2/2 Maybe clearer comparison this way....

'The difference one word can make' dept: 1) Saw front-page hed in today's print @nytimes.com and said: You know, you could fix that by cutting one word. (First image) 2) Went to look at online version. See for yourself. (Second) Good for NYT to refine this. Maybe show it to P1 team?

Late to this, but grrrrr..... (Save your 'war' for the adversary right in front of us.)

Very interesting graf near bottom of latest NYT story on MAGA efforts to bend universities to its will, as if they were GOP Senators or the SCOTUS Six. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/03/u... Reminder number five zillion: Except for GOP Senators thinking of a lobbying future, appeasement never pays off.

Credulous headine and framing: sigh. To its credit, story itself points out that basically every week or so Trump & Co try to juice the market with one of these "just around the corner" chimeras. www.cnbc.com/2026/08/04/b...

@duckduckgo.com is having user survey of why people are going to Duck.ai. Sample page below, I also pay for/rely on Gemini, but these are some ways DDG stands out (Yes, I know, in some circs it's useful for Gemini/etc know context of your past queries. But nice to escape panopticon.)

Let me tell you, having chronicled Pentagon-style war game on attacking Iran nearly 25 yr ago, every single "surprise," "darkening turn," "narrowing option," spreading warfare," "rising casualties," "no easy exit," etc that comes drip-by-drip is EXACTLY why GHWB WJC GWB OBAMA BiDEN did NOT do this

-Anyone who had considered combat w Iran knew its first move would be closing strait. Second move, attack US allies/bases in region -Anyone who studied air war knew bombing alone doesn't capture territory -Anyone who observed Ukraine (or Vietnam!) knew about "asymmetrical advantage" And yet...

"They were careless people. They smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.” This man did incalculable damage, while 'carried away.'

"Who could possibly have foreseen this?" dept.

In run-up to 2008 Olympics, US Embassy took radical step of posting live 'Beijing Air' readings from PM2.5 sensor on embassy roof. The air was *really* bad. PRC gov protested this intrusion. It later launched its own feed. Right now: Beijing air "good." DC air "unhealthy." Was 185 in DC this am.

Writing headlines is hard. You have to compress an article into a phrase or two. And you have to fit an exact and usually inconvenient line space. Two images below: What the NYT is running on line. (h/t @jaywillis.net for calling this one out.) And what would fit exactly the same space, by me.

2/2 In reply to many queries, here is how you could re-cast headline to include "lies": (Below, pic of imaginary better headline, by me. Same line count, acceptable breaks, etc. I used to make headlines fit on a hot-lead Linotype machine. Could adjust below in many ways, if needed.)

Forgive me, but: Jesus H. Christ. You know, "false" would fit the headline space that is ridiculously wasted on "inaccurate."

It's happened! Palm Beach Airport, PBI, now officially renamed 'Emperor Caligula International,' or something similar. DJT. Tickets, baggage tags, FAA charts, etc will be updated over the summer. But effective now, if pilot files a flight plan for PBI, it will be auto-converted to DJT.

1) Interesting "Dems Not in Disarray" front-page framing. 2) Point Dems need to keep making: -Virtually every Dem leader has now come out publicly against Platner. -Virtually every GOP party leader still all-in for Ken Paxton. (And, of course, for Trump) This is not a "both sides" situation.

Frays, muddled, and unpalatable doing a lot of work here.

First photo is Oval Office under Dwight Eisenhower. Second, under his successor, JFK. One was five-star general and Supreme Commander of allied forces on DDay. Other a wounded USN veteran of WWII. On July 4 weekend, a baseline of non-Versailles, zero-gilt dignity that can someday be restored.

If you were wondering how Fox is presenting the moment: Hannity live from Mt. Rushmore. Says Dems are reminiscent of Soviet Union. Waiting for the Leader to arrive and give a speech. Happy Independence Day!

2/2 Sample, from WaPo, of why this will be so much fun: www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/202...

3/ More from the great Citizen Historians:

2/2 And *please* read this new dispatch from the great Citizen Historians org. www.citizenhistorians.org This goes to the heart of it.

'Raise Doubts'??? C'mon, @nytimes.com How about: - 'Show Otherwise' - 'Counter His Claim' - 'Tell Different Story' - 'Prove Claim False' - 'Don't Match Claims' - 'Show Another Lie' [ok, too far.] Etc. Headline gives him 100% underserved benefit of the doubt.

Sigh

Great work of explanatory, visual, & public-interest journalism by Michael Keller, Eli Murray, Danielle Ivory, Irineo Cabreros of @nytimes.com, on thousands of needless deaths caused by monster-ization of US vehicles. (Image: Chevy Silverado 1998 vs 2021) www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Yup. As noted above, change in process.

Ozymandias watch: -Airports have three letter codes. LAX ATL ORD, etc -They don't get changed. DC National was re-named for RReagan but remains DCA. -One famous exception: Idlewild, IDL, became JFK in Dec 1963. Now another exception. Palm Beach Internat'l PBI is now DJT. Per Flying magazine:

First Rough Draft of History dept.

Forgive me, but: Jesus H. Christ. On about ten different levels. (The American Pope must have some idea of what we could use instead of this idiom...)

3/3 Big thunderstorms on summer afternoon today in DC Would be really a shame if just the same were forecast for two days from now, on Sunday afternoon. (From AviationWeather.gov, dark green is a rain/thunder front. Lighter green is cold and rain behind it.)