a big part of trump ii is government by culture war grift machine

the gop has been totally devoured by its gonzo media arm

Graffiti scrawled on the floor in Bangkok in red reads No God No King Only you with a heart underneath

Picture of 3 t shirts 1st is black has Back to Democracy in the back to the future font on it the other two have the anarchist A and the number 112 with a line through it. one is black text on white shirt, the other white text on black shirt

The #saveหยก campaign brought me into contact with quite a few Thai activists, as I was in BKK at the time. I remember folks organising protests, petitions & the democracy monument wasn't the only landmark to get graffitied.
My fav pic was from one of the protests, as are some fav t-shirts.

This is the baseline for Democratic candidates. You will not repair even a fraction of what Trump has done without massive restructuring of the federal bureaucracy. You will not be able to do that without taking lots of money back from wealthy people. Any Democrat suggesting otherwise is lying.

Opinion | Trump Corrupts, and Absolute Trump Corrupts Absolutely

“To say that President Trump is corrupt is to somehow understate the size, scope and magnitude of his corruption.

It is as if you were to describe a modern thermonuclear device as a ‘bomb.’ That is true enough, but it is not quite the truth. It does not capture the nature of the thing in full.”

An illustration showing a variety of oceanic creatures.

Happy Earth Day

The Slopocalypse is upon us.

Meta just paid the lowest effective federal tax rate in its history.

Thanks to tax breaks and loopholes, it avoided $13.7B in 2025 federal income taxes.

But now it's planning to lay off 10% of its global workforce (8,000 people) by May 20 — with more job cuts later this year.

Trickle down hoax.

Dave Winfield's gull

Pa. court recognizes ‘reproductive autonomy’ as a right, strikes down ban on public funding for abortion In a 4-3 ruling, the Commonwealth Court found that abortion access is a fundamental right guaranteed by the Pennsylvania Constitution.

Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court finds that abortion access is a fundamental right guaranteed by the Pennsylvania Constitution, and a ban on public funding for abortion is unconstitutional.

inf🧅wars

guess it is true that most of the negotiations so far have just been in Donnie's head

Governor, your proposed social media legislation would cut many of these Hatian families off from access to lifesaving online resources.

Requiring social media companies to verify the age of every user means requiring online ID checks, which are completely unworkable for undocumented families.

Josh Rogin: “Somebody shorted the oil market today by hundreds of millions of dollars exactly 20 minutes before Trump made his announcement—

If you see that once, it could be a coincidence. But that's happened at least three times, if not more, since the war began — that's a pattern”

Inquiring minds want to know

Articles about Jared Kushner's diplomatic role with Iran that mention Kushner has received billions from the Saudi government (2/28-4/19):

NYT: 5 of 58
WashPost: 1 of 43
WSJ: 0 of 40
AP: 0 of 26
CNN Wire: 0 of 18
NY Post: 0 of 17
Chicago Tribune: 0 of 4
LA Times: 0 of 4
Boston Globe: 0 of 2

The Petch Phin Thong Band - Soul Lam Plearn (Rock, Psychedelic, Experimental, Thai) (1971?)

The Petch Phin Thong Band - Soul Lam Plearn (Rock, Psychedelic, Experimental, Thai) (1971?)
https://redd.it/1s0av8u
https://youtu.be/Z9uwm88G5JE

It’s clumsy and invasive, critics say, about lawmakers’ proposal to restrict social media use by teens - The Boston Globe Proposals from on Beacon Hill aimed at curbing social media use among teens have run into a range of practical, constitutional, and security challenges.

This @bostonglobe.com piece highlighting substantive critiques of Massachusetts' "protect the kids" push for online ID checks is rock solid.

Many experts quoted along with parents and young people who would be directly impacted.

send this to yr MA legislators

www.bostonglobe.com/2026/04/19/m...

Pancreatic cancer mRNA vaccine shows lasting results in an early trial Scientists caution that more research is needed, but nearly all of the patients who responded to the personalized vaccine are still alive six years later.

“Pancreatic cancer mRNA vaccine shows lasting results in an early trial. Scientists caution that more research is needed, but nearly all of the patients who responded to the personalized vaccine are still alive six years later.”

This is why we should fund science. 🧪

Syrian Ministry of Interior has released footage showing the arrest of a Hezbollah-linked cell in southern Syria.

The Michael Tracey effect

THAILAWYERS FOR HUMAN RIGHTS นัดหมายคดีมาตรา 112 16-24 2569 นัดหมายคดี เบ.9. 69 21 ศาลอาญา "กร" คอมเมนต์ในโพสต์เพจ "KTUK - คนไทยยูเค" เม.ย. ศาลอาญา 21-22 เม.ย. คอมเมนต์ในกลุ่มรอยัลลิสต์มาร์เก็ตเพลสฯ เมื่อวันที่ 19 w.ย. 2564 23 ทานตะวัน และพวกรวม 7 คน เม.ย. กิจกรรมทำโwa "ขบวนเสด็จสร้างความเดือดร้อนหรือไม่" ร่วมติดตาม, ให้กำลังใจ เพื่อนนักกิจกรรม/นักปกป้องสิทธิมนุษยชน

Other bits to highlight:
3 Lèse-Majesté cases in court this week in Thailand, Pui & Korn are both in court over social media comments, Tawan, Bam, Bai Pur & more for carrying out a poll about the royal procession. Bung was also a defendant in this case
#FreeOurFriends
tlhr2014.com/archives/82667
10/

3. Series: Revolution and World Politics; 3.1 Revolutions are Back! by Prof. George Lawson Professor of International Relations, Australian National University (ANU) Wednesday, March 18, 2026 10.00 – 12.00 Online *ZOOM Meeting 3.2 Lessons from the Zapatistas: From Armed Insurgency to People’s Autonomy by Prof. Lia Pinheiro Barbosa State University of Ceará (UECE), Brazil, and Social Research Institute (CUSRI), Chulalongkorn University & Prof. Peter Rosset ECOSUR Advanced Studies Institute, Chiapas, Mexico, and Social Research Institute (CUSRI), Chulalongkorn University Wednesday, March 25, 2026 10.00 – 12.00 Room 202, Faculty of Political Science, Thammasat University (Tha Prachan) 3.3 Myanmar’s Spring Revolution in the Context of World History by Dr. Charlie Thame Associate Professor in International Relations, Faculty of Political Science, Thammasat University Wednesday, April 22, 2026 10.00 – 12.00 Room 202, Faculty of Political Science, Thammasat University (Tha Prachan) 3.4 Gen Z Protests in Asia: Autocratic Backlash, Repression, and Stagnation by Dr. Janjira Sombatpoonsiri Research Fellow, German Institute for Global and Area Studies; Assistant Professor at the Institute of Asian Studies, Chulalongkorn University Wednesday, April 29, 2026 10.00 – 12.00 Room 202, Faculty of Political Science, Thammasat University (Tha Prachan)

Waving Kites: Hong Kong Diaspora Cinema UK Tour, taking place in Newcastle, Manchester, Edinburgh, Sheffield, Southampton, and London from April to May 2026, explores Hongkonger diasporic experiences across diverse moments and places. The tour forms part of a wider project on Hong Kong independent cinema led by the Chinese Independent Film Archive (CIFA) at Newcastle University, and is supported by the British Film Institute’s Screen Heritage Fund. Showcasing CIFA’s newly acquired Hong Kong film collection, the programme features fourteen screenings accompanied by post-screening Q&As or panel discussions, presented in art-house and independent cinemas, community venues, and university campuses across the UK. Bringing together three feature-length documentaries and a selection of short films, the programme traces a range of perspectives, from hope to disillusionment, separation and exploration, the struggle to settle, and reflections shaped by global capitalism and xenophobia. These films attend not only to those who have left, but also to those who remain; to building relationships in places that may feel unwelcoming; and to how migration can open paths to self-understanding. Together, they span diasporic experiences from the 1980s to more recent waves of emigration, moving between Hong Kong, the United States, and the United Kingdom.

Collage of 3 film posters Simon Says, Simon Says 呼~ Lykke Til 祝君安好 The Dispute 原來我是不速客

Wed:
Faculty of Political Science, Thammasat University hold 3rd in Seminar Series, Revolution & world Politics: "Myanmar’s Spring Revolution in the Context of World History" w/ @charliethame.bsky.social
&
Waving Kites: Hong Kong Diaspora Cinema short films showcase in Edinburgh
5/

Palantir's attempt to short-circuit deliberation also uses the same technique of "urgency" that you see in advertising and spearphishing campaigns.

actually read the whole thing so

Tl;dr: public money should go to us (Palantir) to vibecode wiretaps and it should be ok for politicians to touch underage women

The New England woods are also filled with deer (cuz we've extirpated the deer's natural predators like Catamounts), so I expect deer ticks. Things with "lone star" in their name I associate with Austin not Boston, but climate change ya know

This bit right here. This is John Roberts basically admitting, explicitly, that he is dreaming up a legal doctrine out of nothing because he does not like or approve of Obama's policy:

See the Boston Globe article recently on alpha-gal syndrome because of the spread of lone star ticks this far north.

A Newly Discovered Recording Lets You Hear Delta Blues Legend Robert Johnson in Stunning Clarity Great swathes of rock music since the nineteen-sixties would never have existed, we're sometimes told, were it not for the recordings of Robert Johnson. Certainly the likes of Keith Richards, Eric Cla...

Holy SHIT someone found the test pressing of Robert Johnson's Cross Road Blues and it is clear as a PIN www.openculture.com/2026/04/reco...

Just a little reminder that security experts routinely say that biometrics are actually do very poorly as a security measure.

Not just for technical reasons, either.

Imagine a password that you can't change after being informed it was compromised in a hack on a company that forgot to encrypt shit.