No, it was a successful coup. None of the people who led it were punished, and are in fact back in power, rewarded for their efforts to break the system by running it. Donald Trump is currently the dictator he attempted to become 5 years ago, and it’s because nobody treated trying as a crime.

Before joining in on a dogpile, maybe think to yourself, does this person deserve to be criticized 1000 times? Some people are ethically grotesque monsters, and they do deserve 1000 negative comments. But if this is someone who doesn't like the taste of apples, consider leaving that person alone.

Governments do in fact lose because polls go down. That's actually the main mechanism by which it happens.

Lol remember 5 years ago and thinking, "Holy shit, he's finally overplayed his hand, this is it, they'll absolutely nail him to the wall!"

my 75yo mother told me last night that she’s planning to delete Instagram and Facebook because she’s sick of not being able to tell what’s AI and what’s not, and I genuinely don’t think tech companies have reckoned with this kind of move as an actual possibility

Let's talk about generative AI, contaminated information, and rhubarb. Once upon a time, Europe was at war. Food was scarce, and the government of the quote-unquote United Kingdom looked for alternatives. 1/

1773) Nothotbot. Is cold.

Looking forward to junk food being advertised like that weird CBD oil one where they don't even say what it is the people are curious about.

Wish I could internalize this

“we are going to viciously Main Character people over innocuous shit” is maybe not the best way to get people to migrate away from the Generates CSAM At Will app

It would have nicely set the mood for Bane, the great fortress-city of hobgoblins, recently unified under the despotic rule of Lord Talon, Chosen of Tiamat. Alas, the PCs already infiltrated it, defeated Talon, and semi-accidentally allowed an ancient, symbiotic fungus druid to take it over.

Yesterday I managed to slip over on some ice while standing still and undo about six months of recovery on my ailing knees.

"Th-th-th-th-th-th-th-that's all, folks!"

“why are you still on twitter” -> whiny, makes you sound like a scold “oh you post on the pedophile app” -> makes them sound like a pedophile

i remember when creating CSAM would mean your website was shutdown immediately and people not only wouldn't choose to hang out there but literally couldn't because again it was shutdown immediately

Not even the prompts. If you are a Twitter user in the UK and Twitter sticks a Grok CSAM image in your feed for WHATEVER reason, well congrats your device just downloaded child porn. And you are legally responsible for that.

Hello all in/near #Cambridge, does anyone ( @camcycle.bsky.social ?) know if the DNA path has defrosted properly today? Wondering if it's going to be safe for getting to school in the morning, or if we need to go round via Shelford/Cambridge road.

The Online Safety Act means that to see if someone has DMd me here to say they like my podcast I have to use a VPN, because it's illegal for me to see without proving I'm old enough, but I could just go to The Paedo Nazi Site For Nazi Paedos and get it to make customised CSAM and that's fine.

Our neoliberal leaders fetishise making tough choices. They fucking love banging up protestors or cutting benefits or sending bombs to Israel because it looks like hard man realpolitik and they love doing it in front of right wingers who called them soft boys.

I have a hunch that if you or I were running a website doing this the "urgent contact" would involve door rams and handcuffs so I struggle to see why it can't be slightly more pugnacious than this.

Back in my forum-going days, the drama in the main place we all posted infiltrated all of our brains so hard there were, like, three or four satellite fora where we all bitched about the other places. BSky is in danger of becoming a site for reposting tweets where the OP is less likely to see it.

On the twelfth day of Christmas, my Bigbot gave to me... Twelve Drumbots Drumming... #12BotsofChristmasRemastered

Smol Robots.

No “transgender woman (a biological male who identifies as a woman)”? Does the style guide not apply to cis women? Are your readers only confused when it’s actual real trans women being spoken about?

The fetishisation of fence sitting and appeasement and smart adult politics

The biggest mistake that guy who flew too close from the sun made was that he wanted to experience flying for himself. He would probably still be alive if he just experienced it through his father icariously

Listen. You cannot realpolitik your way out of a situation where the aggressor is simply impossible to reason with. I know what he - and our government - are *trying* to do, but it assumes good faith (or at least good sense) from the Trump regime.

*sits on chair backwards, youth pastor style* Hey gang! Today we're going to talk about jokes, and how context makes them work, and one really common reason why someone who doesn't know you well might get upset with a joke that uses your good nature as the puchline to a raunchy or edgy joke.

That’ll teach junk food companies for taking up precious space in the gambling advert break

This is obvious when you think about it, because Venezuela isn't filthy rich and hasn't turned its waterfronts into playgrounds for uber-wealthy Westerners to distract from their human rights abuses. If Venezuela's oil reserves were worth anything, they'd have already been exploited.

My BiL, casually in conversation: I've had some good conversations with ChatGPT... Me, Near Hysterical: NO YOU HAVEN'T

This was the key point of Superman (2025) imo: he's "super" because he's an alien, but he's a "hero" because he's human. Few other Supes stories have made the contrast so explicit.

Oh, you like cloning? That makes two of us

I have such a distinct memory of what would have been late 2003, several of us sitting sprawled in the corridor of my halls of residence, first year of uni, 18 years old, chatting shit about politics like you do at that age and saying, "I still can't believe we just...like...invaded Iraq."

Genuinely fascinating scrolling through the replies here. Like, maybe there's something in this Trump Derangement Syndrome thing? Not quite in the way they mean it, but there are certainly people who seemingly dedicate their online lives to riling each other up with bad memes and cutesy nicknames.

A reminder that this is tonight. If you want to watch my husband put up a shelf, boy do I have the Patreon Live for you!

Could an empire in decline do THIS? *launches deeply unpopular invasion cementing status as lunatic-led pariah state, its not clear what kind of move i was trying to do*

On the eleventh day of Christmas, my Bigbot gave to me... Eleven Pipebots Piping... #12BotsofChristmasRemastered

To point out that Maduro is deeply unpopular across much of Latin America and a potential majority of Venezuelans wanted him gone is not to justify Trump's actions but rather indicate that responses in Latin American societies might not conform with partisan battle lines in the US.

16 hours in, my guess this was all intended basically as a coup to put VP Delcy Rodriguez in power (likely without her knowledge but 🤷). At least for democracy & human rights, that might be even worse than the "opening shots in a war" scenario. All speculation, but let me explain:

Yeah, he'll be gone by Easter.

It's just...you know...I mean. *Waves hand vaguely* What a mess it all is. A terrible, evil mess.

On the tenth day of Christmas, my Bigbot gave to me... Ten Lordbots Leaping... #12BotsofChristmasRemastered

you simply do not have to preface your statements about this with “but Maduro sucks” whether or not Maduro sucks is entirely beside the point - we invaded another country and grabbed their leader with no justification other than “we wanted to” don’t give them cover on it

I think we need to be able to balance the reactions "this is another expression of 250 years of American imperialism" and "what do you MEAN we kidnapped the president of Venezuela and renditioned him to the US and are now claiming to run the country" Moreover, ICE must be destroyed

Fantastic homemade ravioli in Sofia…

We don't hear nearly enough about Shakespeare's other sons, Macneth and The Nerchant of Venice.

You don't have to listen to these professional liars who are barely trying. 9 months ago they were saying they were powerless to return a man they illegally sent to an El Salvador gulag because it would violate that country's national sovereignty

Well obviously.