Shedding my inner Eeyore for a moment, I, not a gee-whiz space exploration fan, am kinda excited by this: The Roman telescope is about to take planet-hunting to the next level | Nature
Why was I not told?
Shedding my inner Eeyore for a moment, I, not a gee-whiz space exploration fan, am kinda excited by this: The Roman telescope is about to take planet-hunting to the next level | Nature
Why was I not told?
I didn’t really expect to get Social Security Retirement benefits. Reality has exceeded expectation.
But I don’t know how the nation is going to deal with this: The Social Security benefit cliff is here. Washington is struggling to wake up. - POLITICO
Washington giveth, Washington taketh away.
One of my wife’s besties, an 80-year-old Evangelical retired English teacher, has never read C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce. Tomorrow, when they meet for their weekly coffee, we lend her our only paper copy (though I read it often enough to have added a Kindle version).
Whew! Finished Carlos Eire, Reformations: The Early Modern World, 1450-1650. 📚 He’s certainly thorough.
POTUS DJT signs Executive Order purporting to rename Lake Ontario as “Lake America.”
Since I’m not in the Executive branch, I can, and will, utterly ignore it, as I ignored the “Gulf of America” nonsense. I don’t ask “how high” when he says “jump!”
If all the Dolly Parton talk carries over to dominate a third day of the evening news, I’m gonna start getting miffed.
Really?! I assume my doctor will use AI for things that aren’t bog-standard ailments with clear standards of care.
Listening to Michael McDonald, Minute by Minute, on a closed-ear headset. I’ve said for decades that if I could trade my singing voice for a new one, it would be the Michael McDonald Model.
SUNY Broome said InterVarsity Christian Fellowship could have religious beliefs—but could not require the students leading its ministry to actually believe them.
I hope some jaws just dropped, but I’m not making this up.
SUNY Broome will lose ignominiously.
Wow! I had little idea how far this has come!
Scenes From the 2026 World Humanoid Robot Games - The Atlantic
I’m really wearying of the Free Press as it tries to be a serious news source and a tabloid pursuer of ephemera.
It and the Dispatch were born in fairly close proximity. I have subscribed to both since essentially day one.
Peacock streaming TV strategy conference:
How can we make it as unpleasant as possible to watch a WNBA game on our network? I don’t think obnoxious music during time-outs (because we have no advertisers) is enough. Maybe we can stir the trans and race pots, too.
Agree or disagree with the author’s leanings, Silicon Svengali’s Artificial Intelligence at Front Porch Republic is clever.
I don’t want to dwell on Jason Arday, but when Eugene Volokh finds something noteworthy about it, I’ve got to look: “The Cascade of Dysfunction That Helped Doom Jason Arday”.
Neither Arday nor British press law look very good.
For someone who suffers badly from FOMO:
(Thoughts upon seeing a CT piece)
Nine words I never imagined writing: Best of luck to Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison.
I have a public wishlist and several private wishlists on Amazon. One of the private ones is “Political books I probably shouldn’t buy.” It gets, I think, 100% of the political books that are all buzzy, including Regime Change (which tempts me sorely).
The Wabash is at the perfect level: 5 feet above flood stage.
No muddy banks visible, low tree branches hanging into the water, but no flooded roads adjacent.
It dawned on me last week that my adolescent grandchildren’s political awareness is pervasively stained by the current POTUS. They simply have no real memory of the beforetimes.
I tried to give them a little perspective over dinner last Sunday. I wish I could reassure them about what follows.
Still reading Carlos Eire, Reformations 📚, but I’m past the midpoint.
Suffice that my sense of Western Church history is changing.