Tuesday, July 07, 2026
Seems Bad
I have no larger point here.
On Tuesday, a safety manager reported that a steel beam was compromised on the 21st floor, according to Buildings Department records. The Fire Department said that two support columns inside the building were buckling, and several upper floors were sagging.
Cliff Jensen, a business agent for the Steamfitters Local 638 Union, said fitters were evacuated after the beams started to bend.
“The north side of that building is crumbling,” he said. “I-beams are bending like cigarettes in there.” The developers and authorities did not say what had caused the damage, and Mr. Jensen’s claim could not be immediately confirmed.
Show Your Papers
And none of us actually have the papers to prove we are citizens, aside from our birth certificates or any subsequent documents that follow from them, like passports. Well, except for naturalized citizens, amusingly.
Take away birthright citizenship and those birth certificates don't prove anything at all! Births would have to be logged with the citizenship of the parents, which would be proven by...
Where's Kash
President Deals
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi says negotiations on a final deal will not begin if threats continue, after US President Donald Trump warned that Washington will reach an agreement with Tehran or “finish the job”.
Fair Play, Belgium
Trump will probably deport them.#GMB: "It was Belgium who had the last laugh, in victory mocking Donald Trumps signature dance move"
— Saul Staniforth (@saulstaniforth.bsky.social) July 7, 2026 at 6:30 AM
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Fingers Pointing
To the extent that it mattered, he was pushed by both "The Center" (Pod Jons, Bulwark) and various figures associated with The Left.
One of those somewhat rare non-factional things, at least not as we normally define these factions.
A certain kind of person loves an ex-military guy cosplaying as Everyman, independent of ideology. A certain kind of person loves absolution for "youthful" sins.
Monday, July 06, 2026
Monday Night
QoL
Millionaire biohacker Bryan Johnson has hit a major obstacle in his yearslong quest to “defeat death.”While his problems aren't necessarily caused by his practices, getting blood transfusions from your son can lead to Transfusion-Associated Graft-Versus-Host Disease which looks very much like autoimmune gastritis.
The 48-year-old tech entrepreneur, who rose to fame for chronicling his extreme health routine curated to reduce his biological age, announced on social media last week that he has been diagnosed with an incurable autoimmune disease.
“My stomach is eating itself,” Johnson wrote in a June 30 post on X. He explained that he has autoimmune gastritis, in which his immune system mistakenly attacks the healthy cells in his stomach lining.
Do You Forget To Ask For It To Be Good
I am still somewhat astounded by the completely lack of competence around Trump's Big Beautiful 250.
How hard is it to hire people to make stuff good? There are a lot of people who know how to make stuff good. Sure I get why certain creatives with public brands might not want to be associated with him, but that doesn't really cover event organizers.
The State Fair idea was pretty good, even! The country is filled with people who know how to do that shit. How did they not manage to hire one of them?
I understand why they fuck lots of things up. I am puzzled by this one. Making it Trump-centric wasn't even close to being the only issue.
At Least The War Is Over
Katz is saying a bit more loudly what the DC Blob has been telling each other for decades and what is conventional wisdom for most journalists.
Israel’s defence minister has claimed that his country assassinated Khamenei for allegedly leading a “plan to destroy” Israel and again threatened to “eliminate” any Iranian leader who tries to promote such actions, according to Israel’s Channel 13.
...
Earlier, Katz said Khamenei’s son and successor, Mojtaba, was “marked for death”, spurring an angry protest from Tehran. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Trump “has committed the US to muzzling its pets in Tel Aviv”, adding, “Any threat against our people and leadership will receive an immediate, powerful response.”
Some of you might remember the era of Iraq War mea culpas, when highly paid big brain pundits were paid lots of money (again) to tell us how their big brains had incomprehensibly led them astray on this issue of minor importance and consequence.
My favorite was from Will Saletan:
Consider the opportunity cost. The problem with dumb war isn't that it's war. The problem is that it costs you the military, economic, and political resources to fight a smart war. Everything Bush wrongly attributed to Iraq turns out to be true of Iran. But we can't confront Iran with the force it probably requires, because we wasted our resources in Iraq. Americans, having been suckered in Iraq, won't accept evidence of Iran's nuclear program. Countries that might have supported us in a strike on Iran won't do so now, since we led them astray. Our coffers have been emptied to pay for the Iraq occupation. Our troops are physically and spiritually exhausted. In the name of strength, Bush has made us weak.
The problem with the Iraq war was that it made it harder for us to attack the real threat - Iran!
He wrote that 18 years ago.
Better Than Winning
The Lis Smith Magic
This was a bit of a Sunday drive-by post, but to flesh out her insiderness. She's an advisor to Majority Democrats, the 178th reboot of the Democratic Leadership Council. She gets quoted regularly by the various ghoulish NYT columnists and political journalist whose goal is to support the centrist ghouls in the Democratic party.
One would think her history with Andrew Cuomo would be disqualifying, but if you are a well-connected centrist Dems who journalists AND donors can't get enough of, this is, of course, not disqualifying. As we saw with the NYC mayoral race, not even Andrew Cuomo was disqualified by his long relationship with Andrew Cuomo.
And, yes, she was a barnacle on McMorrow's campaign ship from the beginning, and most likely (I don't know this) engineered the stunts of questioning whether her doctor opponent was really a doctor, and trying to make Hasan Piker a major campaign issue. Basically the centrist dipshit turn. That's when her polls started plunging.
No one who matters ever asks whether having Lis Smith regularly attach her name to things turns off voters. Certainly repels me! Do I not matter? I'm a harm reduction voter but I ain't gonna lift a finger for any of these assholes otherwise.
Because no one who matters brings it up, they don't think people can come to conclusions all by themselves about such things.
People have heard of Lis Smith and know her history no matter how many times the New York Times tries to rehab her.
Sunday, July 05, 2026
The Lis Smith Magic
If she wasn't buddies with all of them, a journalist could probably do a deep dive into just why Lis Smith keeps getting lucrative work.
State Sen. Mallory McMorrow is expected to drop out of Michigan's competitive U.S. Senate race Sunday afternoon, according to three sources with knowledge of the development who were not authorized to speak publicly about her decision.