The thing to remind yourself whenever there is Antiquities Discourse is that the audience of the Odyssey or Beowulf or the Mahabharata or any other classical epic cycle you can think of would probably think a Marvel film or big budget JRPG is the coolest shit that they could imagine.

[frantically dialing the Dad Joke Hall of Fame]

I’m firmly in favor of each and every one of these guys coming face to face with the public and realizing in real time that they’re unlikable, antisocial goons

Why are cybertruck drivers the WORST at parking

I honestly hope at least 90% of currently elected Democrats lose their jobs the next available chance in favor of people who actually believe power can be used to shape needed change for the people they're allegedly meant to represent. It's our only hope.

i have been writing about the virginia supreme court decision with a certain amount of analytical detachment but if i’m being honest i’m also fucking furious i took the time to go vote and then my ballot got tossed out by these dipshits

It’s one thing that a lot of the people described here are normal voters. It’s far, far worse that it also seems to describe a substantial number of people in politics and the media. People who, in theory, we should expect it to be their job to know better.

democrats appear to be broadly underestimating the base's anger right now. that's not really a problem for the midterms, purely in terms of electoral strategy (see @gelliottmorris.com's analysis), but i have a feeling it will be disruptive down the road in unforeseen ways

The best place to be when It happens would be a music venue mid-concert. A little drunk. A little sweaty. The news rippling through the crowd as people’s phones light up. An abrupt halt to a banger before the announcement is made from the stage. Everybody kissing like it’s V-J Day in Times Square.

This is important. We can't rely on anyone/anything else. We the People have the power to save American democracy.

I can accept the Muppets being in commercials because they’re showbiz people. I cannot accept the Sesame Street Muppets being in commercials because they’re educators.

BEN: Then the Emperor has already won. You were our only hope. LUKE: Yoda spoke of another. BEN: Oh yeah he must’ve meant Ahsoka Tano, a fully trained warrior badass who’s alive just offscreen. She’s got two lightsabers LUKE: That’s badass. BEN: You only have one and you lost it

in a way, isn’t causing men to crash out before she’s even done anything just proof that Lupita is perfect for Helen of Troy

yes. correct.

I’m sorry but the Dems need to run on putting everyone from this administration and bureaucrats who enabled them in prison.

I have been told several times by NYT reporters that they *include this crediting* in drafts and have it removed by editors.

There was a point back in the early 2000s where Google Search became much less functional due to people figuring out how to game the algorithm. The Google engineers treated this as a major problem they needed to solve ASAP. Whereas with AI garbage they're the ones putting it in.

interesting rationale from a prospective juror in the Elon Musk Twitter stock manipulation case

sorry, i work at a university in a red state, and it’s illegal for the women & gender studies faculty to spend research money to attend their conferences. what in the fuck are they talking about

“It’s abundantly clear that the opinions on generative AI grow more positive and less anchored in labor reality the higher up someone is in the management level, so if that’s all legislators and policymakers are talking to, then they’ll be writing some seriously deficient bills.”

“I’m running hot this week, not because Democrats lost a round, but because they ran into easily anticipated Republican faithlessness and decided, once again, to defer consequences.”

“Mixed Mark”?!? Is this article serious?!? No Wisconsin politician of this generation has been more damaging to the city of Milwaukee than Robin Vos. He has stood in the way of progress, been dismissive and destructive and downright punitive toward Milwaukee. What horseshit

"this would be really bad and so, ipso facto, it can't happen" is the assumption underlying the entire Trump era and it's sort of bleakly funny to see people clinging to it even as the train is jumping the tracks

as far as i can tell the official position of the us supreme court is that the only racism to exist in america is racism against white people? and trying to protect minorities from racism is actually racist against white people?

Risk aversion gets you promoted. Constantly pressing elected officials to roll the dice will get you sidelined or fired.

Yep. This is the best way to understand the events of the past couple weeks. They have to dispense with the artifice of principle, because the risks of Dems winning and coming to power bent on accountability are simply too great. www.offmessage.net/p/republican...

It’s very simple: the 6 republican Supreme Court justices are functionally no different than klansmen

the court failed to provide the appropriate level of deference to a constitutional referendum and no one is obliged to honor its conclusion that the results should be invalidated.

"the voters will have their say in the election" is an uninspiring and demoralizing response to a court overturning the result of an election

In Opinion After the Virginia Supreme Court overturned a state redistricting vote, “the correct response is to fight back in the name of the people, who made their choice in a free and fair contest,” Jamelle Bouie writes. “Democrats must meet the moment. Or move over for people who will.”

My “this is not a golden calf” shirt is raising a lot of questions already answered by my shirt.

quote this shit and say that you're using the maps anyway

We've reached the point where one party has so obliterated the rule of law that everyone else continuing to abide by it will only hasten the end of our democracy. That's a recipe for chaos and violence. It's terrifying, and I don't know what we do about it.

the reason democracy works so well is that we settle issues via the ballot box. once that avenue dries up because one party wants to entrench themselves in power forever, people start looking for alternatives

At any point my lifetime, the most extreme views you could find anywhere in the conservative universe became the mainstream GOP position within 5, 10 years. As reliably as the tides came in and went out.

It's amazing how quickly White politicians in the South rushed to PROVE exactly why we needed the Voting Rights Act!

you can really tell that many if not most elected Democrats, certainly at the national level, first and foremost see Republicans as "the people I have to work with" rather than an enemy that must be defeated for the survival of democracy

fyi the jim crow language works. every time schumer or jeffries says it, the gop freaks out. it works.

The post-war rally in the stock market has been remarkable, especially considering that, you know, THE WAR NEVER ENDED AND ITS MAIN ECONOMIC HARM IS CONTINUING TOTALLY UNABATED

This is self-evidently true and virtually nobody of consequence in American politics believes it.

I have said this before and I will say it again, but it is my firm belief that given the blatant and naked corruption exhibited by some members of the Roberts Court, decisions of the Roberts Court should not be treated as precedentially binding on later courts.

Better late than never, right? Martha tells Pete all about why he should care about Formula 1 racing, and they dig into some fast car flicks on.soundcloud.com/FBbWj7pvunLy... @magicalmartha.bsky.social @prhomberg.bsky.social

It’s crazy that this is legal.

Class in the US is entirely a matter of aesthetics now. Rich suburban kids are “country”. Beard Dudes who look like they love IPAs are “working class.” Teachers who make $32,000 a year but have to dress up sort of nice in JCPenney clothes are “elites“. None of these words mean anything anymore.

Here’s how the AI Boom, such as it is, has impacted my life: it has been used as an excuse to lay off my friends for bot equivalents that never came. It has made mass culture and art immeasurably worse. I have a stalker with AI psychosis. So, no, I don’t more data centers. I want less of all that.

They go fast when they want to go fast and slow when they want to go to slow and the decision is *always* an ideological one.

This is partisanship at its rawest. SCOTUS has clamped down on lower courts for rulings that could alter maps many *months* before an election—even when those maps have been judged illegal. Here, it's rushing to let the Louisiana GOP change a map *while an election is underway.*