Reading

A North Dakota woman brings a raccoon into a bar. She gets probation. (Thanks to Allen at Division)

That the government didn't shut down Tesla's "autopilot" years ago (hello, Mayor Pete, could you interrupt your not doing anything about the airlines to doing something about this) is a testament to how "doing absolutely nothing with the legal power available" is the default position of Dems, but aside from that, the lithium battery fires aren't just a Tesla problem. A punctured battery is likely to cause a fireball that no amount of water can put out.

Go ahead, make our day The parallels between Prime Video’s “Jack Ryan” Season 3 and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are simply eerie, says actor and producer John Krasinski. “But even having to explain that we wrote and shot the show before the conflict even happened seems like an alternate reality.” The Ukrainian government’s cocky messaging crew, however, is not above drawing purposeful parallels between its fight against Vladimir Putin’s invaders and a popular David-versus-Goliath tale from Hollywood. Enjoy, MFers. Here’s another.

Will Milberg discusses the unique history of The New School for Social Research, and why its traditions are particularly relevant today.

. In loving memory of Kristina, beloved wife, and mother of David and Tora. Those whom the gods love die young. But in dreams, I can hear your name. And in dreams, We will meet again. When the seas and mountains fall And we come to end of days, In the dark I hear a […]

The Longest Joint In The World: 98.4 Feet, 2.2 Pounds Of Weed And 40 People To Put It Together (Thanks to Rick Day) *You youngsters can ask an old-timer to explain this hipster lingo.

This is a timelapse video of a huntsman spider molting. (Thanks to John Lobert)

Star Wars fans amazed after spotting 'lightsaber' on Mars in new NASA footage (Thanks to John Lobert)

Your face is covered in thousands of living mites closely related to spiders and ticks (Thanks to Matt Filar)

Christmas package containing frankincense and myrrh prompts bomb squad investigation (Thanks to Geoff Scott and pharmaross)

Our 11th most-read article of the 2022.

Originally published November 15, 2022.

This is an excerpt from the author’s funny new collection, which you can buy here.

New links for the Heap… The Oxfordshire Blue Plaques Board has proposed a plaque to commemorate Philippa Foot and the house where she lived from 1972 to 2010 — a decision will be made on the proposal in mid-January New Work In Philosophy: The YouTube Channel — videos about recent philosophy Lecture notes—pretty much a textbook—for a course entitled “Belief, Desire, and Rational Choice” — from Wolfgang Schwarz (Edinburgh) One philosophy professor’s experience with a student who cheated by having ChatGPT write their essay — “proving the paper was concocted by ChatGPT was nearly impossible,” said Darren Hick (Furman) A Medievalist notices that an academic extensively plagiarized his blog in her book, and contacts her to object.

The music we are making is a new tranche of art rock music - every bit as valid as The Velvet Underground, The Sex Pistols, The Beatles ... but with women evolving new themes and sounds.

I recently listened to the new book by Anand Giridharadas, who is well-known for his previous book Winner Takes All. That book was about how (some of) the superrich are happy trying to contribute to some of the world’s problems, but never ask any questions related to why the world is so unequal as it […]

This past year, The Lever launched several podcasts, taking its independent journalism to the next level.

Reading novels is my life-blood; I can’t go more than a few hours between books. That said, this year was a slightly odd one in my reading career. First, the year leading up to August represented the home strait of a self-enforced 12 months of not buying books. So lots of reliance on the not-especially-good […]

Annoying non-holidays days of holiday week.

2022 has been a tumultuous year for Digital Rights in the UK. Ebbs in the Political chaos resulted in a flow of unhelpful domestic legislation. Measures that protect us from Data Discrimination are being eroded as the Government amends UK GDPR Data Protection laws with their Data Protection and Digital Information Bill, aka the Data Discrimination Bill.  […]

An analysis of state-level economic growth suggests that a certain number of contracting state economies could signal the start of a national recession.

A critique yours truly sometimes encounters is that as long as I cannot come up with some own alternative to the failing mainstream theory, I shouldn’t expect people to pay attention. This is however to misunderstand the role of philosophy and methodology of economics! As John Locke wrote in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding: The […]

Yeah, it is mostly this simple:

This is pretty much the map for UN resolutions aimed at Russia, too.

The Journal of the History of Philosophy (JHP) has announced the winner of its 2022 Book Prize. The prize, awarded for the best book written in history of philosophy published in 2021, goes to Arthur Ripstein (university of Toronto) for his Kant and the Law of War (Oxford University Press, 2021). Here’s the publisher’s description of the book: The past two decades have seen renewed scholarly and popular interest in the law and morality of war. Positions that originated in the late Middle Ages through the seventeenth century have received more sophisticated philosophical elaboration. Although many contemporary writers appeal to ideas drawn from Kant’s moral philosophy, his explicit discussions of war have not yet been brought into their proper place in these debates.

While Zelensky hypnotizes Western governments into forking over vast sums to finance his war effort, he has appointed a literal hypnotist (and part-time sexologist multi-level marketer) to a high-level diplomatic position. High end jewelry, hypnotism and multi-level marketing are not qualifications typically associated with international diplomacy. But these skills are featured prominently on the resumé of Ukraine’s new ambassador to Bulgaria, Olesya Ilashchuk. Since her December 23 appointment by Ukrainian President Vlodymyr Zelensky as Bulgarian ambassador, Olesya Ilashchuk has locked […]

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