ProPublica does good work, and I haven’t been reading enough of them lately.

Bookmarking this so that I can return to it and quote the man verbatim when necessary. Gift link.

Good on the publisher, and what a dumb world we live in. Also, “narco terrorist” reminds me of the poli sci class I had where we spent an entire day (week?) talking about the difficulty of clearly defining terrorism. It was mostly an abstract conversation, even with a GWOT backdrop, but I feel like it was preparing me to detect nonsense from this DoD.

There are many terrifying things happening right now, but let’s not forget about this spectacularly dumb thing that is also, somehow, continuing.

Some good observations worth bookmarking.

I’ve been waiting for this one for a while, and I got weak and ceded to Hoopla rather than wait for the TPB to arrive at my local library.

I continue to appreciate this series, and Issue 43 (the real horror is what’s going on in the world right now) is really good, a highlight of the whole thing. I have to admit, though, that it didn’t otherwise feel worth the wait. Maybe I got my expectations too high, or maybe there are just diminishing returns. I’m not giving up on the series, but I feel like it’s uneven.

Technology, efficiency, and growing public and private power—this has Ellul written all over it. Gift link.

Good reporting from the Kernel on a really disappointing set of changes at the university.

Well, this is terrifying.

Good connection of the worrying story about removing anti-ICE apps to bigger problems in tech.

This never occurred to me, but distupting interlibrary loan is a mortal sin.

Truly, we live in the dumbest (and pettiest) timeline.

Depressing read but very well put.

Don’t know if this is better or worse than what I worried about.

Rand Paul continues to be right on this.

The effect on university budgets is among the least objectionable parts of the Big Beautiful Bill, and it’s still devastating.

Wild read. It’s as if the right is an alliance between the most dangerous coddling of Big Tech and the dumbest criticisms of it.

Ugh, this article makes it sound even worse.

What a depressing story.

Joli, ce livre ! On l’a depuis quelques mois, mais on n’a jamais convaincu notre fille de le lire avec nous. En relisant la série Brume, on a découvert qu’un quatrième tome va bientôt sortir, et ma fille a insisté qu’on attende pour lire la troisième, comme ça on ne devrait pas trop attendre pour le quatriême.

Grâce aux taxes douanières que notre cher président impose à tout le monde, il est douteux qu’on puisse faire livrer le nouveau tome de cette série-là, mais en attendant, on a enfin réussi a commencer cette série-ci.

There are many worse things happening in our country right now, but also: this is petty and embarrassing.

Appreciate Josh’s eye for detail here.

Don’t need the NYTimes to say this to recognize that it’s happening, but it’s helpful to have all of these examples gathered in a single place. Gift link.

Very interesting piece.

Thanks to the magic of Bluesky, I came across Paul Musgrave’s essay “Classroom Technology Was a Mistake,” with the subtitle “Hopes that AI will improve higher ed need to reckon with the dashed hopes of the past.” As a whole, I appreciate the essay—I’m sympathetic to Musgrave’s argument, and I couldn’t agree with the subtitle more if I tried. I want to do one of those things, though, where one academic spends too much time quibbling with a minor part of another academic’s argument. In particular, I want to take issue with this part of Musgrave’s essay: