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.
A full-scale flame war has broken out between the world's most famous besties, causing their former buddy Kanye West to wade into the fray, and an intern is running Homeland Security's terrorism prevention unit.
Yes, it's bad when Kanye West is the voice of reason. As for Thomas Fugate, the 22-year-old former Heritage Foundation intern now in charge of terrorism prevention, I bet he submitted his resume through Project 2025. Only the best people.
Michael Kosta unpacks the latest in Musk and Trump’s messy bromance breakup: Elon doubling down on critiques against the Big Beautiful Bill, Trump’s parent-level guilt, Kanye West calling for a ceasefire, and threats of an Epstein files leak. Plus, Grace Kuhlenschmidt explains that the president is merely playing a game of 7D chess.
"The thing that was always going to happen is now happening." It was always a matter of when, not if. I'm just surprised at how quickly matters escalated.
The new head of U.S. Terror Prevention is a 22 year old who graduated from college twelve months ago, Elon went nuclear on Donald Trump - said that he’s in the Epstein Files which is why they have not been made public and Musk agreed with a post that said Trump should be impeached and replaced with JD Vance, the MAGAs are hard at work trying to downplay the rift between their king and benefactor, and the judge at the Diddy trial in New York threatened to ban him from the courtroom.
This is a surprisingly concise and focused video description for Jimmy K, which tells my readers and me how much the feud is taking up all the oxygen in the room. About the only new take is Musk agreeing with a call for Hoover Cleveland's impeachment and JD Vance replacing him. I expect Vance will keep his mouth shut, especially if he agrees. Maybe Sean "Diddy" Combs should follow Vance's example.
Seth takes a closer look at Trump threatening to take away Elon Musk's government contracts and Musk saying Trump was in the Epstein files.
I'm glad to see some focus on the House Republicans who voted for the bill and Joni Ernst ("Joni Hearse") getting grief from their constituents. They deserve it. Also, I was wondering when the other late night hosts would follow Jimmy Kimmel playing 'TACO Man' for Trump. It took a week!
Colbert satirizing the feud as an episode of Couples Therapy isn't just brilliant comedy. It's also cross-promotion of another Paramount property, as Couples Therapy is a Showtime series. As I wrote most recently in 'SNL' celebrates Mother's Day 2025, "'It's not just news value that's driving it.' Or comedy value, for that matter."
Stay tuned as I return to the News & Doc Emmy Awards for tomorrow's Sunday entertainment feature.
As I promisedtwice, it's time for the next installment in my coverage of the News & Doc Emmy Awards by examining The Sixth and the rest of the nominees for Outstanding Politics and Government Documentary. The Sixth on the sixth!*
Since it is the only nominee in this category with another nomination and that is for Best Documentary, I begin with THE SIXTH | Trailer from Change Content.
THE SIXTH (www.thesixthmovie.com) is a feature documentary produced in collaboration with A24. From Academy Award® winning filmmakers Andrea Nix Fine & Sean Fine, THE SIXTH takes you inside the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol through six personal accounts, including Rep. Jamie Raskin and MPD Chief Robert Contee. This harrowing yet hopeful film, is a powerful reminder that the fate of democracy is in all our hands.
This isn't the first time the News & Doc Emmy Awards recognized coverage of January 6th; for starters, CNN's 'Live from the Capitol: January 6th, One Year Later' won two News & Doc Emmy Awards in 2023. It is the first time I've covered a nominated documentary about the event, although it probably won't be the last. In the meantime, this is still my favorite to win this category, although it is facing worthy competition and isn't a guaranteed winner. After all, Good Night Oppy had six nominations and was my pick to win Outstanding Science and Technology Documentary two years ago, but lost to How to Survive a Pandemic. Something similar could happen here.
Follow over the jump to watch the trailers or the equivalent for the rest of the nominees in this category and another look at Best Documentary.
One of the oldest names in weight loss has lost most of its value and filed for bankruptcy. This video explores the brand's history while identifying some of the biggest reasons behind its decline.
As I usually do, I'm sharing Company Man Mike's list.
Rebranding strikes me as a milder version of Hooters' identity crisis with a side helping of external factors including the pandemic — bad timing, indeed! Speaking of external factors, Weight Watchers had been able to weather its competition until weight loss drugs like Ozempic came along. It didn't take them long to drive Weight Watchers into bankruptcy. As I wrote last month, "WeightWatchers decided that if they couldn't beat Ozempic and other weight loss drugs, they'd join them. Too bad things moved so quickly that they were [too] late to that party."
Oprah Winfrey leaving the company followed by its bankruptcy demonstrates that it was the loss of celebrity influence that may have been the last straw. The company had been depending on celebrity endorsers for decades and without its last one, it declined rapidly.
While I've often seen private equity as a cause of debt leading to failure, I've come across stock buybacks by themselves justthreetimes, and only seen both once in the case of Ruby Tuesday. Now I can say I've run across the combination twice.
I close by quoting a comment and my response on last month's post.
fry1laurie: So Weight Watchers is trying to shed 751,471,011.70 pounds (of debt).
Me: Welcome to Crazy Eddie's Motie News! HAHAHA! I'm glad the United Kingdom didn't abandon the pound for the Euro just so you could make this joke!
Stay tuned for the promised next installment in my coverage of the News & Doc Emmy Awards tomorrow, when I plan on examining The Sixth and the rest of the nominees for Outstanding Politics and Government Documentary. I decided blogging about The Sixth on the sixth would be more appropriate than today.
Democrats can now call the Donald Trump-Republican budget bill a "disgusting abomination" and they’d be quoting Elon Musk every time they do it, says MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell. Now that the budget bill is in the Senate, Lawrence explains that Republican senators are now able to stop the bill or risk Musk funding an opponent in their reelection campaign to the Senate next year.
When I read or heard speculation on when, not if, Donald "Hoover Cleveland" Trump and Elon Musk would have a falling out, the assumption would be that Hoover Cleveland would initiate it. Nope. I guess Musk is the bigger prima donna. Surprise! What's not a surprise is that Musk is doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. What Musk wants will probably make the final result crueler, not kinder.
Elon Musk issued a blistering criticism of the massive Republican bill for President Donald Trump’s agenda Tuesday, posting on X that it is a "disgusting abomination." "I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore," Musk wrote. "This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. The Morning Joe panel discusses.
MSNBC quoted Axios's reporting, which listed four reasons for Musk opposing the budget bill, none of which involve increasing the deficit, and all of which harm him, or at least make him look and feel bad.
That's a wrap for today's topical post. Stay tuned for the next installment in my coverage of the News & Doc Emmy Awards tomorrow, when I plan on examining The Sixth and the rest of the nominees for Outstanding Politics and Government Documentary.
Jon Stewart tracks Elon Musk's White House crash, from the high of being Trump's "first buddy" to the low of his black-eyed DOGE send-off. Now that the 100-day honeymoon is over, Jon also checks in on Trump's other struggling cabinet members, like the FBI's burned-out deputy director, Dan Bongino.
I'm also not looking forward to Palantir, the company named after the all-seeing crystal balls in The Lord of the Rings, establishing a surveillance state. I've been paying attention to Palantir founder Peter Thiel mostly through his pet bad philosopher Curtis Yarvin and his protégé JD Vance. Now I'll have to start paying attention to Palantir CEO Alex Karp, too.
Sen. Joni Ernst horrified constituents with a heartless comment about people who will lose Medicaid coverage under the GOP’s budget bill, Elon Musk denied reports that he is a heavy user of ketamine and psychedelics, and President Trump reposted a wild conspiracy theory about his predecessor.
Greer's premise/conceit is that Trump is like The King in Yellow and drives mad all who oppose him. I'd say he drives just about everyone mad by giving them permission to be their worst selves.
I'd say Senator Ernst succumbed to the curse. May the rest of us not follow suit.
I'm moving past Elon Musk's alleged drug use to Hoover Cleveland's re-"truthed" kooky claim that Joe Biden was replaced by a "robot clone" in 2020. As Stephen points out, robots are not clones, and the imagined replacement would have been worse than the original, both of which remind me of one of the lines in The Way of the (Political) K00K, "Never allow logic or reason get in the way of a good k00k." It also shows Hoover Cleveland's vulnerability to conspiracy theories. I wrote that in 2017 and repeated it immediately before the election. The old dog, and by that I mean Trump and not Biden, is still performing his old tricks.
Seth takes a closer look at President Trump reposting a far-right conspiracy theory that former President Biden was executed five years ago and is a robotically engineered clone, The New York Times reporting that Elon Musk was engaged in increasingly intense drug use during the Trump campaign and more.
Here's a term Seth could have found in his thesaurus to characterize the week's news, dystopian. That would have covered it.
Elon Musk is out of the White House and Trump held a farewell press conference for him, Elon had a mysterious black eye, the New York Times published a crazy story about him claiming that he has been taking a wide variety of drugs, Trump blew the lid off a bombshell cover-up by reposting a theory claiming that Biden was cloned and replaced by a robot, he took time over the weekend to weigh in on whether or not he would pardon Diddy, reality TV stars Todd & Julie Chrisley are already back to shooting their show after Trump pardoned them, Iowa Senator Joni Ernst had a town hall in Butler over the weekend where she told her constituents we’re all going to die, Stephen Miller was on Lara Trump’s show over the weekend where he took a rare break from deporting children to talk about his own, and while many Americans are now buying food on credit, some companies are trying to capitalize on that desperation.
The Truth Social user Hoover Cleveland re-"truthed" is even more confused than I thought. While there is a football player named Michael Robinson, he went to Penn State, played for the 49ers and Seahawks in the NFL, and is now an analyst for the NFL Network. That's not who I think the original poster meant. Instead, I think he meant Michelle Obama's brother, Craig Robinson, who was the men's basketball coach at Oregon State from 2008 to 2014, when Michelle was First Lady. Wow, they were in two places with two identities at the same time! Explain that, conspiracy theorist, while maintaining they're the same person. They're not.
The former president pushed back against Trump’s claim that he is a robot clone of himself.
*Snork*
On a more serious note, there is a method behind the madness of Hoover Cleveland spreading this. It's an even more bonkers version of Biden using an autopen to sign pardons for Hunter Biden and others. "That wasn't really Biden" would be even more effective than "Biden didn't actually sign the pardons" — if it were true. It's not, not that it being BS will stop Hoover Cleveland.
Stay tuned to see what I write tomorrow. Maybe it will be the results of the primary elections in New Jersey and Virginia, which could be good news. I hope so.
Hurricane season in the Atlantic Ocean starts June 1 with NOAA forecasting six to ten storms that will earn names on the list of hurricanes this year. CNN meteorologist Allison Chinchar reports, and CNN’s Victor Blackwell speaks with former FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell about the state of hurricane preparedness.
First, the charts, beginning with the list of storm names.
The new storm name is Dexter, replacing Dorian. I expect to see Dexter memes when it develops, especially if becomes a threat to the mainland U.S. Serial killer vibes!
Now for the numbers.
Most of the forecast range is above average, which the next chart shows as a 60% chance of an above average season.
Stay tuned to see if I resume my coverage of the News & Doc Emmy Awards, or if I post tonight's monologues instead. It depends on whether the comedians return tonight and if I feel up to a long awards nominations post.
Happy June and happy Sunday! As I promised yesterday, I'm kicking off the month by examining the nominees for Outstanding Crime and Justice Documentary as the Sunday entertainment feature because Alex Jones is as much an entertainment story as he is a legal one.
The American Experience episode "Poisoned Ground: The Tragedy at Love Canal" earned three nominations at the News & Doc Emmy Awards and technically leads The Truth vs. Alex Jones with two nominations, but the situation mirrors the field for Outstanding Arts and Culture Documentary because The Truth vs. Alex Jones's other nomination is for Best Documentary, which balances out "Poisoned Ground: The Tragedy at Love Canal" earning nominations for Outstanding Writing – Documentary and Outstanding Direction – Documentary in my handicapping, so both are tied in my book. The other nominees in this category, Cult Massacre: One Day In Jonestown, Into the Fire: The Lost Daughter, and Mastermind: To Think Like a Killer, have only this one nomination.
In the late 1970s, residents of Love Canal, a working-class neighborhood in Niagara Falls, New York, discovered that their homes, schools and playgrounds were built on top of a former chemical waste dump, which was now leaking toxic substances and wreaking havoc on their health. Through interviews with many of the extraordinary housewives turned activists, the film shows how they effectively challenged those in power, forced America to reckon with the human cost of unregulated industry, and created a grassroots movement that galvanized the landmark Superfund Bill.
POISONED GROUND: THE TRAGEDY AT LOVE CANAL tells the dramatic and inspiring story of the ordinary women who fought against overwhelming odds for the health and safety of their families.
When I first started teaching environmental science, one of the lab exercises was to watch a video about Love Canal and fill out a worksheet. That assignment disappeared the next time I taught the class, but the memory stuck with me. I'm too close to the end of my career and the actual episode is a touch too long to show in class, but I will definitely recommend this to my students for extra credit. Welcome to blogging as professional development.
Survivors and eyewitnesses tell the immersive story of Jim Jones' idealistic organization's final hours that spiraled into a mass casualty event. Watch Cult Massacre: One Day in Jonestown on Hulu!
Connecting this documentary to 9/11: One Day in America indicates both its pedigree and how this could easily have been a nominee for Outstanding Historical Documentary (same with "Poisoned Ground: The Tragedy at Love Canal"). Doing so would have put it in direct competition with Tsunami: Race Against Time, also by the same team, and I don't think they, Hulu, and National Geographic would have appreciated that. It's better off here, although I'd be surprised if that allows it to win this category.
A mother discovers the daughter she gave up for adoption many years ago has disappeared—and she will stop at nothing to find her. INTO THE FIRE: THE LOST DAUGHTER, directed by Ryan White and produced by Charlize Theron, comes to Netflix September 12.
"[P]roduced by Charlize Theron" — Theron is no stranger to true crime, having won an Oscar for portraying serial killer Aileen Wuornos in Monster.
To stop serial killers you need to think like one. Follow FBI specialist Dr. Ann Burgess as she explores the minds of notorious murderers in the new series Mastermind: To Think Like a Killer, premiering on July 11.
From award-winning executive producers Dakota and Elle Fanning and critically acclaimed collaborators comes “Mastermind: To Think Like A Killer,” a fascinating new perspective on the woman whose crime hunting innovations changed history. To stop serial killers, psychiatric nurse and professor Dr. Ann Burgess must first learn to think like one. With unprecedented access to the mastermind behind the development of modern serial-killer profiling, the series tells Burgess’ tenacious story and her compassion for victims which puts her at the center of America’s most infamous true-crime cases. From the widely known Ed Kemper and Ted Bundy to lesser-known cases like the Ski Mask Rapist, Burgess investigates and studies the damaged psyches of victims and their attackers, putting two halves of the same story together to catch a killer. Largely an unsung heroine until now, Dr.Burgess impacted not only the FBI, she also radically championed the plight of women in America.
As a fan of the prematurely canceled Mindhunter and run extended on streaming Criminal Minds, I'm glad to see the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Units receiving the documentary treatment they deserve. Also, Dakota Fanning is familiar with historical crime, having played one of the detectives in The Alienist, while her sister Elle, better known for playing Catherine the Great in TheGreat, also portrayed a defendant in a movie about true crime, The Girl from Plainville. Together, that puts them on the same level as Charlize Theron. Those credentials might have impressed the Television Academy if their documentaries had been nominated at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards, but I'm not so sure they will be enough to convince the documentarians and journalists here. As I usually write when I cover awards shows, electorates matter.
For the first time in this series, I'm examining the nominees for Best Documentary. I've been holding off because the category has nine nominees this year. The Grab leads with four nominations, followed by American Conspiracy: The Octopus Murders and Mammals with three each, Hollywood Black, The Sixth, and The Truth vs. Alex Jones, all with two, and The Commandant's Shadow, Queendom, and The Sing Sing Chronicles with just this one. The Grab and American Conspiracy: The Octopus Murders are facing off for Outstanding Investigative Documentary, The Sixth leads the nominees for Outstanding Politics and Government Documentary, The Truth vs. Alex Jones is contending with Poisoned Ground: The Tragedy at Love Canal for Outstanding Crime and Justice Documentary, and Mammals leads the rest of the field without a subject area nomination. That's four more opportunities to examine the nominees, after which I'll make my call.
Right now, I have The Grab in first, but I'm not making a final call until I write about the rest of the nominees.
I still think The Grab is first, but I'll change or solidify my choice after I write about Mammals.
Follow over the jump for the craft categories in which Poisoned Ground: The Tragedy at Love Canal earned nominations.
Elon Musk’s time as a Special Government Employee has come to end, the court of International Trade ruled unanimously that Trump did not have the authority to implement the big, beautiful tariffs he slapped on everyone, Trump blew up at a reporter for asking about his new nickname “TACO” that’s been making the rounds on Wall Street which stands for “Trump Always Chickening Out,” he is now reportedly one step closer to settling the ridiculous lawsuit he filed against 60 minutes, he now says he plans to give Russia “two weeks” to prove they are serious about a peace deal with Ukraine, America’s Mayor Rudy Giuliani wore a crazy outfit, FBI Director Kash Patel sat for an interview with Fox News, RFK Jr made an announcement about COVID vaccines and Cousin Micki teaches us where babies come from.
I'm glad "Elon Musk's...Chainsaw Massacre of our federal workforce" is finally over. It was even worse than I expected from Project 2025, and that was bad enough. I don't think Donald "Hoover Cleveland" Trump is done with tariffs, but the U.S. Court of International Trade ruling is good news. So is the TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out) meme taking off — something stuck! As for sore winner Hoover Cleveland suing CBS over the 60 Minutes interview of Kamala Harris, it earned a News & Doc Emmy nomination for Outstanding Edited Interview. I will take great pleasure in repeating that when I get to the news categories in my coverage of those awards.
Jimmy Kimmel is deep down the Rabbit Hole again digging through history to prove that Donald Trump is more than he seems.
Trump is a man out of time, but that's just because he's learned very few new tricks since the 1980s. Just the same, Kimmel and his writers found an amusing set of coincidences.
Jimmy Kimmel explores The Rabbit Hole into the most enigmatic man on the planet and discovers that Elon Musk is hiding two small things with huge implications.
I'm pleasantly surprised ABC's Standards and Practices allowed this to air, not because of what it says about Elon Musk, but what it shows about animal sex. Cue the Bloodhound Gang!
Emmy voting season is upon us and Jimmy finds it a little odd that Seth would come here to try and score a nomination when they’re competing in the same category. Jimmy had no choice but to take action.
Those got a little too personal for my taste, but they were still hilarious.
This concludes May's blogging. Stay tuned for an examination of the nominees for Outstanding Crime and Justice Documentary as the Sunday entertainment feature to kick off June.
I told my readers to "Stay tuned as I resume my coverage of the News & Doc Emmy Awards" at the end of PBS NewsHour explains 'How Meta's blockbuster antitrust trial could have major implications for big tech' — a Throwback Thursday special, and I'm following through with the nominees for Outstanding Investigative Documentary, which include two of the nominees for Best Documentary. From most to least nominated, they are The Grab with four nominations, American Conspiracy: The Octopus Murders with three, Fault Lines episode "The Night Won't End" with two, and two Frontline episodes, "A Dangerous Assignment: Uncovering Corruption in Maduro’s Venezuela" and "South Korea’s Adoption Reckoning," both with one. I'm sharing their trailers in that order, beginning with The Grab - Official Trailer | Directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite | Opening June 14 by Magnolia Pictures & Magnet Releasing.
Quietly and seemingly out of sight, governments, private investors and mercenaries are working to seize food and water resources at the expense of entire populations. These groups are establishing themselves as the new OPEC, where the future world powers will be those who control not oil, but food. And it's all beginning to bubble to the surface in real time. Global food prices have hit an all-time high, threatening chaos and violence. Meanwhile China, Russia, the UAE and Wall Street are just a few of the players strategizing within this shocking, shifting geopolitical landscape.
THE GRAB is a global thriller combining hard-hitting journalism from The Center for Investigative Reporting with the compelling character-driven storytelling of director Gabriela Cowperthwaite, taking you around the globe to reveal one of the world’s biggest and least known threats.
Directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite
This documentary fits the overall theme of this blog and is one I can recommend to my students. Welcome to blogging as professional development. It's also a chance for Gabriela Cowperthwaite to earn the recognition she deserved but didn't get for Blackfish. I hope she, along with the film's producers, researchers, and trailer creators, get it.
Here's the English translation of the Italian video description.
Investigators have no doubts about the death of Danny Casolaro: for them, the journalist found in the bathtub of a hotel room committed suicide. But the reporter's family and colleagues believe it could have been murder. The motive? The investigation he was conducting into a conspiracy he called "Octopus," a secret organization linked to the theft of government spy software, a series of unsolved murders and some of the biggest political scandals of the 20th century. Years later, researcher Christian Hansen tries to reveal the secrets of Casolaro's death, along with the story that cost him his life. Stardust Frames, Duplass Brothers Productions and director Zachary Treitz present this four-part docuseries that tells the mystery that has lasted for decades.
Israel’s bombing campaign continues in Gaza and the humanitarian crisis deepens to catastrophic levels, the Biden administration has not wavered in its support for Israel. United States weapons transfers - from 2,000-pound bombs to artillery shells and tanks - have been a crucial part of the Israeli military campaign. Fault Lines worked with journalists in Gaza to profile three families as they try to survive the war. Together with Airwars, Fault Lines also investigated an air strike on December 11 in north Gaza in which more than 100 people from the same family were killed. Numerous attacks on civilians - including that on Hind Rajab and her relatives in late January - have raised international concern and questions over continuing US support. Fault Lines partnered with Forensic Architecture and Earshot to investigate that attack. From air strikes to field executions, Fault Lines investigates the killings of civilians by the Israeli military in Gaza and the role of the United States in the war.
With the Venezuelan news outlet Armando.info, FRONTLINE investigates the shadowy figure at the heart of a corruption scandal spanning from Venezuela to the U.S. "A Dangerous Assignment: Uncovering Corruption in Maduro’s Venezuela" premieres Tues., May 14, 2024.
FRONTLINE and The Associated Press investigate allegations of fraud and abuse in South Korea’s historic foreign adoption boom.
In a normal year, a Frontline episode would have a better chance of winning; 2024 wasn't a normal year. Also, most of these nominees show that the line between investigative documentaries and crime and justice documentaries is very fine, just like between science and nature documentaries.
For the first time in this series, I'm examining the nominees for Best Documentary. I've been holding off because the category has nine nominees this year. The Grab leads with four nominations, followed by American Conspiracy: The Octopus Murders and Mammals with three each, Hollywood Black, The Sixth, and The Truth vs. Alex Jones, all with two, and The Commandant's Shadow, Queendom, and The Sing Sing Chronicles with just this one. The Grab and American Conspiracy: The Octopus Murders are facing off for Outstanding Investigative Documentary, The Sixth leads the nominees for Outstanding Politics and Government Documentary, The Truth vs. Alex Jones is contending with Poisoned Ground: The Tragedy at Love Canal for Outstanding Crime and Justice Documentary, and Mammals leads the rest of the field without a subject area nomination. That's four more opportunities to examine the nominees, after which I'll make my call.
Right now, I have The Grab in first, but I'm not making a final call until I write about the rest of the nominees. I'm planning on examining Outstanding Crime and Justice Documentary in the next installment because I have personal and professional interests in both The Truth vs. Alex Jones and Poisoned Ground: The Tragedy at Love Canal, the latter of which I can also recommend to my students. Again, welcome to blogging as professional development.
Follow over the jump for the craft categories in which the nominees for Outstanding Investigative Documentary earned nominations.
A blockbuster antitrust trial between Meta and the Federal Trade Commission is underway. The government alleges the company monopolized the social media market when it purchased Instagram and WhatsApp. The trial could have major implications for big tech. Stephanie Sy discussed the case with Rebecca Allensworth, a law professor at Vanderbilt University.
After more than a month of testimony, the Meta antirust trial is beginning to slow down. The Google search remedies trial, meanwhile, is about to heat up again, with closing arguments coming soon. The Verge’s Lauren Feiner has been in the DC courthouse for all of it, and has finally emerged to tell us about what she’s seen, and learned, from two all-important monopoly trials. After that, The Verge’s Victoria Song tells us about her latest experience with Google’s smart glasses prototypes, what Google is doing differently from Meta and Apple, and what she thinks Jony Ive and OpenAI might be building. Finally, we answer a question on the Vergecast Hotline about what to do now that Mozilla is shutting down Pocket.
I don't use WhatsApp, but I do use Instagram and X competitor Threads. The latter two are tied so closely together that I have a hard time seeing how the two would be separated without imparing Threads, even though Threads doesn't seem to be an issue in this case by itself. I might be wrong, but I don't know how. In any event, this trial will last long enough, short of a surprise settlement, that Tech Policy has scheduled FTC v. Meta: Takeaways from A Landmark Trial for June 26th. That will make for a post that I can share in July. Wowzers!
Follow over the jump for a retrospective of the blog's year on Instagram and Threads, which will complete this series.
Instead of a Wayback Wednesday look back at the previous blogging year's top posts, I have a driving update today. Before I look at PearlthePrius's latest mileage report, I'm sharing something more general about driving, SciShow asking Why Do So Many More Pedestrians Die in America?
A huge number of vehicular fatalities are people who aren't in cars at all. Pedestrians are dying more than they used to and more in America than other comparable parts of the world. Here's why.
This should look familiar to long-time readers of my blog, as I covered this very topic in PBS NewsHour reports 'Pedestrian deaths in U.S. reach highest level in 40 years,' a driving update, where I wrote, "I think a lot of it is reckless behavior by people, especially drivers, not infrastructure," and "when Secretary Buttigieg talked about looking at car safety from the perspective of other people besides the occupants of cars, the features of SUVs Cheddar described are likely among them." I revisted this topic in Vox and CNBC explain 'Why Americans love' and 'are obsessed with big cars,' a driving update, when I remarked, "safety is an important value to drivers, but it's only the safety of the occupants of the vehicle itself. The safety of drivers of smaller cars and especially pedestrians suffers as a result." As for the infrastructure changes, I'll look for a suitable video from CityNerd to address them in a future update.
Follow over the jump for my personal driving update.
Pearl passed 69,000 miles yesterday, Tuesday, May 27, 2025, 78 days since she passed 68,000 miles on Monday, March 10, 2025. That translates to 12.82 miles per day, 391.03 miles per standard month, and 4,679.49 miles per standard year, which are more than the 11.11 miles per day, 338.89 miles per standard month, and 4,055.56 miles per standard year between her odometer rolling over 67,000 miles on Tuesday, December 10, 2024 and March 10, 2025. Then, I wrote, "I won't be taking that many breaks or driving the Tiguan that much before Pearl's next driving update, but I will be driving to only one work location beginning in May. I'll see then which was more important in the miles I drove." Fewer and shorter breaks and less driving my wife's Tiguan had more of an effect than driving to only one work location during the reporting period.
I skipped the year-over-year comparisons last time to focus on the first retrospective about the 2024-2025 blogging year, so I'm bringing them back with data from CityNerd names '10 Cities Where Driving Consumes the Most of Your Life,' a driving update. First, it took 74 days to drive Pearl 1000 miles, resulting in averages of 13.51 miles per day, 412.16 miles per standard month, 4,932.43 miles per standard year, and 4,945.95 miles per leap year. That's more than this year, so I'm driving less for the season. Second, it's been 358 days since Pearl passed 64,000 miles on June 3, 2024, which results in averages of 13.97 miles per day, 425.98 miles per standard month, and 5,097.77 miles per standard year. That's slightly more than the averages of 13.77 miles per day, 420.11 miles per standard month, 5,027.55 miles per standard year, and 5,041.32 per leap year I last reported for the period ending Tuesday, December 10, 2024. No wonder I decided to not drive to a third work location in the fall!
I expect even lower mileage at the next driving update because I'm driving to work only two days per week. That should be very late in August or early in September. In the meantime, stay tuned for one final retrospective about the 2024-2025 blogging year on Throwback Thursday.
If all of Antarctica’s ice melted, our coastlines would be drastically altered. Fortunately, that’s not going to happen anytime soon, but new evidence suggests that West Antarctica - which holds around 5 METERS of sea level rise - is melting a lot faster than scientists once thought. And, a new study warns of a sinister threat buried deep beneath the melting ice - one that may cause a feedback loop that speeds up the melt of the already precarious West Antarctic ice sheet. Stay tuned to find out what new maps reveal about the under-ice world of Antarctica, and how a tiny octopus can help us understand the South Pole’s ice-free past.
Antarctica probably isn't the first place you think of when you hear about volcanoes. But there's a lot happening under the icy tundra, and not all of it's a good thing. Here's how rising temperatures could lead to an even more explosive future for the frozen continent.
I've been worried about the West Antarctic ice sheet collapsingsince 2014, but my worries were about directly human-caused climate change. It turns out there is an additional source of heat, the volcanoes below the ice. The effect is more indirect, as glacial ice melts, reducing pressure on the volcanoes and the magma chambers beneath them, causing them to erupt more and melting the ice above them. That's a positive feedback loop, which can run away. And I thought methane released bythawingpermafrost was bad. Yikes!
Enough scary science. Stay tuned for Wayback Wednesday.
Parody of “That’s Entertainment!” (Music by Arthur Schwartz, Lyrics by Howard Dietz)
Of course, the people that have actual Trump Derangement Syndrome are his followers, but somehow saying "I know you are but what am I" to them doesn't work. Sigh. In the meantime, we have Randy to reassure us that we're not crazy, the world is.
JD Vance, Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and many other operatives in the Trump administration are all united in their belief in the ideological teachings known as Neo-Reactionism, popularized by fringe blogger-turned Silicon Valley darling Curtis Yarvin. His pseudo-intellectual ravings have been adopted by some of the most powerful people on the planet and could lead to the downfall of democracy in the United States.
By the way, Miller mentioning Nick Land moving into a Satanist's house got my attention. I suspected he moved into Aleister Crowley's old home; that's exactly what happened. Reality is stranger than fiction.
I expect to say more about Moldbug. In the meantime, stay tuned for the Sunday entertainment feature, which will be another post worth sharing in June.
Happy Flashback Friday! For reasons I'll explain at the next Wayback Wednesday, I've changed today's post from the blog's year on Instagram and Threads to Howtown asking How accurate was the Covid death count?
After four years and dozens of studies, we know everything we're going to know about the death toll of the Covid pandemic.
Contrary to the conspiracy theorists and denialists, examination of excess deaths shows that, if anything, the U.S. undercounted COVID-19 deaths during the pandemic, although it was probably not that big and got smaller as the pandemic went on. On the other hand, I've always been skeptical that India had fewer people die from the disease than the U.S. The official number is 533,623. The polling data indicates 3.2 million deaths, although it could be as low as 3.1 million or as high as 3.4 million, at least six times higher than the official count. That, I believe. I also believe the actual global death toll is in the range of 16 million to 28.1 million with the most likely figure being 21 million, 3.1 times the total of official deaths. It also puts the death toll at the low end of the range for the 1918-1920 flu epidemic, "17 million to 50 million,[6][7] and possibly as high as 100 million, making it the deadliest pandemic in history." By the way, that last link shows an estimate of 27 million COVID-19 deaths. Yikes!
So you've probably heard by now that a biotech company called Colossal Biosciences has brought dire wolves back form extinction. Or at least.... they SAY they did. We wanted to break down all the science in their claims, and get to the bottom of the dire wolf dilemma before George R. R. Martin adopts all the wolf pups. Here's the truth on de-extinction, de-mystified.
Hosted by: Savannah Geary (they/them)
I'm glad to see Rancho La Brea make an appearance. I spent four years there working on my M.S. thesis in geology, where "I was the first person to identify 33 species from the most famous fossil deposit in North America." I also walked past the wall of dire wolf skulls and a copy of the mural shown in the video on a regular basis. I'm quite familiar with a paleontological perspective on the species. I'm also aware that using a gray wolf as a template has issues; dire wolves are genetically closer to the common ancestor of most jackals than wolves. Finally, Colossal Biosciences' dire wolves don't fit any of the three species concepts for real dire wolves. Darn.
Dire wolves are back-sort of. Colossal Biosciences seems to have resurrected this extinct predator, but it's not quite as simple as that. Joe talks with their scientists to explore the truth, tech, and ethics of "de-extinction."
The scientists from Colossal Biosciences that Joe Hanson interviewed both gave intelligent, well-reasoned answers that make me think and feel that they know what they are doing and understand its place in preserving biodiversity. I just hope people are listening.
What if there is an actual de-extinction hiding just under the surface.
One question that came up in all three videos is "What is a species?" That has to be answered first to say whether Colossal Biosciences actually revived dire wolves and if not, what are they? I didn't expect that debate last month, but here we are. Also, I agree with Hank that the real de-extinction story will be the red wolf.
Did modders at Colossal Biosciences just break the game?
Patrick Lacey finally wrote a description I can use!
Before I leave, other viewers and I responded to Lacey's "Stark white coat" remark. Here are my comments.
"I spent five minutes scrolling through the comments to see if someone else had noticed this. Congratulations, you did, so we can both say, 'We see what you did there.'"
"Yes, he did, so we can say, 'We see what you did there.' These are Game of Thrones dire wolves and George R.R. Martin is one of the authors on Colossal Biosciences paper."
"Until this development, I had never noticed that Game of Thrones has GMO in the correct order — GaMe Of Thrones!"
Enough silliness in the service of science and entertainment. Stay tuned for Flashback Friday.
You may have seen the word "Bluesky" popping up on your social media pages.
It is an alternative platform to Elon Musk's X and the company said it is growing rapidly with users and new sign-ups.
So, what is it and why are so many people reportedly joining?
While BBC's subject line asked about Twitter/X, Bluesky CEO Jay Graber compared herself and her running of Bluesky to Mark Zuckerberg of Meta. I plan on getting to Zuckerberg and Meta's legal fight with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on Flashback Friday, when I finish this series with the blog's year on Instagram and Threads. For a comparison focused on Twitter/X, I turn to Fast Company explaining Why Everyone Is Leaving X for Bluesky!
The breakdown of Bluesky's ascendant year and what they plan to do next.
Today, we will be discussing the virtualization of the public sphere, taking a deeper dive into the rise and fall of social media platforms.
I agree with the findings about why users left Twitter/X for Bluesky, although the numbers show that Bluesky's growth has slowed. That indicates that the answer to BBC News asking "Will Bluesky be able to rival X or Twitter" is no, not any time soon. That's O.K., for reasons I described in CNBC describes 'How Bluesky Grew From A Twitter Side Project To An X Competitor'.
I've grown my followers faster on Bluesky than I ever did on any other platform. It took me 13 years to get to 1,000 followers on Twitter/X. It took me one month on Bluesky. I now have nearly 3,000 followers two-and-one-half months after I joined. That's almost triple the 1,075 friends and 174 followers I have on Facebook, the next largest audience I have on social media, and that took 17 years to achieve. I'm also getting more engagement in the form of likes, reposts, and replies on Bluesky than X, although Facebook still beats both, but not enough link clicks from Bluesky to register, while X ranks in the top five. I'm not deactivating my X account for just that reason; it's still useful.
Six months after I joined Bluesky, I now have more than 6,300 followers. Bluesky's growth may be slowing down, but mine isn't and I'm getting even more engagement there than on Twitter/X, particularly since only post on the latter once a day while I'm consistently active on Bluesky. It doesn't help that 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.
Follow over the jump for the blog's top shares on Bluesky and Twitter/X between March 21, 2024 and March 20, 2025, the 2024-2025 blogging year.
Responding to petitions filed by the Xerces Society, last week the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) announced that the Morrison bumble bee (Bombus morrisoni) and the large marble butterfly (Euchloe ausonides) warrant further consideration for protection under the Endangered Species Act, by issuing a positive 90-day finding for these two species.
Next, Fish and Wildlife will carry out a full review (called a Species Status Assessment) of the two species. Once these are completed, FWS will decide whether or not listing these species as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act is warranted. If listing is warranted, legal protections will go into effect and resources will be directed to recovery.
Morrison bumble bees have disappeared in many places
The Morrison bumble bee historically occurred across much of the western U.S., and can be found in grasslands, sagebrush steppe, and woodland edges. It has co-evolved with local plants for thousands of years and is a super-pollinator, contributing to the stability of our wildlands and agricultural systems. However, the species has disappeared from much of its range and may have declined by as much as 75%. It faces multiple ongoing threats, including habitat loss and degradation, overgrazing, climate change, pesticides, diseases, and competition with honey bees. The Xerces Society petitioned FWS to protect this bee in 2023.
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These pollinators need federal protection to survive
ESA listings would protect these species by addressing the threats they are facing and ensuring that regulatory mechanisms — which are currently lacking — are in place to protect the species in locations where they are needed most. Federal protection is especially important for the Morrison bumble bee and the large marble butterfly because they occur in several states where state wildlife agencies lack the legal authority to protect insects and are unable to address the conservation needs of these species.
We lose something precious when a species goes extinct. Morrison bumble bees and large marble butterflies are integral parts of the unique landscapes that make the western U.S. so special. Our world would be a duller place without the pleasure of watching this vibrant butterfly and bright yellow bee tumble from flower to flower.
Even if these proposals go into effect, all may not be lost. The Nevada Independent published Bees, butterflies and beetles — bill would allow Nevada to manage certain invertebrates: "If passed, the state's department of wildlife would gain permission to protect 66 of Nevada’s most imperiled insects." The article specifically mentions the Morrison bumble bee. May it pass, too.
