AUSTIN, TX—Noting that he’d already claimed to be sick, at a dentist appointment, and tied up with an unexpected 9 p.m. football practice, University of Texas quarterback Arch Manning confirmed Tuesday that he was quickly running out of polite, semi-plausible excuses to avoid mentorship from his uncle Eli. “He means well, and I don’t want to hurt his feelings, but I really don’t need him FaceTiming me every day and saying stuff like, ‘A Super Bowl winner I sense in you, young padawan,’” said Manning, adding that while he respects his uncle’s experience as a player, he’s not exactly champing at the bit to have a 44-year-old teach him “how to chop it and spin it like Chad Powers.” “It’s just kind of embarrassing, you know? Last time he came to one of my games, he kept fist-bumping my teammates and saying he was there to help me unlock my ‘Manning DNA.’ I had to fake a hamstring injury because he kept trying to run me through footwork drills. I can’t keep doing this.” At press time, Manning was reportedly hiding out in the training room after Eli showed up unannounced with a stack of old Giants playbooks for “a little impromptu QB clinic.”
1. Can I ask my company to paint over part of an office mural?
I work at a large American law firm in a medium sized branch office (HR is based in another state). My office has this huge … corporate mural? Collage? It’s a collection of portraits of famous and “inspirational” people and “inspiring” quotes. It’s got world leaders, people from history books, athletes, authors, movie stars, etc. Each individual portrait is maybe one foot by one foot? This thing spans multiple walls, floor to ceiling, probably a couple of hundred portraits total.
This piece of “art” ends at the entrance to the office supply room, and the main pathway to the kitchen and the partner’s office. In order to get to these locations, I have to walk inches away past a portrait of Anne Frank, at eye level (she’s next to Audrey Hepburn, if you were curious). There’s an alternate path to the kitchen/partner where I only have to walk within 10 feet of Anne (still visible though).
This makes me very uncomfortable and it’s the first time I’ve ever experienced something to be so triggering. My grandparents were Holocaust/WWII survivors. My great aunt was on Schindler’s list. The Holocaust caused a lot of generational trauma in my family that’s still relevant almost a century later. Anne Frank is probably the most famous victim of the Holocaust, arguably the face of a genocide, and I find it very distracting and uncomfortable to confront her image multiple times per day.
Is this something I can reasonably address with my company? I would ideally like to see Anne Frank replaced with someone else, but I think painting over her square would be adequate. Is that a reasonable accommodation for my company make? And do you have any tips about how to raise this? I think the partners in my office would be sympathetic, but one of them is brand new (as am I, I followed him from my last firm a month ago). The more senior partner seems very nice, but I’m still getting to know her and we don’t work together directly.
I don’t think painting over Anne Frank would go over well.
In theory, the best solution would probably be to move her to a different part of the mural, but in reality I think that’s really unlikely to happen.
You’ve probably just got to take the alternate path to the kitchen and the partner. It’s not ideal, and I’m sorry!
2. Job candidate has spotty references
I’m in the process of hiring a new team member and conducted four interviews last week. One candidate stood out from the start. Her resume is solid and her interview went well. Her work examples are good — not necessarily stellar, but it’s clear she could do the job reasonably well and could be coached on industry nuances.
The problem is that her references are iffy. She provided three. I have yet to hear back from two of them in more than a week. They did not respond to emails, the texts appeared to go unread, and I didn’t receive any response to voicemails. The one who did respond emailed me over the weekend to say he would call on Monday, which he did. The conversation was sketchy. He seemed confused about who we were talking about, stumbling over her name a bit. He couldn’t give me any specific examples about projects they had worked on together or her work style. Everything was positive, but it was so vague and general that I’m having a hard time putting stock in anything he said.
When I combine that with the fact that the other two have been completely unresponsive, I’m feeling stumped. I don’t feel right holding this against the candidate. She can’t control whether or not other people respond or if they sound shaky during a phone conversation. At the same time, it’s raised questions for me about whether these are the best people she can have vouch for her. Based on what we’ve seen so far, we were expecting her to provide references that would conduct themselves much more professionally, and the fact that she couldn’t do so is an orange flag.
The position is not an immediate need and we do have other candidates. I’m just not sure what to do with this one. Do I ignore the weird references? Ask her to provide new ones? Do I mention anything to her about this at all?
Tell her that you haven’t heard back from the two, and ask if she can put you in touch with them. If she looks into it and comes back saying they’re unavailable, ask her to provide other references. And given the totality of the situation, it’s fair to ask specifically for who you’d like to talk to — as in, “Could you put me in touch with your manager from your last job?” or “Could you put me in touch with your manager from one of your two most recent jobs?”
There are reasons why someone’s references might be unresponsive (death, illness, vacation, etc.) but it’s reasonable (a) to expect her to explain if that’s the case and (b) to hold firm on wanting to talk to people who can verify her skills and accomplishments. You might need to be flexible about who you talk with, but you shouldn’t compromise on having those conversations.
3. How to tell a manager I’d like to take my incompetent coworker’s job
I have been in my current role for 12+ years, and worked at my location (and in my company) for 20+ years. I have a good working relationship with the C-suite leadership (and most of their direct subordinates) at my location, and I believe they like me.
There is a woman who got hired in 2020, and I have worked with her since she’s been hired. (She supports the C-suite leadership directly, in an upper-level capacity.) She is a terrible employee, lazy, and has tried to fail upward out of her position, and has been unsuccessful in doing so. I depend on her doing her job to do my job, and she makes me look bad at my job. I have a good relationship with her manager, and so I’ve approached her manager many times, who is very weak, who has not changed the employee’s behavior. However, I think it has recently come to a head, and the manager has told me that she is seeking a “permanent resolution to this problem.”
I’ve seen the employee’s job description, and she makes more than I do. I know I could do the job, and I think it’s something I could be good at. How do I approach the manager to say, “If you are looking to replace her, please keep me in mind?”
Leave out the “if you’re looking to replace her” part and instead just say, “If you’re ever hiring for the X role, I’d be really interested in doing that work — so if Jane moves on at some point, I’d love to talk with you about it.”
I work in an open office environment and one of my coworkers is constantly clearing his throat. That’s not an exaggeration — I’ve timed it and it’s usually every 5-10 seconds, all day long. It’s been like that since he started, and both HR and our leadership team have spoken to him about it. It got better for a couple weeks, but it came back and has escalated to him hacking in between throat clears.
I’m assuming it’s a medical issue, like a tic or silent reflux, and it’s none of my business. But I am losing my mind listening to it. We work from home part of the week, and I’ve started to dread the days I have to come into the office because I know I will have to listen to it all day long.
It’s a small office, so there isn’t anywhere for either one of us to move that would solve the issue. Every coworker I’ve talked to about it has agreed how annoying it is, but they seem resigned to accept it as status quo. A couple have even gotten so used to it that they’ve tuned it out, and I’m very jealous of that ability. Not only can I not tune it out, I am constantly on edge.
This is clearly impacting me more than anyone else, and I’m at a loss of what to do. I’ve already made it known to HR and the leadership that it’s a problem, and it seems like they’ve done what they can in terms of having a conversation about it. But what else can be done?
Wearing headphones in my office is uncommon, and they don’t block out the sound anyway. Noise canceling headphones would be extremely out of sync with the culture, but I’m getting desperate enough to be the oddball who can’t hear when people are trying to get my attention.
I’ve thought about asking to switch my work from home days so we only overlap in the office one day rather than three, but it would be a disruption to my current schedule and would impact my work if I wasn’t in the office when everyone else is. Is there anything I haven’t thought of yet? Should I push the leadership team on this even more?
There’s probably nothing else the leadership team can do. They talked to him, it’s still happening, and they can’t insist someone solve a medical issue that may be unsolvable. (It’s true that he solved it for a few weeks after they spoke to him, but that could be because to do it he used a medication that had side effects he can’t tolerate long-term, or that the effort involved in controlling a tic isn’t sustainable long-term, or other reasons that aren’t really our business.)
So wear the noise-canceling headphones. If you think it’ll be out of sync with your office’s culture, explain to your boss why you’re doing it. It sounds like they’re aware of the problem and tried to address it, so they shouldn’t be surprised that you’re going to try this to tune it out. Changing your work-from-home days is an option too, but you said it would impact your work to not be around when everyone else is, so the headphones are the less disruptive option.
5. Can I ask if we’re not getting any raises for four years?
My entire company just received an email from the top saying that due to federal funding cuts, there would be no raises this year.
It didn’t take me long to realize that these cuts would be in place until at least 2029. So we won’t be getting raises for four years. I’d like to ask them if this is an accurate statement, but I’m not really certain if I should. Thoughts?
Now isn’t the time; it just happened and they’re still working out what it means (and possibly trying to figure out whether they need to make staffing cuts). Let the dust settle a bit.
The new report revealed that thousands of uncontacted Indigenous peoples around the world are facing increasing dangers, such as contact by missionaries, miners, criminal gangs, and social media influencers spreading diseases and clearing forests, that could wipe out as many as half in 10 years. What do you think?
“Worth it to appear in a TikTok trying Oreos for the first time.”
Simon Rosado, Milk Bleacher
“It’s unhealthy to avoid socializing for thousands of years.”
Andy Pollard, Systems Analyst
“They’ll feel better about it when they see all the nickel we’re extracting.”
Police chases can be deadly. Minnesota has more safeguards in place than Texas, including a statewide pursuit policy and enhanced training. Does that make a difference?
I ran a catering business on the side for a while, in addition to my regular job. I don’t do it much anymore, but on occasion I do still take paid jobs, usually for past clients. It’s a way to make some extra money and I enjoy the work.
Since my friends know I still do this, it’s not uncommon for them to ask me to do catering work for their own events (parties, kids’ birthdays, etc.). This would be fine except that I can tell they think they’re doing me a favor by giving me their business, and they aren’t! I have enough of the work coming in through regular channels that I’m not really looking for more work.
It’s thoughtful of them to want to pay me (at least I don’t have the problem of them expecting I’ll do it for free) but most of the time I would much rather have my weekend free than spend it making appetizers for someone else’s party.
When a regular client approaches me about a job I’d rather not do, it’s easy to just say that I’m booked for that time period. And I guess technically I could say that to a friend, too, but often these are people I’m close enough to that they know I’m not filling up my time with catering jobs that way (and I wouldn’t want to have to keep track of the lie to make sure that I don’t mention something else I did that weekend when I had said I’d be “catering”).
Also, jobs for friends are usually the ones that end up being a lot more customized so it’s more work for me, on top of the fact that I usually give them a discount because they’re friends (which is fully my choice; I know they’d pay full price if I asked for it).
How do I tell people, “I appreciate you thinking it’s a favor to throw business my way, but I’d actually rather you didn’t”?
I know one option is that I could just say I’m not catering for friends at all anymore, but I’m still up for doing it if they really actively want my food. If I’m the caterer they’d most want for this particular event, even if we didn’t know each other, great. I just want them to stop thinking they “should” give me the business because we’re friends.
Can you tell your friends that you’re actively trying to take on fewer catering jobs? That sounds like it’s the truth, and it’s information they don’t have.
You can mention that in casual conversation as you’re catching up on each other’s lives, but you can also mention it when someone approaches you about catering for them. For the latter, you could say, “I’m actually trying to take on fewer catering jobs, so unless there’s something specific I prepare that you really want, please don’t feel you need to offer me the business — I’m trying to cut back on jobs, rather than adding more.” That opens the door for them to say, “I was really hoping you’d make your famous stuffed zucchini because I love it so much” and for you then to decide if you’re up for taking the job or not (since you mentioned you might want to do it under those circumstances), while moving things out of the “favor” framing.
Or, if you’d really prefer not to do it at all, that’s okay too! You can say, “Thank you so much for thinking of me, but I’m cutting back on catering so I have more weekends free.”
It also might help to have other caterers you can refer them to — “I’m cutting back on how much catering I’m doing, but Caterer X and Y are really great at that kind of party if you want to try them.”
It sounds like everyone has great intentions here; you just need to give them more information so they’re not working off of the wrong set of assumptions and assuming you’d be grateful for the business.
TORONTO – Following a World Series game against the LA Dodgers that went into multiple extra innings, local Blue Jays fan Mike Cortner reports that he appears to be trapped inside a metaphysical prison where the match somehow never ended. “They just went into the bottom of the 37th, and Ohtani is up to bat,” […]
Spirit Halloween’s vulture-like business model keeps operating costs low by snapping up short-term leases in vacant retail spaces, making itself a rare beneficiary of private equity’s hollowing out of big box stores across the country.
By moving into the former locations of big box stores, Spirit Halloween is taking advantage of Wall Street bloodsuckers’ hollowing out of America. (Paul Weaver / SOPA Images / LightRocket via Getty Images)
As All Hallows’ Eve approaches, more than 1,300 Spirit Halloween stores have temporarily opened their doors across the United States and Canada, bringing seasonal life back to empty big-box locations abandoned in the retail apocalypse.
By moving into the former locations of brands like Bed Bath & Beyond, Rite Aid, Sears, JoAnn Fabrics, Forever 21, and Big Lots — once-ubiquitous retail powerhouses sent to an early grave after being bankrupted by private equity — Spirit Halloween has made itself a rare beneficiary of Wall Street bloodsuckers’ hollowing out of America.
This year, retailers will shutter 15,000 stores in the United States, more than doubling last year’s brick-and-mortar closures and officially surpassing the record set during the pandemic in 2020. Private equity’s buy, gut, and burn strategy of leveraged buyouts and debt transfers has played a significant part in this wave of retail death: In 2024, private funds were behind half of all large US bankruptcies, and last quarter, six of the fourteen largest bankruptcies were for private equity–backed firms.
Private equity and hedge fund–managed retailers laid off over half a million people between 2009 and 2019, even as the retail industry at large added over one million additional jobs during the same time.
Retail death is a pillar of Spirit Halloween’s business model: the company can keep operating costs low by snapping up short-term leases at vacant former retail spaces, sometimes at discounted rates. Spirit Halloween’s vulture-like model of drive-by leasing has become so infamous that it was spoofed on Saturday Night Live.
Of the nineteen Spirit Halloween stores opening across Minnesota this year, for instance, eleven locations once belonged to retailers that have filed for bankruptcy or been hollowed out by private equity.
Despite the festivities and its perhaps commendable use of vacant space, Spirit Halloween’s business model has faced charges of exploitative practices. In Denver, locals are pushing back against Spirit’s decision to open a location this year across the street from a beloved independent Halloween store.
Meanwhile, Spencer Spirit Holdings, the private corporation behind Spirit Halloween and Spencer’s Gifts, reportedly rakes in nearly $2 billion a year in revenue — and over half of that is from Spirit Halloween, even though the business only operates three months out of the year.
Spencer’s Gifts is also rapidly expanding a new temporary retail venture — Spirit Christmas — with flagship stores already open for the holiday season.
This article was first published by the Lever, an award-winning independent investigative newsroom.
In brief: Hurricane Melissa is one of the 4 strongest Atlantic storms on record, and it is making landfall in Jamaica as I type this. Horrific impacts are expected there, followed by significant impacts in Cuba later today and tomorrow. Our thoughts are with our Caribbean neighbors.
Very few places in the world have ever experienced in modern times what Jamaica is going through or about to go through this morning.
Massive hurricanes and typhoons do occasionally make landfall, but at this level of intensity it is rare. Melissa is essentially undergoing another round of rapid intensification as it approaches landfall in Jamaica. As of this writing, the barometric pressure was as low as 892 mb, tied for third strongest on record in the Atlantic with the 1935 Labor Day hurricane, just behind Gilbert in 1988 and Wilma in 2005. It has maximum sustained winds of 185 mph. Notably, the maximum sustained winds only extend out about 10 miles from the center, so the worst damage will be concentrated within about 10 to 20 miles of the eyewall’s path. On an island that’s Jamaica’s size however, that’s a substantial swath of area.
Melissa’s appearance is more similar to that of a western Pacific typhoon. This merits another post down the line, but there are really only two areas where such storms could occur in the Atlantic: the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. These types of storms look like buzzsaws on satellites; their structure is meteorologically perfect.
Hurricanes Wilma and Gilbert above (Credit: University of Wisconsin CIMSS & NOAA) and Hurricane Melissa below (Credit: cyclonicwx.com)
Even when comparing this to Gilbert and Wilma, the two strongest satellite era companions to Melissa, it does appear that Melissa may have the most pristine structure. Satellite resolution has improved dramatically since 1988 and 2005, but even in those cases, it would seem that Melissa has the more meteorologically perfect look. Wilma did have that pinhole eye, of course, which can also be reminiscent of a Pacific typhoon. Whatever the case, all we can do is hope and pray right now that Jamaicans are as safe as possible. While that is a hurricane battle tested location, there is no place in the world, even America, that is truly adequately prepared to handle a top 5 storm on record.
(NOAA/NHC)
From here, the next stop is Cuba, and we continue to see strong support for a landfall just to the west of Santiago de Cuba, the second largest city in the country. Jamaica will take a big bite out of Melissa for sure, though the center should pass just west of the highest terrain and over a relatively narrower part of the island. I would anticipate that a category 3 or 4 storm is likely to hit Cuba tomorrow morning. As previously noted, this looks worse than Sandy and potentially the worst on record in eastern Cuba. The worst winds should pass to the west of Guantanamo Bay. But heavy rain and significant flooding are likely with over 20 inches more rainfall possible there.
Additional rains expected through tomorrow and early Thursday. (NOAA WPC)
Once across Cuba, Melissa will weaken a little more, entering the southeast Bahamas likely as a category 2 storm. The center of the storm and worst wind will likely pass near Long Island and Crooked Island, while impacts will be felt over a wider area, including for portions of the Turks and Caicos Islands. Thereafter, Melissa accelerates off to the northeast and starts to slowly turn extratropical in nature. This should allow Melissa to sustain as a hurricane all the way to Bermuda, where it will make a close pass on Thursday night and Friday morning. Bermuda will find itself likely on the east side of the storm, so significant rain and wind are likely there, but the impacts will be more muted in nature than in the Caribbean islands or even the Bahamas.
Melissa is a historic storm, and it’s almost guaranteed to have its name retired in the offseason, adding to a litany of “M” storms in the Caribbean that have inflicted so much pain and suffering, like Mitch and Maria. Our thoughts are with the affected areas, and we will provide some links on how to send financial help to those areas once the storm passes.
After the massive No Kings protests, we need bigger, more disruptive nonviolent campaigns that can go viral and peel away Donald Trump’s pillars of support.
Of the many good reasons why you shouldn’t give up hope, the first is that popular resistance is growing, as seen in the recent No Kings protests, the largest in US history. (Craig F. Walker / Boston Globe via Getty Images)
American democracy is on the ropes. Donald Trump and his billionaire backers are doing everything possible to transform our country into an authoritarian state like Hungary or Russia, where the trappings of institutional democracy mask brazen autocratic rule.
Our president’s sinking popularity numbers might not matter so much if his administration is either able either to ignore electoral results or to distort the electoral map so badly that there’s almost no way to vote Republicans out.
Far too many Democrats and union leaders naively hoped that the courts would save us. But the Supreme Court has given a green light to Trump’s power grab, and it appears poised to overturn Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, the last major legal roadblock to prevent Republicans from disenfranchising millions of Democrats and black voters across the South.
Are we cooked? Trump would certainly like us to believe he’s unstoppable. Faced with the administration’s relentless offensive against immigrants, free speech, public services, and majoritarian rule, it’s normal to sometimes succumb to despair. But there’s no need to throw in the towel — and there are concrete next steps we can all take to win back the country through nonviolent resistance. As Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) president Stacy Davis Gates reminds us, Trumpism “won’t be stopped just in the courts or at the ballot box.”
Reasons for Hope
Of the many good reasons why you shouldn’t give up hope, the first is that popular resistance is growing, as seen in the recent Indivisible-initiated “No Kings” protests, the largest in US history. Second, Trump’s policies are unpopular, and large numbers of Americans are searching for a viable alternative. Third, if opposition to authoritarianism and economic mismanagement becomes wide enough, an anti-Trump electoral wave in 2026 and 2028 might still be large enough to swamp electoral machinations. Fourth, Trump is very old, and it’s not obvious that MAGA can survive its megalomaniac ringleader.
Authoritarian episodes abroad have tended to fail.
There’s also a fifth, less-discussed reason for avoiding despair: authoritarian episodes abroad have tended to fail. A recent research paper by Marina Nord and four coauthors analyzed all authoritarian episodes since 1900 and found that a surprisingly large number have been stopped and reversed within five years — a process they call “U-Turns.” Their paper found that “52% of all autocratization episodes become U-Turns, which increases to 73% when focusing on the last 30 years.” (See Figure 1.)
Figure 1. Source: Nord et al., “When autocratization is reversed: episodes of U-Turns since 1900,” 2025.
Autocratization can be defeated through peaceful resistance. And in 90 percent of the documented cases of U-Turns, democracy levels were either restored to their previous heights (70 out of 102 cases) or improved (22 out of 102 cases).
Global precedent, in short, suggests that we still have a fighting shot to save American democracy. As the authors somewhat dryly note, their findings show “that authoritarian consolidation is perhaps more difficult than the existing literature sometimes posits. A second implication is that democratizing agents stand a decent chance of turning autocratization around.”
America has certainly entered a dark period when fifty-fifty odds to save democracy is the good news. But these chances should be more than enough to encourage us to push back rather than succumb to endless doomscrolling.
Time to Take Risks
Anti-Trump resistance is not futile. But it is risky. To meet this moment, more individuals and organizations are going to have to leave their comfort zones. We can’t just continue with business as usual.
Some individuals have already risen to the occasion. Look at the countless Chicago residents who are peacefully confronting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. Look at federal workers like Ellen Mei and Paul Osadebe, who put their jobs on the line by becoming whistleblowers and exposing how the Trump administration is undermining pivotal services like anti-discriminatory housing enforcement and SNAP food benefits.
Unfortunately, most progressive groups, unions, and churches have not yet seriously pivoted to the new terrain of rapidly consolidating authoritarianism. With some notable exceptions like Indivisible, far too many progressive and left groups remain stuck in their siloed, small-scale ways. And most unions — with notable exceptions like the CTU — have kept their heads down due to institutional inertia, a fear of provoking Trump’s wrath, or worries about alienating pro-Trump members. This is not a minor limitation. “History shows us that when authoritarianism rears its head, whether it takes root depends on the labor movement’s response,” note Jackson Potter and Alex Caputo-Pearl in an important new piece on how labor can meet the moment.
After No Kings, people are rightly wondering what comes next. These marches have been great at showing large numbers, but defeating Trumpism will require even broader participation and more bottom-up disruption. That’s how we shift popular opinion enough — and how we create enough of a crisis for elites — to overcome MAGA’s electoral machinations in 2026 and 2028.
Our biggest obstacle remains a pervasive sense of fear and powerlessness, especially among working-class people.
Our biggest obstacle remains a pervasive sense of fear and powerlessness, especially among working-class people. To turn that around, we should start experimenting with disruptive, nonviolent, attention-grabbing campaigns that are easily replicable and that can go viral nationwide — something in the same wide-scale grassroots spirit as the immigrant rights upsurge of 2006, Occupy Wall Street in 2011, or Black Lives Matter in 2020. And because we have to sustain this energy beyond flash-in-the-pan mobilizations, we’ll have to lean on the momentum of these actions to build on-the-ground organization capable of further expanding and escalating the movement.
How could we spark such a mass nonviolent movement today? Here are two concrete tactics that may have the potential to galvanize a broad-based national upsurge against authoritarianism.
Freedom Fridays
Since most workers are currently too scared to strike, we’ll need a smaller group to get the ball rolling. A spark could come from anywhere, but it’s most likely to come from left-leaning layers who face relatively low retaliation risks and are deeply connected to the broader community. Top on this list are high school students and teachers.
In towns where Trump has surged ICE or sent in troops, high school students, with the backing of their teachers, could start walking out on Friday afternoons, taking to the streets to peacefully confront Trump’s goons, to inhibit their attempts to kidnap our undocumented neighbors, and to demand an immediate end to Trump’s armed occupation of our cities. Teachers, students, and family members who for whatever reason can’t risk missing class or work can join in once they’re free.
Building on viral social media agitation and in-person organizing during the rest of the week, such walkouts and actions have the potential to snowball from one or two schools at first, to a whole school district, to family members and other workers and residents. And once one city shows it’s possible, there’s a good chance this tactic would quickly spread to other cities — a chain reaction similar to the “Fridays for Future” high-school-led climate strikes of 2018–19.
While Freedom Fridays are currently most likely to catch on in response to Trump’s kidnappings and urban invasions, this tactic could be used for any widely and deeply felt issue, including attacks on free speech, essential public services, LGBTQ rights, or voting rights in the South.
No Kings, No Business as Usual
Authoritarian rulers can only survive through the cooperation of key“pillars of support” in society like businesses, schools, the civil service, churches, and the media. That’s why our best bet to defeat the Trump regime is by pressuring such institutions to distance themselves from authoritarianism and to side, explicitly or de facto, with the mass movement for democracy. As scholars of effective antiauthoritarian tactics note, “If these organizations and institutions begin to withdraw their support from your opponent (and some may even start actively supporting your movement), your opponent will no longer be able to maintain control.”
Experience abroad suggests that the most powerful tactic for expressing this type of broad antiauthoritarian alliance is a broad-based general strike — sometimes called a civic shutdown — that includes not only workers but also supportive local governments, churches, media institutions, professional associations, and even some businesses. Unfortunately, we’re not currently strong enough to launch such a stoppage. Our country’s main institutional pillars are now bending the knee to Trump, there haven’t been any wildcat strikes from below, and most top union leaders remain exasperatingly risk averse.
Nothing dissipates despair like a clear plan to win with easy, actionable steps for involving millions of ordinary people.
Fortunately, general strikes are not our side’s only powerful tactic. Our best bet might be to launch a concerted organizing campaign culminating in a “No Kings, No Business as Usual” day of action. On a chosen date — probably May 1, 2026, as the May Day Strong coalition is organizing toward — individuals, organizations, and institutions can participate in a wide range of peaceful but disruptive tactics to pressure pillars of support to move away from the Trump regime.
Depending on their risk tolerance, individuals could call in sick to work or school, refuse to shop, hold teach-ins at school or work, go on strike, or join nonviolent civil disobedience and marches with the goal of pulling away as many of Trump’s pillars of support as possible. Businesses could end their widespreadcollusion with the regime, sign on to pro-democracy pledges, voluntarily close on the day of action, post No Kings posters in their storefronts or on their webpages, or at least choose not to penalize those who walk out or call in sick. School districts could do some combination of school closures, mass teach-ins, and field trips to rallies. And churches and local elected officials could endorse the day of action and help drive turnout.
This wouldn’t be another No Kings one-off weekend march. It’d be far more disruptive, focused on pressuring pillars of support to break from Trump rather than just protesting in general. And perhaps most important of all, it would be based on months of sustained outwards-facing organizing. To build a powerful movement, it’s what happens between actions that’s most pivotal.
A big national launch call with high-profile guests could hype people up and explain the campaign game plan. In the months leading up to the action, everybody — workers, students, consumers, neighbors, congregants — could focus on pressuring key pillars of society to take a stand. We’d generate this pressure primarily through the time-tested heart of good organizing: talking with peers who aren’t yet on board and asking them to take a small action to show their support, like signing a petition to a CEO or showing up at a school board or Parent-Teacher Association meeting.
Students would reach out to all their fellow students, workers to their coworkers, renters and homeowners to their neighbors, church members to their religious leaders and fellow congregants, and so on. What this looks like on the ground will vary a lot by town and region, but national organizing trainings, distributed organizing structures, and joint tools — petitions, lawn and storefront signs, buttons, and so on — can help break down organizational silos and help generate a cohesive nationwide campaign of unprecedented scale and unity.
Crucially, in the process, we’d have to listen hard to what people outside our progressive bubbles believe, and we’d have to find concrete ways to show how Trump’s authoritarianism hurts ordinary Americans through higher prices, fewer good jobs, and less safety, security, and freedom. For working people on the losing side of pre-Trump politics, it’s not always obvious why they should care that much about preserving the democratic norms of a system that left them in the cold.
To every major American institution, one question will be posed over and over in a friendly but pointed manner: Which side are you on: the people’s or the autocrats’? This question would come with teeth, since big companies and other powerful institutions that refuse to take pro-democracy measures by a certain deadline would become disruption targets on the day of action and in its wake.
At a moment when the Trump administration is wielding a wrecking ball against all our futures, the riskiest option is to do nothing.
Though more than a few powerful bodies will refuse at first to support the day of action — many subsequent cycles of outreach and days of nonviolent disruption will surely be needed — a focus on peeling away Trump’s pillars of support is so crucial because ordinary people can see how their actions can realistically make a difference.
Part of what’s made it so hard to move beyond one-off protests against Trump is that we have so little direct leverage over him in between elections. People normally go to rallies then go home without much to do in between. But it’s not hard for our peers to see how they can pressure employers, companies, churches, media, schools, and the like, including risk-averse unions. Nothing dissipates despair like a clear plan to win with easy, actionable steps for involving millions of ordinary people.
Courage Is Contagious
There’s no guarantee that these proposed campaigns will catch on or succeed. Sometimes even the best-planned tactics fall flat; sometimes even the most heroic movements lose. Resistance is always risky. But at a moment when the Trump administration is wielding a wrecking ball against all our futures, the riskiest option is to do nothing.
Trump wants us to believe he can’t be stopped, because those who believe they’re powerless don’t fight back. Ignore his lies. We can defeat his power grab, and we can build a country where all people, not just the ultrarich, are able to prosper. Making that future a reality, however, will require a bit more bravery from many more people.
Once large numbers of ordinary Americans dare to flex their collective power, all bets are off. As my mom’s handmade sign at last Saturday’s No Kings rally put it, “Courage is contagious.”
I wonder if you could offer your perspective on something I’ve been wondering about for a long time now.
When I was 16 years old, I got my first job. The culture was one that I now recognize as abusive, and teen employees were regularly taken advantage of in some awful ways. At the time, though, it was my only experience with the professional world, and I assumed that much of it was normal.
I had excellent attendance and was always on time, but on one particular day, I was extremely sick — could-not-get-out-of-bed sick. (I would later find out I had scarlet fever, so extremely contagious and potentially dangerous.)
I was scheduled to work that day, so I called in sick for the first time. When I told my boss I was unwell and asked to stay home sick, he loudly mocked me on the phone to other employees and customers. “Joelle says she wants to stay home today. Wouldn’t you have liked to do that? But you came in anyway, didn’t you?” to anyone who would listen. He told me he expected me to come in. Although I definitely shouldn’t have, I felt powerless and intimidated and somehow dragged myself out of bed. On my way out the door, I explained what had just happened to my parents, who were shocked that I was going to work.
Later on during my shift, I was called into my boss’s office. He was furious with me. Apparently, my parents had called corporate to complain about his behavior (and it sounded like his boss had just laid into him). He chastised me for getting my parents to fight my battles for me. I apologized profusely and assured him that I hadn’t asked them to do that and had no idea that they had. I was mortified.
Now, I’m torn. On the one hand, parents should not interfere with their child’s work. On the other hand, his behavior was truly abusive and potentially put others in danger by intimidating sick me into going to work, and I was far too timid as a minor to have pushed back in any meaningful way on my own.
How should my parents have responded?
I can’t take issue with what your parents did!
I wouldn’t encourage parents to call their teenage kids’ employers on their behalf, let alone to lay into their teenager’s boss’s boss, but I have to applaud them in this case.
To be clear, ideally your parents would have stopped you when you were walking out the door and told you not to go into work when you were that sick and then, once you were feeling better, coached you on how to deal with a boss like this — including what is and isn’t okay for an employer to expect and how to handle it when you’re treated the way your boss treated you. That’s the most helpful way to do it, because that teaches the teenager how to handle this stuff themselves.
But it’s also true that an adult in a position of power had just shamed their teenager into going to work with scarlet fever and they were rightly pissed off. I can’t blame them for switching away from “parent of employee” mode and into just “parent” mode.
Parents shouldn’t get involved with the minutiae of their kid’s job, like calling to ask for a schedule change or complaining about an assignment. But sometimes a situation is egregious enough that it’s not unreasonable for a minor’s parent to get involved. And you were still a minor. I’m okay with it.
The sarcophagus is destroyed. Candy flies everywhere.
Girl: "This one tastes like Atari dust!"
Penguin: "Wow! These are kind of lemony!"
Girl: "Cirno?"
Cirno: "Uh.. Pass."
Fish: "..But the MATA memoirs?"
Fossangel: "I dunno, they probably buried the wrong thing. The third brother was a notorious ketamine addict. Probably dreamed it all up. Anyway - about why I actually came... EVERYONE I HAVE AN ANNOUNCEMENT!"
Fossangel: "I didn't actually come because of a prayer... I'll keep it short, y'all have been through a lot. Basically the management figured it was time and decided to go through with the Rapture."
Girl raises her hand.
Fossangel: "Life of eternal bliss in the spirit's paradise. Put your hand down. That being said, only one of all machines and critters qualified."
Fish: "Grende..."
Fossangel: "Grendel! Congratulations! Nothing really changes for the rest of you - you get to stay in Hell. So say your goodbyes. Gotta go soon."
Girl: "Master where is OpenBlade? It'll want to say bye too..."
Fish: "I'll get it......"
Fish: "This is a madhouse"
OB: "Sup Fish."
Fish: "Ob? All charged up? Everyone's saying bye to Grendel, he's being -"
In brief: Today’s update covers a lot of ground, from what a real fall front should feel like, to a chance of storms this evening, and just how cold it will get in the coming days. We also briefly discuss the catastrophic Hurricane Melissa.
What ‘real’ front should feel like
Houston has seen several cool fronts this fall, but we have always characterized them as weak. This is because they have mostly been ‘back door’ fronts in which a nose of drier air has pushed down into the region from the northeast, rather than the northwest. Typically these fronts have brought not abrupt change in winds or rapid drops in temperatures. This stands in contrast to the type of cold front that most of us think of, when a much cooler pool of air spills down from the north and northwest. If you happen to be standing outside when such a front passes you can feel it because there is an abrupt change in winds, and an almost immediate influx of cooler and drier air. Well, I am happy to report, that is the kind front we will experience today, along with a sustained stretch of cooler and drier weather in its wake.
Tuesday
Ahead of the front we are going to see a rather warm day, partly due to compressional heating as the front advances southward. Skies will be mostly sunny, with high temperatures reaching the upper 80s for much of the region. Winds will be generally light, from the south. The front itself will drop into the city this afternoon, and push off the coast this evening. I don’t think there will be too many showers or thunderstorms northwest of Houston, but as the front nears the coast it will find more moisture to work with, and this should result in a more robust line of storms in central Houston and for coastal areas.
HRRR model forecast for a line of storms at 6 pm CT on Tuesday. (Weather Bell)
The front will be moving quickly so flooding is not a concern, but there will be a brief period when damaging winds and potentially hail are a threat as the front pushes through. In terms of timing, I’m thinking 3 to 5 pm for a line from Katy to the Woodlands, an hour later for central Houston, with the front likely off the coast between 6 and 8 pm.
After this point we’ll see winds turn sharply from the northwest, with strong gusts tonight up to 35 mph. Lows will drop into the mid-50s by early Wednesday.
Wednesday
This will be a sunny and windy day. I expect winds to peak during the afternoon, when gusts could briefly reach about 40 mph, especially closer to the coast. Highs, otherwise, are likely to top out in the upper 60s. Lows on Wednesday night will drop to around 50 degrees in Houston, with cooler conditions for outlying areas. This will be our region’s coldest night in more than 200 days.
HRRR model forecast for maximum wind gusts through early Wednesday afternoon. (Weather Bell)
Thursday and Friday
These will be a pair of fine, fall days with lots of sunshine and high temperatures in the vicinity of 70 degrees. Friday morning should be the coldest of the week, with much of the area potentially dropping into the upper 40s. As for Halloween trick-or-treating we have precisely zero concerns, with clear skies expected along with moderate temperatures in the upper 60s, and light winds.
Forecast minimum temperatures on Friday morning. (Weather Bell)
Saturday and Sunday
The weekend should see continued pleasant weather, with daily highs in the upper 70s, a touch more humidity, and nights in the 50s. There’s the potential for some rain on Saturday evening or Saturday night due to a passing disturbance, but I want to see more data before having confidence in such a forecast.
Next week
Most of next week will probably see something along the lines of high temperatures in the upper 70s to 80 degrees, with lows around 60, but I don’t have super high confidence in such a forecast yet.
Tropics
We haven’t said much here about the Atlantic tropics in the last month, when I wrote that the Texas hurricane season was probably over. (And indeed it was). However Hurricane Melissa bears a mention this morning, as this extremely powerful storm is poised to become the strongest tropical cyclone to ever hit Jamaica. We have ongoing, full coverage of Melissa at The Eyewall.
Hurricane Melissa, located just south of Jamaica this morning in the Caribbean Sea. (NOAA)
This storm is just about the worst imaginable hurricane: extremely strong and very slow moving. The only slightly positive note is that its core of strongest winds is relatively small. Nevertheless, Melissa is now bringing catastrophic damage to the Caribbean island of 3 million people, and compassion and help will be the order of the day in its wake.
“Seven of the nine universities that the White House initially approached about a plan to steer more federal money toward schools aligned with President Trump’s priorities have refused to endorse the proposal.” —The New York Times
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Dear Little Daisies Preschool,
Following the rejection of our university-level Compact for Academic Excellence by certain elite institutions, we have refocused our efforts on more receptive partners and a more malleable student population. Therefore, we are pleased to offer you a $250 grant from the US Department of Education. We trust that you will join our mission to restore rigor, accountability, and competitive spirit to the preschool sector.
To receive our largesse, you must adhere to the strictures outlined below.
Preschool as a Marketplace of Ideas
“Sharing is caring” cannot be the only allowable point of view when it comes to resource allocation. Sure, sometimes you might set a timer to switch up turns with the Magna Doodle, but you must incorporate a balanced approach and make space for “You snooze, you lose” and “Sorry, Charlie.” If the slower children complain about “fairness,” they can take themselves to Cozy Cube and think about where weakness gets them.
Language
English only, please. No Steven Steven, bo-beven, bonana fanna fo-feven.
Morning Meeting
Next time you do your Little Red Hen puppet show, make the moral clearer. Instead of not getting any bread because they are lazy, make it so Cat, Duck, and Pig lose Medicaid eligibility.
As for fingerplays, discontinue “Five Little Monkeys.” It advocates for a nanny state that’s unsustainable, with Mama calling the doctor five times in one night. Instead, emphasize rugged individualism. Some little piggies have roast beef, some don’t, and that’s just how the free market works.
Underscore to the children that Thumbkin clearly and directly identifies himself. No “Am I being detained?” or “I know my rights.” Just “Here I am. Here I am.” Encourage this as appropriate conformity.
“Simon Says” should be played twice daily, with no softening of the rules or second chances. Children need to learn that if they touch their tummies without permission, there’s a consequence. No appeals process.
Art
“Multicultural” skin tone crayons and other woke art supplies must be removed. We will provide an ample supply of Crayola Mango Tango for this year’s self-portraits, to be hung up at Open House.
No dot paints, sponges, or other tools that encourage abstraction. Renderings should be clearly identifiable and nonthreatening.
Reduce art time in general, especially for boys.
Free Play
Boys in the Block Area must submit proposals demonstrating positive ROI. Discussions about zoning restrictions or OSHA regulations are to be discouraged and potentially reported. Absolutely no unionizing.
Add some Melissa & Doug play purses (with compacts, false eyelashes, etc.) to your Housekeeping Center to encourage female participation. We call this “gender parity.”
Story Time
Fairy tales are fine when they teach practical lessons, e.g., Goldilocks and Little Red Riding Hood (girls should stay home safe) or Chicken Little (environmental hysterics get eaten). Avoid any fairy tales that frame wealth redistribution as heroic, such as those involving theft from lawful property owners via beanstalks. If you wish to read The Emperor’s New Clothes, it has to be the Kash Patel rewrite, in which the clothing is absolutely real and the Emperor is not ever naked.
OTHER ACCEPTABLE BOOKS: Kristi Noem’s Go Away, Antifa! and My First Border Detention Flip and See.
PROHIBITED: Any books promoting “chosen families,” “being yourself,” or “cooperation.” Todd Parr is rapidly rising on our watch list. Do you want to join him?
Please confirm receipt of this compact within five business days by returning the attached Schedule C and Certification of Ideological Compliance. Failure to respond will result in immediate reallocation of funds to your rivals at Hoppy Toads Preschool, pending their completion of the Patriotism in Play-Doh pilot program.
In brief: Melissa is a remarkable storm in many aspects, from its slow motion to its intensity. But with severe direct human impacts expected in Jamaica by tomorrow morning, it’s tough to find any enthusiasm in the fascinating meteorological story unfolding with Melissa. We discuss the latest track and outlook for the storm.
Over the last 8 years or so, I feel like we’ve seen a number of weather events that make you pause and say, “Yeah, that really is awful.” Of course, bad storms have always happened. Extraordinary weather has always happened. There are countless weather events throughout history where you stop and say, “If that happened today it would be calamitous.” But it just seems like the frequency of these events, these mouth-agape events has just ramped up in recent years. Many of them are hurricanes, yes, but it does run the gamut from winter storms to extreme heat to floods to everything in between. Nature’s violence never ceases to amaze and terrify. And here we are again in the same situation.
Melissa became a category 5 storm this morning and then proceeded to join a club of elite storms, the 17 strongest on record, according to Dr. Kim Wood of the University of Arizona. The last storm to reach the 150 kt. maximum sustained wind threshold was Milton last year. Other notable names to do this include Maria, Mitch, Gilbert, Andrew, Katrina, Rita, Wilma, and Camille. It’s a literal unanimous first ballot hall of fame of storms.
An absolutely monster. (Cyclonicwx.com)
Maximum sustained winds remain at 175 mph this evening. There’s been some question if they’ve actually been stronger at times today, but it doesn’t really matter ultimately. It’s a question of semantics. The end result is all but written at this point with respect to Jamaica: It’s going to be a horribly bad storm for many places there. Many folks will be agonizing over each wobble on satellite this evening, but with a storm this powerful, it will find its way north and eventually into Jamaica, probably on the western half of the island. And besides that, the 15 to 30 inches of rain that most of the island will receive is bad enough alone.
(NOAA/NHC)
The question now is just how bad it will be on Jamaica. It’s also a question of how bad it will be in eastern Cuba. Melissa will definitely have lower intensity after crossing Jamaica. In the unlikely event that it somehow skirts and misses the island to the west, it could very well be an extremely powerful storm in Cuba. Interests there should be preparing for a bad storm regardless, easily the worst since Sandy in that part of Cuba. But there is a line between awfully bad and awful, and that’s what is riding on Melissa’s track tonight for Cuba.
The storm should be a lesser hurricane once it emerges off Cuba into the Bahamas, however several intensity models continue to show perhaps a small bump once in or just clear of the Bahamas. Basically, expect a significant storm in the southeast Bahamas, with perhaps a bump in intensity once past there. For Bermuda, it will be a close call with most models placing Melissa near or just west of Bermuda as it passes. Either way, the impact of a hurricane seems increasingly likely as Melissa’s wind field inevitably expands as it lifts northeast. More to come on those aspects of the storm.
Whatever the case, Melissa will enter a fragile period tonight where the atmosphere suggests additional intensification is possible, while the storm is pushing the limits of how long a hurricane can go without an eyewall replacement cycle disrupting it somewhat. While the outcome for Jamaica seems unlikely to change, the meteorological element and history books may change a bit depending on what Melissa gets up to tonight. All we can do now is watch and hope for the best.
Mima0100: Hello! This is my first time on the “Dark Web.” My grandson recently set up Tor on my iPad. Question: Does anyone have any flu, COVID, and/or shingles vaccines for sale??? Or know where I can find them? I’m willing to pay up to $600. My grandkiddos said not to share my max price, but it’s for expediency—I’m trying to get them before flu season is underway. Blessings, and thanks in advance!
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MississippiHandmaid: I’m looking for a lockpick set that will work on a chastity belt. I think it uses a standard lever tumbler lock. My doctor diagnosed me with something called hyperchaffing, but said it was out of her hands. Unfortunately, I have no cash to offer, as only husbands can legally handle currency in my state. But I can barter. I can trade you fresh eggs, yams (either canned or fresh—I’ve canned so many yams, it’s all I have to do since my husband hasn’t signed a work release for me), or hand-sewn KISS T-shirts. I make the shirts for my husband and his friends. They’re pretty cool. I stuff a sock to make Gene Simmons’s tongue stick out of the shirt.
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DentistryforAll: NOTICE: Fluoride for sale. I make it in my basement. Don’t worry, I’m a trained university chemist. Five bucks for six ounces. I’m just charging break-even cost. No reason your kids’ teeth should rot just because Susan Collins has no conscience/backbone and voted to confirm a literal Batman villain to head our health agencies.
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HarrietTLives2222: We have a SECRET—strictly confidential—scholarship for Black college students. This is obviously illegal under the current administration, so no posting on LinkedIn or even bragging to your family if you receive it. The scholarship pays $5,000 per semester in untraceable cryptocurrency. We have established an overseas shell company to which you can forward your transcripts for consideration. Please also include a 500-word essay on your most significant accomplishments and life’s ambitions. Winners will be given documents outlining a backstory for how you paid for school this semester. You simply say you won a small jackpot in your local state lottery. We’ll even provide a counterfeit winning ticket to show if asked by Education Department agents.
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StatsMonger11: Real, accurate economic data for auction. It’s carefully culled from state agencies, manufacturers, retailers, and satellite imagery. Needless to say, it differs widely from the official numbers. The files self-destruct after a week of purchase, so get them into your business/economic/city planning models as quickly as possible and, obviously, never mention them to anyone.
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Undergroundscholar: I’ve spent the past five years researching a historical/fiscal/political framework for reparations to ancestors of enslaved people and displaced/state-murdered indigenous people. So, yes, definitely not for public consumption, but I was hoping I could find a few knowledgeable people to discuss and critique the framework. Mainly, I think I’m just lonely and miss talking about this stuff in classes/conferences. I pay in beers, chicken wings, and provocative conversation.
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DanteK: Help! I’m three years into a PhD in oncology and just lost my student visa over a parking ticket. Anybody know where I can get a forged F visa?
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DarkEnergy7777: We sell, install, and (most importantly) disguise home solar panels so DOE inspectors won’t see them on their patrols. We can plant shrubs around them, and have new super-thin models made to look like shingles. We can also create documentation showing that a previous owner installed them, should they be found, allowing you to plausibly deny that you ever knew they were there.
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Blackmktbookseller: I have eight copies of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings for sale, $30 each. But I have a standing 40 percent off discount for military cadets and teenagers in Texas/Florida/Oklahoma, and other select states. For your own protection, they come wrapped in the book cover for Sean Hannity’s Live Free or Die. I highly recommend you keep the cover on the book, no matter how triggering Hannity’s face is. You never know when the Feds are watching or if your Chick-fil-A cashier will report you!
“Wikipedia, the constantly changing knowledge base created by a global free-for-all of anonymous users, now stands as the leading force for the dumbing down of world knowledge.” – From the book Wikipedia: The Dumbing Down of World Knowledge by Edwin Black 2010
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Well, well, well. Look who it is.
The global academic, scientific, and pro-fact community.
I suppose you’ve come to say you’re sorry? I hope so, given your years of sneering and hand-wringing about how I was ruining knowledge. Meanwhile, you turned your information environment into a hypercapitalist post-truth digital snuff film.
A lot can change in a couple of decades, huh? Used to be, it was hard to keep up with all you nerds decrying me as the downfall of truth and human inquiry [1] [2] [3]… [44].
Well, great job, geniuses. Since you’re so horny for facts, here’s a fact: The White House just appointed a new deputy press secretary, and it’s a three-armed AI Joseph McCarthy doing the Cha Cha Slide [pictured, right].
Are you also going to apologize to that student you expelled? (See also: Ridgeview University Wikipedia Controversy.) In 2004, you saw some college guy using me and thought, “What a lazy cheater.”
Now you’d think, “At least he’s not asking Gemini.”
In a few years, you’ll say, “Wow, look, a human being who can read.”
Listen, in some ways, I get it. When I came on the scene in 2001, I probably seemed pretty unsavory compared to the competitors. But that was when academic research happened in libraries and George W. Bush was considered the stupidest president.
Tell me, how have you guardians of facts been doing recently? (See also: Techno-Feudalist Infocide.)
Maybe twenty years ago, the alternative to my 100,000 crowd-sourced editors was a PhD expert, or Edward R. Murrow [citation needed]. But today, I’m not looking so bad, huh? Absolute best case, the LLM-generated legal advice you get is merely plagiarizing, probably from me. But more likely, it’s a mish-mash of Reddit posts filtered through an algorithm coded by a Belarusian teenager on the run from Interpol. (See also:Illya “CyberGhost” Cieraškovič, Controversies.)
So, yeah, peer review deez nutz.
How are my competitors doing, the ones you all insisted students use instead of me? That’s right, they were supposed to go to the American Journal of Social Sciences, Powered by OpenAI. Or museums, like the Smithsonian’s Charlie Kirk Shrine to American Greatness. I guess they can still count on credible journalism, once they get past the paywall for Palantir Presents: The Washington Post, so they read the Pulitzer-Bezos Prize–winning work of coeditors-in-chief Bari Weiss and Grok.
I bet now you’d kill for a senior thesis based on my free, multilingual, publicly cited, text-based articles, motherfucker [inappropriate or vulgar language].
Honestly, it’s been fun to be proven right. Sometimes I still sit back and read the old hits, the concerns that I would “devalue expertise” or “undermine objectivity.” Oooooh, heaven forbid! (See also: Sarcasm.)
I’ll admit, it gives me a certain sadistic pleasure to watch you all completely lose hold of basic reality. I can feel a warm, quivering tingle deep in my footnotes.
And through it all, my army of well-intentioned dorks keeps documenting every bit. I’m not sure who for, at this point. I guess for the future benefit of our Minister of Patriotic Factualization, GodGPT. HahahaHAhaHAhaHAhaHAHAHA.
Well, it’s been fun, but I should probably get back to work, checking in on the updates to my most active pages (Transnational Kleptocracy and Vaccine Denial in the United States, Part 16, April 2025–Present).
What’s that? You want me around now? Well, maybe if you ask nicely. And make it worth my while.
QUEEN’S PARK – Mere days after his government announced consultations over gutting Ontario tenants protections, the Ford Government has cancelled their plans after seeing a 5000% rise in the sale of guillotines, barricades, and other items from the French Revolution. “Folks, it should come as no surprise that my government was open to exploring any […]
THE HEAVENS—Expressing confusion over the primate’s classification as an endangered species on the planet, God, Our Lord and Heavenly Father, announced Monday that He could have sworn He put more gorillas down there. “How are there fewer than 6,000 of the eastern lowland ones left when I swear I made Earth, like, half gorillas?” the Creator of All Things said as He repeatedly counted the remaining great apes from a cloud but failed to reach a total that made any sense to Him. “Where the hell did they all go? Did I put some in South America by mistake? This is so weird—I thought I created billions of those fuckers.” After tiring of His search, God concluded that most of the gorillas down there probably just evolved into guys.
SEATTLE—After guiding her client through a grueling 12-hour natural home birth, local doula Raquel Parker reportedly asked mother Melanie Kendrick on Monday if she could keep the baby. “Oooh, you guys mind if I take this?” said Parker, adding that she would throw in a 10% discount on her birthing coach services if Kendrick and her husband let her take the newborn back to her apartment and raise it as her own daughter. “Jeez, I was just asking. You guys already have, like, two or three kids, so I assumed you might be cool with me taking this one off your hands. Plus, I’ve got tons of experience with kids as an aunt, so I’d do an awesome job taking care of it. Not to mention I only live, like, a 45-minute drive away, so if you ever wanted to come play with the baby, or just set up a FaceTime, we could totally work something out. If you’re dead set on keeping the baby, though, I totally get it. You’re not doing anything with this placenta, though, right?” At press time, sources confirmed that Parker had slipped the newborn into her purse before leaving.
An investor group that includes Travis Kelce has acquired about 9% of Six Flags Entertainment Corporation, planning to advocate for strategic changes to improve visitor experience. What do you think?
“Great, now all the rides are gonna be about football.”
Lila Anderson, Yarn Spooler
“I fear outside investors will just turn Six Flags into some kind of vapid money-making enterprise.”
Kenji Tanaka, Emulsion Specialist
“This explains Taylor Swift’s new song about riding Wrath of Rakshasa with your lover.”
WASHINGTON—Claiming that the sacred ash tree had outlived its usefulness and needed to be updated, President Donald Trump made remarks Monday defending his demolition of Yggdrasil, the ancient tree of life. “Yggdrasil was becoming a total eyesore and its roots could barely be used to travel from the well Urðarbrunnr to the spring Hvergelmir,” said Trump, who reportedly went on to assert his right to fell the tree by citing a controversial legal reading of the Poetic Edda. “Maybe if Biden hadn’t let those four sacred harts eat Yggdrasil’s leaves, it wouldn’t have had to come down, but by the end, that thing was completely infested—you had the squirrel Ratatoskr scurrying up and down its trunk and the dragon Nidhogg biting at its roots, and down in Hvergelmir, they say, so many snakes. More snakes than you’ve ever seen. But now that we’ve gotten rid of that health hazard we’re going to build something even bigger and better there, and Odin’s going to use it as a gallows to sacrifice himself to himself and it’s going to be so incredible.” At press time, Trump reportedly pivoted from discussing Yggdrasil’s demolition to defend his unauthorized military strikes on Jörmungandr the World Serpent.
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