We need to pass laws outlawing paid pardon consultants. At the best of times it creates a two-tiered system. In the current environment it lets Trump create a network of courtiers.

They don’t even mean christian by faith, not really. They mean christian by ideology, as in, holding their specific right wing resentments and prejudices.

Light reading from my father-in-law

it's crazy that 500 years ago, you would see the ruler of your country maybe once in your life and hear whispers that they're the Sun God, but now with social media, you get to see on a daily basis that they're the most unhinged, idiotic, and unhappy person you know

Watching a documentary called “‘Twas the Fight Before Christmas” on Apple TV and a) HOAs are bad, but if you buy into one, you consent! b) there is a non-provable likelihood that the lawyer in question has at the very least advised J6 defendants. Wild ride.

Securely in the depths of “up too late drawing something I’m going to want to entirely redo tomorrow” please send help

watching ALIENS while i do a drawing, and boy, when people say that artists thrive on constraints, they mean James Cameron, because this is an A++ movie. (Vasquez-as-brownface is an unfortunate thing that gen-Z will use to torpedo a fantastic film, but it also remains unfortunate)

Strictly for my collectorz - I got the Warlord by Mike Grell omnibus volume 1 today; be aware that listings online advertise issues 1-50, but the book only contains 1-36. The book itself is far lighter than expected, and printed with a paper that is quite nice, preferable to the somehow-glossy matte

(1/X) Imagine how insane you would sound if you tried to explain someone about Bari Weiss and "free speech" discourse 20 years from now. "There was a conservative opinion writer hired by the Times. She wrote about "free speech" constantly....

this image is maybe the single greatest joke in TRADING PLACES. and also a pretty apt description of the trump/vance/national conservative vision of america

The fascists did not make the trains run on time!

I described the first AVATAR film as "Ferngully meets Halo meets Dances with Wolves" and while I'm glad other people can find joy in watching 2+ hours of CG artistry, I can't get past the rest. I'll be watching a good James Cameron film

Recent purchases, Marvel edition:

Continuing our Al Leong film festival (begun last night with DIE HARD) by watching LETHAL WEAPON, both of which are also Christmas movies If I want to continue to the Carpenter section of the Leong filmography, I think I’m on my own

CHOTINER: and when you're in water you PARTICLE MAN: don't get wet, that's right. CHOTINER: And this is because PARTICLE MAN: the water gets me instead. It becomes particle-manish CHOTINER: There's been some debate on this point. Triangle Man, for example PARTICLE MAN: I think we're done here

Watching a Christmas classic

These people are gutter trash.

the wigand saga she mentions ended up being the focus of a michael mann movie starring russell crowe and al pacino, curious what kind of movie we will get out of this one

To be honest a lot of WEAPONS felt like “elevated horror meets MAGNOLIA” throat clearing but the ending was so satisfying all I can say is the only way it could have improved would have been to come twenty minutes earlier. And more June.

the vice president is a klansman

Professional societies keep beclowning themselves buying into a lie about what an LLM "summary" is. They are inherently counterfeit: not an epistemic product of the ideas in the source, but summary-shaped text linguistically based on *other* works (in the training corpus) that use related language.

“it’s reasonable to ask questions about trans girls in sports” was always intended to mainstream transphobia. It’s absurd that people fell for it. Democrats are constantly letting oppressors set the terms of debate instead of just saying “no, fuck you.”

The person charged with enforcing the laws is an open lawbreaker, assisted by a team of open lawbreakers, backed by a Congressional majority indifferent to lawbreaking, supported by a Supreme Court that privileges them to break the law. It has no legitimacy whatsoever.

Watching A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD really had an effect on me. Fred Rogers set a powerful example for the rest of us to live up to. Laugh, but today I’ve been trying to imagine “what would Fred do” when faced with situations. Driving in South Bay traffic has tested me, O Fred…

Finding people who care about the things you care about, and sharing a human connection with them, is the point of life.

Went to my local today and picked up SUPERGIRL WOMAN OF TOMORROW (mostly for the art if I’m being honest) DC FINEST: WRATH OF THE SPECTRE, but I stayed for the lengthy conversation about revisionism in popular culture, from George Lucas to James Cameron to Neal Adams.

Sometimes I think about Ted Faro and how he’s likely not the worst case scenario.

When did holding a fuzzy microphone become necessary for all online videos

My outfit for the day it happens

Shout out to the local taqueria for their Christmas decorations

This is an irredeemably bad person and if you support him, sanewash him, run a secret ratfucking operation with him while being a high profile political reporter etc. so are you

Somebody put their finger in the presidents ear/ And it wasn’t too much later they came out with Johnson’s wax/ I remember the book depository where they crowned the king of Cuba

I for one want to contact the voice of reason in this article and ask if we can be friends sanjosespotlight.com/willow-glen-... cc @nextdoorsv.bsky.social

The political options which voters have at election time can in fact be demand driven and not entirely placed in front of them on a silver platter.

A million Muslims live in New York City. We belong here, as does every other New Yorker. This is vile Islamophobia from the Councilwoman and it has no place in our city.

Loving this preview of Righteous Gemstones season 5

Not only is Nuzzi not a victim, but the kids dying of whooping cough and measles as a direct consequence of Nuzzi's unethical behavior (for which she was rewarded with a lucrative book deal and Conde Nast sinecure!) certainly are

I think it’s also true that loneliness among women has historically been treated as an individual problem, while loneliness among men is treated as a societal problem. That, in turn, comes from an assumption that women are supposed to earn the company of others while men are entitled to it.

1. Only the rich *currently* have access to the most expensive hospital chains 2. Dunno who runs it, but it's better than lunatic insurance companies whose literal job is to deny care to people 3. This is also the current system. I am rich and have great care and I can't ever fucking see anyone

Wow, hard to imagine a world where rich people have access to the most expensive doctors and hospitals while the average person doesn't. Let's hope that Americans never have to worry about that happening.

“Can the wife of a bigoted grifter unite the nation? CBS thinks so!”

Thanks to @mangiotto.bsky.social for messing up my day with a very personal appreciation of a film which will always remind me of my dad, now gone back to the stars www.rogerebert.com/dvd-blu-ray/...

Today’s book delivery

This thread is like one of those sci-fi movies where they stumble upon a destroyed spaceship and find the log reports of the captain slowly going insane.

New book arrived today thanks to @mattzollerseitz.bsky.social and his press ; look forward to digging in.

Paramount to WBD shareholders: “do you like more cash and a friend in Donald? Have we got an offer for you!”

Sauer saying something is unconstitutional because it "would be unconstitutional under Justice Scalia's dissent" is a remarkably cogent statement of the Roberts Court's approach to precedent.