People always talk about LORD OF THE RINGS and how much it was influenced by WWII but Lucy going to a magical fantasy world and almost immediately encountering an informant for a totalitarian surveillance system who is then arrested by the Secret Police for insufficient loyalty is very 1950-coded.

Alright, so I'm getting around to watching that Kimmel monologue.

✊Here in Chicago we know how to rise up, fight back, and support each other.     📣 On October 18, Chicago will show the nation we are united in opposing these attacks against our communities and our democracy.   📅 Sat, Oct 18 ⏰ 12 PM Rally & March 📍 Butler Field @ Grant Park 🔗 bit.ly/HandsOffChiO...

Another example! Do they think this thin-skinned testiness is manly? Is "dipshit" the sweariest word he knows? Just a government filled by the most red-faced howler monkeys our people can put up.

These people are the whiniest fucking pissbabies on Earth.

We have lived to see the day the Spanish Navy is deployed to *prevent* a genocide, which I suppose proves things can get better over time

It's always 2 blind men touching different parts of the elephant telling eachother "exactlyyyy"

I have no idea who shot at the ICE facility or why, & hard to trust this FBI director. Murder is always inexcusable. Now, the idea that people are mad at ICE because of ‘Democrats’ rhetoric’ & not because of daily videos of masked ICE agents assaulting people, including citizens, is for the birds.

155% tax rates for billionaires at home, 155mm for billionaire dictators abroad, and 155 SEC investigations into Ticketmaster

Many people are taking the "hegemony this, hegemony that, how about you hedge global uncertainty by just doing good things" pill.

Not my district, but this goes kinda hard:

If you want me to stop calling you a Nazi, you are going to need to stop doing Nazi s***. Simple as. acoup.blog/2024/10/25/new-acquisitions-1933-and-the-definition-of-fascism/

How do we start building the necessary groundwork now for the US to to support UNSC reform? Like what Americans other than me and 19 of my crankiest online friends is thinking about that at all?

WORD

It is awfully convenient that I have never even once read an essay or memorandum written from the perspective of a specifically Anglo-liberal sort of internationalist framework that argues against Israeli regional hegemony on liberal grounds. You have to invariably look to the 3rd World for that.

Everyone's got a pecadillo or two, and one of mine is screencapping posts I think are especially dumb specifically instead of arguing with them. Stupid online interaction nicotine patch, I guess.

This is what SB 79 initially did but housing nonprofits could not understand it and killed it. However its inportant because without grocery stores and commercial activities on transit property everyone is going to own cars.

What is a movie you've seen a million times but will watch a million more? Honorable mention to Mean Girls (2004)

Me learning from the wife that an ICE detention center was shot up: fuck, another round of conservatives screaming about how persecuted they are. Me after learning that no, actually, the shooter murdered prisoners instead:

the important thing is my view is that it can’t go back to the old way: these people need to be prosecuted and disposed of with utter cruelty, and the america that emerges needs to be a much more clear-eyed superpower that is done making compromises around small-L small-D liberal democracy

We said this, with some minor revisions, in the late 30s and early 40s. You'll never believe what happened next.

This is Ahmed Jihad Barahma, 24 years-old, he was killed this morning by Israeli forces as they stormed Jenin in the occupied West Bank. He was an engineering student. (1/4)

Palestinians deserve more than survival under siege. They have the right to feel safe in their own homes, to fall in love, to study, to raise children, and to dream of a future. None of this is possible under military rule and occupation. (4/4)

Performative dislike of raisins in cookies is no better than performative dislike of pineapple on pizza and betrays a similarly limited imagination and palate. Also raisins slap.

This site needs drafts.

Apropos of nothing, one banal thing where the US (and four other countries) does lord it over the rest of the world, and I'll grant you it is hard to fix this, is permanent UNSC seats.

The space elevator project was founded by the world's billionaires, who were offered exclusive luxury tickets on the first ride up into space. After the launch, the project announced a second funding round, to start looking into the feasibility and advisability of installing a "down" button.

Can't help but detect some racial connotations in Loomer's post here.

RETVRN to visualizer

to me, the “column” is less a form than an opportunity (and a challenge). you’re telling me i have as much space as i’d like to make an argument about anything i’d like to an audience inclined to pay close attention? well let’s see if they’ll read 2000 words on democratic legitimacy. (gift link)

I left my native garden behind when we moved here. No balcony, patio, or garden, but I’ve surprised myself with all of these lovely green and native plant patches throughout the city. I don’t know what this honeycomb structure is, but I look forward to finding out!

This is not complicating it for me; I can appreciate that Biden acted to defend democracy abroad using tools available (good!) and also failed to secure it at home (bad, imo.)

we are dealing with a fascist internationale and we have not even started talking about how to stop it.

However, this man needs to be stimulated to re-orient his thinking in the direction of destruction.

I actually do think “abundance” as a political label touches on something conservative groups do well in advertising (their term of art is “prosperity”) as a “slap this absolutely impossible-to-object-to tag wherever it even kinda makes sense” sticker but makes less sense as basis for a platform

When you’re talking “deportation abundance” and “big ass truck abundance” or whatever, you’ve just circled back around to a hype-beast parody of popularism, which was itself a sneering parody of third wayism

The important thing to know about the X-Wing books is that their underlying ethos is just “Dudes Rock, *explosions*” and this is, I think, beautiful

I'd watch this movie.

This essay (by Patrick Wyman whose podcast Tides of History is also great if you like ancient to early modern history) always gets a re tootskeet, everybody read it if you have not already. Essential to understanding why Trump has power.

I'm just gonna keep reposting this inane BS from Justice Kavanaugh's concurrence on the roving immigration patrol case from LA.

if a priest screamed "god damns you" at me while at my job, and specifically because i am doing said job, i would probably drink myself to death over the next few weeks

A good thread, but also a reminder for a lot of other folks that it's not a good sign when the federal employees you know already have a series of codified practices for when they are required to stop working because of congressional disfunction.

How do we feel about "shock with upside" cards like Play With Fire or Wild Slash? I had a sudden vision of "R Deal one damage to any target. If a creature was dealt damage this way, Surveil 1" playing against Phoenix today. scryfall.com/search?q=ci%...

It ys the seasoun of decoratif gourdes, O knaves

"What if my deck were 90% counters, removal and graveyard hate?" "What's a 'win con'?"

There's so much Izzet Phoenix running around my local Pioneer meta that I'm thinking about playing Dimir Control again.

it had not occurred to me that the stupid piece doing mendacious bullshit about kids and gender was Singal and folks, that’s on me

yeah, mildly spicy for bluesy take: while students absolutely should be taught about the history of US racism, an important part of such efforts is placing this in some kind of broader context, in terms of the US being very far from the only place with those issues, which not all efforts to do so do

Flowers, 1970 https://botfrens.com/collections/19/contents/3935