My boss: so how's our fourth quarter looking? Me, the sales manager at the company that makes inflatable frog suits: well, you're never going to believe this, but

porn is not evil. sex is not evil. pleasure is not evil. kink is not evil. none of them are things to feel shame or embarrassment about. none of them deserve the heavy-handed censorship that they're facing. resist oppression (even if you don't partake in what is being oppressed)

ME: Now Mom, just remember, there's a lot of disinformation and AI in your social feed and your friends' Facebook. MOM: I know! My friend sent me this crazy post where someone used AI to make an image of a giant frog fighting Army troops! ME: ... okay, no, that one's ... goddamit, Portland.

This thread I wrote last November about what would happen is, so far, playing out pretty much exactly as I predicted.

OK. It's going to be coming out soon because of the relentless investigations of Pam Bondi and Kash Patel, so I might as well admit it before the news breaks: I am the General Counsel of Antifa.

This is the funniest thing I’ve seen in a long time. @aptshadow.bsky.social @abraham.bsky.social

When you look at the fascist project, starting from Fox News' debut, it's all about the primacy of emotions over reality. Sure, crime is down, but it doesn't FEEL that way! If I'm not oppressed as a white man, then why am I still unhappy? I want a news channel that's about fear and anger, not facts!

The reason why KPop Demon Hunters is the most important film of 2025 is that it understands fascism to be fundamentally an *emotional*, rather than an intellectual or political, phenomenon. In this essay I shall

"Men are becoming wimpy" is one of those statements like "The younger generation has no work ethic" and "Christ will return any moment", in that it's been a constant refrain for centuries without any change or update.

imagining the cleaning lady standing in shock as all seventeen fall one after the other through the door of a cupboard which could surely never have contained them in the first place

Say what you will about Timothy McVeigh, it's hard to deny that he's getting everything he ever wanted.

Have we not eaten while another starved? Will you punish us for that? Will you reward us for the virtue of starving while others ate? No man earns punishment, no man earns reward. Free your mind of the idea of deserving, the idea of earning, and you will begin to be able to think

Just for the record, right-wing assholes are currently showing up at the ICE building. They're almost certainly there to try and gin up some violence. This will be reported as "violence erupted", except on Fox News, where it will be "antifa attacks patriots", but it's the chuds starting shit.

They did it. The crazy bastards did it. They found a use for Saskatchewan.

An interesting thread from someone with a lot more knowledge of military culture and function than me.

As someone who (it's belatedly become clear) grew up very neurodivergent but undiagnosed, THIS. My interactions with other people improved a lot when I realized that 5-10 seconds of eye contact and a friendly smile goes a LONG way and doesn't take much effort.

This Tumblr user summarizes something I've been feeling/doing lately. Against everything going on, it somehow feels helpful.

history teacher in 50 years: So in September, that’s when the president signed an executive order criminalizing anti-fascism and saying all resistance would be crushed student: oh so that’s when the whole country realized they were living under fascism teacher: haha what? oh no lol not at all. no.

Statements like "Behavior that's rewarded is reinforced" or "People do more of something when it's easier to do" seem so painfully obvious that they don't need to be stated. But man, when you do state them, people get TESTY. Pragmatic observations about human behavior mix poorly with ideology.

this is basically portland's version of a haka

"Unless they're playing false tapes". Yeah, they are. That's been explained repeatedly. I mean, I realize facts don't matter, but god fuckin' dammit. The city I live in is going to be militarily invaded, by my own government, based on WHOLLY IMAGINARY SHIT. People are going to die who shouldn't.

Feeling uncomfortable about something is not a morally superior stance. Disgust is not an inherently correct reaction to something, nor does it prove something's sinfulness. You can't consume your way into moral purity.

"Gee, Uncle Noah, surely after 9/11 America didn't go COMPLETELY insane, did it?" "Let me show you this T-shirt I bought in October 2001, just in case someday somebody asked me that question."

for fascists, truth isn't really a virtue. the only real virtue is advancing fascist power and empowering the fascist leader. so when you lie, you're really telling a higher truth, which is that fascists are virtue and their enemies must be crushed.

When we create artificial intelligence robots, they will be given three Laws to safeguard humanity: 1. never do anything to decrease shareholder value. 2. always obey the company unless it conflicts with Law 1. 3. fuck the poor.

my father-in-law is a “I know a guy” Guy. sadly all the old Guys are aging out of the Guy Economy. Guys are fundamentally incompatible with Hustle Culture because it’s not about “winning” a deal, it’s about collecting favors and goodwill in a mutually-beneficial cycle. protect your local Guy Economy

It has been wild to see what were always the two most paranoid pro-Second Amendment scenarios—the government snatching people away and sending occupying armies into communities—literally happen this year, to the delight of conservatives

Berkeley Breathed's "Bloom County" loomed so large over my young life that I simply cannot believe its initial run was only eight and a half years. It filled the role that the Gaines/Kurtzman/Feldstein "Mad" magazine played for an earlier generation. A foundational post-post-punk text, imho.

Today’s Executive Order creating a *nationwide* military “quick reaction force” and setting up an online portal to permit random fascist vigilantes to join soldiers is one of the scariest things I’ve seen in U.S. politics in my adult life. Why is it not getting more attention?

Honestly if you want an A+ depiction of how agriculture really works, Jane Austen. "But Taber, there's not even any agriculture in Jane Austen! The landowning gentry don't farm! All they do is parties & social climbing!" Yeah did I stutter

Once you know that most great comedians either have deep depression or deep anger, it REALLY brings comedy into focus. Those are the two places comedy comes from, and you can usually tell which one it is.

the writers do not simply introduce a bad boy son with a dark past, still grieving his dead brother who he considered a far better man than himself, and then have him hounded and persecuted by the villains for multiple seasons, while watching his beloved father wither with age, for no payoff

we edge ever closer to the day when I am fully vindicated in my assertion that this arc ends with Hunter Biden bringing down the evil empire

once you notice that people simply do not believe that republicans have agency or any responsibility for the actions they take, you see it everywhere

6 days after Soviet troops invaded Czechoslovakia in 1968, a Prague paper published these “10 Commandments”: ‘When a Soviet soldier comes to you, YOU: 1. Don’t know 2. Don’t care 3. Don’t tell 4. Don’t have 5. Don’t know how to 6. Don’t give 7. Can’t do 8. Don’t sell 9. Don’t show 10. Do nothing’

In this fallen and broken world, we take our pleasures where we can. For example, buying a whole bunch of handmade tamales and gradually eating them over several days. Whenever you're feeling munchy for something a little bigger than a snack but not quite a full meal... it's fuckin' tamale o'clock.

this 3 act story has something for everyone

It was precisely Watergate that set off a multi-decade effort on the right to protect Republicans from ever again facing real accountability. The experience of facing consequences for their actions was deeply traumatic for them.

Imagine chilling in your home country sitting down to have lunch with a YouTube video playing in the background and suddenly some plastic faced homunculi of a Hitlerian doll pops up to call you a wetback That’s been the experience here for a while now youtu.be/7QWXO2yDcwA?...

And now, for no reason, a thread of changes made to classic Spider-Man stories when they were reprinted in MARVEL TALES in the early 1980s. The idea was to update the pop culture references so they'd be less embarrassingly dated. You can judge how well that worked for yourself.

If anyone is curious about the current list of search terms being used by right wing activist organizations to harass university professors, here's a public records request I received today from Mike Howell of the Heritage Foundation. Not intimidating or meant to curtail by my speech at all, right?

Possibly my favorite internet video of all time remains Happy Harry's "Saturday Morning Watchmen"

“Just make it a habit” is the big lie for fixing ADHD problems.

the brain that can see a face in a wall outlet was always doomed to hear the voice of God in a markov chain

Libertarianism is, at its heart, a fundamental rejection of systems thinking. It is willful ignorance, not just of knowledge & facts (though it is that), but of the very idea of considering the consequences of human behavior at any scale beyond the individual. Libertarianism is toddler logic.

MULDER: listen to me - this situation is serious and people are in danger, shut down the power ASSISTANT DIRECTOR SKINNER, gritting teeth, barely restrained anger: god damnit Mulder there's no such thing as a Freakazoid!

Mostly small stations in rural areas that are news deserts; residents rely on them for local news, emergency warnings (radio works even when cell service doesn't). Mostly in Alaska or serving tribal communities. There are stations in CO, WV, NM, and AZ. One station lost 97% of its budget.

You may have noticed billboards for something called "PDX Crusade" popping up in recent weeks. This event is being sponsored by Athey Creek, aka Proud Boy Church, since a number of Oregon Proud Boys and their associates attend services there.

I spent years trying to fight the manosphere, once upon a time. Burned me out completely and accomplished little to nothing. Wasn't great.

I am occasionally reminded that there is still an Emperor of Japan. Nobody has ever asked me to have an opinion on the Emperor or any of his relatives or what they might be up to, which is a HUGE improvement on the King of fucking England.