A FIFA Christmas Carol, the 2025 adaptation featuring Ignorance and Want, all without the pesky redemption arc.

Coming soon to an autocracy near you.

Attention please for a very important announcement! This is Apollo, and he's having none of your pessimistic takes (<under my breath> even if they might be accurate).

Saw a sign in my neighborhood today saying, in so many words, someday all of you will be claiming to have been against everything happening now all along.

Despite my leftish policy preferences, I'm constitutionally somewhat conservative because I'm pessimistic about human nature. But I'm simultaneously in awe of our better angels and firmly believe we can persuade most people to embrace progressive ideals. If you can relate at all, read this piece.

I have October 1 saved in my calendar as "poor Charles Darwin" in honor of this very relatable diary entry from this day in 1861: "But I am very poorly today and very stupid and hate everybody and everything."

Folks in a privileged majority rarely realize that the state can un-person them, too. They assume it can't happen because they're not part of a marginalized group. But a bureaucratic apparatus can come for anyone. In-groups & out-groups can change. Which is why rights only exist if everyone has them

SHOUT THIS FROM THE ROOFTOPS. Seriously, I wish news outlets would publish as many commentaries like this that reference the medical science as they do anti-trans motivated reasoning. open.substack.com/pub/thebulwa...

"Es gibt nur 2 biologische Geschlechter" Nein, eben nicht. XX / XY stimmt für ca. 98 - 99 % Es gibt auch: - XXY (Klinefelter-Syndrom) - XO (Turner-Syndrom) - Androgenresistenz Deutschland hat ca 84,1 Mio Einwohner. Also haben ca. 841.000 bis 1.682.000 Personen ein anderes Geschlecht.

I just like to post these data from time to time to puncture the mythological aura of mid 20th c protests. They were less popular than pretty much any 21st c mass action & people criticizing them used the same lines. Protest is about people coming together, shaping narratives, & building power.

I love poetry.

Protesters Urged Not To Give Trump Administration Pretext For What It Already Doing theonion.com/protest...

Nothing prepares you, as a feminist parent of girls, for the moment you’re on the phone with your teenage daughter and you hear the entire conversation she has with a grown ass man who is trying to ask her out on a date. #choosethebear

Liebe* es, wenn das rauchfreie Zeitfenster zwischen der Holzofenjahreszeit und der Feuerschalenjahreszeit vollständig verschwindet. Lüften ade. * [derogatory]

Watching things unfold as an American abroad has such a surreality to it right now. It feels like I'm reading about things in a history book, but it's all happening now, and I'm like some helpless time traveler screaming "STOP! This is how all those unimaginable horrors began!"

Just pulled these off the shelf and put them on my bedside table: one to raise my blood pressure and one to lower it. Gonna need both, I think.

I worked as a volunteer for Head Start when I was in high school in the 1990s. The idea that this is some kind of recent, woke program is absurd. This is monstrous.

What a stupid, stupid timeline this is.

Ihre Papiere, bitte!

let’s look back at what has happened so far Cory Booker giving a 25 hour speech: everyone loved it, raised his profile Van Hollen flies to El Salvador and meets Abrego Garcia: everyone loved it, raised his profile Schumer publicly caved: everyone hated that just a general note to Dems

Does @ronfilipkowski.bsky.social know his posts on trump's various fiascos are on German television? I'd say it's quite an honor.

A country where people have to carry proof of citizenship at all times is not free.

Abschiebung heißt, man wird zurück in sein Herkunftsland gebracht und muss dort leben. Es heißt nicht, ohne Prozess, ohne Verurteilung in einem dystopischen Gefängnis auf unbestimmte Zeit festgehalten zu werden. Und das nachdem die Regierung sogar zugegeben hat, es war ein Versehen. Es ist gruselig.

The USA is running out of patience with Ukraine for being bombed by Russia.

Happy #tanzverbot to all who celebrate!

I'm really sorry, but we just need to stop doing this. Your wood-burning hygge leads directly to people's deaths - other people's and perhaps your own. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Li'l Marco's stand-up routine needs some work.

TikTok is great because I just heard someone describe <gestures wildly> all this as "authoritarianism with a spray tan," and you'd better believe that's what I'll be calling it for the next ten business days at least.

Me, every day:

I can’t believe he’s not wearing a tie. Outrageous display of disrespect.

waiting for JD Vance to smash through the door, eyes rolling, foaming at the mouth, to yell at Bukele for not wearing a tie

In Deutschland nennen mich viele Menschen automatisch Steffi. Ich mag aber diese Kurzform überhaupt nicht und bitte idR darum, mich entweder Stephanie oder Steph zu nennen. Bisher hat sich niemand darüber beschwert. Ich kenne auch keine elendige Kommentare in der Presse darüber, dass es eine

It'd be great if the Pinterest algorithm could stop showing me endless pins about "financial goals" — as if I have any such goals beyond staying housed and keeping my family fed.

Every single day I think, I knew it'd be bad, but even I, cynical as I am, didn't think it'd be *this* bad.

I'm sorry, what? What the actual fuck?!?!

Things just keep getting stupider and stupider.

The term "reactionary centrists" (possibly coined by @michaelhobbes.bsky.social ?) comes to mind. Good job, everyone.

spotted in the toronto star

wie ich auf den dritten globalen meltdown des weltwirtschaftssystems in 20 jahren blicke

Does anyone know what the penguins' sign is?

Watching foreign news coverage of these bananas tariffs is something else. Not only is everyone calling it insane; everyone *agrees* it's insane. I haven't heard any other analysis. There's no diversity of opinions here.

Courage is contagious. Keep it up, dems.

Here is my best guidance for action, rendered beautifully by the great John Lithgow. I first published these lessons more than eight years ago, in late 2016. They open the twenty chapters of "On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century." snyder.substack.com/p/twenty-les...

Cats are miracles, perhaps none more so than this cat named Miracle. Happy #caturday to all who celebrate.

Kudos to the German nightly news for characterizing the Vance visit to Greenland as what it is: “the visitor no one invited”.

The American urge to pretend to be Canadian

me waiting for the “but her emails” crowd to find their tongues

Kids these days amirite?

When your cat won't get out of the waste paper basket, you just take the basket with you when you switch rooms.