"These aren’t like some vague hallucinations, these are like three-dimensionally-rendered, highly-detailed figures inhabiting your exterior world."

"And they’re also interacting with objects in the real world — like crawling up chairs and tables or under doorways.... The little people are said to typically like teasing, playing with or harassing the person seeing them.... Everyone knows that this mushroom has this property and can make you see little people, but they’ll continue to eat it anyway, because they’re just not afraid of that effect."

Said University of Utah researcher Colin Domnauer, quoted in "New magic mushroom makes users see tiny ‘gnome’ people — scientists have no idea how it’s doing that" (NY Post).

The mushroom is L. asiatica.

Would you want to see little people running around everywhere?

I remember hearing Joe Rogan talk about this and speculate that the people are somehow really there....

"You know the thing is like is it teaching us something about the human brain or is it allowing you to see something that's actually there all the time?"

"In response to Russia’s war in Ukraine, Central Asian governments have drawn closer together as a bloc, while welcoming Mr. Trump’s transactional approach to foreign policy."

"They are seeking opportunities to reduce their reliance on Moscow, even as they tread lightly so as not to cross the Kremlin or antagonize China. 'For the business relationship, it has never been better,' said Jeff Erlich, the president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Kazakhstan, who has worked in and around the region since the late 1990s. 'In my experience, that is clear.'"

From "Kazakhstan’s Leader Deepens U.S. Ties, Saying Trump Was ‘Sent by Heaven’/The Central Asian nation is aggressively courting President Trump’s Washington to counterbalance its powerful neighbors, Russia and China" (NYT)(gift link, so you can try to figure it out for yourself).

That's one of 2 stories about Kazakhstan at the top of the front page of the NYT right now. The other is: "Trump Cut a Billion-Dollar Mining Deal. His Sons Stand to Profit. An agreement between the U.S. and Kazakhstan has given a group of American investors with ties to the president and the commerce secretary access to one of the world’s largest untapped reserves of tungsten."

"Installing AC simply wasn’t the British thing to do. He’d have to break a stiff-upper-lip mentality and make peace with a trade-off..."

".. that Europeans tend to view as taboo: Air-con accelerates global warming. Still, his mind kept wandering back to a Starbucks he had visited in Los Angeles. 'It was so temperate,' he moaned. 'So beautiful.'... In Europe, where homes tend to be older and climes fairer, residents mainly favored cross-ventilation over machines that leaders cast as pricey spewers of greenhouse gas emissions. 'It’s like living in a sealed jar,' one French columnist complained of AC in 1994. 'It’s unbearable.'"

From "European soccer fans enjoy a brief fling with America’s air-conditioned culture/Despite a deadly heat wave at home, many say they won’t permanently embrace Americans’ electricity-guzzling amenity" (WaPo).

Questions: 1. Who says "air-con"? 2. Wasn't that a movie with Nicolas Cage? 3. What would Americans do if they found themselves wrangling with guilt about global warming whenever they indulged in air conditioning.

Answers: 1. The British. 2. No, it was not. 3. Do what half their compatriots have already done and decide global warming is a hoax.

Bonus question: "'Con Air' won a Golden Raspberry Award in what category? Answer: "Worst Reckless Disregard for Human Life and Public Property."

Sunrise.

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

"And the Democrats aren't fighting back.... They didn't beat us, but they'd be victorious against the Communists."

"But they don't have the courage to do so. So, they're turning Communists themselves, becoming a Communist Party. These are not Social Democrats. These are hardcore godless Communists. They're godless Communists. All communists are godless. They don't believe in God. This is the most serious threat to our country since its existence... 250 years ago...."

"A Terrible Thing Happened to My Family," writes Pete Buttigieg.

At Substack.

I don't think he's accusing Child Protective Services or the police of handling the complaint improperly. Should they have done anything differently? Read the essay carefully and tell me what you think. I believe the answer is no.

The police officer, the CPS professional, and the forensic interviewers who spoke to my children were just following procedure and doing their jobs - admirable jobs that must be incredibly difficult every day, protecting the most vulnerable children from the most horrible threats....

The "terrible thing" was not done by the authorities but only by the anonymous person who made a complaint against him. 

Even though the accusation was absurdly and obviously false, and was promptly rejected by law enforcement, I still worry... about how anyone, even in today’s world, could fail to respect the absolutely fundamental principle that whatever you think about someone in politics, you leave people’s kids out of it.

No matter how well-recognized a principle is, there are always transgressors. There's always some outlier person who's going to go ahead and do the forbidden thing. There's some value in expressing outrage, but to express outrage is to tell people how to be outrageous. 

"The connection between narcissistic personality traits and wanting people in the office full time is not coincidental — it’s causal."

"In one experiment, we got leaders to reflect on the role that a bold, assertive ego played in the success of Steve Jobs as Apple’s chief executive and Larry Ellison as Oracle’s. After participating in that exercise, leaders were more likely to oppose remote work.... [I]ndividual leaders who reject remote work are necessarily egomaniacs.... But our data does show that overall, self-centered leaders tend to struggle with the idea of employees making independent choices about where to work.... Remote work also prevents leaders from basking in the glow of employee reverence.... Instead of rapt attention, they’re met online with boredom, fatigue and interruptions from partners, children and pets.... Sycophantic reassurances from employees just don’t have the same effect if they’re on Slack...."

From "The Secret Reason Bosses Want Everyone Back in the Office, Every Day of the Week" (NYT).

Doesn't seem like much of a "secret"!

I see some potential for turning all these criticisms around into attacks on the employees. They are worse when they are working at home. They are beset with boredom, fatigue and interruptions. It's not that the boss wants them in the office to fawn over him but that he wants them on task and working hard. It's not narcissistic of him to want what they're paid to do.

"How the Reflecting Pool Turned Green.... Bulky 'nanobubbler' machines were carted off ahead of a promotional event for President Trump’s Ultimate Fighting Championship birthday party."

The NYT reports.

The decision to remove the water-treatment systems, which has not previously been reported, was one of several missteps that have plagued Mr. Trump’s $16.4 million renovation of the Reflecting Pool. There have been no-bid contracts, peeling strips of waterproof coating in Mr. Trump’s handpicked shade of “American flag blue,” and even a dead duck floating in the water (though it is not clear if the renovation had anything to do with the duck’s demise). In recent days, the water has become clear again, reflecting the sky and the surrounding monuments. The temporary nanobubblers have been replaced with more discreet, permanent purification systems. Still, the Park Service plans to drain the pool again soon to fix the peeling coating....

A phrase I didn't think I'd ever heard used as a slur turns out to have been slung as slur in the most important movie in the history of this blog.

Remember the post from a few days ago about the lawsuit involving a woman who allegedly bared her chest and said "I bet your little Asian, fish head wife doesn’t have these cannons." I didn't believe anyone would say that, in part because I didn't recognize "fish head" as a standard slur.

But now I see that I had heard it before, because I'd seen the movie "Gran Torino." Twice. In fact, "Gran Torino" is the most important movie in the history of this blog. Click the tag — "Gran Torino" — and start at the bottom, the earliest post, to relive the movie's interweaving with my life story. 

I've updated the old post now, based on this email from a reader: "In the Clint Eastwood Movie Gran Torino, there is a scene where he is invited to party by the girl he has befriended. The party is next door and everyone (except Eastwood) is Hmong. Eastwood makes a reference to them as 'Fish Heads.'"

Here's the scene:

Madonna shows love/"shows love."

Madonna’s jealousy is adorable, she’s basically saying “I’m the queen of pop, but Kylie’s the queen of cute, and I’m just here for the fireworks.” pic.twitter.com/hb9hvRcDUG

— tino.la (@CakeChutikan) June 27, 2026

A quick look.

"Wow"/"And it's great...."

"Justin Franklin and Kevin Akoto do not know exactly how long they have been in the glass box in the middle of Times Square..."

"... surrounded by enormous LED billboards, flashing lights, hotdog stands and flags — and hundreds of faces looking in at them. 'I have no idea what day it is,' says Franklin, 29. 'I stopped counting after ten,' adds Akoto, 26. 'It’s no use trying.' After beating thousands of applicants, Franklin and Akoto were appointed as the television network Fox One’s 'chief World Cup watchers,' each paid $50,000 to watch every single one of the tournament’s 104 matches over 39 days and post social media content about it.... 'It’s a little weird,' says Akoto, turning around on the sofa to look at the crowd of 100 or so people looking back at him. 'But you get used to it. You wave at the crowd, they’ll wave back sometimes. Or they might tell you to sit down because they can’t see the screen. I definitely have more appreciation for zoo and aquarium animals now — why they don’t want to be out all the time.'"

The London Times reports.

JD Vance went on Bill Maher's show, and here's a segment of what was, I think, an excellent interview.

I've watched the whole thing (on HBO), and this isn't the segment I'd choose, but what am I going to do? The show selects the clips to share. Watch this though. JD gets a big laugh. 

Sunrise.

Write about whatever you want in the commetns.

"When he was first indicted, Mr. Bolton sought to frame the case against him as part of a push by the president to misuse the Justice Department to punish his perceived political enemies."

"The case against Mr. Bolton, however, began in the first Trump administration and gained momentum during the Biden administration, as investigators gathered additional evidence. After the guilty plea, Mr. Bolton’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, compared the case to the 2023 indictment of President Trump, which accused him of mishandling classified information by keeping secret documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate after his first term. The judge overseeing the case against Mr. Trump, Aileen M. Cannon, dismissed those charges before it went to trial...."

From "John Bolton, Former Trump Adviser, Pleads Guilty in Classified Information Case/Mr. Bolton admitted to mishandling classified information and could face time in prison, in an inquiry that spanned the Trump and Biden administrations" (NYT).

"If the bare-chested, muscled mixed martial arts fighters of the U.F.C. match that President Trump hosted on Flag Day were the poster guys for MAGA’s image of masculinity..."

"... then the pregnant women of Trump world are one half of their feminine counterparts. Along with the sheath-clad, lip-filled, pageant-haired Mar-a-Lago set, they offer an image of idealized womanhood that gives literal shape to the pronatalist movement. 'It almost feels like a memo went out,' said Jill Filipovic, the host of the 'Week in Women' podcast. 'They have quite intentionally opted to present themselves as, "I am really pregnant, and this is what women were chosen to do," and they are happy to say that both with their looks and their mouths.' If in doubt, simply consider posts on X and Instagram last month from [Katie] Miller, who was then some nine months pregnant. 'In honor of Mother’s Day,' she wrote, 'a reminder that peak feminism is having babies. The most radical thing a woman can do is embrace her biological destiny.' Along with her words came a portrait taken from the side, in which Miller is shown wearing low-slung, unbuttoned jeans and a black sports bra, her dark hair cascading in waves down her back. Like the stretchy and black knit Milly dress with a tulip on the front worn by Usha Vance for a military mothers celebration at the White House, and the form-fitting gowns worn by Leavitt and Miller to the White House Correspondents’ dinner in April, the photograph placed Miller’s rounded stomach front and center, enshrining her pregnancy for all to see...."

The NYT fashion writer Vanessa Friedman inspects the fecund right-wing bodies in "The Politics and Power of the Pregnancy Image/Usha Vance, along with Katie Miller and Karoline Leavitt, shows how much is said by an expectant silhouette, without anyone saying a word" (NYT).

Here's how Katie induced Vanessa to propagate adjectives: