Kirk Fordham

Left Seattle for Pittsburgh, America’s city-on-the-rise. Former Cap Hill staff, pragmatist, problem-solver, outdoors lover.

[Yanko Design @yankodesign]

Pittsburgh Just Built the Most Beautiful Pickleball Courts in America https://t.co/JivAwVVsJP

[Michael McFaul @McFaul]

Our military needs more people better at XBox not more men who can do pushups.

That Hegseth does not seem to understand this fundamental fact of modern warfare worries me.

He should spend some time in Ukraine and learn. The best soldiers today in that fight are those who know how to fly drones effectively. That’s a different skill set than bench pressing.

[Jim Lokay @Lokay]

This is a damn engineering marvel. So impressive.

[Ryan Deto @RyanDeto]

GOOD NEWS: The Commercial Street Bridge slid into place yesterday without a hitch, which means the Parkway East has a chance to open about a week early, PennDOT officials.

Timelapse 🎥 via Reddit user mr_never_lift.

More details here: https://t.co/ubyyaF33rs

[RC deWinter @RCdeWinter]

A grammar book walks into a bar

* An Oxford comma walks into a bar, where it spends the evening watching the television, getting drunk, and smoking cigars.

* A dangling participle walks into a bar. Enjoying a cocktail and chatting with the bartender, the evening passes pleasantly.

* A bar was walked into by the passive voice.

* An oxymoron walked into a bar, and the silence was deafening.

* Two quotation marks walk into a “bar.”

* A malapropism walks into a bar, looking for all intents and purposes like a wolf in cheap clothing, muttering epitaphs and casting dispersions on his magnificent other, who takes him for granite.

* Hyperbole totally rips into this insane bar and absolutely destroys everything.

* A question mark walks into a bar?

* A non sequitur walks into a bar.
In a strong wind, even turkeys can fly.

* Papyrus and Comic Sans walk into a bar. The bartender says, "Get out -- we don't serve your type."

* A mixed metaphor walks into a bar, seeing the handwriting on the wall but hoping to nip it in the bud.

* A comma splice walks into a bar, it has a drink and then leaves.

* Three intransitive verbs walk into a bar. They sit. They converse. They depart.

* A synonym strolls into a tavern.

* At the end of the day, a cliché walks into a bar -- fresh as a daisy, cute as a button, and sharp as a tack.

* A run-on sentence walks into a bar it starts flirting. With a cute little sentence fragment.

* Falling slowly, softly falling, the chiasmus collapses to the bar floor.

* A figure of speech literally walks into a bar and ends up getting figuratively hammered.

* An allusion walks into a bar, despite the fact that alcohol is its Achilles heel.

* The subjunctive would have walked into a bar, had it only known.

* A misplaced modifier walks into a bar owned by a man with a glass eye named Ralph.

* The past, present, and future walked into a bar. It was tense.

* A dyslexic walks into a bra.

* A verb walks into a bar, sees a beautiful noun, and suggests they conjugate. The noun declines.

* A simile walks into a bar, as parched as a desert.

* A gerund and an infinitive walk into a bar, drinking to forget.

* A hyphenated word and a non-hyphenated word walk into a bar and the bartender nearly chokes on the irony .

– Jill Thomas Doyle

[Eric Michael Garcia @EricMGarcia]

A former chief of staff to Nancy Mace has thoughts about her running for Senate.

[Mark Halperin @MarkHalperin]

On @paramountplus they just said this @ufc evening represents the most historical sporting event of all time.

I mean, it isn't even the most historic sporting event this weekend!

cc: @nyknicks @jfa_samuraiblue

[John Ziegler @Zigmanfreud]

I’m a California Conservative who HATES our Democrat establishment, but there is no logic to the evidence-less theory that our elections are rigged.

Those duped by this theory can’t explain…

-How the GOP won numerous close congressional races in 2022

-How Steve Hilton is going to beat a Democrat who spent $200 million and make the runoff

-Why the LA Democrat establishment would prevent Spencer Pratt from being Mayor Bass’ opponent when he would have been WAY WAY easier for her to beat than Raman will be

MAGA is really bad at a lot of things, but math and logic are their biggest weaknesses.
😡🤮🤦‍♂️

[Andrew Yang🧢⬆️🇺🇸 @AndrewYang]

It’s happening. There are about 2.9 million customer service workers in the US.

[David Wallace-Wells @dwallacewells]

The world is buying twenty million fewer gas cars each year than as recently as 2017.

[The Dark Side @FantasyGalaxies]

Me and my son have been sneaking out in the middle of the night in our Ewok and Chewbacca costumes just to mess with our neighbor's trail cams.

[Alan Saunders @ASaunders_PGH]

The Pittsburgh Zoo is clearly in win-now mode.

[Joshua Reed Eakle 🗽 @JoshEakle]

A 10-year-old wrote MAGA Congresswoman Virginia Foxx for a school project.

He chose to write about an electric vehicle tax credit. Something he thought was good for the environment.

Virginia responded by attacking him and his teacher for being propagandized.

Her words: “your teacher will not be able to give you a good education as they are too interested in indoctrinating you... How sad.”

An 80-year-old woman. Attacking a 10-year-old. For doing his homework.

These people have power over your life.

[Pennsylvania Governor's Office @PAGovOffice]

👀

[Ray Dalio @RayDalio]

The Two Different Paths: We are about to find out which path we are on.  As I said in my last note, from my conversations with a number of world leaders in a number of countries, and as seems obvious to me, there will either be a) a U.S. win over Iran, which will require taking control over the Strait of Hormuz and assuring that Iran's nuclear program is dead—i.e., defanging Iran, or b) a U.S. loss, which is the result if these things don't happen.

Most senior policy makers I speak with believe that we are likely headed down the b) path and that will be made clear soon. It needs to be made clear soon because continuing on the current path or being more forceful will cause sharp increases in oil and gasoline prices and great difficulties during the high travel season, bad political consequences for President Trump, and difficulties in his upcoming meeting with President Xi in China. So, we should have that verdict soon.

The perception that the b) path is most likely is already leading to a view that the United States will not be a reliable protector against possible opponents like Russia in Europe and/or China in Asia, and that is already leading to actions being taken that are sensible in light of that belief, like leaders paying "tribute" visits to China. As explained before, this set of circumstances is likely to have some analogous consequences to Great Britain losing the Suez Canal in 1956. By the way, this is also happening at a time when China is earning huge amounts of money through its very strong exports—so much money that it is difficult for those Chinese earning the money to know what to do with it. This is making China a very important player in world capital markets as well as world trade. In other words, these events are making China geopolitically and financially stronger.

[Boring Careers @BoringCareers]

Pittsburgh tech scene 2026:

Avg salary: $110K–$135K
Major employers: Google, Duolingo, Aurora Innovation
Strong in: AI/ML, robotics, and autonomous systems

CMU pipeline is a major talent source.

Affordable, steadily growing tech hub.

Underrated AI and robotics hub.

[Forbes @Forbes]

#BestPlacesToRetire In 2026

Pros: Median home price of $238,000, 42% below national median. Excellent ratio of primary care doctors per capita. Very bikeable and walkable. State has flat 3.07% income tax, with Social Security and most retirement income excluded from the tax.

Read more:
https://t.co/KdZedFAfiu (Photo: Sean Pavone/Newscom)

[Congressman Chris Deluzio @RepDeluzio]

More screen time can hurt our kids’ attention span, mental health, and imagination. Proud of these Western PA parents for bringing real scrutiny to how schools use screens and tech—more to come from me on this in Congress.
https://t.co/uCAD1hSdFT

[Ramez Naam @ramez]

Everyone who cares about climate should understand this. Texas, with no pro-climate policies, has blown passed California in clean energy. In large part because Texas has less red tape and makes it easier to build.

[Ken Burns @KenBurns]

We are announcing today that The American Revolution will stream for free in its entirety on all PBS platforms from May 25th through July 12. Hope you have a chance to watch, ideally with friends and family, as you think about our 250th anniversary this July 4th. https://t.co/c8fc6Sldj5