Got to second this one. This was an insightful and informative read. It dis into a lot of stuff I used to fall for in relation to what I knew about Japan and its culture, and sometimes still catch myself falling for, unfortunately, because it's been beaten into my brain for decades.

the difference between a good essay and a great one is whether you come out the other side knowing more than when you went in. this is a great essay.

This piece by @docseuss.bsky.social is long and it took me a couple of days to get around to it, but it's an excellent look at how Japanese "honor culture" is represented in Western fiction (specifically video games) and what a load of racist shit it all is. (My words, not his.) (Link below.)

Strangelove was a broad comedy, but a character like Trump would have been seen as too outlandish. The movie hinges on actions by a conspiracy theorist (General Ripper), war enthusiast (General Turgidson) and sociopath (Dr. Strangelove) whereas in our reality, Trump combines elements of all three.

The thing about the Wolf case is that it’s the kind of mistake it would be understandable for a casual researcher to make - I’ve seen it often with the Chinese equivalents - but the book was her PhD and it was central to her thesis! It had to make it past multiple levels of people.

I'm put in mind of my favorite bit of sartorial science fiction writing, from an 1899 H.G. Wells short story "A Story of Days to Come" wherein a Victorian man's 22nd century descendent likewise demonstrates his ancestor's probity by dressing soberly in pink tights and inflatable cock's comb headgear

If civilian boats and schools didn't already count

Yeah same.

I’m starting to think the intellectual dark web is illiterate bsky.app/profile/bft....

“as they well know, ‘Antifa’ is not an organisation. It has no membership rolls, no leadership structure, no command hierarchy. It is, in practice, a label applied to anyone who turns up to oppose fascists on the street.” the illogic of it doesn’t matter because this is fascism

I didn’t even have to click into the comments to know he was going to quote the unhinged op-eds by Maureen Dowd from 2004. A man who won an election shouted in joyous excitement and he was unfit for the presidency. We now have a demented psychopath who’s shitting out war crimes and it’s like 😒👌

Given these two, I'm betting on "all of the above and then some."

This is true even if you only count her work in King of the Hill to be fair.

This reminds me of the whole "i dont support the war, I support the soldiers" shit. Maybe you shouldn't!

It should be pointed out that it is not suggested but *required* for members of the US military to disobey illegal orders by regulation. The fact that nobody should tell you everything there is to know about that rotten organization

Doing war crimes is bad but have you considered that the people bombing schools really need to collect their pension?

This is fucking madness and literally the first I’ve even heard of it.

Both of them, basically carbon copies of AFTER HOURS. It's always the exact same movie with this dude. I mean, have you seen ALICE DOESN'T LIVE HERE ANYMORE? Or THE LAST WALTZ? All of them, IDENTICAL.

Mamdani isn't a socialist, and even if he was, where are corporations going to go? They can't conduct business outside of NYC and they know it. Are they going to spend hundreds of billions to transform Texas or Florida into NYC when there's zero infrastructure?

Probably because Tolkien was a thoughtful and committed author dedicated to “learning” about his secondary creation his entire life just as much as any potential reader, while Rowling was a lazy hack who threw a bunch of preexisting stories into a nutribullet and keeps repackaging that same slurry.

Guy on the right looks like James Carville.

Sometimes readers are skeptical when I tell them that retailers would rather pay for self-checkout kiosks and product lockup systems and all manner of other questionable in-store tech rather than staffing because of an ideological preference for capital spending over labor spending and, well,,,

Amanecer de fuego hoy, en la patagonia profunda. ❤️🧡🩶🤎❤️ Gran domingo para tutti. 🌄

John Cena is a master of defusing questions designed to get celebrities to say controversial things. Truly, a master of the craft.

New: I wrote about how the SPLC let union breaking and fear of MAGA drive it away from its own civil rights principles. After I spoke up about Gaza, the SPLC disciplined me and terminated my employment—leading to a discrimination settlement: substack.com/home/post/p-...

Not sure if it counts as a "city" but I did job training for a week in Cullman, AL. A supposedly "former" sundown town. In five eight hour days I think I saw a single black person.

By choosing to write it in the first time, The Times is getting readers to think about a world where women can't vote. It doesn't really matter if they're critical of it, just by getting NYT coverage, it becomes "an issue worthy of debate."

Thread.

Nothing you can tell me about the crimes of the Iranian regime that I haven't lived in blood & bone. That doesn't mean I want my people bombed, maimed, killed, their homes in ruins. If your vision of liberation comes only through the destruction of innocent lives, then it's not freedom you're after.

Welp, Rian Johnosn vindicated, I guess

90s kids had Harry Potter. '10s kids had A Series of Unfortunate Events. As a Xennial, I am neither, but I lean much harder on the latter. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rs96...

The version on my Patreon can be found here, if you support one of us and not the other. www.patreon.com/posts/idsg-b...

'Hackers' in movies and TV from 1999 - 2009

Larry Sanders is rolling over in his grave knowing tbat Bill Maher is on HBO Max, and he’s a fictional character.

And Bondi licked more boot than just about anybody. "The Dow is at 50,000!"

Worthy of note is that the director here is Kyle Rankin, one of the co-winners of Season 2 of Project Greenlight, and is a sequel to the Daily Wire acquired "Run Hide Fight" from a few years ago. "Run Hide Fight Infidels" is giving real post 9/11 energy to me.

Just gonna add to this with a why-the-hell-not quick excerpt from the DIE HARD book to underline the point: if John McFuckingTiernan doesn't think you should take unnecessary risks, then this bloviating dipshit should fully shut the fuck up

Isaac Chotiner: You say the two cats who live in your house are "Jerks" and you don't care for them Me: Absolutely. They are the burdens of my life Chotiner: It seems you spent an hour searching for special food for them and paid more for it than you do even for your own food. Me: That's--Hold on,

Just A Girl by No Doubt.

pro wrestling is cool because people will be like "yayyy big meaty men slapping meat 🥩💪" but it's actually more "big meaty men establishing incredible amounts of emotional trust in order to keep each other safe doing dangerous physical maneuvers 🥺"

Now with labels for iconic stars Mira, Tau Ceti, and 51 Pegasi

The long, hard, and painful process of learning to science which this article describes also applies to writing. Especially, I think, the bit about knowing instinctively something is wrong, and knowing how to fix it. Hoo boy I am still working on that one.

Yeah. This was a huge issue for me too. There are two kinds of genocide scholars the way there are two kinds of criminal attorneys. Some are trying to study and prevent genocide, some are trying to monopolize the term so only specific, politically convenient, incidents can be called one.

based on my experiences as a parent i genuinely believe that if someone is feeling irritable the first thing they should ask themselves is “have i pooped today?”

there was a time the old heads remember when the internet existed and capitalism didn't realize what it could do to the place yet the problem is capitalism the internet used to be beautiful and can be again

I shouldn't even talk about this anymore, but the idea that trans people should all want to assimilate into society and live totally in stealth, not letting anyone know that they're trans is harmful to other trans people. This is why there was a big push in the past for gay people to come out

Mi Linda mi ama.

The attack on birthright citizenship is the Geistesgehalt—the spiritual content—of the MAGA revolution. www.unpopularfront.news/p/birthright...