Tom Philpott

Ooof.

The incompetence of the Iran War rollout is just stunning.

Rubio says "Israel dragged us into this war! We had no choice!"

Trump says "I dragged Israel into this war! Regime change! Iranian people, rise up!"

Just bonkers.

The war in Iran is already hugely expensive Aircraft carriers and stealth bombers are expensive to use.

did a little back of the envelope math for how much all this shit is costing. on the order of $1-2 billion per day just in direct spending, maybe 10 times that much in indirect effects

The thing I really don't get about academics using LLMs to generate ideas/write papers is: that's the part of my work I 💯 love: creative challenging & fulfilling. I pay the piper by sitting in committees, doing loads of paperwork & abiding by lots of procedures. Why give up the best part of the job?

A deeply underreported story. I know so many people struggling to pay their electric bills

just trained AI to remember all of my friends' birthdays, send an automated AI-generated email saying "happy birthday," call them using an AI-generated video of me, scan all of their online info so i buy the perfect birthday gift, which i'll deliver using an AGI robot that looks like me

You did what?

Already doing this with whether we are doing a “war” on Iran

Also I’m not going too hard on this but if another nation invaded us with their missiles that killed our leaders, I’d be ok calling that an Invasion not just of our airspace but of our country

is everyone on glue

I really did think the Riyadh Comedy Festival would help bring peace to the Middle East

How Trump Decided to Go to War

Netanyahu pushed and prodded US presidents to attack Iran for decades. And Trump II, he finally found his mark. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/02/u...

Lol, I thought they were saying “party everyday”

These people have no idea what they’re doing.

False solutions: How do fossil fuel companies reproduce their power through the energy transition In response to mounting political and social pressure to transform their business models, the fossil fuel industry is attempting to portray itself as …

This paper is excellent and shows how the fossil fuel industry deploys false solutions- CCS, hydrogen, and CDR- in order to further entrench and protect fossil fuel hygemony

I'll be talking about this unjustifiable aggression against Iran with @chrislhayes.bsky.social and am likely to get heated. (Not at Chris. He's not the problem here.) Tune in circa 8:40pm ET!

this is what they said it would be like under socialism

The pileup of blatantly unlawful conduct by the government in this case is astonishing, as is the fact that the Supreme Court allowed the govt to go forward with this program in a shadow docket ruling

👀

They cost too much to train.

Einstein - AI Homework Agent Einstein logs into Canvas and does your homework automatically. He has his own computer — he can watch lectures, read essays, write papers, and participate in discussions.

Is this bad

An Insurance Expert Appraises the Safety Record of Self-Driving Cars Are autonomous vehicles operated by companies like Waymo and Tesla making the streets safer? The insurance industry’s research arm is watching closely.

How safe are autonomous vehicles, really?

In @bloomberg.com, I got into the weeds with David Kidd of the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety (@iihs-hldi.bsky.social)

His conclusion: “It’s still too early to say with any kind of confidence that they are safer than human drivers overall.”

🧵

Loved her bck in the day.

Remembering University of Texas professor who championed diversity Remembering Mercedes de Uriarte, a Latina trailblazer, University of Texas professor, whose work reshaped journalism, education and racial equity in Austin.

Ugh. I hadn't realized Mercedes de Uriarte had passed. She fielded a Latino-themed student publication called "Tejas" the same semester @tomphilpott.bsky.social and I launched "Polemicist" at UT Austin, and loved zines, journalism, and the youth she mentored. What a well-lived life.

👀The federal judges in West Virginia, where ICE has been pulling over and detaining people on the freeway, are literally screaming about ICE's tactics.

"It is an assault on the constitutional order," Judge Goodwin says. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

if trump wants to raise tariffs, why doesn't he just go through the republican-controlled congress?

@edzitron.com I adore your stuff. I implore you to spend more time on the hard fork bros. They are very influential—and very AI-brained.

Community meme: I CAN EXCUSE FASCISM. BUTI DRAW THE LINE AT MERCANTILISM.

The Supreme Court:

“Several Trump administration officials had privately said in the weeks leading up to the ruling that they expected the high court to rule against the president’s “emergency” tariff regime. However, the Trump officials stressed, they have already briefed the president on Plan B options, which…

Palantir is powering ICE's immigration crackdown. But they've also recently said the immigration crackdown is hurting their hiring. In today's ironic #404DeepDive... @evystadium.bsky.social gets into this mess.

Full story by @josephcox.bsky.social: www.404media.co/palantir-whi...

Howard Lutnick’s Sons Running His Old Firm Are Betting Against Trump Tariffs | the deep dive Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is selling the tariffs he defends. His old firm, Cantor Fitzgerald—now run by his sons Kyle and Brandon—has built a market for refund rights on duties imposed under P...

The failsons are getting paid... in the funniest way possible. Joke's on us. thedeepdive.ca/howard-lutni...