Eschaton

Happy Hour

noreply@blogger.com (Atrios) — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 21:00:00 +0000

get happy

Seems Bad

noreply@blogger.com (Atrios) — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 19:30:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Atrios) — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 18:30:00 +0000

Something which should be obvious, but for some reason isn't to many people (other than you, dear readers), is that any "show your papers" system requires everybody to show their papers, not just the people who, you know, don't have 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

noreply@blogger.com (Atrios) — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 17:30:00 +0000

Not that I really care, but he's basically been out of the news for a month (according to my scientific survey of Google News) and I'm a bit curious.

President Deals

noreply@blogger.com (Atrios) — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 15:30:00 +0000

The Art of the Deal, for Trump, is to make threats and inevitably violate deals. I think people have realized this!

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

noreply@blogger.com (Atrios) — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 14:30:00 +0000

#GMB: "It was Belgium who had the last laugh, in victory mocking Donald Trumps signature dance move"

[image or embed]
— Saul Staniforth (@saulstaniforth.bsky.social) July 7, 2026 at 6:30 AM

Trump will probably deport them.

Fingers Pointing

noreply@blogger.com (Atrios) — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 13:00:00 +0000

This is mostly online personality drama stuff, but it's a bit amusing to see everyone (The Left! The Centrists!) blame everyone else for Platner. The truth is that no one in Maine really wanted to run against Collins, Schumer recruited Mills (!), Platner saw an opening no one else was running through, and Maine Dems voted for him.

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.

Morning

noreply@blogger.com (Atrios) — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 10:00:00 +0000

Tuesday funday.

Monday Night

noreply@blogger.com (Atrios) — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 01:30:00 +0000

Rock on. A couple of friends performing a composition by the 83-year-old student of the violist (who is playing violin)

Happy Hour

noreply@blogger.com (Atrios) — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 21:00:00 +0000

get happy

Shoe Dropping

noreply@blogger.com (Atrios) — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 19:32:04 +0000

I stayed away from the Platner discourse for my sanity, but this isn't great!

QoL

noreply@blogger.com (Atrios) — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 18:30:00 +0000

I don't know if anything this guy was doing would actually bring him closer to immortality, but I do know that if your quest for immortality fucks up your quality of life then you've likely made a big mistake.

Millionaire biohacker Bryan Johnson has hit a major obstacle in his yearslong quest to “defeat death.”

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.

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.

Do You Forget To Ask For It To Be Good

noreply@blogger.com (Atrios) — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 17:30:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Atrios) — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 15:30:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Atrios) — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 14:30:00 +0000

Somebody had to explain to me why guys like Trump and other "bosses" cheat at golf when everyone knows they're cheating, because I am stupid. It's dominance. Just "show you who is boss" stuff.

They get to cheat and you don't get to complain. For Trump, the cheating is the thrill.

Most people will look at this and think that any US win will be tainted (yes I know FIFA has never been pure). For Trump, any US win will be HIS win because he made it happen.

Trump doesn't care if the USA wins. He cares that he gets to show who is boss and that any win will actually be because of him.

And, yes, he'll steal the trophy if given the chance.

The Lis Smith Magic

noreply@blogger.com (Atrios) — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 13:00:00 +0000

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.

Morning

noreply@blogger.com (Atrios) — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 10:00:00 +0000

Monday funday.

Happy Hour

noreply@blogger.com (Atrios) — Sun, 05 Jul 2026 21:00:00 +0000

Get happy

The Lis Smith Magic

noreply@blogger.com (Atrios) — Sun, 05 Jul 2026 18:04:08 +0000

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.

At Least The War Is Over

noreply@blogger.com (Atrios) — Sun, 05 Jul 2026 16:15:44 +0000

I guess it isn't newsworthy anymore.

"Rookie Mistake"

noreply@blogger.com (Atrios) — Sun, 05 Jul 2026 13:30:00 +0000

It isn't especially important, but I was struck by Totenberg's description of her retracted report about Alito retiring.

NPR’s eminent Supreme Court correspondent Nina Totenberg says she made a “rookie mistake” on Tuesday morning, and that’s why she reported that Justice Samuel Alito was retiring.

It's the opposite of that! No "rookie" would make this "mistake"! No editor would let them! Only someone for whom special rules apply could have done this! It's an elite access journalist mistake!

Morning

noreply@blogger.com (Atrios) — Sun, 05 Jul 2026 10:00:00 +0000

Sunday funday

Sure Why Not

noreply@blogger.com (Atrios) — Sat, 04 Jul 2026 20:54:25 +0000

The world's greatest event logistics coordinators are ON IT.

Everyone planning to attend the Salute to America program and fireworks on the National Mall this evening will need to get through security within a one-hour period, Freedom 250 organizers said in an email sent just before midday today.

The email, received by an NBC digital editor at 11:14 a.m., had a subject line that began with "IMPORTANT TIME CHANGE: General Admission Guest Guidance."

The security magnetometers will open at 5 p.m., according to the email.

Saturday Afternoon

noreply@blogger.com (Atrios) — Sat, 04 Jul 2026 18:00:00 +0000

I hope MY president's party goes well.

The Master Race

noreply@blogger.com (Atrios) — Sat, 04 Jul 2026 15:30:00 +0000

A far from original or unobvious point, but I really don't know how guys like Musk look at themselves in the mirror and think that they need to improve the gene pool by having hundreds of children.

I don't just mean his/their beauty. More generally, how does Musk imagine that everyone should be just like him? He's obviously fucked up and miserable.

Even if we believe, as he does, that he is a supergenius, it isn't the only important trait. I mean, Elon Musk would fucking hate Elon Musk if he met him. How is civilization going to persist with an entire race of Elon Musks?