I get up early every morning, and practically the first thing I do is check the news to see if our ghastly president is dead yet. I have high hopes that sometime in the near future he’s going to suffer a miserable painful death (or a quick painless one, I don’t care), and instead every morning I discover that he has instead done something incredibly stupid and destructive, and our representatives in government have done nothing significant to stop him. And then I feel deep disappointment.

It’s a poor way to start my day, but it’s every day right now. Yeah, I’m a terrible person, but that guy is worse.

Now I have to go for a walk to temporarily clear my head of all this despair.

I’m probably the only person to feel this way.

Serves him right. This sculptor thought he could cash in on the Charlie Kirk frenzy, but it backfired on him — now he’s left holding the bag.

A New York sculptor has been left furious after spending $100,000 of his own money to build a lifesize statue of Charlie Kirk, only to find that no one wants to buy it.

Sergio Furnari, originally from Italy, had hoped the statue of the deceased far-right activist, which he intends to display in Times Square, would raise “millions” of dollars. Instead, he said he has been inundated by messages from people saying they intend to urinate on the sculpture.

Not only do they want to piss on it because Kirk’s reputation is in the toilet, but man, that is one ugly-ass statue.

“I wasn’t a fan of Charlie,” he said. “Like one thing that I couldn’t stand about him while he was alive [was] when he was talking about Palestine. [Kirk would say]: ‘Oh no, Palestine doesn’t exist.’ I thought: ‘Well, this guy must be out of his mind.’”

Instead, Furnari said he made the statue in an effort to “glorify and to exercise the first amendment, this freedom of speech” – although at points during the conversation, Furnari also said he made it to support Charlie Kirk’s wife; to “glorify democracy”; and to “commemorate a person”.

Sergio Furnari with his statue of Charlie Kirk. Photograph: Sergio Furnari
He later added: “Why am I making the statue? The same reason why Michelangelo did the Pietà, or Michelangelo did the David, or Leonardo da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa. Why? Just to commemorate a moment, you know, a person.”

Right, it’s all the same reason: to make money. He thought it would be lots of money, but it turns out to be negative numbers of money.

Until then, Furnari is left with a 6ft 4in statue of a renowned racist, which he has spent $100,000 making, and which no one wants to buy. Maybe it is cursed after all.

Nice summary. That should be how we remember Kirk — as a big ol’ racist.

I refuse to accept the sacrificial substitution of Sam Neill for far more deserving people.

Sam Neill, the popular New Zealand actor whose career spanned five decades and encompassed more than 150 film and television roles, has passed away in Sydney. The actor, best recognized for portraying paleontologist Dr. Alan Grant across multiple “Jurassic Park” installments, was 78.

Lindsey Graham, zombie Mitch McConnell, and then Sam Neill? That’s not a match in any way.

Also, Jurassic Park? Yuck, retch, bleh. To me, he will always be the cursed, damned villain/victim of the Lovecraftian horror, Event Horizon.

I had to fill in at the theater last night. I was not prepared for the exam.

I hadn’t realized how difficult this was going to be. I was handling concessions: there were 3 of us, Kate handling popcorn, Rowan at the pop machine, and me at the cash register and candy. People would come up, tell me what they wanted, I’d ring it up, call out the popcorn and pop order, and we’d instantly put their order on the counter, and I’d get their money. Sounds easy, right?

Typical experience: parent with 3 kids comes up. I push the buttons for 1 adult and 3 kids. Then they all want concessions. Kid 1 wants a kid box, which comes with popcorn, a small soft drink, and one candy. I ask what they want to drink and to pick a candy — this is a child, these are major life choices. Say they want gummi bears and pineapple fanta. I grab the gummy bears and call out the order and go to punch ’em in, and fumble a bit trying to find the gummi button, while Kid 2 tells me he wants a kid box with a Bueno bar — wait, he ordered the candy before the pop, the point-of-sale system wants the pop first, I have to back track and get the drink order before I can click through, so I mentally file “Bueno” in short term memory while I get that, meanwhile Kid 1 tells me he wants Pocky rather than a gummi bear, so I have to change his order, while Parent tells me he wants a large popcorn and a large root beer, and I still have to figure out what Kid 3 wants. It’s all piling up with the first family to come in.

We had 62 people come to the showing last night.

This was a cognitive test! I don’t think I passed. I struggled all night to keep up. I get to do this exercise every week until I get it right, which is probably good for me.

Bonus observation! A lot of teenagers came in without their parents. This seems to be a common behavior, with parents dropping off a clutch of offspring, each one clutching a $10 or $20 bill, and turning them loose for a couple of hours without supervision. The interesting phenomenon is that the groups of teenagers were either 3 or 4 boys, or a pair of girls, no mixed groups. I guess this is the courtship protocol for young teens — no pressure to ask a person out, the theater is just a safe space to mingle and maybe make a connection. There weren’t many connections made, though. Boys stayed apart in rowdy groups, while I’d see the girls occasionally dart into the lobby to giggle and whisper together and maybe disappear into the bathroom. It was a weirdly inefficient procedure.

I was thinking back to my youth, and I might have been a strange outlier. I always went to the movies alone and didn’t interact with the other kids who were there at all. Maybe someone should have told me it was a way to meet girls, it could have changed my life. When I started dating a girl, going to the movies was not a good option (later we figured out that her subtle hearing impairment, which has gotten more severe over the years, may have been a factor in her disinterest in movies.)

Again, I didn’t see the movies — too busy. It turns out my volunteer work isn’t about watching movies, it’s about a weekly cognitive test and getting a glimpse of young people’s behavior.

It’s unpleasantly hot and humid — we just had a thunderstorm drench us — so I decided to try something completely different and made chlodnik, a cold beet soup.

I found the recipe here. If you try it, caution: the proportions there are sufficient for a whole family of 6 or more. We’re going to have chlodnik oozing out of our pores for a few days. Next time I’ll cut everything in half.

The flavor is interesting. Imagine digging up everything in a Slavic peasant’s garden, chopping it up fine, and drowning it in yoghurt, kefir, and sour cream.

It’s cold, though, which was the important criterion.

I really, really, really dislike Harry Enten, the annoyingly hyperkinetic weirdo on CNN who stands in front of an image board and waves at poll numbers and tells us how important they are. I despise all the poll nonsense on the news media — learn to talk about issues and policy rather than the horserace. Now it’s gotten even worse, because he’s not babbling about legitimate, credible polls, it’s all about numbers extracted from prediction markets, which are also paying the networks for promotion.

Since December, CNN has featured Kalshi in a segment called “The Odds” at least 115 times. In these segments, Harry Enten, CNN’s chief data analyst, frequently suggests that Kalshi predictions are more accurate than other sources. While polling relies on volunteers, Enten repeatedly reminds CNN viewers that prediction markets are driven by people who “put their money where their mouth is.”

On January 7, Enten highlighted that, in six days, the odds on Kalshi that the United States would buy part of Greenland by the end of Trump’s first term increased from 12% to 36%. Enten said this was proof that “the people putting their money where their mouth is” are “absolutely taking this seriously.”

“Whoa… way up there now to 36%,” Enten exclaimed. “A tripling in less than a week. My goodness gracious.”

Wishful thinking by gullible people is not evidence.

The good news is that some people are trying to take down these corrupt companies.

On Monday, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz signed a total ban on futures trading platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket. The Trump administration filed a lawsuit Tuesday to prevent the ban from going into place on Aug. 1, with the CFTC arguing its authority supersedes the state’s ability to regulate futures trading. Notably, Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. is a strategic advisor for Kalshi and has invested in Polymarket through his venture capital firm.

You can tell that Kalshi and Polymarket are not to be trusted just by looking at the scumbags who are investing in it. They’re parasites all the way through. It makes me suspicious of the Young Turks that they are also taking Polymarket money.

These are just barely legal gambling sites. Let’s make them illegal.

P.S. There is no evidence that we are imminently going to get evidence that aliens exist.

I guess I’ve made it now. I got a partnership offer.

Dropping you a line because we’ve been looking closely at a select group of creators to bring into the fold for the rest of 2026. Your page jumped out at us – especially how you capture the culture around pushing boundaries and living boldly.
Nothing about it feels corporate or safe – and that’s what we need when we’re considering brand fit.
We’re not interested in a quick send-and-forget partnership – we’re aiming for something that gives you wings to do what you do best.
Want to learn more? Reply and I’ll walk you through the details. This time of year tends to move fast, so didn’t want to wait too long to connect.
Appreciate you reading this, pzmyers.

It was from Red Bull. I’m flattered by the “pushing boundaries and living boldly” comment, but no, just no. Part of my “living boldly” ethos involves rejecting corporate influence.

Also, I’ve never had so much as a sip of Red Bull, so it would be dishonest of me to promote it.

I’ve always wanted to visit France, I guess I’m getting a taste of it today. I went for my morning walk — big mistake. It’s cloudy and gray, but temperatures are climbing into the mid-30°C range, and humidity is sky high. I walked into a coffeeshop with AC, and the windows were opaque sheets of condensation. The mosquitos realized I was loose in nature and attacked me in swarms on the way home.

Dinner tonight will be served cold: iced smoothies. That will be our reward for finally hooking up the window AC unit in our bedroom.