Hey Canadians: I just heard about two Canadian friends of a friend who were driving into the US the border agents demanded they unlock their phones; the agents searched the phones, found anti-Trump stuff on one ... ... then confiscated that phone and neither person was allowed into the US These folks weren't activists or anything -- the search doesn't appear to have been triggered by that so, govern yourselves accordingly

The price of eggs isn't actually high because of avian flu and culls ... ... because demand for eggs has dropped faster than supply -- supply is down 3.5%, but egg consumption is down 7.5% nope, the reason egg producers are jacking up prices is to increase profits ... ... and they're doing it because they *can*: It's an oligopoly with no serious competition blaming avian flu is -- as @Cory Doctorow puts it --- "excuseflation"

Pluralistic: Eggflation is excuseflation (10 Mar 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

hello, whirled

In a chat with my brother-in-law just now he sent me a meme that uses the duel Kirk has with the Gorn ... ... which reminded me of the 1944 sci fi story upon which it was based, "Arena" ... ... which I just found online and reread, and it's fascinating to revisit: 📄.pdf

An argument: We need working-class media --

Columbia Journalism Review

America needs a working-class media.

Catering to rich audiences is not serving us.

co-sign

I’m at a March in NYC to support congestion pricing This is one of the times when the classic chant — “whose streets? our streets“ — is not just a metaphoric but literal lol

Very well-reported piece how the Musk/Trump wilding is laying off crucial FDA staffers They laid off people who check the safety of high-end blood-glucose monitors, surgical staplers, e-cigarette devices … you name it they laid off people who check the cybersecurity of robotic surgery devices. Man, better hope China/russia doesn’t hack *those*, eh? Oh and many of these jobs were funded by industry fees, not taxes — so it won’t reduce the deficit one penny Gift link:

F.D.A. Firings Decimated Teams Reviewing A.I. and Food Safety

Staff units evaluating high-tech surgical robots and insulin-delivery systems were gutted by Trump layoffs even though industry fees, not taxpayers...

An excellent essay on the dangers -- to society, and to soldiers themselves, and the military -- of the right-wing obsession with creating a "warrior culture" Tons of great points here, but one I particularly enjoyed: The essayist describes how the Spartans created a huge mythos for themselves ... ... which was a terrible idea, because after they suffered defeats that mythos came *crumbling* down

Stop Calling Us Warriors – The Angry Staff Officer

As ever, Timothy Snyder -- the historian of tyranny -- distills the moment perfectly The key line: "In general outline, the idea is to make the government as a whole dysfunctional, while preserving the parts of it than can intimidate and oppress citizens."

Kash Patel's Plots

Fiction and Persecution in the FBI and America

How the behavior of DOGE -- and Trump's lackeys who are running riot through the federal government -- is exactly that of ... ... a protection racket An excellent way of understanding it, via @npub168td...50jm at Slate unpaywalled: https://archive.is/tNrHM