A blog about societal, cultural, and civilizational collapse, and how to stave it off or survive it. Named after the legendary character "Crazy Eddie" in Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's "The Mote in God's Eye." Expect news and views about culture, politics, economics, technology, and science fiction.
The answer seems to be a very English version of "as little as necessary." Too bad we don't live in a world as idyllic, but Middle-Earth in general and The Shire in particular are fantasy lands, as Robert himself points out.
In this edition of IDTIMWYTIM, Hank explains why the common understanding of "equinox" is wrong, what the equinox actually is, and then rages a little against astronomers and their stupid confusing Latin terms.
Science! Also, look how young Hank is.
That's a wrap for today's triple holiday. Stay tuned for continuing Emmy Award winner coverage.
Gerrymandering, more often than not, is used to disenfranchise people who live in cities and scatter their votes into outlying districts. It doesn't have to be this way.
[T]here have always been embarrassingly bad, nakedly partisan congressional maps, but things went to a whole ‘nother level in 2026. And it’s bad enough that it’s impacting the balance of power in the legislative branch, but what really sticks in my craw is how it stacks the deck against cities.
So today’s video tackles a couple questions: how big should the House of Representatives be, and how should we be drawing districts to make sure city dwellers and rural folk both get legitimate representation?
(Side note: I spent more hours on this video topic than any I’ve ever done, partly because it comes with a companion piece on my site — nerd4cities.com — that also ate up a bunch of hours. The time kind of flew by, though, so...call it a labor of hate)
I find all three formulas converging on one district for every 500,000 people encouraging. It tells me that my support for the "Wyoming Plan," which has the population of every district being the size of the smallest population state, is well founded. It's also why I'm not terribly eager to add the U.S. Virgin Islands; their population would make the Wyoming Plan unwieldy, if not downright impracticable. Fortunately, the last referendum overwhelmingly supported territory status...However, making the population of a district 500,000 and not that of the lowest population state would remove those reservations.
Ray advocating for the Wyoming Plan/Rule bolsters my support.
As for Ray's preference for keeping communities of interest together running afoul of the Voting Rights Act, I think he shouldn't worry too much about it as long as the current Supreme Court justices are serving. As I wrote in Vox and MS NOW explain 'The voting rights case that could set us back 60 years' and repeated in 'Last Week Tonight' examines redistricting, "the conservative majority of the Supreme Court shot multiracial democracy in America in the leg, if not an even more vital part of the body. The bullet is still traveling, injuring tissues and organs on its way." Much, if not most, of the redistricting that Ray is objecting to is the result of that decision.
That's a wrap for today. I have an appointment in the morning and will return to the office tomorrow afternoon, so stay tuned for another short evergreen educational entry I can share next month, which begins on Tuesday.
Evolving from a robotics company working in government contracts and toy contract work, iRobot eventually released a consumer product of their own, the Roomba, that would define not only their entire corporate future, but the industry that they essentially created. However, just 4 years after their all time peak in revenue and popularity, the company had declared bankruptcy. Join me in this video as we find out what happened to iRobot and their flagship product line, the Roomba robot vacuum.
It seems no tale of the Retail Apocalypse is complete without either private equity or Amazon, and this story has both, although in potentially helpful roles, not competitors or bad managers. Also, this is another example of a company that florished during the COVID-19 pandemic when people were at home, then got into trouble when they returned to work, although that wasn't the primary issue; competition and weak innovation were.
The company that popularized the robot vacuum has been struggling. This video outlines some of the main reasons behind those struggles.
Company Man Mike made a list of the reasons for iRobot's decline.
As I wrote above, competition and weak innovation were the main reasons for iRobot's decline. Using cameras instead of LIDAR is, as Company Man Mike pointed out, one of the reasons why Tesla's self-driving technology is inferior to Waymo's. I hadn't even considered the privacy issues with cameras instead of LIDAR, but they're valid. As for relying on vacuum sales over other applications and markets, iRobot made the decision to sell their military products early on and it made sense at the time. As for other consumer products, it wasn't for lack of trying. iRobot tried, but failed.
That's a wrap for today. Stay tuned for more awards show coverage.
When you look at Federally declared disasters across the U.S., there’s a surprising blank spot in the Southwest region. What’s up with that? Is the Southwest really a safe haven from natural disasters? Or is there a more sinister explanation for this giant hole in the map? On this episode of Weathered, we talk to the folks who made this map, and some of the world’s leading experts on climate risk to find out what’s really going on.
My wife and I watched this video together on the big-screen TV in our bedroom. I guessed the lack of natural disasters in the American Southwest was because there aren't a lot of people there and that the dark secret was the heat. The first guess wasn't true; the Phoenix–Mesa–Chandler, AZ MSA has an estimated population of 5,228,938 while the Las Vegas–Henderson–North Las Vegas, NV MSA has an estimated population of 2,407,226.
The second guess was dead on. That's no surprise, as I blogged about Phoenix being the hottest city in the U.S. in 2021 and mentioned its record heat in 2023twice. What is surprising is that heat waves don't count as federal natural disasters covered by FEMA. The commenters found the reason dismaying: "You don't get disaster declarations for mortality. You only do it for economics." Ecurewitz responded "That’s the most American statement ever." RandomAngle9 commented "The fact that heat doesn't 'qualify' as a disaster because it doesn't destroy buildings, only people, says everything about how we value human life in policy." Speaking of policy, Florida banning municipalities from protecting workers from heat shows that DeSantis wasn't only bad on COVID-19. He and the rest of the Republicans on Florida are bad on climate and weather, too.
"Yankee Doodle" was a traditional song (Roud 4501) that predated the American Revolution and was adapted by both British and Americans to mock one another in the eighteenth century. So we felt it was a fitting tune to repurpose on the occasion of the 250th anniversary of the birth of the United States, and the No Kings musical protests occurring this weekend which happens to be the 80th birthday of Donald Trump.
The word 'doodle' likely comes from German 'Dödel' meaning fool or simpleton or nob. It may also reference Low German 'dudel' = playing music badly. So it works whether you like or hate this parody arrangement! The earliest known version of the lyrics was the 1750s when it was sung during the Seven Years' War (or "French and Indian War" in the colonies), and it had become a patriotic song for the USA by 1781, when new verses mentioned a certain George Washington, who also crops up in ours as a bringer of political or national liberty (though, of course, also a slaveholder and denier of liberty).
I promised another Sunday entertainment feature, so follow over the jump for the remaining most read post and top social media shares about entertainment during the 15th year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News.
Happy Flashback Friday! I promised "Stay tuned for another winner at the News & Doc Emmy Awards along with a retrospective of posts on a related theme" for today and get to both of those after I lead into them beginning with SciShow explaining How Instagram Hacks Your Brain.
Do you feel addicted to social media? You're certainly not alone. Social media and our brains have a messy relationship, and researchers are working hard to understand what's going on, who might be more or less at risk, and why.
Hosted by: Hank Green (he/him)
Can't Look Away: The Case Against Social Media is the Emmy winner I'm featuring today and it's all about how social media algorithms make the platforms addictive and how they especially harm teenagers. Howtown examined another possible cognitive harm in What the actual science says about "brain rot".
Are TikTok, Reels, and YouTube Shorts actually destroying our attention spans, or is “brain rot” just another moral panic? In this video, we dig into the science behind short-form video and attention, from debunking viral goldfish statistics to explaining real cognitive psychology experiments testing analytical thinking and prospective memory. We break down what researchers actually mean by “attention span,” how infinite scroll and autoplay feeds are genuinely different from previous forms of media, and what lab tests can and can’t tell us about the mental effects of short-form video.
As much as I have proclaimed "Behold the power of the YouTube algorithm," I at least had the choice of clicking on the preview of the intriguing video the program presented to me. With YouTube shorts, TikTok, and Instagram reels, the only choice I have is to watch the next video or stop watching unless I see the preview of the short on my YouTube home page, where I still have the choice to click. It's one of the reasons I generally avoid TikTok, the other being the ownership, both old and new. Do I think the format is making me stupid? No, although it's certainly distracting, entertaining, and surprising, especially as Instagram reels, some of which I find educational. That loops back to Hank Green's observation about Instagram hacking my brain. I like closing loops.
The second loop to close is today's featured News & Doc Emmy Award winner.
After I watched Can't Look Away's trailer, I declared, "I don't have to look at the other two trailers; I think this is the winner." I was right; it won. Congratulations!
Follow over the jump for the final loop, today's featured post from the 15th year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News, which was also about a legal action against social media.
CNN FILMS PRIME MINISTER WINS TWO EMMY® AWARDS, INCLUDING BEST DOCUMENTARY
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CNN’s recognition extended to the Documentary Emmy® Awards on Thursday night, where CNN Films’ Prime Minister won Best Documentary and Outstanding Politics and Government Documentary. The acclaimed film premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, earning the Audience Award for World Cinema Documentary before being acquired by HBO and CNN Films. Released theatrically by Magnolia Pictures, Prime Minister is available to stream now at CNN.com/Watch, on the CNN app, and on HBO Max.
Dame Jacinda Ardern posted a thank you speech to her Instagram.
Tonight the incredible team who made the documentary simply titled “Prime Minister” won the Emmy for best documentary. From the sidelines I saw these talented directors, editors, and producers all come together to create a film (which I have still only watched it in its entirety once..) that feels like the most accurate portrayal of what it’s like to lead with your heart on your sleeve. My huge congratulations to them all, especially Michelle Walshe and Lindsay Utz who co-directed it. But here, I want to make a special mention of Clarke, the first person who picked up a camera. I wasn’t the easiest person to film, and nor through the years of being PM was I the easiest partner. But that never changed the amount of support he gave in return. Our loved ones don’t choose politics, but they are still on the front line alongside us every day, cheering us on, keeping life at home going, reminding us why we’re there. So thank you, Clarke. Now it’s my turn to cheer you on xx
Clarke spoke at the awards tonight, and he saved his final words, rightly so, to thank New Zealand. Our home. We will both forever be grateful for the privilege of a lifetime.
Congratulations to Dame Jacinda, the documentarians, CNN, and HBO!
Since it's Throwback Thursday and the subject is politics, follow over the jump for the top serious political posts written during the 15th year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News.
The tongue-twisting I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General, performed live during Gilbert and Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance, directed by Mike Leigh at English National Opera.
Andrew Shore plays Major General-Stanley, with Joshua Bloom as Pirate King and Claudia Boyle as Mabel in this ENO production by film director Mike Leigh.
About The Pirates of Penzance:
With sentimental pirates, blundering policeman, absurd adventures and improbable paradoxes, The Pirates of Penzance is Gilbert and Sullivan's most popular comic opera.
A swashbuckling farce of brilliant humour and razor-sharp wit, it's chock-full of memorable melodies, including the famous tongue-twisting patter song from the Major-General.
This production was directed by directed by BAFTA-award winner Mike Leigh, who makes his operatic debut.
Randy could have been more pompous, but he has Pervert Hoover for that.
Randy isn't the only one revisiting the past. My readers gave enough page views to three posts from the 2016 election that they joined the most read entries of the 15th year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News. Follow over the jump for their stories.
John Oliver discusses how an already flawed Twitter got worse under Elon Musk, how it continues to impact us all, and what it has to do with the 30-40 trillion cells humans are composed of. Or, wait, sorry, Twitter doesn’t have anything to do with the cells. It’s about our understanding of the universe. Maybe. You’ll just have to take that last part up with Elon directly.
There's a side effect of Musk turning the blue checks into pay for play instead of an actual verification system. In addition to making it difficult to tell real from imitation/parody accounts, it made a lot of statistics inaccessible without paid verification. I noted that last year: "Twitter/X's analytics are now a service for paid subscribers, and I won't pay to support Elon Musk, so they end up being little better than what I can collect from Bluesky for free."
Since today is Throwback Thursday, follow over the jump for my most read post about Twitter/X and Bluesky during the 15th year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News along with my top shares on each platform that aren't about holidays that I haven't shared yet.
"The Strike" is a feature documentary that tells the story of a generation of California men who endured decades of solitary confinement and, against all odds, launched the largest hunger strike in U.S. history.
Directed and produced by JoeBill Muñoz and Lucas Guilkey.
This is my pick to win this category, as it has the most nominations. The rest of the field has only this one nomination. I'm not embedding their trailers, as I am covering the remaining categories instead.
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Over 15 years, Chasing Time follows James Balog’s Extreme Ice Survey, capturing glaciers vanishing and providing visual evidence of climate change. Reuniting with the Emmy-winning Chasing Ice team, it concludes their epic work, reflecting on time, mortality, and intergenerational hope.
I would pick this sequel to Chasing Ice to win just because I'm a fan of the original and would recommend it to my students. So is the first documentary I'm featuring for the next category.
The nominee for Outstanding Business and Economic Documentary I'm recommending to my students is Made in Ethiopia.
When a massive Chinese industrial park transforms rural Ethiopia, three women, a director, a farmer, and a factory worker, find their lives entwined in the promises and costs of progress. Filmed over four years, Made in Ethiopia reveals China’s complex impact on Africa and a nation’s struggle between tradition, modernity, and survival.
This video may not be explicitly environmental, but it is very much about sustainable development, a topic my environmental science course examines. Welcome to blogging as professional development.
BRIBE, INC. is a true story exposing the shady underpinnings that fuel global commerce: corruption and lots of money.
In the shadows of the global oil industry the Ahsani family ran Unaoil with jet-set style and total impunity. Until journalist Nick McKenzie encountered a whistleblower with enough insider intel to take the whole gang down.
In a manhunt spanning the globe Nick untangles the Ahsanis’ web of deceit and corruption exposing them as the grubby crime family they are. As the plot twists and turns will justice be served?
First, it's about oil, so it's also germane to my environmental science and geology students. Second, it looks like fun. Third, this could just as easily have been an investigative or crime nominee. The same is true of the other nominee that caught my eye, CAN'T LOOK AWAY (2025) - Official Trailer | JOLT.
Can't Look Away is a gripping documentary that exposes the dark side of social media and its devastating impact on young users. Directors Matthew O'Neill and Perri Peltz take viewers inside the high-stakes legal battle to hold tech companies accountable for the harm caused by their negligence and dangerous algorithms. Based on investigative reporting by Bloomberg News' Olivia Carville, the film follows the Social Media Victims Law Center fighting for justice for families whose children suffered tragic consequences linked to social media use. As families seek justice, Can't Look Away underscores the urgent need for industry reform and serves as both a wake-up call about the dangers of social media—and a call to action to protect future generations.
I don't have to look at the other two trailers; I think this is the winner.
Galápagos giant tortoises once numbered in the hundreds of thousands, with at least thirteen species. But now some of those species are gone forever and the same forces that doomed those tortoises might have ended up helping save others.
No need for geneetic engineering and cloning — old-fashioned selective and captive breeding could re-create species thought to be extinct. That's good news for today's biodiversityholiday!
Follow over the jump for a retrospective of two posts from the back catalog that relate to today's topic.
Happy Throwback Thursday! I'm pulling a video out of the archives for today, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver asking Ayn Rand - How Is This Still A Thing?
Ayn Rand, author of "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead," is still kind of a thing. How?
While Trump, who I've been calling Hoover Harding Cleveland and will now start calling Pervert Hoover, may be a good (bad) example of selfishness, he does not aspire to be a philosopher. On the other hand, Curtis Yarvin does. As I wrote in Leeja Miller examines 'The Ideology Behind The End Of Democracy', "I've decided to focus on Yarvin/Moldbug as a source of the terrible ideas being implemented by this administration. He seems to be replacing Ayn Rand and Objectivism as the person and philosophy animat[ing] the Right." I'm not sure that's an improvement.
Rand and Objectivism were the topics of two of last year's top posts. Follow over the jump for their stories.
In the age of typing, scrolling and voice-to-text, putting a pen to paper is increasingly rare but states including New Jersey, Georgia, Kentucky and California have recently enacted requirements to incorporate instruction on cursive handwriting. Language experts says the move is backed by science with cursive shown to improve reading, memory and fine motor skills in children. NBC’s Emilie Ikeda reports for TODAY.
Cursive? That's definitely a throwback. I first wrote about it in The collapse of cursive from July 31, 2013. It was one of the top posts of last year, which is why I'm revisiting the topic.
A new law passed in New Jersey by departing Gov. Phil Murphy is reintegrating a cursive program back into schools. Jen Maxfield has the latest.
I described how politicians, mostly Republicans, reacted to the absence of cursive in the Common Core standards in Vox on the decline of cursive by mandating teaching it. Former New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy shows that at least some Democrats are doing this, too.
The skill of writing in cursive nearly disappeared during the pandemic, but students at an elementary school in Georgia are proving it's far from forgotten.
I think Lisa Washington won the handwriting contest.
Follow over the jump for how a 13-year-old entry about cursive returned to the top posts during the 15th year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News.
A fossil that sat untouched for decades is now helping rewrite part of the dinosaur family tree, and the breakthrough is happening at Virginia Tech.
What may look like crushed rock is actually a fossil, one that scientists painstakingly rebuilt piece by piece into one of the earliest meat-eating dinosaurs ever identified.
Earlier this year, Srivastava identified the fossil of a meat-eating dinosaur that is thought to be three times older than the T. rex, the only one of its kind that anyone has ever found.
We spoke to Srivastava about his discovery.
A fossil skull provides new clues about how dinosaurs ascended to their full Jurassic power.
“You want to stick your finger in a dinosaur brain?” asked Simba Srivastava.
Surrounded by cabinets full of ancient bones in the paleobiology lab, the Virginia Tech undergraduate student held out a lumpy, pockmarked fossil.
“This is a uniquely sucky specimen,” said Srivastava. “It's so bad. Like, if you saw a human skull in this way, you'd throw up.”
Nevertheless, the senior geosciences major spent two years unscrambling the ancient creature and determining its place in the story of evolution. His findings, which were published April 15 in Papers in Palaeontology, shed light on how dinosaurs dominated the Jurassic period.
This is the type of work a long-tenured curator or a late-stage professor would do, but geobiologists Sterling Nesbitt and Michelle Stocker tapped Srivastava when he was a first-year student.
“We want undergraduate researchers to experience the whole paleontological research process at Virginia Tech,” said Nesbitt. “Simba grabbed the project by the reins.”
Dino domination
The mangled skull was uncovered twice: In 1982, a crew from the Carnegie Museum of Natural History unearthed it from New Mexico’s Ghost Ranch. Thirty-some years later, Nesbitt dug it out of a drawer and eventually brought it back to Blacksburg. Using computed tomography scanning data, Srivastava isolated the specimen digitally and 3D printed a reconstruction.
The skull belonged to a species of meat-eating dinosaur that’s more than three times as old as Tyrannosaurus Rex (sic).
These creatures lived at the end of the Triassic period, which is about 252 million to 201 million years ago. Back then, dinosaurs weren’t the all-powerful apex predators portrayed by Hollywood. They were vying for resources against the forerunners of crocodiles and mammals.
But that all changed drastically when an extinction seemingly wiped out most of the competition. With that, the Triassic ended, and dinosaurs came into their power.
“Dinosaurs go from being co-stars to the headliner,” Srivastava said.
Clues about how dinosaurs evolved and spread in the succeeding Jurassic period lie buried in the rocks, but well-preserved fossils from the end of the Triassic are rare.
In fact, Srivastava’s squished specimen is the only one of its kind anyone has found so far.
The skull shows that the species had massive cheekbones, a wide braincase, and probably a short, deep snout. It was the first time these characteristics had been seen in early dinosaurs, indicating that they were constantly evolving, according to the study.
Murder muppet’s last stand
The name Srivastava picked for the new species reflects its bizarre proportions and unfortunate condition.
“We landed on Ptychotherates bucculentus, which means ‘folded hunter with full cheeks’ in Latin,” said Srivastava. “One paleo-artist said that it looked like a murder muppet.”
After two years of deep research, the Virginia Tech team was able to determine that the skull belonged to one of the last surviving members of one of the earliest-evolving families of carnivorous dinosaurs called Herrerasauria.
Thanks to this fossil, the group made another, somewhat surprising discovery.
Ptychotherates was found in rocks that may date to right before the great extinction at the end of the Triassic period — and no other members of their family was ever seen again, possibly suggesting that this dinosaur group went extinct as a result of that mass extinction.
“This forces us to reconsider the impact of the end-Triassic extinction as something that wiped out not just the competitors to dinosaurs, but some long-standing dinosaur lineages themselves,” Srivastava said.
And finally, because no herrerasaurians have been found anywhere else this late in the Triassic, the area that is today the American Southwest may have been where they survived the longest and made their last stand.
Srivastava’s folded hunter is their only spokesperson.
“This specimen, it fits in my hands, but it is the only proof that any of these dinosaurs lived this long, lived in these latitudes, the only proof that they evolved to have this skull shape,” said Srivastava. “All these billions of individuals that existed through time are spoken for by this one specimen.”
I can relate to Simba Srivastava. I'vementionedseveraltimes that I studied the fossil mollusks of the tar pits (Rancho La Brea) in Los Angeles. Those specimens sat in drawers at the George C. Page Museum (La Brea Tar Pits) for nearly a decade before I read about them in Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology and saw an opportunity, which I seized. I approached my advisor, who told me there would be a talk about the invertebrate fossils at the tar pits the next week. I attended the talk, spoke to the collections manager afterwards, and got a tour of the working area of the museum. I felt like a kid in a candy store; I'd wanted to be there ever since the museum opened. I then met with the assistant curator and began work within the month. I ended up working there for four years, becoming Student-In-Residence before completing my M.S. thesis and moving to Michigan. While I was there, I realized that there was a century of research waiting with the specimens already in the collection. That's true of every major research museum; there are hundreds, if not thousands, of discoveries waiting to be found sitting in drawers and on shelves. Srivastava and his advisor/co-author Sterling J. Nesbitt made one of them.
By the way, not only did Srivastava and Nesbitt describe and name a new genus and species, they proposed a new clade of dinosaurs, Morphoraptora within Herrerasauria, which is already in the Wikipedia article. Wikipedia has had its issues, but rapid and accurate reporting of scientific discoveries is not one of them.
One of last year's top posts is about science and technology at Virginia Tech, so follow over the jump for a brief retrospective about it.
Do animals actually like music — or are humans just projecting? In this episode of Howtown, we investigate the science of animals and music through experiments with cotton-top tamarins, orangutans, rats, mice, parrots, dogs, cats, and a wild fox who seemed captivated by a banjo.
We look at what animal behavior research, neuroscience, and music cognition can tell us about rhythm, pitch, melody, consonance, dissonance, emotion, reward, pattern recognition, and why human brains find music so powerful. Along the way, we explore studies on cotton-top tamarins preferring silence to human music, orangutans choosing silence over different music genres, rats conditioned to prefer Miles Davis, mice exposed to Beethoven during development, dogs howling along to favorite songs, and Snowball the cockatoo dancing to the beat.
Featuring conversations with researchers and musicians including Aniruddh Patel, Pralle Kriengwatana, David Teie, Suzanne MacDonald, and Andy Thorn, this episode asks: can animals hear music the way we do? Can they recognize rhythm or melody? Do they feel emotion from music? And what does animal music research reveal about the evolution of music in humans?
That's really cool, especially the stories told by David Teie about being inspired by Metallica into composing music for animals and Andy Thorn about playing banjo and attracting foxes. The former convinced me that saying "kitty, kitty, kitty" in a high-pitched voice actually works and isn't just an extension of "baby voice" for pets.
Ever wonder if your pets enjoy them some TV or music? Well, it turns out the answer is incredibly fascinating.
A survey of about 2000 British dog owners conducted in early 2017 found that around 40% of dog owners admitted to leaving the radio on when they left the house so that their dog wouldn’t be lonely, while another 32% admitted that they did the same thing, just with the TV. In yet another British study, this time in 2015, it was found that 38% of those respondents left the radio on and 22% the TV. Whichever study you look at there, this practice is shockingly common, at least in Britain. But do your pets like this?
Starting with our canine counterparts, while the research we have thus far isn’t exactly robust, it would appear that, at least in the case of music, yes, in some cases dogs do respond to this in a positive way. For example, consider the results of research conducted in 2002 by psychologist Deborah Wells from Queen’s University in Belfast. In a nutshell, Wells’ study involved randomly playing music through some speakers for a group of about 50 dogs at a re-homing shelter in the UK and noting what, if any, effect it had on the them. After a baseline reaction was found by observing the behaviour of the dogs when no music at all was playing, researchers then played one of three CDs- for those unfamiliar, a kind of round shiny object people used to store music and other data on, often used for playing music in their hitched up covered wagons. Each CD contained a curated playlist limited to a specific genre, in this case, pop, classical and heavy metal. Finally, a fourth CD contained the sounds of a human conversation.
The answer is that dogs do, but cats don't much care.
Speaking of cats, one of last year's top posts is about cats, so follow over the jump for a brief retrospective about it.
Looking for the most popular baby names of 2025? We’ve got the official list. As the source for baby names in the U.S., we’re sharing the Top 10 baby names of 2025, based on real data from Social Security. Whether you’re naming a baby or just curious about trends, this list has you covered.
Olivia and Liam were America's most popular baby names for 2025 – the seventh consecutive year both names have held the top spot. The baby names are drawn from Social Security card applications submitted at birth, making SSA the nation’s authoritative source for baby naming trends.
Last year, America’s most popular baby names remained consistent with years past, with minimal shifts in the top 10 rankings. Charlotte climbed to second place among girls, ending Emma’s six-year run in the runner-up slot. A top-10 fixture for years, Ava dropped from the list entirely – replaced by Eliana, which debuted at number 10. On the boys’ side, the top four names – Liam, Noah, Oliver, and Theodore – held their places.
Here are the top 10 boys’ and girls’ names for 2025:
Social Security releases the list of the 1,000 most popular baby names each year in honor of Mother’s Day. The full list is available at www.ssa.gov/oact/babynames.
“Happy Mother’s Day to all the exceptional mothers who inspire us and guide future generations,” said Social Security Commissioner Frank J. Bisignano. “As Mother’s Day draws closer, I find myself reflecting on the unwavering care, courage, and commitment my own mother instilled in my siblings and me as the glue that held our family together.”
This Year’s Fastest-Rising Names: Fire and Brightness
Beyond the top 10, 2025’s fastest movers tell their own story. The boys’ name Kasai, meaning “fire” in Japanese and Swahili, surged 1,108 positions to enter the top 1,000 for the first time, landing at 639. For girls, Klarity, a contemporary spelling of “clarity” evoking brightness and light, led all risers.
Here are the five boys’ and girls’ names that increased the most in popularity in 2025:
Not only did Ailany come in first on this list, variants Aylani and Ailani came in second and tenth.
It's just another variant of the same name. Also, the third fastest rising boy's name, Eziah, looks like a variant on last year's fifth fastest rising name, Azaiah, both of which appear to be alternative spellings of Isaiah. The trends continue.
That's a wrap for today's holiday. I plan on returning to baby names for Father's Day. In the meantime, I have some science involving animals and music penciled in for tomorrow. Stay tuned.
The controversial airline has shut down. This video outlines five of the biggest reasons behind its collapse.
Here is Company Man Mike's list of reasons for its failure.
I'm going to take Company Man's suggestion and embed Spirit Airlines - Why They're Hated to elaborate on his first point, negative reputation.
Spirit Airlines is among the most disliked companies out there. This video profiles the company while attempting to identify the reasons behind all the hatred.
Its bad reputation is the reason why the only times I've mentioned Spirit Airlines on this blog was when they were the butt of jokes on SNL, Jimmy Kimmel, and SNL again, the first two for rescue attempts and the final time for its failure. Sorry, no Daily Show. Since Company Man likes lists, here's the one he created for this video.
Fees and cost cutting tie into the first list's second point about tough competition, but the advertising alone would have made the company into a joke. Who needs late night comedians to make fun of you when your ad agency does the work for them?
I often write that no bankrupt company's story is complete without both Company Man and Bright Sun Films making videos about them. It turns out Jake Williams of Bright Sun Films already uploaded Bankrupt - Spirit Airlines last year.
Formed from a humble air carrier operation in 1990, Spirit Airlines has gone onto pioneer the ultra low cost budget carrier model in America, becoming known (perhaps infamously) as the cheapest airline in the skies. However, times have changed and their business model is now looking like a liability rather than an asset. Join me today as we find how this notable airline went from billions in revenue, to bankruptcy in just a few years.
It's always a good day when I learn something new and, between Jake and Company Man Mike, I learned that Spirit Airlines began as a Michigan company, they flew Airbus planes, that the company began their expansion by taking advantage of other air carriers' troubles because conflict in the Middle East caused high oil prices, and the last flight originated in Detroit, where the company began. That makes today a very good day!
For 34 years, Spirit Airlines made waves with its rock-bottom fares, racy advertising, and bright yellow planes. At its peak, it was the largest ultra-low-cost carrier in the US, selling flights to Florida for $39. But in May 2026, Spirit shut down completely. It canceled 9,000 flights and left staff with little information. So what happened to the low-cost behemoth? And what does its sudden closure mean for cheap airfare in America?
Other than more professional production values and journalists on-screen, Business Insider added little to the story of Spirit Airlines' rise, but it added quite a bit to the fall and everything to the impact. Donald "Hoover Harding Cleveland" Trump causing Spirit's troubles by attackingIran, raising oil prices, then offering to bail out the airline serves as an example of everything Trump touches dies. This time, it didn't even take a week! As for the grassroots effort to buy the airline, backed by its laid-off employees, I wish it luck, but would be pleasantly very surprised should it succeed. In the meantime, expect higher air fares on the routes Spirit flew.
That's a wrap for what is effectively a business obituary. Stay tuned for Mother'sDay.
Happy Throwback Thursday! As I wrote yesterday, I'm resuming my series on the News & Doc Emmy Awards. Today's topic is Outstanding Politics and Government Documentary. One nominee stands out, Prime Minister with two nominations as the preview image shows, Best Documentary and Outstanding Politics and Government Documentary. The rest of the field has only the one nomination for Outstanding Politics and Government Documentary. On that basis, I'm declaring Prime Minister the favorite. Watch Prime Minister | Official Trailer | HBO.
“World leaders have rarely been captured with as much intimacy” - @variety
A rare and unfiltered portrait, #PrimeMinisterHBO chronicles the unexpected journey of Dame Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand’s 40th Prime Minister. Premieres September 30 on @hbomax.
I found Jacinda Ardern inspirational while she was Prime Minister during the pandemic, and I felt that way again watching this trailer.
Bodyguard of Lies is the first unvarnished documentary on the Afghanistan War, exposing the falsehoods told to Americans and the secrets kept. The film reveals the staggering cost of deception: thousands of lives lost, trillions spent, and a truth buried for decades.
I expressed what a waste of time, money, and lives the U.S. involvement in Afghanistan was ten years ago in We could have had the Moon, instead we get Afghanistan. Seeing this collapse a decade later demonstrates that I wasn't disgusted enough at the squandering of blood and treasure in "the Graveyard of Empires" at the time.
It was even worse than I thought and the people in charge knew it.
Unprecedented and audacious, HOLLYWOODGATE is the riveting result of the year director Ibrahim Nash'at spent with the Taliban in the wake of the United States withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. Risking his life in the war-torn nation, Nash'at is on the ground with the Taliban when they enter an American base loaded with a portion of the roughly $7 billion worth of U.S. armaments left behind. Driving towards an astonishing and chilling end, Nash'at tracks Taliban leaders as they attempt to transform from a fundamentalist militia into a modern military regime, employing Hollywood-style propaganda to achieve their goals.
#TheDarkMoneyGame: Ohio Confidential & Wealth of the Wicked by Academy Award Winner Alex Gibney premieres Tuesday, April 15 and Wednesday, April 16 at 9pm on @hbomax.
That's two nominated documentaries from Alex Gibney. The man is a powerhouse.
Which are the distinct attributes sculpting the Japanese identity? What makes you Japanese? In order to figure out the answers, the British Japanese filmmaker closely follows 1st and 6th graders for one year at a public elementary school in Tokyo, as well as their teachers, unveiling how teachers and students interact and shape one another. The outbreak of the pandemic and its restrictions constitute just another controlling measure. The kids in Japan are after all forged by their homeland's culture through a strictly defined education process which is in pursuit, with unwavering focus, of the appropriate equilibrium between individual progress and harmony of the society as a whole. Offering a unique hybrid perspective, the filmmaker critically examines a culture that is equally familiar to her as it is foreign, while she peruses the school environment in terms of an industrial production plant, in which the raw materials for processing are the students.
One of the points I make when I cover shows about government is that public education is government, too. I'm glad to see the News & Doc Emmy selection committee recognize this.
Now for Prime Minister's second category.
2000 Meters to Andriivka leads with six nominations, Turning Point: The Vietnam War follows with five nominations, Hurricane Katrina: Race Against Time, Life After, and Love + War tie at four nominations, and Black Snow and Union tie at this one nomination. I had 2000 Meters to Andriivka penciled in to win this category because of its awards history, especially its wins at the DGA and WGA Awards, but seeing it lead this category, if not all nominees, in nominations inks that prediction in.
I'll probably examine Hurricane Katrina: Race Against Time tomorrow. In the meantime, follow over the jump as I continue my retrospective of top posts about the Emmy Awards during the 15th year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News.
Andor wins the BAFTA for Special, Visual & Graphic Effects at the BAFTA TV Craft Awards with Samsung OLED.
Presented by Chris Chung.
Congratulations!
Follow over the jump for the nominees for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form and Best Game or Interactive Work plus a retrospective of the top entertainment entries from the back catalog, excluding those about the Emmy Awards.
Weekend Update anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che tackle the week's biggest news, like King Charles meeting New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani.
I now have Spirit Airlines going bankrupt, again, and shutting down operations on my to-do list. On the other hand, I've already covered the royal visit. I just wish people would stop picking on Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, who was born only a few miles from where I grew up and is my favorite royal. On the other hand, keep picking on the Andrew formerly known as Prince. He deserves it.
Weekend Update anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che tackle the week's biggest news, like a woman damaging a statue in Italy while trying to touch its genitals.
