Me about that Ranger wandering about Hobbiton

*me dying in a nuclear war* this isn’t going to work on me, I’m too focused

One of the big problems with Trump is that he only has one move - attempted intimidation. And part of the reason he resents the law so much is that he sees intimidation as a valid negotiating move he needs to keep in his pocket. A lot of the time he doesn't even mean it -

somebody tell these professional contrarians that you can’t have a Sister Souljah moment with your entire fucking base. at some point you do actually have to represent the values of your voters instead of identifying another disfavored minority group to throw under the bus

It's very funny to be like "we came to an agreement with the DoD which just fired another company for claiming to have any kind of ethics - good news, they're big on ethics"

I really think there's more to this. Conservatives, being on average far less capable of critical thought, have convinced themselves that AI is actually sentient. They really think you can just tell it kill the ppl we don't like and it will, and its just principle that's holding it back.

As always, what Matt y is missing and apparently could not arrive at without a large, cartoon mallet, is the lack of evidence that telling people you want to bully trans ppl just so makes them like you EVEN IF they actively say that's what they want. But it's just his personality, now.

Pete Hegseth, no cap on the fifth of bourbon he’s holding: “the United States military needs to know what your kids’ genitals look like”

HulkSmash.gif

Got a new trick shot for ye

Openly and explicitly exactly. A lot of STEM brained people can’t imagine that visibly changing your whole thing to do whatever people say they want can’t isn’t the same thing as championing what people want

I think a lot of the shrug about CNN is that people are running out of energy for catastrophes they can’t affect. Every dem candidate has raised a kajillion dollars but somehow only their rich people engage in media consolidation. What am I supposed to do man

Just finished reading @collincornell.bsky.social's terrific short book Monotheism and Divine Aggression. I was able to download a pdf through my university library. Highly recommend! doi.org/10.1017/9781...

One of the main reasons bosses wanted to crush the tight 21-23 labor market, and elected Trump to ensure they would, was because workers wouldn't put up with shit like this in a world where unemployment was 3%

too late for this guy

Trans people, I love you all and I'm sorry for everything that these evil motherfuckers are doing and trying to do to you.

Matt Nathanson has a song called Used to Be that I often think about because I ALSO have a king sized bed and a PhD in how things used to be

I’m getting pretty good with no defense which is pretty much the same as being good

No deal, I'm holding out for the Kind of Crap Isaiah Scrol

I think he’s lying. I think he has an unusual number of thumbs

I keep almost breaking out my most unpopular Platner take and chickening out. For my part, I’m against him and I think Fetterman shows pretty well what happens when you elect a guy with a questionable past bc you’re so desperate for a fighter BUT

Fiddler on the Roof

Both part of why Trumps whole thing works and its major weak point is that his only strategy is intimidation and the only people he wants working for him are ppl loyal to him above every other consideration. If you fold, you lose!

Former ICE lawyer Ryan Schwank: “I received secretive orders to teach new cadets to violate the Constitution.”

It’s so weird how elected dems treat “get more normal” as a collective action problem. I’M not going to abandon the things I care about bc YOU don’t want to run on them. If what you’re talking about is so popular, YOU run on it! I’m sure it’ll work great

Check this out!

Still trolleys

This is a CONSISTENT problem with this crew. If all Trump wanted to do was slap his name on stuff and design buildings, noxious as it is, many fewer people would be dead, impoverished, and victimized!

it's also notable that historians, scientists, non-fiction authors have thrived here while journalists often *haven't*. I think there are many reasons for that that are not journalists' fault, and some that are.

My basic theory of the case is that we actually have a serious problem here where all anyone cares about is biblical stories- no one normal cares about Jeroboam II- but because the stories are basically all false, Israelite history was taken over by archaeologists. Good in some ways

If I do not shoot hoops in the rain, who will shoot hoops for me. If I shoot only for myself

It's very strange to me that Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson, two of the players who annoyed me the most when I was growing up, seem to have one of the most thoughtful and positive NBA video podcasts out there

And a major driving force imo is administrators CVs not the unis well being! Looks much better to say “attracted 100 mil donation for new AI center” or whatever than “helped university run good”

There's probably no dumber sentiment than "he who saves his country violates no law," but it's definitely something a president shouldn't think, you know. That's why we HAVE a lot of the laws we got

kind of amazing that everything trump does can be understood through the lens of narcissism and it's related needs (e.g., self aggrandizement, revenge, domination, grievance validation). i don't think any character has been so one-dimensional, not even wile e coyote or scrooge mcduck

I don’t think my son respects my video basketball journey

It's because every Superhero play was gritty, and never light and comedic

Happy to share that my article “Jewish Economic Theology” has been published by the St. Andrews Encyclopedia of Theology. It’s basically the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, but for theology. Free to use. Open access. Check it out: www.saet.ac.uk/Judaism/Jewi...

WTF

Pritzker demands a $1,700 refund per family for the people of Illinois after Trump's tariffs were ruled unconstitutional. Dems, pay attention. This is your midterms message.

Like go to an AI class man, you don’t expect ME to teach math either

I learned a new video trick, I’m sure I’ll use it for good

Getting back to my roots

I often think "the SC is on the ballot!" is one of the most loser-coded voting inspo discourses out there because it's not, conservatives are going to have it forever, shouldn't have let it get this far and should have done something to curb its power. But, another reason this is true is:

I wouldn't say I liked it, but just on the merits passing a bunch of tariffs that he didn't remotely understand, all of which made everything at the grocery store cost either $7.99 or $13.99, really was one of President Trump's better policies.

There's three votes for anything on the supreme court. If trump said "I'm the god-king of arrakis" he'd get three votes and a lengthy opinion about the long history and tradition of english common law with regards to the spice melange

If a team loses seven games in a row it triggers a postseason tournament in which they must compete with other teams that lost seven in a row for ping pong ball odds. If no other team loses seven, whichever team has the third worst record after week fifteen of the season must