9:01 – Mon 13 July 2026 12:01 – Mon 13 July 2026 9:06 – Tue 14 July 2026 12:07 – Tue 14 July 2026 9:05 – Wed 15 July 2026 12:03 – Wed 15 July 2026 9:02 – Thu 16 July 2026 12:06 – Thu 16 July 2026 9:03 – Fri 17 July 2026 12:05 – Fri 17 July 2026 Bonus Follow Me As discussed previously, on Fridays, I present my weekly social media roundups. Note that toots of articles generally include header images from the articles, which I don’t include here unless their creators happen to have released them…

America appears under-policed compared to European countries, which have more police per capita: France has a higher police-to-population ratio than the United States. France averages roughly 330 to 452 police officers per 100,000 residents (depending on whether specialized paramilitary forces like the Gendarmerie are included), whereas the US averages about 210 to 220 sworn officers per 100,000 residents. And shown below: But such apples-to-apples comparisons are non that useful. Police are…

We’re currently waiting for Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin to issue final approval of the historic settlement in the Bartz v, Anthropic copyright infringement lawsuit. (If you need a refresher, my past blog posts include a general overview of the settlement and an April update.) One of the interesting outcomes–so far–has been that while participation by class members has been extraordinarily robust (91.3%, with claims filed for 440,490 of the 482,460 works on the elgible works list), the number…

While “Border Czar” Tom Homan’s latest warning to Democrats who criticize ICE that “there’s still going to be more bloodshed unless they shut their mouth and let ICE enforce the laws that they enacted” is nonsensical, it does highlight many of the ironies of the debate around ICE. First is the total contradiction between Dem words and Dem actions. What these cynical politicians say in public to score political points is the opposite of how they vote. Consistently and hypocritically they fund,…

(Not cicadian, no bugs approved here.) Given that this Sunday's big game is between two Spanish-speaking nations, I'm feeling somewhat copacetic about being forced to rely on Telemundo due to the incompetence of the local Fox station. It's become quite apparent over the last year and a half that we have endemic chemical imbalances at the top of this Administration, ranging from 'roid rage at

I just heard the very sad news of the death at the age of 89 of cricketing legend Sir Garfield (“Garry”) Sobers. He was a superb player, a genuine all-rounder. With the bat he was an extraordinary attacking strokeplayer, being the first to hit six sixes in an over (for his adopted county, Nottinghamshire, against Glamorgan in 1968. When I lived in Nottingham my next door neighbour had many memories of Garry Sobers. He was fond of the nightlife, and also liked to bet on the horses. As a captain…

Watching the Todd Blanche confirmation hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee for his nomination to Attorney General, we are seeing some unusually explicit examples of one of my favorite reasons to hold a confirmation hearing: to get nominees to promise you things in public. You don’t hold hearings to gather information. If you want information, you can get it much easier via phone call and private meetings. If you can’t get it through them, you aren’t getting it via a public hearing. The…

Professor Kees Groenendijk, Radboud University, Emeritus and Professor Elspeth Guild, University of Liverpool Photo credit: Dietmar Rabich / Wikimedia Commons / “Münster, Stadtweinhaus, Beflaggung Ukraine und EU -- 2022 -- 0219” / CC BY-SA 4.0 On 3 March 2022 the EU legislator, for the first time, opened a temporary protection scheme under Directive 2001/55 for those fleeing the Russian invasion of Ukraine. While the Directive limits the duration of any scheme to three years maximum, the EU…

Link: We are not alone, by Adiel Kaplan at the Tow-Knight CenterI was delighted to be included in this roundup by Adiel Kaplan, the Program Director at the Tow-Knight Center for Journalism Futures at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY.As Adiel says:“Having a say in what the future of news looks like will likely require not just that collaboration across newsrooms, but also outside them, with other institutions that want to shape a future with informed communities at its…

Writing about powerful men comes with real professional and personal risk. If you believe it’s worth doing, please subscribe. Your support is what makes all of this possible. Can’t do this without you!!Yesterday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that the military will now require annual testosterone deficiency screenings for all active-duty service members age 30 and older. Hegseth framed the move as necessary to ensure troops maintain the “biological foundation” to fight, and described…

A Friday Hodgepodge1. "How About a Genuine America-First Policy?," by Peter Schwartz (PeterSchwartz.com):The movement Trump launched claims that his policies will "make America great again." Here, too, there is a prior question that demands an answer: What made America great in the first place? And it's the same answer: freedom.America's exceptionalism rested on the premise that each individual has rights, and that the task of government is not to rule him but to protect those rights, by…

Hi there! It’s been a few days since my birthday, but if you want to give me a belated present and you’re in the US, you could contact your legislators and ask them to oppose H.R. 7661. This bill ties federal funding to excluding material from schools that “includes sexually oriented material.” It provides no exceptions for education outside of standard science classes, meaning classes about human growth and development would not be able to include this material. Further, it defines “sexually…

17th July 2026 Do read this judgment – and my Prospect comment * Yesterday this blog published a post, but it had a borked link to the judgment mentioned. Although this was quickly corrected online, it meant those who only read emails would not have the link. That judgment of the ages is here – and you really should read it in full. And my Weekly Constitutional article at Prospect on the case is here. I should be publishing a fuller post on here on the case soon.

Local government reorganisation update (because we now have fourteen more decisions) In December 2024 the government announced that it intended to replace all England's two-tier systems with unitary authorities. There'd no longer be local councils AND county councils, just the one authority locally, mainly to save money. It was also suggested that the new authorities should have a population of at least half a million. "New unitary councils must be the right size to achieve efficiencies,…

The Speech: Trump Announces "Discovery" and Release of "Election Integrity" Documents We put two parts of that headline in quotations, and we'll eventually explain why, for both. First up is "Election Integrity." Several of the outlets that broadcast Donald Trump's speech last night listed it in their broadcast schedule as "Trump Address on Election Integrity," or something very similar. We understand why they did that, because they had to call it something, and they're ostensibly trying to…

SCRUBBED: SpaceX scrubs Starship launch after some of its engines didn’t start. tweet tweet Also, clever characterization by SpaceX senior manager Kate Tice:

“Stochastic terrorism” is the idea that if you spread fear and mistrust against a target, then eventually people will commit violence against that target, and it will be your fault, even if you never specifically said the words “you should commit violence”. Some other popular examples of the concept:Nativists spread fear and distrust about Muslim immigrants, and then racists go on shooting sprees in mosques.The #Resistance insists that Donald Trump would destroy democracy, and then various…

“Editorial: By sacking Fedorov, Zelensky risks turning tide of war back in Russia’s favor” kyivindependent.com/editorial… #Ukraine #RussoUkrainianWar

16th July 2026 A judge has made a splendid Order, which should be read in full. * There has never been a case like this one. That is not just the view of some passing legal blogger, but of the judge herself. As Judge Kathleen M. Williams said in her latest, highly significant order: “But perhaps the most startling misstatement advanced by Plaintiffs is their characterization of this case as “ordinary.” […] There is nothing “ordinary” about this case; it is the very definition of sui generis.”…

I never expected model railways and politics to collide in such a media spotlight, but here we are, and it's happening in, of all places, Clacton.Many years ago, before anyone beyond private school alumni and city traders had heard of Nigel Farage, I was starting my career in journalism in that corner of Essex.And like all well-trained reporters I do my research on the candidates in a by-election.This unscheduled contest looks very much like it will be, in Essex - sorry, essence - a…

I read an interesting article by Amanda Mull about “friendly fraud” and increased credit card chargebacks: According to Juniper Research, American consumers filed 158 million transaction disputes in 2025, an increase of 29% from 2021, significantly outpacing general growth in card transactions. Worldwide, thanks to a pandemic-induced wave of greater card usage in countries that had long stuck to cash for everyday spending, the spike has been even sharper, with 46% more disputes in the same…

The AI Billionaires are afraid. Public pressure is mounting. We, the poors, are organizing and laying claim to what's ours: our livelihoods, our neighborhoods, and our economic destiny.Here in my home state of Maine, our legislature passed a bipartisan bill that would have placed a moratorium on the construction of data centers. The bill was defeated by a veto from Maine's corpolobbyist-in-chief Governor Janet Mills. Why? Get this: the bill didn't carve out an allowance for her pet-project data…

When in an ideal environment, philodendron can live for several decades. 18 Philodendron

Wu Y and Chen Y (2026) Paradox of atropine in myopia control: exploring dose-dependent efficacy, rebound effects, and optimal risk-benefit balance–a perspective. Front. Public Health 14:1878312. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2026.1878312 This article should be required reading for anyone either just getting involved in myopia control or who has given up on it because they tried it and the patient still got more myopic. I had to step back as I was reading. I found myself saying, “No kidding,” to a lot of…

Remember a little over three weeks ago when we ran a post about CNN's report on the oil reserves in Cushing, Oklahoma. We used this as an example of how highly important aspects of a major news story like the war in Iran, while not ignored, are covered only sporadically, while relative trivia runs constantly.The CNN article was very good, but in the weeks that followed, other news organizations largely ignored it. Week after week, non-stories, often involving some unsupported and highly…

SPACEX price bellow IPO opening price.

From the Daily Mail, 13 July: The brutal murder of Ann Widdecombe was last night being treated as a suspected politically motivated terrorist attack. In a dramatic escalation, counter terrorism officers yesterday took over the investigation into the killing of the former Tory minister. It came after the discovery of Russian communist literature and other items of political ideology at the home of the suspected killer. …The Mail has learnt that items of varying political ideology, including…

Todd Blanche Faced the Senate Donald Trump first named his personal lawyer, Todd Blanche, to be deputy AG, and then acting AG. Now that Trump has cashiered his first pick for AG this term, Pam Bondi, he has nominated Blanche for the top job at the DoJ. Yesterday, Blanche appeared before a skeptical Senate Judiciary Committee to allow the senators see how good he is at lying with a straight face. Click here for full story

Collaborating on a screenplay with Marjorie David, Israeli director Eran Riklis tells a story of academic oppression in Iran, basing his movie on a best-selling memoir by Azar Nafisi. In 1979, Nafisi (Golshifteh Farahani) and her husband (Arash Marandi) returned to Iran. Ayatollah Khomeini had just come to power, and Nafisi -- along with many other returnees -- leaned toward the notion that a newly liberated Iran offered opportunities for renewal. Nafisi wanted to teach Iranian university…