Write about whatever you want in the comments.
“a thin thread and a confusing miasma”
People eat blood around the world in all kinds of ways: from France’s rich, gamy sauces and Spain’s morcilla to Swedish blood pancakes, British black pudding and the chocolate-laced blood sweets of Italy; in sausages and stews throughout Southeast Asia; in the wobbly slabs of blood tofu that are a key element in China’s hot pots and soups. Yet in the United States, most blood from slaughterhouses is processed into animal feed and fertilizer. In this era of nose-to-tail dining, when we pat ourselves on our sustainable backs for every ear, liver or trotter we dare to eat, why do we routinely pour the most vital part of the animal down the drain?
It's not down the drain. It's into animal feed and fertilizer. But maybe there is some wonderful stuff we the white people of America are missing out on.

Said Jon Phillips, a Sonoma County wine manufacturer, quoted in "California winery owner gives hottest take yet on why industry is dying" (NY Post).
Why wouldn't the next generation step up as consumers of wine?“[Boomers] were the people that were really responsible for joining wine clubs and Gen X that came after Boomers just weren’t really into wine to the same level that the Boomers were into wine,” [Phillips] said.
Gen X never wants to do anything. Phillips is waiting for Millennials and Gen Zs to mature into the wine-drinking way of life. I guess I should hope he's disappointed.
"Tonight I defy Trump and his authoritarian project by standing in joyful, radical, peaceful resistance with the Portland Frog Brigade. We answered with frog costumes, dancing, singing and joy when Trump wanted us to cower in fear."
I did think frogs were a right-wing mascot — I'm thinking Pepe the Frog — but it's 10 years since Pepe's heyday and people of all persuasions are entitled to a frog of their own. I think the hippie vibe is a good move — costumes, dancing, singing, joy.
Mr. Clinton had a relationship with Mr. Epstein years before Mr. Epstein’s sex crimes conviction. The former president took four trips on Mr. Epstein’s private jet in 2002 and 2003 and appears in photographs in the files released by the Justice Department. But Mrs. Clinton did not. She has said that she “cannot recall ever speaking to Epstein,” and that she met Ghislaine Maxwell, his longtime associate, only a few times. During the period when Mr. Clinton was building the Clinton Global Initiative and interacting with Mr. Epstein and Ms. Maxwell, Mrs. Clinton “was busy being a U.S. senator,” said Ms. Doyle, who worked for her at the time. “She was not involved.”
I wonder if the members of Congress will be satisfied with the assertion that to be a member of Congress is to be too busy to get into mischief.
Newsom attributes the line —"The first duty in life is that we all strike a pose, and the second duty no one's really figured out" — to Oscar Wilde.Two-faced California Governor Gavin Newsom says that he's been wearing a "mask" for years.
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) February 25, 2026
NEWSOM: "I put a mask on, and at times my face grew into it…"
What a strange, little man. pic.twitter.com/HawZxCDqk6
What do you think?Left: John Roberts after his nomination.
— Adam Cochran (adamscochran.eth) (@adamscochran) February 25, 2026
Right: John Roberts today.
It isn’t the aging that stands out.
You can see the extinguished husk of his soul.
This is a man that knows he sold out, and that the Court of John Roberts will be remembered as a stain on American History. pic.twitter.com/JzNfTCyv2D
"I'm lost on talking about your day for 45 minutes. Reminds me of books where the author spends an entire chapter describing a wall."

Hey, that's a cop car!So Gavin's playing a major role in the normalization of "fuck." That's one of the ways he's like Trump. I'm starting a "Newsom is like Trump" tag. You'll see. But I need to call attention to his use of the word "spare," which we were just talking about, here, 3 days ago, after the father of the gold-medal-winning figure skater said "I spared no money, no time." Compare that to Newsom's "Spare me your fake fucking outrage." "I spared no money" means I held no money back. And "Spare me your fake fucking outrage" means don't give me any of your FFO — hold it all back.You didn’t give a shit about the President of the United States of America posting an ape video of President Obama or calling African nations shitholes — but you’re going to call me racist for talking about my lifelong struggle with dyslexia?
— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) February 23, 2026
Spare me your fake fucking outrage,… https://t.co/ABNZJQJLcj
While building his own remote-control app, Sammy Azdoufal reportedly used an AI coding assistant to help reverse-engineer how the robot communicated with DJI’s remote cloud servers. But he soon discovered that the same credentials that allowed him to see and control his own device also provided access to live camera feeds, microphone audio, maps, and status data from nearly 7,000 other vacuums across 24 countries. The backend security bug effectively exposed an army of internet-connected robots that, in the wrong hands, could have turned into surveillance tools, all without their owners ever knowing. Luckily, Azdoufal chose not to exploit that....
Background: "FBI Director Kash Patel defends partying with U.S. Olympic ice hockey team/Videos of Patel celebrating in Italy went viral Sunday night, prompting criticism and questions about his judgment during a critical time for the FBI" (WaPo)(gift link).For the very concerned media - yes, I love America and was extremely humbled when my friends, the newly minted Gold Medal winners on Team USA, invited me into the locker room to celebrate this historic moment with the boys- Greatest country on earth and greatest sport on earth.…
— Kash Patel (@Kash_Patel) February 23, 2026
Meanwhile: "U.S. women’s hockey team declines Trump’s State of the Union invitation/The players 'were honored to be included and are grateful for the acknowledgement,' according to a team statement that cited previously scheduled commitments" (WaPo).A source sent me this video of FBI Director Kash Patel partying with the US Men's Olympic Hockey team. pic.twitter.com/egjmdhOAF6
— William Turton (@WilliamTurton) February 22, 2026
I’m supposed to say Jane Austen, Sophocles and a Finnish novelist no one’s heard of, but actually the literary dinner party I want to attend already happened. It’s the one mentioned in a recent Times article where Joan Didion refused to give Nora Ephron her recipe for Mexican Chicken. I’d die to see that.

Why focus on the "peek-a-boo"? Yes, there's a slit, but nothing is revealed because there is boot leather hiding the entire leg.
The rare double self-own
— DataRepublican (small r) (@DataRepublican) February 23, 2026
His way of bonding with black ppl is to tell them how stupid he is & that he can’t read.
This means my first read on him was correct. He’s been handed so many things & put in high positions he never earned or deserved.
Do you wanna know the craziest part of this footage that will haunt him forever? He’s literally slowing his speech down & talking in a sporadic cadence.
He’s not just TELLING them that they’re all probably stupid & probably can’t read, he’s LITERALLY SLOW-ING-DOWN-HIS-SPEECH to make them understand the words that are coming out of his mouth!!!! As if they’re children!!!! That means he REALLY BELIEVES they’re slow. He’s not just saying it—he didn’t misspeak!!!! He BELIEVES it!!!!
Do ya love it?!?!!Do ya just love it, black ppl?!????
It reminds me of Jesse Jackson's criticism of Obama: "He is talking down to black people." Obama survived. Obama thrived.
One is surprised to visualize the President of the United States traipsing through the streets of Manhattan, hoping to be incognito, collecting a crowd, and then ditching it by wending through the Waldorf-Astoria and hopping on a motorbus.Jack Hughes processing the emotions of the CLUTCH overtime goal for GOLD! 👏 pic.twitter.com/TAX9U76pbK
— NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) February 22, 2026
Made me think of this:Rep. AOC holds back tears: "If you think I do not understand foreign policy…. the issue is YOU" pic.twitter.com/gdBpDE8jVh
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) February 22, 2026
One of the most meaningful gifts I’ve ever received in my entire life. pic.twitter.com/AfupGNVTpY
— Nicki Minaj (@NICKIMINAJ) February 22, 2026
Two Tennessee Republicans are seeking to impose the death penalty on women who have abortions, requiring the same penalties for women “involved in the homicide of her own unborn child” as defendants charged with homicide.... The bill specifically removes legal protections for pregnant women currently in statute, and classifies harm done to an unborn child as equal to assault on a person "born alive."
It would not apply to “a spontaneous miscarriage,” or to “unintentional death of an unborn child” after “undertaking life-saving procedures” to save the life of the mother and “to save the life of the unborn child.” No other exceptions are specified in the amendment text....
Imagine an oral argument in our current Supreme Court on the question whether the death penalty for abortion is cruel and unusual punishment. I suspect you'll want to say it will never come to that.
Man takes a stroll through New York City..
— American AF 🇺🇸 (@iAnonPatriot) February 22, 2026
This place is absolutely COOKED. 💀💀 pic.twitter.com/Lc9Yx5kPUd
ADDED: "Let’s Talk About RFK Jr.’s Workout Pants/Our health secretary is a jeans guy, and he knows it" (The Atlantic)(gift link).BawitMAHA https://t.co/npFlS2NxTo
— HHS (@HHSGov) February 17, 2026
There was thin snow in the air, but nothing to show for it on the ground. So much for the warnings of 2 to 6 inches. It was a little blustery, and we were the only ones out there, witnessing the nonappearance of the sun and immersed in lively conversation.
From the London Times.Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, a fellow with the measurements of a Disney prince who once behaved, by his own admission, “as a single guy who happened to be mayor” of San Francisco rather than the other way around.
Before the Teddy bear, the toy market did not exist in the sense that it does now. For much of the nineteenth century, dolls were made at home from corn husks, clothing scraps, and the like, or produced from expensive, fragile bisque porcelain and kept high up on shelves to be admired by grownup collectors, not pawed by clumsy kids. Most children had marbles, hoops, balls, and little else. Few people bought toys from stores. The success of the Teddy bear changed that...
The Seoul central district court found that Yoon’s declaration of martial law on 3 December 2024 constituted insurrection, carried out with the intent to disrupt the constitutional order. Judge Jee Kui-youn said the purpose was “to send troops to the national assembly to blockade the assembly hall and arrest key figures, including the assembly speaker and party leaders, thereby preventing lawmakers from gathering to deliberate or vote.” In sentencing Yoon on Thursday, the court pointed to his lack of apology throughout the proceedings, his unjustified refusal to attend hearings, and the massive social costs his actions inflicted on South Korean society....
I'm wondering.
I see that The Economist used AI to analyze the Epstein files, and we got "Inside Epstein's Network/What 1.4m emails reveal about America’s most notorious sex offender":
[A] group of software engineers has turned the PDFs into a format that is easier to analyse. Using Reducto, an AI tool, they have identified which files contained emails; extracted the listed senders, recipients, dates, subjects and message bodies; and posted them on a website called Jmail.world. In total, the group processed 1.4m emails, finishing its work on February 11th. The Economist has collaborated with it to assign each message to unique individuals regardless of spellings or email addresses, and researched the backgrounds of the 500 people who appear most often. We then used a large language model (LLM) to score each email chain on how disturbing its content would be to a typical reader, creating an “alarm index.”...
The equal-time rule hasn’t been vigorously enforced in recent years, reflecting its obsolescence. But as with many outdated business regulations, Congress hasn’t bothered to revoke it.
The Thames Valley Police said in a statement that it had “arrested a man in his sixties from Norfolk on suspicion of misconduct in public office and are carrying out searches at addresses in Berkshire and Norfolk.”
As British law requires, the police did not name the suspect, but the details provided in the police report match what is known about the public misconduct allegations. The police were seen on Thursday morning at the Sandringham Estate in Norfolk, England, where Mr. Mountbatten-Windsor is living.
Well, the Book of Leviticus and Deuteronomy
The law of the jungle and the sea are your only teachers
In the smoke of the twilight on a milk-white steed
Michelangelo indeed could've carved out your features
Resting in the fields, far from the turbulent space
Half asleep near the stars with a small dog licking your face
I know what that is. It's Meade, sending me a Bob Dylan lyric and boldfacing the part about a small dog licking the face of whoever "you" is. Who is this person whose only teachers — law professors — are Leviticus, Deuteronomy, the jungle, and the sea? He rode in on a white horse, he's buff and handsome, and now he's lolling about in a field with a small dog licking his face. Maybe you remember being told that this song, "Jokerman," is about Jesus.
I don't know about that. I see that Dylan said it was something "mystical" that came upon him down there in the Caribbean — something "inspired by these spirits they call jumbis."
I didn't get far into that because Meade texted "What is that famous painting?" And he didn't mean that Dürer painting that is the first image in the "Jokerman" video, that image that just about everyone thinks is Jesus but is the artist himself, Albrecht Dürer:

