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.
If you’ve heard kids screaming “Six Seven!” in class, online, or even in your nightmares… you're not alone. What started as a random rap lyric morphed into a cursed Gen Alpha meme and has now taken over as a catch-all catch phrase. But what does it mean? In today's strange new video, we unravel the bizarre rise of the 6-7 meme, who is Maverick Trevillian? And why 6-7 has taken over Gen Alpha. Prepare for basketball lore, meme chaos, analog horror, and the terrifying realization that you might just be too old for this.
I don't need this meme to feel old; I am old. I'm planning on retiring at the end of this year. Just the same, I'm looking forward to my younger and goofier students doing this meme to me today for my birthday. It will be less work than liking all the happy birthday wishes on Facebook!
I could write more, but this is the most I've ever written about my birthday on this blog. Musical question for today was shorter. See you tomorrow after I enjoy my meme birthday!
John Oliver discusses how the Trump family’s cryptocurrency ventures have overshadowed their other businesses, how they’ve created massive conflicts of interest for the Trump administration, and what it all has to do with Fartcoin.
Five years ago, Donald "Pervert Hoover" Trump was skeptical, if not downright hostile to cryptocurrency. Three years ago, he was all in. In between, a lot of cryptocurrency money poured into campaigns. I'm sure that helped change a lot of politicians' minds, including Pervert Hoover, but I'm with John; it was mostly what crypto could do for his personal and family fortunes that did the trick. That turned out to be correct. File that under "even a stuck clock is right twice a day."
This reminds me of McMillion$, an examination of an elaborate scam and the scammers behind it. It also shows the fine line between business and the economy on one side and crime and justice on the other. I'm not surprised the two intersected at cryptocurrency.
Or that they intersected the Trump family business, either.
I shouldn't be surprised. As I first remarked in MSNBC examines Project 2025, part 1, "Jailbirds of a feather flock together," especially jailbirds useful to Pervert Hoover.
This video chronicles the Top 12-scoring percussion sections of junior drum & bugle corps hailing from CANADA under the “tick” system (1983 and prior).
Ranking is by average score of DCI Finals Week, in order to take into account all end-of-season performances.
The scope of this video covers only DCI competition, as access to Canadian contest recaps is limited.
I thanked the uploader.
Good work, Tumour! I'm planning on featuring this video for my Canada Day post next week, so thanks for putting it together. Are you going to make a top 12 Canadian corps under the build up system after you finish the top 12 most legendary drumlines series? If so, I'll feature in next year's Canada Day post!
He answered he would, so I expect to feature his second video about Canadian drumlines next year.
Follow over the jump for corps representing the pre-DCI era, and the decades from the 1980s to today.
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.
Watching this trailer reminds me that I showed Chasing Ice to my students last week and this is week is Earth Week, making this a good movie to recommend to my students. Welcome to blogging as professional development. It also makes me think that it's the strongest competitor to Sally. Last year, I thought that the "Hunt for the Oldest DNA" episode of NOVA on PBS had the strongest science of all the nominees, but didn't have the best chance of winning. Surprise, it won! That could happen here.
I’m so happy to report that The Memory of Darkness, Light, and Ice was awarded the a National Emmy for Outstanding Science and Technology documentary!! Our science and film team is beyond ecstatic!! It was a tremendous honor to be amongst so many great documentary filmmakers last night. This award elevates not just the film, but also the voices of the scientists and the documentary’s funder, the National Science Foundation.
As a scientist and filmmaker, my work aims to unify scientific research and share it with the public. This is especially important when the science we urgently need to hear is being attacked. So thank you to the @emmysnatas for this timely and beautiful award!!
Detroit’s population continues to climb, according to new estimates released this week by the U.S. Census Bureau, marking the city’s third consecutive year of growth.
Good news! In fact, such good news that I'm recycling what I wrote two years ago: "This is such good news that it's enough to make me repost ProfessorFarnsworth."
I'm also repeating what I wrote in Across the Globe explains 'How Detroit Went From Good to Bad to Good Again': "Detroit moved up from 29th last year to 26th in U.S. cities by population this year, passing Memphis, Louisville, and Portland. Things are looking up for the Motor City!" Detroit has maintained its position and is catching up to Boston. Should I still be blogging when that happens, I'll be sure to celebrate that event.
New U.S. Census estimates show Chicago’s population increased for the third year in a row, while fast-growing suburbs like Plainfield and Lockport continue to expand. Chicago Tribune reporter Robert McCoppin breaks down what the latest numbers reveal about where people are moving across Chicagoland.
McCoppin listed affordability, taxes, and crime as issues in Chicago. Those same issues apply to Detroit, and Detroit Mayor Mary Sheffield specifically mentioned affordability as a reason people were moving into Detroit. Detroit is also actively engaging in programs to make home ownership more appealing and sustainable; I didn't hear McCoppin or the ChicagoNOW hosts mentioning the City of Chicago doing such things. The Motor City's population loss was a crisis; Chicago's was merely a concern.
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.
Jimmy responds to both Melania and Donald Trump saying he should be fired by ABC over a light roast joke he made on the show three days before The White House Correspondents’ Dinner, and talks rejecting hateful and violent rhetoric, what unfolded on Saturday after the gunman was captured, RFK Jr. leaving his wife Cheryl Hines in the proverbial dust, an attendee who continued to eat his salad while others were taking cover, newspeople who were at the event reporting on the story in tuxedos and ballgowns, Trump arguing that this is why we need his new ballroom more than ever, Trump sitting down for an interview with 60 Minutes, and in honor of King Charles and Queen Camilla arriving at The White House today we present a special King Charles Edition of Lie Witness News.
The NFL Draft is tonight, the Trump administration is reportedly hashing out a deal that would give the U.S. Government up to a 90% stake in Spirit Airlines, Ghislaine Maxwell sent a mysterious USB to the Department of Justice a week after that surprise press conference by Melania Trump, Melania made an appearance at the First Lady’s Luncheon today, Trump is planning to go The White House Correspondents' Dinner for the first time as President, Oz Pearlman the Mentalist is set to be the host, and since there is no comedian this year Jimmy steps in to tell all of the jokes Trump is too scared to hear.
I'm with Kimmel; this is about the age difference between the two and the apparent distaste the First Lady has for her husband. That latter might be an incorrect perception. Based on her reaction, maybe Melania loves him after all.
Jen Psaki shows Donald Trump making the same joke about how much older he is than Melania as the joke Trump and Melania claim is so offensive that Kimmel should be removed from his job.
Why does America have a toxic sea… and how did it get there?
The Salton Sea was once one of California’s most vibrant tourist hotspots, a beach teeming with visitors and wildlife. Today it’s a shrinking, toxic lake at the center of a water crisis impacting 40 million people across the Southwest. What happened?
Shane Campbell-Staton visits the Imperial Valley to examine how a desert transformed into America’s vegetable garden, but at serious environmental and social costs. He meets Alex Jack, a third-generation farmer pioneering water-saving techniques to sustain his family’s farm, and Luis Olmedo, a community advocate fighting for the health and rights of migrant workers who harvest the valley’s crops.
The story of the Salton Sea reveals the harsh realities of scarce water, toxic pollution, and a system that doesn’t protect everyone equally. As new water regulations for the Colorado River loom in 2026, this pivotal moment demands a fresh approach to who controls this precious resource, and how it can be allocated more fairly.
I'm old enough to remember when the Salton Sea was the aquatic playground shown in the video and I find it sad that it is now too polluted to still be that. It's now become a place that fits what I wrote in John Oliver examines the UK elections: "One ofmy favorite sayings that I tell my students is 'no one, or in this case, no place, is completely useless; it can always be used as a bad example.'" It also serves as an example of three of Commoner's Laws, "Everything must go somewhere (There is no away)" for agricultural runoff, "There is no free lunch" for growing winter vegetables, and "Everything is connected to everything else" for water use. "Nature knows best?" We should be so lucky.
Follow over the jump for most read posts featuring clips from Human Footprint during the 15th year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News.
Something unexpected and potentially irreversible is changing Antarctica and scientists finally know why.
Over the past few decades, researchers have tracked the mysterious growth and sharp decline in sea ice in Antarctica. But a few years ago a troubling discovery was made that could upend global ocean circulation, push one species of penguin to extinction, and change our planet’s climate forever.
In this episode of Weathered, Maiya May looks into the role sea ice plays in our global climate, and the threat that its disappearance poses to our natural world.
From emperor penguins, to sea level rise, to the slowing of the AMOC, these seemingly inconsequential chunks of floating ice could hold the key to our survival. And their loss could be a sign that we’ve crossed a tipping point in an already delicate region of our planet.
Climate scientists and oceanographers have been so concerned about the AMOCweakening and collapsing because of the Greenland ice sheet melting that we've ignored the threat to the Global Conveyor Belt current from melting in Antarctica. We can't do that anymore, not once the Antarctic sea ice began to shrink the same way that Arctic sea ice had been for decades. At least Antarctic sea ice growing will no longer be a viable climate change denial talking point. Small favors.
Follow over the jump for the most read and active posts about climate change and extreme weather during the 15th year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News.
John Oliver discusses J.D. Vance, what he really believes, who he is without Donald Trump, and – most importantly – what he looks like without a beard.
Vance's opportunism and misogyny shine right through this satirical biography. As for Hillbilly Elegy, it's one of the rare films that earned both Oscar and Razzie nominations. While I'm not sure about Glenn Close's Razzie nomination (fortunately, she didn't win), I am sure about Worst Screenplay, which earned Vanessa Taylor, but not Vance, a nomination. I think leaving Vance off the nomination was an oversight.
John Oliver certainly had something to say about Hillbilly Elegy, including Glenn Close's Razzie nomination; maybe she did deserve it, although I'm still glad she didn't win. As for Vance's opportunism, that shines through even brighter. On the other hand, different bigotries eclipse his misogyny, especially racism and anti-immigrant sentiment, never mind that Vance's wife Usha is the daughter of Indian immigrants.
Vance would be less erratic (mercurial would be a polite way of saying it) and not driven by Hoover Cleveland's obsessions with tariffs, grifts, and revenge, but he'd be more likely to implement the parts of Project 2025 that Hoover Cleveland hasn't yet. He'd also be more under the influence of Palantir founder Peter Thiel, his pet bad philosopher Curtis Yarvin, and Palantir CEO Alex Karp. They're the sources of what I called "cyberpunk villain ideas straight out of SnowCrash..." Vance can certainly learn new tricks, but I worry about the ones Thiel, Yarvin, and Karp could teach him. They might be worse.
As for Trump AKA Hoover Cleveland repeating the fiction of Haitian immigrants eating pets, it's another example of his vulnerability toconspiracy theories. He still hasn't learned that the voices he's listening to aren't reliable sources. This includes JD Vance.
That hasn't stopped Hoover Harding Cleveland from listening to them.
As for the meme with JD Vance making love to a couch, it reminds me that there is a game called Date Everything! Everything includes a couch named Koa, and there is already a meme of it/him with Vance.
A comedy sketch about Vance wouldn't be complete without a couch joke!
Happy Wayback Wednesday! Yesterday, I told my readers to "Stay tuned to see if I post the first retrospective of the 15th year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News..." I just don't have time to do that today. Instead, I'm looking at another kind of wayback by sharing PBS Eons asking What Killed All These Pterosaurs?
At the Solnhofen formation in Germany, over 500 fossils of 15 pterosaur species have been found. But it might be hiding a dark secret, one that’s been massively distorting our view of who was living and dying there, and why they left so much evidence behind.
I couldn't resist this video, not only because it exemplifies looking way back, but also because it mentioned Rancho La Brea and it promotes a book on topic for the original theme of this blog: The Book: The Ultimate Guide to Rebuilding Civilization: survival & rebuilding strategies revealed. Perfect!
President Trump is using the government shutdown to punish anyone who didn't vote for him, J.D. Vance loves memes so we made a special one just for him, and Stephen Colbert checks in on some well-known people who are dipping their toes in the artificial intelligence pool.
As for the meme with JD Vance making love to a couch, it reminds me that there is a game called Date Everything! Everything includes a couch named Koa, and there is already a meme of it/him with Vance.
Dude, you'd be better off with Betty the bed. She looks more comfortable.
Although the federal government has shut down, President Trump's deportations and troop deployments to American cities will proceed without pause. In Washington, Democratic leaders played Vice President Vance for laughs and told reporters they won't give in to Republican pressure to let healthcare subsidies expire.
The shutdown is revealing what Hoover Cleveland and his administration considers to be essential services. Priorities.
Follow over the jump for more from The Daily Show, Seth Meyers, and Jimmy Kimmel.
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.
John Oliver discusses the recent deportations by the Trump administration, the conditions in the facility people are being sent to abroad, and why even Henry Winkler could be in danger of being expelled from the U.S. Yeah, even national treasure Henry Winkler.
Donald "Hoover Cleveland" Trump insisting that the photoshopped "MS-13" on Kilmar Abrego Garcia's hand is real reminds me of what I've written before, "the voices in his head are not reliable sources. Neither are the real people he listens to." All of them are advocating for "speed, volume, and spectacle" in the service of "the crueltyis the point." All of them, especially Hoover Cleveland, have gotten worse this time around. This includes going after citizens, mistakenly or not, and denying due process to those targeted for deportation. As Oliver said, this is an outrage.
President Trump ousted National Security Advisor Mike Waltz and gave the job to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, officials are hoarding supplies ahead of an expected spike in prices, someone needs to check Attorney General Pam Bondi's math, and Stephen weighs in on a question that is burning up the internet.
First, as I wrote in John Oliver examines RFK Jr. & HHS, "Hoover Cleveland will only do the right thing for the wrong reasons." Instead of firing Waltz for using Signal instead of government email, I'm sure he replaced him with Marco Rubio because he included Editor of the Atlantic Jeffrey Goldberg and let the public know about the chat. Second, nominating Waltz to be Ambassador to the United Nations is a promotion, not a firing. I don't know if he'll be an improvement over Elise Stefanik. Probably not.
I'll get to Pam Bondi later. In the meantime, officials hoarding toilet paper is a bad sign of trouble ahead, even if China has very little to do with toilet paper. Also, I'm a biologist, so I'm supporting what the experts are saying about gorillas, as much fun as 100 men vs. a gorilla sounds.
Seth takes a closer look at turmoil and confusion in Trump's White House after he announced he was moving his scandal-plagued national security adviser to a different job.
"Once a leaker, always a leaker, often a leaker." Yeah, Kegseth, you'd know.
Hoover Cleveland's callous remarks about Christmas presents is another bad economic sign. It's also enough to earn him the nickname "Donnie Two Dolls." Now I'm thinking of Sugar and Spice, Two-Face's girlfriends from Batman Forever.
That may not be as effective as comparing Hoover Cleveland to The Grinch or Marie Antoinette. I'm looking forward to the memes already.
Michael Kosta continues TDS coverage of Trump’s 100th day in office with reports from NewsNation’s town hall, where the president racially slighted Stephen A. Smith, as well as details on Mike Waltz’s exit and subsequent United Nations promotion, and Pam Bondi’s ridiculous claims about fentanyl deaths.
Stupid racism from Hoover Cleveland at a town hall? I'll let Iago respond for me.
Speaking of stupid, Bondi's math on fentanyl rests on very shaky assumptions, and it just gets worse. That doesn't stop him from believing it. As I've said before, "the voices in his head are not reliable sources. Neither are the real people he listens to." That includes Bondi.
Thousands of concerned citizens joined shoulders across America to protest our dear leader and his minions, employees at the FEC will soon be required to report their location every day, Trump headed to Mar-A-Lago today for another three day weekend, Elon is dialing back his DOGE duties to focus on his own disaster of a company, Don Jr is co-founding an exclusive members only club in Washington D.C., all of America’s most prominent religious figures were at the White House today for a “National Day of Prayer,” Dr. Phil claimed that Trump is a man of deep faith, NewsNation had a town hall where Trump talked about how much people who are “Black” love him, a deal was signed with Ukraine for rights to their rare earth minerals, National Security Advisor Michael Waltz is OUT, longtime anchor Steve Doocy made a major announcement this morning on Fox & Friends, and it’s time for our now-beloved tradition, the “Can You Believe What Month it Is” montage for May.
I'm glad to see Jimmy K. report on the May Day protests. All the other late-night hosts missed them in their monologues, but they're on the East Coast. Jimmy is southern California, so he has three more hours to catch up on the news.
NBC News National Political Correspondent Steve Kornacki joins Meet the Press NOW to discuss the early state of play in California's gubernatorial race as former Vice President Kamala Harris weighs a run for governor.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris would have a wide lead over the rest of the field if she were to enter the 2026 race for California governor, according to an Inside California Politics/Emerson College poll released Thursday. April 17, 2025.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris is the runaway front-runner in the California governor’s race – but voters are split on whether the failed 2024 Democratic presidential candidate should even enter the fray.
Harris has the support of 31% of Californians who plan to vote in the Golden State’s June 2026 gubernatorial primary election, according to an Emerson College Polling/Inside California Politics/The Hill survey released Thursday,
But half of likely voters, 50%, believe that the former vice president, California senator and state attorney general should not run for the governorship.
Harris’s closest competitors are former Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.), who only mustered 8% support, and Republican Riverside Sheriff Chad Bianco, who garnered a 4% backing.
Former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, a recent entrant into the race, received 2% support.
That's a really good preview image, but I'm suspicious of the channel itself. I wonder who's behind it.
Follow over the jump for a retrospective of the relevant top post plus the most commented posts between March 21, 2024 and March 20, 2025 for today.
English has unusual linguistic features most other languages don't! These skills really make English unique compared to other languages around the world.
Other languages have unique features that English just doesn't have access to. So, English, why don't you level up your skills with these linguistic tricks from around the world?
Here's Josh R's partial list.
I expressed my gratitude about something Josh R didn't list.
I'm glad you didn't mention gender for nouns or number for articles and adjectives in addition to nouns and verbs. The former can be arbitrary and not necessarily improving understanding and the latter would be redundant.
On the other hand, I think English could use a standard second person plural. Because I live near Detroit, I use y'all, but there are other ways of saying it. What do you use?
Follow over the jump for a retrospective of the relevant top post for today.
President Trump distanced himself from Project 2025’s radical conservative vision on the campaign trail. Now, more than half of his executive orders including some on immigration and DEI policies align with recommendations made in the Heritage Foundation’s blueprint. Trump has even hired multiple key architects and contributors of Project 2025 to be in his administration.
WSJ explores some of the notable ways Trump’s first few months are aligning with Project 2025 – and what that can tell us about his second term.
As for Hoover Cleveland (un)truthing "I have no idea who is behind [Project 2025]," check out MSNBC's list of chapter authors.
All of them have worked for him, so of course he's lying. He's not fooling anyone but himself and his most devoted followers.
...
I leave my readers with the following list Digby embedded in Incomplete Cheat Sheet.
As I've written before, yikes! No wonder it's unpopular!
On the campaign trail, President Trump distanced himself from the writers and content of Project 2025, but just two months into his presidency, much of what was laid out in the sprawling document has been enacted. Atlantic staff writer David Graham, who has written on Project 2025, joins Katy Tur to discuss how far along the Trump administration is in the conservative playbook.
Project 2025, the conservative policy project, became a flashpoint during the presidential campaign. Angelo Carusone of Media Matters studied the 900-page document and spoke with Geoff Bennett for our series, On Democracy, where we hear a range of perspectives on how government should function, what led to this moment in American history and where the country goes next.
Carusone and PBS News host Geoff Bennett also shared this graphic.
That illustrates the problem for Democrats and other resisters; a lot of people get their news and views from podcasts and videos and the overwhelming majority learn right. The stat that 32% of Americans get their news from YouTube now compared to 23% in 2020 shows the effect of the pandemic on Americans' media diet. I resemble that remark, as I'm using YouTube uploads of mainstream media here on my blog instead of watching the newscasts directly. I hope my curation helps direct my readers to good sources of news!
