In 2026, U.S. politics is definied by two trends: Democrats surging in special elections and Trump attacking the very idea of elections.
Monday, February 9, 2026
Journalism May Be Too Slow To Remain Credible Once Events Are Filtered Through Social Media
Some hand-wringing, as well as blame shifting, as to why social media and independent sites are eating the lunches of mainstream media.
Iran War Watch: US Moves Towards Attack Footing Despite Questionable Odds of Success
On the Iran front, the US is taking steps that do not look like mere posturing. Many experts, including ones in Iran, think war is nigh.
An Iranian Architecture Appreciation Post
Sanctions have spurred “creative destruction” in Iran where brickwork draws on the past to create shade, natural light, and ventilation.
An Effort to Ease Water Pollution With Oysters Fizzled. Why?
A Maryland program that lets oyster farmers capitalize off the environmental benefits of the bivalves had few takers.
The Sunday Morning Movie Presents: Paprika (2006) Run Time: 1H 38M
Paprika is a movie about the boundaries between dreams and the waking world, and what happens when they break down.
With ICE Using Medicaid Data, Hospitals and States Are in a Bind Over Warning Immigrant Patients
ICE access to Medicaid data is forcing hospitals and states to consider alerting immigrant patients that information from emergency medical coverage applications could be used in efforts to remove them from the country.
How Much Further Can U.S. Forces Go in Mexico?
A drug kingpin’s arrest in Mexico shows Trump using the war on drugs to justify intervention. Will he deliver on his military action threat?
Why Futuristic, Tech-Centered ‘Smart City’ Projects Are Destined To Fail
Why the smart city idea regular falls short of its hype.
Coffee Break: Science and Medicine, Bad and Good
Part the First: Predatory or Not? Over the past six years the biomedical literature has accumulated 494,547 scientific “publications” with “COVID” (case insensitive) somewhere in the paper. A search using “AIDS HIV” as the query returns 204,559 papers over the past forty-five years. Something does not add up here. And that something is the nature […]
Q&A: Tech Billionaires’ AI Space Empire Fantasies Are ‘An Insidious Form of Climate Denial’
Science journalist Adam Becker dissects offensively crazy tech billionaires’ schemes that greenwash their planetary looting.
