They have loosed the bots upon us... Sigh. AI chatbots have learned how to email professors with questions they get from users. I've received two emails this week (from different email addresses, different names) seeking advice for a "nephew" entering college about how they should approach it.

Well here's your locus of misunderstanding right here: "Two spectrums"... Like all high-school debate club alum that never quite grow beyond high-school debate club, Matt can only visualize in one dimension...

Plenty of corroborating evidence here. The plethora of texts, emails and other communications from years ago was what made this story so damning.

USGS pager suggests the likely toll will be between 1k and 100k (wide range because of uncertainties in building practices and the unusual combination of two events). May not have a good idea of the impacts for an event this large for 2-3 days, because of disruption of travel and communications...

Better headline: “Trump sought to break Iran’s regime. The fruits of electing a moron who decides based on magical thinking”

Wisdom echoing across the centuries.

Guys! GUYS! *There was no settlement!* (The Judge in the dropped case explicitly noted that the money was not a settlement, and couldn't be described as such...)

This is a horrifically-worded question. For those who view policy issues from 30,000 ft, "Move to the left" and "Move to the center" are the *same direction* on many of these issues.

A text conversation earlier, with my teenage son... Sigh.

Time was, we'd shake our heads in disbelief at the political violence of the Antebellum Era... Kinda hopin' the callous disregard toward political violence in the MAGA era is not some sort of portent.

Hmmm.

NYT's "The Morning" tackles tensions between the three remaining SCOTUS justices who are still (somewhat) tethered to the law and the Constitution: Shaking my damn head. The word you're looking for here is not "pragmatism".

Makes one wonder whom they think this buffoonery appeals to, besides a handful of goons in the MAGA base and Trump himself...

NYT's "The Morning" lede today is the President's use of emergency powers: "He can use them to do basically anything he wants, but we're not going to use the word 'dictator' or 'autocrat' (but oh BTW you can read a story to find out why vague scholars of some kind or other are concerned)"...

Has anyone else noticed there seems to be an awful lot of word-policing on bluesky lately? Rule #1 of living in a dictatorship: Don’t cede the dictionary to the dictator (see Orwell’s “1984” if needed). 1 rule of suspect interviews: Analyze the word choices, because they may speak to motive.

USGS pager suggests $10–100B…

Amerika, hangin' out a sign.

Attacks on America’s academic enterprise were unfortunately inevitable given the growing educational divide in voter trends these past several elections. Folks with a well-rounded education are far more likely to recognize the void of hate at the center of Republican politics. Image from Pew:

Still, their target map (showing basins responsible for 80% of oil/gas production) includes a half-dozen or so sites in Australia... Implying it may be on someone's to-do list!

The MethaneSat measurements (which EPA didn't utilize) should do a lot to reduce the uncertainties and isolate the sources... But shhhh. Don't tell the Trump Administration; they'll likely look for a way to sabotage it.

Oh that’s fun. May presage even more hesitancy on the part of this joker? apple.news/A2LeDdSR4SDy...

Cache County (UT) sheriff's office had to use an awful lot of verbiage to avoid saying the obvious truth that the President is corrupt and intrinsically criminal... I mean, coulda' handled this press release in four words: "Welp. Felon's gonna felon."

NYT data folks make an interesting observation about electoral trends: Counties trending D vs R for the last three elections have very different income distributions. Lots of ways to interpret that, but the least puerile would focus on communication/disinformation.

More evidence that corruption is negating good-governance and consumer preferences in energy monopolies. Coal-fired & nuclear are ~ 3X more expensive than renewables (per Lazard’s levelized costs), & gas is cheaper when maximizing wind and solar capacity

The only (mildly) startling aspect of Murkowski's admission is that it's an honest statement from a Republican politician.

From the National Science Foundation’s “Statement of NSF Priorities”, dated 18 April 2025. Last of the FAQs: Yes, NSF announces it will no longer fund research into disinformation, because “freedom”.

In deference to our current complex web of immigration from the early theaters of the next war… Introducing the kids to Casablanca

"The Authoritarian Personality" (1950). These are people who actually need to believe that the leader they support has the power to shape reality, and that there is no objective or independent reality of that. Must have come as a shock to some in 1945. Likely will again.

We’ve long-since reached the phase of Autocracy in which media outlets with dwindling independence title articles with kinda dumb questions that have really obvious answers

Might be a challenge as a sitting president can’t be sued for acts within the periphery of presidential duties, and SCOTUS likely will interpret that differently than would a rational person. Still probably worth putting them on the hotseat rather than obeying in advance…