Reading

By sticking to the correct and popular position on Donald Trump's Iran war, the Prime Minister has now forced his political opponents into an embarrassing reversal, argues Adam Bienkov

From the innovators who brought you Taking a Nap and Just Chilling, Free Time is a luxury experience beyond your wildest dreams.

Free Time isn’t just a new product—it’s a total wellness optimization platform. It’s not an app but rather a mind-blowing vessel of unstructured time where you can do anything your heart desires, or nothing at all.

Your Free Time comes loaded with options that are as boundless as your imagination. You can lie on the couch and read a novel, or just space out and drool. Go for a walk if you want. Stop and stare at a bird and take dozens of pictures, if that’s your kink.

Do you want to buy a big pretzel from that German food truck and eat it for twenty minutes, even though that sounds like way too long? Go for it. This is Free Time. Dip it in cheese and stand around like an idiot while you chew your pretzel and watch everyone run around like rats. Why are they all so fast and angry? Because they don’t have Free Time.

Want lower blood pressure? Less work anxiety? Fewer violent urges? Free Time delivers all of those according to groundbreaking research at the Johns Hopkins School of Leisure.

The United States launched a war on Iran, not to eliminate a nuclear threat, but to seize control of the world’s last major accessible oil reserves

“The threats posed by Iran to the United States, while potentially serious, weren’t imminent. So Trump and his officials have redefined ‘imminent’ to include distant, indirect, and theoretical risks. They’ve stretched the word beyond any semblance of its meaning.” — Will Saltan, The Bulwark

Listen up here, you jobless paid agitators. The US had to attack Iran because Iran has been an imminent threat to the US for forty-seven years. Some critics will probably say that a forty-seven-year-old threat doesn’t sound so imminent and that I don’t know what the word even means, or have never seen a dictionary, and don’t really understand how language works. To them I say: photosynthesis. Followed by: This is not the time for linguistic nitpicking.

“Death toll in Middle East surpasses 1,100 as missile strikes continue.”
— The Independent

Gas prices continue to surge in the US, rising 14 percent in a week."
— New York Times

Questions are flying, ever since the start of Sepharax the Cruel’s Thousand-Year Blood Reign. Whether it’s the Pit of Souls or the Child Reapers, there’s a lot to be worried about. But most of all? The price at the pump.

It’s confusing, but our explainer has you covered.

The Undead

Unfortunately, the appearance of armies of the dead, awakened to wage indiscriminate war on all humankind, could potentially push gasoline beyond $3.50 per gallon.

False media reports of thousands of Kurdish fighters launching a ground offensive against Iran ended up endangering the very people living under the bombs, reports Dr Charles Kriel

I’ve made contracts with every sort of lowlife. I’ve been to the crossroads. I’ve been down to Georgia. I’ve signed agreements with legions of lawyers, living, as I do, in the details, and ended up with the souls of everyone except Daniel Webster, that prig-tastic blowhole.

But Donald Trump? Not worth it.

Maybe you thought I already owned Trump’s soul. How else could someone so gob-smackingly incompetent fail upward all the way to a second presidential term? But social media, misogyny, and the ever-loving shit show known as the also gob-smackingly incompetent “Democratic Party”—that’s on you, humans. As folks in our Fifth Circle say about Trump, “Wow, does his shit stink.” And that place reeks so bad, the demons wear gas masks.

It’s a truism that every child should be wanted. While there are plenty of exceptions, the birth of an unwanted child often turns out badly for both mother and child (and father, if they are present). Sometimes, once a child is born, the fact that they were initially unwanted fades into irrelevance, and the bond […]

Over on the Doctor Who website, UNIT offered a very interesting note/update on Rose Tyler (Billie Piper) is fueling serious fan speculation.

The Central American nation never fully recovered from the loss of its megafauna

The post Restoring Panama to When Prehistoric Beasts Roamed the Jungle appeared first on Nautilus.

How to tackle a common kitchen problem with fluid dynamics

The post Physicists Uncover How Long It Takes to Get the Last Drop of Syrup appeared first on Nautilus.

“Looksmaxxing”—achieving the hottest, manliest version of yourself—can be intimidating. It’s hard to know where to start, but we recommend with your jaw. Crack that bad boy wide open.

A big, broad, shockingly vast jaw is the bedrock of masculinity. You’ve heard of the jaws of life—get ready for the “jaws of wife,” because the women will be flocking in short order. Plus, while your jaw’s wired shut and healing, nobody makes you talk about your feelings. You can sit in silence with your boys for six to eight weeks. Soon enough, you’ll be mewing in your newly minted maw.

Next, take a look at your legs. Those gotta get longer. A lot longer. You can surgically break and lengthen them at either the femur or the tibia, dealer’s choice. But for the record, breaking the femur hurts more, so men who choose the tibias are betas.

It takes a family to drive research for a rare disease forward

The post Saving the Girl with Dementia appeared first on Nautilus.

Alex Kingston, who played River Song on Doctor Who, gave the best explanation for how the series created a safe space for kids to face fears.

Carrie Brownstein delivers a few sports-related tips and pointers.

Q: My partner is the captain of a coed dodgeball league and has started hinting that he wants me to attend more games. I went to one recently and found myself feeling secondhand embarrassment for him. The self-serious competition, the mock leadership, the flaring tempers, the matching uniforms (which he designed)—all this ado over a game we all played as twelve-year-olds. I’m not usually so judgmental, but something about watching him get so worked up about these games has brought out a new side of me. I truly don’t know if I can go to another game and keep the grimace off my face. How do I excuse myself from attending without hurting his feelings?

Dodging Mortification
Minneapolis, MN

For fifteen years or so, I’d been kicking around the idea of resurrecting the artist-apprentice model that reigned in the art world for hundreds of years.

Again and again, I’d heard from young people who lamented the astronomical and ever-rising cost of art school. For many college-level art programs, the total cost to undergraduates is now over $100,000 a year. I hope we can all agree that charging students $400,000 for a four-year degree in visual art is objectively absurd. And this prohibitive cost has priced tens of thousands of potential students out of even considering undertaking such an education.

For years, I mentioned this issue to friends in and out of the art world, and everyone, without exception, agreed that the system was broken. Even friends I know who teach at art schools agreed that the cost was out of control, and these spiraling costs were contributing to the implosion of many undergraduate and postgraduate art programs.

As a cisgender, white, bisexual second son of a viscount, and as a gentleman landowner of multiple estates on the unceded ancestral homeland of the Celts and Saxons, I don’t see race. Of late, many of my acquaintances have expressed very great wonder at this. I set down my lived experience here in the hopes that it may serve as an example.

On the eve of the 1815 season, I attended my mama’s masquerade ball at Bridgerton House. Even as I entered the ballroom, members of the Ton recognized me, despite my attempts at concealment—I am taller than my brothers and exceedingly well built, and also I wasn’t wearing a costume and my mask was small.

A young lady curtseyed to me and said she had heard I was a devotee of Thomas Lawrence, a great master of portraiture who had recently exhibited at the Royal Academy.

“Oh, you like Lawrence?” I said. “Name three of his group compositions.” The lady gaped at me.

“I thought not,” I said, chuckling and moving towards the table piled high with sweetmeats.

Yes, but most likely viewing them as “other”

The post Are Killer Whales Also Cannibals? appeared first on Nautilus.

Mar 05, 2026 I. What is happening to the ‘rules-based international order’ despairingly invoked by bewildered European leaders? The broad answer is that we are living through the retreat of American hegemony, masked by bluster and marked by contradictions. The retreat has two aspects, economic and geopolitical. Economists talk about Trump’s tariffs breaking up the … Continue reading What comes after America’s retreat?

Mar 03, 2026 Given the premise, it becomes easy to treat disparate events as mutually reinforcing confirmation of it, often yielding elaborate conspiracy theories. The standard Russophobe narrative runs roughly as follows: Historically, Russophobia has succeeded an earlier Germanophobia. One recalls the Daily Mail’s 1909 series alleging that Germany was “deliberately preparing to destroy the British … Continue reading Paranoid Corner (3)

Feb 26, 2026 Four years after the so-called full-scale invasion of Ukraine, it is very hard to disentangle oneself from all clichés, lies, and reflexes in which the war is entangled. I have never lived through a ‘full-scale war’, nor served as a soldier in any war, big or small, so perhaps it was always … Continue reading Four Years Later

Feb 23, 2026 In his sophisticated 20 January address to the Davos World Economic Forum, Canada’s prime minister and former Bank of England governor Mark Carney offered an insight into the disintegration of the global economy which went well beyond the usual strictures on Trump for mental instability or megalomania. While Canada, like other middle-sized … Continue reading On Mark Carney and the Fate of Liberal Economies

6 Feb, 2026 People love spy stories. Here are another couple of them: The Daily Mail reported on 2 February that drone lessons were being given to pupils at the Russian School of London, which is run by the Russian embassy for the children of diplomats. According to the report, pupils receive instruction in the … Continue reading Paranoid Corner (2)

Note: May I draw your attention to my recent video appearances with Ian Proud, the Peacemonger and Glenn Diesen. Ian Proud Link (15 Jan 2026): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-6QICm01kw Glenn Diesen Link (26 Feb 2026): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TGMXZtFUF8