Random stuff I find interesting and you may not.
Governor Kathy Hochul of New York has a bad case of seller’s remorse. Back in 2022, Hochul built upon the work of her predecessor, Andrew Cuomo, in making the case that Republicans were unwelcome in the Empire State. “Just jump on a bus and head down to Florida where you belong, okay,” Hochul said of … Read more
The Trump administration has issued a 60-day waiver of a federal law that limits the number of ships allowed to carry goods between American ports. The move, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote in a post on Twitter, is meant to “mitigate the short-term disruptions to the oil market” caused by the ongoing war … Read more
14 days after a Muslim terrorist shot up a bar in Austin, 8 days after two Muslim terrorists threw IEDs at an anti-Islamization rally in New York City, 7 days after Muslim terrorists bombed the U.S. embassy in Sweden, 3 days after Muslim terrorists attacked a college in Virginia and a Jewish preschool in Michigan, … Read more
Professor Muhammad Abdou, who until recently taught students at Columbia University, appeared online this week to spread calls for religious-based violence and glorify the murder of Jews. He did so as part of an event at the Union Theological Seminary, an institution associated with Columbia. While the university recently ended Abdou’s teaching, it is important … Read more
Hungry dogs run faster, but Fairfax County’s leadership is so bloated that it can barely move. Contrary to what these overfed “dogs” would have you believe, the county’s problems are not the rest of Virginia’s responsibility. On Tuesday, Kyle McDaniel—an at-large member of the Fairfax County School Board currently embroiled in embezzlement allegations—emailed Fairfax families … Read more
AI-based assistants or “agents” — autonomous programs that have access to the user’s computer, files, online services and can automate virtually any task — are growing in popularity with developers and IT workers. But as so many eyebrow-raising headlines over the past few weeks have shown, these powerful and assertive new tools are rapidly shifting … Read more
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has released propaganda footage of an underground complex it calls “Missile City,” a vast network of tunnels packed with suicide drones and ballistic missiles. The video, complete with a ticking clock and endless rows of Shahed drones and rockets, was released days after the US-Israeli strike that eliminated Supreme … Read more
US President Donald Trump’s decision to launch joint military strikes on Iran with Israel has provoked an epic fury of opposition from parts of his so-called “America First” base, whose talking points have now apparently inspired Iranian officials to echo them. “Mr. Rubio admitted what we all knew: US has entered a war of choice … Read more
The Islamic Republic and its ‘Axis of Resistance’ are victims of their own suicidal lunacy. Not even three years ago, paid goons of the Islamic Republic murdered a 13-year-old British girl. They bashed their way into the room in which she had scrabbled for sanctuary with her mother and sister and shot her to death. … Read more
LEE’S SUMMIT, MO — The dreams of spring were in the air during last weekend, as one local suburban dad gently consoled himself next to his dormant lawnmower in the garage. After a surprisingly mild Saturday, Jonathan Hughes paid a visit to the dark corner of his garage where his lawnmower remained in hibernation for … Read more
On the fourth floor of Selfridges, in London, is the children’s toy department. Most of the vast space is given over to soft toys – mounds of synthetic fur, thousands of little beady eyes – and when I visited last Saturday afternoon the customers were almost all adults. I spent two hours there, standing by … Read more
If we want affordable, accessible, mid-rise construction, we need more elevators. Why are we building so few of them? n July 8, 2024, a guest essay by Stephen Smith on elevator policy was published in The New York Times. Though this may seem like a rather dry topic at first glance, Smith’s essay quickly dispelled … Read more
Notre Dame’s abortion-activist debacle exposes a leadership untethered from the Church it claims to serve. The University of Notre Dame came under fire over the course of the past month for promoting an associate professor known nationally for her radical abortion activism, which, needless to say, is in direct conflict with one of the most … Read more
Councilwoman Tania Fernandes Anderson made history by becoming the first illegal alien Muslim councilwoman in Boston history. Then she made history again by marrying a convicted murderer serving life in prison with no parole. Then she made history yet again by becoming the first illegal alien Muslim councilwoman married to a lifer serving on the … Read more
Wikipedia describes itself as “a free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit,” guided by a “neutral point of view” and built on “verifiable, reliable sources.” It aspires to collect and disseminate “the sum of all human knowledge.” That promise — open, collaborative, neutral — is what gives it authority. It is also what makes the … Read more
In the eighteen months I have been writing a near-weekly column for Catholic Culture, I have not been shy on the topic of Catholic-Jewish relations in the shadow of the Israel-Gaza War. You can read my previous work on the topic here, here, here, here, here, here and here. My emphasis has been that Catholics … Read more
Californians love to brag about how productive and rich they are. San Francisco should be the richest city in the world right now given that most of the AI companies have set up shop within the city limits and the founders/executives of these companies also live within city limits, e.g., Sam Altman (worth nearly $2 … Read more
A weird tic appears in certain critics whenever the president does something particularly loathsome, like dancing on the grave of a critic who was just stabbed to death by his son. They’ll hop onto social media and declare, with great solemnity, that our children and grandchildren will struggle to fathom how we put this man … Read more
U.S. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche joined ABC’s This Week on Sunday to defend or explain a lot of controversies for the Trump administration: the Epstein files release, the events in Minneapolis, etc. He was also asked about possible conflicts of interest between President Donald Trump’s family business and his job. Specifically, Blanche was asked … Read more
“If we stop funding all sports stadiums tomorrow, then the world wouldn’t change hardly at all,” says one economist. This year’s Super Bowl between the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots will feature several interesting story lines: Sam Darnold’s redemption arc, Mike Vrabel’s coaching job, and the Seahawks hoping to avenge themselves for the … Read more
Following USAID cuts, a network of Catholic university-based advocacy groups, staffed by USCCB and Biden-admin alumni, enables the bishops to continue advancing porous border initiatives. For decades, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops played an unmistakably political role in national immigration debates, issuing forceful policy statements, lobbying Congress, running public relations trips to the U.S.-Mexican … Read more
THE SHEER velocity of the wreckage is almost impossible to process. “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom,” Benjamin Franklin wrote. In just the past few weeks, the American president has threatened military action against Denmark, a NATO ally, if it doesn’t surrender Greenland to the United States. He moved to punish a US … Read more
Yesterday, a curious thing happened in a House Committee. Bill and Hillary Clinton were actually held accountable for flouting the law — at least as a preliminary matter. In the House Oversight Committee, Democrats joined Republicans in approving contempt resolutions against the two political figures after they refused to appear to answer questions about their … Read more
MINNEAPOLIS, MN — Following recent developments stemming from political protests and clashes with the federal government across the state, Minnesota announced that it had changed the official state bird to a screaming lesbian. After the recent spate of screaming lesbians, state officials agreed that a change was needed to modernize the official state bird and … Read more
This week’s oral arguments before the Supreme Court, in cases involving state laws that ban boys from girls’ sports, may prove to be a decisive turning point in the surreal political struggle over gender ideology. The battle is not won, but the momentum has shifted. Credit Justice Samuel Alito with the question that fully exposed … Read more