Josh Barnard

Carte blanche for Trump

New working paper: the Norwegian wealth tax was a huge success. The "exodus" of wealthy people never happened (less than 100 individuals left). Tax revenue increased by 71.5%. No changes in business activity or investment. www.nber.org/papers/w35854

wild to be living in a world with live-streamed state executions and legal daylight kidnappings, but every time you turn around some loser is saying, hey man, what if art were completely frictionless? what if we killed even the possibility of human connection??

Do we know which services will be live streaming the execution? I would like to begin my boycott of them and their advertisers now. The man to be executed is paralyzed. Will he be seated in his wheelchair for this or tied upright to a post? Do we still condemn cruel and unusual punishments?

“If you don’t like public executions just don’t watch it” says the crowd trying to ban drag shows and books

One thing I find endlessly funny about the rise of AI is that it has revealed that there is a large number of people who believe that the reason they wrote essays at school or university is their teachers were desperately waiting for them to provide a definite answer to “Lear: what’s up with him?”

“I have a strict policy that nobody cries alone in my presence.” - Dolly Parton

Thys! "a model that assigns value primarily on the basis of whether a degree program can be mapped to high-paying jobs overlooks the value of other work that universities perform...." mississippitoday.org/2026/09/18/w...

When we talk about how science is broken, maybe at least consider how a huge collaboration measured the ripples in spacetime resulting the collision of two black holes 1.3 billion light years away, as counterweight the guy who had to fake his data to show that people who procrastinate fall behind.

if it took you 5 seconds of contemplation to think of an alternative you should take at least another 5-10 to at least consider the possibility that it at least crossed the minds of 1 or 2 of the people who dedicate their lives and research careers to dealing with the problems we post about on here

Literary fiction is coming. It is going to revolutionize the economy. We know that China has already got a start on literary fiction. We can’t afford to be left out of the literary fiction economy. Think of your kids. They might already be engaging with literary fiction.

There are endless studies showing this and also the financial and societal benefits of universal basic income and or housing-first policies but the U.S. never goes for any of it because it would require allowing the poor to receive benefits that the rich consider “undeserved”

🚨🚨 “If even one bar code on one single ballot in a bulk-mailing of 10,000 ballots fails to properly scan during the verification process, the entire batch is rejected and sent back to the state—effectively stopping the ballots from being mailed to voters.” talkingpointsmemo.com/news/a-shit-...

In his speech yesterday, Canada PM Mark Carney seemed to try to explain to the President what a “trade deficit” is. You’re not just giving another country 100s of millions of dollars… You’re buying things from them! That you want!

Bro if you can’t get along with CANADA that is 100% a you problem

So we know AI helped a negligible number of students. But how many did it harm? I've crunched the raw data provided by the lead researcher, and what I've found is that ~9,500 students using AI studied less than even the *least* studious, non-AI using student. This should shock the conscience.

If you’re a white man in academia and you think your problems come from EDI/DEI/woke, you’re failing on observational skills, research methods and critical thinking.

again i am just not that interested in debating whether human rights should theoretically extend to robots and ai when we currently don't even extend them to all humans

Diphtheria, Tetanus, and Pertussis have been administered in a combined shot since the 1940s. Combo vaccines are one of the most proven medical technologies ever.

If you are a causal watcher and you hear people saying this, and no pushback, you assume its true. No wonder people are mad. But in reality, this is what the actual evidence, still on the CDC website, says: www.cdc.gov/covid/vaccin...

"Election officials and lawyers noted how surreal it is, even after a decade of Trumpism, to treat the nation’s duly elected president as the primary threat to the freedom and fairness of American elections." Yes. Always keep this front and center.

Bluesky is a "liberal bubble" because fascist chuds can't get traction without algorithmic assistance and because people here trained themselves to block "debate me" trybois the instant they roll up

While the Fields Medal celebrates the under-40s, the mathematician Joan Birman has, at the age of 99, solved a major open problem in representations of the Braid groups, a topic she has worked on for more than 60 years.

Admirable clarity @science.org

“The Bluesky Experience™”

I would like to broaden the scope here. Any organization be it religious, corporate, educational, medical... that is operating under a patriarchal model will have sexual abuse of those perceived to be weaker as part of its functioning.

In my lifetime, I've seen segments of society lose trust in evolutionary biology, climate science, and vaccines. None of this was due to anything scientists did. All of it was because non-scientists perceived some advantage (political, cultural, financial) in attacking science's credibility.

this is “pete hegseth wants an all-white military”

Heat waves. Thanks to @climateadam.bsky.social's most recent video, which helped inform this comic and gave me the kick I needed to make it.

From the Telemundo broadcast just now by the commentary team during a slow-mo replay of the goal and a shot of Haaland with his hair down: "This is a perfect goal. The ball didn't touch anything." In exaggerated, gravely, dramatic voice: "TERMINATOR"

The figure is from Ketan Joshi here: ketanjoshi.co/2026/07/01/g...

In a list of twenty seven grievances, immigration is seventh. Taxation without representation is seventeenth.

Not true. In their list of grievances, the Founding Fathers complained that King George III was blocking colonial laws that would promote immigration and make it easier for foreign settlers to become citizens.

Cabo Verde fucking legends, that match will go down as one of the iconic WC games of this tournament, no matter what happens next.

Some thoughts on America's 250th anniversary and patriotism. talkingpointsmemo.com/news/chicago...

I wrote about the Prairieland defendants and the urgency of opposing the extreme sentences handed down on Tuesday. And they likely will not be the last.

President Trump unveiled a refurbished jet given to him by Qatar to use as Air Force One, in violation of the foreign emoluments clause of the U.S. Constitution. Editors at @apnews.com, numbed by a decade of emolumental corruption, failed to identify it as public corruption to Americans & the world.

I will repost every one of these until it clicks for every single person in this country so help me.

I don't know how to explain to the people who pop up when creatives complain about "AI" to say there are legit uses for it just how much they sound like someone saying "Well actually fire is used to make bread" when people are talking about an organized arson ring burning down their fucking houses

are you just going to do this for every generation