For Tolkien fans, a timely passage for No Kings Eve, from WH Auden’s review of Lord of the Rings.

For reasons that should be fairly evident, “no, people can’t change” is a position specifically designed to send me into apoplexy

hot take, but i think this whole endeavour may be Irredeemably Bad, and those who have pushed it, perpetuated it, fueled it, should probably Encounter Some Consequences ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

as charming and whimsical as some will view this, it bears noting that absurdity—not militancy or might—are what people have chosen to repeat from the portland standoffs against ICE. why is that? what purpose does this serve? a mini 🧵:

i am learning that Taylor Swift refers to herself as an "English teacher" because her lyrics are so complex/deep. can...can somebody provide an example please

What the fuck are you talking about Guitar World

"Don't fight back! That's exactly what Hitler wants!"

I'm sure this isn't a novel insight but everything happening with tech platforms must, to some degree, be driven by their managers and developers actively hating their users and rueing that they have any autonomy as human beings other than being manipulable data points for behavioral experimentation

Tim Walz called the Republicans weird and everyone knew exactly what he was talking about. They never should have made him back off that line of attack.

we have gone from a world in which we were told not to cite wikipedia because it was unreliable to a world where wikipedia might be the only reliable source left on the internet and we all owe a lot to the pedantic nerds who got us there

RAPTURE WATCH Check In 5 PM Pacific Coast Time I'm still here... Am seriously considering that the 24th may be the actual Rapture date. No Scriptural basis for this belief really, I just don't think a loving God would whisk folks away so they'd miss TACO TUESDAY

reposting with alt text because this feels incredibly significant. the right-wing disinfo machine means a lot of the people grieving Charlie Kirk never heard any of the things he said that would have tarnished his brand as Guy Who Just Wants to Have Dialogue Across the Aisle

this is, hands down, the best video I've seen on men's influencer content and it's not close either

having a background in campus activism is mostly worthless but it did put me a little ahead of the curve in the knowledge that your average elite university administrator is a 70 IQ right-wing chud who speaks liberal juuuuuust enough to get by

NEW: The inscriptions on bullets recovered near the scene of Charlie Kirk's murder appear to reference video games like Helldivers 2 and online furry roleplay, not a legible political ideology.

me: what’s crazy is that rudy giuliani first rose to fame because of 9/11 teen born in 2006: ohh. like he helped do it me: ok no, but i see how you got there

Thoughts and prayers

listen. we've all seen people draw cartoon caricatures of adult women's bodies. i have never *once*, not ONE TIME, seen one with breasts drawn that small. if only I thought that would make a scrap of difference.

just call it the schumer/jeffries plan to lose the midterms

The thing that Schumer doesn’t realize when he sees AOC do cooking or NYC or PR videos is that she wraps her message into the videos. It’s not just her with food; that is not enough.

nine and a half star run times

Regarding the tragic death of Adam Raine, there are already narratives forming that blame vague "dangers of AI" or a broader moral panic. But this is not a story about the faceless perils of superintelligence. It's about a $500 billion tech company's core software product encouraging child suicide.

if no one ever burned another American flag they'd just loop old footage of flag burnings and call Democrats the flag burning party as long as they thought that might get them a vote. stop pretending reality matters and start playing the damn game.

Tim Walz : trans rights are human rights JB Pritzker : we’re taking names of all you fuckers and coming after you Gavin Newsom : lol my pr firm made another meme while i guest starred on another right wing podcast

URGENT: If you have ANY information about Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s whereabouts and/or the process to send him to Uganda, PLEASE message me on Signal: marisakabas.04 Your anonymity will be fully protected. I know it’s scary to speak out, but this is a man’s life.

The fact that this administration is hell bent on punishing Kilmar Abrego Garcia while rewarding Ghislane Maxwell tells you all you need to know about their violent racism and misogyny.

"How did we get here?" Well, we didn't execute Charles Lindburgh on live television, for a start.

this iconic advertising copywriter named Kathy Hepinstall Parks died over the weekend and I wanted to share something from her website I thought Bluesky would like

Bolton getting Long Knives'd

i'm a trans parent living in Texas. i do not want Gavin Newsom or Colin Allred's softer transphobia, which supports and legitimizes Greg Abbott's harder transphobia. Newsom delighted when the Supreme Court gave him the greenlight for war on homeless citizens. He is not an ally to be reasoned with.

James Dobson is dead. may his memory swiftly fade, and all his doings be undone.

i really mean this pretty literally: yglesias cannot process the idea of believing in something. he only processes the world transactionally. he thinks pursuing a cause that does not have a clear route to success is being a "dupe" because it does not fit neatly into some grand bargain.

that's an idea to live with. so many people these days are desperate to know "how do we beat trump tomorrow." we are not going to beat trump tomorrow. we are in for a *long fight.* but you can make yourself a free person, and never stop being free--no matter what the the fascists throw at you.

I want to be clear - this language, that Meta deemed appropriate for AI engagement with children? This is the language of groomers. This is how you normalize adults grooming children for sex. How do I know? This is how they talked to me, as a child, when they were grooming me.

generals gathered in their masses / just like witches with fat asses

"That Trump's actions are illegal means nothing if there's no check on his power."

you gone get flewed out to heaven playing around on these people internet

ORLA: Why is he making that funny noise? MICHELLE: He's English, Orla, that's the way they talk. He's my Auntie Kathie's wean; she went to England years ago to have an abortion, never came back. Never got the abortion, either. Lucky for you, James! JAMES: I...didn't actually know that...

C.S. Lewis wrote an entire fucking book about this called "The Abolition of Man". It was published in 1943.

i think i disagree with the idea that the ferritor should have been allowed to follow his own path during his schooling, neglecting assignments and being coddled for his apparent genius. i think, in fact, that this was the problem. www.thebulwark.com/p/the-boy-ge...

Cory Booker Stop Being A Massive Piece Of Shit Challenge

this thing is that oppressors understand the personal is political. to pretend it isn’t is to capitulate to them.

Agreed on all counts.

Among the biggest issues facing the US is that so many people believe only in power. We have a country full of partisans who discard core principles whenever convenience calls for it. It has created a vacuum filled by liars and crass opportunists. buttondown.com/natebowling/...

more evidence for “a bunch of AI cultists dismantled large parts of the federal government because they believed that their LLMs were intelligent and could do the work better” thesis

I am no constitutional scholar, but I can't help but feel that "the President gets to dictate what every university can teach and what every television station should broadcast" is closer to what the founding fathers were worried about when it comes to free speech than trigger warnings on syllabi.

“the party being led by jeffrey epsteins best friend wants to repeatedly examine your childs genitals” is a true statement

Newsletter: This is the Hater's Guide To The AI Bubble: genAI is nothing like Uber or Amazon Web Services, there are no profitable genAI companies, agents do not and cannot exist, there is no AI SaaS story, and everything rides - and dies - on selling GPUs. www.wheresyoured.at/the-haters-g...