Pssst, Northern Ontario, we can never tell Toronto about this or they’ll all invade us.

Last night, I finished reading The Other Valley by Scott Alexander Howard, and I’ll be thinking about it for a long time. It landed like a particularly profound and successful episode of Black Mirror.

We just found out that it’s possible for an 18-year-old cat to tear his ACL. You’ll never guess how we discovered this. Poor Griffy is limping terribly, but he’s got some good drugs now (hence the huge stoned pupils) and all the spoiling he can tolerate. 🐈❤️

I’m seeing this kind of thing everywhere, and it sounds like tech company hype exported as empirical truth. *Will* they be left behind? Maybe AI is terrible at processing the nuances of human thought or turning that into useful GOTV strategies! www.nytimes.com/2026/06/29/u...

Wasn’t really what I had in mind for the coffee table, but okay, Gus.

Slow clap, @newyorker.com

Insightful and sobering column from @acoyne.bsky.social on the motivation for the U.S. to pause the Permanent Joint Board on Defence, and how we might not have seen the half of it yet. www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/arti...

We got the longform census, and I was surprised and confused by instructions on the religion question. Wouldn't this vastly over-count religious affiliation because it gathers info about how people were raised vs what they practice now? www.statcan.gc.ca/en/statistic...

Twenty years in journalism, started my career in newspapers and now back in daily ink, and absolutely thrilled to win my first @nna-ccj.bsky.social. I’m sorry I had to miss the awards last because I’m still in Ljubljana with my family, but what wonderful news to wake up to.

Store window in Vienna. “All fascists are expendable. No one is illegal.”

Ramona has become a big space fan. Welcome home, Artemis II. What an incredible quest.

This is Lille, and she had a tough life before she came to us. She still doesn’t like us to pick her up, but she’s become a lap cat and does it like it is her JOB: jumps up, executes precisely one full turn, then plunks down like she’s got big plans. A sweetheart behind that grumpy bear face.

Goddamn, it is so great to see the news full of people smiling and jubilant over human beings doing a big, good thing, instead of the endless clench-jawed tire fire in which we’re normally trapped. Ramona digs it.

This is a terrific profile of Gregory Bovino written with admirable restraint given the colourful and odious nature of the subject. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/24/u...

Here’s my take on Pierre Poilievre’s appearance on Joe Rogan. For starters, two hours and 23 minutes is…a lot. www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/opi...

If I understand correctly, European leaders would like Donald Trump to look very carefully at this chart.

Anyway, if everything is going to hell, here’s a void in a black shopping bag definitely knowing how cute she is.

Still very true, and very weird.

New from me: everyone in Ottawa is talking about a snap election possibility, but no one - no one, I tell you! - is thinking about anything so crass. So now they’re locked in a game of co-operation chicken. www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/opi...

This is Gus. Gus is exceptionally handsome, muscular and glossy. Gus is also as dumb as a box of rocks. There is not one single thought in his big gorgeous anvil of a head, at this or any other moment in time. We love Gus.

Home. Happy holidays. ❤️🌲🌊

Ha ha. I'm a tad puzzled by the strategy there, I have to admit. Thanks for the kind words on my writing! My little easter egg riff:

We have two as well! Ours are mother and daughter, yours? They’re stunning! Do you also get them mixed up constantly so that they feel like a magic illusion that lives with you?

This is Ramona (the Pest). She is so beautiful and perfect that she seems less like *a* cat or *the* cat than just “Cat,” the essence of catness embodied. I’m pretty sure she’s descended directly from someone in ancient Egypt. She’s a terrible brat and we love her to pieces.

This is probably the 12th time I’ve reposted it, but I still think @davidjroth.bsky.social explained the entire functioning of Trump back in 2017. I find myself constantly thinking about this piece, including yesterday, and nodding in exhaustion. thebaffler.com/latest/the-p...

The cat thermometer functions with perfect accuracy. The fewer bones left in the cat, the hotter it is outside. We are at full void melt.

Happy Canada Day! No one can take what we have because it’s ours and it’s us. 🍁❤️🇨🇦

I see Trump’s big boy tank-a-rific birthday parade amounted to a $45M Kirk Cameron conference room Subway birthday on the wan, sad scale. www.vulture.com/2011/10/kirk...

When the cats look like they have a new album dropping, you know they truly believe themselves to be on the verge of starvation (they last ate four hours ago).

Tonight from 6-8 pm ET, CPAC will air a couple of post-election panels from this week convened by the very clever @alexmarland.bsky.social. Come for the behind-the-scenes secrets and political analysis, stay for my ridiculous pizza story and me flipping the bird on CPAC.