Dude. Christian conservatives (& Christian liberals!) using “Pharisees” as a shorthand for evil / hypocritical / tyrannical is “just how they talk” BECAUSE of antisemitism. Antisemitism was so embedded in Christian rhetoric for centuries that you all see it as “normal” religious language.

A flatscreen display on a "smart" water fountain, demanding to be reconnected to the internet.

In 1999, I was playing a decker in Shadowrun, and tried to distract a guard by hacking a water fountain to overflow, and my GM said "why would a water fountain be on the network? That's fucking stupid. No you can't try."

Well it's 2026 and I just want you to know, Phil, that I FUCKING CALLED IT!

A painting of Lucifer tempting Jesus in the desert. Lucifer is INCREDIBLY naked, dirty, and lurid, rubbing up ons Jesus' robes from behind; his hand is open in offering and is placed in front of Jesus' crotch

I just re-found this painting, which was in a kid's bible I had growing up. I used to obssess over it, and I'm pretty sure seeing Lucifer here was the first time I thought a man was attractive? Over the years I'd think "it couldn't possibly be as horny as I remember it", but I mean come ON

Disappointed, though not surprised, I began to describe various life- saving components of USAID’s global health portfolio, highlighting how we prepare for and respond to emerging pandemic threats; support the diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis, malaria, and HIV; and immunize millions of children from the deadliest childhood diseases. I spoke for about five minutes, focusing primarily on our infectious diseases work and hoping to keep the attention of people who seemed to have no experience—or interest—in global health. When I finished, the room was silent, the political appointees looking at one another in what appeared to be disbelief. The silence was broken by Ken Jackson, who chuckled softly and shook his head. “Wow, there really is so much that USAID does that we never knew,” he said. “This is the story that needs to get out there.” Joel, also smiling, chimed in next, echoing Jackson’s amazement. “I had no idea you did all this,” he said. “As a Republican, when I think of what USAID does in global health, I assumed it was just, you know, abortions.”

This is NUTS

www.thehandbasket.co/p/trump-usai...

Whistleblower says Trump officials thought USAID did 'just abortions,' asked for 'Barney-style' slides before gutting agency, per new book Read an exclusive excerpt from Nicholas Enrich's "Into the Wood Chipper"

NEW—I got an exclusive excerpt from a USAID whistleblower's new book that made me gasp multiple times. It details Trump's dismantling of the humanitarian aid agency & his team/DOGE's shocking ignorance to public health.

'Into the Wood Chipper' by Nicholas Enrich is out tomorrow. Read excerpt here:

Cover of book with text in yellow reading: The Firearm Revolution: From Renaissance Italy to the European Empires, overlaid on an image of an angel in seventeenth-century dress with wings and a long gun.

Hello Bluesky! My new book, THE FIREARM REVOLUTION, is out on 14 April. It’s about how a new technology changed society, and how hard it was to control. Here’s a little thread of what’s inside:

The WSJ piece is a truly horrifying read, and I’m not sure I can recommend it; it needs a content warning klaxon. But if you have any doubts about how dangerous these things are, for adults *and* kids, or if you think their spongy ‘guardrails’ actually hold, it will clear that right up for you.

Amazing treasures of medieval legal history to distract one briefly from current news and marking - the Catslechta ˙ (or Cat-sections) - an old Irish legal text on cats (the Senchas Már) which even sets out various categories of cats based on various characteristics or talents.
#medievalsky

Orbán's Hungary drove a top university campus into exile. JD Vance said it should be a model for the U.S. “The closest conservatives have ever gotten to successfully dealing with the left-wing domination of universities is Viktor Orbán’s approach in Hungary,” Vance said in 2024.

With Hungary in the news, it’s worth paying attention to what happened there to see if we can still stop it here. Mostly using antisemitic propaganda, Orbán has eliminated 90% of teaching activity at Budapest’s top university. Hungary has subsequently seen a massive brain drain & economic stagnation

Well, that was predictable. But given how Trump doesn’t give a crap about alliances, I’m beginning to wonder if he might just leave Bibi out to dry.

Weingarten has been wrong on every major issue facing educators: she embraced testing, charter schools, an abandonment covid protocols, now AI. Her mantra is always the same: we need to welcome the systemic changes imposed by neoliberal administration, so that they appear inevitable

Meanwhile the European federation of teachers union is calling yours out. See below a useful book by our union to hold yours to a higher standard.

@etui.bsky.social @etuce.bsky.social
@aob.nl @ucu.org.uk

PDF for whole book here: www.csee-etuce.org/en/item/7245...

bsky.app/profile/oliv...

"Whether you find cocaine exciting or frightening, its widespread use—including among students—means we all need to learn how to interact with it responsibly."

Y'all there is a woman and a black man circling the moon and NASA's mission control+ science teams are so diverse and people are nerding out about science and exploration this is all a gigantic middle finger to the stupid and hate and grotesque ghouls running our country

Now that all those innocent people have died tragically I do think that this is worse than lesbians being in a Cheerios commercial, but you couldn’t have expected me to know that prior to the election

Sir, a second bird is at the feeder

Perry: On Pete Hegseth and the right's dangerous obsession with the Crusades In a recent prayer service, Minnesota's own Pete Hegseth called upon God to help the U.S. rain down "overwhelming violence … against those who deserve no mercy," contributing columnist David M. Perry ...

Happy Easter: “I’ve spent well over 20 years studying the history of the Crusades, thinking about the ways that sanctified violence works once it takes hold in a culture and becomes institutionalized. Once leaders start talking the way Pete Hesgeth does …limitations can easily fade away.”

presenting these sites as neglected and in need of intervention and using this to 'prove' they are authentically Jewish, an opportunity that Palestinians just aren't taking for *some reason*

Thanks!

Can you link the article?

Also, if you borrow an author's book from a library in the UK, that author gets more than 12 pence per loan in Public Lending Rights. Any author can earn up to £6,600 per year this way.

Constitutional lawyer here. I don't think it would violate the Constitution for the VP/Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment, but the intended constitutional remedy for this behavior is impeachment & removal. The fact that that remedy is politically impossible is a scandal and a crisis.

what next? what, are we gonna provide *roads* for the wealthy too? gonna have health inspectors keep contaminants out of their groceries? are we just gonna have gutters and sewer systems around rich people's homes?

Also, article 5 doesn’t apply when you decide to go punch Iran? That’s not how it works?

The obvious question is to ask what is the point of the article. And the answer is means testing. By saying the rich don't deserve public goods it makes it easier to say someone just above the poverty line doesn't either. They want public goods to be shit.

if you invented public libraries today, every opinion page in the country would be arguing for means tested subsidized Amazon Prime memberships

Specialized legal regimes for political cases are characteristic of former British colonies. They still operate in Ireland, though now only for dissident Republicans.

Books on shelves

Yesterday I was in York, and popped into Minster Gate bookshop.
Scanning the British History shelves, I slowly realised that there were many books on the same themes - radicalism, Chartism, trade unionism, 19th century economy and society, clearly part of a curated collection 1/n

Pete Hegseth Just Revealed the Real Roots of His Sadism and Rage Does God want America to kill as many of our enemies as we can—in as violent a fashion as possible? We have a defense secretary who apparently thinks so.

Pete Hegseth just held a prayer service in which he appealed for God's help in killing our "enemies" with maximal violence and brutality. Hegseth's bloodlust and sadism are drawing sustenance from his particular brand of far-right Christianity. 1/

(new piece from me)
newrepublic.com/article/2083...