I reviewed two new books @newrepublic on how cars have turned our cities into hellscapes. They hit people, spew carbon into the atmosphere, and storing them is one of the biggest land uses. The piece is also available in audio if you're, you know, driving. newrepublic.com/article/1717…

The NYPD has narrowed the list of suspects to approximately 100 million people fucked over by the private healthcare industry in the past five years. nytimes.com/live/2024/12/04/…

So I guess if you are Justin Sun you spend $30 million on bribing Trump for a pardon and $6 million on a banana just as an extra PR fuck you to anyone paying attention who still cares about the Securities and Exchange Commission or corruption in general?

So this guy is going to be president of Romania… balkaninsight.com/2022/02/01…

Please let’s not forget this when shitty centrists like Polis try to lead the Democratic Party in the next couple years. nytimes.com/live/2024/11/15/…

The political theorist most helpful for explaining what the US government will look like in 2025 is not Hannah Arendt or M Gessen but rather the film Idiocracy. I fully expect UFC cage fights in Congress in a couple years and watering crops with Gatorade.

Matt Gaetz for AG is not a troll on liberals it’s a sign of the Trump administration preparing its wrecking ball to completely demolish government institutions and rule of law.

The coalition of wife beaters, pugilists, video-game addicted, incels, pronatalist-replacement-theory apartheid lovers, and other machistas are congratulating themselves. Maybe we can inaugurate Barron Trump as a Nero-like emperor in 2040 with Ron DeSantis as consigliere.

I got to review If Cars Could Walk from @berghahnbooks that says many of the things I never could properly express about post-socialist cities, car domination, and class. Excellent case studies and they're all as clever as the title. tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.…

Tiffany Trump is involved in solving the slaughter in Gaza. I am having very bad flashbacks to 2017 nepotism.

Lots of quotes from me on my digital nomads project in de Volkskrant if you can read Dutch. volkskrant.nl/kijkverder/v/2…

This can be US cities too after Trump dismantles the EPA and environmental policies that keep a modicum of decent air to the breathe. nytimes.com/2024/11/07/world…

It's hard to predict Trump's cabinet. Musk for Commerce? RFK Jr as Secretary of Health? One thing we do know, if that the January 6th Choir will be performing at the inauguration after all receiving full pardons.

So Zelenskyy sits down for unfavourable peace talks on Friday and BB sends first wave of settlers to northern Gaza in early 2025? All humanitarian aid to Sudan and Haiti etc cut immediately.

Americans have proven Trump isn't an aberration but we are a very sick country willing to elect a fascist (not even the electoral college but, most likely, the popular vote!). Hopefully, there is still a democracy left in 2028 but I doubt there will be a Democratic Party.

I’ve got my earplugs, my face mask, my Xanax, my bottles of wine and Armenian cognac, a couple novels, a massive bathtub. I think I’ll just pretend I’m in one of those float pods for the next 36 hours.

I'm happy to finally have my article on Brutalist architecture published. Why do people like it or loath it? Is it associated with authoritarianism or a more generous mid-century welfare state? Is its aesthetic popular for weirdness alone? journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.…