financial trouble after her recent Eras Tour flopped in ticket sales.
That’s why she’s set her sights on woke, anti-American and overpaid Travis Kelce who is making roughly 14.3 million per year with the Kansas City Chiefs.”
So much fail in just two sentences. These losers aren’t even trying with their lies anymore. Given that Swift’s CAT is rumored to have a net worth north of $90 million, that’s some IMAX caliber projection.
I’m agnostic on Swift’s music, but I’ve heard plenty to indicate that she’s a decent person, like giving the drivers on her “flopped” tour $100K bonuses (looking at you in great disappointment, Lizzo). Also the romantic lives of celebs aren’t things I tend to pay attention to, but since the dregs of America are raging on this, I’m rooting for those two crazy kids to make each other happy.