The amount NASA does for the US’s reputation and morale should really position them as the favorite golden child who gets whatever they want.

It is genuinely wild how the GOP can insult Canada for over a year non-stop and then get angry about being "disrespected"

Washington Post Editorial Board headline: “The Texas gerrymander freak out. What’s happening in Texas is not a threat to democracy.”

Washington Post Editorial Board headline: “Virginia plunges America deeper into the gerrymandering abyss. The redistricting scheme was always a power grab by Democrats. Voters went along with it.”

The Washington Post Editorial Board was fine with Republicans gerrymandering in Texas.

But when Democrats responded in Virginia, it’s a “power grab” that “plunges America deeper into the gerrymandering abyss.”

Don’t. Print. Lies. In. The. Newspaper.

The actual existing Democrats gained two seats in the House in 2024, & they would have won control were it not for the late, illegal GA/NC gerrymandering.

Hahahahaha eat shit republicans

Remember, Democrats have repeatedly advanced measures to ban partisan gerrymandering and Republicans have voted against them time after time.

This is the game Republicans wanted to play. OK, then.

There are two main differences to me in a lot of what blue states are currently doing:

1) they are putting it to the voters. that alone means something.

2) most of them have FIRM time limits. it's basically, "fine we're gonna do an end-run around your cheating for as long as you keep cheating."

Given the fact that I devote a full 6 weeks every other year specifically to the idea of voting rights, I have sincerely grappled with the idea of retributive gerrymandering. Like, earnestly. I think there are reasons to feel weird about it, and it's fair!

But this IS a sincere difference.

The GOP entered this redistricting under the rather childish delusion they were going to gerrymander, and nobody would gerrymander them. In TX, MO, and a half dozen other states, they put their rather naive theory into operation. They sowed the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind

Virginia is for haters now

This would be horrific no matter what it was referring to. But "cleaning up the risk pool" by eliminating vaccines just means you kill a bunch of people WHILE ALSO creating a whole new "risk pool" of people with post-viral issues.

And well damn deserved!!!

Force the Oppressor to make a Lose/Lose Choice Social Change Toolkit: Dilemma Actions

Today in social justice toolkit:

A dilemma action is a strategic action that forces your opponent into a lose-lose situation.

You've given them only bad options.

I give some examples

& then we talk about how to design them.

This one's pretty important.

Read and share, please?

A painting of a dancing Sufi on fire.

A painting in The Phoenix Library, the first library to be rebuilt in Gaza is by Aseel. Stunning.

Here’s the link too the library’s fund raiser. chuffed.org/project/firs...

SAME.

surely no army in military history has ever been laid low by disease, a famously uncommon problem among people living in enforced close quarters

Tweet by “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth: “The War Department is once again restoring freedom to our Joint Force. We are discarding the mandatory flu vaccine requirement, effective immediately.” Below there is a video of the announcement for his many, many illiterate fans

Behind Hegseth’s big stupid face, a painting can be seen.

The painting is of George Washington crossing the Delaware. It is by Emanuel Leutze.

An article from the National Parks Service: Smallpox, Inoculation, and the Revolutionary War Boston National Historical Park During the 1700s, smallpox raged through the American colonies and the Continental Army. Smallpox impacted the Continental Army severely during the Revolutionary War, so much so that George Washington mandated inoculation for all Continental soldiers in 1777. Just fifty-six years earlier, in 1721, Bostonian doctors and clergy introduced the procedure to the American colonies. Without the vision and determination of these early Bostonians in normalizing inoculation, Washington may not have made the decision to mandate inoculation for the Continental Army. Though it was a controversial action, many historians credit the medical mandate with the colonists' victory in the Revolutionary War and the creation of the United States of America.

everyone with real American manliness and a basic knowledge of military history knows that serious war efforts have never been derailed by such trifling matters as "communicable diseases"

This is advance warning to every state’s AG. These fringe “conservatives” (radicals) are coming for ballots in every state. The Stop The Steal movement was a pre-cursor to actually stealing elections. Read the whole piece then consider how we fortify polling locations. calmatters.org/investigatio...

This is a war based on lies

Here's wishing every single hospital administrator who complied in advance a very wakes up in a cold anxious sweat every day until they a) reverse course and b) apologize.

VERY COOL PERSON: It's four-twenty, you know what that means?

ME: Hell yeah! [starts shoving blackbirds into a pie]

Again: young people might not realize that this kind of repugnant racism was unacceptable to express publicly, *not that long ago*.

announcing ILÚVATAR, my multi-billion dollar company which will specialize in the dismantling of all other idiotically tolkien-named entities, that they shalt see that no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me, nor can any alter the music in my despite

Ooooaaaaah!!! That is SO goddamn cool!

Yeah no. I’m not doing homework to watch a movie. If it doesn’t make sense on its own, it’s a weak movie.

lol I genuinely enjoy a superhero skyfight cgi mess, but this would have burnt me out of all my goodwill if Disney gutting marvel’s visual development team hadn’t already incinerated it

Gil Duran tweet: TLDR: Fascism in response to Palantir's long fascists screed on X.

"Your Account is Suspended" Message on X

The CEO of Palantir posted a fascist manifesto on X.

I pointed out that it was fascist—which resulted in a permanent suspension from X (my second time!).

So, when you hear the tweeters complaining that BlueSky is intolerant, remember why many of us came here in the first place.

Everything We Know About the Neon Orange Shark Discovered in Costa Rica It's just a nurse shark, but it has creepy white eyes and bright orange skin. Now, scientists think they finally know why.

Don’t flush goldfish, they just keep growing!

Okay, so we're supposed to accept that media is SO powerful that allowing young people to see ANYONE whose life isn't exactly like theirs will transform them into queer atheist socialists, but decades of works mocking teen moms are irrelevant and can be wished away?