For twenty years I've heard the same reframe and for the same twenty years I've had a fairly popular ocean science blog that tracks how long readers spend on each page and the long wonky pieces have the best retention and are still read years later.
It is true that if your goal is to maximize the number of clicks on a given piece of content, you don't want to produce a 3,000-word piece. But maybe not everyone should be trying to maximize clicks! Maybe it's okay to target a smaller, more devoted audience. Indeed I've bet my entire career on it.
My entire journalistic career, editors & owners & bosses told me again & again that my stuff was too long, too in-depth, too wonky, no one would read it.
Again & again, readers flocked to the longer, wonkier pieces, passed them around, wrote me to thank me for them, cited them years later.
“We are in a moment today where it is harder to sue federal officers for violating our constitutional rights than it’s been at any point in American history.”
I sat down with @stevevladeck.bsky.social at @theunpopulist.net to discuss the hurdles to states potentially prosecuting ICE agents for murder and other crimes, and the need to fix Section 1983 so federal agents are subject to civil liability for violating people's rights.
A vintage portrait of a person wearing an ornate lace bonnet and high-collared garment. The attire appears historical and formal. The person gazes forward with a calm expression. The image is in black and white.
In 1787, the first paper by a woman was read to a meeting of the Royal Society, Caroline Herschel's 'Account of a new comet'. See more on our interactive timeline: #WomenInSTEM #WomensHistoryMonth https://royalsociety.org/news-resources/women-in-stem/publications-timeline/
A screenshot of a news article titled “Editorial: Can we future-proof the language of chemistry?” The opening art is a television’s showing the dictionary entry of the term “global warming”
Journalists lost a lot of public trust when politicians turned the term “fake news” (a term journalists came up with!) into a weapon. Similar things have been happening in the language of science. I got to spew a bit about it in @cenmag.bsky.social cen.acs.org/education/sc...
"When gunshots are heard in the video, the brake lights of Martinez' vehicle appear to be on."
DHS claimed "an ICE agent had fired 'defensive shots' into Martinez's vehicle after Martinez 'intentionally ran over' another agent."
But body cam video now "shows that Martinez's vehicle, a blue Ford Fusion, was stationary or going at a very low rate of speed when he was fatally shot."
“At the end of the day, she didn’t sound any better than some of these ultra-conservative people who were demeaning Black and Brown folk on a regular basis,” said Rev. Rodney Sadler, a Bible scholar and longtime community activist in Charlotte. “It felt like a betrayal of the utmost.” Cunningham’s comments proved so problematic for Sadler that he said he realized that she was “no longer worthy of being our representative” and he had to run against her. “It drove me to a point of saying, ‘She needs to go, and she needs to go now,’” the 58-year-old pastor, who works at Charlotte’s Union Presbyterian Seminary, told Bolts.
this guy challenged a sitting Democratic lawmaker in yesterday's primary, angered by her pro-ICE vote, and he ousted her 70% to 22%.
boltsmag.org/north-caroli...
Me to my dogs: why on earth are yall barking right now
Dogs: last time we checked we're dogs
Me: touché
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy announced today the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is issuing a new mandatory “Operations Specification” (OpSpec) requiring all commercial airlines to formally commit to merit-based hiring for pilots. While the FAA has raised performance standards, dismantled DEI offices and contracts, and revised absurd Biden-Buttigieg era directives that wasted time renaming cockpits to flight decks, allegations of airlines hiring based on race and sex remain. Under this new mandate, all U.S. carriers will be required to certify that this practice is terminated. Failure to do so will subject airlines to federal investigation. “When families board their aircraft, they should fly with confidence knowing the pilot behind the controls is the best of the best. The American people don’t care what their pilot looks like or their gender—they just care that they are most qualified man or woman for the job,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy. “Safety drives everything we do, and this commonsense measure will increase transparency between passengers and airlines.” This action is in accordance with President Donald J. Trump’s Executive Order on Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity and his Presidential Action on Keeping Americans Safe in Aviation. “At the FAA, the safety of passengers is our number one priority,” said FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford. “It is a bare minimum expectation for airlines to hire the most qualified individual when making someone responsible for hundreds of lives at a time. Someone’s race, sex, or creed, has nothing to do with their ability to fly and land aircraft safely.”
In the midst of everything else that is going on, I missed this Feb 13th press release from the FAA. With the long documented history of commercial operators barring pilots due to sex and race, to read this statement today is infuriating.
www.faa.gov/newsroom/tru...
This is called infantile egocentrism and we're supposed to age out of it by the time we're 5 or so.
My best friend’s sister, who CBP has been telling us different stories all day about, her phone just got turned back on. She is a US citizen born in Evanston. They said she was never detained at O’Hare after telling us she was, they said she was not transferred to Broadview, and now she's in a detention facility in WI.
🚨 My best friend’s sis, who CBP has been telling us different stories all day about, phone just got turned back on. US citizen born in Evanston. They said she was never detained at O’Hare after telling us she was, said she was not transferred to Broadview, now she's in a detention facility in WI.😡
Trump is a titanic f*ck up. Oil prices are surging. Brent crude now above $92 a barrel. 9/
Trump is a titanic f*ck up. His reckless, illegal war "could bring down the economies of the world. " 8/
www.ft.com/content/be12...
Trump is a titanic f*ck up. Last two inflation reports showed inflation re-igniting, even before the prices shocks that are starting due to his new Gulf War. Here's PPI: 6/
Trump is a titanic f*ck up. He has the worst jobs record of any American President since Hoover. 4/
Trump is a titanic f*ck up. We've lost jobs in 5 of the last 9 months.
CBS obtained video of the DHS killing of an unarmed man in Texas that DHS concealed for nearly a year, which clearly contradicts claims that he violently rammed anyone. He is shot with his brake lights on, car not moving or barely moving. Another DHS crime.
Border Patrol is detaining another US citizen and lying about it.
She’s part of a group of citizens and green card holders who have been disappeared after their travel plans were disrupted.
Updating: The woman is Sundas "Sunny" Naqvi, a current resident of Skokie who was born in Evanston
Afzul said her sister and her five coworkers were returning from Turkey after a work trip to India was canceled. She traveled to Bulgaria and Austria before flying back to Chicago on Thursday
CBP detained her for "irregular travel history," Afzul said.
BREAKING: U.S. Customs and Border Protection detained three U.S. citizens and three Green Card holders, including an Evanston resident, at O'Hare Thrusday afternoon
At least one, an Evanston woman, is currently being held at Broadview's ICE facility, her sister told me
Who could possibly have predicted that a company whose slogan is "cheat on everything" would cheat?
techcrunch.com/2026/03/05/c...
The Trump administration has drawn up tight rules for civilian artificial intelligence contracts that would require AI companies to allow "any lawful" use of their models amid a stand-off between the Pentagon and Anthropic. A draft of new government guidelines, seen by the FT, mandates that AI groups that want to do business with the government grant the US an irrevocable licence to use their systems for all legal purposes. The guidance from the US General Services Administration (GSA) would apply to civilian contracts and is part of a government-wide effort to strengthen procurement of AI services.
One of the things I'm working on at the moment is a foresight review on the safe adoption of AI, and I'm
pretty sure this move by the US govt busts any myth that it's possible to robustly assure general purpose AI giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...
I’ve spent years, decades, obsessing over the Bush Administration’s Iraq WMD lies, writing about them, debunking them.
I can think of no lie about Iraq WMDs told by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld et al that comes even close to the enormity and absurdity of this lie from Donald Trump.
Pervert Glasses are the glasses, Glasshole is the person wearing the glasses.
