Jon Webb

Action is the antidote to despair. Community is the antidote to fear. If you are feeling these things, don't post here. Instead, find a community and get to work. You'll feel a lot better. I maintain a calendar of Philly rallies, protests, actions etc at phillyactions.org. See it to get involved.

University of Pennsylvania professor Zeke Hernandez studied one particular aspect of the “ICE tax” — the price paid by local businesses and communities in the aftermath of ICE activity and arrests, events that are often sudden, public, and violent.

it's clear the only tool facists have in their toolbox at this point (besides calling in the military) is trying to convince people their vote doesn't matter. don't believe em.

I find this analysis super hard to take. Look at the Republican shifts in group after group. Nobody moved towards Harris. From NYT.

Two things about polls: 1) I one heard Chris Christie say there are polling errors, but never when all the polls are saying the same thing. 2) Ideally, polling errors should be at the 50-50 level. In other words, it's as likely that they're underestimating Democratic strength as overestimating it.

I was in Croatia recently and had a discussion with a woman who is concerned about our politics. She's asked me, seriously, "are you going to vote?" I was like, every Democrat I know is ready to walk over hot coals strewn with broken glass to vote. Even if they're shooting at us, as we expect.

These calculations show the impact of the end of Moore's law. If that were still in effect we'd be talking about achieving Asimov's dream of autonomous robots. But instead of making computers exponentially faster we're now making them exponentially larger. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

In retrospect the (coincidental?) sudden death of Lindsey Graham on return from Ukraine has been the most consequential single event in Russia's favor since the invasion of Ukraine began. It's clear that without Graham lobbying Trump he is only listening to Vladimir Putin.

The thing about it is, throughout his second term, Trump has met almost no resistance. Congress has done nothing, the courts are slow and inconsistent, and everybody else can be treated as a joke. But after January there will likely be a real resistance. Everything will change.

At this point the Nobel committee should give Obama a second Nobel prize just to annoy Trump.

The more I think of it the more it bothers me that in Pluribus the entire joined mind of almost every human on Earth can't figure out how to synthesize amino acids.

Having just seen Digger, I think it's a failure of a movie. But Tom Cruise does a hell of a job acting in it. You can see why he wanted to do the movie and hoped it would give him a shot at an Oscar.

I was convinced by this article to stop wasting resources by sending plastic to be recycled. The only thing it actually makes sense to recycle is metals. open.substack.com/pub/worksinp...

The FlyDubai assault would have been avoided if airlines had implemented the techniques developed by Nathan Fielder in season 2 of "The Rehearsal."

Keeping a woman alive after torturing her nearly to death only so you can kill her again is the outer limit of barbarity. www.nytimes.com/live/2026/10...

We were away for a few days so, to punish us, the cat has turned invisible.

Michelle Smit at Massey University (NZ) tracked cat activities using motion collars. The top activities were: sitting, which occupied them for 20.1 to 41.4 per cent of their time, while a whopping 34.8 to 52.9 per cent went to the really important one: lying. www.newscientist.com/article/2590...

Driving across Pennsylvania (the Turnpike) in an electric car with not great range (2023 Chevy Bolt EV) is like traveling with a dog or small child. You have to plan ahead where you're going to stop and charge. But the Turnpike has chargers every few rest stops, so it's not a big deal.

Leaving "Resident Evil" (a fun, meaningless, well-directed horror movie), ahead of me was a grandmother and her teenage grandchild. "I can't believe you talked me into going to that! I'm probably going to have nightmares for weeks!" Bonding experiences are where you find them.

We now have rigorous pooled data showing that even without active restoration efforts, cleared rainforest can rebound to 75% of their former species composition and 90% of species diversity within just thirty years. #goodnews

Some day these rogue AI systems are going to do something nasty to Trump and we'll be like, hmm...

I'm not usually interested in celebrity interviews but something about this piqued my interest. I'm glad I read it. What a remarkable, horrifying life. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/26/m...

Guy just walked past on his phone, "I can't wait until AI can do the jobs of people. I'll never hire another person again. AI won't tell me it won't. AI won't tell me it can't." Sounds like a guy who could be replaced by AI.

We're staying in a Victorian b&b in Beaver. PA, and I cannot figure the town out. There are tons of well-kept shops, clean wide streets and sidewalks, numerous amenities, etc. Millions of dollars in investment and maintenance and there's no way the population here could support this economy.

The networks banning coverage of Trump becoming seeing but not hearing him works well for me. I've never had a problem seeing him standing around, a goofy looking old billionaire. It's hearing him that I can't stand. So after the ban is over, could we please bring back the cameras but not the mikes?

I've thought that tearing down the Trump ballroom doesn't really make sense—surely the next president could remove the garish decoration and use the building, a ballroom would be useful. But this makes me think the best option would be to rebuild from scratch. wapo.st/4hk45vL

i think the best "electability" argument isnt race, gender or resume. its the person who attracts the most dedicated, genuine, organic support. sometimes that has been barack obama. sometimes it was donald trump. but thats the real electability.

I find CVS's pricing of common items like toothpaste to be a real barrier to buying anything. It's so confusing how much something costs—some things are packaged two in one box, others buy one get one 50% off, there are various sizes etc—that it's impossible to know if you're getting ripped off.

Over at the newsletter I wrote about the media's total failure to responsibly cover batshit claims that software has gained human-level awareness and will soon kill us all

BREAKING: TV pool will not be providing coverage of presidential events until further notice b/c of CNN's ban, pool chair and FOX News Washington Bureau Chief Bryan Boughton said. It's effectively a boycott by the fellow members — ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX: www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

If the AI future goes sideways, bots won’t be to blame—people will, @karaswisher.bsky.social told @adriennelaf.bsky.social at The Atlantic Festival:

The reaction of the news media still allowed into the White House to hear our Dear Leader's pearls of wisdom to the banning of CNN, Politico, and MS Now is as if the host of a dinner party shot dead three guests and everyone left said, "Oh, that's just not done! Now, what's for dessert?"

My little website (phillyactions.org) listing all the actions, protests, etc in Philly has broken through! I hadn't checked the logs for weeks. Just did and it's like 7x the average daily traffic! So satisfying!

jim morrison's dad gave that order. favorite thing i've learned so far from the @andrewhickey.500songs.com podcast

I don't know where the data for this would come from. I can see how AIs could get increasingly better at say math. But what about everything else that matters? As Robin Williams said in "Good Will Hunting", what about the smell in the Sistine Chapel? www.nytimes.com/2026/09/16/s...

Grew up in Shadyside.

BREAKING: Supreme Court won't allow Trump to enforce Postal Service mail-in ballot regulation ahead of the midterm elections

I just finally finished Half Man. I found it very hard to take but find it to be one of the most impressive series I've ever seen on television.

Ayatollah Khamenei and Mitch McConnell—separated at birth? (Death?)

"People are really mad and however mad you are, it’s not enough. Because there is something so profound about no longer believing in the future, about seeing no value in our shared home, in the natural world. They’re traitors to creation.” www.theguardian.com/books/2026/s...

I'm thinking what we really need to do is find a way to punish AIs that misbehave. You don't keep people in line only by raising them and telling them to behave. There's also a threat that if they don't they could end up in jail, or not having friends etc. We need something like that for bad AIs.

It's natural to try to figure out the motivations of people with power so you can tell what they're going to do next, and possibly influence them. But with Trump and Fetterman you really don't have to. They're fixed. They're not going to change.

The payments are likely illegal to receive, which is not a problem so long as you stay in Trump's good graces so he can pardon you. See the catch? He's involved you in crime, but only he can let you out. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/09/u...

Watching the AI warnings is like seeing an ad for Cyberdyne technologies where they show robots driving over a pile of skulls with the tagline "coming in 2023" and everybody goes, meh.

Finally saw Obsession and I’m so freaked out but if my gf tries to comfort me it only makes it worse

Ok I know there's more to this story. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/09/u...

The whole Republicans in Texas/Grindr discussion feels like homophobia to me. Not cool even if it's directed at Republicans.

worth tying this into the political economy of the slave south as well. from roughly the 1820s onwards, slavery became enormously lucrative in ways that had never been seen before. slave traders became millionaires. large planters had tremendous purchasing power. just huge amounts of wealth.